AN :

Hello, dear readers !

I have finished another chapter of the Forsaken Sons' evil deeds, and it is my pleasure to present it to you.

First thing, WARNING! this chapter contains spoilers for the Horus Heresy. Especially, about the Alpha Legion. That is, if anything can be considered canon about these slippery bastards. More on that at the end of the chapter.

Secondly, I would like to thank all my reviewers, and answer some of their questions :

Lightning King : thank you, and you are right. It is time indeed.

Khorne : BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD !

Guest : the gift of Arken is the fact that he doesn't need to, and cannot, sleep. This is a gift/curse/something from the Dark Gods of Chaos that he received during the Exodus.

Giodan : this one is a bit complicated. Firstly, it is possible to kill a daemon. That is something that the Dark Gods can do, so we know it is doable. Secondly, the code-daemon is a bit particular. At its 'birth' it was a very small, very weak daemon. It grew stronger while infecting Mulor Tertius' machines, and went from a simple line of scrap code to a giant entity of all-encompassing awareness. But if it is 'destroyed', it will go back to the Warp, yes ... and lose all the power and intelligence it has gained since its manifestation. It would be like oblivion for the daemon, and Arken knows it, which is why he words it like he does.

Did that convince you ? If not, just think Arken was bluffing and the daemon bought it because it was impressed.

I don't own the WH40k universe. It belongs to Games Workshop.

Now, the chapter ! I will see you again at the end.

The elders of the clan spoke of many things during the gatherings. They knew a lot, for they had lived long lives. Some of them longer than any other on all of the Land, it was said. Some of them even remembered a time when the skies hadn't been black. They spoke of it rarely, only in whispers, as if they were afraid that to talk of the Great Fire or his Silver Queen and her Shining Daughters would draw the ire of the Stalkers. Perhaps they were right to do so. Perhaps this was mere superstition. Mahlone did not know.

The young boy knew, however, that he liked the stories of before the Dark. They were sad, of course, because they always made him think of what his people had lost, but to know that the Dark hadn't always been here was … conforting ? Warming ? Mahlone didn't know any word to design what he felt when he could persuade an elder to tell him what the Land had been before the Dark. It was akin to what he had felt when he had been but an infant, clutching to his mother near the fire, knowing that he was safe here, that the Stalkers wouldn't attack the camp.

It had been a false knowledge, of course, as he had learned when the Stalkers had taken his mother so long ago. The elders said that it had been years, but what was a year ? The people of the Land couldn't understand what they meant by it. They measured time, when they bothered with it at all, in the periods of rest and activity. They hunted and scavenged amidst the stones until they were too tired to keep evading the Stalkers, at which point they returned to the camp. When they met humans of other clans, sometimes they fought, sometimes they traded, sometimes they ignored each other. When they found a Stalker's nest, they destroyed it, killing the young before they could grow. It was a dangerous deed, as it drew the anger of the parent, but it was the only way to prevent the Stalkers from growing too numerous. That was the way of life in the Land, the only way Mahlone had ever known, the only way there had been since the coming of the Dark.

That story wasn't one he liked. According to the elders, it had been a time even worse than those that had followed. Creatures called Daemons, even more cruel and twisted that the Stalkers had walked the Land, spectres out of Hell who drew power from the Dark itself to manifest. They had hunted the people for a long time, until finally, they had vanished. But they had left behind the Dark, and the Stalkers which were said to be their spawn – the product of their mating with humans. But if the Daemons were the makers of the Stalkers, why did the elders insist that the children who were born different from the others had to been killed, lest they join the ranks of the Dark's hunters ? It did not make sense to Mahlone. But then again, he was just a boy. There was a lot of things he didn't understand.

Another story told of a giant who had fallen from the sky on wings of fire, an angel that had been banished from Heaven and who had brought the Dark and the Daemons upon the Land in vengeance before descending in person to inflict further torments. But the elders told that story even less often than those about the time before the Dark, for none of them could claim to have ever seen the Fallen One – the stories about him originated from the nightmares and the visions that had stricken the people of the Land during the Coming of the Dark, and, more rarely, in the times that had followed. Sometimes these visions even revealed secrets to the elders – where to find the nest of a Stalker that had been particularly aggressive, or the direction to new scavenging grounds. Sometimes, they were lies and traps, and led the deceived clan into ruin and extinction. But never could the elders who received these visions know whether or not they were true, for the designs of the Fallen One were impossible to understand to mortals. So, more often than not, the clan's chiefs took the risk of following the message, as while it sometimes brought trials, denying them was said to draw the wrath of the destitute angel.

'Hey, Mahlone,' said Ygdal. 'Wake up. We've got to go.'

The boy stirred from his reveries, and faced his friend. Ygdal was tall for his age, two heads taller than Mahlone. He was strong, too, and some whispered on his back that he wasn't smart. Mahlone knew better : Ygdal just seemed to be slow because he always took the time to consider everything he did. Dirty white hair hung to his shoulders, the mark of those born after the Dark had come. Mahlone wore that mark as well, though he kept his own hair short – at the cost of many cuts on his skull's skin when he used whatever blade he had at hand to cut his mane.

Like Mahlone, Ygdal was an orphan. Unlike him, he hadn't lost both of them to the Stalkers. His father had been a hunter and had vanished one cycle, never to return to the camp, while his mother had died during a battle with another clan for control of a pond of water. It had been during that battle that both of the youngsters had killed another of the Land's people for the first time, fighting side by side.

'Have the hunters returned ?' he asked, his own voice just as soft as Ygdal's. Everyone in the Land spoke softly, in an effort not to be heard by the Stalkers. In fact, he couldn't remember hearing anyone raise his or her voice apart for the screams when the Stalkers caught someone.

'No,' answered Ygdal. 'But the chief says that we need to move regardless. If they are still alive, they will catch up to us.'

'How will they know where we are ?'

It was a valid question. When a clan moved the position of its camp, it did so with great care, erasing all traces of its former presence. The remnants of a camp could be studied, after all, the strength of the clan that had inhabited it determined from what it had left behind. And if a clan was weak, then others could decide to attack it. Mahlone didn't think it cruel or evil : it was simply the way of life in the Land. Traces of the moving clan were also erased, so as to diminish the chances that they may be attacked while on the move. Some clans had tried to leave signs for those they had been forced to leave behind, but they had been exterminated. Apparently, regardless of the subtlety of the signs, the Stalkers were able to find and follow them to the exposed prey that had laid them out.

Ygdal simply shrugged, and Mahlone understood. The chief couldn't afford to wait any longer. They had stayed here too long already – he had slept six times since they had set camp here – and the Stalkers were doubtlessly already starting to converge on them, drawn to their presence by the smell of fresh prey. Even if the hunters hadn't returned, they just couldn't risk staying at the same place any longer.

As he rose and gathered his few belongings, Mahlone briefly wondered what life would be like if they didn't have to move regularly. They could built better shelters, gather bigger stocks, perhaps even start cultivating the mushrooms that made a good portion of their diet …

Useless thoughts. He needed to focus on the present : moving. Then, if the hunters didn't come back, he and Ygdal would have to help gather food. Until now, their tasks in the clan had consisted in helping with the cycle-to-cycle life in the camp, but they had learned some of the tricks of the hunters. Not all of them, of course, but if no one else remained, they would have to go out of the camp's relative security and find supplies for the rest of the clan.

'Let's go then,' he finally said, having finished packing his possessions in a small tissue bag that his mother had made for him before her death. All around him, the rest of the clan was doing the same, and though a few were obviously reluctant to leave this place – those whose relatives were among the hunters – none challenged the chief's decision. It was the only course of action possible and they all knew it, bitter as it may be.

Soon all was ready. The traces of the camp were erased, and sixty-two men and women of various ages started to walk amidst the ruins of what had once been the hive-world called Mulor Secundus.

Of all the great towers, spires and buildings that had once graced the hives of the planet, only one remained standing. It had been the center of this world, the host of the minds that controlled every aspect of life across continents made one by the draining of the oceans. From its myriad of rooms, acolytes and servants of the Adeptus Administratum had brought order to the logistical nightmare that had been Mulor Secundus' daily life.

Now, the governor's palace stood still, but empty and derelict. When the Warp Storm had claimed this world and the horrific denizens of the Empyrean had been unleashed upon its people, less than a few hundred thousand out of billions had survived. The governor himself had died quickly, but he had discovered that death wasn't the end the Imperial Truth had claimed it to be. Even now, the warrior that looked down upon Mulor Secundus from the man's former office thought he could hear his screams as his soul endured yet another torture at the daemons' hands.

Time had flowed strangely on the planet since the Storm had cut it off from the rest of the Universe. By his power armor's chronometers' account, the warrior had been down on the planet for less than a month. But by the count of his twin heartbeats that he had kept since his arrival, it had been almost six decades.

He had been warned that this would happen – in fact, his entire mission relied upon it. He had known that he would be alone on this damned world, alone to perform his commander's orders. Failure from his part would doom the whole thing, for there would be no back-up, no help coming from his brothers outside of this planet's cosmic isolation cell.

But still … solitude on such a scale … it had marked him. And the Warp Storm – what the survivors called, with a simplicity that was almost perfectly apt, the Dark – hadn't helped matters. He was a wholly different being that he had been when he had descended upon the planet in a drop-pod covered in arcane symbols so as to breach through the barrier of blackness that surrounded Mulor Secundus. His armor and his flesh had changed, altered by the same powers that had given life to the race of mutants that now hunted the remnants of the planet's population. Under the ceramite plates, his skin was covered in thin scales like those of a reptile, and his helmet hide the vertical pupils of his eyes, the vanishing of his nose, melted back into his face, and his forked tongue.

His armor was … alive, that was the only word for it. It fed off his bloodstream, draining heat from him to sustain its mechanisms. He had to spend long periods near fires that were increasingly difficult to aliment so that he wouldn't fall prey to hypothermia. Its machine-spirit had become some alliance of mechanic and daemonic, and it hungered for its wearer's life. Every moment was a battle to keep his own equipment from claiming his soul.

Yet this transformation also had its advantages. In return for heat, the armor kept his metabolism active, feeding him his own recycled waste over and over without any loss of nutritional value – an impossibility made real by whatever energies now animated his armor.

The sound of an alarm drew the warrior out of his meditation, and he turned back to the last functioning piece of technological wonder on this world. An entire wall of the giant office was covered in screens, reporting data sent by a thousand servo-skulls scattered across the planet. Another wall was covered in writing from the warrior's own hand – notes on all the thousands of bloodlines he was monitoring. For three generations, he had stood vigil, watching over the remnants of this world's people – the strongest, harshest and most determined of the billions that had once lived meaningless lives in slavery to the Imperium.

For decades, he had acted in the shadows, visiting some of the clans' elders under the cover of enough drugs to make them believe his visits were mere dreams, and influenced their decision. He had brought some clans closer to new hunting ground, and others into yet harsher lands, where they would almost inevitably go extinct.

The servo-skulls had also been put to use for more than just spying : they had sprayed pheromones to drive away some of the Stalkers, or bring them closer, and ensure that some of the humans with the most interesting traits would mate and give birth to a next generation even more suited to the designs of the warrior's lord.

As the near-omniscient watcher of Mulor Secundus, he had made reality the great plan of his master : emulating natural selection with his own will in command, to make this world's people into what the lord of the Forsaken Sons required for his warband. To this end, he had become both a guardian and a plague on the humans, though they didn't know of him.

We need replacements for the brothers we have lost, my friend. Some will be found on Mulor Prime, but the conditions on Mulor Secundus make it uniquely suited for us to harvest specimens gifted with great potential.

Such had been the words of Arken the Awakened One when he had explained his plan to battle-brother Jikaerus, formerly an Apothecary of the Alpha Legion, now as loyal and dedicated to the Forsaken Sons as any other aboard the Hand of Ruin. Alpharius and Omegon's plan to bring Horus upon the Throne of Terra had failed, and now, with his Legion scattered to the corners of the galaxy, each group of the Twentieth Legion had to choose its own course, as was the way of Alpharius' sons. Those that had been rescued from Terra – where they had been at the behest of their Primarch, a separate force from the rest of the Legion, scattered across the galaxy to hinder the loyalists' efforts – had made their choice : they would follow Arken until death came to them all.

The rank of the Son of Horus had nothing to do with his command of the warband : ranks inter-legion had always been a tricky matter, and the fact that Arken's own title of Commander was a customized rank due to his command of the prototype ship that was the Hand of Ruin didn't help that. Even Alexandre, the World Eater who had died during the first strike on Mulor Prime, before Jikaerus had been sent to the second planet of the system, had held a technically higher rank that the Awakened One's.

No, it had been Arken's prowess in battle and words about their Primarch – though the Awakened One didn't know, and would never know, of his dual nature – that had convinced Jikaerus' brothers that he was a leader worth following, one who would bring glory to his warband and inflict much damage upon the Imperium. And despite the confusion that had occurred during the rebellion, Jikaerus was convinced that one thing remained true : the Imperium must fall. It was the one constant in a universe that had stopped to make sense in a web of lies and deceptions on a galactic scale, and the warrior clung to it like a drowning man to a floating log. Unseemly, perhaps, but it was the only thing that had kept him from going too much insane during his decades of near-absolute isolation. For he was insane, of that there was little doubt : he could hear meaningless whispers in the shadows, as if surrounded by conspirators, and some of the plans he had made, upon later examinations, were so obviously flawed that he wondered how he had come to make them in the first place. And then there were the voices of the damned, though he wasn't certain if that last part was him or the place where he had made his lair.

When he looked up at what had caused the alarm, he saw that one of the clans had started to move without waiting for its hunters to come back. That had been a good decision : the hunters were already dead. They had been attacked by a pack of Stalkers, and failed to defeat the mutants.

But despite this decision, the clan was still doomed. The road they had taken would bring them near another group of humans, one which had proved in the past its members' eagerness to kill other survivors with little to no provocation. With most of their warriors lost, the walking clan would be either slaughtered or enslaved.

And that was something Jikaerus simply couldn't allow. He had invested too much time in the running clan – their loss of warriors had been a freak occurrence, something he had known could happen and had made contingencies for, but not something he had actually believed would happen. The bloodlines he had carefully cultivated to be free of mutation – a task whose growing irony hadn't escaped him – while becoming more potent with each generation were now in peril.

In seconds, his mind reviewed all the possibilities that were still open to him, the back-up plans he had set up for such situations. One of the tenets of the Alpha Legion's teachings was that there wasn't such a thing as an event that couldn't be turned to one's advantage, regardless of how dire it may seem. There was a way to make this apparent setback into … Yes. Here it was. A plan designed just for such a situation, and that he had reviewed enough time to be almost sure that it wasn't the fruits of one of his crisis of madness. Sometimes, being forced to double-check all of his work could be … tedious.

Jikaerus commanded his armor's machine-spirit and the daemonic hybrid complied, projecting schematics and graphs on his visual lenses. The Marine checked the numbers, the position of the different clans, and saw that all was as he had anticipated.

He felt something that he hadn't felt in a long time : exultation. Finally, it seemed, he would be able to reach the objective of his self-imposed exile on this miserable ruined planet. If he could pull off this last gambit, there would be enough potential reinforcements on Mulor Secundus for him to send the signal to the Hand of Ruin. At least, he could be reunited with his brothers.

The Space Marine went to the lowest level of the governor's palace, and entered a room that had once been occupied by hundred of vehicles, waiting here for adepts needing to be brought to any point of the hive-city and beyond. Now, the vehicles – cars and aerial transport alike – were nothing but wreckage, torn apart by the daemons or looted by Mulor Secundus' survivors. Only one still stood : Jikaerus' own customized war-bike. He had stolen it from a White Scar's Legionary during the Siege of Terra, and made it as silent as it was possible. A Space Marine could hear it coming, but to mortals, it was all but impossible to detect. During his exile, it had allowed him to reach any corner of Mulor Secundus quickly. Now, it was time for it to be put to the test once more. The destination Jikaerus had in mind was far from the palace, and time was of the essence. He sat on the engine and executed the appropriate rites to ensure the bike was in a state to perform what he was about to ask of it.

Then, once he was sure that his steed wouldn't fail him, Jikaerus of the Forsaken Sons, former Apothecary of the Twenty-Fourth Great Company of the Alpha Legion, now alone, mutant and heretic, activated his bike, and started his course to the location of what he hoped would be his last action on the world his lord's actions had doomed to an endless night where even the stars had gone dark.

Mahlone and Ygdal walked at the back of the small caravan, carrying packs that the elders were unable to bear themselves. Some had claimed that the old men and women were burden that should be abandoned, but these were fools. The knowledge and wisdom of the elders was priceless in keeping the clan alive. So, despite the weight of the combined packs, the youngsters gritted their teeth and forced themselves to keep pace with the rest of the clan.

All around them, as far as they could see in the little pocket of light emitted by their torches, was the wreckage of what the elders said had once been a great city. Though the concept of city was alien to Mahlone, he recognised that those who had created things that had become so much rubble when they had been destroyed had to be mighty indeed. Rocks were everywhere, with only the most narrow of paths left available through them.

The people's ears were strained to perceive the echos of their own steps and breath, their minds thriving to render an image of their surroundings. That skill had appeared soon after the coming of the Dark, when the people of the Land hadn't yet found the means to craft torches from the fungus that grew on the ruins and had been forced to rely on increasingly scarce sources of light from the past. Mahlone had once seen such a relic function – it was an old thing, kept preciously by one of the elders. It had wondered him that his ancestors had been able to trap light in little boxes such as this one for later use.

Without any reliable source of light, the hearing of the Land's people had grown stronger with time, and now they were able to map their surroundings almost a hundred meters around them, while the hunters, who were forced to forsake the use of their eyes entirely, could run and fight with nothing more than their ears, nose and hands to guide them. The humans weren't the only ones to have picked up that ability : Mahlone had seen several Stalkers' corpses before the monsters were burned, the scent of their burnt flesh nearly unbearable but a very effective repellent to their kindred. The creatures were all of different forms and shapes, but they had shared one common trait : eyes that were either blind or absent entirely. The young man's memories rose to the surface : creatures covered in feathers or scales, with fangs the size of a grown man's arm or claws dripping with venom ...

'Stop dreaming,' said Ygdal. He hadn't even turned to face his companion, but knew him enough.

Mahlone shook himself out of his reveries, and focused on the march. One step after another, while keeping his senses alert. Without the hunters to keep watch over the clan, the responsibility of being on guard at every moment fell to all.

'Thank you,' he whispered to his friend.

'It's nothing,' answered the giant. He had long grown used to Mahlone's habit of losing himself in his thoughts, regardless of the situation.

The clan kept walking for a long time, almost an entire cycle. They climbed several mounts of rubble, careful in their footing. Despite the hurry they were in, no member of the clan harmed himself during the perilous journey. Finally, they arrived at what the chief judged to be an appropriate place for setting up their camp. They began to drop their bags and install what little kindling they had carried with them to start the great fire at the center of the camp.

Mahlone and Ygdal were helping the others when the first hint that something wasn't right arrived. The clan's chief, a man who according to the elders' strange way of measuring time had survived for thirty years and bore the name of Avidane, who had been helping deploy the circle of metal stakes that was to surround the camp – one of the most effective defences against Stalker's attacks, as the charging beasts couldn't perceive the weapons before they tore into their flesh – whistled a signal that was known to all of his brethren.

Instantly, all movements ceased, and near-absolute silence fell upon the camp. Each man and woman focused, some of them closing their eyes to heighten their hearing further. The signal meant that the chief thought he had heard something but did not know what, and needed silence to identify the disturbance. Perhaps the hunters had returned, thought Mahlone with a surge of hope in his heart. Or perhaps, more sensibly, it had merely been a false alarm, the sound detected by the chief a mere rock falling after months of oscillating in precarious position …

Then Mahlone heard the battle-cry of another clan and the sound of men charging as the need for discretion was cast to the wind, and he knew that he and his people were doomed. Tens of men and women emerged from their hiding places all around the camp, carrying the crude weapons that the people of the Land were able to create – iron bars, blades salvaged from the ruins, and the very rare and unique firearm, with its precious ammunition, granting its wielder great advantage against any foe, no matter his skill.

They were outnumbered, unprepared, and surrounded. They were all going to die or be captured and enslaved, thought Mahlone with a strange, cold detachment. His clan – his family – was going to be destroyed, not by the Stalkers or the dangers of the Land, but by his fellow humans.

There was something about that fact that striked him as being fundamentally wrong. This wasn't how it should be. He had shared these thoughts with Ygdal before, when his friend's mother had been killed at the hands of another clan. The giant had agreed. Something was wrong with the Land, that it made humans kill other humans. Or perhaps, he had added with a grim expression, something was wrong with them. Had they not killed, too ?

Yes. They had. And now, they would do so again.

A scream rose from the depths of Mahlone's being, filled with rage at the fate of his brethren. He drew his weapon – a steel axe he had taken as trophy from the corpse of the man he had killed – and charged the closest assailant. Ygdal was but a step behind him, his own tool of death – a club of iron the size of Mahlone's tight – clutched firmly in both hand.

He came face-to-face with his foe : a man wearing the same dirty, half-ruined clothing as he, and gripping a spear made of an iron bar with a knife knotted to the extremity. Recognising the range of the weapon as the primary threat of the duel, Mahlone advanced toward the stranger. He blocked the spear's assault with his own weapon before punching the man in the face and kicking him between his legs, too fast for him to react. As the enemy fell on the ground, Mahlone brought his axe into an arc that cut the throat of the man and spilled his blood on the stone. The young man saw the liquid flow with a dark satisfaction, and the words of Ygdal seemed truer – and more wrong – than ever. They were killers, and that was a cruel thing … but it was the right state of things in a world that had no mercy for the weak. To kill or to be killed – it was the only way of the Land. With the taste of blood on his lips and Ygdal at his back, he plunged once more into the fray, determined to make the enemy pay a heavy tribute for its attack.

More and more foes came to confront him, and Mahlone's axe tore through flesh, finding the weaknesses and vulnerabilities in his opponents' guard with preternatural ease. Time seemed to have slowed down around him, leaving his enemies moving as if underwater. No enemy could reach him, and his axe reaped a harvest of lives that made his heart sang with pride.

At his back, covering Mahlone as instinctively as Mahlone was covering him, Ygdal fought with a fury barely contained but contained nonetheless. Each of his strike was given with the precise amount of force required, shattering bones and creaking skulls open. Each attack of his enemies was met with a parry, diverted to the side, or taken head one in return for an opportunity to finish his current adversary. The young man was covered in wounds, his own blood soaking his shirt, but his tremendous endurance allowed him to ignore the combined effect of the superficial cuts.

On and on the two friends fought, their mind occluded by the red veil of battle, locked in a seemingly endless dance of war made of attacks, parries and ripostes. More and more corpses fell to the ground as they moved through the battlefield their camp had become, rallying the rest of their brethren behind them. Overcome by the sensations of battle, Mahlone howled at the back sky, the sound sending the assailants reeling back, fear clearly visible on their pale faces. He felt something, a shadow at the back of his awareness, that was watching him, judging him. Somehow, he felt as if he had to prove himself to whatever that presence was. Lowering his head, he charged once more into the fray.

Jikaerus was smiling under his helm. After hiding his bike some distance from the site and running the rest of the way with all the stealth a son of Alpharius was capable of, he had arrived just in time for the battle's beginning, and it looked as if the bet he had taken was going to pay off. The pheromones he had diffused on the battling humans had been specially calibrated to the two youngsters – the products of carefully engineered bloodlines – in order to awaken their latent potential.

The smaller one possessed both a rage that evoked that of the World Eaters and a gift for anticipating his opponents' moves that had taken much discreet chemical injections to bring. The taller one was possessed of a stamina far above that of a common man, with a mind more grounded to balance his counterpart's regrettable tendencies to daydreaming – a byproduct of his enhanced subconscious. And these two were only a sample of what he had made of the people of this world, using the terribly selective environment and the tools he had brought from the ship ! The other Fleshmasters would be amazed of what he had wrought here, with very limited resources. At least, they would if these two survived the test of battle : only then would Jikaerus be satisfied with his results. If they died, he would start anew, even if it took him another half-century. He would accept nothing less than the best from those who were to receive the gene-seed stored aboard the Hand of Ruin's Apothecarion.

But despite his own near infinite patience, he wanted this to come to an end. The numbers of the people of this planet were ever-diminishing, and once it reached a certain point, inbreeding and mutations brought by the influence of the Warp cover would cause irredeemable damage to the genetics he had so carefully cultivated. His own stocks of chemicals was also dangerously low. No, he would have to call the Awakened One soon, regardless of the results he had achieved, or die in vain, his mission a complete failure.

But it wouldn't come to that, he was sure. The young humans were magnificent to look at. They lacked the might of the Astartes, of course, but they were examples of what mere mortals could achieve – with a little help from science – and Jikaerus was once more remembered that Arken wanted to add mortal armies to the assets of the Forsaken Sons. When he returned to the ship, he decided, he would ask his lord to allow him to perform the same operations on these mortals that he had on the population of Mulor Secundus.

He saw the thinner boy howl, and for a second he thought he saw the human look straight at him. It was impossible that he had noticed the hiding Astartes … or was it ? And if he had, did that mean that he surpassed even Jikaerus' predictions, or simply that the Space Marine's skills were getting sloopy ? No way to know for certain, he decided. He would have to wait and see.

There weren't many of the assailants left standing by now. No matter – they had been a failure anyway, upon which he had given up years ago. The only reason he hadn't engineered their destruction sooner instead of letting them consume valuable resources was that they could still be useful – in the exact fashion they had been right now. They had helped to bring about the true potential of those he had created, and for that they should feel honored. Their deaths had a lot more meaning that their lives could ever have hoped to have.

The man who had led the boys' tribe – a specimen worthy of interest, too, but too old for integration in the Forsaken Sons and thus expendable – died, his head bursting under the fire of a bolt pistol that the assailants' own leader had somehow managed to scavenge in the ruins. This was worrying. The man had kept the weapon hidden until now – no doubt wanting to spare the ammunition as much as he could. If he was desperate enough to use it, then his next targets would undoubtedly be the boys. And as much as Jikaerus wanted them to be tested, surviving bolter fire without any armor wasn't something he expected from them. Not yet, anyway.

The Astartes drew his own bolt pistol, a model far heavier and more elaborate than what the human clumsily wielded, and took aim. Before the chief could shoot at his specimen, he focused on the shot, eliminating everything else than the target, his gun, and himself, and pushed the trigger.

And with this, he thought, my exile ends. One way or another.

Mahlone watched as the head of the man who had just killed Avidane exploded in a fountain of gore. The sound of the shot – the same sound that when the headless corpse had slain the chief – rang in his ears, but a dozen times louder.

All fighters, who had been trying to kill each other but seconds ago, froze where they stood. Several fell on their knees, clutching their heads, trying to ease the pain in their ears. Mahlone's own auditory map of his surroundings was lost to the ringing that followed the shot.

Then, he heard another sound. Footsteps, but heavier than any other he had ever heard. His gaze and that of Ygdal turned to the direction of the noise, trying to locate it despite the pain.

A giant was approaching, all the survivors of the battle creeping out of his way as he neared Mahlone and Ygdal. Towering far above the tallest men present, he was clad in metal covered his body entirely and, under the light of the dying fire, appeared green. His head was similarly encased, with two points of red light where the eyes should have been. He held in his hand a weapon similar to the one that the enemy chief had wielded, but far bigger, and yet he seemed able to hold it in one hand. At his hip hung another weapon that Mahlone couldn't identify : it looked like a blade, but was covered in smaller bits of metal, like teeth.

All of his instincts screamed at Mahlone that the being was dangerous, and when he saw what was depicted on its shoulder, he was terrified. For the giant bore the mark of the multi-headed dragon, and this creature appeared in only one kind of story : those about the Fallen One. An angel stood before him, the one who had plunged his world into the Dark and was responsible for all that had happened since.

Anger rose in him, banishing his fear. With an wordless snarl, he jumped at the giant, his axe risen. Part of him knew that he didn't stand a chance of killing or even hurting an angel, but he didn't care. He wanted revenge for all that had been done to the Land, and he would either have it or die. Behind him, he heard Ygdal's warning shout, but he didn't listen to the words.

Before he could make three steps, something hit him at the back of his head, and he fell on the ground. The last thing he saw before falling unconscious was Ygdal dropping his club and seizing him before he hit the stones beneath them, and the last thought that crossed his mind was : why had his friend hit him ?

'Clever,' said Jikaerus, his voice hissing because of the deformation of his tongue. 'You knew I would kill him if he attacked me, so you prevented him from doing so, even if that meant attacking your own friend. Quick thinking.'

The boy looked up at him, his eyes filled with the same anger that had filled those of his friend, but colder and contained. Good. The boys could hate him if they wanted – in fact, this would give them purpose, and the strength to survive the implantation procedures. It would be dangerous for him once they were transformed into Astartes, but by then it would be a wonder if anything remained of their former personalities.

'You want to kill me too, don't you ?' asked Jikaerus. 'I can see it in your eyes.'

The young human didn't move an inch, nor did his expression change. Jikaerus continued :

'But you cannot kill me as you are. You are too weak. You know that.' He gestured at the rest of the humans, still petrified in fear and awe.

'None of you here have the strength to kill me … but I could give it to you. My lord and master needs warriors, soldiers to fight in his wars against the false god who has betrayed us all. If you were to join his armies, he would give you the same power I possess … and, in time, you may be able to claim vengeance, if you still desire it.'

'Now, tell me, boy : what do you want ? To die here, on this worthless planet, forgotten by all ? Or to break free, to see the universe beyond this cover of darkness ? To see the starts and travel through them as one of the strongest warriors of the galaxy, free to impose his will over all and having nothing to fear ?'

'Make your choice, boy.'

Cold, and dark. Those were the first two things that Mahlone felt when he woke up. Then he opened his eyes, and it wasn't dark anymore. It was so bright, in fact, that he shut his eyes back closed, the light burning them.

A few seconds later, he looked again, eyes only half-open. He was laying on a metal floor, with a metal roof a few meters above his head. That was new. He knew what a roof was : he had heard the description of houses from the elders, and the shelters they built had one. But he had never actually seen one so clearly made to last longer than just a few cycles.

'Where am I ?' he groaned. Then the memory of what had happened hit him. He had attacked the Fallen One, and Ygdal had struck him down from behind before he could try to strike at the giant. Of course, looking back, without the rage of the battle to obscure his thoughts, he could understand why his friend had done so, but ...

'Awake, at last ? Get up, Mahlone. Now.'

The voice of his friend, here ? And why was it filled with such urgency ?

Mahlone forced himself up, and saw that Ygdal was standing near him, facing something like twenty other boys the same age as them. There was hostility in their eyes – not true anger, simply the reflex hostility of animals who instinctively knew they were in competition with each other. It wasn't hard to imagine what had happened : they had seen Mahlone unconscious and had wanted to finish what Ygdal had started before he could wake up.

'Where are we ?' asked Mahlone again, his voice sore.

The room was broad, several hundred paces broad, and walls of metal closed all around them. Ygdal and him were near one of the wall, their back turned toward it while they faced the other youngsters. More of them were staying away from the confrontation – Mahlone estimated their number to several hundred, at least. He had never seen so many people gathered in one place. Some of them looked like people of the Land – pale skin and broad eyes – and others were of complexion and aspect unlike anything he had ever seen before.

'We aren't in the Land anymore, Mahlone,' answered Ygdal to Mahlone's question. It took a second to the lad to remember what it was he had asked. 'The Fallen One called his brothers, and they took us, and them too, with him.'

'What ?! Then where are we ?'

'Beyond the Dark. On a floating city, that sails the void between the Shining Daughters.'

'Ah !' snarled one of the others. 'Ignorant primitives. We are aboard the Hand of Ruin, you idiot ! The ship of Lord Arken the Awakened One, Commander of the Forsaken Sons !'

'Who the hell are you to speak to us like that ?' asked Ygdal, his voice dangerously calm. The other young man, who wore clothes more colored and in better state – if still a bit dirty – than anything Mahlone had ever seen, spoke arrogantly :

'I am Radomir Sertanov, scion of the House Sertanov, lords and masters of the world of Mulor Prime, and future warrior of the Forsaken Sons ! Although it is more than a bit insulting to see that I am put with wretches like you !'

Anger rose again in Mahlone's chest. He groaned threateningly, and began to walk toward the source of his rage, but Ygdal held him back, his arm stretched to block his path, his head moving slowly from left to right. Understanding his friend's wordless message, Mahlone forced himself to calm down. He looked at Ygdal, and asked :

'Why did the Fallen One's brothers brought us here ?'

'They want us to join them, Mahlone. The Fallen One told me that he had waited long for «worthy subjects», whatever that means.'

'How did we end up here ?'

'After I clubbed you – sorry about that, by the way – the Fallen One asked me if I wanted revenge against him too. He told me that we could get it if we came with him; that his lord would share his power with us and that we would be the Fallen One's equals. I accepted his offer.'

'You were right to do so,' said Mahlone, his voice dripping with hatred as more and more memories returned to him. 'That bastard must pay, whatever the price. What happened next ?'

'The Fallen One did … something. I don't know why. Then a great thing came from the sky, with the Fallen One's kindred in its belly, and it took us away. We traveled through the Land, faster than anything, and when we stopped, the Fallen One and his brothers went and came back with more guys. Finally, they gave us all something to drink that made us fall asleep, and when my eyes opened, we were here with these guys.'

'So … we are going to become angels ?'

'Not angels, you ignorant, brain-dead fool,' spat Radomir. 'Astartes. Perfect warriors, carrying the blood of the divine and the favor of the True Gods.'

Mahlone looked at the arrogant son of Stalker again. This one, he decided, wasn't going to live long.

'A most impressive batch, I must admit, Jikaerus.'

'Thank you, my lord,' said the Apothecary, bowing before Arken.

The two Astartes were watching the aspirants from another room, using cameras to survey their actions. Other Fleshmasters were reading documents and reports about the analysis that had been conducted on the humans while they were sedated, searching for signs that would announce incompatibility. So far, they hadn't found anything in those they had brought from Mulor Secundus.

'What about you ? Are you alright ? You said you were down there for decades. Did anything happen to you, brother ?'

Jikaerus hesitated. Should he confess his mutations ? Yet again, it wasn't as if he would be able to conceal them forever. And he doubted the Awakened One would kill him simply because of that. He was too … calculating to throw away an asset that had proved its value.

'Some changes in my flesh and armor,' he admitted. 'Nothing too important to prevent me from functioning at full ability.'

'Good. What you have done is truly impressive, Jikaerus. I will need your services again in the future, though I will try to make sure it isn't as taxing for you as it was with this instance.'

For several minutes, the two Marines stood silent, watching as the aspirants played a game as old as life itself : the game of influence and intimidation that occurred whenever pack animals were suddenly together. Finally, Jikaerus asked :

'What will we do now, my lord ? We have taken everything we could from this system. Where are we going next ?'

Arken didn't speak for a few seconds, and Jikaerus feared that he had spoken out of station. Then the Awakened One answered :

'To another system, some ten weeks of Warp-travel away. It is called Parecxis.'

AN : and it is done !

There has been some difficulty with this chapter. Some sources say that the Alpha Legion wasn't at Terra, but as everything with this Legion, it is unclear and contradictory. So I have just rolled with the idea that some of it was at the Siege, and were rescued by Arken. I also knows that there is a whole theory that the Alpha Legion is actually loyalist and pretend to be traitor to be able to fight Chaos from within, but I personally don't buy it. I mean, some of its members may be loyalists. But the Legion is too scattered for some of them not to have succumbed to Chaos totally, especially since the latest books of the Horus Heresy seem to imply an inner ploy and betrayal between the twin Primarchs.

Secondly, I used this chapter to clear a bit of confusion about Arken's former rank, by using shamelessly the 'prototype' status of the Hand of Ruin.

That's all for now. The next chapter will come out in a week or two, as usual.

If you enjoyed this chapter, see canon incoherences, have an idea for the future of this fic, or simply want to signal errors, please review !

Zahariel out.