‘Lyx usually taunts me with Raeven’s exploits,’ said Albard, and there was a mocking edge to his tone that made Cebella want to cut his throat here and now. ‘Aren’t you going to do the same?’
‘You said it yourself, your brother fights for Molech,’ she said, her voice flat.
‘No, no, no,’ sniggered Albard. ‘The way I hear it, my stepbrother left two of his sons dead at Avadon. Terrible shame.’
Cebella surged forward, scattering the jars. Blood or no blood, she was going to kill him. She’d drain him dry from the jugular.
‘My grandsons are dead!’ she yelled, blood-laced spittle flying as the skin at the corners of her mouth split. Her hand snatched for his neck.
‘Wait,’ said Albard, staring over her shoulder. ‘Look.’
Cebella turned her head as Albard’s hand pressed something beneath his coverlet. The holographic fire exploded with blinding radiance, and Cebella screamed as the light stabbed into her delicate eyes like hot needles.
‘Shesha here doesn’t have any venom left to blind you,’ hissed Albard. ‘So this will have to do.’
Cebella clawed at her face. Red tears streaked her cheeks and she tried to rise. She had to get away, had to have her Sacristans take her to Shargali-Shi’s hidden valley.
Albard’s hand rose from his coverlet and gripped hers.
Cebella looked down in surprise, seeing Albard through a gauzy veil of red. His grip was firm, unyielding. Her flesh cracked, and stinking blood oozed between his fingers.
‘Your grandchildren?’ continued Albard. ‘The midwife should have strangled those inbred freaks with their still-wet cords. They’re no better than the beasts we once hunted… you’re all monsters!’
She struggled in his grip. The taut skin ripped along her forearm. Anger overcame her shock and she remembered the naga fang in her other hand. She brought it around and stabbed for where she thought his neck would be.
The fang stabbed into his shoulder, but so swathed was he in furs that she doubted it pierced his husked flesh. She fought to pull away, but madness gave Albard strength. Shocking, unfamiliar pain bloomed as the skin of her arm split all the way to her shoulder. It sloughed from the muscle beneath, like a débutante consort slipping off an opera glove.
Horror pinned her in place as Albard dropped the sheath of skin he’d torn from her arm. He gripped her by the skeletal frame of the exo-suit – using her weight for leverage, he hauled himself to the edge of his chair with a grimace of ferocious effort.
The fire dimmed and she saw something glitter in his other hand.
A blade of some kind. A scalpel? She couldn’t tell.
Where had Albard obtained a scalpel?
‘Lyx enjoys my pain,’ said Albard as if she’d asked the question out loud. ‘She knows just how to hurt me, but she’s not too thorough in gathering up her little toys.’
The scalpel sliced down in two quick slashes.
‘I learned a lot about suffering from my bitch wife,’ said Albard. ‘But I don’t much care about your suffering. I just want you to die. Can you do that for me, whore-mother? Can you just please die?’
She tried to reply, to curse him to an eternity of pain, but her mouth was full of liquid. Bitter, rich, metallic liquid. She lifted the naga fang as if she might yet slay her murderer.
‘Actually, I lied,’ said Albard, slicing the scalpel neatly through the tendons of her wrist. The fang clattered to the floor as her hand went limp. ‘I do care about you suffering.’
Cebella Devine slumped back onto her knees, convulsing as her arteries pumped litres of blood into Albard’s lap. The exo-suit twitched and spasmed as it struggled to interpret the signals coming from her dying brain.
Eventually it stopped trying.
Albard watched the life flee Cebella’s blood-limned eyes and let out a dusty sigh that he had been keeping inside for over forty years. He pushed his stepmother’s corpse from his lap and gathered his strength. It had almost been too much to fight her. He was little better than a cripple, and only hatred had given him the strength to kill her.
Looking down at the dead body, he blinked as – just for a moment – he saw the carcass of a mallahgra. Steel struts of armature became bone, furred robes became animal hide. Cebella’s too-tight skinmask was the scarab maw of the mountain predator that had taken his eye and cursed him to this augmetic that filled his skull with constant static burr.
Then she was Cebella again, the bitch who had murdered his own mother and replaced her. Who had birthed two unwanted siblings and poisoned them both against him with talk of old gods and destiny. He should have killed her the moment she first came to Lupercalia and insinuated herself into House Devine.
His lap was sticky with her blood. It smelled awful, like bad meat or milk left to curdle in the sun. It was the smell of her soul, he decided. It had made her a monster, and once again it seemed as though her outline blurred, becoming the mallahgra of his nightmares.
Albard dropped the scalpel onto his stepmother’s body and cleared his throat. He spat phlegm and brown lung gunk.
‘Get in here!’ he shouted, as loudly as he could. ‘Sacristans! Dawn Guard! Get in here now!’
He kept shouting until the door opened and his mother’s pet Sacristans warily pushed open the door. Their half-human, half-mechanised faces were not yet incapable of registering surprise, and their eyes widened at the sight of their mistress lying dead before the fire.
Two armed soldiers of the Dawn Guard stood at the doorway. Their expressions were very different to those of the Sacristans.
He saw relief and knew why.
‘You two,’ said Albard waving a hand at the Sacristans. ‘Kneel.’
Ingrained obedience routines saw them instantly obey, and Albard nodded to the two soldiers behind them. In the instant before he spoke, he saw them not as mortals, but as towering knights of House Devine. Armoured in crimson and bearing glorious pennants from their segmented carapaces, he saw himself reflected in the glassy canopy.
Not as the half-man he was, but as a strong, powerful warrior.
A god amongst men, slayer of beasts.
Albard pointed at the kneeling Sacristans.
‘Kill them,’ he ordered.
The Sacristans raised hands in supplication, but twin las-bolts cored their skulls before they could speak. Their headless bodies slumped onto the stone-flagged floor next to Cebella.
Albard waved the two soldiers – or were they heroic knights? – forwards. It seemed that their steps were surely too heavy to be those of mortals.
‘Strip that witch of her exo-suit,’ said Albard. ‘I’m going to need it.’
FIFTEEN
The Cave of Hypnos
White Naga
Angel of Fire
A new Land Raider had been found for the Warmaster. Equipped with a flare shield, layered plates of bonded ceramite with ablative ion disruptors, shroud dispensers and frag-launchers, the Mechanicum had repeated their claim that it was proof against all but the weapons of a battle engine.
Horus let Ezekyle kill sixteen of them to remind them of the last time they had made that boast.
The Land Raider idled in the foothills of a mountain chain known as the Untar Mesas. Thousands of armoured vehicles surrounded it, connected together in laagers to form miniature fortresses. The Lord of Iron himself would have approved of the defences arranged around the Warmaster.
An unbroken chain of supply vehicles – tankers, ammo carriers and Mechanicum loaders – stretched back to the coast. Warhounds prowled the line of supply like watchful shepherds, and two Warlords in the colours of Legio Vulcanum stood sentinel over the Warmaster.
Horus climbed into the hills with the Mournival arranged around him in a tight circle. Farther out, Terminators of the Justaerin slogged uphill, looking more like relentless machines than living beings encased in armour.
Ger Gerradon’s Luperci were out there too, unseen in the darkness. Horus could feel their presence like a scratch o
n the roof of his mouth. Invisible, but impossible to ignore.
A sky the colour of disturbed sediment swirled overhead, and smoke curled from wrecked orbital batteries and missile silos on the mountaintops. Lightning split the night, a sky-wide sheet that silhouetted the jagged teeth of the mountain. Rain fell in a deluge. A hundred new waterfalls spilled from the cliffs. Horus knew grander peaks than these, but viewed from this perspective it seemed like they were the tallest he had ever seen. It looked like they might snag the moon at its passing.
Fire Raptors and Thunderhawks flew overhead through static-charged clouds. Their engines were distant burrs over thunder that sounded like artillery. Energy discharges from the fighting in low orbit had wreaked havoc in the planet’s atmospherics. A cascade effect of violent tempests was spreading all over Molech. Horus knew those storms were only going to get worse until a final apocalyptic event cleared the last of it.
‘It’s madness to stop like this,’ said Abaddon, his armour streaked with rainwater and moonlight. ‘We’re too exposed. First the gunships on Dwell and then those Knights. It’s almost like you’re trying to put yourself in harm’s way. It’s our job to take those kinds of risks.’
‘You’ve known me long enough to know I am not cut from that kind of cloth, Ezekyle,’ said Horus. ‘I am a warrior. I cannot always sit back and let others shed blood for me.’
‘You’re too valuable,’ pressed Abaddon.
‘We have been down this road before, my son,’ said Horus, letting all four of them understand that this was his final word on the subject.
Abaddon let the matter go, but like a hunting hound with the scent of blood in its nostrils, Horus knew he’d be back to that particular argument before long.
‘Very well, but every moment we delay, the deeper the bastards can dig in,’ said Abaddon.
‘You still believe this world matters?’ asked Noctua, as breathless as a mortal. Horus paused and listened to Grael’s heartbeat through the rain. His secondary heart was still catching up to the level of his original, and his circulation likely wouldn’t ever be as efficient as his supra-engineered biology required.
‘What do you mean matters?’ said Abaddon.
‘I mean as a military objective, something to be won in battle then held and consolidated?’
‘Of course,’ said Abaddon. ‘Molech is a stepping stone world. We control it and we control the Elliptical Way, easy access to Segmentum Solar’s warp routes and the bastions worlds of the Outer Systems. It’s a precursor world to the assault on Terra.’
‘You’re wrong, Ezekyle,’ said Aximand. ‘This invasion has never been about anything as prosaic as territory. As soon as we win this fight, we’ll abandon Molech. Won’t we, my lord?’
‘Yes, Little Horus,’ said the Warmaster. ‘Most likely we will. If I’m right about what the Emperor found on Molech, then it won’t matter what worlds we hold. All that’s going to be important is what happens when I face my father. That’s always been at the heart of this.’
‘So why are we fighting as if we give a damn about Molech?’ asked Kibre. ‘Why wage a ground war at all?’
‘Because what we will take away will be worth more than a hundred such rocks,’ said Horus. ‘You have to trust me on this. Do you trust me, Falkus?’
‘Of course, sir.’
‘Good, then no more questions,’ said Horus. ‘We should reach the cave soon.’
‘What cave?’ said Aximand.
‘The cave where the Emperor made us forget Molech.’
The woman’s hard-wearing fatigues suggested a port-worker, maybe a rigger. Hard to be sure with the amount of blood covering them. Her chest rose and fell in stuttering hikes, every breath a victory. She’d been brought to Noama Calver’s Galenus by a weeping man with two children in tow. He’d begged Noama to save her, and they were going to give it a damn good try.
‘What happened to her?’ asked Noama, cutting the woman’s bloodied clothes away.
The man didn’t answer at first. Sobs wracked his body and tears flowed down his open, earnest face. The two girls were doing a better job of holding it together.
‘I can do more for her if I know what happened,’ said Noama. ‘Tell me your name, you can do that, can’t you?’
The man nodded and he wiped his snot and tear streaked face with his sleeve like a child.
‘Jeph,’ he said. ‘Jeph Parsons.’
‘And where are you from, Jeph?’ said Noama.
The woman moaned as Kjell began cleaning her skin and attaching bio-readout pads. She tried to push him off, strong for someone so badly hurt.
‘Easy there,’ said Kjell, pressing her arm back down.
‘Jeph?’ asked Noama again. Keep your eyes on me.’
He was looking at the brutalised flesh of his wife’s body, seeing the blood dripping from the gurney. The woman reached up and took his hand in hers, leaving red marks on his wrist. She was a strong one, saw Noama, badly hurt but still able to offer comfort to those around her.
Jeph took a deep breath. ‘Her name’s Alivia, but she hates that. Thinks it sounds too formal. We all call her Liv, and we came from Larsa.’
The Sons of Horus had landed in force at Larsa, wiping out the Army forces stationed there in one brutal night of fighting. The port facilities were now in enemy hands, which could only be a bad thing.
‘But you got her and your children out,’ said Noama, ‘that’s good. You did better than most.’
‘No,’ said Jeph. ‘That was all Liv. She’s the strong one.’
Noama had already come to that conclusion. Alivia had the lean, wolfish look of a soldier, but she wasn’t Army. She had a faded tattoo on her right arm, a triangle enclosed in a circle with an eye at its centre. Blood covered the words written around the circle’s circumference, but even if it hadn’t they were in a language Noama didn’t recognise.
She’d caught shrapnel in the side, some glass in the face. Nothing that looked life-threatening, but she was losing a lot of blood from one particular wound just under her ribs. The readouts on the slate didn’t paint a reassuring picture of her prognosis.
‘We joined a column of refugees at the Ambrosius Radial,’ said Jeph, the words pouring from him now the dam inside had broken. ‘She thought she’d got out of Larsa quick enough, but the traitors caught up to us. Tanks, I think. I don’t know what kind. They shelled us and shot us. Why did they do that? We’re not soldiers, just people. We had children. Why did they shoot at us?’
Jeph shook his head, unable to comprehend how anyone could open fire on civilians. Noama knew just how he felt.
‘She almost did it,’ said Jeph, his head in his hands. ‘She almost got us out, but there was an explosion right next to us. Blew off her door and… Throne, you can see what it did to her.’
Noama nodded, digging around in the wound below Alivia’s ribs. She felt something serrated buried next to her heart.
A fragment of shrapnel. A big one. The volume of blood coming from the wound meant it had probably sliced open her left ventricle. With a proper medicae bay it would be simple procedure to save Alivia, but a Galenus wasn’t the place for such complex surgery. She looked up at Kjell. He’d seen the bio-readouts and knew what she knew. He raised an eyebrow.
‘I have to try,’ she said in answer to his unvoiced question.
The import of the words went over Jeph’s head and he kept speaking. ‘They killed everyone else, but Liv drove that cargo-five like it was an aeronautica fighter. Threw us all around the cab with tight turns, hard brakes and the like.’
‘She drove you out of an attack by enemy tanks?’ said Kjell, making his impressed face as he sorted out the instruments they’d need to cut Alivia open and get to her heart. ‘That’s a hell of a woman.’
‘Just about blew the engine out,’ agreed Jeph, ‘but I guess that’s why she wanted a ‘five. They’re not max-rated riggers, but their engines pack a punch.’
Noama placed an anaesthesia mask over Alivia’s mouth a
nd nose, cranking up the delivery speed. The rate of blood loss meant they had to be quick.
‘You got your children out,’ she said. ‘You saved them.’
Alivia’s eyes opened and Noama saw desperation there.
‘Please, the book… it says… have to… get to… Lupercalia,’ she gasped into the mask. ‘Promise me… you’ll get us… there.’
Alivia took Noama’s hand and squeezed. The grip was powerful, urgent. Conviction and courage flowed from it, and the need to make Alivia’s last wish a reality was suddenly all that mattered to Noama. It only relaxed when the gas began to take effect.
‘I’ll get you there,’ she promised, and knew she meant it more than she’d meant anything in her life. ‘I’ll get you all there.’
But Alivia didn’t hear her promise.
In the decades since Molech’s compliance, something large and predatory had made its lair in the cave. Bones lay scattered by an entrance large enough for a Scout Titan, and not even the rain could cover the stench of partially digested remains. The earth at the cave mouth was a sopping quagmire, but blurred impressions of clawed feet wider than a Dreadnought’s crossed and recrossed.
‘What made these, sir?’ said Aximand, kneeling by the tracks.
Horus had no answer for him. The tracks were from no beast he remembered from Molech, though given the fractured recall of his time on this world that shouldn’t have surprised him.
And yet it did.
The Emperor hadn’t erased his memories, only manipulated them. Greyed some out, blurred others. He knew the indigenous beasts of Molech. He’d seen their heads mounted on the walls of the Knightholds, had studied their images and dissected corpses in illuminated bestiaries.
So why did he not recognise these tracks?
‘Sir?’ repeated Aximand. ‘What are we going to find in there?’
‘Let’s find out,’ said Horus, pushing aside his doubts and marching into the darkness. The Justaerin’s suit lamps swept the wide entrance, and the claws of Horus’s talon shimmered with blue light as he followed them inside. Strobed shadows painted heavily scored walls. Abaddon went next, then Kibre, Aximand and Noctua.