The Horus Heresy: Vengeful Spirit

Aximand roared and attacked with relentless fury. Loken blocked as fast as he could, but every killing blow he warded off cut portions from his weapon until it was next to useless.

He tossed the broken blade, looking over Aximand’s shoulder.

‘Now, Macer!’ he shouted.

The former World Eater’s fist crashed into the back of Aximand’s helmet. And had Macer Varren not been horrifically wounded, his strength might have split Aximand’s skull wide open. As it was, he crashed into Loken and the three of them fell to the deck in a thrashing tangle of limbs.

Mourn-it-all skittered away, its edge dimming without its bearer’s grip.

Aximand smashed his elbow into Varren’s face.

Loken kicked Aximand in the gut. They grappled. Fists bludgeoned, elbows cracked and knees slammed. It was an inelegant fight, not one the sagas would speak of in glowing heroic terms.

Even outnumbered two to one, Aximand was having the better of the fight. Loken reeled from a hammering series of bodyblows. Varren stumbled as Aximand thundered his foot against the wounds Altan Nohai had bound.

‘I dreamed of you,’ said Aximand between breaths and sounding more regretful than angry. ‘I dreamed you were alive. Why did you have to be alive?’

Loken rolled upright as Aximand curled his fingers around Mourn-it-all’s leather-wrapped grip.

He brought the sword around. Its blade bit plate and flesh.

Blood rained.

‘No more dreams,’ said Aximand.

10

Proximo Tarchon was down, sprawled over the body of Ares Voitek with three mass-reactive craters blasted through his body. Ger Gerradon’s legs still kicked weakly, but whether he was still alive or was just twitching in death was open to interpretation.

Severian had a combat blade in one hand, a bolt pistol in the other.

He’d killed a dozen Luperci in as many shots or cuts, moving through the fighting like a ghost. People saw him, but they didn’t see him, didn’t recognise the significance of what they were seeing until it was too late.

Severian never needed more than one cut.

Usually that was enough, but Abaddon had merely staggered at his thrust and kept fighting. At least it had allowed Varren to break from the fight to go to Loken’s aid.

The battle had devolved into individual skirmishes, but it couldn’t go on like that for long. His pistol was empty. He tossed it as dead weight.

Severian saw his target and moved like a displaced shadow towards Grael Noctua.

The sergeant of the Warlocked saw him coming, which was unusual enough in itself. He grinned and took out his own blade.

‘Twenty-Fifth to Twenty-Fifth,’ said Noctua. ‘A battle with a pleasing symmetry to it, yes?’

‘So long as you’re dead at the end, symmetry can go to hell.’

The two of them faced one another as though in the training cages. Crouched low, blade to blade, hands extended, eyes locked.

Noctua made the first move, feinting right. Severian read it easily. He countered the real blow, spun low and stabbed into Noctua’s groin. Forearm block, return elbow smash that hit thin air. Severian trapped Noctua’s arm, slammed his forehead forward.

Noctua threw himself backwards, dragging Severian with him.

They rolled, fighting to free their knife hands.

Severian got his free first. He stabbed into Noctua’s side. The blade scraped free as Noctua rolled with the blow. Severian pushed clear. Noctua’s weapon sliced the side of his neck, a hair’s breadth from opening his throat.

‘I always hated you, Severian,’ said Noctua. ‘Even before ascension.’

‘I never cared enough about you to feel hate.’

They came together again. Thrust, cut, block, spin. Their blades like striking snakes. Both warriors had drawn blood. Both were evenly matched. Much longer and it wouldn’t make any difference.

‘You’re good,’ said Severian.

‘The Twenty-Fifth teaches its warriors well.’

Severian flicked his blade at Noctua’s face. Blood spatter hit his eyes, and Severian slipped into that fraction of a second’s distraction.

He rammed his dagger through the centre of Noctua’s chest, twisting the blade into his heart space.

Noctua’s face contorted in pain.

‘Not as well as Cthonia,’ said Severian.

11

The pain was incredible, the worst Loken had known.

It filled him and crushed him. It bypassed every bio-engineered suppression mechanism. It kept the pain gate in his spinal column wedged open.

Where Mourn-it-all had cloven his ribs, he felt the toxic afterburn of something vile enter his bloodstream. Had the blade been poisoned?

He fell onto his side, struggling not to curl up and weep.

Aximand stood over him and the script worked along the length of the fuller drew threads of crimson from the edge. Loken turned onto his front, keeping one hand clamped to the rift gouged in his armour. He crawled away, knowing it was useless.

Varren lay moaning in a pool of his own blood. Aximand’s return stroke had taken his right arm at the elbow and split open his chest. Old wounds bled afresh, and his helmet was cracked across the centre.