Uzas took a step closer to Cyrion. ‘How did his fear taste, Cyrion? How did it taste when you killed him? Was it still tingling on your tongue when you stood by and let the others blame me?’
Cyrion drew both blades as Uzas took another step closer. ‘Lucoryphus told you, then.’
‘Lucoryphus told me nothing. I have been playing the past through my mind these last hours, and the conclusion was simple enough. No one else would have found the old fool a tempting target. None of the others would have been able to taste his cowardice the way you could. And any of them would simply confess to Talos what they’d done. But not you, oh no. Not the perfect Cyrion.’
Cyrion glanced behind. He was close to the wall’s edge now, and the long drop down to the rubble that came with it.
‘Uzas…’
‘I’ve been so blind, haven’t I? Answer me this, Cyrion. How many times did you slay to sup on the crew’s fear, and stand by while I was blamed? As I pull through the broken memories, I can recall my true hunts, and too many instances of losing control. But nothing like the amount I’ve been blamed for.’
‘Don’t seek to blame me for t–’
‘Answer me!’ Uzas pulled his helm clear, hurling it aside and facing Cyrion barefaced. His scarred, stitched, broken-angel features were contorted by hate. Blood still painted one side of his head, and one eye socket stared hollow, still not quite wedged shut by the wound. ‘How many of your sins have damned me?’
Cyrion smiled at his brother’s slipping control. ‘Over the centuries? Dozens. Hundreds. Take your pick, madman. What do a few more souls matter in the harvest you’ve reaped alone?’
‘It matters because I am punished for your sins!’ Spit sprayed from Uzas’s lips as he screamed. ‘The others despised me! How much of that blame can be laid at your feet?’
‘The others are dead, Uzas.’ Cyrion kept his voice calm, cold. ‘What they believed no longer means anything. You damned yourself in their eyes by forever screaming about your Blood God each time you drew a blade in battle.’
‘I. Never. Worshipped. Anything.’ Uzas aimed the chainaxe at his brother’s head. ‘You never understood it. The Legion raises icons to the Powers when it suits them. Whatever the cost, wars must be won. I am no different. No different!’
‘If you say so, Uzas.’
‘Do you know how many times my thoughts have cleared, only to be confronted by a brother enraged at me for slaying some vital member of the crew?’ Uzas spat over the side, his face even more hideous now the rain had washed away the blood. His skull showed where the left half of his head had suffered the skin being ripped away. ‘I killed dozens, yet bore the blame for hundreds!’ He raised the weapons in his fists, displaying his red gauntlets. ‘These are your marks of shame, Cyrion. I wear them because you are too weak to do so yourself.’
The rage bled from him as abruptly as it had risen. ‘I… I will tell Talos. And you will confess what you’ve done. He must know the depths of your… appetite. The things it has forced you to do.’
‘If you say so,’ Cyrion repeated, ‘brother.’
‘Forgive my anger. The wrath is difficult to bite back, some nights. I know the feel of the warp’s caress, as surely as you do. I feel for you, my brother. I truly do. We are more alike than either of us has ever admitted.’
Uzas sighed and closed his eyes. A smile – the first sincere smile in centuries – spread across his broken face.
Cyrion moved the moment Uzas’s eyes closed. He lashed out with both blades at once, aiming for the pale flesh of Uzas’s throat. The other Night Lord flinched, barely blocking with his own weapons, and hit back with a kick that rang against his brother’s breastplate like a tolling temple bell. Cyrion staggered, boots loose on the edge, and plummeted from view without a sound.
Uzas howled, a full-throated cry to the unquiet sky, his clarity shattered and his vision bathed red. The heaven’s thunder melted into his throbbing heartbeat, and the rain in his eyes stung like his own acid-spit. He took a running leap, chainaxe snarling, and threw himself after his treacherous brother.
He heard the howl, but saw no source.
Lightning forked the sky again, a pulse of daylight’s brightness bathing the ruins for a single second. For a moment, the toppled walls and spires resembled a dead city, and the legs of Titans.
Talos stopped running. He slowed to a halt, looking around with narrowed eyes, ignoring the pointless data streaming across his eye lenses.
‘No,’ he said, to no one but himself. ‘I’ve seen this before.’
The lightning flashed again, drenching the ruins in short-lived light. Again, in the fragmentary sight, he saw Titans formed from the tilting walls, and tanks revealed as lifeless stone when the blinding brightness faded.
He leaned against –
Flash!
– the hull of a Land Raider –
– the stone wall of a fallen building, and looks for signs of his brothers. He sees Cyrion, half-buried in a mound of rubble, almost a thousand metres away by the testimony of scrolling retinal tactical data.
He watches another struggling figure emerging from the wreckage, and his visor locks onto Uzas, approaching Cyrion’s prone form from behind.
And, at last, he knows where he’s seen this.
It was never at Crythe. I read my own vision wrong. Uzas… He kills him here. He kills Cyrion here.
He broke into a run, the golden sword’s power field flaring to life.
Cyrion winced at the pain in his thigh, feeling fairly certain his leg was broken by the twenty-metre fall. His helm’s display was a haze of static, stealing any chance of checking his bio-readings, but having lost an arm in battle and feeling a haunting sense of familiarity in the sensation now, he felt he could make a fair guess.
He tried to claw his way free of the rubble. He had to get away from–
‘Cyrionnnnn.’ The low growl lingered on the final syllable, lost in drooling confusion. He heard Uzas scrabbling across the rocks behind, and thrashed in the rubble’s grip, pulling himself half-clear. He could hear footsteps, heavy and swift, but couldn’t twist to see.
The shadow above him lengthened across the rocks, as Uzas raised the axe. Cyrion was still reaching for his fallen sword when the blade descended.
Uzas stiffened, the chainaxe falling from loose fingers to clatter onto the rubble. He looked down, no longer seeing Cyrion trapped beneath him, his eyes drawn to nothing but the golden sword extending through his chest.
I know that sword, he thought, and started laughing. But no breath meant no laughter, and he did nothing more than wheeze through bloody lips. The golden blade was already cleansed of his blood, washed clean by the rain. Even so, the cold droplets aggravated the shimmering energy field, breeding a buzzing aura around the steel, spiced with sparks.
He sighed, almost in relief, as the sword slid back out. Surprisingly, he felt nothing in the way of pain, though the pressure in his chest was mounting to the point he feared his hearts would rupture.
He turned to face his murderer. Talos stood in the rain, red eye lenses offering nothing of mercy.
Talos, he tried to say. My brother.
‘You…’ The prophet readied the blade again, clutching it in two hands. ‘I trusted you. I argued again and again and again for your life to be spared. I swore to the others you were still inside there somewhere. Still a shred of nobility, waiting to be reborn. Still a fragment of worth, deserving of hope.’
Talos.’ He tried to say again. Thank you.
‘You are the foulest, basest, most treacherous creature ever to the wear the winged skull of Nostramo. Ruven was a prince by comparison. At least he was in control of himself.’
Talos… Uzas’s vision swam. He blinked, and upon opening his eyes, he found he was looking up at his brother towering over him. Had he fallen to his knees? I… I…
‘Wait…’ Uzas managed to say. He was appalled and amused in equal measure by the weakling’s whisper his voice had become. ‘Talos.’
The prophet kicked him in the chest, sending him toppling onto his back. His head cracked on the jagged rocks, but he didn’t feel any pain beyond the press of cold stone.
No more words would come. Every breath sent black blood, deliciously warm, spilling over his chin.
He saw Talos rise above him, the golden sword spitting sparks in the storm. ‘I should have killed you years ago.’
Uzas grinned, just as Mercutian had grinned, at the moment of death. You probably should have, brother.
He saw Talos turn and move away, out of sight. Variel replaced him, the Apothecary’s icy eyes staring down with polite disinterest. Drills and saws deployed from his narthecium gauntlet.
‘His gene-seed?’ Variel asked.
Talos voice carried back from nearby. ‘If you harvest it from him, I will kill you, too.’
Variel rose to his feet with one last dispassionate look, and moved away as well. The last words Uzas heard were those spoken by Cyrion, grunting as he was pulled from the rubble.
‘He came at me from behind, screaming his endless devotions to the Blood God. My thanks, Talos.’
XXIX
ENDINGS
The gunship came in low across the battlements, thrusters roaring as it hovered. Heat-shimmer turned the air as murky as water beneath the flaring jump jets. Steam rose from their armour, all traces of rainfall evaporating away.
Cyrion was limping, but able to stand unaided. Variel and Lucoryphus remained unharmed, but Talos hadn’t spoken since he’d butchered his brother. He was a silent presence in the group’s core, meeting no one’s eyes as they climbed the ramparts, and avoiding eye contact afterwards.
Cyrion moved back and looked up to the sky beyond the gunship’s scissoring searchlights, letting the rain wash across his painted faceplate.
‘Have you noticed that it always rains here when we lose a war? The gods have a curious sense of humour.’
None of the others said a word in reply. Talos spoke, but it was only to Septimus.
‘Bring her down. Be ready for immediate dust-off.’
‘Yes, lord.’
The gunship kissed Tsagualsa’s lifeless soil. Slowly, too slowly, the gangramp started to descend.
‘This world is a tomb,’ Talos said softly. ‘For the Legion, and the hundreds of eldar that died down there tonight.’
‘Then let’s leave,’ Cyrion hardly sounded impressed, ‘and die in orbit, in defiance of the Flayer’s moronic superstition.’
‘All claws, all souls of the Eighth Legion, this is Talos. Answer me if you still breathe.’
Silence replied, thick and cold, over the vox. True to his words, he felt as though he was shouting across a graveyard.
Even Malcharion is dead. The thought made him shiver.
‘Variel,’ he said, as the ramp lowered fully. ‘It isn’t me.’
The Apothecary hesitated. ‘I do not understand.’
For a moment, Talos just watched his own retinal display. Xarl. Mercutian. Uzas. All faded. All silent. All gone.
‘It isn’t me. I doubt any prophet will rise to unite the Eighth Legion, but if one does, it will not be me. I couldn’t unite a single Claw.’
‘Well,’ Cyrion interrupted, ‘we were a difficult group at the finest of times.’
‘I mean it, Variel. It isn’t me. It was never me. Look at me, brother. Tell me you believe I could unite tens of thousands of murderers, rapists, traitors, thieves and assassins. I don’t think like them. I don’t even want to be one of them, anymore. They damn themselves. That was always the Legion’s flaw. We damned ourselves.’
‘Your loyalty to your brothers does you credit, but you are speaking while affected by mourning.’
‘No.’ Talos shook his head, taking a step back. ‘I’m speaking the truth. One of the many, many writings that remain with us from the era after the Heresy speaks of this “prophet”. We call it the Crucible Premonition, though it was never shared past a few captains. And whether it’s a destined fate or not, I am not that prophet.’
Variel nodded. Talos read the look in his brother’s pale eyes, and smiled. ‘You’ve considered the alternative,’ he said, and it wasn’t a question. ‘I can tell.’
‘The concept has remained with me since I ran the tests on your physiology.’ Variel inclined his head to the gunship. ‘A child that grows with your gene-seed implanted within its body will have all the makings of a powerful seer.’
‘You’re guessing.’
‘I am. But it’s a good guess.’
Cyrion cursed at them from the ramp. ‘Can we leave, if we’re going at all?’ Lucoryphus crawled up the ramp, but Talos and Variel remained as they were.
‘My father said something to me, in the hours before he died. Words for my ears alone; words I’ve never shared before tonight. He said: “Many will claim to lead our Legion in the years after I am gone. Many will claim that they – and they alone – are my appointed successor. I hate this Legion, Talos. I destroyed its world to stem the flow of poison. I will be vindicated soon, and the truest lesson of the Night Lords will be taught. Do you truly believe I care what happens to any of you after my death?”’
The Apothecary stood motionless, as Talos took a breath. ‘Sometimes, I almost know how he felt, Variel. The war drags on for an eternity, and victory comes at an agonising pace. Meanwhile, we endure betrayals; we hide; we run and flee; we raid and ambush and skin and flay and kill; we loot our own dead; we drink the blood of our enemies; and suffer the endless tide of fratricide. I killed my own mother without knowing her face. I have killed nineteen of my own brothers in the last century alone, almost always in idiotic battles for possession of this sword, or over matters of bruised pride. I have no wish to unite the Legion. I hate the Legion. Not for what it is, but for what it made me become.’
Variel still said nothing. Rather than seeming lost for words, he simply seemed to lack any desire to speak at all.
‘There’s one thing I want,’ said Talos. ‘I want that alien witch’s head. I want to plant it on her spear at the heart of these ruins.’ Talos turned away from the gunship, walking away. ‘And I mean to have it. Stay in the air, Variel. Land once it’s over. Whether I live or die this night, you are welcome to my gene-seed come the dawn.’
Cyrion left the ramp, following Talos. ‘I’m coming with you.’
Lucoryphus’s head jerked with a muscle tic in his neck. He briefly rose to his clawed feet, and stalked after the others. ‘I will join you. One more dead eldar will bring the Bleeding Eyes to two score. I like the sound of that number.’
Variel stood by the gunship, fighting the urge to follow. ‘Talos,’ he said.
The prophet looked over his shoulder in time to see blood burst from Variel’s body. The Apothecary shouted – the first time Talos had ever heard an utterance of such volume from the Flayer’s lips – and reached his hands to his bloody mouth, as if he could stem the flow of lifeblood gushing from his lips.
The black spear pulled out, staggering him as it withdrew from his back and cleaved through both of his legs on the backswing. The bionic leg gave crackling sparks of protest as its sundered systems tried to restore balance. His human leg bled, and bled, and bled.
The three Night Lords were already running, weapons alive in their fists.
‘Get in the air,’ Talos yelled into the vox. ‘Consider it your final order.’
The gunship immediately rose, unsteady on its whining thrusters.
‘You dismissed me back on board the Echo, Talos. I don’t have to follow your orders, do I? Come with us.’
‘Don’t die with us, Septimus. Run. Anywhere but here.’
Talos was the first to reach the eldar maiden, as she was releasing the first not
es of her paralysing shriek. He charged with a raised sword, telegraphing his intent to give a two-handed cleave. At the last second, as her spear came around to offer a perfect parry, he launched up and thundered a kick to the front of her facemask. Her head snapped back, the howl ended as her helm cracked, and she caught herself in a graceful handspring to avoid falling to the floor.
Talos landed hard and rolled back to his feet, the golden blade coming up again. He grinned at the sight of her deathmask split down the middle by a brutal faultline crack.
‘You have no idea how satisfying that was,’ he told her.
‘You,’ she said in mangled Gothic. Her helm’s vocaliser grille was damaged, deforming her speech. ‘Hunter of Souls.’
He met her again, blade on blade, their power weapons resisting one another like opposing magnetic fields.
‘I’m so tired of that name,’ Talos breathed. He head-butted her, shattering the mask a second time. He saw her eye – her alien eye, slanted and unlovely – through the crack.
Cyrion and Lucoryphus came at her from opposite sides. The former had his chainblade parried by the three-knived throwing blade in her other hand; the latter missed with both lightning claws as the maiden danced out of the warriors’ triangle, flipping and leaping aside.
She stumbled as she landed, the first sign of gracelessness in her movements, and they all heard the rasping hiss of pain. Blood sheeted her left leg from the shin down. Whatever had wounded her had done a beautiful job of hobbling her. Wounded, she was barely faster than them.
Lucoryphus wasn’t part of First Claw, and lacked the unity of purpose that showed so clearly in the other two brothers. He leapt ahead of them with a roar that wouldn’t have shamed a Nostraman lion, clawed fingers curled and aiming for her heart.
The spear met him in the chest, annihilating his breastplate and casting him to the ground. Even as the maiden rammed her spear one-handed through the prone Raptor’s stomach, she was hurling her throwing star.
Cyrion’s enhanced reactions were honed from centuries of battle, and years of training even before that. In his lifetime, he’d blocked solid-slug bullets on his vambrace, and weaved to avoid laser fire without feeling its heat. His reflexes, like all of the warriors within the Legiones Astartes, were so far beyond human that they bordered on supernatural. He was already moving to dodge aside before the blade left her fingers.
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