by Gav Thorpe
Typhon could feel the uncertainty of everyone else seething around him. Uncertainty and fear. The instincts of all were that of prey being discovered by predator. No mortal fear could mar the heart of a legionary, but in that moment several dozen warriors of the Legiones Astartes were frozen by a dread-like desire to be anywhere else but on that iron-wrought balcony.
‘Where is the Invincible Reason, brother?’ asked Horus. ‘It grieves me that I did not fete your arrival with proper ceremony.’
‘Better that I came unheralded.’ Still the Lion did not look at his legionaries. ‘Chance brought me back to Zaramund. Imagine my surprise to see the ships of Caliban amongst the fleet of the Luna Wolves.’
Horus spread his hands, the apology unspoken.
‘Need was immediate. It is a credit to your warriors that they answered my call. They have fought bravely and well in the service of the Emperor.’
‘The lives of my warriors are not yours to spend like coin, Horus. Buy victories with the expense of your wolves, not my knights.’
Horus did not retort and the Lion did not wait for a reply. His gaze turned to Luther and the other Dark Angels. The primarch did not raise his voice, but his anger was palpable, a barely suppressed rage hidden behind softly spoken words.
‘My command was clear, your duties well prescribed. You were to remain on Caliban. You answer to no other but me, save the Emperor Himself.’
‘Of course, my liege,’ said Luther.
Typhon was impressed. A lesser man would have given reasons, made excuses. The Calibanite certainly could plead his case that answering Horus’ call to arms, the preservation of compliance at Zaramund, outweighed any standing orders and day-to-day duties. Luther said nothing in his defence, but met his primarch’s glare with a steady gaze. Only the familial bond between them could ever create such resolve. Typhon had been on the verge of weeping like a child when Mortarion had told him that the Librarius was an abomination and he was to be sent to the battle companies as a first-rank legionary.
‘You were my right hand, Luther, as I had been yours. I must know where my hand is at all times. I cannot move my gaze away only for my hand to take up a blade without my knowledge.’
‘Your will is my command, liege.’ Luther started to tremble, the words forced through quivering lips. ‘Your word alone shall stir me in the future.’
‘The sword must be sheathed, Luther. You will be returned to Caliban and there you will remain until I return or call for you. Your warships will come with me to the expeditionary fleet. With this disruption to Zaramund I need every vessel, and you will have no use for them.’
Luther looked despondent and swallowed hard. He silently nodded his acquiescence and dropped his gaze to the metal decking.
‘Prepare for your departure,’ the Lion told his Dark Angels. He spared one last glance at Horus, irritation twisting his lip for a second. ‘There will be no further celebration of insubordination.’
The Lion strode from the strategium without another look. The assembled Space Marines, freed from the glowering presence of the Lion, straightened and stood in the wake of his departure.
Typhon knew well that the creed to which he belonged, the hidden brotherhood within the Legions, had made no gains amongst the First Legion. He sensed opportunity and moved to Luther’s side to lay a hand on the Dark Angel’s arm.
‘You are not alone, brother,’ he assured Luther. ‘There are those of us that know what it is like to feel the displeasure of our primarch. I have felt harsh words and fell judgement also.’
Luther did not say anything, but he gave Typhon a look of understanding. They held each other’s gaze for a few seconds before Luther broke away and addressed his companions.
‘We have our command, brothers. We return to Caliban, and there we will remain banished from the Lion’s presence until our liege sees fit to release us.’
THE FIRST
ONE
Where is Zephath?
Ultramar, 011.M31
The lord of the First Legion sat as he so often sat, leaning back in his ornate throne of ivory and obsidian. The chair was part of him, a relic of Caliban that kept him connected to his home world, but also a statement of continuity. Even here, aboard the battle-barge Honoured Deeds, the throne assured his subordinates, and the Lion himself, that all was in order and as the primarch intended. His elbows rested upon the throne’s sculpted arms, while his fingers were steepled before his face, just barely touching his lips. Unblinking eyes, the brutal green of Caliban’s forests, stared dead ahead, watched a flickering hololith depicting the Five Hundred Worlds.
The great realm of Ultramar. The Kingdom of Guilliman. Bastion of the East. The Outer Wall. There were names to spare for the confederacy of worlds created by Roboute Guilliman and his Ultramarines of the XIII Legion. Now it had another.
Imperium Secundus.
A second chance at mankind’s survival or an act of treachery that rivalled the rebellion of Horus? The Lion was still not sure, but he had sworn oaths upon his blade to act as its Lord Protector.
Sanguinius, the new emperor, the leader that Horus was meant to have been. A brother worthy of such oaths, perhaps the only one. The figurehead. If not for him, the Lion would have ended Imperium Secundus before it had begun as the act of heresy it could so easily have been.
Guilliman, the architect of the great project, statesman and administrator. The Lion could not argue against the achievements of Macragge’s son; they were unparalleled except by the Imperium itself, possessed of grand vision, attention to detail and relentless energy.
For all his qualities, Guilliman lacked the steel to wield the empire he had created. Too prone to diplomacy, too eager to compromise. Too pragmatic, on occasion. Of all the primarchs, only Guilliman could have conceived of Imperium Secundus, and made it happen in so short a time. In others, such planning might be seen as cynical, but Guilliman’s doctrine of the theoretical and the practical was an ideal, a principle he held dear.
Five Hundred Worlds. Lost among them was the Lion’s prey. Konrad Curze, the Night Haunter, another of his demigod brothers. A madman in a superhuman body. A present danger to everything that they hoped to achieve with Imperium Secundus.
More than that, the matter between Curze and the Lion had become personal the moment the Night Haunter had tried to kill him at Tsagualsa. The shame of losing the primarch on Macragge still gnawed at the Lion. Death and anarchy had followed. Humbled him before his brothers, shown up his weakness.
Somewhere in the Five Hundred Worlds, Curze hid. The Lion would find him. He had grown up hunting down the worst beasts Caliban had harboured, with nothing more than his guile and strength. This was no different.
This time he would not let the Night Haunter escape.
Three others were in the room with their primarch. As with his throne from Aldurukh, the Lion had brought his other senior personnel across from the Invincible Reason – officers trusted and proven in many battles alongside the primarch. Stenius, now acting captain of the Honoured Deeds, his half-paralysed face assisted with bionics that glinted in the lights of the audience chamber. Farith Redloss, voted lieutenant of the Dreadwing, stocky, bald-shaven and clean-cheeked but for a trifurcated beard of black. Holguin, tall and lean like a finely bred hunting hound, red-dyed hair swept back with thick oil, chosen leader amongst the Deathwing veterans.
A host of commanders and lieutenants and captains and masters awaited the orders of the primarch, but none so keenly as the three Space Marines that shared his command chamber.
‘Which one is Zephath?’ asked Holguin, looking up at the hololithic display gently rotating above them.
‘This one,’ said Stenius. The captain had a cybernetic voice box, its tones straining to convey nuances of speech. Combined with the atrophied muscles of his face, it made him appear utterly emotionless, but the Lion knew the truth was far different. Stenius pressed a few runes on the control pod in his hand and one of the star systems was illuminated with a
blue gleam. ‘Terran designation, Sigma-Five-Ellipsis. Zephath. Standard isolated stellar body, one habitable, three inner core, five outer ring worlds. Secondary installations as standard.’
‘Read the account again,’ the Lion said quietly, moving his gaze to Holguin. The voted lieutenant lifted a data-slate.
‘The Librarians reported “a great darkness falling upon a world of grey and blue. Flames unending, a cacophony of agony poured into the skies. Murder walking abroad, borne swiftly on midnight wings.” They were able to identify Zephath as the source world, my liege.’
‘There are plenty of systems bleeding at the moment, my liege,’ said Redloss. ‘Remnants of Lorgar’s and Angron’s Legions have been left scattered all over the Five Hundred Worlds. What makes you think Curze is on Zephath?’
Only a handful of others knew of the Lion’s true purpose, his quest to right the mistake he had made in allowing Curze to escape. For the rest of the Dark Angels, to Sanguinius and Guilliman, the Lion and his warriors were sealing the borders, bringing firepower and authority to the systems at the fringes of the Five Hundred Worlds.
‘Little brother, I admire your straightforward manner, you know that,’ said the Lion. ‘It is the quality I admire most in the Dreadwing. But you must pay attention to the subtleties sometimes. “On midnight wings”. Have you heard a similar phrase before?’
‘The Night Lords sometimes describe themselves as “in midnight clad”, my liege,’ said Stenius.
‘It seems tenuous, my liege,’ said Redloss. ‘And it puts us right at the edge of the Five Hundred Worlds.’
The primarch accepted this opinion without comment. There was no doubt being voiced that he had not already considered. Contrary to this, Holguin’s contribution was notable by its absence. The Lion held out a hand to the fraternal leader of the Deathwing.
‘You vouch no opinion on this?’
‘My counsel is already known to you, my liege. I have nothing more to add.’
‘Of course. You think that we should not concern ourselves with Curze, but simply abandon bringing to justice one that has caused the deaths of so many of our brothers, and untold millions beside.’
‘I do not advocate giving up the hunt,’ Holguin replied hotly, face flushing. ‘I cannot count the companions of long years I lost to the Thramas conflict. I say that it is impossible. Curze could be anywhere. In all likelihood he has fled the Five Hundred Worlds and disappeared into the ruinstorm. Our time is better spent on our other duties, ensuring the security of the new Imperium.’
‘Curze is a threat to that security,’ said Redloss. ‘You can’t ignore that.’
‘I…’ Holguin took a breath, eyes moving from the Lion to Redloss and back again. ‘I said that my opinion is known, but it has no bearing on the current situation. My liege, I will obey your commands to the utmost of my ability, as I always have. None will fight harder for you.’
‘I know that,’ said the Lion. He stood and carefully laid a hand on Holguin’s shoulder guard. ‘Do not think I confuse disagreement with disloyalty. The debate openly remarked is of no concern to me. No, it is the masked dissent that we must always guard against.’
The Lion stepped away, passing through the projection of the hololith so that for a moment he was illuminated by the Five Hundred Worlds. He raised a hand as though to snatch Zephath from the map. Instead, he simply held it in his palm.
‘Your reasoning is sound, Holguin. Not quite five hundred worlds to choose from. Where would we start? A dozen searched already with not even a whisper of the Night Haunter. Shadows to be chased.’ The primarch’s hand swept through scores of star systems, a finger pointing at Macragge for a moment before moving back to Zephath. ‘I imagine one would retreat swiftly, pursued by a vengeful fleet. One would seek to put as much distance between oneself and Macragge as possible. As you claim, one might perhaps even try to break through the ruinstorm beyond the reach of the Sotha beacon’s light. That would be the reasonable thing to do.
‘But Curze is a creature unable to rise above his own wickedness, and his madness guides him. He cannot help but leave a trail of blood and horror. He must enact his spite at every turn. Curze desires nothing from Horus, he despises the Warmaster as much as the Emperor. A slave to paranoia and delusions that screams about freedom. You are wrong, Holguin, because you are sane and reasonable.’
‘Even so, my liege, how can we forecast the behaviour of the irrational? If Curze has no sense or pattern, that makes him even harder to find, not easier.’
‘Exactly. He is unpredictable, we cannot pre-empt his next attack and so we are forced to catch up with him. Curze is a predator, we will find him by the remains of his prey. It is why we cannot leave the hunt to conventional wisdom, but must rely upon the more ethereal, more intangible assets at our disposal. The warp-visions of the Librarians are not descriptions, they are half-dreams, formed as much from desire and emotion as fact. Curze can no more hide from them than he can from his own nature.’
Holguin still did not look convinced, but that had not been the Lion’s intent. The voted lieutenant had once again been truthful in his assertion of obedience and that was all the Lion desired. He shared his thoughts simply for the sake of giving form to them, allowing the vocalisation of abstract ideas to turn them into a plan of action.
‘I must prepare orders for the fleet, my liege,’ said Stenius. He considered the map for a few seconds. ‘Shall we assemble at Zephath directly, or nominate a staging system before final translation?’
The Lion thought on this as he returned to his throne. He sat down, hands on the arms of the massive chair, and looked at each of his officers.
‘Every ship is to make all speed for the Zephath system. They are to create an armed cordon around the core worlds. No ship leaves the system. No engagement except to defend themselves or to enforce the blockade, as laid down in my standing orders. They will await the arrival of the Honoured Deeds.’
The others nodded in acceptance of his commands. The fleet had carried out such actions thirteen times already, but the Lion would accept no complacency.
‘If Curze is there, I will deal with him personally.’
TWO
A terrible return
Caliban, 011.M31
Zahariel ran.
He never reached the surface.
Around him the tunnel twisted and buckled like an unbroken destrier, throwing him from his feet. The walls shuddered, stone and ferrocrete shucked away like a dead skin, revealing something fleshy and pulsating beneath. Crystalline deposits formed out of widening cracks like rapidly freezing ice. They glowed into cerulean life, bathing the scene with blue-purple shadows as the Librarian’s surroundings continued to bend and move.
Something crashed against the side of his head. Out of reflex he threw up an arm, a golden shield of energy warding away the next block of masonry. The gigantic stones settled, cocooning him in debris. Blood trickled down his cheek and neck. Dazed, he fought against the sudden desire to rest.
A fight he lost, falling to semiconsciousness.
He heard scratching. At first he thought it was rocks settling, but then Zahariel heard the susurrant murmur of leaves. It was the branches in the forest, rubbing, bristling, the conversation of trees.
He had learned to listen to the forest as he had learned the tongue of his mother and father.
Tonight it was quiet. Tonight the souls of the trees slept, appeased.
He remembered the hunt. Tall warriors striding out in their mailcoats, las-lances charged and arqubines primed. Only half came back. But the Great Beast that had ravaged Densenoor and Vordenn was slain too, and now the forest could sleep again.
He could hear Nemiel snoring in the other cot. A wander-sage had come to the village two days before and Nemiel had listened to his tales all day and night, hiding when the word went out to bring him home. He had been banished to this small room and forbidden from watching the hunt set out, but Zahariel had helped him sneak from his prison for a sho
rt while. The wander-sage had told stories of Clemagh Feg, the wizard of the caverns, and Nemiel had suggested that he and Zahariel go out and look for the fabled Golden Cave.
Zahariel knew the stories almost as well as the wander-sage, he had heard them so often. They resonated, tales of the strange powers of the forest, of the call into the deeps that the gifted would hearken to. The tale of Stiken the Hoarfrost Warrior, who had been blessed with the ice-words. The tale of Sar Favon and the Gasping Toad, rescued from certain death by a mystical saviour.
And the dark tales, the ones that made Zahariel shiver to recollect, yet intrigued him the most. They were meant to be warnings, of what happened to disobedient boys and girls, the ones that went too far into the forest or delved too deep into the caves.
He wanted to explore, to go to the hidden groves, to seek out the twilight-men in their subterranean realm, because they were the ones that knew the origins of the stories. Knowledge from the time before the forest, before the village, before the coming of the Order.
Before the ascent of the Lion.
Before the arrival of the Legion.
Zahariel came to his senses, not sure for a moment where he was, bathed in the azure glow of crystal deposits. He could feel the pressure of thousands of tonnes of collapsed arcology balanced precariously over him. More than just his psychic shield must have saved him – fortune, then? That seemed unlikely. The dream of the old tales, stories he had not thought of for decades, had to have deeper meaning. A memory suppressed by his Librarius training now allowed to rise again.
A reminder that there had once been other powers in the dark places beneath the world.
Had they ever left?
A scraping caused Zahariel to turn as he rose to one knee. The shifting stones had formed a sort of corridor, a crack in the debris leading roughly north.
