The Horus Heresy: Vengeful Spirit

‘They were traitors,’ said Varren, pushing past. ‘How does it matter how they died? They died, that’s enough.’

‘They died screaming,’ said Rubio, a hand pressed to the side of his helmet. ‘And they’d been screaming for a very long time.’

The pathfinders spread out, moving to where the nearest interior bulkhead was still intact. Voitek moved across the wall, his servo-arms tapping and clicking along the bulkhead as though searching for something.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘There is atmosphere on the other side. Cayne?’

‘Setting up now,’ said Cayne.

He placed the same device he’d used to thread the maze of seeded defences surrounding the Vengeful Spirit at Voitek’s feet. A detachable wand connected via a coiled cable snapped out and he panned the wand up and down.

‘You are correct, Master Voitek,’ he said, consulting a softly glowing slate on his device. ‘A passageway, sealed at one end by debris. The shipwright’s plans indicate there is a way through in the other direction, a sub-transit that leads up to an ammunition runnel-path for a lower gun deck.’

‘Will it get us deeper into the ship?’ asked Loken.

‘I already said it would,’ said Cayne. ‘Aren’t you familiar with the layout of sub-decks on the gunnery levels?’

‘No, not particularly.’

Cayne shook his head as he packed up his device and slotted the wand back home. ‘You Luna Wolves, it’s a wonder you were able to find your way around at all.’

Severian drew his combat blade. ‘I can kill him if you want,’ he offered.

‘Maybe later,’ said Loken.

Severian shrugged and leaned forward to scratch a symbol onto the wall, an angular rune of vertical and crosswise lines.

‘You know futharc?’ said Bror Tyrfingr, looking over Severian’s shoulder. ‘How do you know futharc?’

‘What’s futharc?’ asked Loken.

‘Battle sigils,’ said Severian. ‘Scouts of the Space Wolves – sorry, the Vlka Fenryka – use them to guide follow-on forces through void-hulks and the like. Each symbol gives the main host information about what’s ahead, the best routes to take. That sort of thing.’

‘You didn’t answer my question,’ said Bror Tyrfingr.

‘The Twenty-Fifth Company served with your lot more than once,’ said Severian, finishing his script. ‘A wolf named Svessl taught it to me.’

‘Something he’ll regret if I ever see him,’ grunted Bror.

Qruze and Rama Karayan moved past Bror and Severian. They began unfolding a blocky series of struts and portable generators from a series of narrow crates that might once have contained rockets for a missile launcher.

This was Karayan’s area of expertise, and he quickly set up what looked like a framed template of a door. With Voitek’s assistance, Karayan hooked his construction to a generator and wound a crank until a gem-light on its side turned green.

Karayan pressed a snap-covered activation switch. A shimmer of liquid energy bloomed around the frame’s inner edges, spreading until it filled the enclosed space like the surface of a soap bubble. It rippled, filmy with rainbow colours.

‘Integrity field established,’ said Karayan. ‘Safe to breach.’

Voitek nodded and his servo-arms reached through the field to grip projections on the bulkhead.

‘Breaching now,’ said Karayan as precision melta-cutters on the back of the frame burned with short-lived, but ferocious intensity. They sliced through the bulkhead instantaneously, and Ares Voitek yanked the cut slab of metal back through the integrity field.

‘We’re in,’ said Varren.

7

Shock greeted the Warmaster’s pronouncement. Disbelief and confusion. Aximand felt the ground beneath him turn to shifting sand at the truth of the Warmaster’s words.

‘Don’t you feel it, my sons?’ continued Horus. ‘Don’t you feel how special Molech is? How singular among all the worlds we have won it is?’

Aximand found himself nodding, and saw he wasn’t the only one.

Lupercal walked in a circle, jabbing a fist into his palm with every sentence.

‘At the dawn of the great diaspora, the Emperor travelled here in humble guise and found the gateway to a realm of immortal gods. He offered them things only a god-in-waiting could offer, and they trusted Him. They gave Him a measure of their power, and with that power He wrought the science to unlock the mysteries of creation.’

Horus was radiant as he spoke, as though he had already ascended to a divine plane of reality.

‘But the Emperor had no intention of honouring His debt to the gods. He turned on them, taking their gifts and blending them with His genecraft to give birth to demigods. The Emperor condemns the warp as unnatural, but only so no other dares wield it. The blood of the immaterial realm flows in my veins. It flows in all our veins, for as I am the Emperor’s son, you are the Sons of Horus, and the secret of our genesis was unlocked upon Molech. The gateway to that power is in Lupercalia, far beneath the mountain rock. Sealed away from the light by a jealous god who knew that someday one of His sons would seek to surpass His deeds.’