The Horus Heresy: The Master of Mankind

‘Sacred Unity!’ Zephon hissed the curse across the vox. ‘What are you doing?’

Diocletian looked down into the wide eyes of a young boy, no more than seven or eight Terran standard years old. The figure at the youth’s side was even more diminutive: a girl, the boy’s sister by the uniformity in skin tone and facial structure, a year or two younger. Diocletian had no talent for estimating the ages of unmodified humans. She looked up at the Custodian with wide, terrified eyes. A scream sounded from the crowd, the plaintive cry of their mother. Both children’s mouths were wide, their lips shaking.

Diocletian lifted his blade away from the boy’s throat and reactivated his helm’s mouth grille to speak aloud. ‘My apologies,’ he said with grave formality. The children flinched at the rawness of his vox-altered tones.

Zephon moved slowly, reaching up to remove his own helm. He stood bareheaded before the two children as their mother reached them. The boy, resisting his mother’s attempts to herd him, tore free and stood before Diocletian once more.

‘Are you the Emperor?’

Diocletian stood motionless. ‘Is that a jest?’ he asked, making the boy flinch at the tone.

Zephon’s smile was bittersweet as he looked down upon the boy. He lowered himself slowly, his red war-plate grinding loudly through the motion, until he was on one knee before the child. Even then, he was still thrice the boy’s height.

‘No, child,’ the Blood Angel replied. ‘He is not the Emperor. Though he knows the Emperor very well.’

Tears ran from the edges of the boy’s eyes. The immensity of the armoured giants before him filled his senses, from the assault of overwhelming red and gold to the thrum of active battleplate. Awe was writ plain across his young features. Awe and desperation and an expression of fearful need.

Diocletian would have voxed his irritation had Zephon still been wearing his helm to hear it. Zephon was blind and deaf to the Custodian’s annoyance, or simply chose to ignore it.

‘What is your name, young one?’

‘Darak.’

‘Darak,’ the Blood Angel repeated. ‘My name is Zephon. And as grand as my companion appears, he is not the Emperor. What is wrong, child?’

The boy stammered his words. ‘I… I want to ask the Emperor when we can go home. My parents are still there. We left them behind. We had to get to the evacuation ships.’

Diocletian glanced to the woman protecting the little girl. Not their mother, then. Her facial structure bore the signs of familial resemblance, so there was some genetic linkage. An aunt or older cousin, perhaps. He removed the target lock playing over her filthy face, dismissing it along with his cursory interest.

Zephon wasn’t as compelled to move on. ‘I see,’ the Blood Angel said. ‘And what world do you call home?’

‘Bleys. We’re from Bleys.’

Zephon nodded as if he knew the world well. Diocletian doubted that any of the IX Legion had ever set foot upon it, useless backwater that it was. ‘Then you’ve travelled far,’ said the Blood Angel. ‘Welcome to Terra, Darak. You’re safe here.’

Safe for now, Diocletian added silently.

‘What are your parents’ trades?’ Zephon asked the boy. ‘If they were fighting, they must be soldiers?’

The boy nodded. ‘They were fighting the grey machine men from Mars.’

‘My parents are warriors, as well,’ said Zephon, neglecting to mention that they had died over a century ago on the radiation-choked deserts of Baal’s second moon. Their ashes would be nothing more than blight dust on the wasteland winds by now.

The boy, Darak, turned his eyes up to Diocletian. ‘Are your parents soldiers?’

‘No,’ said Diocletian. ‘They are long dead. My mother was a slave who died of intestinal flux, and my father was a barbarian king executed by the Emperor’s own hand for opposing the principles of Unity.’

‘The… what?’

‘I’ve finished speaking with you,’ Diocletian told the boy.

Darak narrowed his eyes at Diocletian before returning his gaze to Zephon. ‘I want to go back for my parents. I want to ask the Emperor to send the Space Marines,’ he vowed with painful conviction. ‘The Emperor could send you, couldn’t He?’

‘He could,’ Zephon agreed, ‘and perhaps He will. I will ask Him of His plans for Bleys the next time I stand before Him.’

The hope in the boy’s eyes made Diocletian’s gorge rise. He was all too aware of the many eyes upon them at the heart of this ludicrous exchange.

‘Our duty awaits,’ he said, his tone terse.

‘Indeed,’ replied Zephon. ‘Now, Darak, I must do my duty to the Emperor. Thank you for taking the time to speak with me.’

The boy nodded, mute. Zephon replaced his helm. His voice emerged through the harsh, drawling rasp of his vox-grille. ‘Look after your sister, Darak.’

Darak moved to his aunt and sister, the latter weeping softly after the scare Diocletian had given her. Diocletian walked on with Zephon at his side. If the refugee herd’s stares had been an irritant before, they were practically boring through the Custodian’s armour now.

‘You are a creature of pointless sentiment,’ Diocletian voxed to his new companion.