From a distance, the planet looked for all intents and purposes like a snowball wracked by occasional flashes of light. As the Nightfall drew closer, it was a different story altogether. The planet was wreathed in hurricane clouds as far as the eye could see; the light show was massive, electrical storms raging as much as the hurricanes. Krieg Acerbus stood, watching the approach vector with nothing more than a blank look on his face. He was a hard man to read, known as the Axemaster; he was a true son of Nostramo who embraced his father's promotion with the violent zeal that he had always known. To be let loose on a world that lacked the ordered vision of his father was like a release valve, and when the Axemaster let loose, there was no forgiveness, no pity, but only the purity of order and justice. He had no idea why they had come here; the human that had been named a keeper of secrets had spent the last few days on the bridge beside the Primarch. Sevatar had also been present and seemed to have formed a friendship with the human. Krieg had little time for humans, except for one group; and as he left the bridge, he headed down to the Imperial Army barracks on the vessel.
They trained alone, separate from other baseline humans, often in the company of the Astartes, seeming to be chosen by the vaunted Second Captain as an attachment to his company. A hundred and twenty men and women, chosen for their skills and abilities, taken from the 54th Nostraman Infantry and renamed the Shadow Warriors, a name the Primarch himself had bestowed upon them after their camouflage skills had helped win a victory against the defenders of Astrana. The Astartes had been hemmed in by the guns on the battlements, and only the infiltration and brutal sabotage carried out by the original Shadow Warriors had prevented a massacre.
Curze had been impressed, so much so as to remove the unit from the Imperial Army and have them train with the Axemaster's Astartes - a dubious honour, perhaps, but Acerbus got along surprisingly well with them. They were given newly designed stealth armour, and their status was recognized as superior to their lowly former comrades, which some of those comrades had held against them to their own doom.
Lieutenant Elisbet Incara might have been attractive once. She was a tall woman with shorn black hair; a tattoo of a winged skull sat over her left eye, which itself was cybernetic after the original being lost in a bar fight. Years of fighting in extreme theatres of war had taken its toll on her looks over the years, and now she appeared to be the grizzled veteran of many firefights that she was. She was respected and beloved by the other Shadow Warriors, and even captain Cadence Justmier deferred to her battle skills. As much as the men of the company feared Justmier, they did not show him the same adoration as the lieutenant.
She was currently pounding a boxing bag; the sweat poured off her brow and had drenched her vest top, the sheen across her scarred chest making the scars stand out more. Krieg folded his arms and watched her for a moment or two; she reminded him, in this moment, of someone from his mortal days, a woman long since killed when the Legion and the Night Haunter restored order on Nostramo. Fortunately, Incara's violence was of a more restrained sort.
"Take a rest, Elisbet," he spoke.
She jumped, a little startled; she had been so engrossed in what she was doing she had not heard him approach. She moved to one knee immediately. "My apologies, lord, I did not see you there."
"Stand up, lieutenant, no need for that; honour is done."
Had it been anyone else, he would have left them on their knees, but she was almost an equal in his eyes. If the Emperor's plans for a warrior sisterhood went through, then he would insist that the woman before him became part of it. She had proved her devotion to the Emperor many times, but he was also aware that, like the other members of her squad, her first loyalty was to the Primarch.
He looked around and picked up her rifle, and tossed her it. "Practice time is over, Elisbet."
"Does the Primarch have a task for us, lord?"
Krieg nodded. "However, this is one task that cannot be written down in your honour rolls or stitched onto your company banner." He raised his hand to forestall any query. "Later. For now, it is enough that what you will do alongside us you do not only for the Night Haunter, but the Emperor as well."
She bowed deeply. "As you will it, Axemaster."
The Hand of Deliverance translated into the system, keeping enough of a distance to stay hidden, with barely a ripple. This area of space was unknown to them and Captain Shierek had no idea why the Night Lords would be here. There were no Imperial settlements here to enforce the Imperial rule, and as far as the star charts explained nothing lived here.
Petrous Gadfran, one of the few remembrancers left aboard the Raven Guard vessel, stood beside Shierek. A tall woman, she looked elegant in her fine silken top and suede bottoms. Her blonde hair was tied back into a tight bun that made her slender face appear classical in its intensity. Her blue eyes watched the screen, still amazed that she had been asked to come to the bridge to advise the Astarte Captain. Shierek had asked her for one reason: her knowledge on the worlds of the Imperium was quite impressive. He assumed that she would take the post offered her by Corax himself as a lecturer when the civil war was over. For now, he wanted to make use of her education. He was a simple warrior, raised during the upheaval of Corax's rebellion against the overseers, and while he remembered his campaigns well he did not share Gadfran's encyclopedic knowledge.
He rubbed the bridge of his nose as he read Corax's latest missive. When the war was over, when balance had been restored, the Raven Guard would join with the Ultramarines and Space Wolves in their project for a second Imperium - but their first focus, for now, would be on the threat of Terra. Of course there had always been rumours that the Battle-King had been building up the worlds of Ultramar for that reason, crafting a second, hidden empire within an empire. Now, accidentally, that seemed to be becoming truth. That was, of course, if there was anything left of Ultramar after the Emperor's Children had finished with it. That campaign was not going so well, if reports were to be believed. He shook his head free of such maudlin thoughts; he had a job to do, and one of them was to find out why the Night Lords had come to an unpopulated system. He supposed it was to establish a colony for the Emperor, and if that was the case he would take it from them, but such a mission would not call for a Primarch's presence. Perhaps a highly classified project of some sort? A superweapon... that, they certainly couldn't leave be.
Uneses looked uneasy and Shierek did not know why. Ever since they had translated into the system, his usually stoic sergeant had taken himself to his arming chamber; to do what, he did not know. He would deal with that soon, but now he needed to know if Gadfran remembered anything about this system.
She bowed her head as he addressed her, and cleared her throat. "There are no records of here, lord, no mention of this system in my education. All I have is the auspex data. There are eight planets in the system, two gas giants, an ice world, a desert world, three dead worlds, and one fertile planet. The Planet of Storms, as it was named, was deemed unsuitable to colonise, for even with the Mechanicum's vast terraforming abilities, it was believed that the atmosphere could not be stabilized."
"And yet the Night Lords are heading there. Why, I wonder? Could the Emperor have changed his mind? Do the Mechanicum and their Iron Hand masters have some newfound way of calming the storms? And if so, what else could it be used for?" The captain spoke his thoughts aloud. He knew that there was not a world around that the Mechanicum could not tame, and if for some reason they had left that world alone, it was not the one the databanks listed. The same reason, in all probability, as the Night Lords' presence.
Uneses swallowed heavily and heaved a sigh. What did it matter now - the Night Lords were here, and all efforts made by the survivors had gone to nothing. "The Planet of Storms is its nickname," Uneses said, "but not its name. Its name is Urashan. It is the homeworld of the 11th Legion Astartes, the Storm Riders. My birth world."
Horus paced his private sanctum. As ever, his Mournival was in attendance. Sanguinius had returned to his ship, his own duties more urgent now since the message from Corax. This was what Horus had called his favoured sons to him for. This was what they needed to hear, for if what Corax had said was true, then the secrets of the two Lost Legions was being unceremoniously dumped into the void. If his father, his misguided and changed father, wanted to recapture the essence of the the two who were struck from the records, then every Primarch fighting with Horus needed to know this, no matter how much Russ would mislike it.
"Forgive me, Sire," Aximand frowned, "but are you saying the Raven-Lord found a lost Primarch?"
"That's exactly what I said." Horus leant against his mantle and stared out the window into space. "Charion, Primarch of the Sons of Hades, the Last Guardian... his body was found by Corax and by two of his captains, the brothers."
"Ah." Torgaddon nodded. "Agapito and Branne Nev, in Lord Corax's inner circle."
"And, as I am doing with you four, sworn to secrecy, although I need not get you to do that as I know our conversations are sacrosanct."
"That they are, lord." Loken bowed his head. "Was Lord Charion alive?"
Horus shook his head. "No, he has been dead a long time, even Primarchs can die. Especially when facing the Emperor's wrath; after all, he made us. Corax gave him a warrior's funeral, the right thing without doubt. But that is not the complete reason I called you here. Corax believes, as do Sanguinius and I, that the Emperor's forces are looking for traces of those two Legions, looking for survivors - or, perhaps, the gene-seed."
"But I was under the impression that any survivors went to Guilliman, and that any gene-seed found was destroyed," Abaddon frowned.
"So it appeared. We were gathered and given some of the neophytes and the scouts. Most of the other survivors swore allegiance to Guilliman and became Ultramarines, forbidden to speak of their creation. Those that did not follow the line laid to them, died. Angron and a couple of others snarled that it was unfair, that it overfavored the Ultramarines. So Malcador allowed us to bring two companies' worth into each of the other Legions, let them repent for the crimes of their fathers while continuing to serve. It appeased Angron, but the outcome was the same. Many refused to bow to another master, but the First Captains of both Legions told their brothers to accept the armistice."
"And, it was rumored, to silently fight on in their fathers' names," Abaddon muttered.
"I am sure they did, but they could never speak of it again. They were accepted into the ranks, and only the Primarchs received the full rolls of their true origins. I myself have spoken with them all over time, and all of them have stayed loyal to me, not the Emperor; in fact one of them stated that it felt like history repeating itself. And before you ask, Little Horus, I will give no names; they have earnt the right to be Luna Wolves and Sons of Horus. I am honouring their wish to be a part of something better, and even if I allow them to do some deeds in the name of their fathers,it will be silent."
The mighty Fifth Captain bowed to his father's wishes; he would not break Horus's word either but he already had an idea who they were. Still, he would not call them out on it; they had been brothers in arms and they would die Sons of Horus, no matter their genetics.
"My Lord," Loken asked, having been far from the Legion's upper circle in the time of the cull, "what exactly did the two Legions do that got them expunged?"
Horus's eyes grew dark and foreboding, a sign that there was shame and anger flying in his veins, although which was paramount, Loken could not tell. Neither vanished, though, as Horus's dark moods often did. The venom in Horus's voice remained overwhelming.
"They disagreed with the Emperor. They alone saw what he was doing, and they acted in their own ways to stop what the Emperor would become. Charion had warned about the Emperor's descent into evil, but he was silenced due to an act of pettiness on the Lion's part." Horus took the ale that Torgaddon gave him and stared into it, running his finger round the lip of the flagon. "As the Lion should have known, Charion's temperament would not brook insult against his honour, and a fight ensued, worse than the one between Curze and Dorn. When Charion refused to return to Terra and face the Emperor he was censured by the Fenrisians... Father ordered them culled, and that is what the Rout did. I bet Russ regrets that now."
"I know we have not always seen eye-to-eye with the Wolves, but I would agree to that, sire." Aximand nodded slowly. "In some ways this madness has wrought some good as well. Who would have thought, ten years ago or even five years ago, that the Wolves and Thousand Sons would be as close as they are now?"
Horus smirked dryly and drank some ale, savouring the harsh taste of Cthonian brew, before speaking again.
"Then, Adonnas. Primarch of the Storm Riders. They could have put the White Scars to shame, the way they rode those bikes into battle - not the raw speed, but the sheer coordination... But you remember that, you were on Ronomot. He had only recently been found, and had travelled with father for about three years. It was not often mentioned, but he was a potent Psyker, not one to rival Magnus but the strongest among us besides him. The last time I spoke to him, he said he had a warning, that Charion had been right. I never found out what it was.
"The Emperor declared that Adonnas and his sons had been corrupted by the power of the Warp, that their father's ability to bring down great storms to cover their advances was but a sign that he was no longer himself, that Urashan was a hive of warlocks that was tainted by the risks of psychic power, a threat to the entire Imperium.
"The Wolves of Fenris needed no more words, and neither did the World Eaters. He sent them both after the Riders, and so few of them survived, even compared to the Second... They were very thorough, in killing any possible psykers among them." Horus shook his head. "Adonnas's body was never found, although Angron claimed he cut it up and cast it to the storms of Urashan. The world was hidden away, cast off the galactic maps, and forgotten about. We were then called to a conclave on Terra, told what had happened, and told never to speak of it again. For decades, we didn't."
"I remember," Abaddon whispered. "You were very distant for a while."
"That was why. I had wondered, even then, what was so bad that they had to pay with their lives. A part of me believed what the Emperor had said; why wouldn't I? He was the Emperor, my father, always retaining the best intentions. But some part of me, the independent side, always wondered if there was more than he was telling, something he never wanted revealed. Now it seems that the long forgotten sons are calling out from their graves."
"Do you need us to aid Corax?" Torgaddon asked.
"Not yet. I am sure if he needs aid he will ask, but the Raven Guard would take issue with us otherwise, no matter that our relations are mending. No, this is what I want: have our spy network within the Imperial Legions try to find out something about all this. I'll tell Alpharius the same - hopefully he has more informants than us. The moment you get reports back from them, let me know, and I'll let Corax know. This is the best way to help him - Corvus wants to prove something to himself, and I am going to let him."
"I'll get on it right away." Loken got up
"And I want more scouts tracking the First and Eighth Legions."
"The Dark Angels and Night Lords?" Torgaddon asked. "Why?"
"Because Father will not want everyone knowing his plans, and these are the only Legions that could complete the mission without the others knowing. The Eighth, more likely, given the Lion's past issues with Charion. The Night Lords... they're capable of doing it, but if I know the bastards they'll leave an opening." Horus clenched his fist and said no more.
His sons left, but they were left with the feeling that the betrayal of the Night Lords' Primarch was the one that Horus felt deeply. He had been close to Curze, but now, it was as if he did not know him at all.