Galaxy in Flames (6 page)

Greater than all the majesty designed by the architect designate, was the Primarch of the Sons of Horus himself, enthroned before them on a great basalt throne. Abaddon and Aximand stood to one side. Both warriors were armoured, Abaddon in the glossy black of the Justaerin, Aximand in his pale green plate.

The two officers glared at Loken and Torgaddon – the enmity that had grown between them during the Auretian campaign too great to hide any more. As he met Abaddon’s flinty gaze, Loken felt great sadness as he realized that the glorious ideal of the Mournival was finally and irrevocably dead. None of them spoke as Loken and Torgaddon took their places on the other side of the Warmaster.

Loken had stood with these warriors and sworn an oath by the light of a reflected moon on a planet the inhabitants called Terra, to counsel the Warmaster and preserve the soul of the Legion.

That felt like a very long time ago.

‘Loken, Torgaddon,’ said Horus, and even after all that had happened, Loken felt honored to be so addressed. ‘Your role here is simply to observe and remind our Legion brothers of the solidity of our cause. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, my Warmaster,’ said Torgaddon.

‘Loken?’ asked the Warmaster.

Loken nodded and took his allotted position. ‘Yes, Warmaster.’

He felt the Warmaster’s penetrating eyes boring into him, but kept his gaze fixed firmly on the arches that led into the Lupercal’s Court as the doors beneath one of them slid open. The tramp of feet sounded and a blood-red angel of death emerged from the shadows.

Loken had seen the primarch of the World Eaters before, but was still awed by his monstrous, physical presence. Angron was huge, easily as tall as the Warmaster, but also massively broad, with wide hulking shoulders like some enormous beast of burden. His face was scarred and violent, his eyes buried deep in folds of angry red scar tissue. Ugly cortical implants jutted from his scalp, connected to the collar of his armour by ribbed cables. The primarch’s armour was ancient and bronze, like that of a feral world god, with heavy metal plates over mail and twin chainaxes strapped to his back. Loken had heard that Angron had once been a slave before the Emperor had found him, and that his masters had forced the implants on him to turn him into a psychotic killer for their fighting pits. Looking at Angron, Loken could well believe it. Angron’s equerry, Kharn, flanked the terrifying primarch, his expression neutral where his master’s was thunder.

‘Horus!’ said Angron, his voice rough and brutal. ‘I see the Warmaster welcomes his brother like a king. Am I your subject now?’

‘Angron,’ replied Horus unperturbed, ‘it is good that you could join us.’

‘And miss all this prettiness? Not for the world,’ said Angron, his voice loaded with the threat of a smouldering volcano.

A second delegation arrived through another of the arches, arrayed in the purple and gold of the Emperor’s Children. Led by Eidolon in all his magnificence, a squad of Astartes with glittering swords marched alongside the lord commander, their battle gear as ornate as their leader’s.

‘Warmaster, the Lord Fulgrim sends his regards,’ stated Eidolon formally and with great humility. Loken saw that Eidolon had learned the ways of a practiced diplomat since he had last spoken to the Warmaster. ‘He assures you that his task is well under way and that he will join us soon. I speak for him and command the Legion in his stead.’

Loken’s eyes darted from Angron to Eidolon, seeing the obvious antipathy between the two Legions. The Emperor’s Children and the World Eaters were as different as could be – Angron’s Legion fought and won through raw aggression, while the Emperor’s Children had perfected the art of picking an enemy force apart and destroying it a piece at a time.

‘Lord Angron,’ said Eidolon with a bow, ‘it is an honour.’

Angron did not deign to reply and Loken saw Eidolon stiffen at this insult, but any immediate confrontation was averted as the final delegation to the Warmaster entered the Lupercal’s Court.

Mortarion, Primarch of the Death Guard was backed by a unit of warriors armoured in the dull gleam of unpainted Terminator plate. Mortarion’s armour was also bare, with the brass skull of the Death Guard on one shoulder guard. His pallid face and scalp were hairless and pocked, his mouth and throat hidden by a heavy collar that hissed spurts of grey steam as he breathed.

A Death Guard captain marched beside the primarch, and Loken recognised him with a smile. Captain Nathaniel Garro had fought alongside the Sons of Horus in the days when they had been known as the Luna Wolves. The Terran-born captain had won many friends within the Warmaster’s Legion for his unshakeable code of honour and his straightforward, honest manner.

The Death Guard warrior caught Loken’s gaze and gave a perfunctory nod of greeting.

‘With our brother Mortarion,’ said Horus, ‘we are complete.’

The Warmaster stood and descended from the elevated throne to the centre of the court as the lights dimmed and a glowing globe appeared above him, hovering just below the ceiling.

‘This,’ said Horus, ‘is Isstvan III, courtesy of servitor-manned stellar cartography drones. Remember it well, for history will be made here.’

J
ONAH
A
RUKEN PAUSED
in his labours and slipped a small hip flask from beneath his uniform jacket as he checked for anyone watching. The hangar bay was bustling with activity, as it always seemed to be these days, but no one was paying him any attention. The days when an Imperator Titan being made ready for war would pause even the most jaded war maker in his tracks were long past, for there were few here who had not seen the mighty form of the
Dies Irae
being furnished for battle scores of times already.

He took a hit from the flask and looked up at the old girl.

The Titan’s hull was scored and dented with wounds the Mechanicum servitors had not yet had time to patch and Jonah patted the thick plates of her leg armour affectionately.

‘Well, old girl,’ he said. ‘You’ve certainly seen some action, but I still love you.’

He smiled at the thought of a man being in love with a machine, but he’d love anything that had saved his life as often as the
Dies Irae
had. Through the fires of uncounted battles, they had fought together and as much as Titus Cassar denied it, Jonah knew that there was a mighty heart and soul at the core of this glorious war machine.

Jonah took another drink from his flask as his expression turned sour thinking of Titus and his damned sermons. Titus said he felt the light of the Emperor within him, but Jonah didn’t feel much of anything any more.

As much as he wanted to believe in what Titus was preaching, he just couldn’t let go of the sceptical core at the centre of his being. To believe in things that weren’t there, that couldn’t be seen or felt? Titus called it faith, but Jonah was a man who needed to believe in what was real, what could be touched and experienced.

Princeps Turnet would discharge him from the crew of the
Dies Irae
if he knew he had attended prayer meetings back on Davin, and the thought of spending the rest of the Crusade as a menial, denied forever the thrill of commanding the finest war machine ever to come from the forges of Mars sent a cold shiver down his spine.

Every few days, Titus would ask him to come to another prayer meeting and the times he said yes, they would furtively make their way to some forsaken part of the ship to listen to passages read from the Lectitio Divinitatus. Each time he would sweat the journey back for fear of discovery and the court martial that would no doubt follow.

Jonah had been a career Titan crewman since the day he had first set foot aboard his inaugural posting, a Warhound Titan called the
Venator
, and he knew that if it came down to a choice, he would choose the
Dies Irae
over the Lectitio Divinitatus every time.

But still, the thought that Titus might be right continued to nag at him.

He leaned back against the Titan’s leg, sliding down until he was sitting on his haunches with his knees drawn up to his chest.

‘Faith,’ he whispered, ‘you can’t earn it and you can’t buy it. Where then do I find it?’

‘Well,’ said a voice behind and above him, ‘you can start by putting that flask away and coming with me.’

Jonah looked up and saw Titus Cassar, resplendent as always in his parade-ready uniform, standing in the arched entrance to the Titan’s leg bastions.

‘Titus,’ said Jonah, hurriedly stuffing the hip flask back into his jacket. ‘What’s up?’

‘We have to go,’ said Titus urgently. ‘The saint is in danger.’

M
AGGARD STALKED ALONG
the shadowed companionways of the
Vengeful Spirit
at a brisk pace, marching at double time with the vigour of a man on his way to a welcome rendezvous. His hulking form had been steadily growing over the last few months, as though he were afflicted with some hideous form of rapid gigantism.

But the procedures the Warmaster’s apothecaries were performing on his frame were anything but hideous. His body was changing, growing and transforming beyond anything the crude surgeries of House Carpinus had ever managed. Already he could feel the new organs within him reshaping his flesh and bone into something greater than he could ever have imagined, and this was just the beginning. His Kirlian blade was unsheathed, shimmering with a strange glow in the dim light of the corridor. He wore fresh white robes, his enlarging physique already too massive for his armour. Legion artificers stood ready to reshape it once his flesh had settled into its new form, and he missed its reassuring solidity enclosing him.

Like him, his armour would be born anew, forged into something worthy of the Warmaster and his chosen warriors. Maggard knew he was not yet ready for such inclusion, but he had already carved himself a niche within the Sons of Horus. He walked where the Astartes could not, acted where they could not be seen to act and spilled blood where they needed to be seen as peacemakers.

It required a special kind of man to do such work, efficiently and conscience-free, and Maggard was perfectly suited to his new role. He had killed hundreds of people at the behest of House Carpinus and many more than that before he had been captured by them, but these had been poor, messy killings compared to the death he now carried.

He remembered the sense of magnificent beginnings when Maloghurst had tasked him with the death of Ignace Karkasy.

Maggard had jammed the barrel of his pistol beneath the poet’s quivering jaw and blown his brains out over the roof of his cramped room before letting the generously fleshed body crash to the floor in a flurry of bloody papers.

Why Maloghurst had required Karkasy’s death did not concern Maggard. The equerry spoke with the voice of Horus and Maggard had pledged his undying loyalty to the Warmaster on the battlefield of Davin when he had offered him his sword.

Later, whether in reward or as part of his ongoing designs, the Warmaster had killed his former mistress, Petronella Vivar, and for that, Maggard was forever in his debt.

Whatever the Warmaster desired, Maggard would move heaven or hell to see it done.

Now he had been ordered to do something wondrous.

Now he was going to kill a saint.

S
INDERMANN BEAT HIS
middle finger against his chin in a nervous tattoo as he tried to look as if he belonged in this part of the ship. Deck crew in orange jumpsuits and ordnance officers in yellow jackets threaded past him as he awaited his accomplices in this endeavor. He clutched the chit the guard had given him tightly, as though it were some kind of talisman that would protect him if someone challenged him.

‘Come on, come on,’ he whispered. ‘Where are you?’

It had been a risk contacting Titus Cassar, but he had no one else to turn to. Mersadie did not believe in the Lectitio Divinitatus, and in truth he wasn’t sure he did yet, but he knew that whatever or whoever had sent him the vision of Euphrati Keeler had meant him to act upon it. Likewise, Garviel Loken was out of the question, for it was certain that his movements would not escape notice.

‘Iterator,’ hissed a voice from beside him and Sindermann almost cried aloud in surprise. Titus Cassar stood beside him, an earnest expression creasing his slender face. Another man stood behind him, similarly uniformed in the dark blue of a Titan crewman. ‘Titus,’ breathed Sindermann in relief. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d be able to come.’

‘We won’t have long before Princeps Turnet notices we are not at our posts, but your communication said the saint was in danger.’

‘She is,’ confirmed Sindermann, ‘grave danger,’

‘How do you know?’ asked the second man. Cassar’s brow twisted in annoyance. ‘I’m sorry, Kyril, this is Jonah Aruken, my fellow Moderati on the
Dies Irae
. He is one of us.’

‘I just know,’ said Sindermann. ‘I saw… I don’t know… a vision of her lying on her bed and I just knew that someone intended her harm.’

‘A vision,’ breathed Cassar. ‘Truly you are one of the chosen of the Emperor.’

‘No, no,’ hissed Sindermann. ‘I’m really not. Now come on, we don’t have time for this, we have to go now.’

‘Where?’ asked Jonah Aruken. ‘The medicae deck,’ said Sindermann, holding up his chit. ‘We have to get to the medicae deck.’

T
HE SURFACE OF
the shimmering globe above Horus resolved into continents and oceans, overlaid with the traceries of geophysical features: plains, forests, seas, mountain ranges and cities.

Horus held up his arms, as if supporting the globe from below like some titan from the ancient myths of old Earth.

‘This is Isstvan III,’ he repeated, ‘a world brought into compliance thirteen years ago by the 27th expeditionary force of our brother Corax.’

‘And he wasn’t up to the job?’ snorted Angron.

Horus shot Angron a dangerous look. ‘There was some resistance, yes, but the last elements of the aggressive faction were destroyed by the Raven Guard at the Redarth Valley.’

The battle site flared red on the globe, nestled among a mountain range on one of Isstvan III’s northern continents. ‘The remembrancer order was not yet foisted upon us by the Council of Terra, but a substantial civilian contingent was left behind to begin integration with the Imperial Truth.’