The Storm Lord and the Khan
Once they were done with Giant's Land, the Storm Eagles and the White Scars departed, leaving the 1990th Expedition to carry out reeducation. Purging the local human population had been laughably easy. They were so much like cattle it had been a simple matter to herd them into the frozen wastes in the south to be put to death en masse. The Khan had offered himself and his Legion to carry out the distasteful deed, but though Thorondor had appreciated it, he had refused, insisting that he and his Legion would not shirk their duty. Jaghatai had in turn insisted that his Legion would help with the task.
When it was done, reeducation camps had been quickly set up for the local humans who had been spared from the purge. Once it was all in order, both Legions departed.
II II II
The fleet made its way towards a nearby Imperial depot for a scheduled resupply. In the time it had taken to get there, Asghar and Gwaine had only seen Thorondor twice. Once for a debrief after the Giant's Land campaign, and once more when the Storm Lord issued commands for the Second, Third, Ninth and Twelfth Companies to also join the First at the Imperial depot.
The rest of the time, Thorondor had kept himself sequestered in his quarters with no one but the Khan for company.
Gwaine sat by himself in his arming chambers, rubbing oil into the blade of his glaive. His brow furrowed with concentration as he set to the task. He only looked up when he heard a knock.
Mika Vukona stood in the doorway. "May I join you?"
Gwaine nodded and gestured to the stool opposite him.
Courtesy of his wounds from the Tyron campaign, half of Vukona's face was cybernetic mask. Steel plates glinted dully on the left side his face, and a red orb glowed in place of where his eye should have been. It was said that surgery on his face caused Vukona to suffer chronic pain, but if it was true, the Legion Master of the Eleventh showed no signs of it.
"You fought well," said Gwaine, and Vukona nodded his gratitude. During the Giant's Land campaign, the Eleventh Legion had been tasked with disrupting communications between the various xenos fronts and strongholds; it was the kind of warfare they excelled at given their small numbers.
"How goes the rebuilding?" asked Gwaine.
Vukona grimaced. "Slow. But we rebuild."
Gwaine nodded and asked no more. The Eleventh Legion numbered just around six hundred now. Like everyone else in higher command, Gwaine knew of the Eleventh Legion's troubles. He could only imagine the monumental burden on Mika Vukona's shoulders.
Gwaine liked and respected the Legion Master. He was a grim man, but polite and respectful. His quiet and honest demeanour had won him many friends in the Storm Eagles.
"How may I help you, Legion Master?" asked Gwaine.
Vukona grimaced. "It's about Lord Thorondor."
"What about him?" asked Gwaine.
The Legion Master hesitated, as though uncertain how to proceed. "Lord Thorondor is different now."
Gwaine hands, in the motion of wiping his glaive, came to an abrupt stop.
"I know you've realised it too, Gwaine. Lord Thorondor is now high in the Emperor's favour, even amongst the other Primarchs and I am glad of it, but he's changed since then."
"Are you saying the Storm Lord's become arrogant?" asked Gwaine, smiling to show that he meant it as a jest.
There was a twitch in the corners of Vukona's mouth that may have been the shadow of a smile. "I think there is no being less capable of arrogance than Lord Thorondor. But that's not what I meant. And you know it too."
Gwaine understood all too well.
It had happened slowly, but a coldness had crept into the Primarch of the Second Legion. The first sign was that Thorondor, long considered one of the more approachable Primarchs, had gradually become more forbidding. The reassuring air that had once emanated from the Primarch had vanished. The mortals on the Expedition suddenly found themselves choking on their own saliva in the Storm Lord's presence. Even the Astartes were intimidated by their Primarch.
Even Gwaine and Asghar sensed it.
The First Captain had attributed it to fatigue; even a Primarch must tire eventually, he had argued, and Thorondor had been campaigning on the Emperor's behalf for far longer than anyone save Leman Russ and Horus.
Gwaine had not even bothered to point out the problem with Asghar's reasoning; there were Astartes who had served the Imperium longer than the Primarchs, including Asghar himself. If they were yet unwearied, why should a Primarch be?
No, Gwaine knew all too well the reason behind the change in Thorondor.
In the years that have followed, the Storm Eagles had campaigned against several human civilisations that had resisted Compliance, leading to massive loss of human lives. But being a warrior, the lives lost during battle, though regrettable, was not what weighed on Thorondor.
It was what followed.
Many of those civilisations crushed by the Storm Eagles had advanced through a combination of alliances with xenos and gene manipulation based on alien technology. As such, they were deemed beyond acceptable for Compliance and were ordered to be purged by the War Council. The Storm Lord had railed against those orders, especially since many of the gene manipulation had been done mostly for survival rather than any notion of vanity. Thorondor had lobbied instead for the elimination of xenos influence, and gene purification programs.
Some of the more compassionate Primarchs had found the notion agreeable, but others had baulked at the cost and the time it would take for the gene purification program, as it would certainly take generations before the populace would be free of xenos taint.
In the end, the War Council had decided to purge the worlds to make way for Imperial colonisation.
Thorondor had carried out his duty, but the cost may have been too dear.
That, and the purge at Giant's Land, were weighing heavily on Thorondor.
"We've been killing more humans than xenos the past few years," said Gwaine. "It's hard, killing your own kind."
"We've been doing that since before the Great Crusade," pointed out Vukona.
"Aye, but killing in battle is one thing, killing innocents... that's a different matter."
Vukona frowned. "It is regrettable, but it is for the greater good as decreed by the Emperor."
"It's easy when you put it that way," replied Gwaine. "Maybe it's because you're fully Astartes, but I'm still human enough to see the ghosts."
"Ghosts?"
"Ghosts, Vukona. I know, there's no such thing according to the Imperial Truth, but ghosts exists."
Gwaine tapped his temple and his heart. "They're here. I see the faces of the innocents I have killed. I think, being a Primarch, Thorondor sees them more clearly than I ever could."
II II II
Out of his armour and dressed in simple fatigues, the Storm Lord was no less an impressive figure. Thorondor was leaning back on his couch, his head bowed and his dark hair hung loose around his face. A lanx of mjod was on the table in front of him.
Jaghatai Khan stood at the viewport, observing one of the White Scars ships drifting along in formation. The Khan was dressed after Chogorian fashion, in hides and furs adorned with gold and silver chains. He held a lanx of mjod in his hand; the slight furrowing of his brow the only hint of his distaste for the drink.
"Why this Fenrisian swill?" asked Jaghatai. "I could have had Chogorian brew brought over."
The Khan could see the smile on Thorondor's lips from the reflection in the viewport's glass.
"The taste would be an improvement," admitted Thorondor. "But mjod is the only thing strong enough to affect my constitution."
Jaghatai downed the contents of his lanx in a single gulp. "Disgusting. And what could be bad enough for you to resort to Russ's piss for comfort?"
Thorondor let out a small chuckle.
Though from very similar backgrounds, Leman Russ and Jaghatai Khan could not be more different. Russ was the barbarian king out of myth: brash, recklessly brave, ferocious, ill-mannered and prone to starting brawls or a drinking contest. Jaghatai could be described as a noble savage, dignified in his bearing and restrained in his words, preferring to meet insults with a burning gaze that promised a painful death.
Perhaps that was why there was no love lost between the Wolf King and the Khan.
The fact that Thorondor had close bonds with both of them seemed to intensify the rivalry between the two, much to the amusement of the other Primarchs. Fulgrim had once quipped about Russ and Jaghatai vying for Thorondor's affections, to general laughter.
"It's not that bad once you're used to it," said Thorondor, taking a sip of mjod.
Jaghatai snorted and sat himself opposite Thorondor, taking the lanx out of his hands and putting it aside.
"I won't allow you to drink such filth in my presence," said Jaghatai, the barest hint of a smile appearing on his normally impassive face.
Thorondor laughed softly. It was not a happy sound. It was full of bitterness and sorrow.
"Is it about what we did, brother?" asked Jaghatai. "Is that what you're trying to drown out?"
"We did our duty, didn't we?" answered Thorondor. "That's all we ever did, that's all we've ever done."
"That's not enough for you," stated Jaghatai. "Not enough to assuage your guilt."
"They were like that because of the damned xenos," said Thorondor. "Countless generations of humanity reduced to cattle. I want to slaughter those aliens a thousand times over for what they've done, but it'll never be enough. Because...the purge would have still happened."
The look on Jaghatai's face hardened. "Brother, your love for all Mankind is admirable. Truly. But you know we had no choice in the matter. They were like animals; they've been treated as such for long that they know nothing else. If it were me, or anyone else, the entire planet would have been completely purged. But you still chose to save what little you could of that branch of humanity. Maybe those children will grow into proud humans one day because of you. You should be proud of that, Thorondor."
The Storm Lord looked away. "I've been prosecuting the Crusade for a long time, Jaghatai. And it seems that I've killed more humans than I saved."
"Sometimes to build a new world means tearing the old one down. And people get hurt. People die," said Jaghatai, his voice like iron. "I've killed countless people, warriors and innocents alike, when i fought to unify the tribes. And I've killed countless more conquering Chogoris. So has the Emperor when he unified Terra, so have you when you unified Tempestas."
Thorondor gritted his teeth. "That was different."
"Don't lie to yourself, Thorondor," said Jaghatai. "You may have been more restrained, but innocents still died by your word."
The Khan saw the look of hurt in Thorondor's eyes and softened. "This is the cruel calculus of war, brother. We who walk this path must make peace with this; with every war we wage, every battle we fight and every life we talk, we who walk the path of the warrior must learn to find peace with ourselves."
Jaghatai put a hand on Thorondor's shoulder. "Remember why you fight, brother. Remember why you kill. Remember those you've killed, and honour them by never losing sight of your purpose."