Hasik was waiting for him. The bridge fell silent. Warriors remained in position, their weapons still poised. Every eye was fixed upon the command dais.
‘Noyan-khan,’ said the Khan coldly, climbing the steps and looking down at Hasik. ‘What madness is unleashed here?’
Hasik kept his blade in hand. His expression was inscrutable behind the lenses of his Terminator helm.
‘It was for all of us,’ Hasik said, but even behind the rasp of the vox-grille his voice betrayed his uncertainty. ‘For the Legion.’
‘You knew I would come back,’ said the Khan. ‘Or did you also plan to keep me away until the fleet was secure in your hands? Was that your hope?’
Hasik’s weapon-hand twitched. ‘I wished to see you and the Warmaster united once more. That was my only hope. The whispers of the faithless could not be allowed to prevail.’
‘Faithless?’ The Khan swept his gaze back across the bridge. ‘You cause this, and call others faithless?’
Hasik bristled. ‘It can still be achieved!’ he cried. ‘We made mistakes, but nonetheless we see the truth. He has called, we must follow. That has always been the way.’
‘You have been lied to.’
‘But, lord, you gave no command.’
‘You were told to wait.’
‘Do not end this now,’ urged Hasik, taking a step closer. ‘Give me time, let me explain.’
‘There is no more time.’
‘Lord, I beg–’
‘Enough!’ roared the Khan, raising his blade.
Perhaps unconsciously, perhaps without meaning to, or perhaps through some misguided belief that his cause lent him the power to do so, Hasik lifted his own in response.
The Khan pounced, sweeping his dao hard and locking edges with Hasik’s tulwar. With a twist, he wrenched the sword from the noyan-khan’s gauntlet, then switched back and plunged the dao’s point deep into Hasik’s midriff. The strike was aimed with perfect precision, lancing through the Terminator plate with a hard crack of disruptor discharge.
Hasik went rigid, impaled just below his hearts, unable to respond as searing energies rippled across his body and locked him in paralysis.
Slowly, grindingly, the Khan hefted Hasik off the ground one-handed, pulling him upwards until their faces were level. His blade kept Hasik in position, bearing his full weight and preventing him from responding.
With every ounce of his post-human strength, the Khan reached for Hasik’s helm with his free hand and wrenched it from his head, casting it to the ground in contempt. For a moment they stared into one another’s eyes – one face white with shock, the other rigid with anger.
‘You say you see the truth,’ snarled the Khan. ‘You know nothing of the truth. If you had done as I had commanded, I would be telling you of it now. Instead I will only tell you this – the Legion is the ordu of Jaghatai, and none bear their blades in it save by my word. Thus it has been since we first fought together on the Altak, and no power of the universe, be it Horus or the Emperor or the gods themselves, will ever change that.’
Hasik’s eyes stared wildly, and blood foamed up at the corner of his mouth. His empty gauntlets flexed impotently.
‘You were given freedom that no other lord would countenance,’ said the Khan, his voice heavy with bitterness. ‘Thus do you repay me, and thus do I strike you down.’
The Khan flung Hasik’s body aside. It flew free of the blade and crashed into the throne, cracking it lengthways, before rolling down the steps of the dais. Qin Xa strode over to him, his own weapons drawn, but Hasik did not get up.
The Khan turned away. Rage still pulsed through his veins, laced with the heavy grief of betrayal. For an instant his mind was filled with visions of lashing out further, of bringing punishment down on the entirety of his errant gene-progeny like some vengeful god of the forgotten past.
In the end, though, his eyes were drawn up to the observation arch, out through the enormous realview portals towards Prospero’s orbital space. Far out into the void, silent bursts of light flashed out. Mortarion had spoken the truth about that, at least – ships had engaged, lances were being fired, shields were buckling.
There was no time left. He drew in a long breath.
‘A reckoning will come!’ the Khan cried, addressing the hundreds who waited for guidance. ‘But for now, battle calls. Vox the rest of the fleet. We engage the Death Guard, guang-cha formation, full burn.’
He swept his dark gaze back across his warriors, and the weight of his disappointment in them was crushing.
‘The enemy is known. We hunt again.’
The Sickle Moon powered in close, shields buckling, lances overheating, engines thundering. The Death Guard battleship yawed away above it, burning from the strafing run and hurling back heavy las-fire in return.
Somewhere close by, the Hesiod was careening into the heart of the enemy formation, weapons blazing and void shields on fire. They had both shot into the XIV Legion flotilla at full tilt, knowing that only speed could keep them alive for long. The enemy, advancing slowly to engage a divided and leaderless fleet, had initially been unprepared for the savagery of it. However, their shock had not taken long to wear off.
‘Hard about!’ thundered Lushan, working hard to keep the worst of the incoming fire from tearing them into void debris. ‘Watch that gunship wing – re-target the lateral arrays.’
Yesugei stood silently as the deck tilted. Void-war was an uncomfortable experience for him – there was nothing he could do to control the process. Lushan was a formidable commander, though, and that put his mind at some ease. He had already kept the ship together during a ferocious counter-barrage and was now driving it hard towards the Death Guard vessel’s dorsal hull plating.
‘Power to the lances,’ Lushan ordered, gripping the arms of his command throne tightly.
Even as the words left his mouth, a vicious spike of las-fire impacted across the Sickle Moon’s starboard flank, sending the stressed void shields wild with splash-pattern distortion. The whole ship kicked, as though the engines had briefly coughed out, before it slewed down towards the engagement sphere’s nadir.
The bridge lumens briefly flickered out, followed by an echoing grind from many decks down.
Lushan looked up at Yesugei and smiled wryly. ‘This might be our last pass, zadyin arga.’
Yesugei nodded. ‘Then make it count, brother.’
The Sickle Moon righted, and the thrusters powered it back into position. Ahead of them, just a few hundred kilometres distant, reared the immense outline of the Death Guard battleship Lord of Hyrus. It was more than five times the size of the White Scars ship and built for protracted assault. Its void shields had been strafed badly on the first attack run, but the damage had not been enough to knock them out.
Lushan drove the Sickle Moon right at it, and Yesugei felt the deck shudder as the engines roared again.
‘Lances,’ Lushan ordered. ‘Now.’
The armoury answered, and ice-white beams of energy shot out at the Lord of Hyrus. They hit hard amidships, cracking the void shields around them and carving into the hull.
The White Scars crew cheered, watching the damage spread rapidly. Explosions blossomed out across the battleship, ripping up hull plating and exposing the deck-lattice beneath.
‘Hard about!’ ordered Lushan. ‘They will respond with–’
The Sickle Moon was hit by a blinding volley of counter-measures almost instantly. Torpedoes scythed through the clouds of venting plasma, catching the ship as it angled tightly away from the Death Guard vessel. Las-fire followed – well-aimed and dense.
Yesugei glanced at the scopes. The rearmost of the bigger warships was coming around for the kill, its weapons powering. The Hesiod was in bigger trouble – it had recklessly charged straight into the maw of the monstrous flagship, the Endurance. Henricos had caused havoc but had taken a horrific amount of return fire. He would be lucky to last more than a few more minutes.
‘Can we cover the Hesi
od?’ asked Yesugei calmly.
Lushan laughed. ‘We will do well to survive our own attack run.’
The Sickle Moon was still travelling fast, burning at three-quarters full thrust. Heavier las-fire followed it like crows mobbing a raptor. Another torpedo hit somewhere to aft, sending fresh judders radiating through the structure. They hurtled away from the Lord of Hyrus, sweeping clear of its hard-edged turrets before powering into the void beyond.
Just as Yesugei thought that Lushan had somehow angled them clear of danger, another battleship loomed down over them from hard to port-zenith, its weapons already throbbing hot, its void shields evidently intact. Yesugei saw the stylised skull on the prow and knew they could never hope to hurt it, not quickly enough.
‘Pull away!’ roared Lushan.
Yesugei clutched his staff a little tighter. No doubt the enemy gunners had already targeted them. ‘No,’ he said calmly. ‘Maintain position.’
‘That will carry us into their teeth,’ warned Lushan.
Yesugei nodded. ‘We were never going to come out of this, brother.’
Lushan drew in a breath, then bowed. ‘Belay move. Master gunner, give me everything we have left.’ He smiled at Yesugei grimly. ‘We can at least dent their pride.’
The Sickle Moon aborted its hard turn and fed more power to the engines. The vast shadow of the Death Guard vessel filled the forward scopes, bristling with banks of swollen weaponry. Two massive lances jutted from under the bladed prow, each one decorated with screaming death’s heads. Their muzzles glowed as the immense power lines lit up.
The Sickle Moon fired first. A spread of las-beams and a final torpedo volley screamed out into the void. The aim was good – the enemy took a flurry of hits, exploding out across the prow in an inferno of fiery light. When the flames guttered out, they revealed a blackened and distorted mess of metal. Sparks spiralled out into the void from the twisted remains of bulkheads and sensor shrouds.
‘Did we eliminate the lances?’ asked Yesugei, daring to hope.
Lushan shook his head, still smiling. ‘Too much to wish for, I fear.’
The Sickle Moon was still on an intercept course, and too committed to pull out of range in time. Lushan ordered it into a steep dive, but even Yesugei could see that it would take effect too late. The lances on the Death Guard vessel surged with pre-firing light. The weapons seemed oddly beautiful in the endless night, like Qo hanging lanterns glowing under a sunset.
Yesugei stood tall, determined to face it with his eyes open.
Let it be that we did some good, he thought as the lances fired. Let it be that the example was enough.
The Death Guard ship loosed its payload and the anterior viewscreens went dark. Static crackled across the pict-feeds. Yesugei tensed for the roar and rush of the vacuum, for the bridge to spin apart around him.
The destruction never arrived. With a sudden lurch of recognition, he realised what had made the scopes go black.
A ship. An immense, proud, vast and powerful ship had interposed itself between them, casting a shadow across the Sickle Moon’s scopes and blotting out the light of Prospero’s sun.
Swordstorm.
He’d forgotten just how majestic the flagship was. It had been a manoeuvre of phenomenal shipmastery to bring such a monster between the Death Guard and its prey. Now it coursed smoothly above them, row upon row of cannons nestled along dagger-length flanks. Its thrusters swelled red into the void, burning like a cluster of angry stars.
‘The Khagan!’ cried Lushan, rising up from the throne.
Just as he spoke, the Swordstorm opened up with a full broadside. The void disappeared in a raging storm of light, flaring like dawn over the Altak. The XIV Legion vessel was caught up in it, subsumed and deluged in a curtain of fire. Explosions blazed along its hull, feeding on one another, racing out from the impact-centres and blistering the adamantium plating.
Yesugei stared up at the locator-scopes. More ships were coming in, pulling out of their lethargy and burning towards the Death Guard flotilla. He could see the signature of the Lance of Heaven at the forefront. Even the laggards, the ones that had seemed lifeless and drifting, were coming about. More beams of energy lanced through the void, lighting up the well of space with new fire.
He bowed his head, allowing himself, for just an instant, to feel relief.
‘Zadyin arga.’
The voice that came over the comm somehow did not degrade like the others. It had been six years since last he heard it. It retained its old richness, though spiked with something else – disillusionment, perhaps.
Yesugei turned to the hololith forming over the column at his shoulder. The Khan’s face materialised into a flickering shroud.
‘Was that a feint, then?’ Yesugei asked, trying not to let his delight at the image break out too evidently.
‘The fleet? No, sadly not. We suffered division in your absence. What kept you?’
Yesugei smiled. ‘The universe,’ he said.
Lushan pulled the Sickle Moon clear of the worst of the fighting. The crew struggled to keep the shields in any kind of shape, and the weapons array was in ruins, but it would survive. More White Scars vessels surged past them, racing into combat and covering their withdrawal.
‘That Sons of Horus vessel,’ said the Khan. ‘An ally? It will be destroyed if it keeps fighting.’
‘Do your best to protect it, please,’ said Yesugei. ‘It contains an Iron Hand who deserves to live, much as that will irritate him, and Salamanders, all of whom will fight again.’
As they spoke, the Death Guard formation began to fall back. Outnumbered and outpaced, the escorts started to fall into a defensive cordon, preparing the way for the larger vessels to break for their jump-points. The White Scars went after them, harrying, strafing, hurling all their pent-up fury in a maelstrom of lance-energy.
The Khan’s image distorted briefly as the Swordstorm issued another truly ferocious broadside. ‘You have been missed, weather-maker,’ he said, then flickered out.
Yesugei bowed again, watching the sphere of combat fall away as the Sickle Moon pulled further back. The Swordstorm ploughed onwards, wreathed in the fire of its own weapons, hurled like a spear into the heart of the fighting.
And then, at last, the pride of the Legion came after it, streaking across the void like raptors over an open sky.
The Second Battle of Prospero did not match the horror of the first, for the Death Guard had come to oversee the incorporation of an ally, not embark upon a protracted void conflict. The two fleets grappled together as they pulled away from Prospero, locked in a web of broadsides and attack runs. Under Mortarion’s leadership, the smaller XIV Legion forces rallied enough to withdraw from the system intact, but they could match neither the speed nor the firepower of the renewed White Scars. The battle moved steadily out of the system until Mortarion finally gave the order to disengage and make for the jump-points. Leaving a trail of fire and plasma in their wake, the Death Guard entered the warp, abandoning local space to the control of the Khan.
With the enemy driven from Prospero, the V Legion halted pursuit. The fleet mustered once more, holding position in loose formation, just as it had done at Chondax. Some ships still ran with dissension, and the process of restoring order was neither quick nor without violence. The Khan visited every battleship in person, stamping out the last traces of rebellion where he found them. Blood had been shed on many vessels, and some had been commandeered entirely by lodge members still hoping to sway the Legion to the cause. Some took their own lives rather than endure the shame of surrender, though most recognised the authority of the Khagan and offered up their blades in contrition.
A few smaller vessels never made it to the muster, either destroyed by the Death Guard during the engagement or disappearing quietly, presumed unwilling to accept the rejection of their planned accord with the Warmaster. The seeds planted by the lodges were set deep, and not all of their growths were capable of being uprooted.
Hasik Noyan-Khan remained on the Swordstorm throughout the engagement. Only when Mortarion had been banished did Qin Xa come for him, removing his weapons and armour and escorting him to the confinement chambers. Hasik did not resist. His face gave away the soul of a man destroyed. Others went with him into confinement, among them Goghal, Hibou and Torghun Khan. There they awaited judgement, guarded by the Khagan’s own retinue. No precedent existed in the V Legion for their actions, though under the old law of the Altak, the crime of treachery had only one punishment.
The Hesiod remained with the fleet. Henricos had nearly driven it to destruction, but its final collapse had been prevented by the Tchin-Zar, which had shielded it just as the final torpedo volleys came in. The Khan honoured the Iron Hands legionary, as well as the others of the shattered Legions, and they were offered the chance to fight alongside the White Scars as part of whatever brotherhood they chose. Henricos considered the offer but made no commitment. When the Hesiod was restored, he said, he would make up his mind. Most observers predicted that he would choose to take the fight to the enemy himself. He claimed to have seen evidence of Sons of Horus splinter-fleet movements, and itched to run them down.
Arvida too remained with the Legion, and was given quarters on board the Swordstorm. His health had been ravaged by the long sojourn on a dying world, and it took days for him to recover enough to speak of what he had seen.
Yesugei and he spent many hours together after that, though what they discussed was not revealed to any but the Khan. It was known that Yesugei asked after the fate of Ahzek Ahriman, whom he had hoped to see again, but Arvida could give him no guidance. The Stormseer was forced to conclude that Ahriman had either been killed by the Wolves or had escaped along with his master. In either case it seemed most likely that they would never meet again, something that grieved Yesugei more than all of what had taken place since Ullanor. Of the many links that had once existed between the White Scars and the Thousand Sons, only Arvida remained.
As for the Khan himself, once the violence of restoration had ebbed, he retreated to his chambers on the flagship and took counsel on the Legion’s next move. Only Qin Xa and Yesugei stayed with him during that time, though it was known that a kurultai – a summit of the khans – would be convened to purge any remaining bad blood. It became quickly evident that the lodge faction had not truly understood what they had been working towards, for the Horus they venerated no longer existed. The knowledge gleaned from Magnus needed to be propagated swiftly, ending the long period of uncertainty that had blighted the Legion.
Horus Heresy: Scars Page 34
