Nemesis

Koyne turned the glare back on Kell. “Did you plant one on me as well?” The

boy’s eyes narrowed. “Where is it?”

Kell smiled coldly. “Those rations aboard the Ultio were tasty, weren’t they?”

Before the Callidus could react, he went on. “Don’t be so difficult, Koyne. If I hadn’t

factored in a contingency, we never would have found you. You’d still be in the city,

marking time until Horus’ warriors cut you down.”

“You thought of everything,” said the shade. “Except the possibility that our

target would know we were coming!”

Tariel began to speak. “The target in the plaza—”

“Was not the Warmaster,” snarled Koyne. “I am an assassin palatine of more

kills than I care to mention, and I have survived every sanction and prosecuted each

kill because I had no secrets. No one to confide in. No chance for a breach in

operational security. And yet here we are, with this grand and foolish scheme to

murder a primarch crashing down around us, and for what? Who spoke, Kell?” The

Callidus crossed the flyer’s small cabin and prodded the marksman in the chest.

“Who is to blame?”

“I don’t have an answer for you,” said Kell, in a moment of candour. “But if any

of us were traitors to the Emperor, we’ve had opportunities aplenty to stop this

endeavour before it even left the Sol system.”

“Then how did Horus foresee the attack?” asked Koyne. “He let one of his own

commanders perish in his stead. He must have known! Are we to believe he’s some

kind of sorcerer?”

A chime sounded from Kell’s data-slate, and he left the question unanswered. “A

return. Two kilometres to the west.”

Tariel opened another pane of ghostly hololithic images and nodded. “I have it. A

static location. The flyer’s auspex is detecting a metallic mass… conflicting thermal

reads.”

“Set us down.”

Below them, dust clouds whirled past, reducing visibility to almost nothing. “The

sandstorm and the contaminants from the orbital bombing…” The Vanus looked up

and his argument died on his lips as he saw Kell’s rigid expression. He sighed. “As

you wish.”

217

Two of Tariel’s eyerats found her, slumped over the yoke of a GEV skimmer halfburied

under a storm-blown dune. From what the infocyte could determine, she had

been injured before getting into the vehicle, and at some point as she tried to escape

into the deep desert, her wounds had overcome her and the skimmer controls had

slipped from her grip.

Kell, an expression of stony fury on his face, shoved Tariel out of the way and

gathered up Soalm where she lay. Her face was discoloured with bruising, and to the

infocyte’s amazement, she still lived.

Koyne drew something from the back seat of the GEV: a sculpted silver helmet in

the shape of a skull, crested with lenses and antennae of arcane design. When the

Callidus held it up to look it in the eye, black ash fell from the neck and was carried

away on the moaning winds. “Iota…”

“Dead,” Soalm stirred at the mention of the psyker’s name. “It killed her.” Her

voice was slight, thick with pain.

“It?” echoed Tariel; but Kell was already carrying the Venenum back towards the

flyer.

Koyne was the last inside, and the Callidus drew the hatch shut with a slam. The

shade brought Iota’s helmet back, and sat it on the deck of the cabin. It fixed them all

with its mute, accusatory gaze. Outside, the winds threw rattling curls of sand across

the canopy, plucking at the wings of the aircraft.

Across the compartment, Kell tore open a medicae pack and emptied the contents

across the metal floor.

He worked to load an injector with a pan-spectrum anti-infective.

“Ask her what happened,” said Koyne.

“Shut up,” Kell snapped. “I’m going to save her life, not interrogate her!”

“If she was drawn away on purpose,” continued the Callidus. “If it was deliberate

that Soalm was attacked and Iota killed…”

“What could have killed her?” Tariel blurted out. “I witnessed what she was

capable of in the Red Lanes.”

Koyne scrambled across the cabin towards the sniper. “For the Throne’s sake,

man, ask her! Whatever she is to you, we have to know!”

Kell hesitated; and then with deliberate care, he replaced the anti-infective agent

with a stimulant. “You’re right.”

“That could kill her,” Tariel warned. “She’s very weak.”

“No,” Kell replied, placing the nozzle of the injector at her pale neck, “she’s not.”

He pressed the stud and the drag load discharged.

Soalm reacted with a hollow gasp, her back arching, eyes opening wide with

shock. In the next moment, she fell back against the deck, wheezing. “You…” she

managed, her gaze finding Kell where he stood over her.

“Listen to me,” said the Vindicare, that curious unquantifiable expression on his

face once again. “The Garantine is dead. The mission was a failure. Horus sent a

proxy in his place. Now his Astartes are punishing the city for what we have done.”