XIX. NUMBER TWO
'How illogical is all this,' the Primarch thought, feeling his already murky mood souring even further.
He considered again those few who had agreed to stand with the IInd Legion in the hopes of vouchsafing for Candide and his gene-sons:
Horus of the XVIth and his Emissary Azarkhaddon, who had fought beside the Second Primarch on his very first Great Crusade campaign – in the undercrofts of the grand hive-cities upon the Apocryphis Proxima, purging its unsuspecting populace of a taint whose exact nature was never identified…
Guilliman of the XIIIth along with the finest warriors of his 13th Chapter – Junius and the twins Valent and Valentinian…
Mortarion of the XIVth and his Ancient Bulaghar, commander of the heavy battle cruiser Fins Negans...
Sanguinius of the IXth with one of his finest Librarians, the fearsome and aristocratic Leonid Verrano, also a native of Terra…
The rest of Candide's brothers were against him.
But most importantly, so were the golden warriors of the Ten Thousand and – the Emperor himself.
The Primarch's enemies chose to strike at the precise moment when his forces were scattered as never before. When Candide has just finished reconquering five human worlds in the Green Veil cluster at the fringe of Ultramar from a wile alien breed, so those planets could be settled anew. When his select Special Company of the Terran gifted were liberating large swathes of Imperial space from the feral kraahati, all the while sustaining heavy losses. When some of his finest veterans were bound for Germonasia since it was time for the annual rotation of the Honorary Vigil.
This all strongly reminded the Primarch of how the ancient foes of his people once tried to deal a devastating blow to the remains of Germonasian independence, having managed to assassinate the planet's entire Ruling House in a single act of unspeakable brutality. Yet the young Candide survived, his transhuman physiology negating the effect of the injuries that had killed the xenos-hunting Prince Dagobert and his young sons outright, and emerging from the fortress' ruins to the loud cheers of his loyal men and women. His foes had failed in their goal then, and his foster world was eventually saved...
'Perhaps,' Candide thought but not without some bitterness mixed in, 'just perhaps, I shall survive this trial too.'