'What did he say?' Torghun asked, pressing me for answers.
I remembered every word.
'He commended us on our speed,' I said. 'He said that he had not expected to be beaten to the summit. He said that we were a credit to the Legion.'
I remembered the way he had walked up to me after the beast was dead, watching tolerantly as I had struggled to bow before him. His armour had been pristine - the creature had not so much as scratched it.
'He told me that speed was not the only thing, though,' I said. 'He said that we were not berserkers like the wolves of Fenris, that we could not forget that we had responsibilities other than breaking things.'
Torghun laughed. The sound was infectious, and I chuckled at the memory.
'So his advice was similar to yours, in the end,' I said.
'I'm glad to hear it,' Torghun said.
I looked out across the wide depression, over to where orbital landers had already come down from the fleet, ready to begin the long process of resupply and refit. Mortal auxiliaries were beginning to make planetfall, shuffling out in their awkward environment suits to liaise with the warriors of the Legion.
I saw a woman walking among them, a grey-haired official wearing a transparent dome-helmet over her suit. It seemed to me that she was in charge of the others, though she didn't look Chogorian - she looked Terran. I wondered what she was doing there.
'So what now for you?' asked Torghun.
I shrugged, turning back to him.
'I do not know,' I said. 'We await orders. And you?'
Torghun looked at me strangely then, as if trying to decide whether to tell me something important. I remembered how he had looked during our first conversation, when he had struggled to explain his brotherhood's name and customs. It was much the same then.
'I can't say,' was all he told me.
It was an unusual reply, but I did not press him. I thought little of it, for mission orders were often restricted and he was entitled to keep his brotherhood's business to himself.
In any case, I had secrets of my own. I did not tell Torghun what else I had seen the Khan do. I did not tell him that he had turned away from me quickly after our brief meeting, distracted by an approach from one of his keshig.
I could recall every word of that exchange too, every gesture.
'A message, Khagan,' his Terminator-armoured bodyguard had said.
'From the Warmaster?'
The keshig had shaken his head.
'Not from him. About him.'
'What does it say?'
There had been an awkward pause.
'I think, my lord, that you might wish to take this on the flagship.'
After that, I had seen an expression on the Khan's face that I had never expected to see there. Amidst all the pride, all the assurance, all the martial majesty, I had seen a terrible shadow of doubt ripple across those haughty features. For a moment, only a moment, I had seen uncertainty, as if some long-buried nightmare had rushed back, inconceivably, into waking thought.
I will never forget that look, imprinted for the briefest of seconds on his warrior's face. One does not forget the doubts of gods.
Then he had gone, striding away to whatever tidings they were that demanded his attention. I had been left on the platform, surrounded by those of my brotherhood who had survived the final assault, wondering what news could have prompted such a rapid departure.
At the time, the episode had troubled me. Facing Torghun, however, with the fortress of our enemies in ruins and the strength of the Legion gathering around me again, I found it hard to reconstruct that emotion.
We had triumphed, just as we had always triumphed. I had no reason to suppose that it would not always be so.
'You were right,' I said. 'Earlier, you were right.'
Torghun looked amused.
'What do you mean?'
'We should learn from the others,' I said. 'I could learn from you. This war is changing, and we need to respond. I did not defend well, back in the gorges. A day will come when we will need to master these things, not just the hunt.'
I am not sure why I said all that. Perhaps the lingering memory of the Khan's unexpected anxiety had dented my confidence.
Torghun laughed. He was not laughing at me that time; I think we had both come to understand one another too well for that.
'No, I don't think you should change, Shiban Khan,' he said. 'I think you should remain as you are. I think you should stay reckless and disorganised.'
He smiled.
'I think that you should laugh when you are killing.'
I FOLLOWED HIS recommendation: when I killed, I laughed. I let the ice-wind pull my hair free, and I felt hot blood against my skin. I ran far and strongly, daring my brothers to keep pace. I was like the berkut, the hunting eagle, free of the jesses, out on the rising air, high up on the horizon.
That was what we were back then; that was what we all were. Minghan kasurga - the Brotherhood of the Storm.
That was our ranking name, the one we used to differentiate ourselves.
In private, we were the laughing killers.
To the rest of the galaxy, we were still unknown.
THAT WOULD CHANGE. Soon after Chondax we would be dragged headlong into the affairs of the Imperium, hauled into a war whose origins we had missed and of whose causes we knew nothing. Powers that had barely registered our existence would suddenly remember us, and our allegiance would become a matter of import for both gods and mortals.
The story of that war has yet to be written. As I stand now, gazing at the stars and preparing for the fires we shall unleash upon them, I do not know where the fates will lead us. Perhaps this will be the mightiest of our many endeavours, the final examination of our species before its ascendance into mastery.
If I am truthful to myself, I find it hard to believe that. I find it more tempting to think that something terrible has gone awry, that the policies and strategems of ancient minds have faltered, and that our dreams hang over the abyss by a thread of silk.
If that is so, then we will fight to the last, putting our mettle to the test, doing what we were bred to do. I take no joy in that. I will not laugh as I kill those whom I have always loved as brothers. This war will be different. It will change us, perhaps in ways we do not even begin to guess.
In the face of that, I take some comfort in the past. I remember the way we used to fight: without care, with vigour, with abandon. Of all the worlds where we laboured, I will remember Chondax with the most fondness. I could never hate that world, no matter the cost in blood to us of its taking. It was the last time that I hunted in the way I was born to - untrammelled, as free as a falcon on the steep dive.
Above all, nothing will rival the memory of that final duel. If I live to see the ruin of everything, if I live to see the walls of the Imperial Palace broken and the plains of Chogoris consumed by flame, I will still remember the way he fought then. That perfection is fixed in time, and no force of malignity can ever extinguish what was done, there, before my eyes, atop the last spire of the white world.
If Yesugei were here with me, he would find the right words. I am no longer confident that I have the gift for it. But were I forced, I would say this.
There was a time, a brief time, when men dared to challenge the heavens and take on the mantle of gods. Perhaps we went too far, too fast, and our hubris may yet doom us all. But we dared it. We saw the prize, and we reached out to grasp it. In fleeting moments, just fractures of time amidst the vastness of eternity, we caught glimpses of what we could become. I saw one such moment.
So we were right to try. We were right to attempt it. He showed us that, less by what he said than by what he did, what he was.
It is for that reason that I will never regret our choices. When the time comes, I will stand against the darkening heavens, keeping his example fixed before my eyes, drawing strength from it, using it to make me as lethal and imperious as he. And when death finally comes for me, as
it will, I will meet it in the proper way: with my blade held loose, my eyes narrow, and warriors' words on my lips.
For the Emperor, I shall say, beckoning fate. For the Khan.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
With thanks to the Horus Heresy authors, in particular
to Dan Ahnett for the invaluable brainstorming on
the White Scars, and to Graham McNeill for graciously
letting me use one of his characters. Also thanks to
Laurie Goulding and the rest of the Black Library team
for their sterling editorial and production work.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chris Wraight is the author of the Space Wolves novel Battle of the Fang. He has also written Schwarzhelm & Helborg: Swords of the Emperor and Luthor Huss in the Warhammer Fantasy universe. He doesn't own a cat, dog, or augmented hamster (which technically disqualifies him from writing for Black Library), but would quite like to own a tortoise one day. He's based in a leafy bit of south-west England, and when not struggling to meet deadlines enjoys running through scenic parts of it.
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