TWENTY-FOUR

Leaving Lupercalia
Ill met by moonlight
Hunter’s eye

Lupercalia was burning.

The Sons of Horus had not lit the fires, but Aximand watched them spread through the knotted streets of the lower valley as the Warmaster’s Stormbird cleared the citadel’s walls. The Knights of House Devine stalked the streets of their city like vengeful predators, burning and killing with wanton abandon.

One machine, a burn-scarred thing with a lashing whip weapon danced in the light of the revel fires, its warhorn hooting as though its pilot were drunk.

Aximand forgot the Knights as the angle of the gunship’s ascent became steeper and a number of Thunderhawks took up station on either wing.

‘It’s strange to be leaving a world so soon after arriving,’ said Falkus Kibre, scrolling through a data-slate bearing a force disposition assay. ‘Especially when there’s still armies to fight.’

‘No one worth fighting,’ grunted Abaddon from farther along the compartment. He’d said little since they’d emerged from the catacombs beneath the citadel. ‘The fight before Lupercalia destroyed the best of them.’

Kibre shook his head. ‘Orbital surveys say there’s tens of thousands of soldiers and dozens of armoured regiments have fled across the mountains on the edges of the southern steppe.’

Abaddon said nothing. Aximand knew Ezekyle better than most and knew when to leave well alone.

This was one such moment.

‘The Kushite Eastings and Northern Oceanic were largely wiped out at Lupercalia and Avadon,’ continued Kibre who, as Abaddon’s second, should have known not to press the issue. ‘But van Valkenberg and Malbek are still unaccounted for.’

‘Then you go down and bloody finish them!’ snapped Abaddon.

Kibre took Abaddon’s outburst stoically and replaced the slate in its niche.

‘Ezekyle,’ said Kibre. ‘We fought the hardest down there, you and I.’

Aximand scowled at that. The Fifth Company had fought their way through the XIII Legion to break the line, and they’d done it without the support of an orbital weapons platform.

‘We faced a bloody Imperator and lived,’ continued the Widowmaker, ‘So don’t make me come up there and slap you for being unmindful of what we did.’

Aximand revised his assumption that he knew Ezekyle better than most when, instead of killing Kibre, Abaddon grunted in laughter.

‘You’re right, Falkus,’ said Abaddon. ‘It does feel somehow... unfinished.’

That at least, Aximand understood. Like all true fighting men down through the ages, he hated to abandon a mission before it was finished. But Ezekyle had things wrong.

‘It is finished,’ he said.

Abaddon and Kibre looked back down the fuselage at him.

‘We came here for Lupercal,’ he said. ‘This was his mission, not ours. And it’s done.’

‘We’re just going to have to fight those men again on the walls of Terra,’ said Kibre.

‘You’re wrong,’ said the Warmaster, emerging from the pilot’s compartment and sitting on the dropmaster’s seat. ‘Those men will be dead soon. Mortarion and Grulgor will see to that.’

Horus had always been a demi-god among men, but looking into the Warmaster’s eyes now was like looking into the heart of a star on the verge of becoming a self-immolating supernova.

‘We’re leaving the Fourteenth Legion to finish the job?’ said Kibre.

Horus nodded, shifting his bulk on the seat. It was patently too small for him, more so now that his natural presence was enhanced by his journey across the dimensions.

‘Molech now belongs to Mortarion and Fulgrim.’

‘Fulgrim?’ said Aximand. ‘Why does the Phoenician get a share of the spoils?’

‘He played his part,’ said Horus. ‘Though I doubt he’ll remember his time here fondly. Plasmic fire to the face tends to be an unpleasant experience. Or so Lorgar told me from Armatura.’

‘What was Fulgrim doing?’ asked Aximand.

Horus didn’t answer immediately and Aximand took a moment to study the chiselled lines of the Warmaster’s face. The extended age Aximand saw in his gene-father still unnerved him. He dearly wanted to ask Lupercal what he’d found, what wonders he’d seen and how far along the road he’d travelled.

One day, perhaps, but not today.

‘Fulgrim reaped a crop sown here many years ago,’ said Horus. ‘But enough of my brother, let’s savour the moment ahead.’

‘What moment?’ said Kibre.

‘A reunion of sorts,’ said Horus. ‘The confraternity of the old Mournival is about to be remade.’

Lupercal’s Court. The dark jewel in the crown of Peeter Egon Momus.

If Loken’s return to the Vengeful Spirit had been hard before, moving stealthily through its hidden corridors and secret niches, being within Lupercal’s Court was an exquisite torture. Loken had stood at the Warmaster’s side when they had planned the Isstvan campaign.

He’d been proud then, prouder even than the day he’d been chosen to be one of the XVI Legion. All he felt now was confusion.

Gerradon and Noctua had dragged them through the ship, marching them onto a pneu-train bound for the prow. At first, he’d thought they were heading to the strategium, but after debarking at the Museum of Conquest, he’d realised exactly where they were going.

The high ceiling was still hung with uncommon banners, some fresh, some mouldering and dusty. Shadows clung to the thick pillars, making it impossible to tell if they were alone. The twenty-three Luperci – he’d counted them as they passed through the Museum of Conquest – spread out and marched them towards the towering basalt throne at the far end of the chamber.

‘Kneel,’ said Gerradon, and there was little to do but obey.

Iacton, Bror and Severian were to Loken’s left, Varren, Tarchon, Rubio and Voitek to his right. The Luperci surrounded them like executioners. They knelt facing the throne, looking out into the vastness of space through the one addition to the chamber, a cathedral-like window of stained glass.

Pinpricks of light from distant stars glittered at unimaginable distances, and Molech’s moons painted the floor in lozenges of milky radiance.

‘Nice throne,’ said Varren. ‘The traitor still thinks he’s a king, then. Should have seen this coming long before.’

Ger Gerradon kicked the former World Eater in the back. Varren sprawled, and bared his teeth, reaching for an axe that wasn’t there. Four Luperci kept their bolters trained on him as others hauled him back to his knees.

‘A king?’ said Gerradon with a grin Loken wanted to split wide open. ‘You World Eaters always did think small. Horus Lupercal doesn’t think he’s a king. Haven’t you felt it? He’s a god now.’

Severian laughed and Grael Noctua backhanded a bolter across his face. Still laughing, Severian rolled onto his side and picked himself up. Loken wanted to mock Gerradon’s theatrics, but he could barely take a breath. That he would soon be face to face with the Warmaster was sending his sense memory into overdrive.

The corners of Lupercal’s Court were shadowed ruins where the dead of Isstvan gathered, hungry for flesh. The moonlight painting the floor was the flash of atomic firestorms, and the breath at his ear was that of his killer.

‘Loken,’ said Qruze.

He didn’t answer, keeping his gaze fixed on the black throne.

‘Garviel!’

Loken blinked and lifted his head.

The great iron doors to Lupercal’s Court were opening.

And there he was, looking right at Loken with paternal pride.

His gene-father, his Warmaster.

Horus Lupercal.

The Warmaster had always been the mightiest of the primarchs, a fact acknowledged by all Sons of Horus, though hotly debated by legionaries from most other Legions.

To see him now would surely end that debate.

Horus was possessed of a powerful dynamism, a charge that passed from him to those he beheld. To be in his presence was to know that gods walked among men. A hyperbolic sentiment, but one borne out by those fortunate enough to have met him. That power, that essence was magnified now.

It was magnified a hundredfold, and it all but emptied Loken’s reservoir of hate to keep from throwing himself at the Warmaster’s feet and begging for forgiveness.

His feet, look at his feet.

A piece of advice he’d been given when Lupercal still served the Emperor. As true now as it was then. Loken kept his eyes down. He took a breath and held it. His heart thundered, a hammer beating on the fused bone shield of his ribcage.

His mouth was dry, like the eve of his first battle.

‘Look at me, Garviel,’ said Horus, and every pain Loken had suffered since the first bombs had fallen on Isstvan was washed away in that moment of recognition.

He couldn’t help but obey.

The Warmaster was an all-conquering hero, clad in armour as black as wilderness space. The volcanic eye on his chest was slitted and veined with black, his claws unsheathed like a jungle predator closing on a kill.

His face was as heroically self-aware as Loken remembered.

Loken knew other warriors accompanied Horus, but they were as ghosts in the obscuring corona of the Warmaster’s presence. He heard their shocked voices and understood that he knew them, and they him, but he could not tear his gaze from his former commander-in-chief.

The urge to remain kneeling through fealty rather than captivity was overwhelming.

Horus said, ‘Stand. All of you.’

Loken did so, and told himself it was because he chose to.

None of the other pathfinders followed his example. He faced the Warmaster alone. Just as he’d always known he would. However this ended, now or in years to come, it would come down to just two warriors locked in a fight to the death.

The figures surrounding the Warmaster emerged from his shadow, and Loken felt his choler flare at the sight of his former Mournival brothers.

Ezekyle, scarred and bellicose, hatred etched on his eyes.

Horus Aximand, pale and wide-eyed, his face pressed onto his skull like badly set clay. He looked at Loken, not with hatred, but with... fear?

Was it possible for Little Horus to fear anything?

Falkus Kibre, hulking and unsubtle. Following Abaddon’s lead.

Nothing new there.

Grael Noctua took his place with them, and Loken immediately understood the skewed dynamic between them. A reborn Mournival, but one with its humours grotesquely out of balance.

‘I never thought to see you again, Garviel,’ said Horus.

‘Why would you?’ said Loken, mustering his reserves of defiance to speak with clarity and strength. ‘I died when you betrayed everything the Luna Wolves ever stood for. When you murdered Isstvan Three and the loyal sons of four Legions.’

Horus nodded slowly. ‘And despite all that, you come back to the Vengeful Spirit. Why is that?’

‘To stop you.’

‘Is that what you told Malcador?’ said Horus, before turning to regard the rest of the pathfinders. ‘Is it what he told you?’

‘It’s the truth,’ said Loken. ‘You have to be stopped.’

‘With what, a squad?’ said Horus, cocking an eyebrow. ‘I don’t think so. The galaxy isn’t a sterile place without a love of melodrama, Garviel. You know as well as I that this doesn’t end with kill teams or assassins or a pre-emptive strike thousands of light years from Terra. It ends with me looking into my father’s eyes, my hands around His neck, and showing Him everything he loves burned to ash by His lies.’

‘You’re insane,’ said Bror Tyrfingr. ‘The Wolf King will stop you, he’ll carve his name on your heart and give your bones to the wyrd to tell the future for eternity.’

Horus snapped his fingers and said, ‘Russ? Ah, so that’s what this is.’

Loken willed Bror to shut up, but the damage was already done.

‘Leman didn’t slake his thirst for blood on Prospero?’ continued Horus with a rueful shake of his head. ‘I wonder, does the Emperor even know you’re here or did the Wolf King set this up himself? He always was eager to spill his brothers’ blood. Did he convince Malcador that sending you here was the only way to end the war before it got to Terra?’

‘Russ stands on Terra’s walls a loyal son,’ said Qruze. ‘Walls the Master of Stone has strengthened beyond your power to breach.’

‘Perturabo assures me differently,’ said Horus. He bent to take Qruze’s chin in his hand. ‘Ah, Iacton. Of all my sons, you were the one I never expected to turn from me. You were old guard, a warrior with roots on both Terra and Cthonia. You were the best of us, but your time is over. Tell me, how did you even get aboard?’

Loken kept his face neutral and hoped Qruze could do the same.

He doesn’t know about Rassuah or the Tarnhelm.

‘We came here to mark the Vengeful Spirit for Russ,’ said Loken, hoping a measure of truth might divert the Warmaster from Rassuah.

‘Yes, Grael told me he saw some futharc scraped on the walls.’

‘Bloody Svessl,’ hissed Bror. ‘Is there anyone he didn’t tell?’

Horus moved on and walked a slow circuit of the remnants of the pathfinders towards his throne.

‘Marking a route for Russ,’ he said. ‘That sounds plausible, but come on, Garviel, you and I both know that’s not the only reason you’re here. There’s more to your return than you’re telling.’

‘You’re right,’ answered Loken, turning to face Ger Gerradon. ‘I came to kill him. To free Tarik’s soul.’

‘Maybe that’s part of it,’ conceded Horus, taking his place upon his throne, ‘but why don’t you tell your comrades why you really came here. And don’t be coy, Garviel. I’ll know if you’re lying.’

Loken tried to speak, but the Warmaster’s gaze pinned him in place, dredging the very worst of his treacherous fears out through his eyes. He tried to repeat what he’d just said, but the words wouldn’t come.

Enthroned in the glow of the moon shining through the stained glass windows, Horus was regal and magnificent, a lord for whom it would be worth laying down a life.

A hundred lives, a thousand. As many as he asked for.

‘I...’

‘It’s all right, Loken, I understand,’ said Horus. ‘You came back because you want to rejoin the Sons of Horus.’

This was the moment Bror Tyrfingr had feared since they’d left Terra. Not death, that moment held no fear for him. He’d considered himself dead the moment he foreswore the frost blue of the Rout and taken Yasu Nagasena’s outstretched hand.

No, death was not his fear.

Loken took a step towards the Warmaster’s throne.

Bror had watched Garviel Loken’s mental dissolution the way an aesthete might lament the slow degradation of a great work of art.

If Loken bent the knee to Horus, Bror was under orders to kill him. He understood why the duty had fallen to him. He was VI Legion, the Executioner’s son, and could be counted on to do the unthinkable, no matter what bonds of brotherhood might be forged in adversity.

He let his breath come slowly.

The warriors gathered around him could be counted on to rally to him, but they were grossly outnumbered. Bror had the positions of the Luperci embedded in his mind. They wouldn’t stop him. They might once have been Legion warriors, but now they were maleficarum.

Bror was unarmed, but a warrior of the Rout needed no weapons.

He could break Loken’s neck without blinking.

And if he died a heartbeat later, so be it.

Bror closed his eyes, feeling the hackles rise on the back of his neck. He’d first felt it in the forests of Fenris, stalked by the great silver wolf the Gothi said would one day kill him.

He’d proven them wrong and taken its pelt for a cloak.

Bror looked up and saw Tylos Rubio staring at him. His eyes were wide and pleading. They flicked over towards Ger Gerradon. No words passed between them, but the meaning was clear.

Be ready.

Loken felt himself moving forward. Step by step towards the Warmaster’s throne. What Horus was saying was ludicrous. He couldn’t go back to the Legion, not after all the blood and betrayal that had passed between them.

And yet...

He wanted it. Deep down, he wanted it.

‘Loken, don’t do this,’ said Qruze, rising to his feet. ‘Don’t listen to him. He’s betrayed us all, made us monsters in the eyes of the very people we were wrought to protect.’

Abaddon’s fist sent Iacton to the deck, streaks of red in his hair like blood on snow.

‘Shut your mouth, Half-heard,’ said Abaddon.

‘Loken!’ cried Qruze, coming forward on his hands and knees.

...he is the Half-heard no longer... his voice will be heard louder than any other in his Legion.

Loken blinked as he heard Mersadie Oliton’s words in his head.

No, they weren’t Mersadie’s words, they were Euphrati Keeler’s.

If you saw the rot, a hint of corruption, would you step out of your regimented life and stand against it? For the greater good of mankind.

He’d heard those words aboard this very ship, on the residential decks once occupied by the remembrancers. Euphrati had reached out to him, scared and alone. She’d tried to warn him of what was coming, but he’d dismissed her fears as groundless.

‘Garviel,’ said Horus, and he turned to see the Warmaster holding out his gauntlet. ‘Don’t hate me for what’s happened.’

‘Why shouldn’t I hate you?’ said Loken. ‘You did the worst thing that anyone can do to another person. You let us believe we were loved and valued, then showed us it was all a lie.’

Horus shook his head, but his hand remained outstretched. Behind him, a crenellated warship passed over the face of the moon. The Eye of Horus adorned its prow, but it was a crude thing, painted on like graffiti.

‘Come back to me, my son. We can rebuild what was lost between us, renew our bonds of fellowship. I want you at my side as I reforge the Imperium anew.’

Loken looked back at the warriors on their knees behind him. Men he’d fought and bled with. Men he’d called brother in the darkest of times. He looked into their eyes, seeing their defiance and more. Rubio’s fists were clenched and the tension in Voitek’s neck was like a straining machine about to throw a gear.

He saw the cold eyes of Bror Tyrfingr upon him and remembered the words he had spoken at their first meeting.

If I think your roots are weak, I’ll kill you myself.

He gave an almost imperceptible nod to his fellows and took a step away from the Warmaster, feeling the threads of loyalty and brotherhood that bound him to this moment pull tight.

Horus rose to his feet as the passing warship completed its transit of the cathedral window.

Dazzling moonlight poured into Lupercal’s Court once more.

It haloed Lupercal, limned him in silver to cast the darkest shadow across the deck. The flared back of the Warmaster’s throne gave that shadow wings, like the faceless daemons from the lurid books Kyril Sindermann had loaned him.

‘Part of me wishes I could, sir,’ said Loken. ‘Believe me, I want the warmth that being part of something greater brings. I want to belong. I had that with the Legion, but you took that away from me when you stabbed us all in the back.’

‘No,’ said Horus. ‘Garviel, no. That’s not–’

But Loken wasn’t about to stop now. ‘Turning my back on everything I knew, being cut off from the Legion that made me who I am? That was the worst moment of my life. It drove me insane. More than Tarik’s death or being buried alive on Isstvan, it was the heartbreak and yawning emptiness that finally broke me.’

‘Then come back to me, Garviel,’ said Horus. ‘Feel that warmth again, don’t you want to be part of the greatest endeavour the galaxy has ever seen?’

‘I already was,’ said Loken, turning his back on Horus. ‘It was called the Great Crusade.’

Rubio nodded and Bror Tyrfingr vaulted across the deck, his hand a hard axe blade. He rammed into Ger Gerradon and barrelled him from his feet. Voitek moved with him. The leader of the Luperci went over backwards, sprawling on the deck in surprise.

Gunfire exploded and the harsh blurt of binaric pain told Bror that Ares Voitek was hit. He smelled lubricant and hot oils.

Qruze and Severian were moving, turning on the Mournival.

Bror hadn’t time to spare for them.

More gunfire. Shouts. He’d taken in the positions of the Luperci, but that was seconds ago, and his situational awareness was now hopelessly outdated.

‘Kill him, Bror!’ shouted Rubio. ‘He’s blocking my powers!’

‘Trying,’ grunted Bror. ‘He’s stronger than he looks.’

Gerradon’s face twisted in rage. For a moment Bror saw the dark flame twisting within him. He slammed his forehead against Gerradon’s face. His cheekbone caved in and foul-smelling blood burst across his split skin.

Even as they struggled, the blood flow stopped and the cut in Gerradon’s cheek sealed itself.

He laughed. ‘You think you can hurt me? You Wolves really are stupid.’

Voitek’s servo-arms pinned one of Gerradon’s, and Bror scrambled to drag the man’s blade from its sheath. Gerradon’s fist thundered into Bror’s belly, cracking the plate and driving the air from him.

Gerradon kicked him away and he lost his grip on the handle.

He staggered as a bolter shell punched him in the back. Another blew out the meat of his thigh. Pain swamped him, but he hurled himself at his enemy again.

Gerradon caught him around the throat with his free hand and slammed him against Ares Voitek. The impact was ferocious. Plate cracked.

Bror saw something glitter at Gerradon’s back. A gleam of moonlight on an ivory Ultima. A stolen weapon jutting from a shoulder scabbard. He reached for it. Too far away. Gerradon’s grip tightened, crushing the life from him. He tensed every muscle in his shoulders and neck, his face purpling with the effort.

Then he saw it.

Proximo Tarchon’s gladius held aloft like a gift from the ancient gods of Asaheim.

Grasped in the manipulator claw of Ares Voitek.

The servo-arm stabbed the blade into Gerradon’s back.

The daemon within Gerradon howled as its hold on the dead man’s mortal flesh slipped. The iron grip on Bror loosened.

Not much, but just enough.

Bror pulled Gerradon’s arm from his neck. He pounced and fastened his sharpened fangs on the Luperci’s flesh.

Their eyes met and Bror relished the sudden fear he saw.

He wrenched his jaw back and ripped out Ger Gerradon’s throat.

Lupercal’s Court was in uproar. The Luperci filled the space with sporadic bolter fire, their outlines wavering as though something bestial sought to escape their flesh. Muzzle flare split the cold glow of moonlight. An arcing sheet of blue lightning from Rubio’s gauntlets hurled six of them back in a coruscating blast.

Their armour clattered to the deck, the monsters within burned to ash. Loken ran towards Aximand, scooping up a fallen chainsword that still smoked with Rubio’s witchfire.

He knew he couldn’t hope to kill Aximand, but was past caring.

He’d faced the Warmaster and rejected him.

None of them were going to leave the Vengeful Spirit alive.

Severian was right. Getting in had been the easy part.

Iacton Qruze had come back to the flagship with one aim in mind and one alone. As gunfire filled the chamber, he dived towards where Ger Gerradon fought to stem the tide of blood from his mauled throat.

The sinews and skin were trying to knit, but the wound was too awful, the blood loss too catastrophic for the daemon’s host to survive. He dragged Gerradon’s sword from its sheath as bolt shells cratered the deck beside him.

A ricochet sliced the skin of his cheek. If he lived he would have a neat scar from jawline to temple.

Loken and Bror were struggling with Little Horus Aximand and Falkus Kibre, a brutal, gouging, bloody brawl they were losing. Kibre was all strength and ferocity, but Bror Tyrfingr was giving as good as he got.

Loken had a chainsword, Aximand a blade with a powered edge. That wasn’t going to end well. Rubio fought Abaddon with a sword wrought from blue lightning and bolts of witchfire. The First Captain was a monster now, a giant with cadaverous features and black, gem-like eyes.

Rubio bled from where Abaddon’s tearing fists had ripped open his armour, its steeldust plates sheeted with red.

The Librarian had ploughed all his powers into attack, sparing nothing for defence. Varren lent what aid he could, but the wounds bound by Altan Nohai were bleeding freely again.

Qruze couldn’t see Severian. Armed once again with his altered gladius, Proximo Tarchon stood sentinel over Ares Voitek, who spilled litres of sticky red-black fluid from half a dozen sword cuts and bolter craters.

An impact smashed into Qruze’s hip, a searing bloom of pain that almost drove him to his knees. He turned as four of the Luperci raced towards him. They carried axes, swords and weapons that looked like they’d been looted from the Museum of Conquest.

‘Come on!’ roared Qruze, mashing the sword’s activation trigger. ‘Let this old dog show you he still has some bite.’

The first swung his axe for Qruze’s neck.

‘Too risky for a first attack,’ he said, ducking low and hacking his chainblade through his opponent’s gut. ‘The beheading cut leaves you far too exposed against a low blow.’

He swayed aside from a sword thrust, bending to snatch the bolt pistol from the downed warrior’s holster. Fully loaded, safety off. Sloppy.

‘Too much weight on your forward foot,’ he grunted. ‘No control to evade a counterstrike.’

He drove the tip of his sword through the Luperci’s spine. He spun and wrenched the sword blade out through its chest.

The last of the Luperci had at least learned from the deaths of their fellows. They split up and circled Qruze warily, swords in the guard position, their footwork cautious.

Qruze shot them both in the face, a classic double-tap. Their helmets exploded as the mass-reactives registered threshold densities for detonation.

‘And if your opponent has a gun when all you have is a sword,’ he said, turning towards the Warmaster upon his basalt throne. ‘You’re going to die.’

With every meeting of their swords, Loken lost teeth – whickering triangular shards flew from his chainsword as Aximand’s shimmer-edged blade bit the unshielded metal.

‘Mourn-it-all is going to kill you,’ said Aximand.

Loken didn’t reply. He’d come to slay Aximand, not waste unnecessary words on him.

‘No words of hate for the life I took on Isstvan?’ said Aximand.

‘Just deeds,’ said Loken, fighting to keep his temper.

An angry swordsman was a dead swordsman.

He cursed as Aximand used his momentary inattention to launch a lightning fast thrust to the groin. Loken swept the blade aside with the flat of his sword, trying to keep the disruptive edge from further damaging his weapon.

‘Tarik always said you were so straight up and down,’ said Aximand, using small wrist movements to move the tip of his sword in tight circles. ‘I never really knew what he meant until now. It’s only when you try to kill a man that you see through to his true character.’

Loken was too experienced a swordsman to fall for so obvious a gambit and kept his eyes fixed on Aximand’s. Alone of his once-proud features, his eyes remained unchanged from how Loken remembered them.

Pale blue, like ice chips under a winter sun.

‘Who gave you the new face?’

Aximand’s reattached dead skin mask twitched.

‘Who was it that beat you?’ asked Loken, ducking a waist-high sweep of Mourn-it-all. He aimed a low cut at Aximand’s knees.

‘A Chogorian named Hibou Khan,’ said Aximand, driving the blade into the deck. It screeched with red sparks. ‘Why do you care?’

‘So I can tell him I finished the job.’

Aximand roared and attacked with relentless fury. Loken blocked as fast as he could, but every killing blow he warded off cut portions from his weapon until it was next to useless.

He tossed the broken blade, looking over Aximand’s shoulder.

‘Now, Macer!’ he shouted.

The former World Eater’s fist crashed into the back of Aximand’s helmet. And had Macer Varren not been horrifically wounded, his strength might have split Aximand’s skull wide open. As it was, he crashed into Loken and the three of them fell to the deck in a thrashing tangle of limbs.

Mourn-it-all skittered away, its edge dimming without its bearer’s grip.

Aximand smashed his elbow into Varren’s face.

Loken kicked Aximand in the gut. They grappled. Fists bludgeoned, elbows cracked and knees slammed. It was an inelegant fight, not one the sagas would speak of in glowing heroic terms.

Even outnumbered two to one, Aximand was having the better of the fight. Loken reeled from a hammering series of bodyblows. Varren stumbled as Aximand thundered his foot against the wounds Altan Nohai had bound.

‘I dreamed of you,’ said Aximand between breaths and sounding more regretful than angry. ‘I dreamed you were alive. Why did you have to be alive?’

Loken rolled upright as Aximand curled his fingers around Mourn-it-all’s leather-wrapped grip.

He brought the sword around. Its blade bit plate and flesh.

Blood rained.

‘No more dreams,’ said Aximand.

Proximo Tarchon was down, sprawled over the body of Ares Voitek with three mass-reactive craters blasted through his body. Ger Gerradon’s legs still kicked weakly, but whether he was still alive or was just twitching in death was open to interpretation.

Severian had a combat blade in one hand, a bolt pistol in the other.

He’d killed a dozen Luperci in as many shots or cuts, moving through the fighting like a ghost. People saw him, but they didn’t see him, didn’t recognise the significance of what they were seeing until it was too late.

Severian never needed more than one cut.

Usually that was enough, but Abaddon had merely staggered at his thrust and kept fighting. At least it had allowed Varren to break from the fight to go to Loken’s aid.

The battle had devolved into individual skirmishes, but it couldn’t go on like that for long. His pistol was empty. He tossed it as dead weight.

Severian saw his target and moved like a displaced shadow towards Grael Noctua.

The sergeant of the Warlocked saw him coming, which was unusual enough in itself. He grinned and took out his own blade.

‘Twenty-Fifth to Twenty-Fifth,’ said Noctua. ‘A battle with a pleasing symmetry to it, yes?’

‘So long as you’re dead at the end, symmetry can go to hell.’

The two of them faced one another as though in the training cages. Crouched low, blade to blade, hands extended, eyes locked.

Noctua made the first move, feinting right. Severian read it easily. He countered the real blow, spun low and stabbed into Noctua’s groin. Forearm block, return elbow smash that hit thin air. Severian trapped Noctua’s arm, slammed his forehead forward.

Noctua threw himself backwards, dragging Severian with him.

They rolled, fighting to free their knife hands.

Severian got his free first. He stabbed into Noctua’s side. The blade scraped free as Noctua rolled with the blow. Severian pushed clear. Noctua’s weapon sliced the side of his neck, a hair’s breadth from opening his throat.

‘I always hated you, Severian,’ said Noctua. ‘Even before ascension.’

‘I never cared enough about you to feel hate.’

They came together again. Thrust, cut, block, spin. Their blades like striking snakes. Both warriors had drawn blood. Both were evenly matched. Much longer and it wouldn’t make any difference.

‘You’re good,’ said Severian.

‘The Twenty-Fifth teaches its warriors well.’

Severian flicked his blade at Noctua’s face. Blood spatter hit his eyes, and Severian slipped into that fraction of a second’s distraction.

He rammed his dagger through the centre of Noctua’s chest, twisting the blade into his heart space.

Noctua’s face contorted in pain.

‘Not as well as Cthonia,’ said Severian.

The pain was incredible, the worst Loken had known.

It filled him and crushed him. It bypassed every bio-engineered suppression mechanism. It kept the pain gate in his spinal column wedged open.

Where Mourn-it-all had cloven his ribs, he felt the toxic afterburn of something vile enter his bloodstream. Had the blade been poisoned?

He fell onto his side, struggling not to curl up and weep.

Aximand stood over him and the script worked along the length of the fuller drew threads of crimson from the edge. Loken turned onto his front, keeping one hand clamped to the rift gouged in his armour. He crawled away, knowing it was useless.

Varren lay moaning in a pool of his own blood. Aximand’s return stroke had taken his right arm at the elbow and split open his chest. Old wounds bled afresh, and his helmet was cracked across the centre.

Loken lifted his head. The air in Lupercal’s Court grew thick, and he saw their last stab at a measure of victory horribly snatched away.

Abaddon had finally put Rubio down and had Bror Tyrfingr pinned to the deck. The Fenrisian was still fighting the First Captain, but even his strength was not the equal of Terminator armour. Voitek’s servo-arms wheezed and clicked, trying and failing to lift him upright. Proximo Tarchon lay unmoving next to him. The Ultramarine still clutched his bloody gladius, but his head hung low over his cratered chest.

Only Severian still stood, but he was surrounded by the Luperci with nowhere to go. The bodies of Ger Gerradon and Grael Noctua lay at his feet, their blood mingling in a spreading lake. Severian’s eyes darted from side to side, seeking a way out, but finding nothing.

Loken heard his name being shouted and blinked.

The gelid quality of the air receded and he took a great sucking draught into his lungs. It burned and the pain stabbed through him from the grievous wound in his side.

He turned to the source of the shout.

But what he saw made no sense.

Iacton Qruze knelt before Lupercal’s throne with his back to Loken. The Warmaster held him clasped to his breast, whispering something in the Half-heard’s ear.

Then Loken saw the Warmaster’s talons jutting from Qruze’s back.

Horus wrenched his arm back and pushed Qruze away.

Iacton crashed to the deck and Loken saw the gaping wound in his chest. Held aloft in the Warmaster’s dripping gauntlet were the twin hearts of Iacton Qruze. Both organs were bright with oxygenated blood and beat one last time.

‘No!’ cried Loken. ‘Throne, no!’

He fought through the screaming fire saturating his body and scrambled over to where Iacton Qruze lay. The Half-heard’s eyes were wide and filled with pain. His jaw worked up and down, trying to speak, trying to make his last words meaningful.

But nothing was coming. The pain was too intense, the shock of his imminent death too much.

Loken held him, helpless to do anything more.

Even had Altan Nohai lived, there would be no saving Qruze.

Lupercal’s Court held its breath. None of the gathered enemies moved. A hero was dying and such a moment was worthy of pause, even in the midst of bitter fratricide.

Loken’s pain was inconsequential in the face of what Qruze was enduring. Loken met Qruze’s gaze and saw an urgent need to communicate in them, a desperate imperative that superseded all other concerns.

Qruze took Loken’s wrist in an iron grip.

His gaze was unflinching. His ruined body spasmed as pain signals overwhelmed his brain. Yet even in the throes of the most agonising death, Qruze still put his duty first.

‘Iacton, I’m sorry...’ said Loken. ‘I’m so very sorry.’

Qruze shook his head. Anger lit his face.

He held his free hand out to Loken. He pressed something into his palm and closed his fingers over it. Loken went to lift it, but Qruze shook his head again, eyes wide. A pleading imperative.

Not now, not here.

Loken nodded and felt Qruze’s grip slacken on his wrist.

The light in the Half-heard’s eyes went out, and he was dead.

Loken laid Qruze down on the blood-soaked deck plate and reached down to a pouch at his waist. He pulled out the two Cthonian mirror-coins Severian had given him in the shadow of the Seven Neverborn and placed them on Iacton Qruze’s eyes.

Loken’s grief was gone, burned away by anger.

He pulled himself to his full height and looked up at Horus.

The Warmaster stood before his throne, Iacton Qruze’s blood still weeping from the long talons of his gauntlet.

‘I didn’t want it to come to this, Garviel,’ said Horus.

Loken ignored the ridiculous platitude and stood taller than he had ever stood before. Prouder than he had ever stood before.

All the uncertainty, all the confusion and every shred of the madness that had kept him wrapped in delusions vanished. All compunction to revere the Warmaster was purged in an instant of loathing.

Iacton Qruze was dead, and the last link with what the Legion had once been was broken.

And with it, any last shred of belief that the Warmaster possessed any nobility or trace of the great man he had once been.

Loken felt the words well up from a depthless reservoir of certainty within him. A valediction and threat all in one.

‘I guarantee that before the sun sets on this war, even if you win, even if I die here, you’ll rue the day you ever turned your back on the Emperor. For every planet you take, the Imperium will exact a fearful tally of Cthonian blood. I guarantee that even if you conquer Terra the fruits of victory will taste like dust in your mouth. I guarantee that if you don’t kill me today, you’ll meet me again. I will stand against you at every outpost, every wall and every gate. I will fight you with every sword at my command, with every bolter and every fist. I will fight you with bare hands. I will fight you with the very rocks of the world you seek to conquer. I will never give up until the Sons of Horus are dead and no more than a bad memory.’

Loken took a breath and saw the Warmaster’s acceptance of his threat. Horus understood that Loken meant every word of what he had just said, that nothing could ever sway him from his course.

‘I wanted you back,’ said Horus. ‘Tormaggedon wanted to make you like him, but I told him you would always be a Son of Horus.’

‘I was never a Son of Horus,’ said Loken. ‘I was and remain a Luna Wolf. A proud son of Cthonia, a loyal servant of the Emperor, beloved by all. I am your enemy.’

Loken heard a chirrup of crackling vox.

He heard it again, coming from the helmet mag-locked to Qruze’s belt. He recognised the voice and despite the body at his feet and all they had lost to get this far, Loken smiled.

He bent and lifted the helmet to his lips as a ghost-shadow moved across the silver orb of the moon through the glass of the great cathedral window.

‘How’s that hunter’s eye, Rassuah?’

‘I have him,’ replied the Tarnhelm’s pilot. ‘Say the word.’

‘Just take the damn shot,’ said Loken.

The window blew out in a blizzard of shards. Sheeting lasers blasted into Lupercal’s Court as the Tarnhelm’s guns filled it with killing fire. The loss of atmosphere was sudden and absolute, over in an instant of ruthless annihilation.

Air blasted into space, along with weapons, bodies and anything not mag-locked to the deck. Spent bolter rounds, stone fragments blasted from the walls and chips of broken ceramite. Glass and debris went too.

Loken let the explosive decompression take him, hurling him from the Vengeful Spirit and into the void of space. Qruze’s body spun away from him.

A crushing sensation of awful solidity seized his chest. His internal organs were shock freezing. Life-support systems in his armour registered the sudden change. It fought to equalise the pressure differential and forced his lungs empty to avoid lethal hyperdistension, but without a helmet it was a losing battle.

Silver light bathed Loken.

Fitting that a Luna Wolf should die by the light of a moon.

Loken’s vision fogged. He felt sudden, shocking cold in his throat, as though his windpipe was filling with liquid helium.

He tried to howl a last curse, but hard vacuum kept him silent.

Loken closed his eyes. He let the moon’s light take him.

And the Vengeful Spirit spun away in the darkness.