The Horus Heresy: Vengeful Spirit

‘She’s here,’ said Albard, leaning down to adjust the medical table on which Raeven was lying. ‘Trust me, I don’t want her to miss out on what’s going to happen next.’

Someone moved behind Raeven and the table rotated on its central axis, bringing him vertical. A restraint band around his waist kept him from falling flat on his face. A pair of Dawn Guard stood at the entrance to the pavilion, and a gaggle of Sacristans worked at the machines supposedly restoring him to health.

His heart sank at the sight of the armoured soldiers. Their loyalty was enshrined in law to the scion of House Devine, and with Albard abroad from his tower, they were his to command.

The men flanked Lyx, her hands fettered and her eyes wide with incomprehension. A gag filled her mouth and tears streaked her cheeks.

‘What’s the matter, Lyx?’ said Albard, lurching with the unfamiliar gait of the exo-suit. ‘The future not playing out as you planned it? Reality not matching your visions?’

He ripped the gag from her mouth and threw it aside.

She spat in his face. He slapped her, the metal encasing his hand tearing the skin of her cheek. Blood mingled with her tears.

‘Don’t you touch her!’ shouted Raeven.

‘Lyx was my wife before she was yours,’ said Albard. ‘It’s been a long time, but I seem to remember her liking that sort of thing.’

‘Look, you want to be Imperial commander, yes?’ said Raeven. ‘You’re wearing the laurel on your lapel, I see that. Fine, yes, fine, you can be commander, of course you can. You’re the firstborn son of Cyprian Devine. The position’s yours. I give you it, have it.’

‘Shut up, Raeven!’ screamed Lyx. ‘Offer him nothing!’

Raeven ignored her.

‘Be Imperial commander, brother. Lyx and I will leave, you’ll never hear from us. We’ll go south, over the mountains to the Tazkhar steppe, you’ll never see us again.’

Albard listened to the rush of words without expression. Eventually he held up his hand.

‘You’re offering me what’s already mine,’ said Albard. ‘By right of birth and, well, let’s just call it right of arms.’

‘Shut your mouth, Raeven!’ howled Lyx, her face beautiful in her tears and pain. ‘Don’t give him anything! He killed our son!’

‘Ah, yes, didn’t I mention that?’ said Albard.

Every molecule of air left Raeven’s body. As surely as if a pneumatic press had crushed him flat. He couldn’t breathe, his lungs screamed for air. First Egelic and Banan, and now Osgar. Grief warred with anger. Anger crushed grief without mercy.

‘You bastard!’ screamed Raeven. ‘I’ll kill you! I’ll hang your entrails from the Devine Towers. I’ll mount your head on Banelash’s canopy!’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Albard, pressing a hand down on Raeven’s chest. ‘The drugs coursing around your body came from Osgar’s supply. Such a good boy, he always came to visit his poor deranged uncle in his tower. Kept me informed of the comings and goings around Lupercalia, how Shargali-Shi’s devotions to the White Naga were spreading to his cousins in the Knights.’

Seeing Raeven’s horror at the mention of the Serpent Cult’s avatar, Albard grinned. The resemblance to a leering skull was uncanny.

‘He didn’t say that every one of your Knights is a devotee of the Serpent Cult?’ said Albard. ‘Didn’t mention that they were no longer loyal to you, but to the cult? No? Well, you always did see Osgar as the runt of the litter, didn’t you? No taste for fighting, though I’m given to understand he was a hellion in the debauches.’

Raeven tried to struggle against his bindings, but even with the tiny control he’d regained, it wasn’t enough.

‘Osgar even smuggled stimms and the like past Cebella’s Sacristans from time to time. Such a shame I had to kill him. As much as he had a fondness for indulging his insane old uncle, I don’t think he’d forgive me killing both of you. And I think you’ll agree that your deaths are long overdue.’

‘You can’t do this,’ pleaded Lyx. ‘I am the Devine Adoratrice, I saw the future. It can’t end this way! I saw Raeven turn the tide of the war, I saw him!’

‘You’re wrong, Lyx,’ said Albard, ‘Osgar told me you never actually saw Raeven in your visions. You saw Banelash.’

Albard nodded to the Dawn Guard holding Lyx.

The soldier forced her to her knees and placed the barrel of his bolt pistol against her head.

‘I saw–’ Lyx began, but a gunshot abruptly ended her words.

‘No!’ bellowed Raeven as Lyx fell forward with a smoking crater in the back of her skull. ‘Throne damn you, Albard! You didn’t have to do that… no, no, no… you didn’t… please no!’

Albard turned from Lyx’s body, and drew a hunting knife from a leather sheath at his waist.

‘Now it’s your turn, Raeven,’ he said. ‘This won’t be quick, and I promise it will be agonising.’

NINETEEN Casualties of war / The order is given / The Stormlord rides

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