The Horus Heresy: The Master of Mankind

The boy who would be king watched with neither remorse nor any particular hostility. He looked on as his uncle slid from his crouch onto the mud, clutching at his treacherous chest. He watched as his uncle’s sun-darkened features pinched closed, ugly and tight in supreme agony as the older man shook with the onset of convulsions. He saw the necklace slip from his uncle’s grip, the necklace that was being made for his young cousin, and would now never be finished.

Others came running. They shouted. They cried. They made the noises of language that spoke of panic and sorrow in a proto-Indo-Europan tongue that would come to be known as an early precursor to the Hyttite dialect.

The boy walked away, heading back towards his family’s hut. On the way, he turned to the figure – the giant – clad in gold who walked nearby. Nordafrik war-clan tattoos curled on the towering warrior’s face, curling from his temples to follow the curves of his cheekbones. The serpentine ink-curves, white against his dark flesh, ended upon his chin just beneath his mouth.

‘Hello, Ra,’ the boy said in a tongue that wouldn’t be spoken on this world for many thousands of years. The language was called High Gothic by those who would come to speak it.

The golden warrior, Ra, went to one knee, dazed at the sight of a Terra that hadn’t existed for millennia, a clean and fertile place still untouched by war. This world wasn’t really Terra at all; it was still Earth.

With the giant kneeling and the boy standing before him, it was far easier to meet each other’s eyes.

‘My Emperor,’ said the Custodian.

The boy rested a hand on the giant’s chestplate, the fingers dark against the royal eagle. The boy’s farm-worked palm, already rough despite his youth, ran along one golden wing. His expression was reflective, if not entirely serene. He didn’t smile. The man that this boy would become never smiled either.

‘You have never shown me this memory before,’ Ra said.

The boy stared at him. ‘No, I have not. This is where it all began, Ra. Here, on the banks of the Sakarya River.’ The boy turned his old eyes to the river itself. ‘So much water. So much life. If I have been disappointed by the galaxy’s wonders, it is only because we were fortunate enough to grow in such a cradle. There was so much to learn, Ra. So much to know. It pleases me for you to see what it once was.’

Ra couldn’t help but smile at the boy’s distracted, contemplative tone. He had heard it many times before, in another man’s voice, as familiar to him as his own.

‘I’m honoured to see it, sire.’

The boy looked at him, through him, and finally lifted his hand from the eagle sigil upon the Custodian’s breastplate. ‘I sense you have suffered a grave defeat. I cannot reach Kadai or Jasac.’

‘Kadai is three days dead, my king. Jasac fell two weeks before him. I am the last tribune.’

The boy stared, unblinking. Ra noted the suggestion of a wince; the boy flinched at some unknowable pain.

‘Sire?’ the Custodian pressed.

‘The forces unleashed in the wake of Magnus’ misjudgement grow stronger. First a trickle, then a tide. Now, a storm’s wind, unremitting, unceasing.’

‘You will hold them back, sire.’

‘My loyal Custodian.’ The boy wheezed, soft and slow, his throat giving a tuberculosis rattle. For a moment his eyes unfocused. Blood ran from his nose, lining the curve of his lips.

‘Sire? Are you wounded?’

The boy’s eyes cleared. He wiped the blood away on the back of his dirty hand. ‘No. I sense a new presence within the aetheric pressure. Something old. So very old. Drawing nearer.’

Ra waited for an explanation, but the boy didn’t elaborate. ‘You must do something for me, Ra.’

‘Anything, my king.’

‘You must take word to Jenetia Krole. Tell her…’ The boy hesitated, taking a breath. ‘Tell her it is time to enact the Unspoken Sanction.’

‘It will be as you command, sire.’ The words meant nothing to Ra. Once more he waited for elaboration. Once more he was denied.

‘How did Kadai die?’ the child asked.

‘The outward tunnels are falling, my king. Kadai had advanced far from the Impossible City when the horde struck. I tried to reach his vanguard to aid their withdrawal.’ Ra exhaled softly. ‘Forgive me, sire. I tried.’

‘What of the enemy in the outward tunnels?’

‘Traitors from the Legiones Astartes have joined the Neverborn. The Eaters of Worlds, the Bearers of the Word, the Sons of Horus. Our outriders have witnessed Titans in the mist, and entities the size of Titans. They flood the main arterials and secondary capillaries.’

Unimaginable thoughts dawned and died behind the child’s dark eyes. ‘It was inevitable. We knew they would gain access to the webway before the war’s end. You have Ignatum with you, Ra. You have the Scion of Vigilant Light. You will hold.’

‘I am withdrawing all remaining forces to the Impossible City. The outward tunnels are lost, my king. Overwhelmed beyond retaking.’

‘So be it,’ the child allowed. ‘Make a stand at Calastar. Sell every step as dearly as you are able. Is there more?’