Chapter 9: Time For Regrets


Ten days, they were told that it would be ten days before they knew the fate of the Warmaster. Ten days to know for certain whether their desperate plan had worked.

"It might as well be ten years, or ten lifetimes."

Captain Horus Aximand murmurs to himself and pulls the cowl of his cloak tighter around his armoured frame. It was about the only protection he had to stave off the discomfort of the constant downpours that swept Davin since their arrival.

The arboreal planet shook and shuddered as much with the juddering roar of heavy bulk landers disgorging hordes of menials as with the echoing boom of thunderclaps. All around the kilometers-wide caldera were countless lumin-lit vigils and near religious observances made by tens of thousands of mortals. The 'pilgrims', for there was few better words for the eclectic mass of humanity, came from every walk of life and sought shelter on the grimy slopes. The nearby landing zone had been a gateway, and in just hours, shanty towns had popped up to house the masses that awaited word of the Warmaster's fate. They came from the army, from the navy, from menial laborers, and even the haughty remembrancers. He and the others of the Legion's command gathered before the mammoth gates of the octagonal temple at the centre of the hollowed out basin.

No, that wasn't quite right.

A group of astartes stand at the apex of the steps leading to the Delphos Serpent Temple, but it wasn't all of them. The Twisted had returned to the Vengeful Spirit, the legion's flagship hangs in orbit low enough to be seen with the naked eye as a winking star in broad daylight. Ekkadon, Kibre, and Targhost still loiter in the lee of the temple's windward side to shelter from the sheets of pouring rain, but Ezekyle Abaddon had barely moved from his post beneath the lintel of the door. The First Captain remained their master's loyal, albeit temperamental servant. Even now he stood at the precipice, face upturned to regard the twisted mural decorating the massive edifice.

Loken, Targaddon, Vipus, even Marr had approached them hours ago. But by then it made little difference. Horus had already been ferried into the halls of the fane that, as they had been assured by Chaplain Erebus, would be his salvation.

The others had ranted, raved, and at several points, Aximand was certain it would come to blows between the snarling Abaddon and the indignant Garviel Loken. If it did, Loken's hound, Nero Vipus, almost certainly would have waded in to provoke Abaddon's choleric ire. And where Abaddon strode, so too did Falkus Kibre. The 'Widowmaker' would break up any argument by siding with the First Captain.

Alone among them, Tybalt Marr didn't so much as twitch as he stood at the base of the ancient stone steps, looking up at them through empty eyes. The silent judgment of a man no longer there, no longer whole. He looked as dead as his other half, Verulam Moy.

For centuries the Legion had sought to bring the light of reason and empirical clarity, to smash the strongholds of profane delusion and free its people from the hold of false religion. That was their mission, the petty propaganda of iterators they'd all followed. While Aximand hadn't been captain for nearly that long, he had stood decades in the shadow of Horus Lupercal and done his every bidding. He had been one of the Mourneval, a trusted voice to Lord Lupercal, but now he couldn't help but loath his weak and paltry contribution.

'We had no choice, you would have done the same!'

The sickly burble that erupted from his throat as he whisper-shouted down to Tarik Torgaddon and Loken had been a feeble thing. He'd instantly regretted it, and his damned mind kept replaying that pathetic moment time and time and time again for the past twelve hours. There must have been something he could have said differently, something that could have made them see that this wasn't done in malice.

It had been voted on, for Unity's sake! They had been invited, First Chaplain Erebus himself had summoned each and every one of the Legion's leadership cadre and neither Tarik, nor Loken, nor Marr had bothered to show up to cast a ballot. No, instead, the deciding vote had fallen on him.

He wished Hastur Sejanus was still alive. He would have known what to do. But his friend was a half-year dead, the dead had no voice and could give no advice.

It hadn't been up to Abaddon, or Maloghurst, Ekkadon, Targhost, or even Kibre. It had been up to him. They had looked up to him, and like a guy-wire in a whirlwind, he'd strained for a moment, then snapped. Horus was given up to the witches and holy-men of a fane to save his life, just as Erebus suggested.

'It's a betrayal of everything you stood for, Aximand!'

Maybe Loken had been right. A single look into Tarik's eyes had nearly broken him, after all. And after the heady haze of adrenaline from the confrontation had passed, he'd felt more than empty. He felt sick. A squirming tide of bile had risen unbidden, and he'd excused himself for a moment just to keep from being seen in the ignominy of vomiting. It all sounded like a grotesque jibe now that the Warmaster lay inside a structure that they should have, by all rights, put to the torch.

Now he stood before the doors in the company of comrades as silent as stone. Chill winds cut into his transhuman constitution, lashing his face with freezing rain that frayed the edges of his cloak. All around him storms howl and shriek their fury across the windswept plateau.

Horus Aximand glances up at the doors once again, seeing the bare-faced Abaddon with his eyes closed at his endless vigil. Rain traces down his carved face, soaking the top knot into a crimson hued rat tail. Yet, he gives no indication that he so much as feels the cut of rain or prick of cold.

Pathetic. Aximand felt pathetic. And for only the second time in his life, he felt helpless.

No.

He was helpless. But he would stay here and face the consequences of his choice. Yade Durso was a competent lieutenant, surely he could pick up the slack and command 5th company until this was over.

With a racking breath, Aximand gathers his cloak up, turning it against the wind. And under the eyes of the massive structure, he would wait for the day that his Lord would walk out from those doors, or be carried out in a shroud.

It would be over in nine days. Then, and only then, would he know if his choice to give his lord to the witches would save his life, or had it already been taken the moment the assassins blade pierced Horus's side.

A sharp growl bellows across the caldera's slopes, only just drowning out the hawkish whine of a stormbird's engines. An ugly blot of ruby red light flares into existence along a crenelated bastion tower jutting from the Delphos's octagonal hub. It could have been any number of things, but as red flames lick from the crenelated top, and a low shudder rumbles through the earth, something far more unsubstantial shiver's through the captain's form.

Unease.

Something baleful and malign radiated from that structure, shrouded in mist and rain. It threw hellish light across every surface, like the profane temple itself was angry.

"You feel it, don't you?'

Aximand jerks to the side, hand clutching the hilt of his gladius. But the voice was familiar, merely sudden. The ashen face of Tybalt Marr stood out from the gathering gloom, bathed in the same half-light cast by the bastion. But something else glinted in his cold, dead eyes.

"I don't think this was part of the plan, Aximand. Something's... changed."

"The plan went sideways ever since that Temba bastard tried to kill the Lupercal." Aximand quietly replies. "It's just your imagination, Tybalt. I told you, don't worry about it. Everything will be fine, you'll see."

But he himself didn't believe a word. Neither did he have the spirit or will to retread the arguments of hours past. And to his relief, Marr just lapses into an intense silence while staring at the tower's summit. It lasts for several awkward seconds before he turns sharply. The 18th company's captain quickly descends the stone steps, allowing Aximand to return to his vigil in relative silence.

Still, it didn't take a medium to know that Marr was right. The astartes could feel it in the wind, he could smell it in the soil, and sensed it in his bones; something had changed.