The Horus Heresy: Vengeful Spirit

A shadow moved in front of her. Something with a living being’s bulk and fluidity. Something that shouldn’t be here. A huge monster covered in grey-furred scales lumbered past her, its arms and shoulders corded with inhuman musculature.

She struggled to remember the local name for the beast.

Mallahgra. Yes, that was it.

What the hell was a mallahgra doing this far north? Weren’t they all confined to the mountains and jungles? Then she saw it wasn’t alone. Dozens of identical beasts rampaged through the bloodied survivors of her army, mauling and feasting with abandon. Their speed was prodigious and they swept injured soldiers with clawed arms and tore them apart before feeding them into their meat-grinder mouths.

Giant feline predators the size of cavalry mounts bounded across the battlefield. Uniformed bodies hung limp in their jaws. Packs fought for spoils of flesh as though starved. Flocks of loping bird-like creatures with long necks stampeded over the battlefield. Their snapping jaws snatched up fleeing soldiers and bit them in half. Only a few hours ago, this had been Kourion’s grand army. The noise of the beasts receded, replaced with the rumble of engines and the tramp of heavy, booted feet.

Shapes moved in the smoke and dust, humanoid, but bulkier and taller than even the abhuman migou. Armoured in filthy plates of ivory, they ploughed through the fog as though born to it, led by a giant in rags and plate who bore a towering reaper blade.

And marching towards him, with arms open, was a warrior of equal stature, shrouded in shadows, but upon whose breast burned an amber eye. He hadn’t even deigned to draw the great maul slung across his shoulders.

Words passed between the giants, words of a battle fought and a world conquered. Blood poured out of Kourion, and she fought to hear what the giants said, knowing now who spoke. She should despise these traitors, these godlike beings who had slaughtered her army, but hated that she felt only awe.

Her vision began to fade.

Spots of grey grew in her peripheral vision.

The Warmaster took Mortarion’s hand in the old way, wrist to wrist. A way that in an earlier epoch had been born of mistrust, but which now stood as the grip of honourable warriors.

‘Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, brother,’ said Mortarion, ‘and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.’

Horus looked around him at the devastation, the dead bodies, the ruined weapons of war and the bellowing monsters. He grinned.

‘In war, they will kill some of us,’ said Horus. ‘But we shall destroy all of them.’

The last thing Tyana Kourion saw was the two primarchs coming together in a clatter of plate, embracing as dearest brothers.

Embracing in victory.

TWENTY-ONE Hope to die / The man next to you / Legacy of Cortez

1

The streets of Lupercalia were crowded with people flocking towards the transit platforms. Alivia watched them through the vision blocks of the Galenus as it rumbled towards the upper reaches of the valley. Men, women and children were carrying everything they could on their backs or in overloaded groundcars.

Near the top of the valley she saw vapour trails of packed shuttles, lighters and supply barges struggling to get airborne.

‘What do you see?’ asked Jeph from farther back in the Galenus.

‘I see a lot of frightened faces,’ she answered.

Alivia knew they were right to be frightened.

None stood better than a one in hundred chance of getting off-world. Yet for all the fear she saw in the crowds pushing uphill, they still allowed the Galenus through. Some deep-rooted respect for the symbol of the Medicae made them get out of the way, and Alivia hated the fact that she considered her need greater than theirs.

After all, who was she to judge who should get off Molech and who should remain behind? And for the briefest moment she resented the one who had put her here and charged her with keeping watch over his secret.

She glanced down the length of the medicae vehicle, where Jeph, Vivyen and Miska sat with Noama Calver and Kjell. Five people she needed to get off-world. Five people whose escape would deny five others a chance of life. It was a trade off Alivia was more than willing to make.

But that didn’t make it sit any easier in her heart.

The vox-caster crackled, repeating the same message it had been transmitting for the last two hours. The speaker was concise, direct and eloquent in the way only career military men could be.

She’d suspected a trap, of course. False hope dangled for the sake of spite or some other malicious reason, but as she listened to the message, she’d heard the gloss of unvarnished truth.

There was a way off Molech.

An Imperial ship had survived the void war and found refuge in the asteroid belt. Repaired and rearmed, its captain had brought his ship back in an act of supreme courage.