by Gav Thorpe
‘Just how bad is this?’ asked Iconialis, his voice losing its usual timbre, hushed with worry. ‘I mean… I do not know what to say. I can scarcely believe it.’
‘I won’t lie to you, iterator. War is coming, like nothing you’ve ever seen. A war that will tear the galaxy apart. A war between the Legiones Astartes.’
THE PRISONER WAITED patiently, bemused by his incarceration. He sat on a plain chair that was almost too small for him, dressed in a simple grey robe. He was being kept in an empty storage room not far from Alpha Terminal near the summit of Ravenspire. Corax had ordered the old punishment cells sealed forever after the revolution and it had seemed pointless to open up one of the vacant wings for one legionary. On a world that had once housed nearly ten million prisoners, the massive warrior looked incongruous amongst the metal shelves and cabinets; there was still a mop and bucket in the corner.
Agapito stood to one side of the closed door, Solaro on the other. The commanders stared directly ahead, not looking at their charge. Agapito did so only with immense self-control, and knew that Solaro felt the same. That the prisoner was still alive was a testament to the discipline of the legionaries that had returned directly from Isstvan. He had been taken into custody and treated with a level of dignity that many of them had not known as inmates of Lycaeus. Corax had taught them that there was no honour in heaping the suffering they had endured on others.
A spoken word from the legionary standing outside heralded the arrival of the primarch. Corax had been forced to deal with the remembrancers first, but this matter had been raised between the primarch and his commanders on the return to Deliverance. Agapito opened the door, unsure what his master intended as Corax ducked through, instantly filling the small room with his bulk. The door closed again with a dull clang and Agapito finally allowed himself to look at the prisoner, disgust welling up from the pit of his stomach.
His name was Iarto Khoura and he had come to the Raven Guard shortly after the Edict of Nikaea to ensure the ban on the Librarians was enforced. Like others of his kind throughout the Legions, he had been an unpopular figure, an embodiment of outside interference that aggravated the independently-minded Raven Guard. Despite this, Agapito had never had any personal argument against the man, and had fought alongside him in several wars.
The Word Bearers Chaplain looked up at Corax’s entrance, relief on his face.
‘Lord Corax,’ he said, rising to his feet with a bow of the head. ‘I am glad you have returned to right this matter.’
‘Be silent,’ snapped the primarch, causing the Chaplain to flinch. ‘Sit down and do not speak.’
‘I have been patient thus far with your men, bu–’
‘Silence!’
Corax’s roar flooded the room, causing Agapito’s ears to ring. Khoura fell into the chair, almost breaking it, stunned by the violence of the primarch’s outburst.
‘You are a traitor,’ said Corax, his voice now dipping to an angered whisper, more intimidating than his shout. ‘You are an enemy of the Emperor.’
Khoura opened his mouth and then quickly closed it as the primarch’s frown grew even deeper.
‘Your primarch is a cowardly, treacherous worm,’ Corax continued, crouching down so that his face was centimetres from that of the Chaplain. ‘Your Legion are worthless scum, whose false praises of the Emperor ring even hollower than ever. Your fellow Chaplains are either dead or fled.’
Fighting against the urge to retort to such accusations, Khoura squirmed in the chair, mouthing wordless defences.
‘Why did you not come to Isstvan?’ demanded Corax.
‘It was not my place,’ replied the Chaplain. ‘It was better that I remained here to continue my instruction of the Legion’s recruits. You agreed with that proposal, lord.’
‘Convenient for you. Very convenient that you were not there when your Legion opened fire on my warriors, cutting them down from behind.’
‘They did what?’ Khoura looked aghast at the thought and shook his head. ‘No, that is impossible.’
‘There are seventy-five thousand Raven Guard corpses as evidence of its possibility,’ snarled Corax. ‘How long have you been planning your betrayal, Iarto? Since the Emperor slapped Lorgar back into place? Before then?’
‘I am a Chaplain, dedicated to the spread of the Imperial Truth,’ replied Khoura. ‘I was despatched to Deliverance by the edict of Malcador to ensure the Emperor’s will was being done.’
‘More lies! You were sent by Lorgar to spy on us, to pervert my warriors to the cause of Horus.’
‘That is not true. What evidence do you possess that I am anything but a loyal servant of the Emperor? I have been with your Legion since Nikaea. How can you hold me responsible for the actions of my primarch?’
‘Because you are a Word Bearer. You speak with the tongue of Lorgar. That is your dark creed. You masquerade as the bearer of Enlightenment, but you are nothing but an apostle of treachery.’
‘You have no right to acc–’
Corax snatched up Khoura by the throat, lifting him into the air, banging the Chaplain’s head against the ceiling.
‘Liar! Nothing but filthy lies spill from your bastard lips, son of Lorgar.’
Agapito took a step forwards, but was stopped by Solaro’s hand on his arm. The other commander silently shook his head. Khoura’s gasping face grew redder and redder as the primarch’s grip tightened.
‘This is my world, my Legion,’ rasped Corax. ‘You pollute both with your presence.’
There was a loud crack and Khoura’s head flopped to one side, neck snapped. Corax growled wordlessly and lowered the limp corpse back onto the chair. He turned back towards the door and stopped suddenly as he saw Agapito and Solaro. The primarch’s face was deathly white, his eyes black pits. Agapito felt a moment of trepidation as he looked at his lord’s twisted snarl.
‘Throw this filth in a furnace,’ said Corax. He closed his eyes and visibly calmed, some of the blood returning to his face. ‘I want his quarters searched again. If there is anything to connect him to Horus’s plans, I want it found. Check his communications logs to see if he was contacted by Lorgar or any of the other Word Bearers within the last year.’
‘Should we not have done that before his execution?’ asked Solaro.
Agapito drew in a sharp breath, detecting a hint of annoyance in the tone of the other commander.
‘To what end?’ said Corax.
‘Proof of his guilt, as he demanded,’ said Solaro. The commander met the primarch’s gaze without fear, hands clasped respectfully in front of him.
‘We cannot take the risk of allowing a traitor in our ranks. Besides, I could smell the taint on him, now that I know what it is,’ said Corax. He looked at Agapito. ‘You saw what had become of the Word Bearers on Isstvan.’
‘I saw things that I wish I never had,’ replied Agapito. ‘The Word Bearers were only one amongst many such.’
‘If you are blind to it, I must open your eyes,’ said the primarch. ‘Too long have we kept this secret. It was the Emperor’s will, but that no longer matters. He underestimated its threat.’
‘What are you saying, lord?’ said Solaro. ‘What threat?’
Corax blinked rapidly with surprise and wiped a hand across his face. His expression of torment had gone when he removed his pale hand, replaced by a saner look.
‘Nothing. I am not… My judgement is clouded,’ said Corax. He opened the door but turned his head as he stepped through. ‘Send Branne to me. We must prepare the recruits.’
When the primarch was gone, Solaro gave Agapito a strange look.
‘What was that about? What stench?’ asked the commander.
‘Must be a primarch thing,’ replied Agapito. ‘I smell nothing here except the sweat of a dead man. You go and fetch Branne, I’ll deal with this.’
Agapito spent several minutes looking at Khoura’s corpse after Solaro had left, thinking about what the primarch had said. Solaro was indeed blind to it, perhaps
had not seen the taint, but Agapito knew what Corax had referred to. The taint had a name, a name he had heard whispered for the first time on Isstvan: Chaos.
RAD-FIRES FLICKERED BLUE at the heart of the mangled city, turning the ruddy sky purple with their blaze. The ruins stretched for dozens of kilometres, silhouettes like broken teeth jutting against the glow. For nearly a century the fires had burned, a warning to Kiavahr not to return to its despicable past. The impact site was a cratered bowl of glass, levelled in an instant by the atomic mining charges the rebels had dropped down the gravity well. The stump of the orbital elevator remained as a twisted upthrust of solidified slurry that pointed accusingly at Lycaeus above.
Further out the buildings had survived, though some were little more than molten piles of rubble and slag. Gas pockets and ruptured fuel lines added their own sporadic glare to the scene, brightening the dead landscape with flashes of white-hot promethium plumes and clouds of venting vapour that oxidised into flurries of green and orange before dissipating into the polluted atmosphere.
With no buildings to break it, the wind raged, scouring the ruins with hurricane force, adding its own erosion to the destruction wrought by the improvised nuclear bombs. Bridges over glowing rivers of molten ferrocrete swayed dangerously, their metallic creaks and groans an eerie cry in the desolation. Stairwells ascended into thin air where once stratoscrapers had soared towards the heavens. Foundry cooling pools had become rad-lakes, tumbled aqueducts spilt forth sluggish rivers that oozed rather than flowed along sheer-sided ravines that had once been the streets of Nairhub.
Into this crawled a convoy of armoured vehicles, their broad tracks churning through the dust and ash. Each vehicle was low and broad, carried on four independent sets of tracks. The wind keened from their heavily riveted hulls and whipped communication aerials back and forth. They were marked with the symbols of the Mechanicum, but the armoured legionaries manning the open defence cupolas showed the livery to be a deception.
Five in all, the transports advanced slowly, the lead vehicle picking its way over the piles of rubble, grinding and crushing brick and ferrocrete beneath its bulk. Alpharius manned a turret on the foremost rad-crawler, twin heavy bolters on the pintle in front of him. Despite the ruin, the rad-zone was not without its inhabitants, both humanoid and otherwise. He had been surprised by talk of guilders hiding out in the wastes, protected by flimsy rad-domes and force shelters. Corax had left it to the Mechanicum to clear the last remnants of the old authorities, eager to join the Great Crusade. That the Mechanicum had been lax in their prosecution of the guild survivors would no doubt be of great benefit to the Alpha Legion’s task here.
One building stood proud amongst the debris of the old war. Swathed with noxious fog, it stood three storeys high, slab-sided like a hangar, and bore the sigil of the Raven Guard. Armoured towers at each end followed the advance of the vehicles with batteries of lascannons.
‘Ravendelve in sight,’ Commander Agapito reported over the vox.
It was a training facility, used by the Raven Guard to conduct wargames in the nuclear wasteland. Sometimes the recruits were sent out against the separatist camps that still eked out an existence in the heart of the atomic carnage. It was here that Corax had chosen to set up his new facility, away from the eyes of the Mechanicum.
It was a good choice for seclusion, and with news of Horus’s treachery bound to have reached Kiavahr, it struck Alpharius as good cover for the gene-tech laboratory. Those few who might notice would not be surprised at an increase of activity here.
There was an outer wall guarding the compound, ten metres high. Armoured gates slid aside to allow the vehicles to enter, and then ground shut when the last transport had passed. Radiation detectors in Alpharius’s suit flashed from green to a warning amber for a moment as they passed along the road to the building: a rad-pocket. He had no concerns for his safety. Even without his armour, his modified body was capable of withstanding the levels of nuclear pollution in the area. Further into the wastes would be a different matter, and as the transporter shuddered to a halt in the shadow of Ravendelve, he wondered again how the dissidents could survive at all.
Covered by the defences of the station, the Raven Guard disembarked and formed up beside their vehicles while Corax, Agapito and Branne headed into the facility. The hydraulic ramps on the side of each transport lowered and they began the process of unloading their precious cargo.
Alpharius had noticed something particular about the force sent down to Kiavahr when they had boarded the strike cruiser that had brought them here: they were all from the vault expedition. Clearly Corax trusted only those he was forced to with the knowledge of the gene-tech. There were no serfs, only legionaries, the most trustworthy of the Emperor’s servants. The only exceptions were the tech-priest and his servitors, who were essential to the project. The Alpha Legionnaire wondered what story had been told to the rest of the Raven Guard to explain the goings-on on the world below.
Secrets made Alpharius happy. In secrecy, Corax hoped to rebuild his Legion, but secrets were the favoured battleground of the Alpha Legion. The Raven Guard were entering alien territory now, and would be made to pay for their inexperience. Secrecy created its own problems of communication, and would ultimately hamper Corax. The primarch had stepped into a twilight world of misdirection, and would be made to pay for the mistake. The increased security did not bother Alpharius now; he was already one of the trusted few. The Raven Guard feared their secret would be discovered and would bend their efforts to maintaining the falsehood, not knowing that their security had already been compromised and the enemy lurked within.
The interior of Ravendelve was far larger than Alpharius had expected. It burrowed into the ground for several more levels. He followed the rest of the squad down a ramp towards the sub-levels, a motorised trolley steered in front of him, into the bowels of the facility. Most of the space was taken up with the dorm rooms for recruits and legionaries sent here on exercise – empty for the moment – with the rest taken up by a huge drill hall and firing ranges.
‘Where are you going?’
Alpharius froze at the sound of Branne’s voice. He looked over his shoulder to see the Commander of Recruits and his brother standing at a doorway he had just passed, the twinkling lights of command consoles winking behind them.
‘Pardon, commander?’ said Alpharius, not sure what was expected of him.
‘That crate, it’s clearly marked for the infirmary,’ continued Branne. ‘What are you doing down here? We don’t have the luxury of time to dawdle about.’
‘Have you lost your way?’ asked Agapito, a smile on his lips.
The unease of Alpharius increased dramatically as he realised the two commanders were expecting him to change direction and head towards the infirmary there and then. He had no idea where it was! His eyes scoured the walls for any sign or markings that might indicate its location. There was nothing to aid him. He looked back at Agapito and Branne, something like desperation surfacing in his thoughts.
‘You can share the elevator with me,’ a voice called down the corridor. Alpharius swung around and saw the white armour of Vincente Sixx, an Apothecary he had met after infiltrating the Legion on Isstvan V. He was standing at the open door of a conveyor in a small vestibule behind Alpharius.
‘Good idea,’ said Alpharius, breathing a sigh of relief. He thumbed the motor of the trolley into life and guided it towards the waiting Apothecary, who slid the door closed behind him as Alpharius brought his trolley to a stop on the metal floor of the elevator.
‘I know how you feel,’ said Sixx, pulling a lever to send the elevator ascending to the upper levels. ‘It seems like an age since I was last here. Can barely remember where anything is.’
‘Too true,’ said Alpharius. A thought occurred to him. ‘I don’t remember you from the expedition on Terra.’
‘No, I stayed on the Avenger,’ said Sixx. ‘I’m Chief Apothecary now, though, so the primarch couldn’t well
start all of this gene-tech business without bringing me in. To be honest, even the little of what I’ve seen is way beyond anything I know. Nexin, the tech-priest, will be doing most of the work. I’m just here to liaise.’
‘A solemn duty,’ said Alpharius, ‘and a great responsibility.’
‘One I am entirely unprepared for,’ said Sixx without any hint of humour. ‘My brother Apothecaries suffered badly at the dropsite. It would appear that the traitors set out to target us from the outset. Only seven of us got back, and even with only fifteen years in the Apothecarion, it seems I’m the longest-serving. Now I’m supposed to be running the whole project.’
‘I’m sure Corax has every confidence in you.’ The elevator rattled to a halt and Alpharius dragged open the door. ‘We’re all depending on you, Sixx. You won’t let us down.’
‘The infirmary’s this way,’ said the Apothecary, pointing to the right.
‘Yes, it’s coming back to me now,’ said Alpharius. ‘Thanks for the help. Let me know if I can return the favour.’
‘I’ll find plenty for you to do, have no worry about that,’ said Sixx. ‘If even half of what Nexin says is true, there’ll be no shortage of work for everyone. Rebuilding a Legion is going to be hard work.’
Not as hard as it was to destroy one, thought Alpharius, as he followed the Apothecary along the passageway.
HOLDING THE ELECTROWELDER delicately between his fingertips, Stradon Binalt used his other hand to hold the vent vane in place. Sparks erupted onto his skin, already pockmarked by dozens of similar burns, but the work was so delicate he could not use protective gauntlets. The pain was momentary, barely registered.
The weld complete, he put his tools aside and leaned back on his stool to admire his work. From the other workshops around him came the clatter of pneumatics and the crackle of spark-bonders. The smell of ceramite adhesive was thick, the primitive air filtration systems of Ravenspire’s lower levels unable to cope with the vast quantities of the vapour being released by the work of the armourers.
