Exitus Ultima Chapter 23
"I am going to peel your face off slowly," Jediah hissed.
"I'd like to see you try," Carisa scoffed.
"Then I'm going to remove your hands and use your dead fingernails to claw my name across your heart!"
"Really, how do you..."
"Then I'm going to open you up and tie your bowels into your lungs, so you choke on your own effluent!"
"Now you're being ridiculous."
"Then I'm going to cut your head off and in the last seconds before your brain dies I'm going to hold it up so you can see the ruin I've made of your flesh!"
The threat echoed loud in the cavern, ringing off the high roof. The surrounding Traitors did not waver their aim a single degree, but the cocking of their heads betrayed they were impressed with Jediah's invective. Arvael was sure the dark warrior meant every word, but it hardly helped them now. The surviving Reivers were surrounded and outgunned. With a word their commander could execute the lot of them, the only thing holding them back was his desire to know their secrets.
Arvael looked upon him, the towering Sorcerer with his twin-bladed staff. Beta he had named himself, so typically revealing of nothing, a lie as fetid as his soul. To Arvael's psychic senses the Traitor appeared as a jungle river, coiling with the wind and rain, ever-shifting and changing. Nothing about him was consistent, nothing was true. His soul had no fixed point, treacherous as quicksand and forgiving as a concealed undertow.
"Now that's settled, let us turn to the matter at hand," Beta sniffed.
"I'm not giving you the True Name," Arvael hissed.
"You should reconsider that," Beta cautioned.
"That information is the only thing keeping us alive," Arvael snorted, "If I tell you, you'll kill us."
"He's got you there," a helmed warrior laughed.
"Thank you, Epsilon, I'll handle this," Beta retorted, "You, I could just rip it from your mind."
"Try it and I'll burn my memories to ash," Arvael growled, "You're good, but this is my mind and I can destroy it all before you can dig out the memory."
"You should give consideration as to how much pain you wish to experience before you die."
"We fear no pain," Gotram snapped, "We fear not death!"
"Talgor, if you would," Beta asked as another warrior lashed out with the butt of a bolter and smacked the Sergeant across the back of the head. Gotram sprawled as this Talgor barked, "Tell us, or watch your friends die one by one before your eyes!"
"Let's not get hasty," Beta rebuked, "We can always kill them, but first let's try being reasonable."
"Reasonable?!" Jediah snorted.
"Yes, reason, you should try it sometime," Beta chided, "The Daemon Harbinger is an enemy to you as much as we. His True Name can weaken him, rob him of power. The more who know the name, the more vulnerable he becomes. We can defeat Harbinger for you, the enemy of my enemy is a friend."
"For a master liar you aren't very convincing," Arvael retorted, "You'd do more than defeat the Daemon, you'd make him beholden to you. Try to use him to further your own ends. I am not giving you power over a Daemon!"
"That's it, I'm going to start slitting throats!" Talgor barked.
Beta however sniffed, "Let's try doing this another way. I propose a little challenge: truth for truth. You ask me questions, and I'll tell the truth. Then I ask you a question and you answer. Truth mind, every lie costs the life of one of your Brothers."
"What uses is truth to a dead man?" Arvael scoffed.
"Maybe nothing, maybe everything. Perhaps you'll outwit me and manoeuvre me into revealing some vital clue, or maybe I trick you into speaking the True Name. Are you willing to match wits with me?"
Arvael didn't want to but knew he had no choice. The Alpha Legion could kill them in an instant and despite his bold protest he wasn't sure he could defeat Beta in a duel of Telepathy. Playing for time seemed the best angle, try to delay them without revealing anything important. It was a long shot, but between the choices of likely death and certain death there was no choice at all.
"Harbinger," Arvael started, "You pacted with him to assassinate Guilliman."
Beta answered, "We did, the Daemon had the tools, we had the access, it was beneficial to work with him."
"But you had a falling out?"
"Ah, that's not how this works," Beta chided, "My turn: where did you learn the True Name?"
Arvael bit back a lie, knowing it would be detected, "Holdfast, the Inquisitorial conference. Harbinger attacked us but was defeated by a rival. Jubila, warlord of the fallen Emperor's Children."
"Jubila, ah there's someone I would very much like to vivisect," Beta purred, "But it's your turn."
Arvael knew he had to choose his next question with care, "How did you engineer the poison?"
"We didn't have to," Beta laughed, "That's the beauty of the plan, it was already inside him."
"Liar!" Jediah spat.
"Most days, but not on this matter. The poison was left in his wounds by his Brother Fulgrim, all those millennia ago. It was suppressed by the Eldar and that Martian Magos, but they could never remove it. It has lurked in his cells like cancer, all our bloodcurse had to do was wake it up. I'll throw this in for free: it's the same poison that laid low Horus Lupercal, the same blade that did the deed. Few could devise a weapon able to kill a Primarch, but the Kinebrach were such a race."
Arvael hated every word but knew it was true. The Primarch's doom had been within him all along, lurking out of sight. The Primarch's resurrection had glossed over a fatal flaw, a terrible danger so close to his hearts that none could see it. Chaos had seen though, the Daemons had known and engineered to exploit this weakness to their advantage.
Beta tapped his chin thoughtfully, Now tell me: why is Harbinger so fixated on you? It's more than just the True Name, this is personal."
"We have a long history, he and I. The Daemon wants to possess my flesh, to make me his vessel. He thinks a Space Marine host will be strong enough to contain his full power, a telekine doubly so."
Beta mused, "I see, yes that little slip of a girl he's wearing can't channel too much power through those frail bones. You would make the perfect host."
Arvael continued, "My turn: how did you steer Carisa into our path?"
"I didn't, you did all that yourselves. Our operatives are not mindless serfs, to be ordered about like pawns. They are trained to operate alone, to adapt. When you blundered into her execution she engineered her way into your midst, entirely on her own initiative."
Carisa stroked her throat, "Subdermal communicators let me keep in touch. I've been recording your every word and forwarding it to the Legion. It was tricky getting out of the gunship, let me tell you. Had to signal, my friends for rescue. Your pilots are dead by the way."
"We presumed so," Jediah spat, "All your talk of faith was just a screen."
Carisa snarled, "Oh, I believed, believed hard. I prayed every night for deliverance, after every violation and abuse. And the answer came, not from the corpse of Terra but from the true Angels of the Warp. The Alpha Legion reached out and plucked me from depravity, made me strong and sent me back to exact my revenge. The Imperium forsook me, as it forsakes all who are not among its privileged elite. However, the Alpha Legion turns none away."
"We're getting off track," Beta sighed, "My turn: what progress have the other Chapters made on reversing the damage we did?"
"None," Arvael admitted sadly.
"Good," Beta leered, "Guilliman's death is certain."
Arvael's temper snapped, "No! You have a cure; you wouldn't create something without the means to control it!"
"Fool there is no cure!" Beta snarled, "You truly thought we would engineer the perfect assassination, and then go and leave the means to undo it laying about our base for anyone to find?! This is not some street thespian production. We are the Alpha Legion, we are a hundred steps ahead of you at every turn."
"No, it cannot be," Arvael gasped.
"But it is," Beta crowed, "Guilliman is as good as dead, accept it. Your Imperium is dead, but you don't have to join it. You can embrace the winning side, and join our Legion. All I need is the True Name of Harbinger."
"Join you, never," Arvael spat.
"This is your last chance," Beta warned.
"I spit on your offer!"
From the side Talgor growled, "Enough games, Time to try it my way."
"Very well," Beta sighed, "Have at it."
"No, wait, what about my question?!" Arvael barked.
"Too little, too late," Beta grunted.
"But I have to know one more thing," Arvael pressed, "Exactly how dumb do you think we are?"
"What?" Beta quiered in puzzlement.
"I mean, we find a mortal survivor, in the midst of a slaughter, and she just happens to have all the information we need. Adding a non-fatal wound was a nice touch, but an obvious one. Your psychic conditioning is good, but you were just so helpful, telling us where to go and of all the obstacles in our path. So inordinately helpful, almost too good to be true, the Librarius teaches us to be wary of gifts that come without price."
"What's he saying?" Carisa gulped, "He suspected me all along?"
Arvael nodded, "That's why I demonstrated my powers to you. Sorcery, most imperial citizens would scream in terror at the mere prospect, but you barely blinked, like you'd seen it before. Hell, Gotram showed more alarm at my display of power than you did, that was a dead giveaway. But your true slip up was when you left the Vettia bunker, opening the escape tunnel with ease. Am I supposed to buy a mere joygirl would know the opening code to her boss's most hidden secret?! You insult my intelligence."
"Not so smart as you think," Carisa sneered, "You still let me steer you into our trap."
"No," Beta gulped, "This isn't our trap, it's his."
"What?!"
"The attack was a distraction, to draw our eyes inwards. He's been stalling for time all along!"
Barely had the words left Beta's mouth when the roof exploded. Melta charges laid above blew through stone with ease, sending molten rock cascading down. In its wake they came, scores of Transhumans, falling on rappelling lines to the heart of the basecamp. Intercessors and Tactical Marines, Inceptors and Assault squads, Hellblasters and Devastators. Some in Storm Herald blue, others in the colours of the Steel Confessors, a hundred and twenty Space Marines, falling onto the Alpha Legion with bolters roaring. Captain Toran was at their head, red cloak billowing about his shoulders as he rappelled into the fray.
Thunderous gunfire and the screams of hate-filled warriors inundated the cavern as loyalists and Traitors joined in battle and amid the clamour Arvael looked at the Sorcerer and whispered, "Behold the Iron Hail."