The Horus Heresy: Vengeful Spirit

‘No,’ said Durso, and Aximand believed him. It took more than emplaced strongpoints, companies of superheavies and regiments of Army to rattle a veteran like Durso.

Aximand’s subordinate turned something over in his hand, dextrously moving it between his fingers like a sleight of hand barker.

‘What’s that?’

Durso looked down, as though unaware of what he’d been doing.

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Just an affectation.’

‘Show me.’

Durso shrugged and opened his palm. A golden icon on the end of a chain to be worn around the neck. The Eye of Horus shone red in the light of the compartment.

‘Superstitious, Yade?’

‘Turns out I can be now, Little Horus,’ said Durso.

Aximand nodded, conceding the point. Not so long ago, such behaviour would have been grounds for censure. Now it seemed only natural. Aximand looked back at his warriors, ten Sons of Horus bearing heavy breacher shields and multi-spectral helmet attachments. Each warrior’s armour bore Cthonian gang sigils etched into the plates. Their bolters were decorated with kill markings and grisly trophies hung from every belt.

The Quiet Order had reinstituted the old practices of the home world. Serghar Targost, his throat bound in counterseptic wraps, had advocated the reinstatement of Cthonian iconography and the Warmaster had agreed.

‘I thought we were done with savage totems,’ he said.

‘Just like the old days,’ said Durso. ‘It’s good.’

‘But these aren’t the old days,’ snapped Aximand.

Durso shook his head. ‘You really want to get into this now?’

‘No,’ said Aximand, strangely disquieted at the new tribalistic mien of his warriors. He had thought that with Erebus gone, the XVI Legion was to re-establish itself. It seemed it had, just not in the image he’d expected. Edges worn smooth by centuries of compliance were being made rough again.

Aximand patched his helmet’s visual link to the Land Raider’s external pict-feeds.

There wasn’t much to see.

Shroud bombs blanketed the shale beaches and granite cliffs ahead of them in waves of electromagnetic distortion. Flattened tank traps ghosted from the fog alongside acres of shell-ruined razorwire. Static fizzed the display as muzzle flares from cliff-top artillery fired. Seconds later, the Land Raider shook from a nearby impact of high explosive shells. The vehicle juddered over the wreckage of something that might once have been a Rhino.

Aximand silently urged the driver to hurry up.

The Dwell campaign had spoiled him. The urgent, body slamming fury of that fight was a throwback to the earliest days of the Great Crusade, when the Legions were still developing their modus operandi. It had been a testing time, re-learning lessons taught by wars that were only just evolving from the hell of techno-barbarian tribes hacking at one another in two amorphous hosts of flesh and sweat.

New weapons, new technologies, new transhuman physiques and new brothers to fight alongside. It was one thing to build a Legion, another to learn how to fight as a Legion.

‘Ten seconds,’ called the driver.

Aximand nodded, checking the load on his bolter and moved Mourn-it-all’s scabbard at his shoulder. Full load, and just right. Just like last time. He shifted on the ready line. He rolled his shoulders and pulled his shield in tight. He clenched and unclenched his jaw.

‘Five seconds!’

The pitch of the engine increased, the driver wringing another few dozen metres for the warriors he carried. An explosion rocked the vehicle up onto one track. It landed flat with a crashing boom of grinding stone and protesting metal.

‘Go, go, go!’

The Land Raider came to a grinding halt. The assault ramp hammered down and a roaring crescendo of noise rammed inside. Explosions, gunfire, screams and metal banging on metal. The volume on the world spun into the red.

Aximand heard a breath at his ear and shouted, ‘Kill for the living, and kill for the dead!’

The old war cry sprang unbidden from his lips as he charged into the maelstrom.

His warriors roared in answer.

2

Thanks to Lyx, Raeven had marched Banelash almost into the ground to get to Avadon, but right now wished he hadn’t bothered. She had woken him in the night, leading him to believe that some carnal adventure was in the offing, but instead she’d offered him entrails and prophecy.

‘The Great Wolf comes to Avadon,’ she’d said, dumping the warm, wet handful of organs in his lap. ‘His throat will bare when the twin wolves of fire are upon you. Cut it and the White Naga of legend will come to you with revelation.’

Raeven gagged on the stench of rotten meat, ready to push her away when he saw her eyes were milky white and without pupil. His mother’s had done that when he was young and what she’d said always came true. Instead of beating her, he asked, ‘Horus? Horus will be at Avadon?’

But she’d gone limp and neither salts nor slaps could rouse her.