Nemesis

For a moment, the Custodian was unsure what protocol he was to observe; by rights, the sparring hall belonged to the Legio Custodes and so it could be considered their territory. For someone, a non-Custodian, to appear there unannounced was… impolitic. But the nature of the visitor – Valdor was loath to consider him an intruder – called such a thing into question. In the end, he chose to halt at the edge of the fighting quad and gave a shallow bow, erring on the side of respect. ‘My lord.’

‘Interesting weapon,’ came the reply. The voice was resonant and metered. ‘It appears overly ornate, archaic even. One quick to judge might even think it ineffective.’

‘Every weapon can be effective, if it is in the right hands.’

‘In the right hands.’ The figure at last gave Valdor his full attention. In the cold, sharp light tracing through the windows, the face of Rogal Dorn, Primarch of the Imperial Fists, was like chiselled granite.

For a moment, Valdor was tempted to offer Dorn the chance to try the use of the Custodes halberd-gun, but prudence warned him to hold his tongue. One did not simply challenge the master of an entire Astartes Legion to a sparring match, no matter how casually. Not unless one was prepared to take that challenge as far as it would go.

‘Why am I here?’ said Dorn, asking Valdor’s question for him. ‘Why am I here and not attendant to my duties out on the Palace walls?’

‘You wish to speak to me?’

Dorn continued, as if he had not heard his answer. The primarch glanced up at the ornate ceiling above them, which showed a frieze of jetbike-borne Custodians racing across the skyline of the Petitioner’s City. ‘I have blighted this place, Valdor. In the name of security, I have made this palace into a fortress. Replaced art with cannonades, gardens with kill zones, beauty with lethality. You understand why?’

Something in Dorn’s tone made the Custodian’s hand tighten on his weapon. ‘Because of the war. To protect your father.’

‘I take little pride in my defacement,’ Dorn replied. ‘But it must be done. For when Horus comes here, as he will, he must be met by our strength.’ He advanced a step. ‘Our honest strength, Valdor. Nothing less will suffice.’

Valdor remained silent, and Dorn gave him a level, demanding stare. In the quiet moment, the two of them measured one another as each would have gauged the lay of a battlefield before committing to combat.

The Imperial Fist broke the lengthening silence. ‘This palace and I… We know each other very well now. And I am not ignorant of what goes on in its halls, both those seen and those unseen.’ His heavy brow furrowed, as if a choice had been made in his thoughts. ‘We shall speak plainly, you and I.’

‘As you wish,’ said the Custodian.

Dorn eyed him. ‘I know the assassin clades and their shadow-killers are mounting an operation of large scope. I know this,’ he insisted. ‘I know you are involved.’

‘I am not a part of the Officio Assassinorum,’ Valdor told him. ‘I have no insight into their workings.’ It was a half-truth at best, and Dorn knew it.

‘I have always considered you a man of honour, Captain-General,’ said the Primarch. ‘But as I have learned to my cost, it sometimes becomes necessary to revise one’s opinion of a man’s character.’

‘If what you say was true, then you know it would be a matter of utmost secrecy.’

Dorn’s eyes flashed. ‘Meaning, if I am not informed of such a thing, then I should not know of it?’ He advanced again and Valdor stood his ground. The stoic, unchanging expression on the face of the Imperial Fist was, if anything, more disquieting than any snarl of annoyance. ‘I question the purpose of anything so clandestine. I am Adeptus Astartes, warrior by blood and by birth. I do not support the tactics of cowardice.’

Valdor let the guardian spear’s tip drop to the floor. ‘What some consider cowardly others might call expedient.’

Dorn’s expression shifted for a second, with a curling of his lip. ‘I have crossed paths with the agents of the Officio Assassinorum on the battlefield. Those encounters have never ended well. Their focus is always… too narrow. They are tools best suited for courtly intrigue and the games of empire. Not for war.’ He folded his arms. ‘Speak, Custodian. What do you know of this?’

Valdor stiffened. ‘I… can’t say.’

For a moment, the tension on the primarch’s face resonated through the room and Valdor’s knuckles whitened around the haft of his spear; then Dorn turned away. ‘That is unfortunate.’

The Custodian bristled at the warrior-lord’s demeaning tone. ‘We all want the same thing,’ he insisted. ‘To preserve the Emperor.’

‘No,’ Dorn looked up at the windows, and he allowed himself a sigh. ‘Your first remit is to safeguard the life of the Emperor of Mankind above all else. Mine, and that of my brothers, is to safeguard the Imperium.’

‘The two are the same,’ said Valdor. There was a flicker of uncertainty in his words that he did not expect.