Swept by the Wave
Part I
By author Perfidious Albion
They had had such high hopes, once.
"Light the fire and set the table!"
The cry rang out to cackles of glee as the Scarlet Wave charged the ranks of their enemies. The quaking defenders of the Star Fort fired back with the best guns at their disposal. These men were of a civilisation more advanced than most. Their weapons—heavy slugs propelled by electromagnetic forces, miniaturised railguns—might actually harm a Power-Armoured Space Marine, if they could hit him. Generally they did not. They were not a match for the speed of the Emperor's transhuman killers. For such huge men, the Astartes moved shockingly quickly. Colossal forms of bulging muscle leapt lightning-quick through the corridors and carved open their foes with chainswords' teeth and with the teeth in their mouths.
Kalebkarn remembered, ever more dimly, a line of heroes clad in the blue of a summer sky, charging into battle with cries of "For the Emperor!" ringing clear and loud. It had been inspiring and affirming of his life's purpose, knowing that he fought for the man who was forging a better future for all of mankind, making a galaxy free of Abominable Intelligences, mortal tyrants and nightmarish xenos monsters.
That shimmering memory felt nothing like this odious cry that echoed in the starship's narrow corridors now.
"Light the fire and set the table!" The Scarlet Wave cackled as they charged. Each man stood a dozen metres from the next, far enough to dodge, yet they gave an impression of a monolith: movements deadly smooth and flowing, an onrushing wave of doom. Brave men on the other side aimed their guns in shaking fingers, despite their terror, and fired again and again. Very few of the super-fast shells hit home.
One Astartes picked up a man in his biomechanical armoured shell—akin to Power Armour, yet not so bulky or so strong, for no genetically unmodified human could bear the weight of it—and cast him like a bowling ball into the ranks of their enemies. The foes were thrown from their feet; and then the Space Marines were upon them, cruel chainswords and crueller mouths ripping and tearing. Some slapped the back of the Space Marine who had done it.
The man, miraculously or terribly, was still alive—testament to the wondrous technology of his armoured shell. He got a front-row seat to the gruesome murder and dismemberment of his comrades. He wept as he lunged for a discarded railgun and pointed it at the back of a feasting Space Marine, who was ripping ravenously at a man's intestines.
Kalebkarn almost wished him victory. Then he shot him in the back. In the corridors of the space station, the retort of a bolter was deafeningly loud, yet compared to the sonic booms of the railguns it was quiet. The man fell, his righteous vengeance denied to him. Kalebkarn had saved his brother's life, serving as his brother's sword and shield as he had always been taught to. Nobody noticed, much less cared.
Set the table. It was an open allusion to cannibalism. The Scarlet Wave were not ashamed. They were not hiding it. They were not even trying to hide it.
Once, there had been a time when the Scarlet Wave sought to conceal their nature from the Imperium. That was no longer. The secret was too well-known. Half the Imperial Army had heard the rumours, though some found them too awful to believe. The truth was, if anything, more dreadful than their worst pessimists imagined.
With their secret out, the Scarlet Wave saw little point in hiding. They knew their reputation as cannibals, eaters of Man's flesh, and they revelled in it.
Why? Why? Because they knew the fear that it inspired in their enemies, and this the Scarlet Wave valued above nigh all else.
It was what their father taught them.
They had worn different names, once.
"To the fighting Twenty-First! Long may they serve!" called a tall and handsome man holding a glass of amasec, in the uniform of an Imperial Army officer. He tilted his glass and a thousand others in the starship's dining hall raised theirs. Bright clinks filled the hall alongside the sound of "Hear, hear!", ere it faded back to the soft murmur of friendly chats and laughter.
It was a warm hall with wooden-ornamented walls, an oaken veneer over the glass and metal of Imperial technology. Lines of electric lamps along the ceilings cast a soft light, not harsh fluorescent blue-white but a softer yellowish glow.
A thousand men and women stood in that hall upon the Mars-class battlecruiser Bielefeld; yet it possessed the warm feeling of kith and kin relaxing at home by the hearth. For these men and women were not strangers. They knew each other well; they had spilt blood together on a hundred battlefields; and they counted one another as comrades and friends.
Vergilius Masimus of the XXI Legion sat smiling beside Lucia Accrictus of the XIII Legion, Martius Carbora of the III and Emilia Ecturus of the X. None of them partook in amasec, for alcohol felt like nothing to their transhuman digestive systems. They sat, ate somewhat comically big portions of honey-glazed pork and vegetables, and exchanged the soft and idle chatter of friends.
This was not, back then, a strange thing. For the Imperium was young, and all these men and women were as brothers and sisters. All were born on the same world, mighty Terra, and they had signed up to serve the same cause, for they believed in the same ideals. Differences of Legion felt, then, like hardly more than differences of squad: a mere demarcation between dear friends and comrades.
Lord Derwyn had been rediscovered by the Emperor, not yet a year past: an honour and a balm to the XX Legion, wounded near to death on the bloody battlements of the planet Vimy. He was the first-found of the scattered Primarchs. For the men and women of the Legiones Astartes the future felt broad and brimming with hopeful possibility.
"What do you think ours will be like?" asked Martius Carbora, he of the III Legion who back then were not yet called the Thunderers.
"Alike to Lord Derwyn, I assume," pronounced Lucia Accrictus. "And to Lord Solarian. Austere, solitary, keeps himself to himself… but totally dedicated to the cause of the Emperor, beloved by all, and winning magnificent victories for the Imperium."
The word had reached them recently of the Battle of Iridius VI. It had been splendid news, all the more so for its unexpectedness. People had thought the XX Legion would be long in the repairing. Forty-nine of every fifty men had perished at Vimy's adamantium walls. Yet here stood Derwyn, magnificent Derwyn, the Black Prince of the Imperium, and he had led his men and women-at-arms to an incredible victory. Vergilius had seen the holographic plots himself. It made extraordinary viewing. Starships of both sides were flitting about across millions of kilometres in three dimensions like molecules of water, until the water crystallised into the ice of a perfect formation—order emerging out of chaos—to pin the xenos foe against the frozen giant planet of Iridius VI. The xenos pirates of the Iridius system who had long menaced the surrounding nebula had not stood a chance.
"Of course," said Martius. "No doubt he'll be a wondrous general for Emperor and Imperium. I reckon he might be a bit more easy-going, though. Just look at their sons," he added mischievously. "The First and Twentieth both have always been a fair bit dour."
The others laughed.
"Children, play nice," scolded Emilia, of the X Legion. Her soft smile betrayed her. It took any bite out of the chiding words.
"Oh, don't be such a straight, Emilia," Vergilius laughed. He stood and stretched, then sat back down and swallowed another (slightly jaw-dropping) mouthful of meat and potatoes.
She swatted his shoulder.
The other two continued without them. "D'you suppose the Primarchs will be like us, then?" said Lucia to Martius. "It's not unnoticed that some Legions have a bit different character. But is that truly biology, or is it just culture?"
Martius shrugged. "It is difficult to know," he said, honestly enough. "Still, I like to think they might be."
"It would be nice," agreed Lucia.
Emilia ventured back in. "What do you think ours will be like, then?"
"Straight as a Lance beam. Utterly boring. Never jokes. Never has fun. Never relaxes. Always earnest, all the time. The sort who farts Aquilas and helps old ladies cross the road," said Lucia with a perfectly straight face. Emilia opened her mouth in indignation. Lucia continued, lips turning upward softly: "Still, not half bad company, at the end of the day."
"You prat," Emilia laughed; but her lips were turning upward too, and her dark eyes were smiling. She stood and let her long mane of black hair fall. "I'll have you know we have plenty of fun. Vergilius, care to dance?"
"I'd love to," said Vergilius, grinning. The two stood. They made a striking couple, both towering head and shoulders above most of their fellow humans in the room. A bright and cheerful jig was being played by some enterprising soldier on a bar piano. They took to the dance floor.
Then they danced, in that hall of light and laughter. There was nothing romantic in that dance. Astartes by nature are asexual beings. It would be alien to both of them to have such thoughts. But as Vergilius and Emilia whirled around the dancefloor, there was friendship, deep and close, and there was trust; and these were enough. These were more than enough. These were something wonderful.
It was a precious memory, even now, when it was as if that time aboard the Bielefeld had never existed.
Emilia Ecturus was the first of those four sitting together on the battlecruiser Bielefeld to find her Primarch, and the galaxy would never be the same.
Before then, the Primarchs were a triumvirate of stoic warlords: Lord Derwyn, Lady Nyx and Lord Solarian. They were admired, but like a marble statue is admired: distant, cold, remote, inhuman in its perfection. They were not loved. They were seen as exemplars of duty: terse, purposeful, curtly speaking servants of the Emperor's will.
The Imperium had come to think of Primarchs as all like that. Then the Emperor brought his Starchild home.
The Hammers of the Emperor were recast as the Bringers of Light. From grey and red, they arose in luminous gold.
Emilia was swept up in her enthusiasm for the new order, and no wonder, for the Lady of the Dawn was everything that the Imperium adored. Even Astartes hardly believed it when the first reports came in of how Lady Aurora fought. Foremost in the action, leaping sky-high to dive into enemy fortresses almost alone, firing herself out of cannons to get around the enemy, slicing her way through whole Ork armies to get at the Warboss or Warlord with a smiling total unconcern which was either brilliant or terrifying, scaling Titans and tearing them down from within with flashes of a golden blade… did she have a death wish or was she the most valorous person they had ever heard of? Valour, without a doubt. What else could it be?
The Hammers of the Emperor, respected as they might have been, had never been held especially high. They were a solid, reliable Space Marine Legion—not bad, not ill-reputed or troubled by woe as some of their brother and sister Legions were, but not distinguished beyond the others either. There were many Legions. Many schola-children might have struggled to recall the X Legion's name. All that changed with the finding of Aurora.
It began when this golden-maned maiden—at her first setting of foot upon the soil of the Throneworld—gave a heart-soaring speech that electrified trillions of Terrans with the Emperor's dream and a future of glittering possibility. That sparked interest. Interest kindled into fascination with the early victories of the Perseus Illumination and the awed reports of the newfound Primarch's death-defying, incredibly fearless acts of personal courage and feats of arms. Over decades, with a parade of glittering victories against every kind of foe—Greenskin hordes, Abominable Intelligences, cruel and arrogant Eldar, foolishly defiant humans, foul xenos empires, and the vile Warp-spawn of the tainted worlds around the Abnormality—fascination blazed up into a bonfire of admiration and awe. Battle after battle, triumph after triumph, unbelievable feat of arms after unbelievable feat of arms added more lustre to the legend of the Emperor's golden child.
Aurora inspired excellence in her daughters, not just in combat but in ethics too. The Hammers of the Emperor had never been noted for a cruel Legion beforehand. They were no Lightning Warriors, Death Riders or Emperor's Furies. But they were not unusually kind, either. They were like most Legions, in this way as in other ways. Aurora changed that, she and her high moral standards and martial skill. That last was important, for it was their awe-filled reverence for her which caused them to want to be like her so much. She stressed to her Astartes daughters that they were not above genetically unmodified Imperial troops, the men and women whom many Space Marines arrogantly called 'mortals'. Imperial Army troops were friends, allies, comrades-in-arms, deserving of respect. So was everyone who worked for the Imperium, down to the cleaners on starships, down to a farmhand who helped keep the Imperial war machine going, down to the lowliest labourer in a manufactorum on some luckless world. All were brothers and sisters in a shared cause.
From another's lips, those words would have meant nothing to Space Marines. They knew they were the Emperor's mightiest warriors, beyond all, more than human. They would have nodded to a busybody superior, smiled, and then ignored it and moved on. But from Aurora's lips—Aurora the golden, Aurora the valiant, Aurora who threw herself into the thick of the fray and came out covered with showers of Orkish gore with Warboss heads on golden blades… From Aurora, the Imperium's men and women at arms would believe the sky was pink and green if Aurora Starchild said so.
With their Primarch the darling of the galaxy, garlanded with glory on a trillion posters and pict-casts, the once-undistinguished X Legion found themselves celebrated beyond their wildest dreams of earlier years. Armies of Iterators and Remembrancers flocked to their campaigns, proclaiming tales of their valour in booming tones and breathless whispers. High lords and ladies sought out their company. Officers vied to do battle at their side. When Aurora threw open the gates for recruitment across the galaxy, the Legion that had once been fiercely competing with eleven or twelve others to pick out promising girls from Terra now had to toughen up their rules and impose ever stricter trials on their Aspirants—tightening the locks so that the flood of eager hopefuls would not fill their halls to overflowing.
Emilia was neither blind nor heedless of the effect this had on the others. Caring as ever, thoughtful and kind, she had assured them that their day would come. It was difficult, sometimes, seeing other Legions that had been as equals to the XXI soar high to eclipse him and his brothers in glory once they had Primarchical leadership. But Emilia had stoutly held on to their friendship of old.
"You will find your Primarch too, dear Vergilius," she had told him oh so many times. "He can be like mine. They can be close together, as brother and sister. The future is a bright one," Emilia insisted, stubbornly hopeful. "This asymmetry, like all the darkness of the galaxy, will be forgotten like a sad old dream."
She and he embraced, then, and went to talk of other things.
Vergilius looked back on it now, and his heart burnt with envy.
If he could, he would shout "You were wrong!" back in time to Emilia. "The future is nothing like what you thought it would be."
They wore different names now. Not just the Legion, but the men also. And for that fact, the very same man who had christened them bore a heavy share of responsibility.
In the year 838 of the 30th millennium, Philipus Corpula, the Legion Master of the Stellar Vanguard deposed and displaced by Lord Haqqan's arrival, had gathered his brothers for an announcement. This was not even a year yet after the coming of Haqqan the Red, when the Legion was still getting to grips with the strange new customs introduced by their gene-sire and his troubling Adaran friends.
There, declaring it a token of his unshakeable devotion to the Primarch and his vision, Philipus Corpula said he was forsaking his Terran name: given name and family name both. He asked that it be used no longer. Instead, he said, he was taking up the name of Eneph-Trah. An Adaran name.
All the while, Haqqan the Red stood by his favoured son's side, uncharacteristically quiet. He wore patched and ragged clothes, more befitting a beggar than a superhuman child of the Emperor, beloved by all. The tall thin corpselike figure in rags looked utterly out-of-place next to the Stellar Vanguardsmen splendid in their armour. His one emerald-green eye glittered with indecipherable feeling—Malice? Contempt at weakness and eagerness to please? Pleasure and triumph? Who knew?—and his pale lips were curved, smiling.
It had shocked the Legion, when he did that. Some brothers had praised the Legion Master's declaration, naming it a grand act of fealty to their newfound gene-father.
Vergilius had not agreed.
This is not fealty, he remembered thinking. This is abasement—degradation, sycophancy, worship. Changing your name to suit another man is not the act of a free warrior. It is the act of a slave.
He had not said it aloud, at the time. He had not dared to puncture the aura of reverence and hope that the whole Legion of his brothers had felt, upon reunion with their gene-sire.
He should have said it then. He knew in his bones that it was far too late to say it now.
But then again, he always was a wily one, Corpula, Vergilius thought disparagingly. It had made him a cunning strategist and tactician: quick to adapt to anything, to follow the way the wind was blowing…
Other men of the old XXI had followed Eneph-Trah's example. Not that day, nor that week; but later that month, that year, that couple of years, more and more brothers took Adaran names, degrading and discarding their very selves to seek the favour of a Primarch who Vergilius felt sure would never care for them or anyone. With every conversion, Haqqan's gracious welcomes and back-slapping grins had been the same. And with every conversion, the sharp glare of the Void-Witch's one unpatched eye upon the others had become harsher, more expectant, as if to say: 'What are you waiting for? I see you, and I am waiting.'
Vergilius Masimus had been one of the last to give in. That was why he, who had once been Brother-Captain, was a plain old Battle-Brother now—the lowest rank possible for a fully-formed Astartes. Those who did not give in at all… well, Vergilius tried not to think of what had happened to them.
He still knew, though.
Many of the dead and defiant had been men of his own company. Many of them had looked to him for leadership against Haqqan. Though his heart was troubled, Vergilius had always declined. Dislike the Primarch as he may, Lord Haqqan was his lawfully appointed superior officer. He would not move against him.
It was not only men of his company who came to him. Once, two dozen officers, Brother-Captains or Brother-Commanders all, had come to Vergilius. They had urged him to call their brothers to his banner, seize control of the Legion for himself, and head to Terra to explain the truth of Lord Haqqan's abuses to the Emperor.
Vergilius was stunned to be so brazenly approached, though it was cleverly done—during the chaotic aftermath of a Compliance, when Haqqan's men were away and feeding. He had been shocked to hear so many speak of rebellion against their gene-sire. But most of all he was bewildered.
"Brothers, I do not understand. Even supposing you were certain I would agree to this… you must have been speaking to one another for months. Years, mayhaps, to approach me in such numbers. Some of you command ten times as many men as I do. If you need a leader…"
He trailed off.
"Why me?"
"Because the Emperor almost named you Legion Master," said Brother-Captain Octavius Carimium, calmly, matter-of-factly, as if that were a reasonable remark.
Vergilius had thought that folly, and said so. His fellow officers had not agreed.
"The Emperor wished it," said Brother-Commander Junius Orphilia. "He would have named you Legion Master, were it not that Philipus Corpula outranking you stood in the way."
"Junius is right. I saw the way he looked at you. All of us saw it," Brother-Captain Lacrimus Molaeus asserted. "Corpula saw it too. That's why he raised a dozen Brother-Commanders, but you were held at Brother-Captain for all eight decades from Tenebris IV to Lord Haqqan's finding."
"That is not true," Vergilius protested. "Others were promoted because they deserved it. Good men, and you do them a disservice."
"Maybe they deserved it," said Molaeus, "but not as much as you did."
To Vergilius's astonishment, the others agreed.
"None are a match for you in valour," said Brother-Captain Julius Illartis.
"Aye," said Marcus Poridius. "I was made a Brother-Commander and I like to think I've been a good one; but I was honoured ahead of you, and I cannot believe that that was merited. I've served as long as you, but not as distinguished a record. I knew it. My men knew it. It shamed me then and it shames me now."
And more men spoke, and more, and more: a whole chorus of praise and acclamation.
"The Legion loves you, Vergilius," urged Principius Brassitto, a man close to Vergilius's heart, a Brother-Captain of a company in the same chapter. "More than they ever loved Eneph-Trah."
"If there is to be a move against Haqqan, you are the only one who can lead it."
"Call on our brothers to rise up and they will answer."
"They would answer no-one else," said Brother-Commander Orphilia. "They will answer you."
"And the Emperor respects you, Vergilius," Principius went on. "He knows you from Tenebris."
"It has to be you," said Octavius Carimium. "You are the one the Emperor, beloved by all, will listen to, when we come before him to explain why we have done what we have done."
"It has to be you," said Lacrimus Molaeus.
"It has to be you."
"It has to be you."
"Vergilius," said Principius, "it has to be you."
Julius Illartis said, "Stand with us, and we can make the Twenty-First a Legion to be proud of again."
Vergilius had refused.
Out of respect for his brother officers, who had trusted him with their lives, he had not said a word of them to Eneph-Trah or Haqqan. Vergilius was a man of honour, not a man who would betray his friends. But theirs was a conspiracy to overthrow the Primarch, the Emperor's appointed officer in command of them. This could not be borne. Vergilius Masimus was the Emperor's man, and he would not disobey Imperial orders, now or ever.
There had been no sudden purge of the men who had attended that meeting, so Vergilius knew no-one else had confessed either. Lord Haqqan would have made a merciless example of every man of them if word had reached his ears. Yet slowly, one by one, they had been lost.
Brother-Captain Octavius Carimium had been murdered by Haqqan for imposing too much discipline upon his company. He had punished by execution two whole squads of Space Marines, most but not all of them Adaran-born, who had gone mad with power and started butchering and terrorising civilians on a planet that Carinium was bringing to Imperial Compliance. Haqqan had deemed this an act worthy of death. Officers of the XXI Legion were not supposed to stop their men from acting like criminals and barbarians.
Brother-Commander Marcus Poridius stood up to Haqqan's face and denounced him as a monster when the Night Ghoul told his men to "run wild, boys!" on the billions-strong people of a Civilised World. Haqqan had him impaled on a stake through his lungs and both hearts, chained to a post, and eaten alive during a 'festive' dinner by the rest of the Legion's command staff. Vergilius had not been there. He had heard, from some of those Astartes who had, that Haqqan had had to threaten them with death themselves for them to agree to partake. They had eaten chunks of Poridius's raw flesh before his eyes while the screaming Brother-Commander was still alive.
Brother-Captain Julius Illartis went even further. He tried to raise a rebellion against Lord Haqqan. The rebels had not had nearly enough. A bare few hundred men, even Space Marines, could not prevail against the might of a Space Marine Legion. Still, they had timed their moment well, striking when the Primarch was asleep, being tended by his Apothecaries, after a particularly exhilarating and exhausting battle against a massive xenos war-construct. Brother-Captain Illartis had been centimetres away from Haqqan with chainsword in hand when Eneph-Trah had stabbed him in the back.
Haqqan had cut off Julius Illartis's head and put it on a spike on the Bosom of Tiamat as a warning to deter future traitors. It was a sad end for a good officer and a good man.
Vergilius had passed that head half a hundred times before Haqqan finally grew bored of it and took it down—not out of mercy, but because the smell of rotting flesh was putting men off their meals. At times, he had felt as if Julius's blue eyes were staring at him, accusing him of betrayal. I trusted you, the rotted lips of the dead man's skull seemed to scream. I could have had enough men, if you had helped me. Look now at what became of me.
At the time of that meeting, and indeed in all the time since the Battle of Tenebris IV, Vergilius had thought it mad, the thought that he could have been Legion Master. He was just a soldier, the Emperor's soldier. He had never been more. He had never wanted to be more.
But now, seeing what Haqqan had turned his beloved Legion into, seeing Eneph-Trah not just condone it but actively support it, he thought back to that moment when the master of mankind had glanced at him… and he wondered.
Had the Emperor, beloved by all, seen something in Philipus Corpula, all those long decades ago? Had he seen something Vergilius should have seen?
What should Vergilius have done about it, if that were true?
It did not matter. It was not as if Vergilius could unmake his choice. He could not go back. Time marched only ever forward. And there was no base of support in the Legion to make a winning move against the Void-Witch's leadership, since the Void-Witch had purged so many of the good men of the Stellar Vanguard.
Maybe there never had been. Maybe there never was a chance. But if there had been, there surely was not anymore, now, when good officers and good men had been purged from the ranks or else surrendered to baseness and vileness, and the ranks of command were filled near completely with cavorting piratical scum. One might as well expect shit to turn to gold as expect virtue and decency from men such as these.
He would have felt more hopeful if it were only his own Legion that turned away from the light of the Emperor's ideals. Sadly, that was not the case.
Vergilius had dozens of acquaintances and three he would have called friends in the Thunderers, men as ardently true to the Emperor and the Imperial Truth as any in the Imperium. Those three men died in three separate battles, not long after Memnon was reunited with his gene-sons. Vergilius was suspicious of that. Certainly battle was dangerous. This every warrior knew. Anyone could get unlucky. But these were good warriors, all in different squads and companies. The same ill luck should not have affected them all. They lasted for almost a hundred and fifty years of the Great Crusade before the coming of Memnon. Then all dead within a decade, by sheer mischance? When the III Legion's losses during that time-period had been downright tiny, as they waged campaigns at the pace of a Coringian space slug? Vergilius smelt a rat.
Vergilius had not thought this before he had met his gene-father. Once, he had been stupidly optimistic. Delusional, in his own opinion with the benefit of hindsight. He had not believed that Primarchs, the children of the Emperor, beloved by all, were capable of such vileness until he was painfully familiar with Haqqan the Red. Back then, he had thought his friends must have been the victims of bad luck.
Nowadays, as he had met Haqqan and knew what he was capable of, Vergilius beheld Primarchs with a more suspicious mind. He did not trust Lord Memnon. He did not think Haqqan was the only Primarch who saw fit to murder his Terran-born sons. Lord Memnon's sins, whatever they might be, were not nearly as obvious as Haqqan's infamy. But there must be something, else why had Memnon sought to remove his Terran children?
Nor was it only the III Legion. Vergilius had known a few Lightning Warriors once. They had not been close friends. The VI Legion had not fought alongside the XXI for nearly as long as the III had. They had been acquaintances. Last time he had met a VI Legion force—and this had been decades ago, before Haqqan's finding—he had asked after these friends. The Red Cossacks had replied tersely that they knew of no such men and did not care. At the time he had thought that these new Arstotzkans welcomed into the VI Legion were a rude and antisocial bunch, disrespectful of blood bonds forged in battle, and thought no more of it. Now, with hindsight, knowing what Primarchs could do, even to think of it made his insides twist with dread.
The Stormdaughters' fate was even bleaker. The XIII Legion had long excluded the Terran-born from the moment Lady d'Hiver was found by the Emperor. From that moment, d'Hiver had demanded of her Terran-born daughters that they teach the Joyaublancaise everything they knew: everything of Power Armour, starships, tanks, tactics, weaponry and how Astartes wage war. The Stormdaughters were loyal to their mother. This they dutifully obeyed. In return, they were given nothing.
That was what Primarchs and their homeworld-kin were like. The Joyaublancaise took and took and took, and gave nothing back—no honours, no confidences, no trust. Only Joyaublancaise were invited into Lady d'Hiver's high councils. Only Joyaublancaise had her ear. Only Joyaublancaise were privy to her secrets.
In his thoughts, Vergilius cursed the Lady of Winter again. Whatever fit of mischief or madness had consumed the XIII Legion and killed his friends—what it was, he did not know—he was sure that Méduse d'Hiver was to blame for it. That woman had always had too many secrets.
So it was that, of the four friends who sat together that day on the starship Bielefeld, only one belonged to a Legion that was still safe for the sons and daughters of Terra.
Vergilius wanted to tell Emilia Ecturus that she was so lucky to have the Lady of the Dawn: a Primarch who regarded her Terrans as hers, her daughters or sons, on her side, not as an obstacle to be cleared away so as to fill her Legion with people she liked better.
What grim fates this cruel galaxy had in store, for those loyal Terrans who had been first to serve the Emperor in his Legiones Astartes. What a poor reward for the brave men and women at arms who had faithfully followed the master of mankind into the stars.
He had changed his name in the end. Brother-Captain Vergilius Masimus, hero of the Stellar Vanguard, became Kalebkarn, a Battle-Brother of the Scarlet Wave. He cast aside the name his mother gave him and took a good Adaran name like the rest of them, prostrating himself before the figurative throne of the Night Ghoul.
He had not wanted to. He had thought himself a brave man, who would not be daunted by any foe. With his brothers at his back, he could face anything. With his Legion he had felt invincible. The one might fall; the one might die; the one to die might be himself; but what did that matter, when the rest of the Legion, strong and united, would triumph? Any enemies of the Emperor would be struck down by bolter and blade.
Vergilius would not be afraid to charge into a wall of Orkish guns and die a glorious death in the Emperor's name. But that was with his Legion, together, his comrades-in-arms, his brothers. He had never realised how much of his strength was actually theirs, their strength, until that bolstering bulwark had been taken away. What was a man to do when his brothers had been replaced—either murdered by or, worse, transformed into the grinning, leering, cackling parade of monsters who stood now all about him?
If only the Emperor knew how many of his Stellar Vanguardsmen were dead, their brains devoured for knowledge, their Power Armour given over to more of the filthy Adarans taking their places, their oversized Astartes skulls decorating their murderers' tables. But he did not.
The Emperor did not know. The Emperor did not know. The Emperor did not know.
Vergilius had to believe the Emperor did not know, or else there truly was nothing left worth living for.