Forrix recognised none of the heraldry, feeling a gut-deep revulsion at the graceful sweeps of the symbols worked into the textured banners; a meld of curves and voluptuous arcs penetrated by hard lines with barbed arrowheads atop their length. Nor were all the members of the host equal; kings and queens and princes were feted in all their finery; silks and steel, velvet and leather. Their crowns were bone, their orbs the skulls of willing sacrifices, and the sceptres made from the woven fingers of the handless handmaidens attending them.
And just as there were the gaudy courts of royal madness, so too were there regicides by the dozen as pretenders tore them down and took their bloodied crowns for themselves.
As degenerate as the dancing host’s behaviour was, it was nothing compared to the physical malformations wrought on the flesh of its number. Some disfigurements appeared to be congenital, others the work of swords or maces in ritualised combat, but the vast majority appeared to have been engineered by scalpels, bone saws and genetic modification.
Men with anatomies reversed by horrific surgery capered on their hands, with legs sutured to their shoulders and faces in their bellies. Vat-grown cherub-grubs led packs of wild, spine-backed creatures, like the bastard by-blows of loathsome centipedes and giant scorpions. Women cavorted naked with scented oils slathering their bared breasts. Many were gifted with breasts beyond the number decreed by nature, and these violet-hued individuals were attended by howling slaves and weeping devotees.
Amid the heaving, spasming march of the decadent host, some were content to dance, some to debase, others to violate, yet more to scream their throats bloody as they drove their bodies to lunatic extremes of excess. They howled with the hybrid monsters and the most desperate for sensation set themselves ablaze and laughed as the flames consumed them.
Forrix took his helmet from the mag-lock on his thigh as the rapturous mass of degenerates drew near and the acrid tang of perfumes began to discomfit him.
‘I saw some strange things on Isstvan,’ began Forrix, ‘but this is…’
He snapped his helm into the gorget seals as vocabulary failed him. No mere words could give name or reason to this behaviour, no codes of honour could reconcile this madness with the militaristic perfection and arrogant swagger the Emperor’s Children had once possessed.
‘What has happened to you, my brother?’ said Perturabo, his face betraying no hint of the terrible anger that was raging within his heart.
‘Where are the Legion warriors?’ asked Falk.
Forrix scanned the heaving mass of frenetic humanity as they spilled over the outermost earthworks; cavorting through razor-wire-edged killing grounds, across spiked ditches and past iron-faced gun emplacements. What would take months of bloody siege to break through was overcome in moments by the vanguard of the Emperor’s Children.
At some unheard signal, the host fell utterly silent, halting in its maddened march a stone’s throw from the Iron Warriors. Clouds of kicked-up dust mingled with the twitching curtain of narcotic smoke issuing from hidden censers. After so cacophonous a din, the silence felt impossibly loud, and Forrix scanned the sweating, breathless host for some sign of what was coming next.
That sign came as the lunatics abased themselves on the sand, prostrating themselves as supplicant savages before burning flora. Soltarn Vull Bronn dropped to one knee, placing his palm on the earth.
‘Get up, damn you,’ snapped Forrix. ‘Iron Warriors bend the knee to no one.’
Vull Bronn ignored him and cocked his head to one side, as though listening to a voice only he could hear.
‘He’s here,’ said Vull Bronn. ‘The Phoenician. He’s coming.’
Forrix looked up as the flesh host before him parted, pushing themselves back with their bellies scraping the sand to make a wide corridor between them. Through the swirls of pink and mauve clouds, Forrix could see the outline of something huge and swaying approaching. Vague silhouettes of power-armoured warriors marched alongside it, their forms granting some hope that the III Legion had not abandoned all pretence of being a fighting force.
Five hundred warriors in the shimmering purple of the Emperor’s Children emerged from the smoke, and their appearance drew a gasp of shock from the assembled Iron Warriors. Slashes of vivid pigment were spattered over their armour, the myriad contrasting hues and clashing colours offending the eye with their garish disregard for the Legion’s heraldry. Jagged spikes jutted from pauldrons and their helmets were byzantine winged affairs, with amplification hoods and intensifiers worked into the visors.
They carried a banner of stiff pink that Forrix could tell was fashioned from human skin, its texture and stench all too familiar to him. A runic device was emblazoned at its heart, the recurring motif he had seen worked in various designs upon the armour and flesh of the maddened horde, but distilled into its purest form. Borne by Legion warriors, the symbol offended Forrix less than it had before, and he found himself drawn towards its beguiling curves and graceful loops.
But then anger touched him, and he threw off whatever glamours were worked into its shape.
Glamours?
Where had that come from? A word of ancient usage that was meaningless in this age of reason and technological certitude. Whatever toxin burned in the censers was a powerful psychotropic indeed if it could drag such an archaic term from the mind of an Iron Warrior.
Like the mortals before them, these warriors parted to form an honour guard, and behind them came a screaming, wailing mass of legionaries whose weapons were unlike anything Forrix had ever seen in a battle- barge’s armoury. Like oversized axes, they were fitted with all manner of amplification devices, tonal distorters and artefacts whose function Forrix could not even begin to guess.
Thrumming bass notes of raw kinetic force throbbed in their long necks, and he wondered if such weapons might be employed in the reduction of a fortress wall. These warriors went without helms, and their faces were a horror of distended jaws with eternally screaming mouths and gaping wounds in the skull where their ears had been surgically adapted to collect and render sound into its purest elements.
Amid the deformations, Forrix thought he saw a face he recognised: Marius Vairosean, his old comrade from the earliest days of the Great Crusade. But this twisted freak was a pale shadow of that honourable warrior, a waxwork left out in the sun too long, a noble statue beaten with hammers. Forrix took a step towards the warrior, but a taut shake of the head from Perturabo pinned him to the spot.
And then the primarch of the Emperor’s Children stood revealed, his entrance as dramatic and sudden and shocking as he had no doubt intended.
Atop a great palanquin of living beings fused, sewn and warped together, the Phoenician emerged from the sentient clouds of fumes. A squad of warriors in Terminator armour bore this flesh palanquin on their shoulders, the spikes and sharpened edges of their pauldrons drawing blood and screams of pleasure in equal measure.
Fulgrim’s frost-white hair spilled from beneath a helm of dazzling silver, and his entire body was wrapped in a cloak of shocking purple and golden feathers. Motion rippled beneath the cloak, like a metamorphic larva on the verge of hatching into the most beautiful creature imaginable. Fulgrim waited until his Phoenix Guard halted before throwing open his cloak to reveal his sculpturally perfect body. His elegantly curved pectorals, rolling deltoids and ridged abdominals were bare of armour and gleamed with fragrant oils. His limbs writhed with fresh tattoos of coiling serpents; tattoos that even now began to fade as his superhuman biology undid the damage to his epidermis.
Perturabo stepped towards the living platform as Fulgrim descended on a ramp of shields held out by his warriors. Forrix saw a warrior in perfect balance, who understood his body and its articulation to the highest degree. His every step was carefully placed, giving the lie to his flamboyant appearance.
‘Brother Fulgrim,’ said Perturabo, his voice as calm as the instant before the first impact of a breaching shell. ‘Allow me to present a gift to you.’
r /> With pounding strides, Berossus approached the smirking Phoenician, who seemed amused by the stiff formality Perturabo insisted upon. The Dreadnought dragged the two Imperial Fists captives forwards, their bodies twisted in the chains and fettered in razorwire. At a nod from Fulgrim, a pair of purple-clad warriors with golden halberds stepped forwards and swept their blades through the chains. They dragged Perturabo’s gifts away as Fulgrim turned to receive a lacquered ebony case, such as might be used to contain charnabal sabres in a bygone age.
He held it out to Perturabo with a flourish.
‘And a gift to you too, brother dearest,’ said Fulgrim.
Forrix felt a twinge of unease as Perturabo took the case and opened its hinged lid. Inside lay a folded cloak of softest ermine, trimmed with foxbat fur and embroidered with an endlessly repeating pattern of spirals in the golden proportion. A flattened skull of chromed steel acted as the fastener. Set in the skull’s forehead was a gemstone the size of a fist, black and veined with hair-fine threads of gold. Both were exquisite and worthy gifts for a primarch.
Perturabo swept the cloak around himself and snapped the skull fastener around his neck. Fulgrim smiled to see his gift was appreciated, and lifted his gaze to the red rocks and barren landscape around him.
‘This is a grubby little rock you have chosen for our meeting,’ he said.
‘I had my reasons,’ said Perturabo. ‘Welcome to Hydra Cordatus.’
‘What is the meaning of this?’ demanded Perturabo, once they had returned to the heart of the Cavea Ferrum.
‘Meaning?’ said Fulgrim, examining the portraits on the crumbling stone walls with the detached fascination of a connoisseur of the fine arts. ‘Whoever said there had to be meaning in anything?’
‘You know of what I speak,’ said Perturabo. ‘That host beyond my walls.’
‘Don’t you approve of the company I keep?’ said Fulgrim, his tone playful.
‘That host of degenerates is beneath you,’ said Perturabo, gesturing to the violations of flesh, armour and decency wrought upon his brother’s companions. ‘And your legionaries? What has become of them?’
‘Exquisite, are they not?’ said Fulgrim.
Accompanied by three warriors as outlandish and varied as any Forrix might imagine, Fulgrim had swept into the heart of the Iron Warriors fortifications as though every gun and every warrior was his to command, every towering siege work and soaring wall had been raised by his own hand. All but one were armoured and clearly Legion warriors, albeit transformed beyond all recognition.
One, a lean, hawk-eyed swordsman with an arrogant swagger and a complex pattern of interlaced scars marring his perfect visage, another a bulky warrior whose virtually fleshless face was burn-scarred beyond all recognition and who wore armour swathed in a patchwork of stretched skin on spikes. Another’s skull had been surgically disfigured so that his mouth stretched impossibly wide, with taut sinews and implanted bone augmentation swelling in and out at his neck at the slightest sound. This was who Forrix had thought was Marius Vairosean, but surely this monster could not be his old comrade-in-arms…?
A fourth figure came too, this one without armour and clearly not of post-human stock. His frame was slender and he was possessed of a strange otherness in his movements that unsettled Forrix greatly. The others of the Trident had seen it too, even Kroeger, but whatever lay beneath this individual’s shadowed hood was clearly a secret the Phoenician chose not to reveal just yet.
Perturabo shook his head. ‘I know things have changed since we gave our oaths to Horus, that… secrets have been revealed to you, but this is unseemly.’
Fulgrim grinned, exposing brilliant white teeth that shone like polished ivory.
‘Secrets revealed?’ giggled the Phoenician pacing a slow circuit of the vaulted chamber. His cloak brushed the flagstones and the seductive musk of the oils worked into his flesh saturated the underground space with scents of unknown worlds, secret desires and promises of pleasures and pains undreamed. Forrix kept his breaths short, but it was impossible not to taste the acrid flavour of the oils.
‘Oh, my brother, you have no idea of the things I know now,’ said Fulgrim with a bark of laughter that expressed pain as much as amusement. ‘Much I will share with you in time, and much is there that will bring us closer than ever.’
‘Closer?’ said Perturabo. ‘I wasn’t aware we were close at all.’
‘Perhaps not,’ admitted Fulgrim with a hurt pout. ‘And that saddens me. Do we not share a gene-father, did we not both spring from the loins of the same heroic god?’
‘No, we didn’t. We were created in a laboratory,’ said Perturabo. ‘And he is no god.’
‘Always so literal,’ sighed Fulgrim, moving from the paintings to the architectural drawings laid out on the wide plotting table. ‘But the point remains. We are brothers, and we should be close, especially now when all we have known is falling apart, ready to be rebuilt in a glorious new image. It is my fondest hope that the shared hardships of this joint venture will bring us the intimate bond I share with Guilliman.’
‘You aren’t close to Guilliman either,’ pointed out Perturabo.
‘No?’ said Fulgrim, looking up as though puzzled by his own words. ‘Ah, perhaps not yet, but I will finish what Lorgar’s zealots have begun.’
‘Not now. Not ever,’ said Perturabo. ‘Guilliman will never forgive us what we have done.’
‘Because there is nothing to forgive!’ snapped Fulgrim. The Phoenician’s mask of anger melted away in an instant, and he smiled. ‘Forgiveness is only required by those who pay heed to mortal laws, and we are so very far beyond that, brother. What I am proposing will lift us to a realm where we make the laws all things must obey.’
‘And what are you proposing?’
‘All will be revealed,’ teased Fulgrim, ‘For now let us say it will be a more profitable use of the Fourth Legion’s time than crushing a few rag-tag Imperial Fists on some backwater world for the sake of revenge.’
‘Humbling Dorn’s warriors is no waste of time,’ said Perturabo.
‘Well, quite,’ said Fulgrim, his delicate fingers flipping through the wax paper drawings with the occasional nod of appreciation. ‘These designs are wonderful. Tell me, have you built any of them?’
‘Only one,’ said Perturabo, placing a hand in the centre of the plans.
‘Yes, of course, the amphitheatre at Nikaea,’ said Fulgrim with sudden recollection that was entirely feigned. ‘An arena for Magnus to be thrown to the wolves.’
Fulgrim laughed at his jest and said, ‘Such a shame it was destroyed. The potential of something wondrous is only realised when it is embraced and let fly. You draw them, but never build them. Why is that?’
Perturabo met his brother’s gaze and said, ‘Because reality never matches our dreams.’
Fulgrim nodded in understanding. ‘So often that is the way. Too often when fantasies are made flesh they disappoint and must be dreamed anew. But what would you say if I told you I could make it so that your every desire could be made real and would never disappoint, never fail to live up to your fondest expectation, and never, ever be eclipsed?’
‘I’d say that you’ve gone more insane than you look.’
Again, Forrix saw the venomous hostility beneath Fulgrim’s artful smile, like spineless cowards who know the only way to get what they want is to play nice. Just as quickly as it arose, Fulgrim’s toxic anger was masked. Forrix couldn’t believe Perturabo hadn’t seen it.
‘It’s true,’ said Fulgrim at last.
‘How?’
‘All in good time, brother,’ said Fulgrim. ‘Have patience, and we shall tell you everything you desire to know.’
‘We?’ asked Perturabo, cutting to the most important word.
‘Yes,’ said Fulgrim, drawing the slender, cloaked figure to his side. ‘Karuchi Vohra is the teller of this tale, aren’t you?’
Fulgrim’s companion pulled back his hood, and Forrix understood the source of h
is earlier unease as finely boned features, full lips, cerulean hair and amber-flecked eyes were revealed.
Karuchi Vohra was eldar.
FIVE
A Poisonous Serpent
Thaliakron
Watchers in the Wings
A moment of stunned silence stretched. Broke. All that was left was reaction. Kroeger was the first to move, launching himself at the willowy form of the eldar with hand outstretched to its slender, easily broken neck. He snatched for a sword that wasn’t there, and reached out to wrap his killing grip around the eldar’s throat.
But as fast as Kroeger moved, another being moved quicker.
Too quick to follow, a phantom beat of purple and gold.
And Kroeger was pinned to the plotting table in a flock of scattered drawings and billowing paper. A bare arm of marble-white flesh held him down like a pile-driver forcing its way into hard earth, and the warrior with the web of scars criss-crossing his face leaned down so that his once-beautiful features, haunting eyes and full lips were less than a finger breadth from Kroeger’s.
‘Karuchi Vohra’s life isn’t yours to take,’ said the swordsman.
Kroeger thrashed against the warrior’s grip, furious at the touch as much as his failure to kill the eldar.
‘Take that hand away before I take it from you,’ growled Kroeger.
‘With what?’ asked the swordsman, indicating the empty scabbards at his shoulders. ‘None of us have blades here, or were you planning to bite it off?’
‘Enough, Lucius, this is not the time,’ said Fulgrim, though his tone was eager, almost daring his man to take this further.
‘I’d release him, but I see a killer’s rage in his eyes,’ said Lucius.
Fulgrim turned to Perturabo and said, ‘If Lucius releases your man, will it be the start of something bloody?’
Perturabo didn’t answer the Phoenician and took a step towards Lucius, touching him in the centre of the chest.