The Horus Heresy: Vengeful Spirit

Lyx fought against him, but he was too strong and too enraged with grief. Her face crumpled and turned a livid shade of purple as he squeezed the life out of her. He’d always thought of her as fundamentally ugly, even if her outward appearance suggested otherwise. She was broken inside, and the thought sent a spasm of loathing through him. He was just as broken as her.

Perhaps they both deserved to die.

Maybe so, but she’d go first.

‘My sons were to be my immortality,’ he said, almost spitting in her face as he pushed her back against the pavilion wall. ‘My legacy was to be the honourable continuance of House Devine, but the bastard Warmaster has put paid to that dream. My sons’ armour rusts on Avadon’s beach, and their bodies lie rotted and unclaimed. Food for scavenger birds.’

He felt something sharp at his groin and looked down to see a hooked naga fang pressed against his inner thigh.

‘I’ll slice your balls off,’ said Lyx, pressing the needle-sharp point hard against his leg. ‘I’ll open your femoral artery from your crotch to your knee. You’ll empty in thirty seconds.’

Raeven grinned and released her, stepping away from his sister-wife with a grunt of amusement. Colour returned to her face and he was sure that the excitement he saw in her eyes was mirrored in his own.

‘Cut my balls off and House Devine really is finished,’ he said.

‘A figure of speech,’ said Lyx, massaging her bruised throat.

‘Anyway, your womb will be as barren as the Tazkhar steppe by now,’ said Raeven as Lyx poured them both a drink.

He shook his head and took the goblet she offered him. ‘We make a pair don’t we, sister dearest?’

‘We are what our mother made us,’ replied Lyx.

He nodded. ‘So much for your talk of turning the tide.’

‘Nothing has changed,’ said Lyx, putting a hand out to stroke the pink flesh of his neck. He flinched at her touch. ‘We still have Osgar, and he knows full well the importance of the continuance of the House name.’

‘Shargali-Shi is more of a father to that boy,’ said Raeven, only now understanding what a mistake it had been to allow him anywhere near the Serpent Cult. ‘And from what I hear, he has no interest in taking just one consort nor becoming father to a child. He won’t be the one to keep the Devine name alive.’

‘He doesn’t have to be a father, so long as he puts a child in the belly of a suitably pliant consort,’ said Lyx. ‘But that’s a talk for when this war is concluded.’

Raeven nodded and accepted more wine. He felt a calming fuzziness at the edges of his perception. Wine and pain-balming chems were a heady mixture. He struggled to remember what they’d been talking about before their lover’s tiff.

‘So do you think I’m still the one whose actions will turn the tide of this war?’

‘If anything, I’m even more certain of it,’ said Lyx.

‘Another vision?’

‘Yes.’

‘Tell me.’

‘I saw Banelash in the heart of the great battle for Molech. In the shadow of Iron Fist Mountain. The tread of war gods shakes the earth. Flames surround the Knights of Molech. Death and blood breaks upon Banelash in a red tide and you fight like the Stormlord himself.’

Lyx’s eyes misted over, cloudy with psychic cataracts.

‘A battle to end all battles rages around your Knight, yet no blade, no shell, no enemy can lay it low. And when the appointed hour comes, the mightiest god on the field is slain. Its fall is a rallying cry, and all about scream the Devine name!’

The opaqueness of Lyx’s eyes faded and she smiled, as though a great revelation had just been revealed to her.

‘It’s here,’ she said, breathless with excitement.

‘What is?’ said Raeven, as the air turned chill.

‘The White Naga.’

‘It’s here? Now?’

Lyx nodded, turning around as though expecting to see the avatar of the Serpent Cult within Raeven’s pavilion.

‘The blood sacrifice made at Avadon has brought its divine presence into the realms of men,’ she said, taking his hand. ‘The deaths of our sons has earned you the right to speak with it.’

‘Where is it?’

‘In the forest,’ said Lyx.

Raeven snorted at the vagueness of her reply. ‘Can you be more specific? How do I find it?’

Lyx shook her head. ‘Ride Banelash into the forest, and the White Naga will find you.’

5

It moved faster than anything Horus had ever known.

Faster than an eldar blade-lord, faster than the megarachnids of Murder, faster than thought. Its body was mist and light, sound and fury.

A Justaerin was the first to die, his body split down the middle as though he’d run full tilt into a bandsaw. His body emptied of blood and organs in a heartbeat.

Horus moved before anyone else, slashing his taloned gauntlet at the glittering light. His claws cut empty air and a golden fist slammed into his stomach. Doubled over, he saw Aximand shooting. The Widowmaker hunted for a target.