The Horus Heresy: Vengeful Spirit

‘There’s a lesson for you here in the proper application of power,’ said Horus. ‘But that’s not why I summoned you.’

‘Then why am I here, sir?’ asked Noctua.

‘I have a special task for you, Grael,’ said the Warmaster. ‘You and Ger actually.’

Noctua’s face fell as he understood that his task would keep him from the coming battle. He rallied a moment later.

‘What would you have me do, my lord?’

Horus put a paternal hand on Noctua’s shoulder guard.

‘There are intruders aboard my flagship, Grael.’

‘Intruders?’ said Noctua. ‘Who?’

‘A prodigal son and two faithless cowards who once fought as your brothers,’ said Horus. ‘They lead a rabble of that troublesome Sigillite’s errant fools into the heart of the Vengeful Spirit.’

‘I will find them,’ promised Noctua. ‘And I’ll kill them.’

‘Very good, Grael, but I don’t want them all dead.’

‘You don’t?’

‘Kill the others if they give you trouble,’ said Horus, ‘but I want the prodigal son alive.’

‘Why?’ asked Noctua, forgetting himself for a moment.

‘Because I want him back.’

3

Iron Fist Mountain dominated the eastern skyline, and farther south, a black smudge on the horizon spoke of distant fires somewhere around the Preceptor Line. A vast assembly of Imperial might – his army – filled the agri-plains north of Lupercalia.

Raeven pushed Banelash forward, staggering as toxins in his blood distorted his perception of the Knight’s sensorium. It swayed and crashed with phantom images of winged serpents, hideous, fanged mouths and eyes that burned with the fury of rejection.

The thought of what he had almost given into made him sick.

Or was it the thought of what he’d given up?

He no longer knew nor cared.

Raeven walked his Knight towards the thousands of armoured vehicles, scores of regiments and entire battalions of artillery below. A thousand shimmering banners guided him in, regimental pennants and company battle flags, muster signs and range-markers.

House banners streamed from the carapaces of assembled nobility: Tazhkar, Kaushik, Indra, Kaska, Mamaragon. Others he didn’t recognise or couldn’t make out. Their Knights dwarfed the Army soldiers, but they were a long way from being the biggest, most destructive killers on the field.

A dozen war engines of Legio Gryphonicus and Legio Crucius strode through designated corridors to take up their battle positions. Mighty. Awe-inspiring.

But all dwarfed by the immovable, man-made mountain at the centre of the line.

An Imperator Titan, Paragon of Terra was a towering fortress of adamantium and granite, a mobile citadel of war raised by long-cherished artifice and forged in blood and prayer. A temple to the Omnissiah and a destroyer god all in one, the Imperator was the central bastion upon which each wing of the army rested.

The black and white of the Legio were the heraldic colours of Princeps Etana Kalonice, whose Mechanicum forebears had piloted the first engines on Ryza.

The heat from its weapons hazed the air, and Raeven blinked away tears of exhaustion.

Connection fatigue made his bones ache, made every part of him ache. Broken glass ground in his joints and the stabbing pain behind his eyes was like something trying to burrow out from the centre of his brain. Fluids recycled around his body many more times than was healthy had kept him alive, but were now poisoning him.

A patrolling squadron of scout Sentinels found Raeven staggering from the tree line overlooking the army. They turned heavy flamers and multi-lasers on him, and he readied his own weapons in response before the proper protocols were issued and returned.

‘Get me to the Sacristans,’ wheezed Raeven.

4

He lost track of time. Or it slipped away from him.

Either way, he remembered falling from Banelash’s opened carapace, rough hands – metal hands – lifting him down and carrying him to his pavilion.

Lyx was waiting for him, but the hurt look in her eyes only made him smile. He liked hurting her, and couldn’t think why. She asked questions he couldn’t or wouldn’t answer. His answers made no sense anyway.

Needles stabbed his flesh. Toxic blood was siphoned from him and fresh litres washed in. Pain balms soothed his ground glass joints, smoothed his rough edges.

Time fractured, moved out of joint. He heard angry voices and chattering machines. He actually felt fluids moving through him, as though he was a great pumping station over the promethium wells at Ophir. Sucking up immense breaths of fuel and spitting it out into the great silos.

The image of himself as a vast pump pleased him.

No, not a pump – an engine. An agent of change that drove the lifeblood of the planet around its myriad systems. Infrastructure as circulatory system.

Yes, that was the metaphor he liked.