Vengeful Spirit

by Graham McNeill

  ‘As are you, my brother,’ said Horus, coming forward to grip the Death Lord’s wrist, warrior to warrior. ‘You are a wonder to me, my indomitable friend. If not even the Khan’s strength could lay you low, what hope have any others?’

  ‘His fleetness of war is a thing of wonder,’ admitted Mortarion. ‘But rob him of it and he is nothing. I will reap him yet.’

  ‘And I would see it so,’ promised Horus, releasing his grip. ‘On the soil of Terra we shall hobble the Khan and see how well he fights.’

  ‘I am your servant,’ said Mortarion.

  Horus shook his head. ‘No, never that. Never a servant. We fight this war so we need be no man’s slave. I would not have you exchange one master for another. I need you at my side as an equal, not a vassal.’

  Mortarion nodded, and Aximand saw the Death Guard primarch stand taller at Lupercal’s words.

  ‘And your sons?’ said Horus. ‘Does Typhon still bait the Lion’s hunters?’

  ‘Since Perditus he has been leading the monks of Caliban a merry dance through the stars, leaving death and misery in his wake,’ replied Mortarion with a grunt of amusement that puffed toxic emanations from his gorget. ‘By your leave I will soon join him and turn the hunters into the hunted.’

  ‘Soon enough, Mortarion, soon enough,’ said Horus. ‘With your Legion mustered for war, I almost feel sorry for the Lion.’

  Fulgrim bristled that he had received no words of praise, but Horus wasn’t done.

  ‘Now more than ever I need you both at my side, not as allies and not as subordinates, but as equals. I hold to the name Warmaster, not because of what it represented when it was bestowed, but because of what it means now.’

  ‘And what it that?’ asked Fulgrim.

  Horus looked into the Phoenician’s aquiline features, alabaster in their cold perfection. Aximand felt the power of connection that flowed between them, a struggle for dominance that could have only one victor.

  Fulgrim looked away and Horus said, ‘It means that only I have the strength to do what must be done. Only I can bring my brothers together under one banner and remake the Imperium.’

  ‘You always were prideful,’ said Fulgrim, and Aximand felt the urge to grip Mourn-it-all’s hilt at the Phoenician’s tone, but the sword was no longer belted at his side, its blade badly notched and still in need of repair.

  Horus ignored the barb and said, ‘If I am prideful, it is pride in my brothers. Pride in what you have accomplished since last we stood together. It is why I have summoned you and no others to my side now.’

  Fulgrim grinned and said, ‘Then what would you have of me, Warmaster?’

  ‘The thing I spoke to in the wake of Isstvan, is it gone from you now? You are Fulgrim once again?’

  ‘I have scoured my flesh of the creature’s presence.’

  ‘Good,’ said Horus. ‘What I say here is Legion business, and does not concern the things that dwell beyond our world.’

  ‘I cast the warp-thing out, but I learned a great many things from it while our souls were entwined.’

  ‘What things?’ asked Mortarion.

  ‘We have bargained with their masters, made pacts,’ hissed Fulgrim, pointing a sickle blade talon at Horus. ‘You have made blood pacts with gods, and oaths to gods should not lightly be broken.’

  ‘It sickens me to my bones to hear you speak of keeping faith with oaths,’ said Mortarion.

  The Warmaster raised a hand to ward off Fulgrim’s venomous response, and said, ‘You are both here because I have need of your unique talents. The wrath of the Sons of Horus is to be unleashed once more, and I would not see it so without my brothers at my side.’

  Horus walked a slow circle, weaving his words around Mortarion and Fulgrim like a web.

  ‘Erebus raised his great Ruinstorm on Calth and split the galaxy asunder. Beyond its tempests, the Five Hundred Worlds burned in Lorgar and Angron’s “shadow crusade”, but their wanton slaughters are of no consequence for now. What happens here, with us, with you, is what will make the difference between victory or defeat.’

  The Warmaster’s words were lure and balm all in one, obvious even to Aximand, but they were having the desired effect.

  ‘Are we to march on Terra at last?’ asked Mortarion.

  Horus laughed. ‘Not yet, but soon. It is in preparation for that day that I have called you here.’

  Horus stepped back and lifted his arms as ancient machinery rose from the floor like rapid outgrowths of coral, unfolding and expanding with mechanised precision. A hundred or more glass cylinders rose with them, each containing a body lying forever on the threshold of existence and oblivion.

  From previously unseen entrances, a host of weeping tech-adepts and black-robed Mechanicum entered, taking up positions alongside the gently glowing cylinders.

  ‘By any mortal reckoning, our father is a god,’ said Horus. ‘And for all that He has allowed His dominion to fall to rebellion, He is still too powerful to face.’

  ‘Even for you?’ said Fulgrim with a grin.

  ‘Even for me,’ agreed Horus. ‘To slay a god, a warrior must first become a god himself.’

  Horus paused. ‘At least, that’s what the dead tell me.’

  TWO

  Solid roots

  Molech

  Medusa’s fire

  A kilometre-high dome enclosed the Hegemon, a feat of civic engineering that perfectly encapsulated the vision at the heart of the Palace’s construction. Situated within the Kath Mandau Precinct of Old Himalazia, the Hegemon was the seat of Imperial governance, a metropolis of activity that never stopped nor paused for breath in its unceasing labours.

  Lord Dorn had, of course, wanted to fortify it, to layer its golden walls in adamantium and stone, but that order had been quietly rescinded at the highest level. If the Warmaster’s armies reached this far into the Palace then the war was already lost.

  A million rooms and corridors veined its bones, from soulless scrivener cubicles of bare brick to soaring chambers of ouslite, marble and gold that were filled with the greatest artistic treasures of the ages. Tens of thousands of robed scribes and clerks hurried along raised concourses, escorted by document-laden servitors and trotting menials. Ambassadors and nobility from across the globe gathered to petition the lords of Terra while ministers guided the affairs of innumerable departments.

  The Hegemon had long ceased to be a building as defined by the term. Rather, it had sprawled beyond the dome to become a vast city unto itself, a knotted mass of plunging archive-chasms, towers of office, petitioner’s domes, palaces of bureaucracy and stepped terraces of hanging gardens. Over the centuries it had become a barely-understood organ within the Imperial body that functioned despite – or perhaps because of – its very complexity. This was the slow beating heart of the Emperor’s domain, where decisions affecting billions were dispatched across the galaxy by functionaries who had never lived a day beyond the winding circuits of the Palace.

  And the Kath Mandau Precinct was just one of many hundreds of such regions enclosed by the iron-cased walls of the mightiest fortress on Terra.

  Beneath the cloud-hung apex of the Hegemon’s central dome was a secluded rift valley, where the last remaining examples of natural foliage on Terra could be found. So enormous was the dome that varying microclimates held sway at different elevations, creating miniature weather patterns that belied any notions of enclosure.

  Glittering white cliffs were shawled with mountain evergreens and brocaded by cascading ice-waterfalls that fed a crystal lake of shimmerskin koi. Clinging to a spur of rock partway up the cliffs was the ruin of an ancient citadel. Its outer wall had long since toppled, and the remains of an inner keep were demarcated by a series of concentric rings of glassily volcanic stone.

  The valley had existed prior to the construction of the Palace, and rumour told that it held special significance to the Master of Mankind himself.

  One man knew the truth of this, but he would never tell.

&n
bsp; Malcador the Sigillite sat at the rippling shore of the lake, deliberating whether to advance steadily on the right or throw caution to the wind in an all-out assault. He had the superior force, but his opponent was much larger than him, a towering giant encased in battleplate the colour of moonlit ice and draped in a furred cloak. Long braids of russet hair, woven with polished gems and yellowed fangs, were pulled back from his face, that of a noble savage rendered marble white in the dome’s artificial daylight.

  ‘Are you going to make a move?’ asked the Wolf King.

  ‘Patience, Leman,’ said Malcador. ‘The subtleties of hnefatafl are manifold, and each move requires careful thought. Especially when one is the attacker.’

  ‘I’m aware of the game’s subtleties,’ replied Leman Russ, his voice the throaty threat-rasp of a predator. ‘I invented this variant.’

  ‘Then you should know not to rush me.’

  Mighty beyond all sense of the word, Leman Russ was a tsunami that begins life far out to sea and builds its power over thousands of kilometres as it draws near the shore. His physical form was the instant before impact, and all who looked upon him knew it. Even when apparently at peace, it felt as though Leman Russ was only holding back some explosive violence with great effort.

  A bone-handled hunting blade was belted at his waist; a dagger to one of his post-human scale, a sword to everyone else.

  Next to Leman Russ, Malcador was a frail, hunch-shouldered old man. Which was, as time went by, less a carefully cultivated image, more a true reflection of his soul-deep weariness. White hair spilled from his crown and lay across his shoulders like the snow on the towering flanks of Chomolungma.

  He might bind his hair up when in the company of Sanguinius or Rogal Dorn, but with Russ the observation of physical niceties were secondary to the matters at hand.

  Malcador studied the board, a hexagon divided into irregular segments with a raised octagon at its centre. Each segment was pierced with slots into which were placed the playing pieces carved from yellowed hrosshvalur teeth; a mix of warriors, kings, monsters and elemental forces. Portions of the board were movable, able to slide over one another and occlude or reveal fresh segments, and rods set in each side could be rotated to block or open slots. All of which enabled a canny player to radically alter the character of the game at a stroke.

  One player had a king and a small band of retainers, the other an army, and as in most such games, the object was to kill the enemy king. Or keep him alive, depending on which colour you chose. Russ always chose to play the outnumbered king.

  Malcador removed a hearth-jarl and pushed it towards the octagon where the Wolf King’s pieces had gathered, then twisted one of the side rods. Clicking mechanisms rotated within the board, though it was impossible to know for certain which slots had opened up and which had closed until a player had committed to a move.

  ‘Bold,’ noted Russ. ‘Nemo would say you hadn’t given that move enough thought.’

  ‘You were pressing me.’

  ‘And you let yourself be goaded?’ mused Russ. ‘I’m surprised.’

  ‘There is not the time for deep reflection now.’

  ‘You’ve made that point before.’

  ‘It’s an important point to make.’

  ‘Nor yet is it a time for recklessness,’ said Russ, moving his Warhawk and twisting a side rod. Malcador’s hearth-jarl fell onto its side as the slot it had occupied was sealed.

  ‘Foolish,’ said Malcador, foregoing the opportunity to alter the board to advance an extra piece. ‘You are exposed now.’

  Russ shook his head and pressed the segment of board before him, rotating it by ninety degrees. As it clicked back into place, Malcador saw the king’s retainers were now poised to flank his army and execute its cardinal piece.

  ‘You say exposed,’ said Russ. ‘I say berkutra.’

  ‘The hunter’s cut,’ translated Malcador. ‘That’s Chogorian.’

  ‘The Khan taught me his name for it,’ said Russ, never one to take another’s virtue for his own. ‘We call it almáttigrbíta, but I like his word better.’

  Malcador graciously tipped his cardinal piece onto its side, knowing there would be no escape from the Wolf King’s trap, only a slow attrition that would see his leaderless army scattered to the corners of the board.

  ‘Well played, Leman,’ said Malcador.

  Russ nodded and bent to lift a wide-necked ewer of wine from beside the table. He held a pair of pewter goblets in his other hand and kept one for himself before handing the second to Malcador. The Sigillite took note of the wine’s provenance and raised a curious eyebrow.

  Russ shrugged. ‘Not everything of the Sons was bitter with sorcery.’

  The wine was poured, and Malcador was forced to agree.

  ‘How long until your fleet is battle ready?’ asked Malcador, though he had already digested the work schedules of the Fenrisian vessels from Fabricator Kane at the Novopangean orbital yards.

  ‘Alpharius’s whelps tried to tear the Hrafnkel’s heart out, but her bones are strong and she’ll sail again,’ said Russ with a phlegmatic grunt. ‘The shipwrights tell me it’ll be another three months at least before she’s void-worthy, and not even Bear’s threats are getting them to move faster.’

  ‘Bear?’

  ‘A misnomer that’s stuck,’ was all Russ would say.

  ‘And the rest of the fleet?’

  ‘Probably longer,’ said Russ. ‘The delay chafes, but if Caliban’s angels hadn’t arrived when they did, there wouldn’t be a fleet left to rebuild at all. We fill our time though. We train, we fight and prepare for what’s ahead.’

  ‘Have you given any thought to the alternative I broached?’

  ‘I have,’ said Russ.

  ‘And?’

  ‘My answer is no,’ answered Russ. ‘It stinks of revenge and last resort.’

  ‘It’s strategy,’ said Malcador. ‘Pre-emption, if you will.’

  ‘Semantics,’ said Russ, a warning burr in his voice. ‘Don’t think to weave linguistic knots around me, Sigillite. I know why you want that planet burned, but I’m a warrior, not a destroyer.’

  ‘A slender distinction, my friend, but if any world’s death would turn the Warmaster from his course it would be that one.’

  ‘Perhaps, but that is a murder for another day,’ said Russ. ‘My fleet’s guns will be better directed against Horus himself.’

  ‘So you are set on this course?’

  ‘As the cursed ice-rigger of bróðirgráta is doomed to follow the bad star.’

  ‘Dorn would have you stay,’ said Malcador, passing the red pieces to Russ. ‘You know Terra would be mightier with the Great Wolf lying in wait, fangs bared and claws sharp.’

  ‘If Rogal wants me so much, he should ask himself.’

  ‘He is in absentia just now.’

  ‘I know where he is,’ said Russ. ‘You think I fought my way back from Alaxxes and didn’t leave silent hunters in the shadows to see who follows my wake? I know of the intruder ship and I saw Rogal’s men take it.’

  ‘Rogal is proud,’ said Malcador. ‘But I am not. Stay, Leman. Range your wolves on Terra’s walls.’

  The Wolf King shook his head. ‘I’m not built for waiting, Sigillite. I don’t fight well from behind stone, waiting for the enemy to try and dig me out. I’m the executioner, and the executioner lands the first blow, a killing strike that ends dispute before it begins.’

  Malcador nodded. He’d suspected this would be Russ’s answer, but had to present an alternative nonetheless. He looked up at the highest reaches of the dome, where distant anabatic winds tugged at the clouds. A soothsayer or astromancer might read omens and signs of the future in their form, but Malcador just saw clouds.

  ‘Has the exiled cub been summoned?’ said Russ, sitting back and draining his wine as though it were water.

  Malcador returned his gaze to Russ. ‘You should not call him that, my friend. He faced the Warmaster’s decision to betray the Emperor
and refused to follow it. Do not underestimate the strength of character that took, strength a great many others singularly failed to show.’

  Russ nodded, conceding the point, as Malcador continued. ‘The Somnus Citadel’s shuttle arrived at Yasu’s villa this morning. He approaches the Hegemon as we speak.’

  ‘And you still believe him to be the best?’

  ‘The best?’ said Malcador. ‘A hard thing to quantify. He is uniquely capable, no doubt, but is he the best? The best what? The best fighter, the best shot, the best heart? I don’t know if he is the best of them, but he won’t fail you.’

  Russ let out a heavy, animal breath and said, ‘I’ve read the one-time slates you gave me, and they don’t make for comforting reading. When Nathaniel Garro found him he was a maddened killer, a slayer of innocents.’

  ‘That he survived the massacre at all was a miracle.’

  ‘Aye, maybe so,’ said Russ.

  ‘Trust me, Leman, this one stands with us, as straight up and down as any I have known.’

  ‘What if you’re wrong?’ asked Russ, leaning over the board and toppling his own king. ‘What if he goes back to the Warmaster? The things he’s seen and done. The things he knows. Even if he is as loyal as you believe, you can’t know what will happen when he enters the belly of the beast. You know how much rests upon this.’

  ‘Only too well, old friend,’ said Malcador. ‘Your life, the Emperor’s. Perhaps all of our lives. The Emperor wrought you for a terrible purpose, but a necessary one. If anyone can stop Horus before he gets to Terra, it is you.’

  Russ’s head snapped up and his top lip curled back over his teeth, like an animal sensing danger. ‘He’s here.’

  Malcador looked down the valley and saw a lone figure cresting the Sigillite’s bridge far below. At this distance, he was little more than a speck of steeldust grey against the white of the cliffs, but his poise was unmistakable.

  Russ rose to his feet and watched the distant figure approach, regarding him as though he were a wounded hound that might turn on its master at any moment.

  ‘So that’s Garviel Loken,’ said Russ.

  Shimmering fluorescent light filled the Dome of Revivification with the arrival of the cryo-cylinders, and Aximand felt the not unreasonable discomfort at seeing those who were alive and yet ought to be dead. The thought triggered a memory of a dream, a half-heard echo of something best forgotten.