Horus Rising (45 page)

‘Why have you tasked me with this, father? Why have you forsaken me? Why? It is too hard. It is too much. Why did you leave me to do this on my own?’

Interex formations were approaching. Loken heard hooves clattering on the flagstones, and saw the shapes of mounted sagittars bobbing black against the fires. Darts, like bright tears, began to drizzle through the night. They struck the ground and the walls nearby.

‘My lord, no more delays,’ Torgaddon urged. Gleves were massing too, their moving spears black stalks against the orange glow. Sparks flew up like lost prayers into the sky.

‘Hold!’ Horus bellowed at the advancing soldiers. ‘In the name of the Emperor of Mankind! I demand to speak to Naud. Fetch him now!’

The only reply was another flurry of shafts. The Luna Wolf beside Torgaddon fell dead, and another staggered back, wounded. An arrow had embedded itself in the Warmaster’s left arm. Without wincing, he dragged it out, and watched his blood spatter the flagstones at his feet. He walked to the fallen Astartes, bent down, and gathered up the man’s bolter and sword.

‘Their mistake,’ he said to Loken and Torgaddon. ‘Their damn mistake. Not ours. If they’re going to fear us, let us give them good reason.’ He raised the sword in his fist. ‘For the Emperor!’ he yelled in Cthonic. ‘Illuminate them!’

‘Lupercal! Lupercal!’ answered the handful of warriors around him.

They met the charging sagittars head on, bolter fire strobing the narrow street. Robot steeds shattered and tumbled, men falling from them, arms spread wide. Horus was already moving to meet them, ripping his sword into steel flanks and armoured chests. His first blow knocked a man-horse clear into the air, hooves kicking, crashing it back over onto the ranks behind it. ‘Lupercal!’ Loken yelled, coming to the Warmaster’s right side, and swinging his sword double-handed. Torgaddon covered the left, striking down a trio of gleves, then using a lance taken from one of them to smite the pack that followed. Interex soldiers, some screaming, were forced back down the steps, or toppled over the stone railing of the street to plunge onto the tier beneath.

Of all the battles Loken had fought at his commander’s side, that was the fiercest, the saddest, the most vicious. Teeth bared in the firelight, swinging his blade at the foe on all sides, Horus seemed more noble than Loken had ever known. He would remember that moment, years later, when fate had played its cruel trick and sense had turned upside down. He would remember Horus, Warmaster, in that narrow firelit street, defining the honour and unyielding courage of the Imperium of Man.

There should have been frescoes painted, poems written, symphonies composed, all to celebrate that instant when Horus made his most absolute statement of devotion to the Throne.

And to his father.

There would be none. The hateful future swallowed up such possibilities, swallowed the memories too, until the very fact of that nobility became impossible to believe.

The enemy warriors, and they were enemy warriors now, choked the street, driving the Warmaster and his few remaining bodyguards into a tight ring. A last stand. It was oddly as he had imagined it, that night in the garden, making his oath. Some great, last stand against an unknown foe, fighting at Horus’s side.

He was covered in blood, his suit gouged and dented in a hundred places. He did not falter. Through the smoke above, Loken glimpsed a moon, a small moon glowing in the corner of the alien sky.

Appropriately, it was reflected in the glimmering mirror of ocean out in the bay.

‘Lupercal!’ screamed Loken.

FOUR

Parting shots

The Sons of Horus

Anathame

‘W
HAT WAS TAKEN
?’ Mersadie Oliton asked.

‘An anathame, so they claim.’

‘One weapon?’

‘We didn’t take it,’ Loken said, stripping off the last of his battered armour. ‘We took nothing. The killing was for nothing.’

She shrugged. She took a sheaf of papers from her gown. They were Karkasy’s latest offerings, and she had come to the arming chamber on the pretence of delivering them. In truth, she was hoping to learn what had befallen on Xenobia.

‘Will you tell me?’ she asked. He looked up. There was dried blood on his face and hands.

‘Yes,’ he said.

T
HE BATTLE OF
Xenobia Principis lasted until dawn, and engulfed much of the city. At the first sign of commotion, unable to establish contact with either the Warmaster or the fleet, Abaddon and Aximand had mobilised the two companies of Luna Wolves garrisoned at the
Extranus
. In the streets surrounding the compound area, the people of the interex got their first taste of the power of the Imperial Astartes. In the years to come, they would experience a good deal more. Abaddon was in wrathful mood, so much so that Aximand had to rein him back on several occasions.

It was Aximand’s units that first reached the embattled Warmaster on the upper tier near the Hall of Devices, and fought a route to him through the cream of Naud’s army. Abaddon’s forces had struck at several of the city’s control stations, and restored communications. The fleet was already moving in, in response to the apparent threat to the Warmaster and the Imperial parties on the ground. As interex warships moved to engage, landing assaults began, led by Sedirae and Targost.

With communications restored, a full-scale extraction was coordinated, drawing all Imperial personnel from the
Extranus
, and from fighting zones in the streets.

Horus sent one final communiqué to the interex. He expected no response, and received none. Far too much blood had been spilled and destruction wrought for relations to be soothed by diplomacy. Nevertheless, Horus expressed his bitter regret at the turn of events, lamented the interex for acting with such a heavy hand, and repeated once again his unequivocal denial that the Imperium had committed any of the crimes of which it stood accused.

W
HEN THE SHIPS
of the expedition returned to Imperial space, some weeks later, the Warmaster had a decree proclaimed. He told the Mournival that, upon reflection, he had reconsidered the importance of defining his role, and the relationship of the XVI Legion to that role. Henceforth, the Luna Wolves would be known as the Sons of Horus.

The news was well-received. In the quiet corners of the flagship archives, Kyril Sindermann was told by some of his iterators, and approved the decision, before turning back to books that he was the first person to read in a thousand years. In the bustle of the Retreat, the remembrancers – many of whom had been extracted from the
Extranus
by the Astartes efforts – cheered and drank to the new name. Ignace Karkasy sank a drink to the honour of the Legion, and Captain Loken in particular, and then had another one just to be sure.

In her private room, Euphrati Keeler knelt by her secret shrine and thanked her god, the Emperor of Mankind, in the simple terms of the
lectio divinitatus
, praising him for giving strong and honourable men to protect them. Sons of Horus, all.

A
IR HUMMED DOWN
rusting ducts and flues. Darkness pooled in the belly vaults of the
Vengeful Spirit
, in the bilges where even the lowliest ratings and proto-servitors seldom strayed. Only vermin lived here, insect lice and rats, gnawing a putrid existence in the corroded bowels of the ancient ship.

By the light of a single candle, he held the strange blade up and watched how the glow coruscated off its edge. The blade was rippled along its length, grey like napped flint, and caught the light with a glitter like diamond. A fine thing. A beautiful thing. A cosmos-changing thing.

He could feel the promise within it breathing. The promise and the curse.

Slowly, Erebus lowered the anathame, placed it in its casket, and closed the lid.

‘A
ND THAT IS ALL
?’

‘We tried,’ said Loken. ‘We tried to bond with them. It was a brave thing, a noble thing to attempt. War would have been easier. But it failed.’

‘Yes,’ he said. Loken had taken up the lapping powder and a cloth, and was working at the scratches and gouges on his breastplate, knowing full well the scars were too deep this time. He’d have to fetch the armourers.

‘So it was a tragedy?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ he nodded, ‘but not of our making. I’ve never… I’ve never felt so sure.’

‘Of what?’ she asked.

‘Horus, as Warmaster. As the Emperor’s proxy. I’ve never questioned it. But seeing him there, seeing what he was trying to do. I’ve never felt so sure the Emperor made the right choice.’

‘What happens now?’

‘With the interex? I imagine attempts will be made to broker peace. The priority will be low, for the interex are marginal and show no inclination to get involved in our affairs. If peace fails, then, in time, a military expedition will be drawn up.’

‘And for us? Are you allowed to tell me the expedition’s orders?’

Loken smiled and shrugged. ‘We’re due to rendezvous with the 203rd Fleet in a month, at Sardis, prior to a campaign of compliance in the Caiades Cluster, but on the way, a brief detour. We’re to settle a minor dispute. An old tally, if you will. First Chaplain Erebus has asked the Warmaster to intercede. We’ll be there and gone again in a week or so.’

‘Intercede where?’ she asked.

‘A little moon,’ Loken said, ‘in the Davin System.’

TIMELINE

Millennia
-
Age
-
Notes

1-15
-
Age of Terra
- Humanity dominates Earth. Civilisations come and go. The Solar system is colonised. Mankind lives on Mars and the moons of Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune.

15-18
-
Age of Technology
- Mankind begins to colonise the stars using sub-light spacecraft. At first only nearby systems can be reached and the colonies established on them must survive as independent states since they are separated from Earth by up to ten generations of travel.

18-22
-
Age of Technology
- Invention of the warp-drive accelerates the colonising of the galaxy. Federations and empires are founded. First aliens encountered and first Alien Wars are fought. First human psykers scientifically proved to exist. Psykers begin to appear throughout human worlds.

22-25
-
Age of Technology
- First Navigators are born allowing human spaceships to make even longer, quicker warp-jumps. Mankind enters a golden age of enlightenment as scientific and technological progress accelerates. Human worlds unite and non-aggression pacts are secured with dozens of alien races.

25-26
-
Age of Strife
- Terrible warp-storms interrupt interstellar travel. Sporadic at first, the storms eventually prevent any warp-jumps being made. The incidence of human mutation increases rapidly. Mankind enters a dark period of anarchy and despair.

26-30
-
Age of Strife
- Human worlds ripped apart by civil wars, revolts, alien predation and invasion. Human psykers and other mutants dominate some worlds and these rapidly fall prey to warp-creatures. Humanity is on the brink of destruction.

30-present
-
Age of Imperium
- Earth is conquered by the Emperor and enters an alliance with the Mechanicum of Mars. Finally the warp-storms abate and interstellar travel is possible again. The Emperor builds the Astronomican and creates the Space Marine Legions. Human worlds reunited by the Emperor in a Great Crusade that lasts for two hundred years.