Nemesis

The Emperor reached out a hand and gestured towards the dawn, as it rose to fill the room around them. ‘It is time to bring you into the light. The Officio Assassinorum have been my quiet blade for too long, an open secret none dared to speak of. But no longer. Such a weapon cannot exist forever in the shadows, answerable to no one. It must be seen to be governed. There must be no doubt of the integrity behind every deed, every blow landed, every choice made… or else we count for naught.’ His gaze turned to Dorn and he nodded slowly to his son. ‘Because of this I am certain; in the war to come, every weapon in the arsenal of the Imperium will be called to bear.’

‘In your name, father.’ The primarch returned the nod. ‘In your name.’

8

Dagonet was all but dead now, her surface a mosaic of burning cities, churned oceans and glassed wastelands. And yet this was a show of restraint from the Sons of Horus; had they wished it, the world could have suffered the fate of many that had defied the Warmaster, cracked open by cyclonic torpedo barrages shot into key tectonic target sites, remade into a sphere of molten earth.

Instead Dagonet was being prepared. It would be of use to the Warmaster and his march to victory.

Erebus stood atop the ridgeline and looked down into the crater that was all that remained of the capital. The far side of the vast bowl of dirty glass and melted rock was lost to him through a mist of poisonous vapour, but he saw enough of it to know the scope of the whole. Transports were coming in from all over the planet, bringing those found still alive to this place. He watched as a Stormbird swooped low over the crater and opened its ventral cargo doors, dropping civilians like discarded trash amid the masses that had already been herded into the broken landscape. The people were arranged in lines that cut back and forth across one another, crosses laid over crosses. Astartes stood at equidistant points around the kilometres of the crater’s edge, their presence alone forbidding any survivor from making an attempt to climb out and flee. Those that had at the beginning were blasted back into the throng, bifurcated by bolt shells. The same fate befell those who dared to move out of the eightfold lines carved in the dust.

The supplicants – for they did not deserve to be known as prisoners – gave off moans and whispers of terror that washed back and forth over the Word Bearer Chaplain like gentle waves. It was tempting to remain where he stood and lose himself in the sweet sense of the dark emotions brimming across the great hollow; but there were other matters to attend to.

He heard bootsteps climbing the wreckage-strewn side of the crater, and moved to face the Astartes approaching him. All about them, thin wisps of steam rose into the air from the heat of the bombardment still escaping from the shattered earth.

‘First Chaplain.’ Devram Korda gave him a wary salute. ‘You wished me to report to you regarding your… operative? We located the remains you were looking for.’

‘Spear?’ He frowned.

Korda nodded, and tossed something towards him. Erebus caught the object; at first glance it seemed to be a blackened, heat-distorted skull, but on closer examination the cleft, scything jawbone and distended shape were clearly the work of forces other than lethal heat and flame. He held it up and looked into the black pits of its eyes. The ghost of energies clung to it, and Erebus had a sudden impression of tiny flecks of gold leaf on the wind, fading into nothingness.

‘The rest of the corpse was retrieved along with that.’ Korda pointed. ‘I found other bodies in the same area, among the ruins of the star-port terminal. Agents of the Emperor, it would appear.’

Erebus was unconcerned about collateral damages. His irritation churned and he brushed Korda’s explanation away with a wave of his hand. ‘Leave it to rot. Failures have no use to me.’ He dropped the skull into the dust.

‘What was it, Word Bearer?’ Korda came closer, his tone becoming more insistent. ‘That thing? Did you unleash something on this backwater world, is that why they killed my commander?’

‘I am not to blame for that,’ Erebus retorted. ‘Look elsewhere for your reasons.’ The words had barely left his lips before the Chaplain felt a stiffening in his chest as a buried question began to rise in him. He pushed it away before it formed and narrowed his eyes at Korda. ‘Spear was a weapon. A gambit played and lost, nothing more.’

‘It stank of witchcraft,’ said the Astartes.

Erebus smiled thinly. ‘Don’t concern yourself with such issues, brother-sergeant. This was but one of many other arrows in my quiver.’

‘I grow weary of your games and your riddles,’ said Korda. He swept his hand around. ‘What purpose does any of this serve?’