The Horus Heresy: Vengeful Spirit

Loken stepped onto the cold embarkation deck of the orbital fortress. Fixed a hundred kilometres above Titan’s surface and swathed in the darkness of its night-side, the bleak station spun gently above an active cryovolcano. Rassuah had flown the Tarnhelm onto its embarkation deck with a light hand at the controls, her every auspex warning that she was bracketed by lethal ordnance.

Vapour rose from the void-cold flanks of the Tarnhelm, and Loken sweated in his armour. The deck was enormous, with space enough for great prison-barques to disgorge their human cargo and the custodians of the fortress to render them.

A squad of mortal warriors in gloss-red armour and silver-visored helms awaited him at the base of the ramp, but Loken ignored them in favour of the broadly built veteran standing before them.

Armoured identically to Loken, the warrior’s deeply tanned and deeper lined face were well known to him. White hair, kept close-cropped, and a neat beard of the same hue made him look old. Pale eyes that had seen too much were even older.

‘Loken,’ said Iacton Qruze, his voice little more than a whisper. ‘It’s good to see you, lad.’

‘Qruze,’ replied Loken, coming forward to take the old warrior’s hand. The grip was firm, unyielding, as if Qruze were afraid to let go. ‘What is this place?’

‘A place of forgetting,’ said Qruze.

‘A prison?’

Qruze nodded, as though reluctant to expound on the grim purpose behind the nameless fortress.

‘An unkind place,’ said Loken, taking in the featureless walls and bleak, institutional grimness. ‘Not a place to which the ideals of the Imperium easily cling.’

‘Perhaps not,’ agreed Qruze, ‘but only the young and naïve believe wars can be won without such places. And to my lasting regret, I am neither.’

‘None of us are, Iacton,’ said Loken. ‘But why do we find you here?’

Qruze hesitated, and Loken saw his eyes dart in the direction of Tisiphone, the great double-edged sword harnessed across his back.

‘Did you bring them?’ asked Qruze.

‘All but one,’ answered Loken, curious as to why Qruze had ignored his question.

‘Who didn’t you get?’

‘Severian.’

Qruze nodded. ‘He was always going to be the hardest to convince. Well, our mission just went from almost impossible to nigh suicidal.’

‘I think that’s the part he objected to.’

‘He always was a clever man,’ said Qruze.

‘You knew him?’ asked Loken, and instantly regretted it when he saw a distant look enter Qruze’s eyes.

‘I fought alongside the Twenty-Fifth Company on Dahinta,’ said Qruze.

‘The overseers,’ said Loken, remembering the hard fought campaigns to cleanse the derelict cities of scavenger machines.

‘Aye, it was Severian that got us past the circuit defences of the Silicate Palace to the inner precincts of the Archdroid,’ said Qruze. ‘He saved us months of grinding attrition. I remember when he first brought word of the–’

Loken was well used to Iacton Qruze’s wandering reminiscences, but this was not the time to indulge his fondness for old Legion history.

‘We should be going,’ he said before Qruze could go any further.

‘Aye, you’re right, lad,’ agreed Qruze with a sigh. ‘The sooner I’m away from this damn place the better. Necessity is all well and good, but that doesn’t make what we do in its name any easier.’

Loken turned to board the Tarnhelm, but Qruze made no move to follow him.

‘Iacton?’

‘This won’t be easy for you, Garviel,’ said Qruze.

Instantly alert, Loken said, ‘What won’t?’

‘There’s someone here who needs to speak to you.’

‘To me? Who?’

Qruze inclined his head towards the red-armoured gaolers, who snapped to attention in escort formation.

‘She asked for you by name, lad,’ said Qruze.

‘Who did?’ repeated Loken.

‘Best you see for yourself.’

2

Of all the hells Loken had seen and imagined, few compared to the bleak desolation and hopelessness of this orbital prison. Every aspect of its design appeared calculated to crush the human spirit, from the grim institutional mundanity of its appearance to the oppressive gloom that offered no respite or any hope that its occupants would ever see open skies again.

Qruze had boarded the Tarnhelm, leaving him in the custody of the fortress’s gaolers. They moved with precision and appeared to care little for the fact that he was a warrior of the Legions. To them, he was just another detail to be factored into their security protocols.

They marched him through vaulted corridors of dark iron and echoing chambers that still bore faint traces of blood and faeces no amount of cleaning fluid could ever scrub away. The route was not direct, and several times Loken was sure they had doubled back over their course, following a twisting path deeper into the heart of the fortress.

His escorting gaolers were trying to disorient him, make him lose any sense of which way they might have come or in which direction lay the exit. A tactic that might work on ordinary prisoners, already half-broken and desperate, but one that was wasted on a legionary with an eidetic sense of direction.