Carminus saluted and did not wait to be asked the obvious question. ‘The Navigators, my lord. They fell into some kind of fugue state a few moments ago. We tried to awaken them, but they would only speak of “a safe harbour”. Then suddenly they executed a warp translation here.’
Halkryn was at the great windows. ‘This is not the Sol system. The stars are all wrong.’ He pointed up and to starboard, where a thick belt of light – the curve of a galactic spiral arm – was clearly visible.
‘Initial estimates show we are still within the Ultima Segmentum,’ said Carminus. ‘The cogitators are running exact constellation matches now, but it appears we have been displaced.’
‘Hundreds of light-years off course,’ said the primarch. ‘We must assume the worst. Send word to all ships, all squadrons. Take us to battle stations, Sacrus. Anything that does not fly our colours is to be considered dangerous.’ Carminus saluted and turned from the visual pickup to relay the command.
‘How did we come to be here?’ said Kano, struggling to process it. ‘We should be at the gates of Terra.’
‘Warp travel has never been an exact science,’ muttered Zuriel. ‘But if our Navigators were somehow corrupted by the enemy without our knowledge… They may have delivered us to the traitors.’
Sanguinius shook his head. ‘No. This is something different, I can feel it. The storms, the fading of the signal from the Astronomican. It’s all connected.’ He fell silent, musing. ‘I told the Navigators to strike for the strongest telepathic signal.’ The Angel glanced at Kano. ‘What if that was not my father’s beacon on Terra?’
‘How can any light be greater than the Emperor’s?’ insisted Mendrion.
The primarch was grim-faced. ‘I do not know.’
Carminus reappeared in the hololith. ‘Lord Primarch. Fleet pickets are reporting the approach of a skirmish line of unidentified starships.’ He read the data off a slate in his hand. ‘Imperial silhouettes. Heavy cruisers. Frigates. Destroyers. They are running with void shields raised and gun ports open.’
‘A blockade force patrolling the approaches,’ offered Zuriel.
Halkryn raised his arm and pointed. ‘I think I see them. Port quarter high.’
‘Prepare to fire,’ ordered the Angel. ‘Warning shots first. If they do not stand down, order gunners to target for motion kills.’ He turned from the hololith and went to the portal, Kano trailing behind him.
The interception force approached at high velocity, the dots of light swiftly gaining definition. Even from such a great distance, Kano’s enhanced eyesight brought him the shape of the vessels. He saw the distinctive plough-like bow blade common to Imperial warships, and noted that many of the craft had the patched, rough-edged look of veterans. This was no flight of hangar queens, but battle-hardened craft not long off the front lines.
At the leading edge of the group, the hulls were the common silver-grey of the Imperial Army’s naval battalions, but the larger ships had a different livery. A bright cobalt-blue the shade of an evening sky, trimmed with flawless white and shining gold.
At his shoulder, Zuriel saw the same. ‘Can it be?’
‘My lord!’ Carminus called from the hololith relay. ‘We are receiving a signal…’ The captain hesitated, uncertain of what he was about to say. ‘I believe it is for your attention.’
The flickering hologram broke apart into a wash of shimmering static, changing and reforming. It became a powerful figure, a new face, a strong and stern visage of aquiline proportions. A towering warrior whose presence – even diminished by distance and the attenuation of the projection – was still a match for that of the Angel.
‘Roboute…?’ Kano heard the surprise in his primarch’s voice. ‘Brother.’
The master of the XIII Legion smiled, gratitude in his gaze. ‘Well met, Sanguinius. I welcome you to Ultramar and the Five Hundred Worlds.’ He nodded to himself, as if acknowledging a truth now revealed. ‘It is good that you are here. Now we can begin.’
EPILOGUE
Warmaster Horus looked up from his throne and his assembled court as Erebus entered the chamber. The Dark Apostle broke protocol and strode forwards without waiting for acknowledgement, barely even offering a dip of his head as some kind of salute. Annoyance danced in his dark eyes, uncharacteristically clear for once.
‘Warmaster,’ he said, a sneer buried in the words, ‘I bring you a gift from Signus Prime.’
A cluster of Word Bearers followed the Chaplain into the hall, each of them holding on to a chain that extended away to a figure floating off the deck. The figure was a warrior in broken crimson armour, wreathed in a fiery red-orange glow that reeked of anger.
Horus’s Mournival were already stepping forwards, his trusted lieutenants with their hands on bolters and blades, the issue taken with Erebus’s disrespect open for their punishment. The Warmaster gestured with a talon of the huge power claw on his right hand, stopping them before they could act. Instead, he rose and stepped down from the dais.
Ignoring Erebus, he crossed to the tormented warrior. Horus brushed aside the Word Bearers holding the chains, and they gingerly stepped back, releasing their charge. The daemon-touched legionary did not react, his inner glow seething.
The Warmaster felt hatred radiating from the possessed body, and he turned his face to it, basking in the burn. Horus knew rage well, and he saw it contained here. The tortured, cracked armour of the warrior that had once been a son of Sanguinius wavered like a mirage. He studied the figure for anything that showed name or rank, but found only the remains of company and squad markings, and the molten ruin of an Apothecary’s prime helix badge.
‘Who are you?’ he asked.
Infernal eyes regarded him. ‘Who I was no longer matters, Warmaster. I am a weapon at your command.’
Horus smiled coldly. ‘I approve of that.’
‘The hate of a hundred thousand souls fills me. I burn eternally with it. I am bound to the ruin of all things.’ The spectral voice echoed. ‘I am the Fallen Son of Baal, the Cruor Angelus, the Willing Slave. I am the Red Angel.’
‘It takes Angron’s title in vain?’ Maloghurst, the Warmaster’s equerry, dared to offer an opinion. ‘The gladiator will see grave offence in that.’
The daemon-bound did not look away from Horus. ‘If the primarch Angron wishes that name then he may challenge me for it. I deserve it more than he ever will.’
A mixture of gruff amusement and irritation at this presumption moved through the assemblage in the court, and Horus let it die away, circling the possessed figure. Finally, he nodded to himself. ‘You will be of use.’ He turned to walk back to his throne.
‘Of use?’ Erebus repeated, and his tone halted the Warmaster in mid-step. ‘This freak collision of effect is plucked from the rubble of a failed endeavour, and that is all you have to say on the matter?’
‘You take issue with this?’ Horus’s voice was deceptively calm.
It was the manner of Erebus to be metered and calculating in all things; or at least, it had been that at the beginning. But recently, the reticence that shadowed his easy cunning had waned, and there a growth of arrogance was becoming clear.
‘The trap at Signus has failed!’ The Dark Apostle bit out the words. ‘The Blood Angels should be at our banner.’ He jabbed a finger at the floor. ‘Sanguinius should be kneeling before you, bathed in blood and broken. Instead, this remnant is all we have to show for our effort!’ Erebus frowned. ‘So much had been put into the construction of the cults and the blood fanes. We needed that Legion. We would have that Legion, if you had not intervened.’
Horus showed no sign of irritation at the veiled accusation. ‘You think I was wrong?’ He opened his hands. ‘Please, speak plainly Erebus. I would have it no other way.’
That Erebus took the next step was the clearest indication of how much he had changed since Davin. ‘You broke the pattern. You disrupted the flow by offering skulls to the Bloodthirster, all because you did not wish the Angel to stand among us
! You did not want a rival in our ranks! The Blood Angels walk the scarlet path, but now they will never be ours. The Ruinous Powers will not be pleased.’
The Apostle’s brief tirade died away into silence, and no other sound rose beyond it. There came a flash of shock, quickly smothered, as too late Erebus arrived at the understanding that he had overstepped the mark.
Horus studied him, examining the dense lines of text tattooed across the Word Bearer’s face and neck. ‘I admit I am displeased at this turn of events. Sanguinius’s death would have served many purposes, even if my vanity was one of them.’ He grinned, at once malicious and self-deprecating. Then his manner turned cold. ‘But so be it. The Angel will face me in battle before our campaign ends. Only one of us will survive.’
‘That could have been avoided,’ Erebus offered, attempting to make back the ground he had given up.
‘Do you think I am a puppet?’ said Horus. He nodded at the Red Angel. ‘A weapon to be commanded? I think you may. I think you must be reminded of your place in the scheme of things.’
The Warmaster’s hand shot out and snatched at the hilt of a dagger sheathed at the Dark Apostle’s belt. Erebus gave a gasp as Horus took his athame and turned it in his grip, letting the warp-touched blade catch the chamber’s ill light.
‘You let the mask slip, Erebus,’ he told him. ‘You showed yourself to me. I saw what you show them.’ Horus touched the tip of the dagger on the Apostle’s cheek and he flinched away as it burned him. The Sons of Horus were suddenly there at his back, blocking his retreat.
For a moment, the Word Bearers legionaries in the chamber hesitated, hands falling to their weapons, ready to defend their master, but Erebus slowly shook his head, warning them off. He had to realise what was to come, and that he had no choice but to accept it.
‘Let me see that face again,’ said Horus, cutting a bloody line across Erebus’s forehead, as his warriors took the Apostle’s arms and held him rigid. ‘Your true face.’
With an artist’s care, the Warmaster sliced through flesh and into meat. Though he gasped and trembled, Erebus did not cry out. Horus took the severed edge between his fingers, and like the turning of a page, he skinned Erebus’s face from his blood-smothered head.
The Word Bearer staggered back, his features a ruin of crimson, stark white eyes glaring out and unable to blink.
‘The things that whisper in your ear, that you hold in concord with your pacts and your inscriptions… Remind them that they are not the architects of this war.’ Horus paused as he considered the bloody rag that was his new trophy.
‘I am.’
Acknowledgments
As ever, thanks to my sterling editorial team Nick Kyme, Laurie Goulding and Christian Dunn, to Dan Abnett, Graham McNeill and the rest of m’colleagues in the Horus Heresy authors brigade, and Neil Roberts for the greatest death metal album cover ever.
About The Author
James Swallow is a New York Times bestselling author whose stories include the Horus Heresy novels Nemesis and The Flight of the Eisenstein, along with Faith & Fire, the Blood Angels books Deus Encarmine, Deus Sanguinius, Red Fury and Black Tide. His short fiction has appeared in Legends of the Space Marines and Tales of Heresy, along with the audio dramas Heart of Rage, Oath of Moment and Legion of One.
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Published in 2012 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK
Cover illustration by Neil Roberts
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