TWO

Solid roots
Molech
Medusa’s fire

A kilometre-high dome enclosed the Hegemon, a feat of civic engineering that perfectly encapsulated the vision at the heart of the Palace’s construction. Situated within the Kath Mandau Precinct of Old Himalazia, the Hegemon was the seat of Imperial governance, a metropolis of activity that never stopped nor paused for breath in its unceasing labours.

Lord Dorn had, of course, wanted to fortify it, to layer its golden walls in adamantium and stone, but that order had been quietly rescinded at the highest level. If the Warmaster’s armies reached this far into the Palace then the war was already lost.

A million rooms and corridors veined its bones, from soulless scrivener cubicles of bare brick to soaring chambers of ouslite, marble and gold that were filled with the greatest artistic treasures of the ages. Tens of thousands of robed scribes and clerks hurried along raised concourses, escorted by document-laden servitors and trotting menials. Ambassadors and nobility from across the globe gathered to petition the lords of Terra while ministers guided the affairs of innumerable departments.

The Hegemon had long ceased to be a building as defined by the term. Rather, it had sprawled beyond the dome to become a vast city unto itself, a knotted mass of plunging archive-chasms, towers of office, petitioner’s domes, palaces of bureaucracy and stepped terraces of hanging gardens. Over the centuries it had become a barely-understood organ within the Imperial body that functioned despite – or perhaps because of – its very complexity. This was the slow beating heart of the Emperor’s domain, where decisions affecting billions were dispatched across the galaxy by functionaries who had never lived a day beyond the winding circuits of the Palace.

And the Kath Mandau Precinct was just one of many hundreds of such regions enclosed by the iron-cased walls of the mightiest fortress on Terra.

Beneath the cloud-hung apex of the Hegemon’s central dome was a secluded rift valley, where the last remaining examples of natural foliage on Terra could be found. So enormous was the dome that varying microclimates held sway at different elevations, creating miniature weather patterns that belied any notions of enclosure.

Glittering white cliffs were shawled with mountain evergreens and brocaded by cascading ice-waterfalls that fed a crystal lake of shimmerskin koi. Clinging to a spur of rock partway up the cliffs was the ruin of an ancient citadel. Its outer wall had long since toppled, and the remains of an inner keep were demarcated by a series of concentric rings of glassily volcanic stone.

The valley had existed prior to the construction of the Palace, and rumour told that it held special significance to the Master of Mankind himself.

One man knew the truth of this, but he would never tell.

Malcador the Sigillite sat at the rippling shore of the lake, deliberating whether to advance steadily on the right or throw caution to the wind in an all-out assault. He had the superior force, but his opponent was much larger than him, a towering giant encased in battleplate the colour of moonlit ice and draped in a furred cloak. Long braids of russet hair, woven with polished gems and yellowed fangs, were pulled back from his face, that of a noble savage rendered marble white in the dome’s artificial daylight.

‘Are you going to make a move?’ asked the Wolf King.

‘Patience, Leman,’ said Malcador. ‘The subtleties of hnefatafl are manifold, and each move requires careful thought. Especially when one is the attacker.’

‘I’m aware of the game’s subtleties,’ replied Leman Russ, his voice the throaty threat-rasp of a predator. ‘I invented this variant.’

‘Then you should know not to rush me.’

Mighty beyond all sense of the word, Leman Russ was a tsunami that begins life far out to sea and builds its power over thousands of kilometres as it draws near the shore. His physical form was the instant before impact, and all who looked upon him knew it. Even when apparently at peace, it felt as though Leman Russ was only holding back some explosive violence with great effort.

A bone-handled hunting blade was belted at his waist; a dagger to one of his post-human scale, a sword to everyone else.

Next to Leman Russ, Malcador was a frail, hunch-shouldered old man. Which was, as time went by, less a carefully cultivated image, more a true reflection of his soul-deep weariness. White hair spilled from his crown and lay across his shoulders like the snow on the towering flanks of Chomolungma.

He might bind his hair up when in the company of Sanguinius or Rogal Dorn, but with Russ the observation of physical niceties were secondary to the matters at hand.

Malcador studied the board, a hexagon divided into irregular segments with a raised octagon at its centre. Each segment was pierced with slots into which were placed the playing pieces carved from yellowed hrosshvalur teeth; a mix of warriors, kings, monsters and elemental forces. Portions of the board were movable, able to slide over one another and occlude or reveal fresh segments, and rods set in each side could be rotated to block or open slots. All of which enabled a canny player to radically alter the character of the game at a stroke.

One player had a king and a small band of retainers, the other an army, and as in most such games, the object was to kill the enemy king. Or keep him alive, depending on which colour you chose. Russ always chose to play the outnumbered king.

Malcador removed a hearth-jarl and pushed it towards the octagon where the Wolf King’s pieces had gathered, then twisted one of the side rods. Clicking mechanisms rotated within the board, though it was impossible to know for certain which slots had opened up and which had closed until a player had committed to a move.

‘Bold,’ noted Russ. ‘Nemo would say you hadn’t given that move enough thought.’

‘You were pressing me.’

‘And you let yourself be goaded?’ mused Russ. ‘I’m surprised.’

‘There is not the time for deep reflection now.’

‘You’ve made that point before.’

‘It’s an important point to make.’

‘Nor yet is it a time for recklessness,’ said Russ, moving his Warhawk and twisting a side rod. Malcador’s hearth-jarl fell onto its side as the slot it had occupied was sealed.

‘Foolish,’ said Malcador, foregoing the opportunity to alter the board to advance an extra piece. ‘You are exposed now.’

Russ shook his head and pressed the segment of board before him, rotating it by ninety degrees. As it clicked back into place, Malcador saw the king’s retainers were now poised to flank his army and execute its cardinal piece.

‘You say exposed,’ said Russ. ‘I say berkutra.’

‘The hunter’s cut,’ translated Malcador. ‘That’s Chogorian.’

‘The Khan taught me his name for it,’ said Russ, never one to take another’s virtue for his own. ‘We call it almáttigrbíta, but I like his word better.’

Malcador graciously tipped his cardinal piece onto its side, knowing there would be no escape from the Wolf King’s trap, only a slow attrition that would see his leaderless army scattered to the corners of the board.

‘Well played, Leman,’ said Malcador.

Russ nodded and bent to lift a wide-necked ewer of wine from beside the table. He held a pair of pewter goblets in his other hand and kept one for himself before handing the second to Malcador. The Sigillite took note of the wine’s provenance and raised a curious eyebrow.

Russ shrugged. ‘Not everything of the Sons was bitter with sorcery.’

The wine was poured, and Malcador was forced to agree.

‘How long until your fleet is battle ready?’ asked Malcador, though he had already digested the work schedules of the Fenrisian vessels from Fabricator Kane at the Novopangean orbital yards.

‘Alpharius’s whelps tried to tear the Hrafnkel’s heart out, but her bones are strong and she’ll sail again,’ said Russ with a phlegmatic grunt. ‘The shipwrights tell me it’ll be another three months at least before she’s void-worthy, and not even Bear’s threats are getting them to move faster.’

‘Bear?’

‘A misnomer that’s stuck,’ was all Russ would say.

‘And the rest of the fleet?’

‘Probably longer,’ said Russ. ‘The delay chafes, but if Caliban’s angels hadn’t arrived when they did, there wouldn’t be a fleet left to rebuild at all. We fill our time though. We train, we fight and prepare for what’s ahead.’

‘Have you given any thought to the alternative I broached?’

‘I have,’ said Russ.

‘And?’

‘My answer is no,’ answered Russ. ‘It stinks of revenge and last resort.’

‘It’s strategy,’ said Malcador. ‘Pre-emption, if you will.’

‘Semantics,’ said Russ, a warning burr in his voice. ‘Don’t think to weave linguistic knots around me, Sigillite. I know why you want that planet burned, but I’m a warrior, not a destroyer.’

‘A slender distinction, my friend, but if any world’s death would turn the Warmaster from his course it would be that one.’

‘Perhaps, but that is a murder for another day,’ said Russ. ‘My fleet’s guns will be better directed against Horus himself.’

‘So you are set on this course?’

‘As the cursed ice-rigger of bróðirgráta is doomed to follow the bad star.’

‘Dorn would have you stay,’ said Malcador, passing the red pieces to Russ. ‘You know Terra would be mightier with the Great Wolf lying in wait, fangs bared and claws sharp.’

‘If Rogal wants me so much, he should ask himself.’

‘He is in absentia just now.’

‘I know where he is,’ said Russ. ‘You think I fought my way back from Alaxxes and didn’t leave silent hunters in the shadows to see who follows my wake? I know of the intruder ship and I saw Rogal’s men take it.’

‘Rogal is proud,’ said Malcador. ‘But I am not. Stay, Leman. Range your wolves on Terra’s walls.’

The Wolf King shook his head. ‘I’m not built for waiting, Sigillite. I don’t fight well from behind stone, waiting for the enemy to try and dig me out. I’m the executioner, and the executioner lands the first blow, a killing strike that ends dispute before it begins.’

Malcador nodded. He’d suspected this would be Russ’s answer, but had to present an alternative nonetheless. He looked up at the highest reaches of the dome, where distant anabatic winds tugged at the clouds. A soothsayer or astromancer might read omens and signs of the future in their form, but Malcador just saw clouds.

‘Has the exiled cub been summoned?’ said Russ, sitting back and draining his wine as though it were water.

Malcador returned his gaze to Russ. ‘You should not call him that, my friend. He faced the Warmaster’s decision to betray the Emperor and refused to follow it. Do not underestimate the strength of character that took, strength a great many others singularly failed to show.’

Russ nodded, conceding the point, as Malcador continued. ‘The Somnus Citadel’s shuttle arrived at Yasu’s villa this morning. He approaches the Hegemon as we speak.’

‘And you still believe him to be the best?’

‘The best?’ said Malcador. ‘A hard thing to quantify. He is uniquely capable, no doubt, but is he the best? The best what? The best fighter, the best shot, the best heart? I don’t know if he is the best of them, but he won’t fail you.’

Russ let out a heavy, animal breath and said, ‘I’ve read the one-time slates you gave me, and they don’t make for comforting reading. When Nathaniel Garro found him he was a maddened killer, a slayer of innocents.’

‘That he survived the massacre at all was a miracle.’

‘Aye, maybe so,’ said Russ.

‘Trust me, Leman, this one stands with us, as straight up and down as any I have known.’

‘What if you’re wrong?’ asked Russ, leaning over the board and toppling his own king. ‘What if he goes back to the Warmaster? The things he’s seen and done. The things he knows. Even if he is as loyal as you believe, you can’t know what will happen when he enters the belly of the beast. You know how much rests upon this.’

‘Only too well, old friend,’ said Malcador. ‘Your life, the Emperor’s. Perhaps all of our lives. The Emperor wrought you for a terrible purpose, but a necessary one. If anyone can stop Horus before he gets to Terra, it is you.’

Russ’s head snapped up and his top lip curled back over his teeth, like an animal sensing danger. ‘He’s here.’

Malcador looked down the valley and saw a lone figure cresting the Sigillite’s bridge far below. At this distance, he was little more than a speck of steeldust grey against the white of the cliffs, but his poise was unmistakable.

Russ rose to his feet and watched the distant figure approach, regarding him as though he were a wounded hound that might turn on its master at any moment.

‘So that’s Garviel Loken,’ said Russ.

Shimmering fluorescent light filled the Dome of Revivification with the arrival of the cryo-cylinders, and Aximand felt the not unreasonable discomfort at seeing those who were alive and yet ought to be dead. The thought triggered a memory of a dream, a half-heard echo of something best forgotten.

‘Who are they?’ asked Mortarion, his deathly pallor made even more corpse-like by the glow of the life-sustaining mechanisms of the Mausolytic.

‘They are Dwell’s greatest resource,’ said Horus, as Fulgrim moved through the suspended cylinders with the leathery scrape of unnatural flesh over broken glass. ‘A thousand generations of its most brilliant minds, held forever at death’s threshold in the final instant of their life.’

Horus waved Aximand forward and he took his place at the Warmaster’s right hand. Horus placed the taloned gauntlet on his shoulder guard.

‘Aximand here led the assault to take the Mausolytic Precincts,’ said Horus with pride. ‘At no small personal cost.’

Fulgrim turned to him, and Aximand saw the change in the Phoenician went far deeper than his physical transformation. The narcissism Aximand always suspected lay at the heart of the Emperor’s Children’s obsessive drive for perfection was rampant in Fulgrim. Nothing he said could be taken at face value, and Aximand wondered if trusting Fulgrim had been Perturabo’s downfall. Surely Horus would not make the same mistake?

‘Your face,’ said the Phoenician. ‘What happened to it?’

‘I got careless in the vicinity of a Medusan blade.’

Fulgrim reached out with one of his upper arms and took hold of Aximand’s chin, turning his head to either side. The touch was repellent and exhilarating.

‘Your whole face removed in one cut,’ said Fulgrim with grudging admiration. ‘How did it feel?’

‘Painful.’

‘Lucius would approve,’ said Fulgrim. ‘But you shouldn’t have re-attached it. Imagine the bliss of that pain each time you were helmed. And one less of you looking like my brother is no bad thing.’

The Phoenician moved on and Aximand felt a curious mix of relief and regret that the primarch’s touch was no longer upon him.

‘So you can talk to them?’ asked Mortarion, examining the controls of a cryo-cylinder. The tech-adept next to him dropped to his knees, soiled and weeping in terror.

The Warmaster nodded. ‘Everything these people knew is preserved and blended with the hundreds of remembrancers and iterators who came to this world after Guilliman restored it to the Imperium.’

‘And what do they say?’

Horus made his way to a gently glowing cylinder in which lay the recumbent form of an elderly man. The Mournival followed him and Aximand saw the body within was draped in a red-gold aquila flag, the planes and contours of his features suggesting he was not a native Dweller.

‘They try to say nothing,’ grinned Horus. ‘How the galaxy has changed isn’t to their taste. They scream and rage, trying to keep me from hearing what I want, but they can’t scream all the time.’

Fulgrim coiled his serpentine lower body around the mechanisms of the cylinder, rearing up and peering through the frosted glass.

‘I know this man,’ he said, and Aximand saw that he also recognised him, picturing the preserved face as it had been nearly two centuries ago when its owner had boarded the Vengeful Spirit.

‘Arthis Varfell,’ said Horus. ‘His iterations during the latter days of Unity were instrumental in the pacification of the Sol system. And his monographs on the long-term benefits of pre-introducing advocatus agents into indigenous cultures prior to compliance overtures became required reading.’

‘What’s he doing here?’ asked Mortarion.

‘Varfell was part of the Thirteenth’s expeditionary forces when they reached this world,’ said Horus. ‘Roboute gave him much credit for making Dwell’s reintegration to the Imperium bloodless. But soon after compliance the old man’s heart finally started rejecting the juvenat treatments, and he chose to be implanted within the Mausolytic rather than continue onwards. He rather liked the idea of becoming part a whole world’s shared memory.’

‘He told you this?’

‘Eventually,’ said Horus. ‘The dead don’t easily give up their secrets, but I didn’t ask gently.’

‘What do the dead of this world know of gods and their doom?’ demanded Fulgrim.

‘More than you or I,’ said Horus.

‘What does that mean?’

Horus strolled through the rows of cryo-cylinders, touching some and pausing momentarily to peer at their glowing occupants. He spoke as he walked, as though recounting nothing of consequence, though Aximand saw the studied nonchalance veiled great import.

‘I came to Dwell because I recently become aware of several lacunae in my memories, voids where there ought to be perfect recall.’

‘What couldn’t you remember?’ said Fulgrim.

‘If that isn’t a stupid question, I don’t know what is,’ grunted Mortarion with a sound that might have been laughter.

Fulgrim hissed in anger, but the Death Lord took no notice.

‘I’d read the Great Crusade log concerning Dwell decades ago, of course,’ continued Horus, ‘though I’d put it from my mind since there hadn’t been any conflict. But when I sent the Seventeenth to Calth, Roboute spoke of the great library his highest epistolary had constructed. He said it was a treasure-house of knowledge to rival the Mausolytic of Dwell and its great repository of the dead.’

‘So you came to Dwell to see if you could fill the void in your memory?’ said Fulgrim.

‘After a fashion,’ agreed Horus, circling back to where he had begun his circuit of the cylinders. ‘Every man and woman interred here over the millennia has become part of a shared consciousness, a world memory containing everything each individual had learned, from the first great diaspora to the present day.’

‘Impressive,’ agreed Mortarion.

‘Hardly,’ said Fulgrim. ‘We all have eidetic memories. What is there here of value I do not already know?’

‘Do you remember all your battles, Fulgrim?’ asked Horus.

‘Of course. Every sword swing, every manoeuvre, every shot. Every kill.’

‘Squad names, warriors? Places, people?’

‘All of it,’ insisted Fulgrim.

‘Then tell me of Molech,’ said Horus. ‘Tell me what you remember of that compliance.’

Fulgrim opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. His expression was that of a blank-faced novitiate as he sought the answer to a drill sergeant’s rhetorical question.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Fulgrim. ‘I remember Molech, I do, its wilds and its high castles and its Knights, but…’

His words trailed off, putting Aximand in the mind of a warrior suffering severe head trauma. ‘We were both there, you and I, before the Third Legion had numbers to operate alone. And the Lion? Wait, was Jaghatai there too?’

Horus nodded. ‘So the logs say,’ he said. ‘We four and the Emperor travelled to Molech. It complied, of course. What planet would offer resistance to Legion forces led by the Emperor?’

‘An overwhelming force,’ said Mortarion. ‘Was heavy resistance expected?’

‘Far from it,’ said Horus. ‘Molech’s rulers were inveterate record keepers, and they remembered Terra. Its people had weathered Old Night, and when the Emperor descended to the surface it was inevitable they would accept compliance.’

‘We remained there for some months, did we not?’ asked Fulgrim.

Aximand glanced at Abaddon and saw the same look on the First Captain’s face he felt he wore. He too remembered Molech, but like the primarchs was having difficulty in recalling specific details. Aximand had almost certainly visited the planet’s surface, but found it hard to form a coherent picture of its environs.

‘According to the Vengeful Spirit’s horologs, we were there for a hundred and eleven standard Terran days, one hundred and nine local. After we left nearly a hundred regiments of Army, three Titanicus cohorts and garrison detachments from two Legions were left in place.’

‘For a planet that embraced compliance?’ said Mortarion. ‘A waste of resources if ever I heard it. What need did the Emperor have to fortify Molech with such strength?’

Horus snapped his fingers and said, ‘Exactly.’

‘I’m guessing you have an answer for that question,’ said Fulgrim. ‘Otherwise why summon us here?’

‘I have an answer of sorts,’ said Horus, tapping the cryo-cylinder containing Arthis Varfell. ‘A specialty of this particular iterator was the early history of the Emperor, the wars of Unity and the various myths and legends surrounding His assumption of Old Earth’s throne. The memories of Dwell are untainted, and many of its earliest settlers were driven here by the raging tides of Old Night. What they remember goes back a very long way, and Varfell assimilated it all.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Fulgrim.

‘I mean that some of the oldest Dwellers came from Molech, and they remember the Emperor’s first appearance on their world.’

‘First?’ said Fulgrim.

Mortarion gripped Silence tightly. ‘He had been there before? When?’

‘If I’m interpreting the dreams of the dead right, then our father first set foot on Molech many centuries, or even millennia before the wars of Unity. He came in a starship that never returned to Earth, a starship I believe now forms the heart of the Dawn Citadel.’

‘The Dawn Citadel… I remember that,’ said Fulgrim. ‘Yes, there was an ugly, cannibalised structure of ship parts at the end of a mountain valley! The Lion built one of his sombre castles around it did he not?’

‘He did indeed,’ said Horus. ‘The Emperor needed a starship to reach Molech, but didn’t need it to get back. Whatever He found there made Him into a god, or as near as makes no difference.’

‘And you think whatever that was is still there?’ said Fulgrim with heady anticipation. ‘Even after all this time?’

‘Why else leave the planet so heavily defended?’ said Mortarion. ‘It’s the only explanation.’

Horus nodded. ‘Through Arthis Varfell, I learned a great deal of Molech’s early years, together with what the four of us did there. Some of it I even remembered.’

‘The Emperor erased your memories of Molech?’ said Abaddon, forgetting himself for a moment.

‘Ezekyle!’ hissed Aximand.

Abaddon’s outrage eclipsed his decorum, his choler roused as he sought to vent his anger. Beyond him, the stars were out, casting a glittering light over Tyjun. Stablights from patrolling aircraft swept the city. Some close, some far away, but none came near the skeletal structure of the dome.

‘No, not erased,’ said Horus, overlooking his First Captain’s outburst. ‘Something so drastic would quickly result in a form of cognitive dissonance that would draw attention to its very existence. This was more a… manipulation, the lessening of some memories and the strengthening others to overshadow the gaps.’

‘But to alter the memories of three entire Legions,’ breathed Fulgrim. ‘The power that would require…’

‘So, it’s to Molech then?’ said Mortarion.

‘Yes, brothers,’ said Horus, spreading his arms. ‘We are to follow in the footsteps of a god and become gods ourselves.’

‘Our Legions stand ready,’ said Fulgrim, febrile anticipation making his body shimmer with corposant.

‘No, brother, I require only Mortarion’s Legion for this war-making,’ said Horus.

‘Then why summon me at all?’ snapped Fulgrim. ‘Why insult my warriors by excluding them from your designs?’

‘Because it’s not your Legion I need, it’s you,’ said Horus, spearing to the heart of Fulgrim’s vanity. ‘My Phoenician brother, I need you most of all.’

Aximand’s ocular filters dimmed as a stablight swept through the buckled struts of the dome. Stark shadows bowed and twisted.

Everyone looked up.

The dark outline of an aircraft rose up beyond the dome, its engines bellowing with downdraft. A blizzard of broken glass took to the air. Glittering reflections dazzled like snow.

‘Who the hell’s flying so close?’ said Abaddon, shielding his eyes from the blinding glare. More noise, fresh stablights from the other side of the dome.

Another two aircraft.

Fire Raptors. Horde killers that had made their name at Ullanor. Coated in non-reflective black. Hovering, circling the dome. Icons on their glacis shone proudly after months of being obscured.

Silver gauntlets on a black field.

‘It’s Meduson!’ shouted Aximand. ‘It’s Shadrak bloody Meduson!’

Three centreline Avenger cannons roared in unison. Braying quad guns on waist turrets followed an instant later.

And the Dome of Revivification vanished in a sheeting inferno of orange flame.

The game was called hnefatafl, and Loken found himself in the presence of a Titan he’d never expected to see again, much less be sat opposite. He’d met primarchs before, had even talked to some of them without making a fool of himself, but the Wolf King was another entity altogether. Primal force bound to immortal form, elemental fury woven around a frame of invincible meat and bone.

And yet, of all the post-human demigods he had met, Russ gave the impression of being the most human.

Until ten hours ago, Loken been ensconced within a lunar biodome on the edge of the Mare Tranquillitatis. Since returning from the mission to Caliban, he’d spent most of his time tending to the gardens within the dome, seeking a peace that remained forever out of reach.

Iacton Qruze had brought Malcador’s summons, together with his bare, steeldust grey armour, but his fellow Knight Errant had not joined him on the Stormbird to Terra, claiming he had heavy duty elsewhere. The Half-heard had changed markedly since their time together aboard the Vengeful Spirit, becoming a sadder, but wiser man. Loken was not sure if that was a good thing or not.

The Stormbird set down by a villa in the mountains beyond the palace, and a young girl with skin like burnished coal who had introduced herself as Ekata had offered him refreshments. He’d declined, finding her appearance unsettling, like a reminder of someone he’d once known. She led him to a black-armoured skimmer emblazoned with a serpentine dragon. It flew into the heart of the Palace Precincts, beneath the shadow of one of the great orbital plates moored to a mountainside, until coming to land within sight of the vast dome of the Hegemon. He’d climbed the valley alone, pausing only as he reached the Sigillite’s bridge as he saw the two figures at the side of the lake.

Malcador sat on a stool at the side of the board and Loken favoured him with a puzzled look.

‘You summoned me to Terra just to play a game?’

‘No,’ answered Russ, ‘but play it anyway.’

‘A good game is like a mirror that allows you to look into yourself,’ said Malcador. ‘And you can learn a lot about a man by watching how he plays a game.’

Loken looked down at the board, with its movable segments, rotating rods and one outnumbered force.

‘I don’t know how to play,’ he said.

‘It’s simple,’ said Russ, moving a piece forward and rotating a slot. ‘It’s like war. You learn the rules fast and then you have to play better than everyone else.’

Loken nodded and moved a piece forward in the centre. His was the larger army, but he had no doubt that would be of little advantage against the man he suspected had devised the game. He spent the opening moves in what he hoped was an all-out assault, provoking responses from the Wolf King, who didn’t even deign to look at the board or appear to give his strategy any consideration whatsoever.

Within six moves, it was clear that Loken had lost, but he had a better idea of how the game was played. In ten moves, his army had been split and its cardinal piece eliminated.

‘Again,’ said Russ, and Malcador reset the pieces.

They played another two games, with Loken defeated both times, but like any warrior of the Legiones Astartes, Loken was a quick study. With every move, his appreciation of the game was growing until, by the midpoint of the third game, he felt he had a good grasp of its rules and their applications.

This latest game ended as the three before it, with Loken’s army scattered and lost. He sat back and grinned.

‘Another game, my lord?’ he said. ‘I almost had you until you changed the board.’

‘It’s a favourite endgame of Leman’s to finish with a bold reshaping of the landscape,’ said Malcador. ‘But I think we’ve played enough, don’t you?’

Russ leaned over the board and said, ‘You don’t learn quick enough. He doesn’t learn quick enough.’

This last part was addressed to Malcador.

‘He already plays better than I,’ said the Sigillite.

‘Even the Balt play better than you,’ said Russ. ‘And they have minds like clubbed vatnkýr. He didn’t listen to what I told him, he didn’t learn the rules fast and didn’t play better than everyone else.’

‘Another game then,’ snapped Loken. ‘I’ll show you how quick I learn. Or are you afraid I’ll beat you at your own game?’

Russ stared at him from beneath hooded brows and Loken saw death in those eyes, the sure and certain knowledge of his own doom. He’d goaded a primarch of notorious unpredictability and saw his earlier impression of Russ being the most human of primarchs had been so very wide of the mark.

He was now about to pay for that mistake.

And he didn’t care.

Russ nodded and his killing mood lifted with a wide grin that exposed teeth that looked too large for his mouth to contain.

‘He’s a lousy player, but I like him,’ said the Wolf King. ‘Maybe you were right about him, Sigillite. There’s solid roots to him after all. He’ll do.’

Loken said nothing, wondering what manner of test he had just passed and what had been said of him before his arrival.

‘I’ll do for what?’ he asked.

‘You’ll do to find me a way to kill Horus,’ said the Wolf King.

Horus knew the capabilities of the Fire Raptor intimately. Its range, weapon mounts, rate of fire. Ullanor had shown just how savage a gunship it was. It had been integral to the victory.

I should be dead.

He breathed in sulphur-hot fumes. Fyceline, scorched metal, burning flesh. Horus rolled onto his side. Hearing damaged. A deadening numbness filled his head with dull echoes. The rasping of a saw. Thudding detonations.

He didn’t need his visor display to know how badly he’d been hurt. His armour was battered, but unbreached, though his skin was burned to the bone, his scalp scorched bare. Temperature warnings, oxygen deficiencies, organ damage. He shut them out with a thought.

Clarity. He needed clarity.

Shadrak Meduson!

Autonomic reactions took over. Time and motion became gel-like as Horus pushed himself to his feet. He swayed, concussive shock waves making him dizzy. How bad did it have to get for a primarch to feel dizzy?

Flames surrounded him. The Dome of Revivification was gone, its structure torn away in scything arcs of explosive mass-reactive bolts. Cryo-cylinders lay in shattered ruin. Wet-leather bodies smoked like trail rations.

Horus saw Noctua and Aximand pinned beneath a fallen structural member. The plates of their armour were buckled and split, their helms splintered into pieces. No sign of the Widowmaker or Ezekyle.

‘Mortarion!’ he shouted ‘Fulgrim!’

His brothers? Where were his brothers?

A figure rose from the centre of the dome, painfully bright. Too bright, giving off a radiance that sent a twist of nausea through his gut. Sinuous, winged, many armed.

Beautiful, so very beautiful. Even bleeding sick light from fractures in his essence. He rose like a snow-maned phoenix, rising from the ashes of its immortal rebirth. Horus saw sinews like hawsers in Fulgrim’s neck, his black, murderer’s eyes now filled with light that was not light.

A howling Fire Raptor swung around, the gimbals of its waist cannons swivelling to track the Phoenician.

Before it could fire, the rear wings peeled back from its body, like the wings of a dragonfly plucked by a spiteful child. Its tail section crumpled, buckling inwards under invisible force.

Fulgrim roared and brought his hands together.

The gunship imploded, crushed to a mangled ball of twisted flesh and metal. Compressed ammunition detonated and the flaming wreckage dropped like a stone.

Despite the flames, Horus felt the icy wind of warp-craft fill the dome. He’d known his brother’s transformation had empowered him enormously, but this was staggering. He saw movement in the wreckage beneath the Phoenician.

Mortarion’s Barbaran plate was black as char, his pallid face seared the same colour. He leaked blood like a pierced bladder.

Ezekyle and Aximand appeared at their primarch’s side. The First Captain’s face was a mask of crimson, his topknot burned down to the skull. Strands of it hung over his face, making him look like the victim of a wasting disease. Aximand was shouting, dragging him, but all Horus heard were explosions.

The cloying torpor of near death fell from him.

Noise and fury returned as his senses caught up with the world. The two remaining Fire Raptors were circling, methodically and systematically destroying the dome. Horus saw interlocking trails of high-calibre shells streaking from the prows of the Legion’s Fire Raptors. Streams of fire raced downward as the gunships strafed in concert around the dome’s circumference.

Nothing could live through so thorough and savage an attack.

I should be dead.

He shook off Aximand’s grip and barged through the blazing wreckage of the dome towards Mortarion, immense in his custom Martian plate. Bodies of Dwell’s greatest minds snapped beneath his weight.

The Iron Tenth’s gunships filled the air with shells again.

He tried to shout, but his throat was a scorched ruin of smoke-damaged tissue. He coughed up ash and seared lung matter.

Explosions detonated prematurely, orange flame and black smoke. Shrapnel and casings fell like hot nails.

I should be dead.

And but for the craft of Malevolus and the Phoenician’s power, he would be.

Fulgrim’s arms were outstretched, and Horus guessed he had summoned a force barrier or kine-shield. Beads of phosphor-bright ichor ran like sweat down his body. Writhing smoke coated his serpent form as dark radiance spilled from his eyes and mouth.

Whatever he was doing, it was robbing the solid rounds of their potency. Not all of it, but most of it.

Six shells tore into Fulgrim’s body, exploding from his spine.

Horus cried aloud as if he had been struck himself. Blood like bright milk spattered Mortarion’s armour. It smoked like an acid burn. Fulgrim screamed and the roar of gunfire and explosions swelled in power. The platform of the dome sagged, solid metal warping in the heat of the fire.

‘Horus! Bring them down!’ gasped Fulgrim. ‘Quickly!’

Aximand and Abaddon fired their bolters at the gunships, hoping for a lucky hit. A cracked canopy, a buckled engine louvre. Impacts pummelled the gunships’ flanks, but Fire Raptors were built to withstand deadlier weapons than theirs.

Mortarion waded through the wreckage, as unbroken as ever, the black blade of Silence unlimbered and trailing a burning length of chain. He roared something in the heathen tongue of his home world as he ran towards the edge of the dome.

The Death Lord hurled Silence like an axeman.

The great reaper blade spun and hammered into the heraldic fist upon the nearest Fire Raptor’s glacis. Heels braced in the shattered dome, Mortarion hauled on the chain attached to Silence’s heel.

The gunship lurched in the air, but the Death Lord wasn’t done with it. Its Avenger cannon flensed Mortarion, driving him back. Plates sheared from him, blood arced in pressurised sprays. Flesh melted in the fury of high power mass-reactives.

And still Mortarion pulled on the chain, pulling the screaming gunship closer.

‘I’ve hooked him!’ yelled Mortarion. ‘Now finish it!’

The pilots fought to escape his grip. The Fire Raptor’s engines shrieked in power, but hand over hand, the downed primarch reeled the gunship in like a belligerent angler.

Horus appeared at Mortarion’s side, running.

Even in his towering armour he was running. Jumping.

He vaulted onto the shattered remains of a cryo-capsule and launched himself through the air. Hooked by the Death Lord, the gunship was powerless to evade. Horus landed on its prow and knelt to grip the haft of Silence as the gunship lurched with the impact of his landing.

He saw the pilots’ faces and drank in their terror. Horus never normally gave any thought to the men he killed. They were soldiers doing a job. Misguided and fighting for a lie, but simply soldiers doing what they were ordered to do.

But these men had hurt him. They’d tried to murder him and his brothers. They’d lain in wait for an opportunity to behead their enemy. That he’d been foolish enough to believe Shadrak Meduson would only have one plan in place inflamed Horus’s humours as much as the attempt itself.

He lifted his right arm, and Worldbreaker’s killing head caught the firelight.

The mace swung and demolished the pilot’s compartment.

The last Fire Raptor swung around the dome. Seeing him atop the second gunship and knowing it was doomed, the Fire Raptor’s cannons roared.

High explosive, armour penetrating shells ripped along the fuselage of the wallowing gunship, shearing it in two. It exploded in a geysering plume of fire, but Horus was already in the air.

Silence in one hand, Worldbreaker in the other, he landed on the back of the last gunship, slewing it around. The Fire Raptor gunned its engines as it tried to shake him from its back. Horus swung Silence in a wide arc and split the Fire Raptor’s spine.

Still roaring, the gunship’s engines wrenched free with a screech of tortured metal. Horus swept Worldbreaker around like a woodsman’s axe and its flanged head ploughed through the gunship’s fuselage, obliterating the pilots and turning the prow to scrap.

The shattered remains fell away as Horus dropped into the dome with both Silence and Worldbreaker held out at his sides.

An explosion mushroomed behind him.

Horus dropped both weapons and ran to Mortarion. He knelt and reached out to clasp his blood-soaked brother to his burned breast. Mortarion’s arms hung limp, tendons ripped from bones and muscles acid-burned raw.

Neither moved, a living tableau of the ashen sculptures of the dead left in an atomic detonation’s wake.

One touch and they would crumble to cinders.

‘My brother,’ wept Horus. ‘What have they done to you?’