The Horus Heresy: Vengeful Spirit

Tylos Rubio was nowhere to be seen, and Qruze emerged from the low-ceilinged passageway leading to the pilot’s compartment.

‘Good, you’re back,’ said Zaven, managing to completely misread Loken’s humours. ‘Perhaps we can actually get out of the system.’

‘Qruze,’ snapped Loken, reaching to his belt. ‘This is for you.’

Loken’s wrist snapped out, and the lacquered wooden box flew from his hand like a throwing blade. It flashed towards Qruze, and though the Half-heard was no longer as quick as he once was, he caught the box a finger’s breadth from his chest.

‘What’s–’ he said, but Loken didn’t let him finish.

Loken’s fist slammed into Qruze’s face like a pile-driver. The venerable warrior staggered, but didn’t fall, his heartwood too seasoned to be felled by one blow. Loken gave him three more, one after the other with bone-crunching force.

Qruze bent double, instinctively driving forward into the fists of his attacker. Loken slammed a knee into Qruze’s gut, then spun low to drive an elbow to the side of his head. Skin split and Qruze dropped to his knees. Loken kicked him in the chest. The Half-heard flew back into the lockers, crumpling steel with the impact. Buckled doors flew open and the stowed gear tumbled to the deck: a combat blade, leather strops, two pistols, whetstones and numerous ammunition clips.

The Knights Errant scattered at the sudden violence in their midst, but none moved to intervene. Loken was on Qruze in a heartbeat, his fists like wrecking balls as they slammed into the Half-heard.

Qruze wasn’t fighting back.

Teeth snapped under Loken’s assault.

Blood sprayed the bare metal of his armour.

Loken’s fury at Mersadie’s imprisonment cast a red shadow over everything. He wanted to kill Qruze like he’d never wanted to kill anyone before. With every ringing hammer blow he unleashed, he heard his name being called.

He was back in the ruins, surrounded by death and creatures more corpse than living thing. He felt their claws upon his armour, pulling him upright. He threw them off, tasting the planet-wide reek of decaying meat and the hot iron of expended munitions. He was Cerberus again, right in the heart of it.

Lost to madness on the killing fields of Isstvan.

Spitting breath, Loken swept up the combat blade. The edge glittered in the subdued lighting, hanging in the air like an executioner awaiting his master’s sign.

And for an instant Loken wasn’t looking at Qruze, but Little Horus Aximand, the melancholic killer of Tarik Torgaddon.

The blade plunged down, aimed for Qruze’s exposed throat.

It stopped a centimetre from flesh, as though striking an unseen barrier. Loken screamed and pushed with every scrap of strength, but the blade refused to budge. The handle froze in his grip, blistering the skin with arctic ferocity before turning it black with frostbite.

The pain brought clarity, and Loken looked up to see Tylos Rubio with his hand extended and wreathed in a haze of corposant.

‘Drop it, Garvi,’ said a voice, though he could not say for certain to whom it belonged. Loken couldn’t feel his hand, the icy touch of Rubio’s psykery numbing it completely. He surged to his feet and hurled the blade away. It shattered into icy fragments on the curved fuselage.

‘Throne, Loken, what was that about?’ demanded Nohai, pushing past him to kneel by Qruze’s slumped form. ‘You’ve damn near killed him.’

Qruze demurred, but his words were too mangled by swollen lips and broken teeth to make out. The faces of the warriors around him were pictures in shock. They looked at Loken as they would a lunatic berserker.

Loken went to go to Qruze, but Varren stepped in front of him. Bror Tyrfingr stood next to him.

‘The old man is down,’ said Tyrfingr. ‘Leash your wolf. Now.’

Loken ignored him, but Varren put a hand on his chest, a solid, immovable brace. If he wanted past, he’d have to fight the former World Eater too.

‘Whatever this is,’ said Varren. ‘This isn’t the time.’

Varren’s words were calmly said, and Loken’s anger diminished with every heartbeat. He nodded and stepped back with his fists uncurling. The sight of his brother legionary’s blood dripping from his cracked knuckles was the final parting of the curtain, and reason resumed its position at the seat of his consciousness.

‘I’m done,’ he said, backing away until he reached a wall and slumped down to his haunches. His assault had not exerted him overmuch, but his chest heaved with effort.

‘Good. I’d hate to have to kill you,’ said Tyrfingr, taking a seat at the table. ‘And by the way, you owe me a knife. I spent weeks getting that one balanced properly.’

‘Sorry,’ said Loken, watching Nohai work on Qruze’s ruined face.

‘Ach, it’s only a blade,’ said Tyrfingr. ‘And it was Tylos here that broke it with that witchery of his.’

‘Me?’ said Rubio. ‘I stopped Loken from murder.’