Nemesis

Cthon; the Mantle of the Warmaster, forged by Horus’ captains as a symbol of his

might and unbreakable will.

He drew a gold-chased bolt pistol, raising it up high above his head; and then he

fired a single shot into the air, the round crashing like thunder. The same sound that

rang about Dagonet on the day they were liberated. Before the empty shell casing

could strike the marble at his feet, the crowd were shouting their fealty.

Glory to Horus.

The towering warrior holstered his gun and unsealed his helmet, drawing it up so

the world might see his face.

195

There could be no hesitation. No margin for error. Such a chance would never come

again.

Kell’s crosshairs rested on the centre of the scowling grille of the Astartes helmet.

The shimmering interference of distance seemed to melt away; now there was only

the weapon and the target. He was a part of the weapon, the trigger. The final piece

of the mechanism.

Time slowed. Through the scope, Kell saw armoured hands clasp the sides of the

helmet, flexing to lift it up from the neck ring. In a moment more, flesh would be

exposed, a neck bared. A clear target.

And if he did this, what then? What ripples would spread from the assassination

of Horus Lupercal? How would the future shift in this moment? What lives would be

saved? What lives would be lost? Kell could almost hear the sound of the gears of

history turning about him.

He fired.

The hammer falls. The single shot in the chamber is a .75 calibre bullet manufactured

on the Shenlong forge world to the exacting tolerances of the Clade Vindicare. The

percussion cap is impacted, the propellant inside combusts. Exhaust gases funnel into

the pressure centre of a boat-tail round, projecting it down the nitrogen-cooled barrel

at supersonic velocities. The sound of the discharge is swallowed by suppression

systems that reduce the aural footprint of the weapon to a hollow cough.

As the round leaves the barrel, the Exitus longrifle sends a signal to the Lance;

the two weapons are in perfect synchrony. The Lance marshals its energy to expend

it for the first and only time. It will burn itself out after one shot.

The round crosses the distance in seconds, dropping in exactly the expected arc

towards the figure in the plaza. Windage is nominal, and does not alter its course.

Then, with a flash, the bullet strikes the force wall. Any conventional ballistic round

would disintegrate at this moment; but the Exitus has fired a Shield-Breaker.

Energised fragments imbued with anti-spinward quantum particles fracture the

force wall’s structure, and collapse it; but the barrier is on a cycling circuit and will

reactivate in less than two-tenths of a second.

It is not enough. The energy of the Lance follows the Shield-Breaker in as the

force wall falls; the Lance is a single-use X-ray laser, slaved to Kell’s rifle, to shoot

where he shoots. The stream of radiation converges on the exact same point, with

nothing to stop it. The shot strikes the target in the throat, reducing flesh to atoms,

superheating fluids into steam, boiling skin, vaporising bone.

The only sound is the fall of the headless corpse as it crashes to the ground, blood

jetting across the white marble and the Warmaster’s shining mantle.

196

FIFTEEN

Rapture

Aftershock

Retribution

There was something exhilarating about taking kills in this fashion.

The many murders that lay at Spear’s feet were usually silent, intimate affairs.

Just the killer and the victim, together in a dance that connected them both in a way

far more real, far more honest than any other relationship. No one was really naked

until the moment of their death.

But this; Spear had never killed more than three people at once because the need

had never arisen. Now he was giddy with the blood-rash, wondering why he had

never done this before. The joy of the frenzy was all-consuming and it was glorious.

Throwing off all pretence at stealth and subterfuge was liberating in its own way.

He was being truthful, baring himself for everyone to see; and they ran screaming

when they witnessed it.

Through the low howl of the sandstorm, the refugees were crying out and

scattering. He sprinted after them, hooting with laughter.

He had never been so open. Even as a child, he had hidden himself away, afraid

of what he was. And then when the women in gold and silver came for him aboard

their Black Ship, he concealed himself still deeper. Even the men with eyes of metal

and glass who had cut upon him, plumbing the depths of his anomalous, deviant

mind, even they had not seen this face of him.

Spear was a whirling torrent of claws and talons, teeth and horns, the daemonskin

blurring as it shifted and reformed itself to end the life of each victim in a new and

brutal way. Gasping mouths opened up all over him where vitae spattered his bare

flesh, drinking it in.

The last of the soldiers was shooting at him, and he felt bursts of burning pain as

thick, high-calibre shots impacted his back and legs. The daemonskin screeched as it