Ferrus pushed him off and backed away, his ruddy, craggy features pale and horrified. Knowing he had to press on, Fulgrim said, ‘Others have already seen this truth and are moving to join Horus. We will strike before the Emperor is even aware that his designs have been unmasked. Horus will reclaim the galaxy in the name of those whose blood was spent to conquer it!’
Fulgrim wanted to laugh as the words spilled from him, the thrill of finally unburdening himself almost too great to stand. The breath heaved in his lungs, and he could not tell whether the thundering he could hear was the blood surging in his skull or the hammers of far away forges.
Ferrus Manus shook his head, and Fulgrim despaired as he saw his brother’s horror turning to fury. ‘This is the new direction of the Crusade you spoke of?’
‘Yes!’ cried Fulgrim. ‘It will be a glorious age of perfection, my brother. What we have won is already being given away to imperfect mortals who will waste the glories we won for them. What we have earned in blood and tears will be ours again, can’t you see that?’
‘All I see is betrayal, Fulgrim!’ roared Ferrus Manus. ‘You are not talking about claiming back what we have won; you are talking about betraying everything we stand for!’
‘My brother,’ implored Fulgrim, ‘please! You must listen to me. The Mechanicum has already pledged its support to the Warmaster, as have many of our brothers! War is coming, war that will engulf this galaxy in flames. When it is over, there will be no mercy for those on the wrong side.’
He saw the colour flood back into his brother’s face, a raw and bellicose red that he knew all too well. ‘Ferrus, I beg you for the sake of our brotherhood to join us!’
‘Brotherhood?’ bellowed Ferrus. ‘Our brotherhood died when you decided to turn traitor!’
Fulgrim backed away from his brother as he saw the murderous intent in his blazing silver eyes. ‘Lorgar and Angron are ready to strike, and Mortarion will soon be with us. You must join me or you will be destroyed!’
‘No,’ snarled Ferrus Manus, hefting Forgebreaker to his shoulder. ‘It is you who will be destroyed.’
‘Ferrus, no!’ pleaded Fulgrim. ‘Think about this. Would I come to you like this if I did not believe that it was the right thing to do?’
‘I don’t know what’s happened to you, Fulgrim, but this is treachery and there is only one fate for traitors.’
‘So… you are going to kill me?’
Ferrus hesitated, and Fulgrim saw his shoulders sag in despair.
‘I am your sworn honour brother and I swear to you that I do not lie,’ pressed Fulgrim, hoping that there was still a chance to convince his brother not to act in haste.
‘I know you’re not lying, Fulgrim,’ said Ferrus sadly, ‘and that’s why you have to die.’
Fulgrim brought his sword up as Ferrus Manus swung his hammer for his head with blinding speed. The two weapons rang with a clash of steel that Fulgrim felt echo in the very depths of his soul. Flames blazed from his blade and lightning crackled from the head of Ferrus’s hammer. The two primarchs stood locked together, Fulgrim pressing his fiery blade towards Ferrus, and the commander of the Iron Hands holding him at bay with the haft of his hammer.
Burning light and sound filled the Iron Forge, the weapons roaring as the unimaginable forces harnessed in their creation were unleashed. Ferrus dropped his guard and hammered his fist into Fulgrim’s face, the force of the blow enough to crush the helmet of Tactical Dreadnought armour, but barely enough to bruise the flesh of a primarch. Fulgrim rode the blow and smashed his forehead into his brother’s face, spinning on his heel and slashing his red hot blade towards Ferrus’s throat.
The blade clanged on Ferrus’s gorget, sliding clear without so much as scratching the black plate. Ferrus spun away from a return strike and swung his hammer one handed as he bought some space with his wide swings. The two warriors circled one another warily, both aware of how deadly the other could be, having fought side by side in decades of war. Fulgrim saw tears in his brother’s eyes, and the mixture of sorrow and pleasure he took from the sight made him want to throw down his weapon and clasp his brother to his breast, that he might share such a stupendous experience.
‘This is pointless, Ferrus,’ said Fulgrim. ‘Even now the Warmaster is preparing to expunge the weak from his forces at Isstvan III.’
‘What are you talking about, traitor?’ demanded Ferrus.
Fulgrim laughed. ‘The power of four Legions will be unleashed against Isstvan III, but only those portions that are not loyal to the Warmaster and his grand designs for the future of the galaxy. Soon, perhaps even already, those weak elements will be dead, cleansed in the fire of a viral bombardment.’
‘The Life Eater?’ whispered Ferrus, and Fulgrim relished the horror he saw in his brother’s eyes. ‘Throne alive, Fulgrim, how could you be party to such murder?’
Wild laughter bubbled up inside Fulgrim, and he leapt to the attack, his blazing sword cleaving the air in a fiery arc. Once more, Ferrus’s hammer came up to block the blow, but it was not a weapon designed for long duels, and Fulgrim rolled the blade over the haft and stabbed for his brother’s face.
The burning blade scored along Ferrus’s cheek, the skin blackening to match his armour, and his brother cried out as the sword he had forged dealt him a grievous wound. Blinded for the briefest second, he staggered away from Fulgrim.
Fulgrim stepped in, not letting his brother widen the gap, and smashed his fist repeatedly into Ferrus’s face, hearing bone splinter beneath his assault. Ferrus reeled from the punches, blood drenching the lower half of his face. Fulgrim’s senses shrieked with pleasure at the sight of his brother’s pain, and his every sense was stimulated by what he was doing.
As Ferrus stumbled, blinded and incoherent, Fulgrim closed and swung his sword for Ferrus’s neck. The sword arced towards Ferrus, but instead of raising his weapon to block the blow, Ferrus dropped the hammer and turned into the blow, catching the descending blade in his molten silver hands.
Fulgrim cried out as the pain of the impact jarred his arms. He tried to pull his weapon free, but Ferrus had it locked tight in his hands. The blade was utterly immobile, the chrome-steel of his brother’s hands swirling as though changing from solid matter to liquid metal. Fulgrim blinked as the metal of his sword seemed to liquefy and the fire of its blade rippled up Ferrus’s hands.
Ferrus opened his eyes, and the fire of the sword was alive in the silver coins of his eyes.
‘I forged this blade,’ hissed Ferrus, ‘and I can break it too.’
No sooner had the words left his mouth than Fireblade exploded in a bright flare of molten metal. Both primarchs were hurled from their feet by the force of the blast, their armour and flesh burned by white hot gobbets of molten metal.
Fulgrim rolled and blinked stars from his eyes, stunned by the force of the explosion. He still held the ruined Fireblade, though all that was left of the sword above the hilt was a smoking nub of hissing metal. The sight of the ruined blade penetrated the red mist of sensation that drove him and the symbolism of the weapon’s destruction was not lost on him.
Ferrus was dead to him and would rather die than join the new galactic order of the Warmaster. He had hoped it would not come to this, but he knew that there was no other way this drama could end.
Ferrus lay insensible, his hands glowing with the wrath of the Fireblade’s unmaking. His brother moaned in pain at the destruction he had wrought, and Fulgrim pushed himself to his feet as his brother groaned at the horror of what had transpired within his sanctum.
Fulgrim leaned down and took up his brother’s warhammer, a weapon he had poured his heart and soul into, a weapon that had been forged for his own hand in a time that seemed as though it belonged to another age.
The weapon felt good, and he hefted it easily over one shoulder as he stood triumphantly over his brother’s recumbent body. Ferrus propped himself up on his elbows and looked up through blood gummed eyes. ‘You had best kill me, for I’ll se
e you dead if you do not.’
Fulgrim nodded and raised Forgebreaker over his head, ready to deliver the deathblow.
The mighty warhammer trembled in his grip, though Fulgrim knew that it was not its weight that made it do so, but the realisation of what he was about to do. The darkness of his eyes met with the blazing silver of his brother’s, and he felt his resolve waver in the face of the murder he was about to commit.
He lowered the hammer and said, ‘You are my brother, Ferrus, I would have walked unto death with you. Why could you not have done the same for me?’
‘You are not my brother,’ spat Ferrus through the blood of his ruined face.
Fulgrim swallowed hard as he sought to summon the strength to do what he knew must be done. He heard a dim voice, a faraway whisper that screamed at him to crush the life from Ferrus Manus, but its entreaties were drowned by the memories of the great friendship he had once shared with his brother, for what could compete with such a bond?
‘I will always be your brother,’ said Fulgrim, and swung the hammer in an upward arc that connected thunderously with Ferrus’s jaw. Ferrus’s head snapped back and he collapsed to the floor of the Iron Forge, rendered unconscious by a blow that would have sent a mortal man’s head spinning through the air for hundreds of metres.
The voice in his head screamed distantly for him to finish the killing, but Fulgrim ignored it and turned away from his brother. He kept hold of the hammer and made his way to the gates that led back into the Anvilarium.
Behind him, Ferrus Manus lay broken, but alive.
THE GREAT GATES to the Iron Forge swung open and Julius saw Fulgrim emerge bearing the mighty warhammer, Forgebreaker. Gabriel Santor also saw the weapon Fulgrim bore, but was not quick enough to realise its import until Julius turned and shouted, ‘Phoenician!’
Instantaneously, the warriors of the Phoenix Guard swung the crackling blades of their golden halberds and beheaded the Morlocks they stood next to with chillingly perfect symmetry. Ten heads clattered to the floor, and Julius smiled as Gabriel Santor and the astropath spun in horrified confusion. The Phoenix Guard closed the noose on the centre of the Anvilarium with measured strides, their bloodied blades extended before them like those of executioners.
‘In the name of the Avernii, what are you doing?’ cried Santor as the gates of the Iron Forge closed behind Fulgrim with a hollow boom. Julius could see that the First Captain of the Iron Hands was itching to draw his weapon, but did not do so in the certain knowledge that his death would follow as soon as he reached for it.
‘Where is Ferrus Manus?’ demanded Santor, but Fulgrim silenced him with a shake of his head and a sly smile of pity.
‘He is alive, Gabriel,’ said Fulgrim, and Julius hid his surprise at this news. ‘He would not listen to reason and now you will all suffer. Julius…’
Julius smiled and turned to Gabriel Santor, lightning sheathed claws sliding from the gauntlets of his Terminator armour. Even as Santor saw what must inevitably happen next, it was too late as Julius hammered the crackling blades into his chest and tore them downwards. The energised claws tore through Santor’s armour, ripping through his chest cavity and exiting in a gory spray of blood at his pelvis.
The First Captain of the Iron Hands collapsed, his lifeblood flooding from his ruined body, and Julius savoured the delicious aroma of electrically burnt flesh.
Fulgrim nodded appreciatively and opened a channel to the Pride of the Emperor.
‘Marius,’ he said, ‘we will be making our way to the Firebird, and could use something to keep the 52nd Expedition’s ships busy. You may open fire.’
TWENTY
A Difficult Voyage
Isstvan III
Perfect Failure
DARK CURRENTS AND swirling colours, unknowable beyond the gates of the empyrean, flowed around the Pride of the Emperor and her small complement of escorts as they forged a passage through the warp. Fulgrim’s flagship bore fresh scars of war, but for all that her hull was imperfect, her magnificence was undimmed. The guns of the Iron Hands warships had left their marks upon her once pristine hull, but the shots had been fired in spite and futile defiance, for the broadsides fired by Fulgrim’s warships had caught the Iron Hands completely by surprise.
The battle had been short and one-sided, and though the vessels accompanying the Pride of the Emperor were few in number they had inflicted crippling punishment on those of their former allies, and disrupted their ability to respond in any meaningful way.
Much to Marius Vairosean’s disappointment, Fulgrim had called a halt to the attack before the destruction of the Fist of Iron was complete. Leaving the crippled X Legion’s fleet becalmed, the ships of the Emperor’s Children had disengaged and made the translation into the immaterium to rendezvous with the forces of the Warmaster once more.
Initially, things had gone as smoothly as could be hoped for, but barely a week into the journey to Isstvan III, storms of fearsome power erupted in the warp, tsunamis of unreality that crashed around the vessels of the 28th Expedition and smashed one to destruction before the few surviving Navigators had managed to fight their way through the storms and guide the ships to relative safety.
Moments prior to the first maelstrom of force, terrifying shrieks of agony and terror had echoed the length and breadth of the Pride of the Emperor’s astropathic choir chambers. Alarms had sounded, and one entire chancel was blown clear of the vessel by the force of the psychic forces unleashed, forks of purple lightning dancing across the hull before null-shields and integrity fields had contained the breach. Hundreds of telepaths were dead, and those wretched ruins of flesh that survived were reduced to babbling, moronic psychotics. Before their elimination, those that retained some form of communication spoke of terrifying, galaxy changing forces unleashed, a world devoured by a monstrous, creeping death, fires that reached to the heavens, and the ending of billions of lives at a single stroke.
Only Fulgrim and his coterie of most trusted warriors understood the truth behind these forces, and the feasting and carousing that greeted the news plumbed new depths of insanity. The Emperor’s Children revelled in the Warmaster’s strength of purpose with the abandon that was now commonplace in the Legion.
As the revelries of the Astartes continued, the preparations for Bequa Kynska’s Maraviglia reached new heights of wonder and decadence, with each rehearsal discovering new and undreamt of raptures to include. Coraline Aseneca trod the boards nightly as she trained her voice to replicate the sounds recorded in the Laer temple, and Bequa’s symphony soared passionately as she sought to encapsulate its power in musical form. As part of her quest, she developed new and outlandish musical devices, their melodies as yet unheard and unknown. Such was their scale and form that they more resembled weapons than instruments, monstrously oversized horns like missile tubes and stringed mechanisms with long necks like rifles.
La Fenice became a magical place of music and art, with the remembrancers working on the decor and embellishments of the theatre, excelling themselves as they strove to create a venue worthy of staging the Maraviglia.
Fulgrim spent a great deal of time in La Fenice, offering his insights to the artists and sculptors, and every suggestion was followed by frantic bouts of creativity as they were immediately implemented.
Fragmentary scraps of information trickled in from Isstvan III, and it was eventually discerned that the Warmaster’s first strike against those whose loyalty remained with the Emperor had failed to wipe them out completely. Instead of viewing this as a setback, it appeared that the Warmaster had taken it as an opportunity to blood his loyal warriors and complete what had begun with the war against the Brotherhood of the Auretian Technocracy.
Warriors from the World Eaters, Death Guard and Sons of Horus were at war in the fire-wracked ruins of a murdered world, hunting down and destroying the deluded fools who believed they could oppose the Warmaster’s will.
Even now, declared Fulgrim, Chaplain Charmosian and Lord Commander Ei
dolon would be earning the Warmaster’s plaudits as they displayed the battle perfection of their beloved Legion. When the killing on Isstvan III was done, the chaff would have been cut from Horus’s force, and they would be a sharpened blade aimed at the heart of the corrupt Imperium.
But the reunion of Fulgrim and Horus was to be delayed it seemed.
With the death of the majority of the astropaths, communication with the 63rd Expedition was problematic to say the least, with the shattered sanity of those left alive making the precise exchange of information between the two fleets virtually impossible. The Navigators could not discern a course through the warp not wracked with heaving currents and battering storms, and declared that it would take at least two months to reach Isstvan III.
Fulgrim chafed at such delays, but even a being as mighty as a primarch was powerless to quiet the tempests of the immaterium. In the enforced wait, he studied more of the writings of Cornelius Blayke, coming upon a passage that lodged like a splinter of ice in his heart.
He tore the page from the book and burned it, but its words returned to haunt him as the dark voyage through the warp continued:
‘The phoenix is an angel; the clapping of whose wings is the roar of thunder.
And this thunder is the fearful note that heralds the cataclysm, And the roar of the onrushing waves that will destroy paradise.’
THE SCULPTURE WAS almost complete. What had begun many months ago as a gleaming white rectangle hewn from the quarries at Proconnesus on the Anatolian peninsula was now a towering, majestic sculpture of the Emperor of the Imperium. Ostian’s workshop was almost tidy, only the tiniest chips and flakes of marble drifting to the floor, for the last stage of his statue’s journey was being wrought with files and rasps of greater and greater fineness.
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