‘Russ stands on Terra’s walls a loyal son,’ said Qruze. ‘Walls the Master of Stone has strengthened beyond your power to breach.’
‘Perturabo assures me differently,’ said Horus. He bent to take Qruze’s chin in his hand. ‘Ah, Iacton. Of all my sons, you were the one I never expected to turn from me. You were old guard, a warrior with roots on both Terra and Cthonia. You were the best of us, but your time is over. Tell me, how did you even get aboard?’
Loken kept his face neutral and hoped Qruze could do the same.
He doesn’t know about Rassuah or the Tarnhelm.
‘We came here to mark the Vengeful Spirit for Russ,’ said Loken, hoping a measure of truth might divert the Warmaster from Rassuah.
‘Yes, Grael told me he saw some futharc scraped on the walls.’
‘Bloody Svessl,’ hissed Bror. ‘Is there anyone he didn’t tell?’
Horus moved on and walked a slow circuit of the remnants of the pathfinders towards his throne.
‘Marking a route for Russ,’ he said. ‘That sounds plausible, but come on, Garviel, you and I both know that’s not the only reason you’re here. There’s more to your return than you’re telling.’
‘You’re right,’ answered Loken, turning to face Ger Gerradon. ‘I came to kill him. To free Tarik’s soul.’
‘Maybe that’s part of it,’ conceded Horus, taking his place upon his throne, ‘but why don’t you tell your comrades why you really came here. And don’t be coy, Garviel. I’ll know if you’re lying.’
Loken tried to speak, but the Warmaster’s gaze pinned him in place, dredging the very worst of his treacherous fears out through his eyes. He tried to repeat what he’d just said, but the words wouldn’t come.
Enthroned in the glow of the moon shining through the stained glass windows, Horus was regal and magnificent, a lord for whom it would be worth laying down a life.
A hundred lives, a thousand. As many as he asked for.
‘I...’
‘It’s all right, Loken, I understand,’ said Horus. ‘You came back because you want to rejoin the Sons of Horus.’
This was the moment Bror Tyrfingr had feared since they’d left Terra. Not death, that moment held no fear for him. He’d considered himself dead the moment he foreswore the frost blue of the Rout and taken Yasu Nagasena’s outstretched hand.
No, death was not his fear.
Loken took a step towards the Warmaster’s throne.
Bror had watched Garviel Loken’s mental dissolution the way an aesthete might lament the slow degradation of a great work of art.
If Loken bent the knee to Horus, Bror was under orders to kill him. He understood why the duty had fallen to him. He was VI Legion, the Executioner’s son, and could be counted on to do the unthinkable, no matter what bonds of brotherhood might be forged in adversity.
He let his breath come slowly.
The warriors gathered around him could be counted on to rally to him, but they were grossly outnumbered. Bror had the positions of the Luperci embedded in his mind. They wouldn’t stop him. They might once have been Legion warriors, but now they were maleficarum.
Bror was unarmed, but a warrior of the Rout needed no weapons.
He could break Loken’s neck without blinking.
And if he died a heartbeat later, so be it.
Bror closed his eyes, feeling the hackles rise on the back of his neck. He’d first felt it in the forests of Fenris, stalked by the great silver wolf the Gothi said would one day kill him.
He’d proven them wrong and taken its pelt for a cloak.
Bror looked up and saw Tylos Rubio staring at him. His eyes were wide and pleading. They flicked over towards Ger Gerradon. No words passed between them, but the meaning was clear.
Be ready.
Loken felt himself moving forward. Step by step towards the Warmaster’s throne. What Horus was saying was ludicrous. He couldn’t go back to the Legion, not after all the blood and betrayal that had passed between them.
And yet...
He wanted it. Deep down, he wanted it.
‘Loken, don’t do this,’ said Qruze, rising to his feet. ‘Don’t listen to him. He’s betrayed us all, made us monsters in the eyes of the very people we were wrought to protect.’
Abaddon’s fist sent Iacton to the deck, streaks of red in his hair like blood on snow.
‘Shut your mouth, Half-heard,’ said Abaddon.
‘Loken!’ cried Qruze, coming forward on his hands and knees.
...he is the Half-heard no longer... his voice will be heard louder than any other in his Legion.
Loken blinked as he heard Mersadie Oliton’s words in his head.
No, they weren’t Mersadie’s words, they were Euphrati Keeler’s.
If you saw the rot, a hint of corruption, would you step out of your regimented life and stand against it? For the greater good of mankind.
He’d heard those words aboard this very ship, on the residential decks once occupied by the remembrancers. Euphrati had reached out to him, scared and alone. She’d tried to warn him of what was coming, but he’d dismissed her fears as groundless.
‘Garviel,’ said Horus, and he turned to see the Warmaster holding out his gauntlet. ‘Don’t hate me for what’s happened.’
‘Why shouldn’t I hate you?’ said Loken. ‘You did the worst thing that anyone can do to another person. You let us believe we were loved and valued, then showed us it was all a lie.’
Horus shook his head, but his hand remained outstretched. Behind him, a crenellated warship passed over the face of the moon. The Eye of Horus adorned its prow, but it was a crude thing, painted on like graffiti.
‘Come back to me, my son. We can rebuild what was lost between us, renew our bonds of fellowship. I want you at my side as I reforge the Imperium anew.’
Loken looked back at the warriors on their knees behind him. Men he’d fought and bled with. Men he’d called brother in the darkest of times. He looked into their eyes, seeing their defiance and more. Rubio’s fists were clenched and the tension in Voitek’s neck was like a straining machine about to throw a gear.
He saw the cold eyes of Bror Tyrfingr upon him and remembered the words he had spoken at their first meeting.
If I think your roots are weak, I’ll kill you myself.
He gave an almost imperceptible nod to his fellows and took a step away from the Warmaster, feeling the threads of loyalty and brotherhood that bound him to this moment pull tight.
Horus rose to his feet as the passing warship completed its transit of the cathedral window.
Dazzling moonlight poured into Lupercal’s Court once more.
It haloed Lupercal, limned him in silver to cast the darkest shadow across the deck. The flared back of the Warmaster’s throne gave that shadow wings, like the faceless daemons from the lurid books Kyril Sindermann had loaned him.
‘Part of me wishes I could, sir,’ said Loken. ‘Believe me, I want the warmth that being part of something greater brings. I want to belong. I had that with the Legion, but you took that away from me when you stabbed us all in the back.’
‘No,’ said Horus. ‘Garviel, no. That’s not–’
But Loken wasn’t about to stop now. ‘Turning my back on everything I knew, being cut off from the Legion that made me who I am? That was the worst moment of my life. It drove me insane. More than Tarik’s death or being buried alive on Isstvan, it was the heartbreak and yawning emptiness that finally broke me.’
‘Then come back to me, Garviel,’ said Horus. ‘Feel that warmth again, don’t you want to be part of the greatest endeavour the galaxy has ever seen?’
‘I already was,’ said Loken, turning his back on Horus. ‘It was called the Great Crusade.’
Rubio nodded and Bror Tyrfingr vaulted across the deck, his hand a hard axe blade. He rammed into Ger Gerradon and barrelled him from his feet. Voitek moved with him. The leader of the Luperci went over backwards, sprawling on the deck in surprise.
Gun
fire exploded and the harsh blurt of binaric pain told Bror that Ares Voitek was hit. He smelled lubricant and hot oils.
Qruze and Severian were moving, turning on the Mournival.
Bror hadn’t time to spare for them.
More gunfire. Shouts. He’d taken in the positions of the Luperci, but that was seconds ago, and his situational awareness was now hopelessly outdated.
‘Kill him, Bror!’ shouted Rubio. ‘He’s blocking my powers!’
‘Trying,’ grunted Bror. ‘He’s stronger than he looks.’
Gerradon’s face twisted in rage. For a moment Bror saw the dark flame twisting within him. He slammed his forehead against Gerradon’s face. His cheekbone caved in and foul-smelling blood burst across his split skin.
Even as they struggled, the blood flow stopped and the cut in Gerradon’s cheek sealed itself.
He laughed. ‘You think you can hurt me? You Wolves really are stupid.’
Voitek’s servo-arms pinned one of Gerradon’s, and Bror scrambled to drag the man’s blade from its sheath. Gerradon’s fist thundered into Bror’s belly, cracking the plate and driving the air from him.
Gerradon kicked him away and he lost his grip on the handle.
He staggered as a bolter shell punched him in the back. Another blew out the meat of his thigh. Pain swamped him, but he hurled himself at his enemy again.
Gerradon caught him around the throat with his free hand and slammed him against Ares Voitek. The impact was ferocious. Plate cracked.
Bror saw something glitter at Gerradon’s back. A gleam of moonlight on an ivory Ultima. A stolen weapon jutting from a shoulder scabbard. He reached for it. Too far away. Gerradon’s grip tightened, crushing the life from him. He tensed every muscle in his shoulders and neck, his face purpling with the effort.
Then he saw it.
Proximo Tarchon’s gladius held aloft like a gift from the ancient gods of Asaheim.
Grasped in the manipulator claw of Ares Voitek.
The servo-arm stabbed the blade into Gerradon’s back.
The daemon within Gerradon howled as its hold on the dead man’s mortal flesh slipped. The iron grip on Bror loosened.
Not much, but just enough.
Bror pulled Gerradon’s arm from his neck. He pounced and fastened his sharpened fangs on the Luperci’s flesh.
Their eyes met and Bror relished the sudden fear he saw.
He wrenched his jaw back and ripped out Ger Gerradon’s throat.
Lupercal’s Court was in uproar. The Luperci filled the space with sporadic bolter fire, their outlines wavering as though something bestial sought to escape their flesh. Muzzle flare split the cold glow of moonlight. An arcing sheet of blue lightning from Rubio’s gauntlets hurled six of them back in a coruscating blast.
Their armour clattered to the deck, the monsters within burned to ash. Loken ran towards Aximand, scooping up a fallen chainsword that still smoked with Rubio’s witchfire.
He knew he couldn’t hope to kill Aximand, but was past caring.
He’d faced the Warmaster and rejected him.
None of them were going to leave the Vengeful Spirit alive.
Severian was right. Getting in had been the easy part.
Iacton Qruze had come back to the flagship with one aim in mind and one alone. As gunfire filled the chamber, he dived towards where Ger Gerradon fought to stem the tide of blood from his mauled throat.
The sinews and skin were trying to knit, but the wound was too awful, the blood loss too catastrophic for the daemon’s host to survive. He dragged Gerradon’s sword from its sheath as bolt shells cratered the deck beside him.
A ricochet sliced the skin of his cheek. If he lived he would have a neat scar from jawline to temple.
Loken and Bror were struggling with Little Horus Aximand and Falkus Kibre, a brutal, gouging, bloody brawl they were losing. Kibre was all strength and ferocity, but Bror Tyrfingr was giving as good as he got.
Loken had a chainsword, Aximand a blade with a powered edge. That wasn’t going to end well. Rubio fought Abaddon with a sword wrought from blue lightning and bolts of witchfire. The First Captain was a monster now, a giant with cadaverous features and black, gem-like eyes.
Rubio bled from where Abaddon’s tearing fists had ripped open his armour, its steeldust plates sheeted with red.
The Librarian had ploughed all his powers into attack, sparing nothing for defence. Varren lent what aid he could, but the wounds bound by Altan Nohai were bleeding freely again.
Qruze couldn’t see Severian. Armed once again with his altered gladius, Proximo Tarchon stood sentinel over Ares Voitek, who spilled litres of sticky red-black fluid from half a dozen sword cuts and bolter craters.
An impact smashed into Qruze’s hip, a searing bloom of pain that almost drove him to his knees. He turned as four of the Luperci raced towards him. They carried axes, swords and weapons that looked like they’d been looted from the Museum of Conquest.
‘Come on!’ roared Qruze, mashing the sword’s activation trigger. ‘Let this old dog show you he still has some bite.’
The first swung his axe for Qruze’s neck.
‘Too risky for a first attack,’ he said, ducking low and hacking his chainblade through his opponent’s gut. ‘The beheading cut leaves you far too exposed against a low blow.’
He swayed aside from a sword thrust, bending to snatch the bolt pistol from the downed warrior’s holster. Fully loaded, safety off. Sloppy.
‘Too much weight on your forward foot,’ he grunted. ‘No control to evade a counterstrike.’
He drove the tip of his sword through the Luperci’s spine. He spun and wrenched the sword blade out through its chest.
The last of the Luperci had at least learned from the deaths of their fellows. They split up and circled Qruze warily, swords in the guard position, their footwork cautious.
Qruze shot them both in the face, a classic double-tap. Their helmets exploded as the mass-reactives registered threshold densities for detonation.
‘And if your opponent has a gun when all you have is a sword,’ he said, turning towards the Warmaster upon his basalt throne. ‘You’re going to die.’
With every meeting of their swords, Loken lost teeth – whickering triangular shards flew from his chainsword as Aximand’s shimmer-edged blade bit the unshielded metal.
‘Mourn-it-all is going to kill you,’ said Aximand.
Loken didn’t reply. He’d come to slay Aximand, not waste unnecessary words on him.
‘No words of hate for the life I took on Isstvan?’ said Aximand.
‘Just deeds,’ said Loken, fighting to keep his temper.
An angry swordsman was a dead swordsman.
He cursed as Aximand used his momentary inattention to launch a lightning fast thrust to the groin. Loken swept the blade aside with the flat of his sword, trying to keep the disruptive edge from further damaging his weapon.
‘Tarik always said you were so straight up and down,’ said Aximand, using small wrist movements to move the tip of his sword in tight circles. ‘I never really knew what he meant until now. It’s only when you try to kill a man that you see through to his true character.’
Loken was too experienced a swordsman to fall for so obvious a gambit and kept his eyes fixed on Aximand’s. Alone of his once-proud features, his eyes remained unchanged from how Loken remembered them.
Pale blue, like ice chips under a winter sun.
‘Who gave you the new face?’
Aximand’s reattached dead skin mask twitched.
‘Who was it that beat you?’ asked Loken, ducking a waist-high sweep of Mourn-it-all. He aimed a low cut at Aximand’s knees.
‘A Chogorian named Hibou Khan,’ said Aximand, driving the blade into the deck. It screeched with red sparks. ‘Why do you care?’
‘So I can tell him I finished the job.’
Aximand roared and attacked with relentless fury. Loken blocked as fast as he could, but every killing blow he warded of
f cut portions from his weapon until it was next to useless.
He tossed the broken blade, looking over Aximand’s shoulder.
‘Now, Macer!’ he shouted.
The former World Eater’s fist crashed into the back of Aximand’s helmet. And had Macer Varren not been horrifically wounded, his strength might have split Aximand’s skull wide open. As it was, he crashed into Loken and the three of them fell to the deck in a thrashing tangle of limbs.
Mourn-it-all skittered away, its edge dimming without its bearer’s grip.
Aximand smashed his elbow into Varren’s face.
Loken kicked Aximand in the gut. They grappled. Fists bludgeoned, elbows cracked and knees slammed. It was an inelegant fight, not one the sagas would speak of in glowing heroic terms.
Even outnumbered two to one, Aximand was having the better of the fight. Loken reeled from a hammering series of bodyblows. Varren stumbled as Aximand thundered his foot against the wounds Altan Nohai had bound.
‘I dreamed of you,’ said Aximand between breaths and sounding more regretful than angry. ‘I dreamed you were alive. Why did you have to be alive?’
Loken rolled upright as Aximand curled his fingers around Mourn-it-all’s leather-wrapped grip.
He brought the sword around. Its blade bit plate and flesh.
Blood rained.
‘No more dreams,’ said Aximand.
Proximo Tarchon was down, sprawled over the body of Ares Voitek with three mass-reactive craters blasted through his body. Ger Gerradon’s legs still kicked weakly, but whether he was still alive or was just twitching in death was open to interpretation.
Severian had a combat blade in one hand, a bolt pistol in the other.
He’d killed a dozen Luperci in as many shots or cuts, moving through the fighting like a ghost. People saw him, but they didn’t see him, didn’t recognise the significance of what they were seeing until it was too late.
Severian never needed more than one cut.
Usually that was enough, but Abaddon had merely staggered at his thrust and kept fighting. At least it had allowed Varren to break from the fight to go to Loken’s aid.