by Gav Thorpe
‘The Space Wolf, Arvan Woundweaver. I killed him.’
The thrum of the cogitating machines and background hiss of the light fittings seemed deafening in the silence. Branne looked about to explode but the primarch stilled him with a raised hand.
‘Go on,’ said Corax, betraying no emotion.
‘On patrol. Wilderness system, VL-276-87.’
‘Your encounter with the Sons of Horus,’ Corax interrupted. His eidetic memory brought forth more details from Hef’s carefully constructed report. ‘A satellite base, weapons store. All enemy killed. Reactor breach during the fighting destroyed all of the stored munitions.’
‘The base belonged to Space Wolves. It was held by Woundweaver and the watch-pack sent after you, my lord.’
‘So you killed them?’ barked Branne, his fury finally breaking out. ‘Worse still, you kept it a secret from me?’
Hef began to stumble over his words, his careful and measured speech giving way to his bestial tendencies under stress. ‘Woundweaver saw us. Saw roughs. He hate us, I see it. And he would tell Lord Russ. We hear what the Space Wolf just say... I mean, just said. Watch-packs to judge our loyalty. Woundweaver was sent to look for deviation, and found deviants. His mission, given him by Russ himself. Said as much to me.’
Hef’s gaze pleaded with Corax for understanding.
‘Like Sons of Magnus?’ he continued. ‘The Rout, coming for the Raven Guard. Now is worst time for more dispute, more distractions.’
‘Russ would never–’ began Branne.
‘He would,’ Corax cut him off, ‘if he was ordered to do so by our father. If he thought we were a threat. If he saw... that is, if he doubted my loyalty.’
The primarch took a deep breath and his expression looked haunted for a moment as he considered the possibility of the Space Wolves being ordered against the Raven Guard.
‘He would do it, even amongst this carnage, to make the point,’ Corax muttered. His focus returned and he stared at Hef. ‘The reports were a fabrication?’
‘I ordered my men to secrecy,’ Hef continued. ‘Blame is mine.’
‘They didn’t have to comply with an improper order,’ said Branne. ‘Sign off on false reports. They are complicit.’
‘Did comply. Willingly, even. Every rough knows why I did it. Space Wolves were touched by... changes, like Raptors. Beasts inside. Some had gone bad when we found ship. Woundweaver and warriors had killed ones gone bad. Would see us, treat us like ones gone bad, kill roughs as well. “Weregeld”, he called us, called himself and the twisted ones. A price, he said. Price for what, my lord, he didn’t say. Woundweaver would come to Lord Corax, accuse him of crimes. Wanted to spare my lord difficult decision.’
‘Spare me?’ Corax looked amused for a moment, but his expression quickly hardened. ‘It is not your concern to spare me anything, lieutenant. The deed was perhaps ill-considered, but the concealment was a betrayal of trust.’
These last words elicited a gasp of genuine pain from Hef, as though Corax had thrust one of his talons through the chest of the mutated legionary.
‘I know, my lord! Very bad! I was afraid. Afraid for us. Afraid for you.’
‘Afraid...?’ said Branne, surprised to hear the word from a Space Marine.
‘Assessed a risk, commander,’ Hef tried to explain. ‘Conclusion not good for Raptors, not good for Raven Guard or Lord Corax.’
‘Understandable, Hef,’ said Corax. His next words dashed any hope that flickered into life in Hef’s breast. ‘But still unforgivable.’
‘I’ll deal with him, my lord,’ Branne sighed. ‘Confinement for the time being.’
‘No,’ said Corax. ‘You’ll do nothing for the moment.’
‘My lord? Surely some kind of punishment–’
‘And what do we tell the other Raptors, commander?’ snapped Corax. ‘Would you have this crime become the talk of the fleet? And with Rathvin not even departed from the Avenger? I need to consider all aspects of the situation.’
‘I am very sorry, my lord,’ Hef gibbered. ‘So very sorry. Would atone in any way, just tell me how.’
‘I will find a way, Navar Hef, mark my word. And I believe you. I accept your repentance and trust that you will conceal nothing from me again. Though I cannot strip you of your command without prompting questions, consider yourself returned to the ranks. You will exercise no command authority. Tell the others of your conspiracy that I am aware of it now, and that you will all remain in your dormitories until informed of your fate by Commander Branne.’
‘Of course, my lord. We are at your mercy.’
Hef loped out of the briefing hall, his heart still heavy, but lightened a little by his confession.
‘What’s to be done with them then, my lord?’
Branne’s question hung in the air. Corax did not know the answer. He had nothing. His vast intellect could not calculate a solution. His many years of experience threw up no precedents. The distilled wisdom of a hundred philosophers and political thinkers was high on principle and low on detail.
‘Leave me, Branne,’ he whispered.
The commander reluctantly complied, casting a worried glance at his lord at the threshold.
‘They made a big mistake, my lord, but they are loyal. Loyal to you.’
Corax said nothing and Branne left.
The primarch considered his options, trying to fit them into the wider picture. Yet however he looked at the situation it was the implications that dragged at his thoughts.
It was not the loyalty of the Raptors he did not trust, it was his own judgement. He had often thought of the Raptors as a polluted pool, in which pure water still remained in the depths, one that might be cleaned of its taint eventually. But what if the pollution, the corruption, went all the way to the bottom?
Weregeld, the Fenrisians had called it. A price to be paid.
It was superstitious nonsense. What agency would arbitrate such a matter? Who would judge it or impose the cost?
He considered the Raptors true Raven Guard in their hearts and minds, and had said as much to the Legion to assuage distrust of their twisted bodies.
Was he wrong?
A whirlwind of lightning scoured across a dark forest, its buzzing the cackle of a hundred thousand maniacs. Howls on the wind. The roar of bolters. The boom of shells. An azure storm filled the sky, every crack of thunder a heartbeat of a god, every pulse of light revealed a million watching eyes. Through the shadows of the impossibly vast trees loped the wolves, despairing and wounded, their dripping blood a crimson trail through grey bleakness. Their plaintive whines became the cries of dying legionaries that drowned out the turmoil of the storm...
Sweat-soaked, his heart hammering, Marcus Valerius rose from his sleep. Pelon was at the end of the bed, sitting on a small, plain chair with a tumbler of water already in hand.
Valerius drank deeply, draining the cup before he passed it back to his manservant. Pelon placed the tumbler aside and stood up.
‘Shall I fetch the journal, my master?’
‘Yes,’ croaked Valerius, throat still dry, lips cracked. ‘And my uniform. Signal the Avenger, I have to speak with the lord primarch.’
The door chime woke Corax. He was still at his desk, the assembled reports from Branne arranged across its dark stone top. He did not remember falling asleep – almost an impossibility for one with his faculties. Yet how long since he had slept previously? A week? More?
The mind needed time to rest, restore, cogitate and absorb. It was not fatigue that had driven him to sleep, simply a shutting down of physical systems to allow his brain to focus away from the distractions of sight, sounds and touch.
And yet no revelation clamoured for his attention on waking. The dilemmas of the previous day remained dilemmas.
Though he was of no firm resolution, he was of a mind to return to Te
rra. Despite all that weighed against such action, Corax thought the company of his father, his brothers, might be the best place to stand at the end.
He knew the choice was cowardice – to avoid seeing Leman Russ, which would require full disclosure of what had happened between Hef and Woundweaver. That would mean revealing the deformed Raptors. How the Wolf King would react would be anyone’s guess. It was better that there was no more division.
A crass rationalisation, but one Corax was happy to cling to for the moment.
The door chimed again.
‘Open!’ He sat up and straightened the papers. He realised it was dark – the chamber had dimmed the light strip after a period of inactivity. ‘Lights up!’
The brightening illumination fell upon Branne, his face a mask of consternation. Behind him was Marcus Valerius in full uniform, agitated. Corax could not see him but he could smell a third man standing just out of sight in the corridor.
Corax beckoned. ‘Come in, commander. Vice-Caesari.’
Branne looked apologetic.
‘Marcus insisted, my lord. I told him you were occupied with strategy, but he says he cannot delay his audience.’
Valerius tentatively stepped across the threshold; another Therion in the uniform of a tribune, just behind, clutched a much-thumbed book to his chest.
‘We have to go to Yarant,’ the vice-Caesari blurted, stepping around Branne. ‘We have to save Russ and his Wolves.’
‘Have to, vice-Caesari?’ Corax’s lips thinned and his eyes narrowed.
‘Sorry, my lord,’ said Branne. ‘I did not know what Marcus wanted. I thought it was urgent...’ He placed a hand on the vice-Caesari’s arm. ‘We’ll talk about this first.’
‘No!’ Valerius pulled himself away from the commander’s grip. He turned and grabbed the book from his attendant and opened at a marked page. He started to read. ‘A broken crown on a desert dune. A many-headed dragon issues from a cave bathed in blood.’ He flicked to another leaf of the book. ‘A howling wolf, swallowed by a storm.’ He turned the page. ‘A tempest of lightning engulfing a forest in which hide the wolves.’
‘What is this?’ growled Branne. ‘Marcus, what are you doing?’
He made to snatch the book from Valerius but the Therion turned, blocking the Space Marine’s arm.
‘Warnings, my lord!’ the vice-Caesari’s fingers clenched the book and he stared at the primarch. ‘My dreams, Lord Corax. Omens, visions. Portents from the Emperor. Another one. It can be done. We can rescue the sons of Fenris.’
‘No more!’ barked Branne. He grabbed hold of Valerius’s arm and pulled him towards the door. ‘The primarch does not need to hear this nonsense.’
‘Unhand him, commander.’ Corax spoke quietly, but his authority was absolute. Branne complied immediately, releasing his hold on the Therion officer. ‘Marcus, explain yourself.’
‘It is nothing–’ started Branne.
Corax silenced him with a stare. ‘Vice-Caesari, your explanation, please.’
‘I have dreams, my lord. Prescient dreams. I see what will come. In metaphor, visions, impressions.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I know you must think me insane, my lord, but I can no longer hide the truth whatever the consequences. My faith demands such honesty or it is hollow. I thought at first the visions came from you, but I know now that they are a gift of the Emperor. Warnings he sends to me.’
Corax swallowed hard and kept his face passive. This was a conversation he had never expected. He was at a loss and took sanctuary in emotional detachment.
‘Warnings? Dreams?’ He looked at Branne. ‘You seem to know of this already.’
The commander said nothing, but looked utterly wretched. He flinched from the primarch’s gaze and then turned a dagger-stare on Marcus. ‘The vice-Caesari has come to me before with such claims, my lord.’
‘He has? And you did not think fit to tell me?’
Branne’s silence was all the confession Corax expected. The primarch returned his attention to Valerius and gestured for the Therion to hand over his book.
‘This is a record of your... visions?’
Marcus nodded and gave him the journal, reverent in the way he passed it to Corax.
‘Some of them I do not understand, they are on matters beyond my knowledge, events I have not witnessed or identified. Many have come to pass. Some I have acted on, and they have proven their worth.’
The journal was of thin paper bound in cheap card – the sort of book issued to officers for making disciplinary and logistical notes when absent from a cogitator. The script inside was scrawled in uneven lines. The manservant’s writing, Corax assumed, for a Therion of Marcus’ breeding would have far better penmanship. As he looked more closely, he saw there were comments and marks in a far rounder, smoother hand – notes from the vice-Caesari. Some were clarifications, many didn’t make sense, seemingly sentences out of context.
He flicked back and forth. Each page had a date, a location and then a garbled description of something Marcus had dreamed. At the bottom of a few pages, in Marcus’ hand, were written places and dates in capitals.
‘What are these? Corax asked. He turned the book and pointed at one such notation.
‘Where the vision was proven true, my lord.’
Corax looked at the open page. The citation read GHORNA, 676009.M31. He skimmed the preceding vision, which spoke of a hot desert and a spring of fresh water washing away a black filth.
‘Ghorna?’ he said.
‘An agri-world, my lord. I took the Cohort there and found Death Guard plundering its shipment stations. We slew them and resupplied.’
‘I see.’ Corax looked at other pages. ‘How did you know to go to Ghorna?’
‘Guesswork, mostly, my lord,’ admitted Marcus. ‘Or perhaps intuition, you might say. It was the third system we checked. My visions are not precise, as you can see.’ He whispered the next words, almost inaudible. ‘Divine guidance...’
‘And how does this relate to Yarant?’
‘Repeated dreams, my lord, for several weeks. It’s all in there. The wolves being hunted, the storm and the many-headed beast that stalks them is the same every time.’
‘Yes, I understand that. But why do you say it means we can rescue them?’
‘It doesn’t,’ Branne said quickly. He stepped in front of Valerius. ‘Anxiety dreams, nothing more. The war takes its tolls in different ways.’
‘Stand aside, commander,’ Corax growled. ‘I am speaking to the vice-Caesari.’
Branne reluctantly retreated, hands opening and closing into fists, his eyes flicking between the primarch and vice-Caesari.
‘The first page, my lord,’ Valerius said quietly. ‘That will make everything clear. I didn’t start taking the notes back then, but included all of my dreams when I began.’
Corax turned to the start of the journal. The dream spoke of a bloodstained hurricane across a desolate hillside. He read of crimson winds and the cawing of ravens. Hearts quickening, he absorbed the description of flames consuming the flock, turning them to sparks, their caws becoming the roar of bolters and thunder of battle.
The book shook in his trembling hand. He did not need to read further but all the same he had to look at the notation at the bottom of the page.
ISSTVAN, 566006.M31
Corax felt numb. His stare moved from Valerius to Branne and back again, not quite seeing either of them.
‘This is what brought you to Isstvan? A dream?’
‘A... A vision, my lord.’ Valerius wrung his hands. ‘To save you. I thought it came from you, but I was wrong. It was the Emperor reaching out.’
‘You believe this?’ Corax’s gaze fell on Branne. ‘You believe that the Emperor sends vice-Caesari Marcus Valerius visions to guide his acts?’
‘No!’ Branne shook his head fiercely. ‘No, I don’t belie
ve that. I don’t...’ He turned on Valerius, lip curled. ‘That is not what you said to me!’
‘Where else might they have come from, but the Emperor?’ pleaded Marcus.
Where else indeed? Corax stood up. He dropped the book on the ground, fighting to control his anger.
‘Go,’ he managed to say between gritted teeth.
‘My lord, let me explain.’ Branne took a step forward while Valerius snatched up his book and held it to his chest as though it was precious.
‘Go!’
The primarch’s roar was like a shockwave. The two Therions threw themselves to the floor, quailing in fear. Branne staggered backwards, reeling from the intensity of the outburst.
Corax revealed himself, dropping the blanketing aura that kept the majesty of his primarch nature hidden. ‘Go!’
Tears streaming down their faces, Valerius and his attendant fled. Branne bowed, shaking in his armour, and retreated to the door. He looked as though he might protest again but one final look at his master stilled any further comment and he too retreated.
Corax stood for a long time, fists on his desk, staring at the door. The lights seemed stark, too bright, too intense. He was laid bare before their scrutiny. There was nowhere to hide in the light, nowhere to find sanctuary.
‘Doors. Lights down.’
He much preferred the shadows.
No ceremony, no guard of honour. A shortly worded summons brought Marcus Valerius back to the Avenger. He was met on the flight deck by Branne. The commander was alone, his face an impassive mask. Three days had passed since the vice-Caesari had shared his divinely inspired gift, during which he had heard nothing from either Branne or the primarch.
‘What is his mood?’ he asked Branne.
‘I don’t know,’ muttered the commander.
‘Why has he asked for me? Has he said anything to you?’
The two of them turned into the corridor and for the first time in many years Marcus was struck by how stark the interior of the ship was, how much it reminded him of the endless corridors and whitewashed chambers of the Ravenspire. No hangings, no paintings, no decoration. A prison still in its appearance.
