Corax got to his feet and lifted into the air as Curze came at him again, the blood on the back of his head already congealing and receding. He needed to think, to collect his focus; and the only way he could do that was to get out of reach of his insane brother.
"Come on, little raven," Night Hunter taunted. "You think I cannot see you?"
Corax wraith-slipped into the darkness and remained where he was. Part of him wanted to end the madness his brother was suffering, to give him some peace; but now he realized that would be a mistake. He knew what had happened to the White Scars with the Khan dead. Despite what he thought about the Night Lords and their demented father, he would rather not see the universe at the mercy of their grieving rampage. They were bad enough with him; without their father they would be even worse, and that fury would be turned entirely on the fragile Coalition. Not even the charisma of Jago Sevatar would be able to keep all the rogue factions in line, nor restrain the worst of their monstrosity. For, inconceivable as it was, most of the Night Lords were worse than their father.
No, the best he could do was to fight it out, then get out of here and get his sons, bombard the fortress from orbit, and ensure that there was no way the gene-seed got into the hands of his brother or his father. Adjusting his position, he activated his Talons and dive-bombed his brother.
Curze looked up to see a blackened figure come down at him. For the briefest of moments he froze; his vision, death upon black wings, came back to him. Then he snapped out of his trance and moved aside; he avoided the bulk of the attack, but the Raven's claw caught him across his face. Already the Primarch's own healing was acting to seal the wound, but Corax flipped himself up and drove his boots into Curze's stomach, knocking the wind from him and landing flat. With his hand closed around the gorget of the other Primarch's armour, he landed several blows in quick succession.
"You could have been the best of us," Corax snarled. "You could have been the brother I could count on! You asked me what it is like to be adored by the people of my world?"
He landed a blow that would have killed an Astarte on the Primarch's face. Its only effect was to cause Curze's head to snap back, blood pouring from his broken nose.
"It feels liberating, knowing that I took them forward from their pasr, that I helped them better themselves - you could have done that, Konrad! Instead you became the very thing you were hunting. You became worse than the criminal element, because murder and torture became you!"
Curze raised his fist and smashed it against the side of the Raven-Lord's face, then rolled until he was on top of the Raven-Lord. As Corax had done to him, he rained blows down onto the Raven-Lord.
"Thank you for enlightening me."
As Corax fended off the worst of the blows, he saw the madness in Curze's eyes fade for a moment, there was a sorrow there that was soon swallowed up by whatever the other personality he possessed was. He moved his head back, and faster than the Kirvahe Lizard, he rammed his head forward, head-butting the Night Lords' Primarch.
Corax did it twice more and, scrambling to his feet, he lifted Curze up and above his head. For a moment he hovered there, with something other than his own conscience telling him to end this now. It would be so easy to do, but he has made his decision already, and he would not violate for a moment's frustration. Curze had to live, and live unbroken.
Corax threw his brother into a wall, causing it fall around the Primarch as he slumped to the ground.
"I am not Angron, I am not you!" Corax breathed. "I am blowing this place, and there is nothing you can do about it. I owe you, Curze, for what happened to my sons, but it will not be decided now... there is enough death here."
"On the contrary, brother." Curze got to his feet, his lightning claws - named Mercy and Forgiveness by his sons - springing into life. "There is not enough death here. There is only one master of the night, one master of fear and it is me!"
Corax roared as the Night Haunter moved faster than ever before, and before he could react, the lightning claws erupted through his chest. His physiology went into hyper drive as it tried to compensate for the damage that had been done to it. Corax sank to his knees, fighting the urge for his body to shut down. Curze withdrew his lightning claws and crouched down across from his brother. His helm scanned the other Primarch, curious as to how long it would take Corax to succumb to his wounds.
"We could have been so close, you and I; two brothers who understood the nature of the night, making it work for us."
"I will never be like you." Corax coughed up blood. "I do not kill for the thrill of it, I do not kill those who would speak out of turn against me, and I do not have my people so in fear that to say one word that is construed as sin would result in their death."
"It is called order, perfect in its making. My people no longer fear the criminals and corrupt politicians that made their world a dangerous place, but only me. For they have me to protect them, to rule over them with the laws that should be followed to make their lives better."
"You call... ugh... living in fear for the rest of their lives a victory? Have you seen what has happened to your world? To your Legion? I have seen how much more... violent they are. We all know that your perfect world of justice is slipping back without its tyrant there... you restored order to it once, but it will not last. Do you even realise it?"
"My world is perfect!" Curze got to his feet and stood over his brother. "My world is order, my world is what all worlds should be."
"Your world is like children let loose when the king is not there to keep order. It is a world of gangs and murderers, some of which call themselves police. And it is a world that will always be on that edge; without you there, brother, it returns to what it was." Corax began to laugh "The biggest joke is that you failed to create true order, because the rule of fear is the rule of force, and thus of simple brutality. Even your Night Lords are no longer the sin-free warriors they were... their excesses prove that aplenty."
"You know nothing!" Curze hissed, and it was then that Corax, struggling to keep his eyes open, saw what his brother had become. He had filed his teeth to sharp points.
"I know that you have become the monster they say you are, you say you will not deal with daemons... but look in the mirror, Konrad, that's all you ever will be. So kill me if that's what you want to do. But know this, the Lord of Ravens does not die easily!"
Despite his weakened state, Corax lashed out with his own lightning claw, the motion coming without the slightest forewarning. Unable to react in time, Curze could only watch as Corax slashed his arm at the left elbow, cutting through armour, flesh and bone cleanly. Curze stepped back, shocked at what had happened, and fell onto his back, while Corax struggled to his feet and moved out the door into a scene from an old ghost story.
The Night Lords and Raven Guard could only look on in shock as the human, Polarick, was raised off the ground by ghostly hands. Tears flowed from his eyes and his feet were kicking thin air. The smell of soiled underwear hit the noses of all present. Uneses moved forward and kept his hands raised.
But Corax's attention was drawn to the ghostly Astartes who now surrounded the living. They were like a fog of spirits. He heard his name and felt two arms steady him as Branne and Agapito realised their Primarch was wounded.
Sevatar, seeing the wounded Raven-Lord and knowing that no ghost could have inflicted those injuries, ran into the room the Raven-Lord had exited from and let a cry of anguish escape his lips. His father was on the floor, a pool of his blood around his severed arm, causing the First Captain's head to sway as he could smell the much richer gene-altered blood that had belonged to his father. The wound had clotted, but the arm itself was useless.
"I shall kill them all," Sevatar growled.
"No," Curze moaned. "What is happening out there?"
Sevatar paused for a moment, not sure if he wanted to explain what he did not believe was really there. "Ghosts, father, spirits of the dead"
After a long moment, he let the First Captain help him up and allowed him to help him out into the now-stunned gathering.
Polarick was having difficulty breathing. Even for a ghost, the Astarte that held him high had a grip like ice, cutting off his airways.
"This one, this one holds the answers we require," an ethereal voice emitted from the mouth of the one that was holding the human.
Uneses swallowed a little and moved forward. "My Lord Klyne." He bowed his head. "Please, sir, the human cannot possibly help you."
"Uneses?" The head turned. "This human bears the knowledge we need, why we were killed. Why our grandfather sent the Red Angel against us and the Wolf King. I will have it, and I will ensure that so do you all."
"He cannot say anything, Captain, if you squeeze the life from him," Corax spoke, ignoring the presence of his brother.
"We were brought here as a trap, my lord," Branne explained. "It would appear that we all, Night Lords included, have been tricked."
Curze arched an eyebrow and looked at Sevatar, who nodded. "As much as I hate to agree with the raven, he speaks the truth, my lord."
"So, Polarick," Curze snarled, his sheer strength of will keeping him conscious and upright. "It seems you have something left to say. Speak!"
The human was dropped to the floor and crawled into the corner, whimpering and crying. The room was unnaturally cold. That didn't bother the Astartes; what bothered them more was the fact they were seeing something that could not in all possibility exist. These were the stories of superstitious soldiers, of humans who lived on worlds where such tales were folklore. Even their respective homeworlds had such tales. But as Astartes, they were above such superstitions.
Ghosts should not exist... but as the Night Lord Sheng had explained, there was a tear in the Warp here, the veil between the real world and what lay beyond tattered by a battle decades in the past. Who was to say what the laws of physics were now? And in an age of daemons, perhaps ghosts were a relatively reasonable foe to face.
Especially when they wanted the same answers that the Night Lords and Raven Guard did.
"The Emperor contacted me months ago," Polarick whimpered. "Told me to make sure that you came here... and that the Raven-Lord did, too."
"Why?" Sahaal demanded.
"To see what happens to those who displease him, the fate that would befall all who displeased him. And most of all, so that you would kill the Raven-Lord, to become who you must."
Corax felt his jaw twitch in anger, but the whimpering man's ramblings had not such reaction on the face of the Night Haunter. If anything, it was as if he was expecting this - which, indeed, he had been. The visions of his dead brother had more or less confirmed that now.
"So why were the Storm Riders and the Sons of Hades expunged?" he asked, although his voice was wavering a little, his strength fading from the blood loss. If it gave him any satisfaction, he could see that Corax too was failing.
"The Storm Riders discovered the truth about him, about what he was and how he has lived for as long as he has, what deals he has made to keep his power infinite. He did not want that known."
"And what is this big secret?" Branne clenched and unclenched his fist,
Polarick shook his head and remained silent. Sevatar marched over and pushed the tip of his trident against the human's chest, the voices of the dead Astartes whispering behind him. Polarick did not moved, but stared the Night Lord's terrifying helm in the lenses, showing clearly that he was ready to face worse than death before revealing that secret.
"The gene-seed?"
"Degraded. The moment he killed the tech-priests, he had the monitors put to sleep and the gene-seed degraded." Polarick wiped his eyes. "He had foreseen what would happen if the two unspoken-of Primarchs were able to prove why he is eternal; and he could and would allow nothing to interfere in his dreams."
There was a hiss behind Sevatar, and he turned slowly to see the ghostly Astartes move away. Uneses bowed his head. "Granar Tesh Madaran."
The spirit that was the First Captain nodded and, in Imperial Gothic, said, "Serve the Ravens well, brother. Adonnas will be proud. We, as our cousins, were sacrificed for a madman's schemes. That is all we wanted to know; now our rage fades, and we can rest"
Sahaal wiped his brow "And what happens if we were to all leave this place alive?"
"You would not get that far. He has already informed Lorgar to deal with the Night Lords if they do not carry out his orders." Polarick looked up, the echo of a smile on his face, a deliberate provocation. It did not go unanswered.
In a fit of rage, Sevatar pushed the trident into the human's body, feeling the satisfied scrunch of flesh and bone. With a pull, he tore the trident up and through the human's head, cleaving him almost in half.
"So, like the Storm Riders and Sons of Hades, we would become the forgotten sons." He breathed. "We need to get our lord back to the Nightfall and you need to attend to yours."
"We can't let the Emperor get away with this!" Sahaal glared. "He has betrayed us, too."
"I knew he would." Curze looked at Corax. "You will need a Primarch on the inside. I offer this not for you, or Horus, or anything so crass as nobility, I offer this as my way of wrecking my own revenge."
"You think...think I am going to trust you, Curze?" Corax breathed, his vision becoming cloudy as his body sought to make him rest so he could heal. His soul, however, was another matter.
"I don't care if you do or don't. I am just offering a way to exact revenge on our father. And I am the only one that can do it."
Corax said nothing and Curze took that as acquiescence. With that, he passed out, his brother following.
Agapito stood in the doorway of the medicae unit, watching the Apothecaries minister to their Lord. He would survive, but without proper knowledge of how the Primarch's body worked, all they could do was administer to the Primarch the best they knew how and hope that his enhanced physiology did the rest.
The Captain had seen the Night Lords' vessel bombard the Planet of Storms from space, all the way until the crust had cracked and yawned, spewing its molten blood, until eventually it gave up the fight and blew apart in a showering wreck of earthquakes and tremors that ripped the world apart.
He was still unsure as to what he had seen, whether it was real, or if their own senses had reached out in their need to know why the Storm Riders had died. He was also interested as to what had happened between his father and the Night Lords' mad Primarch. He had half-expected an attack by the Night Lords for what had happened, but none came; instead they turned around after destroying Sturmgarten and simply went their own way.
Unless Corax divulged what had occurred, he would be left in the dark. Whatever it was hadn't been pleasant. The Primarch's bare chest showed the scars that would remain. He had been struck from behind with those blasted talons of the Night Haunter, though Agapito allowed himself a wry smile, for his father had certainly returned the favour in kind. Corax would bear the scars of his brother's attack, but they would be hidden under his armour. Curze would have his on public display. No doubt there would be an bionic arm made for him, but he would never be the same.
No one had truly hurt Curze before in the way that Corax had done. Agapito turned as Branne joined his side.
"How's he doing?"
"He will recover," his brother spoke. "What do you think of what happened?"
"I think the Emperor has a bigger secret than anyone realised, and it's one he is prepared to expunge Legions to keep secret." Agapito motioned with his head and the two brothers walked away,
"But he wanted us to die."
"We didn't, though. I thought it was touch and go for a moment, but we didn't, and I doubt Curze will ever believe anything his father says to him."
"Did he ever?"
"He won't now, either way. Still I wonder what he meant by Lorgar having orders."
"Who? The human?" Agapito nodded. Branne shrugged. "I don't care. All I care about is the primarch laying in the apothecarion bed. What shall I tell the crew?"
"Tell them he is well, and will be with us when he has recovered. For now, I will assume command of the Legion, until the Raven-Lord is fit."
Branne bowed his head a little, then said as an afterthought, "What do you suppose Curze will do?"
"Apart from lick his wounds?" Agapito folded his arms. "I really don't know. Whatever it is, it won't be good. He will want Corax's head at some point for the loss of his arm, but right now, he will want revenge for what happened there."
"But what exactly did happen there?"
Agapito smiled thinly. "The Emperor wanted two Legions gone. Kill the Raven Guard's leadership, and deprive Horus of a Legion equivalent to the Night Lords in terms of combat disciplines. The Night Lords would have taken severe losses, and had no choice but to toe his line as they recover. It might have worked, too - we should not have rushed in with so few forces. But we were saved by luck, skill, and the fact that the Night Lords toe no one's line save their own."
Branne shook his head. "He really has gone mad, hasn't he?"
Agapito nodded and the two brothers walked towards the bridge.
In the depths of the Imperial Palace, a golden figure walked the paths of the future. Shadow, it saw, and ruin, and the injustice of memory. And above all, the monster in the dark turning on him, a likely confluence becoming an inevitable one.
As the Emperor of Mankind's mind returned to his body, he staggered. It was true, then. The Night Haunter had failed his test.
He allowed, as an indulgence, one tear to slide down his face, for yet another son lost.
And then, once again, he was left with only the cold resolve to destroy the enemies of his dream.
"Lorgar," he sent. "Do what you must."