Chapter 18: Kill for the Living, Kill for the Dead
Once, they truly had been the greatest of them all.
At the forefront of the Great Crusade they had stood triumphantly, basking in the acclaim of the masses of humanity and their cousins. Thousands of worlds had been claimed and reclaimed in the name of mankind, and without them the Emperor would have had a much more difficult time bringing back humanity from the brink of extinction.
This, those precious few scholars of the forbidden, of the glories of the Great Crusade that the rest of humanity had long since strove to forget, all agreed upon. The Sons of Horus, for all their later sins, were once mighty champions of mankind, the noble wolves of the Emperor. With them at His side, the darkness of Old Night had been driven back, banished to the furthest corners of the galaxy.
Then came their damnation. Then came the Heresy. The Sons had forsaken their oaths and waged bloody war upon the humanity that they had been called upon to defend and shepherd into a golden age. A war that had not ended until the Emperor had made his great sacrifice. Those that remained had fled into the Eye of Terror, where they had been reborn as the Black Legion, an ever-present threat to the Imperium.
They were traitors. Heretics guilty of the blackest of sins. The damned who desperately and savagely fought to escape their judgment and bring the rest of humanity down with them.
Some of those few who dare to ponder their fall claim it was the result of some flaw that always existed within them, hidden from sight by the actions of the Sacrificed King. Others say that it was their blind hubris that drove them further and further onward, their willingness to do anything to please their father that ushered in their downfall.
But as always…
But we both know the truth, don't we Vargus? We both know why a Space Marine falls to Chaos. After all…
Things were far from simple, and never anything approaching easy.
You've already fallen. All that is left is the admittance.
He was losing, and he alone knew it.
Vargus realized his mistake. How could he not, after all? The beginnings of it, after all, were so obvious that he was surprised that none of his Brothers had caught wind of what was happening to him yet. But the blindness of his Brothers was excusable, when given some thought. After all, did they not trust him unconditionally? With their very lives?
Vargus blinked, angry at himself. The fault was his and his alone, and passing blame served no purpose than to shame himself even more.
He should have done it. He should have pulled his bolt pistol from its mag-locks and blown his thrice-damned head off the moment that the Voice had begun murmuring its sibilant whispers into his mind. With each ethereal syllable, he felt himself slipping further and further away from the Emperor's Light. With each moment of private doubt, with each instance of second guessing, he damned himself more and more.
As the days wore on, larger and larger holes were appearing in his memories. Vargus was not sure what had happened during those times, but the fact that they existed at all was enough. The fact that those gaps were steadily growing larger and larger in duration and ended with him in stranger and more unexplainable locations, fed into one undeniable truth.
That truth, that painful, shameful truth, was that he was losing more and more control, more of himself, to the creature living inside his head. He had fallen prey to the gravest sin that a Librarian could fall prey to:
Arrogance.
He had thought himself powerful, able to suppress the creature within for as long as he needed to. It had been so painfully simple to rationalize in the beginning. His Brothers needed him now more than ever, and what he had perceived to be his duty to them had twisted his mind to the point that he had willingly ignored the presence of a daemon, or worse, dwelling within his immortal soul.
Now, with every passing moment, the daemon, the Voice, delighted in tormenting him with the simple fact that he had been so disastrously wrong, and that his Brothers would pay the price for his arrogance. That of all the characters of this farce, he alone had held the power to prevent it via a single bolt shell.
And despite this realization, still he could not bring himself to perform what he knew to be long past absolutely necessary.
So, like a damnable coward, he pushed on, trying to ignore the voice in his head that condemned him to an eternity away from the Emperor's side for his sins. The voice in his head that he knew to be wholly his own, rather than that of the Enemy.
Space Marines knew no fear. Such were the words penned by the Thirteenth Primarch, noble Roboute Guilliman, in the venerable Codex Astartes. Yet Vargus, in his most despairing moments, was absolutely terrified.
He was losing, and no one else knew it.
Soon, not even he would know it.
"Vargus," came Nemros' voice over the vox, shaking him free from his thoughts. The Brother-Captain's voice was charged with hatred and rage, and Vargus' enhanced eyes could easily see his grip on Defiance tightening more and more.
A tiny, idle part of his mind wondered vaguely at how the power sword's hilt had managed to survive such punishment. It was not the first time Vargus had seen Nemros do such a thing since their arrival in this galaxy. Truly the Martian adepts that had forged it had known what they were doing.
"Yes, Captain?" He pushed the thought away and forced his tone into a state somewhat resembling calm. With a little luck, the Captain would be too shaken to notice anything amiss.
"Istvaan III," was all Nemros said in way of reply, though Vargus needed nothing else. All Astartes knew about the event that began the Horus Heresy. The great betrayal that had sent tens of thousands of Astartes to their deaths at the hands of their erstwhile Brothers. On that distant, damned world, Horus Lupercal had set the galaxy ablaze, and begun the achingly slow decline of mankind.
"I heard," he acknowledged.
"Is…Could they…" Nemros stuttered, and Vargus was forced to fight back physical shock. Nemros, the battle-hardened Captain of the Fifth Company of the Iron Sentinels, stuttered. He had once been certain sure that the Orks would sooner lay down their weapons and sing songs extolling the virtues of peace before he ever saw the other Astartes' composure crack like this.
The sound of a deep inhalation echoed over the vox, causing it to crackle slightly with static. Vargus worried at the sound, momentarily forgetting his own, personal, woes. "Tell me the truth, Epistolary," the Captain demanded flatly. "Tell me, what can you sense from them? Are they really what they say they are? Are they really what I think they might be? Or is this all just a carefully rehearsed trap?"
Vargus chose not to respond vocally, knowing that to do so would only anger Nemros. Drawing the Warp into him, he closed his eyes and let his consciousness roam forward. Almost immediately he is battered by a storm of emotions.
Confusion reigns supreme amongst the Sons of Horus, he can clearly tell. It is easy to understand. Walking hand in hand with Confusion is a strong bastion of Suspicion, the currents intertwined almost irretrievably together. Weaving in and out are strands of Acceptance and Hope. No doubt the sea-green Astartes expect the Sentinels to retrieve them and return them to the Imperium that they believe still exists post-haste.
But underneath it all is a bitter note, a sour tang. It is an acrid whiff of dying dreams and hateful murder borne upon a bitter current known as Deceit.
Treachery.
Further and further he delved in pursuit of this semblance of betrayal, disregarding all else. It would appear, even here, in this place and time far away from the ending days of the Great Crusade, that some of the Sons of Horus still stood with their gene-sire over their Emperor.
A Legionnaire here, another one there, spread throughout the formation. They measured an alarming number, a significant fraction of the assembled transhumans. The one to whom the stench of treachery clung to the strongest, however, was a Sergeant that stood near the Centurion that had spoken to Nemros.
He had a moment to ponder the implications of this discovery before he felt something surge within the Sea of Souls, forcing itself further and further upward and outwards through his soul. Desperately he fought back, bringing all his will to bear upon this intrusion, summoning all of the power at his disposal in order to do battle with whatever creature that had attacked him.
It was too little, too late.
Laughter echoed through the edges of his consciousness before he was roughly hurled out of the Warp and back into the confines of his body. There was a jarring shift, a profound feeling of wrongness, and a Voice.
I told you Vargus. I warned you that your pitiful defiance would not last forever. A shame that it all needed to end here, when you were only beginning to grasp at the extent of your failure.
But do not worry overmuch. My hand might have been forced, but you will soon weep from thankfulness when you realize just what we will accomplish together.
Another laugh. No, he realizes, not a laugh, no matter how much it might have sounded like one. It is more like a punctuation, a closing of a heavy tome and the sense of finality that accompanies the death of a long-hunted foe. It is sneering Satisfaction and seething Hate, with a mingling of grudging Respect for prey that has skillfully eluded the hunter for as long as it could before finally being brought down.
That is, if anything of your soul still remains by that point.
The feeling of adamantium blast doors slamming shut echoed throughout his mind, and then his body began to move.
His mind sent the impulse to open the vox link to Nemros, but it was not him who issued the thought. His mouth opened to speak, but it was not he who moved the muscles in his jaw to report.
"They are, Captain Nemros," he heard his voice say, though he spoke nothing. "Loyalist Sons of Horus, thrown here by the tides of the Warp. Just as we were."
Had he thought that he was merely losing? That, perhaps, there was still a chance at redemption, even if he were the only one to know it? Some forlorn hope that the Emperor might spare even a moment of pity for his foolish soul?
A thought for fools. After all, hope was the first step on the road to disappointment.
Without realizing it, he had already lost, fully and absolutely.
Now all that was left was the burning.
The confirmation had arrived over the vox. The one thing that he had dared to let himself hope for.
The one thing that he had desperately wished not to be true.
To hear that, against all odds, the Emperor was still watching over them, here and now, and had blessed them with the arrival of other Imperials, had long since been an unspoken prayer that hid behind the lips of all Iron Sentinels aboard the Duty's Shadow. Yet as the days had turned to weeks and weeks had turned to months, more and more Astartes had found their dreams turning to ash upon their tongues.
Now fate had intervened, and with it had come the bitterest of ironies. The cruelest of jests. Nemros was not sure whether he wanted to shoot the Sons of Horus or himself more at that moment.
"Greetings, cousins," he said, finally finding his voice. He swallowed the overwhelming sense of vileness that accompanied that term of familiarity. "It is good to see fellow Imperials once more."
"Likewise," said the Centurion. "My name is Thraes, Centurion of the Sons of Horus' Thirty-Eighth Company. We were on the way through the Warp to the muster point in the Istvaan system when we were struck by…" here there was a notable pause, as if the Son was choosing his words very carefully indeed. "Misfortune," was the word that was finally settled upon.
Glancing at the assembled Sons, Nemros took stock of the battle damage that marked nearly all the Legionnaires present. Given Thraes' report, he had expected to see marks typically left behind by daemon weapons and Warp fire, but the gnawed and cratered ceramite looked more akin to Astartes-on-Astartes warfare. Curious.
"Well met, Centurion Thraes," he said, deciding to push the matter to the back of his mind until later. "I am Brother-Captain Nemros of the Iron Sentinels, Fifth Company. We received your distress signal from-" xenos, disgusting parodies of mankind, greedy beings bent on reducing humanity to nothing more than thralls, "-our allies, and came as fast as we could."
"My Brothers and I appreciate that, Captain. With your permission, I would indulge in a moment's curiosity, however."
"Speak," Nemros said, wary. One wrong answer and this whole situation would turn into a bloodbath.
"Your brotherhood. I am afraid I am not familiar with the name nor the heraldry you wear. I presume you are specialized subset of your parent Legion?"
Nemros sighed behind his ceramite helmet. Of course, the other Astartes would jump straight to the troublesome questions. Glancing minutely towards the right, he nodded toward the Iron Sentinel Sergeant standing there. Upon receiving a nod in return, Nemros turned back towards Thraes, who watched the proceedings with curiosity.
"Come, cousin," Nemros gestured towards the Thunderhawk that had carried him and his Brothers over. "There are many answers to your question, and none of them are simple. I will do my best to satisfy your curiosity, though you may quickly find yourself wishing that I did not."
With that, he turned and walked up the ramp and into the belly of the Thunderhawk, trusting the Centurion to follow.
Just as the Captain, Nemros, had promised, Thraes found himself wishing that he had simply kept his questions to himself.
Oh, how he had raged against the words that flowed from the other Astartes' mouth, how he had denied the truth of it. It was unnatural to hear, something that hurt his very soul to listen to.
"How dare you spew such lies and label them as reality!" he bellowed, voice echoing throughout the Thunderhawk and out into the hangar, such was the volume of his rage. Without a conscious thought, he drew his chainsword and heard its eager roar, ready to spill the blood of this thrice-damned deceiver! How dare he speak like this! "Draw your blade before I kill you, damn you!"
The Captain made no move towards his own weapon, though Thraes could clearly see the desire to do such that had taken root within him. "I tell no lies," said Nemros hotly, though Thraes could tell that the undertone of bitter grief was very much real. Real enough to take his breath away momentarily, so thick was its potency. "Unsatisfied with what the Emperor bequeathed upon him, your precious father turned his back on everything that he once stood for. Your father betrayed the Emperor. Your father betrayed mankind. Your father betrayed you."
It was not the grief of a son betrayed by his beloved father; rather it was the grief of one whose dreams had been murdered. Whose future had been murdered. And he had no doubt that to Nemros, he was more than close enough to his primogenitor to be deemed guilty for his father's sins.
Taking a moment to consider what the death of the Great Crusade could result in, he found he could not blame the other Astartes for his rage.
But deep down, he supposed he had known the truth before Nemros and his strange Astartes had set foot aboard the hulk that had once been the Luna's Reach, even if had only been a lurking, poisonous suspicion then. The words spoken in the Enginarium had rung true then, and this revelation had only confirmed it.
No matter how much it tore him apart to admit it.
"My Captain, Ekron, he…" Thraes sputtered out as the rage ebbed away, his mind grasping for anything that would explain away this nightmare. "He said something similar. About a coming war."
"Traitors love the spout their falsehoods, for from them springs the misery and anguish that they revel in," Nemros said, reaching across to lightly push Thraes' chainsword back down, his eyes never leaving Thraes'. "But in this case, I am afraid, that he spoke no lies. Sometimes, the truth can be the most damaging thing of all."
So, he had adapted, like Astartes were made for, like he was made for. When reality shattered around you, one could either accept and attempt to move forward, or break and go insane.
And he would be damned before he let this break him. He would let nothing break him, not until the day that he finally succumbed to the cold embrace of death. Even then, he would only be physically broken, not mentally. Never mentally.
"What do we do now?" he had asked, hoping beyond hope that was some way to fix all of this. "How can we rebuild the Emperor's dream, after all you told me?"
The silence that followed that question was not a comforting one. "There is more to my tale, cousin," Nemros spoke eventually, voice quiet. It did not escape Thraes' notice that Nemros had refused to answer his final question. "One that is, for now, for your ears only, until you decide how to tell your Brothers."
Thraes wanted him to stop. To cease with his painful revelations that caused such tribulation within his hearts. Yet his duty demanded that he listen. "Then let us not delay," he said, tongue thick with dread. "Tell me."
"You are insane."
The words, spoken so bluntly, so freely, took Nemros back for a moment. After a moment's consideration, however, he was more taken aback by the fact that he was surprised. Had he been the one to hear the words that had just been spoken, would he have believed them either?
"You say that my father, noble Horus, is reviled as the Arch-Traitor by the Imperium that he helped found," Thraes said, eyes beginning to blaze with a fury born from the depths of his soul. "Do not mistake me for a fool, Nemros, I hear the accusation in your tone. You think me, and my Brothers, are no better: damned by our blood, guilty by association. Yet it is you, not I, that is the one collaborating with xenos of all things! And you justify it with this insane premise of a different dimension!" Thraes spat, acidic blood hissing angrily as it fought in vain to burn through adamantium deck plating. "What kind of a fool do you take me for, that you spout such delusions and expect me to believe you?"
Thraes stepped forward, until their eyes were mere centimeters apart, and their breath comingled. "I am no traitor, cousin," he ground out the word as if it were a particularly vile poison before continuing, "But you are the one who goes against the very principles of the Imperium itself! It is you, not me, not my Brothers, who is the one damned here!"
There was a crunch as a ceramite-clad fist crashed against skin and reinforced bones, and Thraes went down, landing heavily upon the adamantium plating that made up the Thunderhawk's deck. Nemros' chest heaved as he fought for breath, fist still hanging from where his punch had ended. Fury continued to bubble up within his chest, hot and aching, as he gazed downwards.
"Do not dare call me a traitor, Son of Horus," he gritted out, his mind screaming for him to reach down and twist Thraes' neck until it broke. Psycho-conditioning fought carefully built-up control for a long moment, before Nemros' hand dropped back to his side.
"Do you think me proud of what I have done?" he demanded even as Thraes pushed himself back up. "Do you think me joyful that I have betrayed everything it means to be an Astartes?" he seethed.
"You certainly," heaved Thraes, his voice unsteady and slightly slurred. Had the Centurion been anything else besides an Astartes., he would have died, his skull caved in from the force of the blow. As it was, he was most likely seeing double at the moment. "Seem to have to problem asking my Brothers and I to join in your betrayal of all the Imperium stands for."
Another crunch. Another clatter of power armor as Thraes tumbled back downwards. "I want nothing to do with you!" Nemros bellowed, vision fading to red momentarily. "But it seems that the Emperor has a particularly cruel sense of humor, seeing how we must either work together or die alone in this damnable galaxy!"
Thraes did not bother pushing himself back up this time, instead simply looking up at the wrath-contorted visage of Nemros towering over him. After a moment, he grinned, his teeth stained red with blood, taking the other Astartes aback once more.
"I hear the truth in your anger cousin," he said as he pushed himself up into a kneeling position. "And despite everything telling me to rage against you even more, I cannot. Not if I wish to keep my good sense. Not if I wish to be on the side of illumination."
With a grunt of effort, he pushed himself up until he was face-to-face with Nemros once more. There was a long moment of silence before Thraes continued. "I do not think I will ever truly believe you about my father," he said. "You did not know him, but I did. And the Primarch, the man, that I knew, would never betray the Emperor no matter what. And because of that I will never think of him as a traitor, no matter what others may claim."
Nemros opened his mouth, ready to interject, but Thraes cut him off with an upheld hand. "Perhaps what you say is true, that something changed within him, some madness that claimed his mind. But that does not change what he is. Was." A scowl crossed his face momentarily, before he pressed on. "Not to me, nor to my Brothers. To us, he will always be the Lupercal, the most favored son of the Emperor that led us to glory across the stars, championing the cause of Man. He will always be our beloved father, without whom we would be lost."
Thraes paused for a moment, his gaze considering. "Nor does it change this new galaxy. If even a fraction of what you told me is true, then I cannot afford myself the luxury of indignation, no matter how much I may wish it. My fellow Sons and I will fight beside you, if you will have us."
The upheld hand fell, not back to Thraes' side, but rather to an outstretched position. Nemros stared at it for a moment before reaching out and clasping it in a warrior's grip.
A grim smile graced the Centurion's face. "Until the end, then."
Nemros nodded in return. "Until the end."
A/N: Well it seems like its been a while, but I'm sure that's just you.
No, the story's not dead, or put on ice. But, I will say that for those of you who've enjoyed this story so far, I am working on another Warhammer story that will have a prologue published here within a few days under the name of False. Feel free to check it out if you're interested.
Finally, the finale of the Helsreach animated series was just released over on Youtube. Massive props to Richard Boylan for all the effort that he put into delivering such an amazing work. Go check it out if you haven't yet already.