The Horus Heresy: Vengeful Spirit

‘Ezekyle will need support if he’s not going to be annihilated by Paragon of Terra.’

‘He’ll have it, Mal,’ Horus assured him.

‘From where, sir?’ said Maloghurst. ‘The Red Angel was supposed to drive the Blood Angels into madness, to break the centre for our Army forces to exploit. But the sons of Sanguinius are dead, and our centre has yet to make any significant impact. They’re dying in droves out there.’

Horus gestured over the hololithic display, already knowing what he would see. The Imperial guns were decimating his Army units at the heart of the advance. The fields before the ridge line were a killing ground of burning wrecks and corpses. Thousands were dead, thousands more still would die.

It irked Horus that the Cruor Angelus had not made good on its promise to turn the Blood Angels. Given that he had upset the schemes of Erebus to prevent that very thing on Signus, the irony was not lost on him.

‘And Aximand is bogged down on the right against forces from the Thirteenth Legion,’ continued Maloghurst. ‘It’s going to take a Sons of Horus speartip to get through that line. You need to deploy the rest of the Legion and Titan forces.’

‘Mal, are you telling me my business?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Good,’ said Horus. ‘Because I see the complexity of war differently to other men. Killing on this scale isn’t only about numbers and movement on a battlefield. Just by observing them I shape them and bend them to my will. Can you imagine any of my brothers mastering so chaotic an endeavour as war as I do?’

‘No, sir.’

Horus waved an admonishing finger. ‘Come on, Mal, you’re better than that. Stop sounding like a sycophant. Answer honestly.’

Maloghurst bowed and said, ‘Perhaps Guilliman.’

‘Too obvious,’ said Horus. ‘Some think he has no heart for war, that all he cares about are grand plans and stratagems. They’re wrong. He knows war as well as I do, he just wishes he didn’t.’

‘Then perhaps Dorn?’

‘No, too hidebound,’ said Horus. ‘Nor the Lion or Vulkan. And not the Khan, though he and I are so very close in alignment.’

‘Then who?’

‘Ferrus,’ answered Horus, tapping the lid of the ornately wrought box of lacquered wood and iron that sat next to him.

‘If he was so capable, then why is he dead?’

‘I didn’t say he was perfect,’ said Horus, leaning forward as the hololith hazed with static as it updated. ‘But he knew war like no other. Terra would already be ours if he had joined us, if my Phoenician brother had handled the approach with a modicum of subtlety.’

‘Subtlety was never Fulgrim’s strong suit,’ said Maloghurst.

‘No, but that lack has played in our favour here.’

‘It has?’

‘The power Fulgrim so willingly embraced has whispered honey in the dreams of Molech’s rulers for many years,’ said Horus. ‘Those dreams are about to become reality. And when they do, trust me, Mal, you’ll be glad we kept so far away.’

11

A stone lintel cracked and slammed down, blocking further progress along the trench. A firestorm raged overhead and Abaddon pressed himself flat against the vitrified stone wall as flames roared along its length. Fire was little threat to Terminator armour, but this was weaponised plasma from a Titan’s weapon.

An Imperator Titan.

Paragon of Terra’s guns were ripping the world apart.

Missiles, explosive shells, hurricanes of bolter fire, laser fire and killing beams from volcano cannon. What little was left of the trenches and strongpoints of this flank were being reduced to shot-blasted powder.

The Justaerin could survive a great deal, more than any other living thing on the battlefield, but the damned Imperator was going to kill them all. The walls of the trench blew inwards with the shock wave of another weapon system. Abaddon pushed away chunks of hot stone and metal.

A veteran hauled Abaddon clear with his one remaining arm. The other ended at the shoulder where the pressure wave of a passing gatling shell had ripped it away. Another weapon fired overhead, something with solid rounds, though Abaddon could no longer pick one weapon’s fire from another. The overpressure of the cycling rounds battered his armour like an army of aggrieved forge-smiths.

Everything merged into one continuous thunder of explosions, percussive hammer blows on the ground and searing thunderstorms of impossibly bright light that burned everything they touched.

The trenches had provided some cover, but they were no match for the holocaust-level destruction an Imperator could unleash. He doubted half his warriors had survived this far. Another few minutes and they would all be dead.

‘What was the Warmaster thinking sending us into this?’ yelled Kibre, stumbling from a blockhouse of adamantium made soft as butter by the plasma fire. Abaddon saw the corpses of at least a dozen Justaerin within. More filled the trench system around him, but he couldn’t see them. Too many red icons to know how many were dead, how many alive.

More dead than he’d ever thought to see among the Justaerin.

‘How are we supposed to get past that Imperator?’