The Horus Heresy: Vengeful Spirit

Horus drew in a breath of fyceline-scented air, letting the exertion and stress of the fight drain from him. Oily sweat ran down his ruddy face and pooled in blood-caked grooves in his armour. His body was running hot to re-knit his flesh. Keeping a body at such a high pitch was exhausting. Even for a primarch.

He heard the clatter of armour as warriors formed up around him, shields rammed into the sand in a makeshift defensive work. He already knew there was no need.

The battle was already won.

A trailing vox-bead dangling from his gorget after he’d thrown away his helmet told him as much. Noctua’s decapitation strike had broken the centre and most likely killed the senior enemy officer. Teleporting Justaerin and the Catulan Reavers were clearing the trenches with Ezekyle and Kibre showing no mercy.

With the defence line’s abandonment, thousands of armoured vehicles moved up the bloody beach; Land Raiders, Fellblades, Rhinos, Sicarans and finally the Chimeras of Lithonan’s auxiliaries. Predators of all types followed them, together with recovery tractors, scout tanks, and Trojan resupply vehicles.

Apothecarion troops swarmed the battlefield, gathering the wounded as the smoke of bombardment was blown out to sea. Fires burned from the multitude of wrecks littering the coastline.

‘A heavy cost,’ said Horus as Aximand approached and drove his shield into the sand. He coughed and there was blood in his mouth.

‘Sir!’ said Aximand. ‘Sir, are you hurt?’

Horus shook his head before realising that, yes, he was hurt. Badly hurt. He reached out and steadied himself on Aximand. The last time he had been surrounded by his warriors and almost fallen it had ended badly for everyone.

‘I’m fine, Little Horus.’

They both knew it was a lie, but agreed upon it anyway.

‘Taking on ten Knights?’ said Aximand. ‘Really?’

‘I killed one and the rest fled at the sight of me.’

‘More like the sight of the Glaives and Shadowswords,’ said Aximand.

‘Careful,’ said Horus, increasing the pressure on Aximand’s arm a fraction. ‘If I was being ungenerous, I might think you were belittling this victory.’

Aximand nodded, heeding Lupercal’s warning and said, ‘You’re sure you’re fine?’

‘I’m better than fine,’ said Horus. ‘I won.’

5

The black sand of Avadon’s coastline had reminded Grael Noctua of Isstvan V, but the promethium fires lining the roadway from the beach and the reviewing stand built at its edge was pure Ullanor. Night had fallen, but the sky was still cut by phosphor-bright trails of wreckage coming down from orbit.

Storm Eagles and Fire Raptors circled overhead, like hunting birds eager to be loosed once more.

Perched on a narrow peninsula, Avadon was swathed in darkness, with only the moon’s reflected radiance in the ocean to limn its hard edges. The lights of the city’s hab-towers, Legion monuments and commercia were all extinguished, its thousands of inhabitants clinging to the dark and hoping the Legion would pass them by.

An army of conquest had landed on Damesek, and it was forming up around Avadon, preparing to advance south across the continent’s agricultural heartland towards Lupercalia. Seeker and reconnaissance squads were already in the wind, and intelligence on the disposition of Molech’s hundreds of thousands of soldiers was flooding back to Legion command.

The Mournival accompanied the Warmaster as he marched between ranked up companies of the Legion. Hasty repairs made him magnificent again, though none were battle-worthy. He walked with a slight limp, imperceptible to most eyes, but to Noctua’s calculating gaze it was blindingly obvious.

The reviewing stand was just ahead, built from the ruins of the defensive line’s demolished strongholds. Six Deathbringer Warlords towered behind it, four in the graphite and gold of Legio Vulcanum, two in Vulpa’s rust and bone. Moonlight reflected from the heavy plates of their armour. Weapon mounts vented exhaust gases like hot, animal breath.

Twenty-six Titanicus engines had landed at Damasek – eleven from Vulcanum, six from Interfector, four from Vulpa and five from Mortis, the largest concentration of Titans that Noctua had seen since Isstvan III. The ten Reavers stood like vast monuments in Avadon’s outer manufactorum districts, while six Warhounds stalked the edges of the muster fields like wary guard dogs.

‘Reminds me of the Triumph,’ said Ezekyle, approvingly.

‘That’s the idea,’ replied Lupercal.

‘Aren’t triumphs usually held after a campaign?’ asked Noctua, and the First Captain shot him an angry look. The delay his wounding at the hands of a mortal had caused Ezekyle was something the First Captain wasn’t going to forget in a hurry.

‘Unless you’re one of the Phoenician’s rabble,’ said Kibre.

‘It’s symbolic, Grael,’ said Horus. ‘When we left Ullanor it was as the Emperor’s servants. When we leave Molech we will be our own masters.’