The feeling was sublime, and he imagined greater and headier delights ahead when the Isstvan V portion of the Warmaster’s plan came to fruition: such horrors, such death, such delights.
SOLOMON DROVE HIS roaring blade through the chest plate of the warrior before him, twisting the weapon savagely as it tore through the layers of ceramite, flesh and bone. Blood sprayed from the ghastly wound and the traitor crashed to the tiled floor. He spun painfully to find another opponent, but the only figure left standing was Lucius, his scarred face flushed with the energy of the battle. Solomon checked to make sure there were no survivors before finally lowering his sword and acknowledging the pain of his many wounds.
Blood dripped from his sword as the whirring teeth slowly wound to a halt, and he took a deep breath as he saw how close they had come to being overwhelmed. The skill with which the swordsman had despatched his foes bordered on the miraculous, and Solomon knew that Lucius’s reputation as the deadliest killer in the Legion was entirely justified.
‘We did it,’ he gasped, painfully aware of how dearly the victory had been bought. All the warriors under Lucius’s command were dead, and as Solomon surveyed the carnage, he felt an immense sorrow as he saw that there was little to tell traitor from loyalist.
But for a twist of fate, might he too have turned on his brethren?
‘We did indeed, Captain Demeter,’ smirked Lucius. ‘I couldn’t have done it without you.’
Solomon looked up at the supercilious tone and bit back an angry retort. He shook his head at the swordsman’s ingratitude and nodded wearily.
‘Strange they came with so few warriors,’ he said, kneeling beside the body of the last traitor he had killed. ‘What did they think to gain?’
‘Nothing,’ said Lucius, cleaning the blood from his sword with a scrap of cloth, ‘yet.’
‘What do you mean?’ demanded Solomon, fast growing weary of Lucius’s obtuse answers. The swordsman’s smiled, but didn’t answer, and Solomon looked away, taking in the dead bodies and the stench of seared flesh and bone.
‘Don’t worry, Solomon,’ said Lucius, ‘it will all soon become clear to you.’
The smug gleam in the swordsman’s eyes unnerved Solomon more than he cared to admit and a horrific, gut wrenching suspicion began to form in his mind.
He quickly looked around the dome, his eyes darting back and forth as he did a quick count of the bodies that lay silent and unmoving on the cratered floor. Lucius had been given the remains of four squads to defend this portion of the palace, some thirty warriors.
‘Oh no,’ whispered Solomon as he realised that there were around thirty corpses. He gazed at the battered armour plates, the blackened faces, and the damage that told him these warriors had not come fresh from their billets to attack the palace, but had been here all along. These dead warriors were not traitors at all.
‘They were loyalists,’ he whispered.
‘I’m afraid so,’ said Lucius. ‘I am going to rejoin the Legion. The price for that is allowing Eidolon and his warriors a way into the palace. It was most fortunate you arrived when you did, Captain Demeter. I do not know if I would have been able to kill them all before the lord commander arrives.’
Solomon felt the walls of his existence come crashing down as the enormity of what he had done sank in. He dropped to his knees, and tears of horror and anguish spilled down his cheeks.
‘No! What have you done, Lucius?’ he cried. ‘You have doomed us all.’
Lucius laughed and said, ‘You were already doomed, Solomon. I just hastened the end.’
Solomon hurled aside his sword in disgust at what he had become, a killer no better than the traitors beyond the palace, and his anger at Lucius surged like a molten river.
‘You took my honour from me,’ he snarled, rising to his feet and turning to face the swordsman. ‘It was all I had left.’
Lucius was right in front of him, that cocky, arrogant smile still plastered over his scarred features. The swordsman smiled and asked, ‘How does it feel?’
Solomon roared and flew at Lucius, wrapping his hands around his foe’s neck. Hate and remorse flooded his limbs with fresh energy to better strangle the life from this thief of honour.
A terrible pain erupted in his stomach, tearing upwards through his chest, and Solomon cried out as his ruined frame fell away from Lucius. He looked down to see the glowing blade of Lucius’s sword protruding from his breastplate. The sizzle of burning meat and melting ceramite was strong in his nostrils as Lucius thrust his sword completely through his torso.
The strength fled from his body, and all the agony of the injuries he had fought to overcome since the firestorm returned a hundredfold. His entire body was a mass of pain, his every nerve-ending shrieking in agony.
Solomon dropped to his knees, his blood and life pouring from his body in a hot rush. He reached up to grip Lucius’s arms, and fought to focus on the swordsman’s face as death reached up to claim him.
‘You… will… not… win…’ he gasped, each word forced from his throat a small victory.
Lucius shrugged. ‘Maybe, maybe not, but you won’t be around to see it.’
Solomon fell backwards in slow motion, feeling the motion of air across his face and the crack of his skull against the hard floor. He rolled onto his back, looking out through the cracked dome to the clear blue sky beyond.
He smiled as the pain balms of his armour struggled uselessly to alleviate the mortal wound Lucius’s blade had done to him, staring into the limitless expanse of the open sky and feeling as though his gaze might reach beyond the atmosphere to where Horus’s fleet hung in space.
With a clarity denied him in life, Solomon saw where the Warmaster’s terrible betrayal would inevitably lead, the horror and the long war that would surely follow. Tears spilled down his cheeks, but they were not shed for his own ending, but for the billions who would suffer an eternity of darkness for the sake of one man’s dreadful ambition.
Lucius walked away from him, not even bothering to watch his final moments, and Solomon was glad of the peace. His breathing slowed and his eyelids flickered as the sky grew darker with each breath.
The light was dying with him, he thought, as though the world marked his passing by drawing a curtain across the day and ushering him into the final darkness with honour.
Solomon closed his eyes as a final tear fell to the ground.
PART FIVE
THE LAST PHOENIX
TWENTY-ONE
Vengeance
The Price of Isolation
The Prodigal
Death-Marked Love
THE IRON FORGE had become Ferrus Manus’s refuge since the monstrous betrayal visited upon him by his once-brother. Its gleaming walls were cracked, the primarch’s hurt reaching out to destroy the things he held dear in fury at the treachery given voice here. Gabriel Santor stepped over weapons and armour strewn across the floor, many pieces twisted as though melted in the heart of a fire. He carried with him a data-slate with fresh news from Terra. He hoped that it would lift his primarch out of the anger fuelled depression that had settled upon him like a shroud in the wake of the traitor’s scheme to sway the Iron Hands to the cause of treachery.
Every artificer, forgemaster, Techmarine and labourer had worked unceasingly to repair the damage done to their ships by the surprise attack of the Emperor’s Children fleet, and, in an unbelievable time, the ships of the 52nd Expedition had been ready to make for Terra and bring warning of the Warmaster’s perfidy.
In this, however, they had been stymied as the ships’ Navigators and astropaths had been unable to penetrate the warp, monstrous storms of terrifying force erupting through the depths of the immaterium, preventing any contact with or from Terra. To venture into the warp while it raged and seethed with unnatural vigour was tantamount to suicide, but it had taken all of Gabriel Santor’s calming words to break through Ferrus Manus’s towering fury and persuade him to await the end of the storms.
A hu
ndred astropaths had died in attempts to penetrate the roiling miasma of churning warp storms, but though their heroic sacrifice was commemorated on the Iron Column, their efforts were in vain, and the Iron Hands remained incommunicado.
For weeks, the ships of the 52nd Expedition travelled by conventional plasma engines, hoping to locate a break in the warp storms, but it seemed as though the Realm Beyond was at odds with them, for the Navigators could see no way to break through and live.
Ferrus Manus had raged the length and breadth of the Fist of Iron at the injustice of surviving such treachery only to be prevented from bringing word of it to the Emperor by something as mundane as a warp storm.
When Astropath Cistor had brought word that his surviving choristers were at last receiving faint messages hurled out across the stars, the news had been greeted with great joy, until they had been deciphered and transferred to the command logic engines.
All across the Imperium, war was raging. On countless worlds, traitorous curs were revolting against their loyal leaders. Many Imperial commanders had declared for Horus and were denouncing the rule of the Emperor. Many of these traitors had launched attacks against neighbouring systems still loyal to the Imperium, and the rise of war was threatening to engulf the entire galaxy. Horus had spread his net of corruption wide, and it would take heroics the likes of which had forged the Imperium in the first place to save the Emperor’s dream of a united galaxy.
Even the Mechanicum had been drawn into rebellion as warring factions fought for control of the great forges of Mars. The Astartes armour manufacturing facilities were coming under particularly heavy attack, and the Emperor’s loyal servants cried out for reinforcements as their enemies deployed ancient weapons technologies that had long been forbidden.
Worse still, reports of alien attacks on human-held worlds were increasing with an alarming rapidity. The greenskins rampaged through the southern galactic rim, the savage hordes of Kalardun laid waste to newly compliant worlds in the Region of Storms, and the foul Carrion-eaters of Carnus V laid bloody claim to the Nine Vectors. As humanity was ripping itself apart with internecine warfare, countless xeno breeds were rising to feed on the carcass.
The Primarch of the Iron Hands hunched over the anvil in the centre of the forge, flickering blue fire blazing around his glowing silver hands as he worked a long length of gleaming metal upon it. The primarch’s wounds had healed swiftly, but his jaw still jutted pugnaciously where his treacherous brother had smashed the stolen Forgebreaker against his skull. Even the mention of the traitor’s name was forbidden, and Santor had never seen his primarch so wrathful.
Santor knew he himself was lucky to be alive, the grievous wound inflicted by the First Captain of the Emperor’s Children having torn through his heart, lungs and stomach. Only the timely ministrations of the Legion’s Apothecaries, and a determination to wreak bloody vengeance upon Julius Kaesoron, had kept him alive long enough for him to have his ruined flesh replaced with bionic components.
The grim figure of Astropath Cistor followed behind him, robed in cream and black, and clutching his copper staff in a white knuckled grip. The telepath’s gaunt features were unreadable in the flickering firelight of the forge, but even one as dulled to psychic vibrations as Santor was, could sense his concern.
Ferrus Manus looked up as they approached, his grim, battered face a mask of cold iron anger. The restriction on entry to the Iron Forge had been forgotten, such petty rules and regulations deemed nonsensical in the face of the crisis facing the Imperium.
‘Well?’ demanded Ferrus. ‘Why do you disturb me?’
Santor allowed himself a tight smile and said, ‘I bring word from Rogal Dorn.’
‘From Dorn?’ cried Ferrus, the fire of his hands diminishing and his face alight with sudden, savage interest. He placed the glowing metal upon the anvil and said, ‘I thought the astropathic choirs could not yet reach Terra?’
‘Until a few hours ago, we could not,’ agreed Cistor, stepping forward to stand next to Santor. ‘The warp storms that frustrated our every effort at communication over the previous weeks have dissipated utterly, and my choristers are receiving the most urgent communiqués from Lord Dorn.’
‘This is great news indeed, Cistor!’ exclaimed Ferrus. ‘My compliments to your staff! Now speak, Gabriel, speak! What does Dorn say?’
‘My lord, if I may?’ said Cistor before Santor could answer. ‘This sudden calming of the warp disturbs me.’
‘Disturbs you, Cistor?’ asked Ferrus. ‘Why? Surely it is a good thing?’
‘That remains to be seen, my lord. It is my belief that some external force has acted upon the warp, aiding our efforts to navigate through it and to send messages across the void of space.’
‘Why would you think this is a bad thing, Cistor?’ asked Santor. ‘Might not the Emperor have worked to achieve this?’
‘That is certainly a possibility,’ conceded Cistor, ‘but it is only one of many. I would be remiss in my duties if I did not voice my concern that some other agent, perhaps one of our enemy’s, is calming the Sea of Souls.’
‘Your concerns are noted, astropath,’ snapped Ferrus. ‘Now, will one of you tell me what you have received from Dorn before I have to beat it out of you?’
Santor quickly held out the data-slate and said, ‘The Emperor’s Champion sends word of his plans to destroy Horus.’
Ferrus snatched the slate from him as Santor continued. ‘It appears as though the Warmaster’s treachery is confined to those Legions that fought with him at Isstvan III. As Cistor here says, the adepts of the Astropathic Corps have finally managed to establish contact with a great many of your brother primarchs, and even now they are mobilising against Horus.’
‘At last,’ snarled Ferrus, his silver eyes quickly scanning the data-slate. A grim smile of measured triumph spread slowly across his face. ‘Salamanders, Alpha Legion, Iron Warriors, Word Bearers, Raven Guard and Night Lords… including the Iron Hands, that’s seven entire Legions. Horus doesn’t stand a chance.’
‘No, he doesn’t,’ agreed Santor. ‘Dorn is being thorough.’
‘Indeed he is,’ said Ferrus. ‘Isstvan V…’
‘My lord?’
‘It seems Horus has established his headquarters on Isstvan V, and it is there we are to crush his rebellion once and for all.’
Ferrus handed back the data-slate and said, ‘Send word to Captain Balhaan on the Ferrum that I shall be transferring my flag to his ship. Tell him to ready his vessel for immediate transit to the Isstvan system. Deploy as many of the Morlocks as are fit to fight into its barracks. The rest of the Legion will have to make best speed and join us as soon as they are able.’
Santor frowned, as Ferrus returned to the glowing metal on the anvil, and glanced down at the data-slate to ensure he had not misread the orders it contained, orders that came directly from the Emperor’s Champion. He hesitated just long enough for Ferrus to catch his delay and said, ‘My lord, our orders are to rendezvous with the full force of our Legion.’
Ferrus shook his head. ‘No, Gabriel, I won’t be denied my vengeance on… him by arriving late and allowing others to destroy him first. The Ferrum suffered the least amount of damage in the betrayal of the Emperor’s Children and it’s the fastest ship in the fleet. I… I need to face him and destroy him to restore my honour and prove my loyalty, Gabriel.’
‘Honour? Loyalty?’ said Santor. ‘None could doubt your loyalty or honour, my lord. The traitor came to you with falsehoods and you hurled them back in his face. If anything, you stand as an example to us all, a faithful and dutiful son of the Emperor. How could you even think such a thing?’
‘Because others will,’ said Ferrus, picking up the long, flat metal on the anvil, an angry, fiery glow building in the silver depths of his hands. ‘Fulgrim would not have risked attempting to turn me to the Warmaster’s cause unless he truly believed I would join him. He must have seen weakness in me that made him think he would be successful. That is what I
must purge in the heat of his blood. Though they might not voice such things openly, others will soon come to the same conclusion, you mark my words.’
‘They would not dare!’
‘They will, my friend,’ nodded Ferrus. ‘They will wonder what made Fulgrim risk such a dangerous gambit. Soon they will come to believe that perhaps he had reason to think I would follow him into treachery. No, we will make all speed for the Isstvan system to wash away the stain of this dishonour in the blood of traitors!’
IT TOOK AN effort of will not to approach the statue, and Ostian had to deliberately place the file on the battered metal stool next to him. Part of what made an artist great was knowing when something was finished, when it was time to put down the pen, the chisel or the brush and step away from it. The work belonged to the ages now, and as he looked up into the helmeted eyes of the Master of Mankind, he knew that it was finished.
Towering above him, the pale marble was flawless, every curve of the Emperor’s armour rendered with loving care to exactly replicate his majesty. Great shoulder guards with eagles rampant framed a tall helmet of ancient design, topped with a long horsehair crest of such fine carving that even Ostian expected it to ruffle in the cool air fluttering the papers and dust around him.
The great eagle on the Emperor’s breastplate seemed as though it might burst from his chest, and the lightning bolts on his greaves and bracers exuded a raw power that energised the statue with a fierce anima. A long, curving cloak of white marble spilled down the back of the statue like a cascade of milk, and the Emperor’s stature was such that he felt sure the Master of the Imperium might deign to look upon it with a moment of pleasure to see his image rendered so.
A wreath of gold set off the paleness of the marble, and Ostian felt his breath catch as something amazing took flight within him at the statue’s perfection.