The Horus Heresy: Vengeful Spirit

Rubio and Varren came up from the sparring chambers carved into the rock beneath Nagasena’s villa, slathered in oily sweat and making imaginary sword cuts as they debated the merits of gladius over chainaxe. Though both warriors had left their Legion identity behind, their Legion expertise was still invaluable.

The interior courtyard of the villa was a place of peace and quiet reflection. A pool with a fountain in the shape of a coiled serpentine dragon burbled in the centre of gene-spliced plants and artificial blooms. Half a dozen robed servants tended the garden, and honeyed scents filled the air.

‘So they’re here,’ said Varren upon noticing Loken.

The former captain of the World Eaters was bare to the waist, his flesh a tapestry of knotted scar tissue, as if he had been stitched together as part of some hideous experiment in reanimation. Tattoos coiled around the scars and over his shoulders; each one a badge of honour and a memory of killing.

Macer Varren had come to the Sol system at the head of a patchwork fleet of refugees, together with detachments from the Emperor’s Children and White Scars. In the treachery that followed, Varren’s loyalty had been proven beyond question and Garro had offered him a place within Malcador’s Knights Errant.

His companion, Tylos Rubio, had been the first warrior that Garro had recruited, snatched from the war-torn surface of Calth in the moments after the XVII Legion doomed the Veridian star. A warrior of the Librarius whose powers had been shackled by the Decree of Nikaea, Rubio had once again taken up psychic arms against the Warmaster. The loss of the cobalt-blue still troubled him, and Loken knew exactly how he felt – though for very different reasons.

His features were the polar opposite of Varren’s; sculpted where the World Eater had been battered into shape, unblemished where Varren was forged by scars. His eyes were heavy with regret and loss, but the nascent brotherhood of the Knights Errant was awakening in him a sense of belonging that had hitherto been absent.

‘Where are the others?’ asked Rubio, raising a hand in greeting.

‘Don’t you know?’ asked Cayne. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be psychic?’

‘My powers are not parlour tricks, Tubal,’ said Rubio, as he and Varren fell into step with Loken and Cayne. ‘I do not lightly employ them.’

‘Voitek is already on the platform,’ said Loken. ‘He said the aegis-field needed calibrating.’

‘What about the Half-heard?’ asked Varren.

‘Iacton is–’

‘Not on Terra,’ finished Rubio.

Varren halted as they reached the fortified entrance of the tunnel cut through the mountain that led to the newly-built platforms at the rear of the villa.

‘You just said you didn’t use your powers unless you needed to,’ said Cayne, unlocking the armoured portal and allowing the heavy door to grind into its housing.

‘One does not need psychic powers to know when Iacton Qruze is near,’ said Rubio. ‘He has a presence that far outweighs his belittling epithet.’

With Qruze’s permission, Loken had reluctantly explained the old nickname of ‘Half-heard’ to his fellow Knights. A warrior whose words went unheeded by the vast majority of the Luna Wolves had turned out to have been one of the keepers of the Legion’s soul. Qruze’s days of being disregarded were over, but the name had stuck and always would.

‘So where is he then?’ pressed Varren.

‘He has a heavy burden elsewhere,’ said Rubio. ‘One that grieves and shames him, but one from which he will not turn.’

‘Just like the rest of us,’ grunted Varren.

No one said any more, and they entered the mountain, following a long and winding tunnel bored by industrial-scale meltas. Caged lumen globes were strung from the glass-smooth ceiling, swaying gently in sighs of ventilation.

After a journey of two kilometres, they emerged into a steep sided shaft cut into the haunches of the mountain – a hundred metres wide and three times that in height. In the centre of the cavernous space was a single landing platform, large enough to take a Stormbird, but not much else.

Kneeling beside an opened bank of machine racks at the foot of the platform was a warrior in identical burnished metal armour to the rest of them. Two articulated limbs at his side worked to sort tools and arrange couplings on a long length of oiled cloth. Another two mechanical arms curled over his shoulders arranging nests of cables and preparing connectors to be reattached.

‘Have you not finished yet?’ asked Cayne. ‘You have had ample time to make the necessary adjustments, and Mistress Rassuah is expected at any minute.’

Ares Voitek did not look up or deign to answer, having now learned to resist Cayne’s baiting. He continued working, with all four limbs now embroiled in the guts of the machine. The arms moved with whirring mechanical precision, each one guided by the mind impulse unit attached to the nape of Voitek’s neck.

‘There,’ said Voitek. ‘Not even Severian could find this place now.’