The Horus Heresy: Vengeful Spirit

Their armour clattered to the deck, the monsters within burned to ash. Loken ran towards Aximand, scooping up a fallen chainsword that still smoked with Rubio’s witchfire.

He knew he couldn’t hope to kill Aximand, but was past caring.

He’d faced the Warmaster and rejected him.

None of them were going to leave the Vengeful Spirit alive.

Severian was right. Getting in had been the easy part.

8

Iacton Qruze had come back to the flagship with one aim in mind and one alone. As gunfire filled the chamber, he dived towards where Ger Gerradon fought to stem the tide of blood from his mauled throat.

The sinews and skin were trying to knit, but the wound was too awful, the blood loss too catastrophic for the daemon’s host to survive. He dragged Gerradon’s sword from its sheath as bolt shells cratered the deck beside him.

A ricochet sliced the skin of his cheek. If he lived he would have a neat scar from jawline to temple.

Loken and Bror were struggling with Little Horus Aximand and Falkus Kibre, a brutal, gouging, bloody brawl they were losing. Kibre was all strength and ferocity, but Bror Tyrfingr was giving as good as he got.

Loken had a chainsword, Aximand a blade with a powered edge. That wasn’t going to end well. Rubio fought Abaddon with a sword wrought from blue lightning and bolts of witchfire. The First Captain was a monster now, a giant with cadaverous features and black, gem-like eyes.

Rubio bled from where Abaddon’s tearing fists had ripped open his armour, its steeldust plates sheeted with red.

The Librarian had ploughed all his powers into attack, sparing nothing for defence. Varren lent what aid he could, but the wounds bound by Altan Nohai were bleeding freely again.

Qruze couldn’t see Severian. Armed once again with his altered gladius, Proximo Tarchon stood sentinel over Ares Voitek, who spilled litres of sticky red-black fluid from half a dozen sword cuts and bolter craters.

An impact smashed into Qruze’s hip, a searing bloom of pain that almost drove him to his knees. He turned as four of the Luperci raced towards him. They carried axes, swords and weapons that looked like they’d been looted from the Museum of Conquest.

‘Come on!’ roared Qruze, mashing the sword’s activation trigger. ‘Let this old dog show you he still has some bite.’

The first swung his axe for Qruze’s neck.

‘Too risky for a first attack,’ he said, ducking low and hacking his chainblade through his opponent’s gut. ‘The beheading cut leaves you far too exposed against a low blow.’

He swayed aside from a sword thrust, bending to snatch the bolt pistol from the downed warrior’s holster. Fully loaded, safety off. Sloppy.

‘Too much weight on your forward foot,’ he grunted. ‘No control to evade a counterstrike.’

He drove the tip of his sword through the Luperci’s spine. He spun and wrenched the sword blade out through its chest.

The last of the Luperci had at least learned from the deaths of their fellows. They split up and circled Qruze warily, swords in the guard position, their footwork cautious.

Qruze shot them both in the face, a classic double-tap. Their helmets exploded as the mass-reactives registered threshold densities for detonation.

‘And if your opponent has a gun when all you have is a sword,’ he said, turning towards the Warmaster upon his basalt throne. ‘You’re going to die.’

9

With every meeting of their swords, Loken lost teeth – whickering triangular shards flew from his chainsword as Aximand’s shimmer-edged blade bit the unshielded metal.

‘Mourn-it-all is going to kill you,’ said Aximand.

Loken didn’t reply. He’d come to slay Aximand, not waste unnecessary words on him.

‘No words of hate for the life I took on Isstvan?’ said Aximand.

‘Just deeds,’ said Loken, fighting to keep his temper.

An angry swordsman was a dead swordsman.

He cursed as Aximand used his momentary inattention to launch a lightning fast thrust to the groin. Loken swept the blade aside with the flat of his sword, trying to keep the disruptive edge from further damaging his weapon.

‘Tarik always said you were so straight up and down,’ said Aximand, using small wrist movements to move the tip of his sword in tight circles. ‘I never really knew what he meant until now. It’s only when you try to kill a man that you see through to his true character.’

Loken was too experienced a swordsman to fall for so obvious a gambit and kept his eyes fixed on Aximand’s. Alone of his once-proud features, his eyes remained unchanged from how Loken remembered them.

Pale blue, like ice chips under a winter sun.

‘Who gave you the new face?’

Aximand’s reattached dead skin mask twitched.

‘Who was it that beat you?’ asked Loken, ducking a waist-high sweep of Mourn-it-all. He aimed a low cut at Aximand’s knees.

‘A Chogorian named Hibou Khan,’ said Aximand, driving the blade into the deck. It screeched with red sparks. ‘Why do you care?’

‘So I can tell him I finished the job.’