The Horus Heresy: Vengeful Spirit

The Sons of Horus had landed in force at Larsa, wiping out the Army forces stationed there in one brutal night of fighting. The port facilities were now in enemy hands, which could only be a bad thing.

‘But you got her and your children out,’ said Noama, ‘that’s good. You did better than most.’

‘No,’ said Jeph. ‘That was all Liv. She’s the strong one.’

Noama had already come to that conclusion. Alivia had the lean, wolfish look of a soldier, but she wasn’t Army. She had a faded tattoo on her right arm, a triangle enclosed in a circle with an eye at its centre. Blood covered the words written around the circle’s circumference, but even if it hadn’t they were in a language Noama didn’t recognise.

She’d caught shrapnel in the side, some glass in the face. Nothing that looked life-threatening, but she was losing a lot of blood from one particular wound just under her ribs. The readouts on the slate didn’t paint a reassuring picture of her prognosis.

‘We joined a column of refugees at the Ambrosius Radial,’ said Jeph, the words pouring from him now the dam inside had broken. ‘She thought she’d got out of Larsa quick enough, but the traitors caught up to us. Tanks, I think. I don’t know what kind. They shelled us and shot us. Why did they do that? We’re not soldiers, just people. We had children. Why did they shoot at us?’

Jeph shook his head, unable to comprehend how anyone could open fire on civilians. Noama knew just how he felt.

‘She almost did it,’ said Jeph, his head in his hands. ‘She almost got us out, but there was an explosion right next to us. Blew off her door and… Throne, you can see what it did to her.’

Noama nodded, digging around in the wound below Alivia’s ribs. She felt something serrated buried next to her heart.

A fragment of shrapnel. A big one. The volume of blood coming from the wound meant it had probably sliced open her left ventricle. With a proper medicae bay it would be simple procedure to save Alivia, but a Galenus wasn’t the place for such complex surgery. She looked up at Kjell. He’d seen the bio-readouts and knew what she knew. He raised an eyebrow.

‘I have to try,’ she said in answer to his unvoiced question.

The import of the words went over Jeph’s head and he kept speaking. ‘They killed everyone else, but Liv drove that cargo-five like it was an aeronautica fighter. Threw us all around the cab with tight turns, hard brakes and the like.’

‘She drove you out of an attack by enemy tanks?’ said Kjell, making his impressed face as he sorted out the instruments they’d need to cut Alivia open and get to her heart. ‘That’s a hell of a woman.’

‘Just about blew the engine out,’ agreed Jeph, ‘but I guess that’s why she wanted a ‘five. They’re not max-rated riggers, but their engines pack a punch.’

Noama placed an anaesthesia mask over Alivia’s mouth and nose, cranking up the delivery speed. The rate of blood loss meant they had to be quick.

‘You got your children out,’ she said. ‘You saved them.’

Alivia’s eyes opened and Noama saw desperation there.

‘Please, the book… it says… have to… get to… Lupercalia,’ she gasped into the mask. ‘Promise me… you’ll get us… there.’

Alivia took Noama’s hand and squeezed. The grip was powerful, urgent. Conviction and courage flowed from it, and the need to make Alivia’s last wish a reality was suddenly all that mattered to Noama. It only relaxed when the gas began to take effect.

‘I’ll get you there,’ she promised, and knew she meant it more than she’d meant anything in her life. ‘I’ll get you all there.’

But Alivia didn’t hear her promise.

3

In the decades since Molech’s compliance, something large and predatory had made its lair in the cave. Bones lay scattered by an entrance large enough for a Scout Titan, and not even the rain could cover the stench of partially digested remains. The earth at the cave mouth was a sopping quagmire, but blurred impressions of clawed feet wider than a Dreadnought’s crossed and recrossed.

‘What made these, sir?’ said Aximand, kneeling by the tracks.

Horus had no answer for him. The tracks were from no beast he remembered from Molech, though given the fractured recall of his time on this world that shouldn’t have surprised him.

And yet it did.

The Emperor hadn’t erased his memories, only manipulated them. Greyed some out, blurred others. He knew the indigenous beasts of Molech. He’d seen their heads mounted on the walls of the Knightholds, had studied their images and dissected corpses in illuminated bestiaries.

So why did he not recognise these tracks?

‘Sir?’ repeated Aximand. ‘What are we going to find in there?’

‘Let’s find out,’ said Horus, pushing aside his doubts and marching into the darkness. The Justaerin’s suit lamps swept the wide entrance, and the claws of Horus’s talon shimmered with blue light as he followed them inside. Strobed shadows painted heavily scored walls. Abaddon went next, then Kibre, Aximand and Noctua.