The First Heretic

With greater clarity came the revelation of shame. Smaller gunships, Thunderhawks with hulls of blue, flew in formation around the mighty golden Stormbird. An escort squadron: watchmen, not honour guards. The Ultramarines were escorting the Word Bearers’ primarch down to the surface with all the undignified pageantry of a prisoner being led to execution.

Argel Tal’s visor zoomed in, responding to his narrowed eyes. Static fuzzed for half a second, quickly clearing as his eye lenses refocused at the new range.

Every turret on the Ultramarines gunships was trained on the golden hull of the Word Bearers Stormbird.

‘Do you see that?’ he voxed to Xaphen.

‘An insult like that is hard to miss,’ the Chaplain replied. ‘I’d believe it a lie, had I not seen it myself.’

Argel Tal watched the lander’s arc taking it deeper into the city, and without any other signal, every Word Bearer nearby turned and walked in the direction set by the massive gunship.

‘This has the stench of history in the making,’ Xaphen muttered. ‘Gird your soul, brother. Mind your humours.’

The captain had never heard the layer of unease in Xaphen’s voice before. It was not helping his own fragile calm.

‘Answers,’ Argel Tal replied, bringing up retinal readouts of bolter ammunition supplies, along with his armour’s power-pack temperature. ‘Answers, Xaphen. That’s all I want.’

Argel Tal and Xaphen led Seventh Company into the heart of the city, marching to where the Legion gathered.

One hundred thousand warriors stood in silence beneath the setting sun.

One hundred thousand warriors in perfect formation, bolters held in grey fists, helmed heads raised in pride. A hundred thousand pairs of red eye lenses stared ahead. Squad by squad, led by sergeants. Company by company, led by captains. Chapter by Chapter, led by Masters.

Standard bearers stood before each company, banners held high even as their details faded in the dust. Borne by Sergeant Malnor, the Serrated Sun Chapter icon rose alongside the war banners of its three component companies, eclipsing them in both size and significance. A spiked circle of burnished bronze mirrored the symbol around every warrior’s left eye, decorated with sixty-eight bleached skulls hanging on black iron chains. The skulls were human and alien, each one the head of a fallen enemy champion worthy of remembrance. The left eye socket of every skull was ringed by the serrated sun symbol, painted with Astartes blood, blessed by the company Chaplains.

Similar icons were held above the mustered Legion. They rattled in the wind, trinkets chiming in grim melody, while the company war banners waved.

Argel Tal moved forward with the other commanders of the Serrated Sun, leaving their warriors in assembled columns. Although the Chapter was far from the primarch’s favour – such honour belonged to the larger and more prestigious Chapters made from twenty or more companies – their ranks still entitled them to stand at the forefront of the gathered Legion.

As he walked through ranks of statue-still Word Bearers, Argel Tal switched to the vox frequency secured by Seventh Company prior to planetfall.

‘Stand tall, brothers. Enlightenment will soon be ours.’

A series of ten vox-clicks signalled the acknowledgement of every squad sergeant under his command.

Several captains voxed quiet greetings as they assembled in an ordered line, their helms and shoulder guards marked with evidence of their own Chapter allegiances.

Before them all, the golden Stormbird stood at bay, resting in the midst of six Ultramarines Thunderhawk gunships. The edges of their ceramite hulls were scorched bare in places from the fires of atmospheric descent.

One captain broke ranks. He took a single step forward, and Argel Tal felt the ground’s miniscule tremor as the warrior moved.

In hulking Terminator armour, the silver-wrought warplate still fresh from the forges of Mars, First Captain Kor Phaeron stood apart from his brothers, as was his right. In the armour of the Legion’s elite, he towered a metre above the lesser captains, clad in layers of reverently sculpted ceramite as thick as the hull-skin of a battle tank. He carried no weapons beyond those his armour already offered: oversized gauntlets ending in talons extending from each finger, the individual blades as long and curved as the primitive scythes used to harvest crops on backwater Imperial worlds. Delicate circuitry threaded along the blades – veins of power that would invest the claws with crackling force upon the First Captain’s desire.