For a moment, Valdor half-expected the Imperial Fist to rip up the table between them just so he could strike at the Custodian; but then, like a tidal wave drawing back into the ocean, Dorn’s anger seemed to subside. Valdor knew better, though—the primarch was the master of his own fury, turning it inward, turning it to stony, unbreakable purpose.
“This war,” Dorn went on, sparing Malcador a glance, “is a fight not just for the material, for worlds and for the hearts of men. We are in battle for ideals. At stake are the very best of the Imperium’s ultimate principles. Values of pride, nobility, honour and fealty. How can a veiled killer understand the meaning of such words?”
Valdor felt Malcador’s eyes on him, and the tension in him seemed to dissipate. At once, he felt a cold sense of conviction rise in his thoughts, and he matched the Imperial Fist’s gaze, answering his challenge. “No one in this room has known war as intimately as you have, my lord,” he began, “and so surely it is you who must understand better than any one of us that this war cannot be a clean and gallant one. We fight a battle like no other in human history. We fight for the future! Can you imagine what might have come to pass if Kell and the rest of the Execution Force had not been present on Dagonet? If this creature Spear had been reunited with the rebel forces?”
“He would have attempted to complete his mission,” said Sire Culexus. “Come to Terra, to enter the sphere of the Emperor’s power and engage his… murdergift.”
“He would never have got that far!” insisted Sire Vanus. “He would have been found and killed, surely. The Sigillite or the Emperor himself would have sensed such an abomination and crushed it!”
“Are you certain?” Valdor pressed. “Horus has many allies, some of them closer than we wish to admit. If this Spear could have reached Terra, made his attack… Even a failure to make the kill, a wounding even…” He trailed off, suddenly appalled by the grim possibility he was describing. “Such a psychic attack would have caused incredible destruction.”
Dorn said nothing; for a moment, it seemed as if the primarch was sharing the same terrible nightmare that danced in the Custodian’s thoughts; of his liege lord mortally wounded by a lethal enemy, clinging to fading life while the Imperial Palace was a raging inferno all around him.
Valdor found his voice once more. “Your brother will beat us, Lord Dorn. He will win this war unless we match him blow-for-blow. We cannot, we must not be afraid to make the difficult choices, the hardest decisions! Horus Lupercal will not hesitate—”
“I am not Horus!” Dorn snarled, the words striking the Custodian like a physical blow. “And I will—”
“Enough.”
The single utterance was a lightning bolt captured in crystal, shattering everything around it, silencing them all with an unstoppable, immeasurable force of will.
Rogal Dorn turned to the sound of that voice as every man, woman and Astartes in the chamber sank to their knees, each of them instinctively knowing who had uttered it. The Sigillite was the last to do so, shooting a final, unreadable look at the primarch of the Imperial Fists before he too took to a show of obeisance.
The question escaped Dorn’s lips. “Father?”
The darkness, the great curtain of shadows that had filled the furthest corner of the chamber now became lighter, the walls and floor growing more distinct by the moment as the unnatural gloom faded. He blinked; strange how he had looked directly into that place and seen it, but without really seeing it at all. It had been in plain sight for everyone in the room, even he, and yet none of them had registered the strangeness of it.
Now from the black came light. A figure stood there, effortlessly dominating the space, his patrician features marred by a mixture of turbulent emotions that gave even the mighty Imperial Fist a second’s pause.
The Emperor of Mankind wore no armour, no finery or dress uniform, only a simple surplice of grey cloth threaded with subtle lines of purple and gold silk; and yet he was still magnificent to behold.
Perhaps he had been listening to them all along. Yet, it seemed to be a defiance of the laws of nature, that a being so majestic, so lit with power, could stand in a room among men, Astartes and the greatest mortal psyker who ever lived, and be as a ghost.
But then he was the Emperor; and to all questions, that was sufficient answer.
His father came towards him, and Rogal Dorn bowed deeply, at length joining the others at bended knee before the Master of the Imperium.
The Emperor did not speak. Instead, he strode across the Shrouds to the tall windows where the sailcloth drapes hung like frozen cataracts of shadow. With a flick of his great hands, Dorn’s father took a fist of the cloth and snatched it away. The hangings tore free and tumbled to the floor. He walked the perimeter of the room, ripping away every last cover until the chamber was flooded with the bright honey-yellow luminosity of the Himalayan dawn.
Dorn dared to glance up and saw the golden radiance striking his father. It gathered its brightness to him, as if it were an embrace. For an instant, the sunlight was like a sheath of glowing armour about him; then the primarch blinked and the moment passed.
“No more shadows,” said the Emperor. His words were gentle, summoning, and all the faces in the room turned to look upon him. He placed a hand on Dorn’s shoulder as he passed him by, and then repeated the gesture with Valdor. “No more veils.”
He beckoned them all to stand and as one they obeyed, and yet in his presence each of them felt as if they were still at his feet. His aura towered over them, filling the emotions of the room.
Dorn received a nod, as did Valdor. “My noble son. My loyal guardian. I hear both your words and I know that there is right in each of you. We cannot lose sight of what we are and what we aspire to be; but we cannot forget that we face the greatest enemy and the darkest challenge.” In the depths of his father’s eyes, Dorn saw something no one else could have perceived, so transient and fleeting it barely registered. He saw sorrow, deep and unending, and his heart ached with an empathy only a son could know.
The Emperor reached out a hand and gestured towards the dawn, as it rose to fill the room around them. “It is time to bring you into the light. The Officio Assassinorum have been my quiet blade for too long, an open secret none dared to speak of. But no longer. Such a weapon cannot exist forever in the shadows, answerable to no one. It must be seen to be governed. There must be no doubt of the integrity behind every deed, every blow landed, every choice made… or else we count for naught.” His gaze turned to Dorn and he nodded slowly to his son. “Because of this I am certain; in the war to come, every weapon in the arsenal of the Imperium will be called to bear.”
“In your name, father.” The primarch returned the nod. “In your name.”
Dagonet was all but dead now, her surface a mosaic of burning cities, churned oceans and glassed wastelands. And yet this was a show of restraint from the Sons of Horus; had they wished it, the world could have suffered the fate of many that had defied the Warmaster, cracked open by cyclonic torpedo barrages shot into key tectonic target sites, remade into a sphere of molten earth.
Instead Dagonet was being prepared. It would be of use to the Warmaster and his march to victory.
Erebus stood atop the ridgeline and looked down into the crater that was all that remained of the capital. The far side of the vast bowl of dirty glass and melted rock was lost to him through a mist of poisonous vapour, but he saw enough of it to know the scope of the whole. Transports were coming in from all over the planet, bringing those found still alive to this place. He watched as a Stormbird swooped low over the crater and opened its ventral cargo doors, dropping civilians like discarded trash amid the masses that had already been herded into the broken landscape. The people were arranged in lines that cut back and forth across one another, crosses laid over crosses. Astartes stood at equidistant points around the kilometres of the crater’s edge, their presence alone forbidding any survivor from making an attempt to climb out and flee. Those that had at
the beginning were blasted back into the throng, bifurcated by bolt shells. The same fate befell those who dared to move out of the eightfold lines carved in the dust.
The supplicants—for they did not deserve to be known as prisoners—gave off moans and whispers of terror that washed back and forth over the Word Bearer Chaplain like gentle waves. It was tempting to remain where he stood and lose himself in the sweet sense of the dark emotions brimming across the great hollow; but there were other matters to attend to.
He heard bootsteps climbing the wreckage-strewn side of the crater, and moved to face the Astartes approaching him. All about them, thin wisps of steam rose into the air from the heat of the bombardment still escaping from the shattered earth.
“First Chaplain.” Devram Korda gave him a wary salute. “You wished me to report to you regarding your… operative? We located the remains you were looking for.”
“Spear?” He frowned.
Korda nodded, and tossed something towards him. Erebus caught the object; at first glance it seemed to be a blackened, heat-distorted skull, but on closer examination the cleft, scything jawbone and distended shape were clearly the work of forces other than lethal heat and flame. He held it up and looked into the black pits of its eyes. The ghost of energies clung to it, and Erebus had a sudden impression of tiny flecks of gold leaf on the wind, fading into nothingness.
“The rest of the corpse was retrieved along with that.” Korda pointed. “I found other bodies in the same area, among the ruins of the star-port terminal. Agents of the Emperor, it would appear.”
Erebus was unconcerned about collateral damages. His irritation churned and he brushed Korda’s explanation away with a wave of his hand. “Leave it to rot. Failures have no use to me.” He dropped the skull into the dust.
“What was it, Word Bearer?” Korda came closer, his tone becoming more insistent. “That thing? Did you unleash something on this backwater world, is that why they killed my commander?”
“I am not to blame for that,” Erebus retorted. “Look elsewhere for your reasons.” The words had barely left his lips before the Chaplain felt a stiffening in his chest as a buried question began to rise in him. He pushed it away before it formed and narrowed his eyes at Korda. “Spear was a weapon. A gambit played and lost, nothing more.”
“It stank of witchcraft,” said the Astartes.
Erebus smiled thinly. “Don’t concern yourself with such issues, brother-sergeant. This was but one of many other arrows in my quiver.”
“I grow weary of your games and your riddles,” said Korda. He swept his hand around. “What purpose does any of this serve?”
The warrior’s question struck a chord in the Word Bearer, but he did not acknowledge it. “It is the game, Korda. The greatest game. We take steps, we build our power, gain strength for the journey to Terra. Soon…” He looked up. “The stars will be right.”
“Forgive him, brother-sergeant,” said a new voice, an armoured form moving out of the mist below them. “My brother Lorgar’s kinsmen enjoy their verbiage more than they should.”
Korda bowed and Erebus did the same as Horus crossed the broken earth, his heavy ceramite boots crunching on the blasted fragments of rock. Beyond him, Erebus saw two of the Warmaster’s Mournival in quiet conversation, both with eyes averted from their master.
“You are dismissed, brother-sergeant,” Horus told his warrior. “I require the First Chaplain’s attention on a matter.”
Korda gave another salute, this one crisp and heartfelt, his fist clanking off the front of his breastplate. Erebus fancied he saw a scrap of apprehension in the warrior’s eyes; more than just the usual respect for his primarch. A fear, perhaps, of consequences that would come if he was seen to disobey, even in the slightest degree.
As Korda hurried away, Erebus felt the Warmaster’s steady, piercing gaze upon him. “What do you wish of me?” he asked, his tone without weight.
Horus’ hooded gaze dropped to the blackened skull in the dust. “You will not use such tactics again in the prosecution of this conflict.”
The Word Bearer’s first impulse was to feign ignorance; but he clamped down on that before he opened his mouth. Suddenly, he was thinking of Luc Sedirae. Outspoken Sedirae, whose challenges to the Warmaster’s orders, while trivial, had grown to become constant after the progression from Isstvan. Some had said he was in line to fill the vacant place in the Mournival, that his contentious manner was of need to one as powerful as Horus. After all, what other reason could there have been for the Warmaster to grant Sedirae the honour of wearing his mantle?
A rare chill ran through him, and Erebus nodded. “As you command, my lord.”
Was it possible? The Word Bearer’s thoughts were racing. Perhaps Horus Lupercal had known from the beginning that the Emperor’s secret killers were drawing close to murder him. But for that he would need eyes and ears on Terra… Erebus had no doubt the Warmaster’s allies reached to the heart of his father’s domain, but into the Imperial Palace itself? That was a question he dearly wished to answer.
Horus turned and began to walk back down the ridge. Erebus took a breath and spoke again. “May I ask the reasoning behind that order?”
The Warmaster paused, and then glanced over his shoulder. His reply was firm and assured, and brooked no argument. “Assassins are a tool of the weak, Erebus. The fearful. They are not a means to end conflicts, only to prolong them.” He paused, his gaze briefly turning inward. “This war will end only when I look my father in the eyes. When he sees the truth I will make clear to him, he will know I am right. He will join me in that understanding.”
Erebus felt a thrill of dark power. “And if the Emperor does not?”
Horus’ gaze became cold. “Then I—and I alone—will kill him.”
The primarch walked on, throwing a nod to his officers. On his command, the lines of melta-bombs buried beneath the hundreds of thousands of survivors detonated at once, and Erebus listened to the chorus of screams as they perished in a marker of sacrifice and offering.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Once more, tips of the helm to Dan Abnett and Graham McNeill for that moment when the core concept for Nemesis emerged from our shared creative flux; to Nick Kyme and Lindsey Priestley for sterling editorial guidance, and once again, to the great Neil Roberts for crafting another stunning cover.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James Swallow’s stories from the dark worlds of Warhammer 40,000 include the Horus Heresy novel The Flight of the Eisenstein, the Blood Angels books Deus Encarmine, Deus Sanguinius and Red Fury, the Sisters of Battle novel Faith & Fire, as well as a multiplicity of short fiction. Among his other works are Jade Dragon, The Butterfly Effect, the Sundowners series of “steampunk” Westerns and fiction in the worlds of Star Trek, Doctor Who, Stargate and 2000AD, as well as a number of anthologies.
His non-fiction features Dark Eye: The Films of David Fincher and books on scriptwriting and genre television. Swallow’s other credits include writing for Star Trek Voyager, scripts for videogames and audio dramas. He lives in London.
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