‘I like you, Petronella Vivar of House Carpinus,’ he said. ‘You’ll do.’
Her mouth fell open and her heart fluttered in her breast.
‘Truly?’ she asked, afraid that the Warmaster was playing with her again.
‘Truly,’ agreed Horus.
‘But I thought…’
‘Listen, lass, I usually make up my mind about a person within ten seconds and I very rarely change it. The minute you walked in, I saw the fighter in you. There is something of the wolf in you, girl, and I like that. Just one thing…’
‘Yes?’
‘Not so formal next time,’ he smirked. ‘We are a ship of war, not the parlours of Merica. Now I fear I must excuse myself, as I have to head planetside to Davin for a council of war.’
And with that, she had been appointed.
It still amazed her that it had been so easy, though it meant most of the formal gowns she had brought now seemed wholly inappropriate, forcing her to dress in unbearably prosaic dresses more at home in the alms houses of the Gyptus spires. The dames of society wouldn’t recognise her now.
She smiled at the memory as her trailing fingers reached the end of the desk and rested on an ancient tome with a cracked leather binding and faded gilt lettering. She opened the book and idly flipped a couple of pages, stopping at one showing a complex astrological diagram of the orbits of planets and conjunctions, below which was the image of some mythical beast, part man, part horse.
‘My father gave me that,’ said a powerful voice behind her.
She turned, guiltily snatching her hand back from the book.
Horus stood behind her, his massive form clad in battle plate. As ever, he was almost overwhelmingly intimidating, physical and masculine, and the thought of sharing a room with such a powerful specimen of manhood in the absence of a chaperone gave her guilt a delicious edge.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘That was impolite of me.’
Horus waved his hand. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘If there was anything I didn’t want you to see I wouldn’t have left it out.’
Despite his easy reassurance, he gathered up the book and slipped it onto the shelves above his bed. She immediately sensed great tension in him, and though he appeared outwardly clam, her heart raced as she felt his furious anger. It bubbled beneath his skin like the fires of a once dormant volcano on the verge of unleashing its terrible fury.
Before she could say anything in reply, he said, ‘I’m afraid I can’t sit and speak to you today, Miss Vivar. Matters have arisen on Davin’s moon that require my immediate attention.’
She tried to cover her disappointment, saying, ‘No matter, we can reschedule a meeting for when you have more time.’
He laughed, the sound harsh and, she thought, a little too sad to be convincing.
‘That may not be for a while,’ he warned.
‘I’m not someone who gives up easily,’ she promised. ‘I can wait.’
Horus considered her words for a moment, and then shook his head.
‘No, that won’t be necessary,’ he said with a smile. ‘You said you wanted to see war?’
She nodded enthusiastically and he said, ‘Then accompany me to the embarkation deck and I’ll show you how the Astartes prepare for war.’
FIVE
Our people
A leader
Speartip
T
HE
BRIDGE
OF
the
Vengeful Spirit
bustled with activity, the business of ferrying troops and war machines back from the surface of Davin complete, and plans now drawn for the extermination of Eugan Temba’s rebellious forces.
Extermination
. That was the word they used, not subjugation, not pacification: extermination.
And the Legion was more than ready to carry out that sentence.
Sleek and deadly warships broke anchor with Davin under the watchful gaze of the Master of the Fleet, Boas Comnenus. Moving such a fleet even a short distance in formation was no small undertaking, but the ship’s masters appointed beneath him knew their trade and the withdrawal from Davin was accomplished with the precision of a surgeon wielding a scalpel.
Not all the Expedition fleet vacated Davin’s orbit, but enough followed the course of the
Vengeful Spirit
to ensure that nothing would be able to stand before the Astartes speartip.
The journey was a mercifully short one, Davin’s moon a dirty, yellow brown smudge of reflected light haloed against the distant red sun.
To Boas Comnenus their destination looked like a terrible, bloated pustule against the heavens.
F
EVERISH
ACTIVITY
FILLED
the embarkation deck as fitters, deck hands and Mechanicum adepts made last minute pre-flight checks to the growling Stormbirds. Engines flared and strobing arc lights bathed the enormous, echoing deck in a pale, washed out industrial glow. Hatches were slammed shut, arming pins were removed from warheads, and fuel lines were disconnected from rumbling engines. Six of the monstrous flyers sat hunched at the end of their launch rails, cranes delivering the last of their ordnance payloads, while gunnery servitors calibrated the cannons slung beneath the cockpit.
The captains and warriors selected to accompany the Warmaster’s speartip followed ground crews around the Stormbirds, checking and rechecking their machines. Their lives would soon depend on these aircraft and no one wanted to wind up dead thanks to something as trivial as mechanical failure. Along with the Mournival, Luc Sedirae, Nero Vipus and Verulam Moy – together with specialised squads from their companies – would travel to Davin’s moon to fight once more in the name of the Imperium.
Loken was ready. His mind was full of new and disturbing thoughts, but he pushed them to one side in preparation for the coming fight. Doubt and uncertainty clouded the mind and an Astartes could afford neither.
‘Throne, I’m ready for this,’ said Torgaddon, clearly relishing the prospect of battle.
Loken nodded. Something still felt terribly wrong to him, but he too longed for the purity of real combat, the chance to test his warrior skills against a living opponent. Though if their intelligence was correct, all they would be facing was perhaps ten thousand rebellious Army soldiers, no match for even a quarter this many Astartes.
The Warmaster, however, had demanded the utter destruction of Temba’s forces, and five companies of Astartes, a detachment of Varvarus’s Byzant Janizars and a battle group of Titans from the Legio Mortis were to unleash his fiery wrath. Princeps Esau Turnet had pledged the
Dies Irae
itself.
‘I’ve not seen a gathering of might like this since before Ullanor,’ said Torgaddon. ‘Those rebels on the moon are already as good as dead.’
Rebels…
Whoever thought to hear such a word?
Enemies yes, but rebels… never.
The thought soured his anticipation of battle as they made their way to where Aximand and Abaddon checked the arms inventory of their Stormbird, arguing over which munitions would be best suited to the mission.
‘I’m telling you, the subsonic shells will be better,’ said Aximand.
‘And what if they have armour like those interex bastards?’ demanded Abaddon.
‘Then we use mass reactive. Tell him, Loken!’
Abaddon turned at Loken and Torgaddon’s approach and nodded curtly.
‘Aximand’s right,’ Loken said. ‘Supersonic shells will pass through a man before they have time to flatten and create a killing exit wound. You might fire three of these through a target and still not put him down.’
‘Just because the last few fights have been against armoured warriors, Ezekyle wants them,’ said Aximand, ‘but I keep telling him that this battle will be fought against men no more armoured than our own Army soldiers.’
‘And let’s face it,’ sniggered Torgaddon. ‘Ezekyle needs all the help he can get putting an enemy down.’
‘I’ll bloody well put you down, Tarik,’ said Abaddon, his grim exterior finally cracking into a smile. The first captain’s hair was pulled back in a long scalp lock in preparation for donning his helmet, and Loken could see that he too was fiercely anticipating the coming bloodshed.
‘Doesn’t this bother any of you?’ asked Loken, unable to contain himself any longer.
‘What?’ asked Aximand.
‘This,’ said Loken, waving an arm around the deck at the preparations for war that were being made all around them. ‘Don’t you realise what we’re about to do?’
‘Of course we do, Garvi,’ bellowed Abaddon. ‘We’re going to kill some damned fool that insulted the Warmaster!’
‘No,’ said Loken. ‘It’s more than that, don’t you see? These people we’re going to kill, they’re not some xeno empire or a lost strand of humanity that doesn’t want to be brought to compliance. They’re ours; it’s our people we’ll be killing.’
‘They’re traitors,’ said Abaddon, needlessly emphasising the last word. ‘That’s all there is to it. Don’t you see? They have turned their back on the Warmaster and the Emperor, and for that reason, their lives are forfeit.’
‘Come on, Garvi,’ said Torgaddon. ‘You’re worrying about nothing.’
‘Am I? What do we do if it happens again?’
The other members of the Mournival looked at one another in puzzlement.
‘If what happens again?’ asked Aximand finally.
‘What if another world rebels in our wake, then another and another after that? This is Army, but what happens if Astartes rebel? Would we still take the fight to them?’
The three of them laughed at that, but Torgaddon answered. ‘You have a fine sense of humour, my brother. You know that could never happen. It’s unthinkable.’
‘And unseemly,’ said Aximand, his face solemn. ‘What you suggest might be considered treason.’
‘What?’
‘I could report you to the Warmaster for this sedition.’
‘Aximand, you know I would never…’
Torgaddon was the first to crack. ‘Oh, Garvi, you’re too easy!’ he said, and they all laughed. ‘Even Aximand can get you now. Throne, you’re so straight up and down.’
Loken forced a smile and said, ‘You’re right. I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be sorry,’ said Abaddon. ‘Be ready to kill.’
The first captain held his hand out into the middle of the group and said, ‘Kill for the living.’
‘Kill for the dead,’ said Aximand, placing his hand on top of Abaddon’s.
‘To hell with the living and the dead,’ said Torgaddon, following suit. ‘Kill for the Warmaster.’
Loken felt a great love for his brothers and nodded, placing his hand into the circle, the confraternity of the Mournival filling him with pride and reassurance.
‘I will kill for the Warmaster,’ he promised.
T
HE
SCALE
OF
it took her breath away. Her own vessel boasted three embarkation decks, but they were poor things compared to this, capable of handling only skiffs, cutters and shuttles.
To see so much martial power on display was humbling.
Hundreds of Astartes surrounded them, standing before their allocated Stormbirds – monstrous, fat-bodied flyers with racks of missiles slung under each wing and wide, rotary cannons seated in forward pintle mounts. Engines screamed as last minute adjustments were carried out, and each group of Astartes warriors, massive and powerful, began final weapons checks.
‘I never dreamed it could be like this,’ said Petronella, watching as the gargantuan blast door at the far end of the launch rails deafeningly rumbled open in preparation for the launch. Through the shimmering integrity field, she could see the leprous glow of Davin’s moon against a froth of stars, as blackened jet blast deflectors rose up from the floor on hissing pneumatic pistons.
‘This?’ said Horus. ‘This is nothing. At Ullanor, six hundred vessels anchored above the planet of the greenskin. My entire Legion went to war that day, girl. We covered the land with our soldiers: over two million Army soldiers, a hundred Titans of the Mechanicum and all the slaves we freed from the greenskin labour camps.’
‘And all led by the Emperor,’ said Petronella.
‘Yes,’ said Horus. ‘All led by the Emperor…’
‘Did any other Legions fight on Ullanor?’
‘Guilliman and the Kahn, their Legions helped clear the outer systems with diversionary attacks, but my warriors won the day, the best of the best slogging through blood and dirt. It was I who led the Justaerin speartip to final victory.’
‘It must have been incredible.’
‘It was,’ agreed Horus. ‘Only Abaddon and I walked away from the fight against the greenskin warlord. He was a tough bastard, but I illuminated him and then threw his body from the highest tower.’
‘This was before the Emperor granted you the title of Warmaster?’ asked Petronella, her mnemo-quill frantically trying to keep up with Horus’s rapid delivery.
‘Yes.’
‘And you led this… what did you call it? Speartip?’
‘Yes, a speartip. A precision strike to tear out the enemy’s throat and leave him leaderless and blind.’
‘And you’ll lead it again here?’
‘I will.’
‘Is that not a little unusual?’
‘What?’
‘Someone of such high rank taking to the field of battle?’
‘I have had this same argum… discussion with the Mournival,’ said Horus, ignoring her look of confusion at the term. ‘I am the Warmaster and I did not attain such a title by keeping myself away from battle. For men to follow me and obey my orders without question as the Astartes do, they must see that I am right there with them, sharing the danger. How can any warrior trust me to send him into battle if he feels that all I do is sign orders, without appreciating the dangers he must face?’
‘Surely there comes a time when considerations of rank must necessarily remove you from the battlefield? If you were to fall—’
‘I will not.’
‘But if you did…’
‘I will not,’ repeated Horus, and she could feel the force of his conviction in every syllable. His eyes, always so bright and full of power met hers and she felt the light of her belief in him swell until it illuminated her entire body.
‘I believe you,’ she said.
‘Tell me, would you like to meet the Mournival?’