I do not own the Warhammer 40000 universe nor any of its characters. They belong to Games Workshop.
Inspired by the Dornian Heresy, by Aurelius Rex.
"This is the tale of the Angel,
As it is spoken among the immortal children of Heaven and Hell.
This is the doom of Sanguinius,
Who was most resplendent of the Lords of Order,
Yet from his very inception, was haunted by twin curses
Of monstrous wrath and hunger.
Once broken by love,
To cast his rage out into the blackness,
And thus create the spectre of black fury,
Forever howling at being denied the doom of blood.
Twice broken by despair,
To abandon reason and retreat into phantasm,
And ascend to eternity through the blood of the brother most beloved
Before being brought down at the end of the Dark Master's dreams.
Thrice broken by fury,
To lose his dominion and stature among the Lords of Chaos,
And pour his will into the herald crafted by desperate and loyal sons,
While his mind watches the future unfold with unclouded eyes.
He fell as his sons rose, a legion of heirs of blood and angelic grace,
And he will rise as his sire falls, the sole monarch of a gilded kingdom."
Excerpt from The Angel's Fall, believed to be the last work of the Remembrancer Aleksandr Pontif 'the Mad', assigned to the Ninth Legion before the battle of Signus Prime. Translated from High Gothic, classified as a black-level moral threat by the Holy Ordos, with the sole copy being secured on Enceladus.
The Terran Crucible
Part Five : The Battle of Lupercal's Gate
At the climax of the Roboutian Heresy, Horus, first Warmaster of the Imperium, faced Sanguinius at the Eternity Gate, and fell at the fangs of the traitor Primarch. And it was there too that his greatest sons, the Mournival, defeated the abominable Angel after his rebirth as a Daemon Primarch. In the Times of Ending, the Gate bears a different name, and now, it seems that it is there that the end of the Angel War will be decided, along with the fate of Terra, and with it that of the Imperium …
The host of Slaanesh marched on, and none could stand against it. For all who beheld the golden figure of Sanguinius at the head of the Chaos army was immediately caught in the Glamour, and joined the ranks of the Daemon Primarch's enthralled slaves. From the Imperial Palace, Omegon issued withdrawal orders to all Imperial forces on the path that led from the place of Sanguinius' manifestation to Lupercal's Gate, going as far as sending parties to carry his word to those without functioning vox equipment. Warriors of loyal Legions were scattered across the traumatized Imperial forces to give them the strength not to break, in spite of all that they had seen.
Thousands of Imperial soldiers and tens of thousands of civilians were evacuated in this way behind Lupercal's Gate, massed into the buildings of the Inner Palace, before Omegon gave the order to close the Gate. Librarians and priests worked desperately to reinforce the ancient wards set in the walls, for with the Emperor dead, they were the Imperials' best chance of resisting the Glamour. The fact that the Inner Palace and the Gate's immediate surroundings had been spared the devastation of the Angel War seemed to indicate that the wards were still active and powerful – but it had been millennia since they had last needed to contend with the might of a Daemon Primarch.
Lupercal's Gate
When Guilliman rebelled against the Emperor and the two battles of Istvaan showed the might of the Arch-Traitor, Perturabo, who had been named Praetorian of Terra after Horus' ascension to the rank of Warmaster, was given full authority to remake the Throneworld into a stronghold the Traitor Legions would be unable to breach. The Lord of Iron used all resources at his disposal, and remade the Imperial Palace entirely, overriding the objections of bureaucrats and historians alike as he either adapted existing structures into his designs or removed them. Priceless architectural artworks were dismantled by Fourth Legion construction crew, while logisticians managed the disturbances this caused. To this day, there are legends among the Iron Warriors that once their Primarch had finished drawing the plans for the Imperial Palace's remaking, he wept for an entire night at the knowledge of the beauty he and his sons would destroy.
Before the Heresy, the Lion's Gate connected the Outer and Inner sections of the Palace, and was located near an immense spaceport that reached all the way to Terra's lower orbit. Perturabo realized the weakness this presented : if the Traitors could take that spaceport, they would be able to unload in days forces that would otherwise take weeks to bring down from orbit. In response, Perturabo turned the spaceport into a trap that, in the early days of the Siege, resulted in the death of thousands of Traitor Marines as powerful explosive charges methodically spread throughout the megastructure detonated. Millions of auxiliary troops and loyal Imperial citizens perished in the coldly pragmatic move, which forced the Traitor forces to advance on the Palace from elsewhere on the planet.
At the same time as those preparations were made, the Lion's Gate was renamed the Eternity Gate. The betrayal of the Dark Angels had made the previous name unpalatable – not to mention dangerous, for the Dark Powers of the Warp could draw power from even the most symbolic connection, and the First Legion had drank deep of their poisoned lore. The original Eternity Gate had been the final redoubt blocking the path to the Imperial Sanctum, where the Golden Throne resided, but the construction of the Cavea Ferrum had made it redundant, its non-euclidian geometries preventing any mere army from reaching the Throne.
It was at the Eternity Gate that Horus was slain by Sanguinius and avenged by his sons. Later in the Siege, the Gate fell, allowing the Traitors to make their final push into the Imperial Palace, eventually leading to the fateful confrontations between Lion El'Jonson and Magnus, Rogal Dorn and Perturabo, and Guilliman and the Emperor. The entrance to the Cavea Ferrum they used for this still exists to this day.
The Eternity Gate was renamed Lupercal's Gate in homage to the dead Warmaster. Today, the Gate is defended by hundreds of gun emplacements, as well as anti-ship weaponry and a restored aegis-shield generator that makes it all but impossible to attack from orbit. The Gate itself, as well as the wall erected between the Inner and Outer Palaces, stretch over two kilometers above ground. Millions pass through it every day, either on Imperial business or in pilgrimage, hoping to catch a glimpse of the wonders that, despite the horrors of the Heresy, still remain within the Inner Palace.
The flow of pilgrims to Holy Terra had transformed the Outer Palace into a slum inhabited by billions of people from all over the galaxy, or their descendants. These unwashed masses had eked out a miserable existence, subsisting on hand-outs from the Administratum and the Ecclesiarchy, as well as being a source of cheap labor, while being ruthlessly preyed upon by all sorts of criminals.
The slums were vast, and only a fraction of their population had made it to the relative safety of the Inner Palace. The arcane protections of the Inner Palace hadn't extended this far, and most of the slums' residents had perished in the Angel War, becoming playthings for daemons. Only lesser Neverborn had dared to manifest there, for the greater abominations were immediately targeted by the gun emplacements on the walls, regardless of the collateral damage.
Even so, the Outer Palace had become a ruined wasteland, and Sanguinius' arrival sealed the damnation of those who had dwelled there. Despite the misery of their lives, or perhaps because of it, the folks of the slums had held great faith in the God-Emperor, and they had felt the coming of Light's End most keenly. Combined with the daemonic incursions, the survivors were drowning in despair and horror, easy prey for the Glamour's lies. Millions of them were awe-struck by the approach of the Angel, seeing him as a messianic figure come to deliver them from evil in their hour of direst need. Weeping and singing his praises, they joined the Slaaneshi host on its march toward Lupercal's Gate, where their new god would be crowned Emperor and lead them to paradise.
We see the Cavea Ferrum, built to guard our father from the Arch-Traitor. It was damaged during the Siege, but the Custodes rebuilt and expanded it over the years. Before it stands the Eternity Gate. It was breached once, and the Imperium bleeds from that wound still. It must not be breached again.
We see the Firenzi Polymath, whose name became legend before being forgotten. We hear an excited conversation started around a cup of wine that continues deep into the night, between a bright young man and a mysterious stranger. They discuss concepts that won't be understood by the rest of Humanity for centuries. When dawn comes, the stranger is gone, and the polymath will never see him again. But the seeds are planted. Did the stranger know what would grow from them, or did he simply seek to speak with one who could understand him, even partially ? Solitude is a poison, brother, as we both know.
Thirty thousand years later, Perturabo finds the scraps of the Firenzian's work, and inspiration blooms in his heart. He extrapolates on the concepts within, and build a labyrinth that spreads beyond conventional dimensions. Our father looks on, like a parent watching a child build elaborate sand castles while they work on rebuilding the greatest castle the galaxy has ever known. He is proud, we think.
The labyrinth stands. Only the sons of the Emperor know its secrets – not because they are kept, but because only we can understand Perturabo's creation. Even the Custodes struggle to find their way through it, despite millennia of study. Something about the way their minds, and ours, are wired.
It will not be enough. Sanguinius will see through it. He always saw more than any of us suspected, and now his sight is fixed upon a most awful ending. This monster must be kept out of the labyrinth !
The last section between the Outer Palace and Lupercal's Gate was in much better state than the slums. Great roads led to the various entrances leading to the Inner Palace, and the sheer weight of numbers of Sanguinius' host forced it to separate, hundreds of thousands of cultists and daemons flowing down lesser avenues leading to the walls. Sanguinius remained at the head of the main thrust of his forces, followed by the most powerful of his servants.
Each of the Daemon Primarch's honor guard could have been a Chaos Lord of Slaanesh in their own right. One was Malicia, the heretic Canoness of the Ebon Chalice. Though she had been struck down at the Ecclesiarchal Palace, she had survived, her body flooded by the Warp energy that rained down from the Tear of Nightmares. There too was Ishidur Ossuros, first and mightiest of the Violators. There were others : veterans of the Sanguinary Guard, Tithed Ones, Laer nobles, leaders of hidden cults who had been transfigured by the coming of Light's End, and newly marked mortal champions of Slaanesh, who had caught the eye of the Dark Prince in the midst of the Angel War. In their souls burned the power of Chaos, yet they were all subservient to the Great Angel among them.
The Glamour clashed against the walls like a psychic wave, but though all felt it crawling over their souls and shivered in dread, their wills yet remained their own. Appearing unperturbed, Sanguinius raised his left hand, and the millions that followed him stopped their advance at once. They remained standing in eerie silence while Sanguinius took flight, even as the defenders opened fire on the immobile horde – only to find most of their shots blocked.
In the Angel War, the pain-engines of the Laers had fed deep on the suffering of the Throneworld's people. They had extracted their pain and made it into energy, which they now released. Great domes of crackling purple light formed among the Slaaneshi host, and the fire from the wall's guns crashed against them harmlessly. They didn't cover all of the attacking host, but what they did cover was more than enough to threaten Lupercal's Gate.
Through the Glamour, these constructs of agony appeared as moving temples to the Angel, atop which shining priests conducted holy rituals that granted protection to those around them. As the reserves of torment dwindled, bespelled thralls willingly offered themselves up as sacrifices, believing that their mortal bodies would burn as kindling while their spirits were transfigured into shining new angels to protect their comrades. Such was the strength of the Glamour that even the agonies of the Laer's pain-priests were perceived as an ecstatic experience – the transcendence of mortality and ascension to the divine. Only once their broken bodies breathed their last and they slipped into death were these unfortunate confronted with the truth, as daemonic entities devoured them and glutted themselves on their souls.
The skies were already full of the Angel's flying servants : Laer stalkers, screeching daemons, and the six-winged form of Diomedes, Herald of the End, whose screams were loudest of all. They parted to let their master pass as he rose higher and higher. Scores of cannons tried to target him, but their machine-spirits failed to lock onto him, their auspexes unable to deal with his unnatural existence and awesome power.
At the top of Lupercal's Gate, on a platform from which the entire Slaaneshi host could be seen, stood four figures – three of them clad in ceramite, the last one in its rarer cousin, auramite. There, Sanguinius met with Omegon, Lord of the Hydra; Galahoth, Captain-General of the Custodes; and Asim Ravaji and Nathanael Dumah, two of Magnus' Chosen who had remained at the side of the Twentieth Primarch during the Angel War, assisting him in orchestrating the defense of the Throneworld. The two Thousand Sons Legionaries had been wounded in previous engagements – Asim when the Word of Magnus had been boarded by N'kari in its Keeper of Secrets aspect, and Nathanael when he had faced the Queen of the Dark Mechanicum in the Haydes. Even injured, they had served as psychic relays through the Angel War, sending and receiving messages across Terra where lesser psykers would have been driven to madness.
"Brother," said Sanguinius as he landed on the wall – though his feet remained a few centimeters above it, as if the Angel were standing on an invisible platform. "It has been too long."
Even as Omegon faced the Daemon Primarch, part of him noted that the infernal screaming of the flying Tithed One had finally stopped. It would have been a relief, if not for the fact that Sanguinius' proximity was a hundred times worse than the scream had been.
"We have never met before this day," answered Omegon. Which was true : while Omegon had observed Sanguinius from afar, the Ninth and Twentieth Legions had rarely interacted before the Heresy. Even at Ullanor, it had been Alpharius who had represented the Hydra – just as it had been Alpharius who had witnessed the horror of Sanguinius' corruption on Isstvan V. "And you are not my brother."
Sanguinius laughed. "Are We not ? Do you truly believe the stories Magnus tells himself to escape the temptations of true power ? We are not who We once were, that is true, but Our core still descends from the works of Our sire – same as Magnus, same as you. No matter how changed we all are … and We would say that we are all much changed from how He envisioned us, wouldn't you agree ?"
"And what would you know of what He intended ? You, who betrayed Him out of cowardice !"
Sanguinius' eyes flared briefly with anger at the accusation, and for the briefest of instants, Omegon thought he caught a glimpse of the monster beyond the Glamour. But the instant passed, and the aspect of the Angel reasserted itself.
"We know much, for We see all that is and all that will be. Our father is dead and Guilliman rises. But Our brother is not the only threat that dawns with this new millennium, as you well know, brother. The fall of the Imperium is inevitable. But with Us at its head, Imperium Secundus can rise from the ashes of the past, to reach heights undreamt of !"
"Heresy," growled Galahoth.
"Is it ? The Imperium must survive, Captain-General. Humanity cannot survive without it … and the Imperium cannot survive without an Emperor. You know this to be true."
Galahoth laughed. It was a cold, humorless and scornful sound.
"I am one of His, betrayer, now and forever. While you and your kind wallowed in your corruption, I learned His words, shared into the purity of His vision. The shame of letting His death come to pass will haunt me until my final day, but do not think He made me so frail to be broken by it. You ? You could never succeed Him."
"How unfortunate. You would have served Us well."
Without warning, moving so fast not even the preternatural reflexes of Custodes and Primarch could catch it, the Daemon Primarch moved. By the time Galahoth had raised his spear, the Blade Encarmine had plunged into his chest, cutting through auramite as if it were paper and bursting out of the Captain-General's back. No blood spilled from the wound, for the Blade drank greedily of Galahoth's life.
With a cry of outrage and fury, the three other Imperials atop the wall charged the Angel. Omegon brandished the Pale Spear in both hands, while Asim and Nathanael struck with powerful spells of banishment, knowing they couldn't hope to expel the Daemon Primarch from Holy Terra, but hoping to at least weaken his presence in the Materium.
With a peal of melodic laughter, Sanguinius spread out his wings and unleashed a wave of infernal power that buckled the wards of Lupercal's Gate, sending tremors all across the wall. Closest to him, Galahoth was obliterated, his body dissolved into component particles and his soul swallowed whole by the Blade Encarmine, to join the countless shades of the Angel's victims. The two Chosen of Magnus resisted longer, the power of the Rubric of Ahriman protecting them – then they too were gone, though their souls escaped the clutches of the Daemon Primarch.
As if they had been waiting for that signal, the Slaaneshi hordes suddenly charged, filling the tormented air with more screams of devotion to the Angel. The guns of Lupercal's Gate redoubled their fire, even as the Chaos artillery finally returned fire.
Omegon alone still stood atop the wall against Sanguinius, his Primarch soul making him proof against such sorcery. In his hands, the Pale Spear gleamed with a predatory light as it reacted to the Daemon Primarch's power.
And for the first time in ten thousand years, two Primarchs duelled atop the walls of the Imperial Palace. But for all of Omegon's strength, all of the experience he had accumulated in the millennia he had spent directing and defending the Imperium from the shadows, the Lord of the Hydra was no match for the Angel in the fullness of his power. Every blow of the Pale Spear was turned aside, every feint was seen through, every concealed weapon was anticipated.
Not since he had battled Aetaos'rau'keres, during the desperate odyssey that had begun at Calth and had ended with delivering Ollanius Persson to Terra, had Omegon felt so outmatched. Back then, he had triumphed over the Daemon King through guile, subterfuge, and far more luck than he had ever been comfortable with. Omegon's spiritual nature had been opposite to that of Aetaos'rau'keres, and the strength of his conviction had been enough to overcome the gap in power between the two of them so that he had at least a chance of victory.
No such advantage existed here. Sanguinius was the Angel, the Lord of Hosts and Champion of Slaanesh, while Omegon was master of a web of plots and schemes that had come undone with Light's End. Though he had suppressed it in order to fight the Angel War, the Lord of the Hydra was still tormented by his guilt over his father's death and his failure to understand His wishes. That guilt poisoned his soul, and when faced with Sanguinius' radiance, that was enough to bring him down.
His armor breached and his flesh pierced by half a dozen wounds, Omegon fell to his hands and knees, the butt of the Pale Spear impacting the cracked floor as he laid upon it for support.
[Check the illustration by Nemris "Lupercal's Gate"]
Sanguinius looked down at Omegon, his eyes full of condescending compassion.
"You have played your games in the shadow far too long, brother. You have forgotten what it means to conquer. But We can teach you. There is potential in you that you have never let yourself fulfill and that We will help you unleash."
The Angel extended his left hand toward Omegon.
"Come now, brother. Join Us."
Omegon saw that Sanguinius' offer was sincere. The Angel was beyond such petty tricks as deceit, or at least considered himself so. The Last Primarch had no idea if the daemon truly thought he would submit to his will and turn to Chaos. The very thought was absurd, obscene, but Sanguinius' ego was a metaphysical force that held the entirety of Sol in its grasp. Could it be that he was unable to even imagine the possibility of someone rejecting him ? No, surely not. Galahoth had done so mere moments ago, after all.
A terrible thought formed in Omegon's mind. Even before his fall, Sanguinius had been a seer of immense power, and the fact he had foreseen Light's End and planned the Angel War was a testament to how that ability had grown since then. Could it be that the Daemon Primarch had foreseen that, somehow, Omegon would turn ?
He knew better than most that Primarchs weren't immune to corruption. Those adherents of the Imperial Creed who knew of the Heresy had claimed that the nine fallen Primarchs had been flawed in some way, while those who had remained loyal had been true to the Emperor's vision, but Omegon knew the truth. The Dark Gods had bent all of their power to corrupt his fallen brothers, and he also knew that they had attempted to turn those who hadn't fallen. Horus himself had faced their whispers in the Interex. It was the circumstances of their lives that had made the difference between those who had turned and those who had stayed loyal, not any inherent holiness.
In this, the Primarchs were not so different from the rest of Humanity.
Did Sanguinius know of a way to break him ? Had he glimpsed in the possible futures a method that could shatter him, bring him into Ruin's embrace ? Remake him as the nine Traitor Primarchs had been remade ? The thought couldn't be ignored, and with it came a terror greater than any he had ever known. Failure and death were nothing compared to that possibility.
"We will give you such glory," continued Sanguinius. "In Our name, you shall have victory over all of Our foes."
At those words, a memory stirred within Omegon's mind. With the perfect clarity of eidetic recall, he saw again that burning city, and the black-eyed figure who had stood in judgement of his actions. The words of his long-dead brother echoed in his head.
You are better than this.
The fear faded from Omegon's mind. It seemed that Sanguinius, for all his vaunted sight, did not know him at all.
"Glory is a lie," he replied, pushing himself to his feet. He drew strength from the mantra, repeated time and again in the ages of the Long War, and finished it : "And victory is not enough."
Sanguinius blinked.
"We are your king," he said slowly. "We are the new Master of Mankind !"
The Daemon Primarch's aura flared, basking him in glorious divine light. But the moment had passed. Whatever hold the Glamour had managed to grasp on Omegon had been broken. The Lord of the Hydra stood, bleeding but unbroken, his soul blazing with defiance.
"Mankind deserves better than you !" shouted Omegon, and the duel started again.
But mere conviction would not be enough, and Omegon had known that this wasn't a battle he could win. He didn't cry out as the Blade Encarmine cut off his right arm at the shoulder – he refused to give his opponent the satisfaction. The Pale Spear slipped from the fingers of his severed limb and fell all the way down Lupercal's Gate, smashing point-first in front of the Gate with the strength of a meteor.
"All your hopes and dreams are ashes," said Sanguinius. "Your great plan has failed. We will break what remains of your defiance, brother, this We promise to you."
"How low you have fallen, Angel." The Primarch spoke the name like the curse it had become.
"Not as low as you will," sneered Sanguinius, rising the Blade Encarmine for the final blow. "Such torment We will visit upon your soul, until you beg to be allowed to kneel at Our feet."
"Never," said Omegon, and he knew it to be true.
The Herald of the End flew above Lupercal's Gate, watching with burning eyes as Sanguinius stalked toward Omegon. Below, the hordes of the Youngest God were charging the walls. They would either succeed, or they would die, and their souls would fuel the Angel's power even further. In either case, the Gate would be broken, as it had been before, when last Sanguinius had come.
This was the End foretold. This was the victory of Slaanesh, about to be written in the blood of the Last Primarch.
At the vanguard of the Slaaneshi throng were the other Tithed Ones, who had been the Herald's brothers before he had been the Herald. They were screaming as they ran, on two or four legs, like rabid animals. Atop the walls, the Imperials raised their guns, knowing they were doomed. Taller figures in ceramite armor of grey, white, green and midnight blue stood at the front of the line, faces resolute in the face of oncoming death.
His grip tightened, and his living spear whined as his gauntleted hands crushed its haft. It had drunk deep already from the blood of the innocent this day, as the Herald hunted in Terra's burning skies.
Sanguinius raised his sword, and the Herald read the shape of the blow before it fell. The Daemon Primarch was going for a strike that would cleave the wounded Omegon in two so that he would to bleed out and die in agony, his Primarch physiology keeping him on the verge of death far longer than even a Space Marine would be. Not a clean kill, for no other reason than because Sanguinius would enjoy the new experience of killing a Primarch slowly.
Since the Herald had been remade, a part of him had been screaming without cease. When the knights in silver had tried and failed to stop the Angel, it had regained a semblance of awareness.
Now, as he saw Sanguinius about to commit fratricide yet again, the scream turned from horror to fury, from agony to defiance. The Herald of the End opened his maw …
… and Diomedes screamed as he plunged down upon the False Angel, slamming into the Daemon Primarch and hurling him off the platform just as the Blade Encarmine plunged into Omegon's chest, turning a lethal wound into a crippling one – one that a Primarch could survive, if not ever truly recover from.
Sanguinius howled in shock and outrage at the indignity as both Tithed One and Daemon Primarch fell. The monster in Diomedes' head screamed at him, telling him he was going to get them both killed, that he was defying one that stood as high above him as a man stood above ants.
Diomedes knew it was right.
He didn't care.
It hurt. Oh, Emperor, it hurt. He could feel his body, his soul, fall apart as the enraged False Angel called upon his mastery of the vile energies that had been mixed with Diomedes' essence. Cracks spread across his armor, each one a searing agony that promised him the obliteration of his flesh and foreshadowed the eternal torment that awaited his soul.
But Diomedes of Chemos was no stranger to pain, and he had endured death a hundred times and more already in the torture pit of the Laers. And so the first of the Tithed Ones fought on, to reclaim that which had been stolen from him even as he died yet again. And though his body shattered and burned, though his soul was flayed and ripped asunder, he kept fighting – for he was a son of Fulgrim, and the Phoenician's stubborn resilience was part of him.
This wasn't about vengeance. This was about doing what was right, about reclaiming who he was from the darkness. What was pain compared to the knowledge of his heresy ?
And then there was a roar like thunder, and a dark light that washed over him and into him.
One was a fragment of a greater whole, forever sundered; the other was a thing of cold and ancient hate, yet pure of making and purpose.
Together they plunged into him, and the pain was almost more than he could bear. But then it stopped, and from the first there was a voice.
YOU ARE WORTHY, it said, and remade him.
This one is mine. You cannot have him.
All you do is take. All you have, you stole.
You do not create. You do not build. You do not grow.
You only corrupt and enslave.
This is how it has ever been, since the dawning of darkness.
This is what you are, behind the masks you forge from the nightmares of your slaves.
But this one ?
This one, I have taken back. This one, I have reclaimed.
This one soul, I have saved from you.
Are you afraid ?
You should be.
He is the first.
He will not be the last.
The living weapon in his hands – the spear he had taken from his jailers during his short-lived escape and which had been remade alongside him after his fall – screamed. It twisted in his grip as it burned, hardened flesh peeling from it to reveal a long spear of purest black. Somehow, this spear was taller than the one it had emerged from like some grotesque cocoon, taking its place in reality and sending its spirit shrieking into oblivion.
It was hot, almost painfully so, and thrumming with power. That power was different from anything Diomedes had experienced before – it wasn't the Motive Force of the Mechanicus, nor the wild energy of the Warp. It was something else, something old and vast.
He could feel a presence at the edge of his mind, looming over him, where before the False Angel's will had crushed his own. It wasn't friendly, and it never would be. But it despised the minions of Chaos as much as Diomedes did, and that made it an ally, at least for now.
With a kick in Sanguinius' chest that felt more satisfying that a hundred victories in the duelling cages of the Pride of the Emperor, Diomedes separated himself from the falling Daemon Primarch, and soared above the battlefield. Sanguinius crashed at the foot of Lupercal's Gate, while on wings of lightning and fire, Diomedes the Reclaimed descended upon the Slaaneshi horde. Beams of black light leapt from the spear in his hands, piercing through the Laers' force-fields and turning corrupted flesh to dust. Power that had so worried the Emperor He had ordered it imprisoned in the Dark Cells was unleashed, and woe befell the minions of Ruin that stood in its path.
The sight of Diomedes the Reclaimed and the might of the weapon from the Black Cells, combined with the sight of their Angel sent crashing to the ground, made the hosts of Slaanesh stumble and hesitate for a moment. Then the hold of the Glamour reasserted itself, and they resumed their charge, driven to come to the aid of their fallen liege.
Meanwhile, at the base of Lupercal's Gate, on the very point where he had slain Horus ten thousand years ago, Sanguinius burned. Diomedes' ambush had put him in contact with the ground of Terra for the first time since his arrival, and the world rejected his corrupt touch. The Daemon Primarch roared in fury as he stood, the Glamour translating it into a shout of defiance after being treacherously cast down by his renegade Herald.
Behind the walls, a choice was made. The fall of the Angel and the turning of Diomedes had provided an opportunity that would not be repeated. The confrontation atop the Gate had deprived the Imperials of their leaders, but neither Omegon nor Galahoth were fools, and they had ensured the continuity of the line of command before risking facing the Angel. With their removal from the board – for even a Primarch would take time to recover from the loss of an arm to such a dreadful weapon as the Blade Encarmine – joint command had passed to Trajann Valoris, who was now the nineteenth Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes, and Deradaeddon Nemo, a veteran Commander of the Sons of Horus.
Lupercal's Gate opened, and the champions of the Imperium sallied forth to meet the horde of the Youngest God in battle.
Nemo charged. Behind him were the warriors of the Legions who had rallied to defend Lupercal's Gate; before him were the hordes of the Dark Prince in all their horror. Along with them were Custodes come from the Tower of Hegemon, who had brought with them Land Raiders and Dreadnoughts. Such a force could conquer worlds, but it was no conventional army they faced now.
Lupercal's Gate was vast, and even if it wasn't fully open, more than two scores of Space Marines could run through it side by side already. It was more than enough for them to avoid coming near the thing that stood closest to the Gate, the one monster Nemo wanted to face more than he had ever wanted anything in his life … and the one he couldn't possibly hope to defeat.
Coward, he heard a voice scream in his head. You would turn your back on a chance to avenge Horus ?
But was that voice his own, or that of the monster ? That was the question. His own thoughts couldn't be trusted. Long had the warriors of the Sixteenth Legion sought to avenge the death of their Primarch – Sanguinius' first defeat, on these very grounds, was not nearly enough of a price to pay for that infamous act of fratricide. The enmity held by the Sons of Horus for the Blood Angels was matched only by their hatred for the so-called Black Legion. For ten thousand years, they had hunted down the champions of the Ninth Legion and put them down like the rabid dogs they were – but always, Sanguinius himself had eluded them. Like the rest of the galaxy, they had thought him lost to madness, though they had not once thought this excused his crime.
Now the Angel was here, and Nemo longed to strike him down as the Legion's heroes of old had. But he knew his limits, and he forced himself to ignore that urge. His duty in this battle laid elsewhere. He turned to the champions at his side – the mage who had fought alongside the wolves of old, and the Sister whose eyes burned with such painful light.
"We will take care of that rabble," he said. "You go kill the Angel !"
They nodded silently, and parted from his side, going to face their destiny. Above them, the winged figure who had cast down Sanguinius before tearing his army apart flew back, and plunged upon the Daemon Primarch. His black spear met the Blade Encarmine, and held fast for a few seconds until Sanguinius managed to overpower and push him back – only to have to defend himself from a combined attack from Ahriman and Ephrael.
The Commander of the Sons of Horus was forced to turn his eyes away from the mythical confrontation, for he had his own part in this battle to play. The horde of Chaos was spread before him millions strong, a host of daemons, cultists, mutants, traitors and xenos such as he had never seen before.
Nemo laughed as, outnumbered a thousand to one, the Imperials charged into the horde.
"LUPERCAL !" he roared, and began to kill the enemies of Humanity.
Past the walls of the Inner Palace, deep in the labyrinth of the Cavea Ferrum, in the Imperialis Sanctum, Lorgar and Magnus struggled together still. The might of the Golden Throne, the echoes of ten thousand years of sacrificed psykers, the pain of the Tear of Nightmares and the pulsating power of the Astronomican – this was the torment that had brought the crippled Emperor to suicide.
The closer Sanguinius had gotten, the worse the pain of the Crimson King had become. But Magnus, for all the awesome power he shouldered, could do nothing to stop the Daemon Primarch. To redirect the power of the Golden Throne, even for an instant, would see Terra cracked apart and obliterated.
The worst of it was that it may yet come to that, if all other hopes failed. But Magnus wasn't certain that he had the strength to destroy Humanity's birthworld to deny it to Chaos. And so the two brothers held on, and hoped that their comrades could triumph without them.
Then a voice neither Primarchs had ever heard before said : "Lord Aurelian."
Without taking his hands off his brother, Lorgar turned his head to see a woman bearing the emblem of the Inquisition stand behind him. He hadn't heard her approach, and even the cacophony of the Golden Throne's suffering engines wasn't enough to explain that.
"Who are you ?" he asked, though he was certain he already knew the answer.
"I am Morgana," she replied. "Daughter of Luther, and one of the Ordos' first members. I have come here to relieve you of your task, Lord Aurelian, so that you may take up the one only you and what you carry can see through."
Lorgar stared at her, with eyes that saw much deeper than flesh. He saw that she spoke true, and saw the ancient spell anchored to her soul – and recognized it, for he had seen its other side when he had faced his fallen brother in the Webway. He saw too, the shadow that walked at her side, and felt something like recognition from the Sword That Was Promised.
He nodded silently, and she moved to his side, placing herself between Lorgar and Magnus and resting her forehead against that of the seated Crimson King. At once, Lorgar felt the pressure on his brother diminish – and at once, Morgana began to tremble at the terrible effort and pain she was feeling.
"You know where your duty lies, Lord Aurelian," said Morgana through gritted teeth.
And this, too, was true. Reluctantly, the Urizen removed his hands from his brother's head, and turned toward the exit of the Throneroom.
There was, after all, one other way he could alleviate his brother's burdens.
The monster stood before Ephrael, bright and terrible in his awful glory. In her head, the whispers of her dead Sisters had become a chorus of howls, the proximity of the Daemon Primarch enraging the tattered spirits of Parnis' martyrs. But even in their rage, they still gave her the knowledge she needed. They told her how Sanguinius' fall had diminished his power – how the heroic act of the transfigured Tithed One had broken his image of invincibility, and in so doing made it so that he wasn't.
Such was the way of the Warp, where metaphors became truth and belief shaped reality. And yet, Ephrael held no illusion that, symbolically weakened or not, Sanguinius was still far more powerful than her. The combined attack of Ahzek and her, striking while the Daemon Primarch had been occupied with the one her dead sisters told her was called Diomedes, had been turned aside with a swiftness that none of them could equal. The three of them now stood in a loose circle around their foe, moving with the instinctive coordination of soldiers who had bled and killed on a thousand battlefields before.
Sanguinius seemed supremely unconcerned with the three champions surrounding him. His gaze was fixed upon Ephrael, and he was smiling. By all rights, it should have been a beautiful sight, yet all the Daemonifuge felt at the sight was revulsion.
"Dearest Ephrael," said Sanguinius, almost purring her name. "We have been waiting to meet you for a long time."
"Sanguinius," she spat back. "Abomination. If you know of me, then you know that the hour of your doom has come at last."
The monster chuckled. "Ah, Ephrael. You misunderstand Us. Everything in your existence has led to this moment – to Us."
Ephrael forced herself to laugh in derision. "Again with this, False Angel ? Twice already your feeble attempts at persuasion have been rejected. Thrice, if one counts the purification of your own herald. Are you so deluded as to expect this to go any different ?"
Sanguinius laughed, and gestured with his free hand at their surroundings.
"Look upon Us, Ephrael Stern. We are triumphant. Our father lies dead, and the gates of His palace are open before Us. What purpose does your defiance serve at this late hour ?"
"None, if your triumph were absolute. Which means that you can yet be vanquished, false angel."
"Sophistry," said Sanguinius softly, "is the refuge of the foolish and the desperate. We expected better of you, Thrice-Born."
"As did the Emperor from you, daemon."
That struck a nerve, she saw, as a flicker of annoyance was briefly visible on the monster's face. It was quickly smothered, however, replaced by the same mask of radiant arrogance and false benevolence.
"Think, Ephrael. Put aside the tales that your masters put into your head since childhood and think. After all you have seen, all you have lived, surely that is within your power. Do you really believe that what you are is the result of Our father's plans ? Think on how you gained your power. Think of the place where you were unmade and reborn for the first time."
Despite her better judgment, Ephrael couldn't stop herself from remembering. She remembered the Screaming Cage, that nightmarish construct of living flesh crafted from the bodies of the Sisters of the Blessed Enquiry.
"It was not Our dear, dead father's hand that shaped your destiny," continued Sanguinius, "but Ours. We brought low the Blessed Enquiry, before they uncovered Our secrets. We sent Asteroth to forge them into the instrument of your transformation."
Ephrael bristled at the name, as did her dead sisters. The Keeper of Secrets had been the first Greater Daemon she had killed, sending it shrieking back to its master as punishment for all the horrors it had visited upon Parnis.
"He fulfilled his duty admirably, even if he didn't realize his true purpose and you cut him down, taking your first step on the path that led you here, to Us."
She thought back on the death of the Blessed Enquiry, on her transformation. Could Sanguinius have orchestrated all of this ?
… Yes. He could have. The Angel War had proven the reach of the Daemon Primarch's foresight beyond any doubt. But the rest of his claim was nonsense.
"The daemons of Slaanesh have tried to kill me ever since I became the Daemonifuge !" protested Ephrael. The Angel's words were madness. They had to be !
She was not a puppet of the Dark Gods. She wasn't !
"You had to be tested, of course," said Sanguinius with a wave of his free hand. "And there were many among the Dark Prince's court who were jealous of your destiny."
"The foul creatures you call your sons attacked me," she spat.
"We gave up on my sons long ago, Ephrael. They failed Us, save for a few We salvaged, and We washed Our hands of them millennia before your first birth. Those who came for you on Parnis acted on their own, seeing only the shadow of your fate instead of its full glory, as We do."
Was it ? … Was she ? … God-Emperor, it couldn't be …
But the God-Emperor is dead, whispered a treacherous voice that was entirely her own. He is dead and gone, and His light is dying …
"You are a devourer of souls, something only a few of Our failed sons have managed to become despite all the centuries We waited for them to make something better of themselves. That is why you are the bane of Our Dark Prince's lesser servants, Ephrael. With each of them you destroyed, your own power has grown, until you were ready to be Our queen, bright and terrible. It is your destiny to stand with Us as we remake the Imperium, to be feared as We are loved - "
The Black Staff came down hard upon the ground, cutting through the Angel's speech.
Liar, proclaimed the silent voice of Ahzek Ahriman, broadcast so that all could hear it.
That single word, and the psychic weight behind it, cut through the fog that had crept over Ephrael's mind, so slowly she hadn't even noticed it. Its roots laid in the doubts she had always harboured after her transformation – the fear that the Inquisitors who named her a witch were right, that she was a monster the White Seers of the Black Library only allowed in their domain as a ruse to contain her until she could be either used in the war against Chaos or safely destroyed.
Sanguinius had taken those doubts and tried to use them to bend her mind. Anger ignited inside her at the thought of that utter violation.
She didn't know what hands had shaped her destiny. But so what ? Untold trillions of humans lived their lives without that knowledge. Why should she be different ?
The Daemonifuge and the False Angel turned toward the former Chief Librarian – the former in gratitude, the second in contempt.
"Thank you, Ahzek," said Ephrael, before returning her attention to the Daemon Primarch.
She brandished her sword, the blade that she had taken with her in exile, the blade that had held Sarthorael back and slain Kyriss, and pointed it at the Angel of Chaos.
"I am Ephrael Stern", she proclaimed, all doubt gone from her thoughts. "I am the Thrice-Born, the Daemonifuge. I have seen the true face of the god you serve, and I tell you this, oh fallen prince of angels : no one who knows what I know could ever willingly join such abomination. The slaves behind you only follow you because you broke their minds and warped their souls with your foul power. Whether they wear rags or golden armor, not one of them would follow you if it were their true choice."
"All of them are Ours. They looked upon Our glory, and recognized that only through Our service can their little lives have meaning."
"You lie, to yourself and others. It is all your kind ever does."
Sanguinius shook his head in a mockery of sadness.
"Must all of you be so blind ? Is this to be Our last trial, then ? A final test of Our readiness to succeed Our sire, that We can do what is necessary and strike down those who should be at Our side ?"
Diomedes, who hadn't spoken – either out loud or telepathically – since his rebirth, banged his spear against his armored chest, a wordless proclamation of defiance to the creature responsible for all his pain.
"Very well. So be it."
And so it began. With doom looming high in her thoughts, the Daemonifuge threw herself at the False Angel, ready to end this once and for all.
Ephrael and Diomedes engaged the Daemon Primarch in melee, while Ahriman stayed back, pitching his Corvidae abilities against Sanguinius' foresight and giving his two allies the help they needed to keep up with the Angel – if only barely. The son of Magnus whispered in their minds, showing them glimpses of the immediate future that allowed them to match the arch-champion of Slaanesh's might. Their weapons were infused with great powers which, while greatly different in nature and origin, could resist the daemonic strength of the Blade Encarmine and its wielder when they clashed. They fought with breathtaking grace and skill, never more than a hair's breadth from disaster.
And still, it wasn't enough. Sanguinius was far more powerful now than he had been when the Mournival had struck him down on those same grounds. He was also in full possession of his reason, twisted and corrupted though his mind might be. The three heroes had yet to land a single blow, and for all their strength and courage, they were slowly tiring, while Sanguinius was as fresh as when he had emerged from the shell of the Sanguinor, his incarnation sustained by the Dark Prince's own power, coming from the Tear of Nightmares above.
He laughed as he fought, mocking and taunting his opponents with vivid descriptions of what he would do to the galaxy once he claimed the Golden Throne. His words burned the air around the combatants, making it shimmer with images of that monstrous future, showing the horror of Imperium Secundus in terrible details.
They saw the Ecclesiarchy rebuilt around the worship of the Angel, the aquila taken down on a million worlds and replaced by the icon of the winged blood-drop. They saw blood sacrifices take place in Ruinous cathedrals, people willingly walking to the altar to give their lives for the Angel to devour from his throne.
They saw the tomb of Mortarion on Barbarus desecrated, and the corpse of the Death Lord brought before the Golden Throne, to be returned to a twisted parody of life by the Angel's blood before the resulting revenant was unleashed upon Sanguinius' remaining foes. They saw the Orks wiped out from the galaxy, and the Hive-Mind of the Tyranids shattered into a million pieces that devoured each other until nothing remained but corpses.
They saw Guilliman's power broken, the Arch-Traitor made to kneel before Sanguinius along with all his hosts. They saw each of the other Traitor Primarchs made to serve, save for Dorn, whose rage was harnessed to power the greatest warmachine of Imperium Secundus. They saw the Craftworlds of the Eldar fall one by one, their Infinity Circuits cracked open so that the Youngest God could gorge itself upon the souls of the Children of Isha.
There were details missing, and things that didn't make sense except in the warped reality the Angel would create with the power of the Golden Throne enhancing his infernal power. But if Sanguinius had thought to break or tempt his foes with these visions of his awful dream, he was greatly mistaken. The three drew strength from their horror, hardening their resolve not to let that future pass. And they fought, on and on – until something changed.
The creature that thought of itself as Zesseth had forgotten many things. The eternity it had spent in the Silver Palace as a plaything for the Neverborn children of the Goddess had taken its toll on its mind, and resurrection hadn't healed the damage fully. Its memories the Time Before were fragmented, little more than flashes of the beautiful coral cities and underwater temples they had built together after their masters had vanished.
Perhaps because it had forgotten so much of its first life, Zesseth remembered everything after its resurrection with perfect clarity. It remembered opening its eyes for the first time, and the awed look on the priests' faces as they took in its white scales, the symbol of its nobility among the resurrected Laer race.
It remembered its life in the empire they had built, honored and worshipped as the embodiment of the Goddess' love for its people, a love so great that She had orchestrated their resurrection and delivered unto them the means of vengeance.
Then Zesseth saw him.
It knew him. It recognized him, though they had both changed almost beyond recognition. He didn't wear the same purple and gold armor, instead wearing patchwork gear and a sword that burned Zesseth's eyes when it looked at its blade. His face was set in an expression wholly unlike the arrogant visage he had shown back then, but Zesseth recognized him all the same.
When the Time Before had ended, it had been him who had killed Zesseth.
Zesseth slithered toward him, the cloak of flayed skin that covered its lower body making sounds pleasing to its ears as it stroked the ground. It raised a pair of hooked living blades held in its first set of hands, while the second – a gift of the Goddess for its deeds in the Breaking of the old foe – danced in patterns that imitated the dance of Her divine courtesans. Twin streaks of purple fire erupted from its six-fingered hands, but he blocked them with his pale sword, the eldritch flames sputtering impotently against the blade.
Then he was on Zesseth. The Laer noble struck with its two blades, hissing a curse in the language of its people. The mix of Low Gothic, stolen Eldar dialect, and daemon speech caused the thralls manning the nearby artillery to recoil in pain, clutching bleeding ears. But he was unaffected, and parried each of Zesseth's strikes perfectly.
With every failed attack, Zesseth grew more furious. It wanted him dead. It wanted revenge, revenge for the destruction of Laer, revenge for its first death, revenge for all the wondrous horrors that had been visited upon it before being blessed with rebirth !
But it couldn't win, couldn't even manage to land a single blow. His patchwork armor wouldn't have done anything to protect him from its living blades, but he was just too fast, too agile !
And then, he went on the offensive, for the first time since they had begun their clash. His blade went straight through Zesseth's guard and plunged into its throat, severing its spinal column and bursting out of its neck before being drawn out in one smooth motion that send its head rolling away, its body twitching in violent spasms that he still avoided, already moving toward his next target.
And for the second, and final time, Zesseth died. But this time, its fractured soul did not slip into the waiting maw of Slaanesh, but instead found the cold tranquillity that was promised to the champions and victims of Vindicta alike.
From behind the Slaaneshi host came a great war-cry. There stood Lucius the Reborn and his army of the lost and abandoned children of Terra, who had chosen to risk everything to join the final battle for their world. They struck the rear guard of the Slaaneshi horde with complete abandon, falling upon the Laer's living artillery and silencing it. Workers and gangers swarmed towering constructs of scaled flesh and cut them apart with sharpened metal bars and burned them with improvised flamethrowers, screaming their defiance at the monsters who defiled their home.
In Lucius' hand was the Vindicta-blessed sword he had received from the Chosen of Magnus, and the Slaves to Ruin recoiled before its pale radiance. At his side were the companions who had followed him across war-torn Terra : Khalid Harut, the last Herald of Prospero, haloed in the ghostly shapes of the wrathful dead; Meherzah Jahangir, whose telepathic abilities had done as much to keep their patchwork army together as the sight of his augmented body's martial prowess; and Salvor Lermentov – a man, just a man, with no particular gift or destiny, who had made the choice of dedicating everything he was to helping those who needed it.
As they cut a path deeper through the Slaaneshi host, Lucius found himself targeted by the Tithed Ones, who turned from the frontline to hunt him down. Tattered fragments of their former identities drove the ruined Emperor's Children to find the hero of their Legion, their fractured souls seeking an end to their torment. Terrible was the Reborn's fury at the sight of what had been done to his brothers' descendants, and he delivered unto them the release they craved with all that was left of their minds, the dead of Terra whispering their names into his ear as he fought.
And still he advanced, plunging through enemy ranks like a spear of righteous lightning. He was drawn to the base of Lupercal's Gate, not by destiny, but by duty, for there was the one responsible for Terra's woes. The soul of the world screamed at him of the great defiler's sins, the one who, in another age, he had failed to prevent from killing the Warmaster.
Perhaps Sanguinius sensed Lucius' approach, or perhaps the Dark Power that had damned him looked after him. The closer the Reborn got to the battle against the Angel, the more daemons and cultists hurled themselves at him, stopping him with the sheer weight of their bodies – until, together, the two Chosen of Magnus at the Child of the Emperor's side seized him in a kinetic grasp, and tossed him above the grinding melee like a cannonball.
It wasn't the most dignified method of transport, but it worked. Lucius rolled and rose to his feet, the violent battle briefly pausing as the combatants took in this new arrival. All knew him, though only Ahriman had ever met him before, when Lucius had saved his life during the Siege at the cost of his own.
It was Sanguinius who spoke first, his words dripping with condescension :
"We know you, Lucius. Once your soul shone so bright, even in ignorance. You could have been Our comrade, Our champion, carrying Our banner … But that time has passed. Now you are nothing but the ghost of a dead Legion, clinging to a mantle that will crush you under its weight. Do you have any idea of what you have become ?"
"I am your enemy, now and forever," said Lucius, untroubled by the words of the False Angel. "Until the last battle, until the final dawn – until it is done."
"The end has already come and gone, fool" sneered Sanguinius. "Your Legion is broken. Their homeworld lies in ruins, and your brothers are now Ours. It was We guided dear old Fabius' hands as he did the work. Then We whispered into their ears, and made sure they were ready to strike when another face of Our friend launched his attack on Chemos."
"Alone or with a Legion, I am a son of Fulgrim," growled the Reborn. "A defender of Terra. Know this, False Angel : this world will never bow to you."
"Will it not ? Do you think it will have a choice ? None but Us remain to succeed Our father. Konrad, Mortarion and Horus are dead," Sanguinius listed off. "Perturabo sleeps in his tomb, trapped in a half-death worse than any torment We can conceive of. Lorgar is an idealistic fool who refused to accept the truth after it stared him in the face for ten thousand years. Magnus rejected the power that would have made him invincible because he feared his own shadow." Sanguinius briefly frowned. "Omegon just rejected his only chance at relevance in this galaxy's tale. Angron fights a war that cannot be won on the edge of the circle of stars. And Fulgrim ? Well … He languishes in darkness, far from here. He will not come to save the day at the last minute this time."
Sanguinius had thought to break Lucius with despair, but his words had the opposite effect. For, with his taunt, the Angel of Slaanesh had inadvertently revealed something all Emperor's Children had hoped for, but never known for certain : that their gene-sire, lost millennia ago in the darkness of Commoragh during that dark city's Burning, yet lived.
"Enough," snapped Sanguinius. "You have all made it clear that you won't learn until We make you. Very well then. The Laers could use a lesson in how to properly break someone."
With the assistance of Lucius, the Imperial champions resumed their battle against Sanguinius, Lucius matching his legendary skill against the might of the Daemon Primarch. Meanwhile, caught between the defenders of Lupercal's Gate and the Salvor Lermentov's reinforcements, the Slaaneshi host was thrown into disarray, unable to focus on either of the two threats.
As Sanguinius batted aside the attacks of the three melee combatants, Ahriman caught sight of the Pale Spear, embedded point-first into the ground where it had fallen from atop Lupercal's Gate. Though he had never seen it in action before, he recognized the weapon from when he had met Omegon at Magnus' side on Mars. For the first time since Light's End, Ahriman's second sight briefly cleared from the smoke of the burning future, and he saw what he must do. A plan coalesced in his mind, and he kept watching the confrontation, still assisting his comrades with his foresight, until the tiniest of openings presented itself.
The moment it came, Ahriman pulled the Pale Spear free with a burst of telekinetic power, launching his wounded body forward in the same instant. The weapon of Omegon reached his right hand, his left still holding the Black Staff, and he plunged it into the back of Sanguinius while he was distracted with the other champions. The Pale Spear struck true, piercing through the armor of the Daemon Primarch and spilling his blood for the first time since his arrival upon Holy Terra.
Sanguinius' reaction was terrible. The mask of amusement he had worn thus far vanished, replaced by a visage of divine fury, and he drew upon the great power he had been bestowed by Slaanesh. Too fast for any of the combatants to react, a wave of raw psychic power burst out of him, hurling Ephrael, Diomedes and Lucius hurling through the air. Only Ahriman remained standing, anchoring himself into the ground with the Black Staff. Sanguinius whirled around, tearing the Pale Spear free from his incarnated flesh, and loomed over the former Chief Librarian.
"Enough," snarled the Daemon Primarch. "We will not tolerate your insolence any longer, nephew !"
With a single blow, Sanguinius shattered the Pale Spear. The power of the Blade Encarmine blazed as it cut through the haft of Omegon's antediluvian weapon, overpowering the ancient mechanisms and turning it into a storm of razor-sharp shards that erupted around them before falling still on the ground, each fragment glowing with the power the Pale Spear had accumulated over the ages Omegon had wielded it against the enemies of Humanity.
Ahriman raised his Black Staff to block the next blow, only for the ancient weapon to be cut in two by Sanguinius' infernal sword. The destruction of the psychic focus unleashed a wave of energy that threw Ahriman backward, but that the Angel weathered with a beat of his great wings, before striding toward the Chief Librarian as he returned to his feet.
"Do you really think your petty tricks can defeat Us, little warlock ?" raged Sanguinius. "We are the Angel of Chaos ! We are the Dark Prince's chosen champion, the true Emperor of Mankind !"
With that blasphemous declaration, Sanguinius plunged the Blade Encarmine into Ahriman's chest. The sword cut through armor like paper and burst out of the Space Marine's back. As it had with Galahoth, the weapon drank deep of Ahriman's blood, but as it sought to consume his soul, the Rubric with which he was so deeply tied held fast. As his spirit was tugged between the two opposite forces, the pain of Ahriman's body paled to insignificance next to that of his soul.
With his vocal chords ruined, Ahriman didn't give Sanguinius the satisfaction of screaming. Instead, he glared back at his killer, drawing upon all the secrets he had gleaned in the years of his exile, all the hidden truths and mysteries that were as much part of his power as the raw strength of his soul-fire, and released one last working of the Art.
You are no Angel, pulsed Ahriman, and the Dark Gods themselves heard him. May they all see you for what you really are.
The former First Captain of the Thousand Sons poured all of his remaining power in that final curse. His body turned to dust inside his armor as the last of his life-force was drained away by his last great working. The Rubric in his soul flared, blazing brighter than the sun for a brief moment, and it sundered the Glamour that surrounded Sanguinius, revealing the Angel's true appearance for all to behold.
In the Throneroom, Magnus the Red wept. For even now, after becoming the guiding hand of the Astronomican – after fusing with the echoes of every psyker who had been sacrificed to its flames – after watching the galaxy burn through the eyes of Chaos while his body laid silent in the Pyramid of Photep – after all of this …
… it still hurt, to see his son die.
Sanguinius screamed. The Glamour, that lie Slaanesh had fashioned for him after his second fall and that he had turned, first into a shroud of deceit masking his intent, then into an instrument of subjugation, was ripped to shreds by the blade of uncompromising, unforgiving truth. Ahriman had understood the Glamour in a way no other psyker in the galaxy ever had, and had learned how to destroy it at the gates of the Black Library, when he had stripped the Chaos Lord Rafen the Kinslayer of it at the end of his long errance.
Now, by using the connection Sanguinius had forged between them by plunging the Blade Encarmine into his chest and sacrificing his life as fuel for the spell, Ahriman had repeated that feat, a hundred times greater and more.
Sanguinius' face was gaunt, cadaveric even, and framed by white, lanky hair matted in gore. His eyes were twin pits of unlight, reflective of the monstrous Thirst that consumed his Legion of vampires and revenants ; his mouth a maw of vampiric fangs within which writhed a too-long forked tongue. His armor was covered in the dried blood of his victims, only a few glimmers of gold visible underneath, each reflecting images of a different burning world, lost to the madness of the Ninth Legion and the mad cultists of Slaanesh across the galaxy.
In his hand, the Blade Encarmine too was revealed for the avatar of inhuman hunger it really was, all beauty stripped away to reveal the daemon weapon's cruel form. It was hell forged into the shape of a sword, a prison for the uncounted thousands of souls Sanguinius had slain in person, where they suffered endless torments to fuel the False Angel's power.
Only Sanguinius' wings remained unchanged, the contrast between the pure white feathers and the rest of the Daemon Primarch's infernal appearance only increasing his hideousness.
This was the monster Sanguinius had always run from before his Fall, the one he had denied existed within him, the one he had refused to confront and conquer, driven by a fear born in his childhood. This was the Beast that had ordered the Burning of Anahktor, slaughtering an entire world's people for their leaders' crime of insulting him. This was the greatest abomination of lost Baal, a monster devoid of any of Humanity's nobler qualities, and the incarnation of every selfish and cruel evil that dwelled within mortal hearts.
The shattering of Sanguinius' Glamour also removed the veil from the eyes of his thralls, but it didn't save them. In the hours since they had fallen under the Daemon Primarch's spell, the touch of Slaanesh had spread among them, warping their bodies and brains. Feathered wings in the image of the Angel were but one of the mutations that had tainted Sanguinius' stolen armies : there were many, many more, each more anathema to the holiness of Humanity's form than the last.
Skins shifted to colors that made the eye bleed; limbs turned into animalistic counterparts or split into more; bones became malleable or vanished entirely, leaving behind bodies moved by will and sorcery. Sensory organs were grotesquely inflated, now perceiving realms of sensation no living thing had experienced since the Fall. Faces were turned into perfected versions of themselves, or into nightmarish masks of flesh and burning Warp-fire. Those who had possessed augmetics had their artificial components equally changed, now running on their blood instead of the Motive Force, with augmetic limbs being twisted into sharp blades – whether they were arms or legs.
Under the Glamour's influence, the corrupted followers of Sanguinius had been unaware of their mutations, seeing themselves as idealized versions of their former selves, made greater by basking in the radiance of the Angel. Now they were forced to confront their own hideous transformations, and the bestial instincts the lies of the Glamour had kept at bay were unleashed in full.
The discipline of the Slaaneshi host fell apart, and it turned from an army marching to support its prince's coronation into a horde of cultists, mutants and daemons. Corrupted Guardsmen who had marched in perfect parade formation moments ago turned to self-mutilation and cannibalism as they charged the closest enemy, still driven by the will of the Dark Prince radiating from the Tear of Nightmares and bubbling in their blood. Elsewhere on the wall, farther from the presence and power of Sanguinius, the other components of the divided host turned on themselves in an orgy of blood-letting and excess that the gunners on the wall watched in horror.
New hosts of Slaaneshi Neverborn emerged from this madness, eventually hurling themselves at the wall of the Inner Palace, sizzling and bursting as they met the ancient and fully-powered wards. Ecclesiarchy priests and sanctioned psykers felt the strains on the spiritual defenses, but for now, the wards were holding, and the guns of Lupercal's Gate rained fiery death upon the attackers.
In the mayhem, the defenders of Lupercal's Gate slowed their charge, forced to hold their ground against the renewed aggression of their foe. But their morale had been reinforced by the sudden removal of the Glamour's weight on their souls : even with the wards of the Gate protecting them, the pernicious influence of the Angel had been pressing against their wills. Now it was gone, and while they could now feel the full monstrosity of the Daemon Primarch behind them, they were veterans of the Angel War one and all, their souls hardened against daemon-inspired dread.
Amidst that vicious melee, Commander Nemo was face-to-face with a Chaos Marine in blood-red armor. He recognized it as one of the Violators, that warband that had taken the Hall of Judgement.
To Nemo's senses, the breaking of the Glamour had registered as the sound of a billion mirrors shattering at once, and the lifting of a great weight upon his soul. Despite his creeping exhaustion, he could breathe easier, and the recycled air of his armor tasted fresher than it had any right to.
The effect on his foe was more pronounced. The Violator that the Command had been fighting for the last five minutes wasn't thrown into the same savage madness that was overtaking the rest of the horde. Instead, it was as if some previous restraint had been cast off – as if the monster no longer had to play the role the Glamour's lies had forced upon him, and could now fight using the fullness of his strength and skills. The other Violators Nemo had killed today were brutes, using their transhuman strength and the dark boons of their patron to carry them through battle.
But this one fought like one of the Sanguinary Guard veterans, only without any of the decorum and discipline those gilded heretics clung to.
The Violator was stronger, faster and more experienced than Nemo. The Commander of the Sons of Horus was a veteran of centuries of warfare, and he knew that he was outmatched. However, he did have one advantage the Chaos Marine didn't have :
He wasn't fighting alone.
His vox clicked, and within five heartbeats, half a dozen of his battle-brothers – some belonging to his Legion, but not all – disengaged from their own battles and shot concentrated volleys at the Violator. His armor was torn to pieces, and he froze, as shock from his wounds overwhelmed his monstrous resilience, and fell to the ground.
"Cheat," burbled the Violator, blood pouring out of his mouth. "Is this what the Sixteenth's honor has come to ?"
Nemo didn't bother with answering the monster's accusations : he merely aimed his bolt pistol and fired, turning his head into a pink mist.
Behind Lupercal's Gate were billions of civilians, and the defenders were all that stood between them and the horde. In those circumstances, what did honor matter ? Indeed, to let himself be killed rather than ask for aid would have been the more dishonorable choice.
"Lupercal !" Nemo roared, as more of the Lost and the Damned charged him, their faces distorted into expressions of purest hatred and hunger. He wasn't shocked when half of them, instead of attacking him, fell upon the corpse of his foe and began devouring it. Disgusted, yes, and surprised that their madness would run so deep, but not shocked.
After everything he had seen in the Angel War, there was little left that could shock him. Yet still, there was something … disturbing, in the ravenous, obsessed way in which the mutants gorged themselves upon the Violator's flesh while Nemo cut through their kindred not ten meters away from them.
Grief bloomed within Ephrael's chest as she saw the empty armor of Ahriman fall the ground. It was different from the crushing weight of her sorrow at the God-Emperor's demise – this was a more personal, more human emotion. Grief, not for a god, but for a friend.
It seemed that, despite all that she had gone through, despite all the transformations she had endured, she was still human after all.
Her hands tightened into fists as she forced herself to stand up. How many more, she wondered ? She had already seen Kyganil, the Eldar Ranger who had rescued her from death at the hands of the Inquisition's fanatics, die to bring her to the Black Library. And before that, Silas Hand, the first man who had believed her to be more than a heretic, only to die at the claws of the Neverborn that had been hunting her. And before him, the Sisters who had suffered unspeakable torments, holding onto their faith until she had come to deliver them …
Her past was a road paved with the dead, while she alone went on, through resurrection after resurrection. How many more, before the end ? She could see Lucius stir where he had fallen, the Reborn's body broken beyond even the ability of a Space Marine's body to recover from quickly. Diomedes had fared better, but there were cracks in his armor too from his fall, and without Ahriman's help, Ephrael doubted they would be able to stand for long against Sanguinius. Stripped of his fair disguise or not, the Daemon Primarch was still as powerful as before – the vessel for all the dark energies Slaanesh had infused into its great servants, before they had been slain by the Imperium's heroes.
Which one of them would die next, she thought ?
No. No more. She wouldn't let anyone else die in her stead. She took her grief and let it harden inside her, turning into a cold fury that fuelled her power.
Sanguinius was wrong. He thought that because the Emperor was dead, He could not punish the Daemon Primarch for his crimes. But she was here, was she not ? She was the Emperor's answer to the False Angel's evil. She was His guardian, wrought from the clay of horrors committed by the Ruinous Powers so that she might have the strength to protect Humanity from them.
She was the Daemonifuge, and woe to those who dared harm His people.
The Tear of Nightmares had brought the Materium and the Immaterium closer together than ever before. Most loyalist psykers were too hard-pressed keeping the Warp's corruption at bay to take advantage of it, but Ephrael's soul was Anathema to the horrors of the Sea of Souls. She had held back from drawing upon that power, afraid that it would taint her, but the time for half-measures had passed. She opened the floodgates, and let the power of the Sea of Souls flow through her, purified in the crucible of her will and nature.
Eyes burning with too-bright light, the Daemonifuge went to face the False Angel. Lightning crackled around her, and the blade in her hand shone with the same radiance.
"SANGUINIUS !" she roared, her voice resonating from one end of the Inner Palace's walls to the next. "COME AND DIE !"
The vampiric visage of the Daemon Primarch turned toward her, wild and mad with rage and bloodthirst. His incarnation sizzled and smoked where Ephrael's light touched it, but he was too powerful, to full of Slaanesh's blessings, to be so easily harmed.
"You will pay for this insult !" Sanguinius screeched, his voice as changed as his appearance, for it now echoed with the screams of a million damned souls. He slammed one boot into the empty armor of Ahriman, breaking the ceramite to shards in a single blow. "We will bind your souls, all of you, and visit upon you an eternity of torments, until you beg Us to be allowed to lick Our boots to ease the agony ! We will wipe out every soul on this misbegotten planet and reshape it in Our image, before doing the same to the Imperium ! We will hunt down the warlock's spirit wherever he might hide and feed him into the fires of the Beacon after We claim it, that he might burn forevermore to spread the light of Our glory that he dared reject ! We will -"
There was the sound of metal grinding on stone, and Sanguinius suddenly stopped ranting, his gaze moving past Ephrael. Ephrael dared not take her eyes off her foe, fearing this might be a trick – until she felt it too.
Behind the walls, the gate of the Cavea Ferrum's entrance swung open, and out of the dark strode Lorgar Aurelian, the Sword That Was Promised blazing in his hand. He had run all the way from the Throneroom, taking advantage of the temporal distortions within the maze his brother had wrought to cross the entire distance in mere minutes. After all, to one who had spent millennia battling the Neverborn in the Realms of Chaos, the strange geometries of the Cavea Ferrum were child's play to comprehend.
Before Lupercal's Gate, the daemons and their slaves screamed in agony at its presence, while those who had gathered to stand against them – heroes one and all – felt their steadily diminishing strength renewed. The proximity of the Sword That Was Promised was like the coming of dawn after night, like the sweetness of fresh water after days spent in a merciless desert. It was respite from the ceaseless onslaught of Chaos from the Tear of Nightmares, silence where the endless whispers of daemons had ground against the walls of their will.
The Angel of Ruin snarled as he faced his brother. Unnatural stillness descended as the two looked at one another, and despite their shared origin, in that moment they couldn't have been more different.
"Sanguinius," said Lorgar softly, and while there was grief in his voice, there was no hesitation. "This ends here. You will go no further."
"Will you not ask Us to repent, dear brother ?" mocked Sanguinius. "Will you not as Us to turn aside from the Dark Powers, and return to the righteous path ?"
"You can never be forgiven for all the things you have done," replied Lorgar, his face a picture of serenity that could have been carved into a cliff. "For you feel no remorse for any of your deeds. I see you for what you are, clearer even than the others who look upon you now, stripped of your cloak of shining lies."
"And yet, you offered redemption to our brother of darkness and smoke, didn't you ?"
"Lion El'Jonson at least retains the decency to feel regret for his actions, even if he tells himself they were necessary. Whereas you … You don't even regret the murder of Horus."
"The Lion only feels regret because his pain amuses Tzeentch," spat Sanguinius, showing no reaction to the name of the brother he had slain on those very grounds. "He dances on the strings of that puppeteer, deprived of all but the flintiest illusion of choice."
Lorgar nodded. "I know. Did you think I wouldn't ? There are no tricks left that the Dark Gods haven't already tried on me, Sanguinius, save those their hollow minds cannot comprehend. I know the Lion is a puppet, his very thoughts made to dance for the amusement of the God of Lies. But it changes nothing. It is in the nature of Chaos to destroy itself, and just because the Lion's remorse is at the sufferance of his slave-master, does not mean it cannot be the key to his salvation."
"If you truly believe this, then you are a greater fool than We took you for, Lorgar."
"Perhaps," admitted Lorgar. "I choose to have faith, regardless. But you ? I do not know how much of your damnation is the result of your own choices, and how much was caused by the terrible power that consumed your destiny. But in the end, it doesn't matter. You are a monster, however you came to that ruinous state. An abomination against Humanity and the universe. There is nothing left in you to save, no way to redeem you but death."
"You cannot kill Us," and there was nothing of Sanguinius' old self in the voice that spoke now, only the Angel of Ruin. "We are the hunger for greatness that lurks within the souls of men. We are the desire that drives all transgressions by those who know better. We are eternal !"
"That," said Lorgar calmly, "is just another lie the Dark Gods told you. Everything great about you has been taken away, until what stand before me is nothing but a posturing spirit, bloated with corrupted power that was never really yours. There is no mask left for you to hide behind like a shield, Sanguinius. No false light to blind your foe. You are exposed, Angel, and you stand alone."
"We need no one else to kill you, brother," laughed Sanguinius, and the discordant sound of his laughter clashed against the aura of the Sword That Was Promised like a dying scream in the middle of the night. "Let Us demonstrate !"
And for the first time since the Siege of Terra, two Primarchs went to war upon the soil of Humanity's birthworld.
We see this, the battlefield where the five stand against the one. We see the one dead and the one dying, though he is barred from death by the burden he carries. We see she who is thrice-born, he who was reforged and reclaimed, and he who was lost and found.
We see the fallen angel, his veil of lies and empty promises torn aside by our beloved son. We see his hunger, his darkness so great it would crush Humanity under its weight if given the chance, smothering the flame of the species' soul and leaving only gnawing emptiness in its place.
Lady Ephrael, we see you, and we whisper to you and you alone, unheard by the one who was once our brother. The hour approaches, oh Daemonifuge, oh Heretic Saint.
Do you know what it is you must do ? Oh yes, you do. We see your dead sisters, clinging to your soul still, whispering into your heart as we do into your mind. They know secrets of the Dark Prince that even we remain ignorant of.
Be prepared, Ephrael. Be prepared.
The ground shook and reality shuddered as Lorgar and Sanguinius fought beneath the archway of Lupercal's Gate. The two Primarchs were each incarnations of opposed forces – one the avatar of Slaanesh's desire for victory in the Great Game of Chaos, the other wielder of the Emperor's dream and the promise made manifest in the Sword. Each held in his hands a blade of singular might, before which lesser Powers had been humbled and brought low. Each clash of Luther's ancient weapon against Sanguinius' infernal sword caused psychic shock-waves that battered the wards of the Inner Palace.
Witnessing such an epic confrontation, the three heroes sought to come to Lorgar's aid. Diomedes raised his spear, and called upon the power that dwelled within it to unleash a beam of black light aimed at Sanguinius' flank. But the Daemon Primarch had foreseen the attack, and caught the beam with his left hand, blocking it with his armored palm and a conjured barrier of psychic energy. With a twist of his hand, Sanguinius returned the attack, and Diomedes barely got out of the way of the False Angel's riposte, which left a deep crater in the ground.
Lucius and Ephrael attacked Sanguinius' back, hoping to catch him between them and Lorgar. But with a beat of his wings, Sanguinius turned toward them, dodging Lorgar's resulting attack by less than a millimeter, his skin blackening at the proximity of the Sword That Was Promised. His right arm, wielding the Blade Encarmine, caught Ephrael mid-flight, and the Daemonifuge only barely managed to block a decapitating blow that instead sent her crashing backward. Meanwhile, Sanguinius' left hand plunged into Lucius' chest, tearing through the lesser armor the Reborn had managed to obtain, and ripped out both of his hearts, crushing them in his grip. The corpse of Lucius hit the ground, motionless, and Lorgar cried out in fury at the sight.
The Primarch of the Word Bearers could see the darkness coming for the soul of Lucius, and knew that the champion of the Third Legion would perish forever should it claim him. Remembering the words of his brother Magnus, Lorgar gathered his power and ignited the Sword That Was Promised. For a moment, it shone with a radiance akin to that of the Astronomican itself, and the darkness was driven back, its hold on Lucius' soul burned away.
But Lorgar's action had left him open, as Sanguinius had planned, and before the Primarch could recover, the Blade Encarmine came down and cut off Lorgar's right hand at the wrist. Hand and Sword fell to the ground, before Sanguinius kicked Lorgar in the chest with impossible strength, hurling him several meters away from the Sword.
Sanguinius laughed, a vile and monstrous sound.
"Sometimes, brother, the hero dies. And a pretty sword won't save you. Do you really think some old prophecy will help you now ? You, of all of us ! Is this what you have been reduced to ?"
"You understand nothing," replied Lorgar, powering through the pain of his lost hand with sheer will For all the injuries the Urizen had endured through his long life – and there were many – this was his first time being mutilated, and the Blade Encarmine didn't inflict painless wounds. "There is no prophecy, no destined salvation to be handed over to Humanity. This blade is no divine promise. It is a vow made manifest, yes … the vow of Humanity itself. The promise that one day, we shall live up to our own ideals, that we will be what we pretend to ourselves we are !"
"Lies and delusions, nothing more. And you do not have even that any longer," taunted Sanguinius.
"But I do, monster !"
Sanguinius turned his head, and beheld Ephrael, who had risen up and picked up the Sword That Was Promised from where it had fallen, leaving her own sword behind.
In the hands of the Daemonifuge, the Sword shone with a terrible radiance. The promise it incarnated mixed with the knowledge of Slaanesh Ephrael held to form a light that was anathema to all creations of the Dark Prince, and the horde that bayed at Lupercal's Gate recoiled in fright.
"It will destroy you," Sanguinius said, eyes wide in horror and recoiling from the Thrice-Born. "You cannot wield that much power, not as you are now. Nothing will remain of you – not even the meanest ghost or memory !"
"I know," grimly answered Ephrael. Already she could feel her flesh, her very self, being consumed by the power of the weapon she was holding. But it didn't matter. This was her destiny, the doom for which she had been made, and she couldn't think of a worthier one.
Then another hand closed around her own, huge enough as to completely wrap itself around both the handle of the Sword and her gauntlets.
Lorgar had stood up from where he had fallen, and come up behind her while she drew all of Sanguinius' attention. The Urizen's power flowed into the Sword, mixing with Ephrael, and he took up a portion of the burden of withstanding that awesome power for himself, easing the pain of Ephrael as he had eased his brother's before joining the battle.
"No," said the Primarch. "It won't. Not if we do it together."
"N-" began Sanguinius, but he never finished whatever he had been about to say.
They struck as one, and the Blade Encarmine shattered into a thousand fragments before their combined might. The Sword That Was Promised released all the souls that had been trapped within the daemon weapon in a torrent of howling spirits, before cutting a deep greave in the bloodstained armor of Sanguinius. The Daemon Primarch was thrown back by the impact, his infernal essence reacting violently to the Sword's power.
No blood poured from the wound, for the Daemon Primarch had been hurt far more deeply than just his incarnation. Instead, toxic light spilled from the tear as his damaged essence, the twisted and vile thing his immortal, Emperor-given soul had become, poured out. Reaching out to try and close it in much the same way a human soldier might try to hold his guts in after a disembowelling strike, the Angel of Chaos fell to one knee.
Still holding the Sword together, Ephrael and Lorgar approached Sanguinius. The Daemon Primarch looked up. Even then, at the end, there was no regret in his eyes – only bitter amusement.
"You should have let Us win," he said. "Mark Our words : Our reign would have been kinder than any of the others' will be."
Once again, Lorgar and Ephrael joined their minds and power, and together, they struck at Sanguinius' neck -
- time froze. Reality fell away, as if a curtain had been pulled to reveal the true stage of the universe.
Sister and Primarch stood in absolute blackness. In their grip, the Sword shone with the same light as before, but there was nothing for it to illuminate.
Since the end of the War in Heavens and Chaos' inception, none of the Dark Gods had ever been able to fully incarnate in the Materium. This was the reason they used daemons, lesser fragments of themselves that could be called into the physical plane. But now, with its greatest champion Sanguinius having claimed the power of six Exalted Daemon Lords and the Tear of Nightmares stretching all across Sol, Slaanesh stood closer to full-fledged manifestation than any Dark God ever had before. Even then, Slaanesh was still far from incarnation : only Sanguinius claiming the Astronomican and using it to tear a new hole in reality surpassing even the Eye of Terror would be enough for the Dark Prince to manifest in the resulting hellscape, an act that would herald the end of the Great Game and Slaanesh's ultimate victory.
But Slaanesh was still closest to the Materium than any Dark God had been in many ages of the galaxy, and in that moment Lorgar and Ephrael were brought to face the Dark Prince by the combined powers they wielded and the unique circumstances of their action.
The Dark Prince of Chaos loomed over Ephrael and Lorgar, an impossibly huge figure that was a maelstrom of obscene colors and visions of glorious horrors, too vast for even a Primarch and the Daemonifuge to truly comprehend, at least with their conscious minds. Only impressions could be glimpsed : a humanoid shape with sinuous horns and sensual curves, scales of purest white and feathers with all the colors of sin, fangs dripping with the galaxy's lifeblood, eyes that shone with violet light.
It was illuminated from within by billion upon billion of shining stars – each and everyone of them a soul the Lord of Pleasure and Pain had claimed upon their demise, to be tormented forevermore within it. Some of these stars formed constellations, shining in clusters of peerless agony that were like organs within the Dark God's shape, and these Ephrael knew to be Eldar Craftworlds that had been devoured whole during the Fall, when they had failed to escape the collapse of the Eldar Empire and the opening of the Eye of Terror.
I see you, said Slaanesh, in a voice that was louder than the cacophony of screams that radiated from it like body heat, that was a discordant note in the symphony of the universe. Little Lorgar, little Ephrael. Such dedication to your purpose you hold, little ones. Why, one might call it … obsession.
"False god," said Lorgar, undaunted in the face of such perfect evil. "We will stop you. Do you hear me, old horror ? We will yet be free !"
Your father said those words to me and my brothers, when yours first laid siege to his castle of ash and dust, purred the Dark Prince of Chaos. He was wrong too.
"But we have something He didn't," said Lorgar.
And what is that ?
Lorgar and Ephrael smiled, and something like worry flickered on Slaanesh's divine visage.
"A target," they said together, and swung the Sword That Was Promised.
Here, in this place where metaphor and reality met, where the Dark Prince of Chaos could manifest, the Sword's true aspect was revealed. It was as Lorgar had described it to Sanguinius, the promise of Humanity that one day, they would be better than they were – that one day, they live up to what they pretended to be. That the stories of heroism and kindness would be more than stories, that honor and dignity would be more than tools for the powerful to hold onto their power.
Through the potent soul of Lorgar, the full Power of the Sword That Was Promised could be drawn upon, tens of thousands of years of hopes and promises forming a psychic fire of unprecedented power. That fire then passed through the prism of Ephrael Stern's unique soul, a catalyst that granted it the same properties as the Daemonifuge. And together, they swung that fire, which took the aspect of an immense blade of pure light, at the form of the Dark Prince.
Seeing this attack approach, Slaanesh fled, withdrawing all of its essence and power not just from Sanguinius, but from Sol entirely. It wasn't quick enough, however, and the Sword That Was Promised cut it on the way out – a small cut on its hand, marring its perfection forevermore.
The Realms of Chaos echoed with the sound of the Dark Prince's scream, pain and fury and hatred mixed with something no mortal had heard in remembered history – the fear of a god.
Reality rushed back in, and Ephrael and Lorgar found themselves back under Lupercal's Gate. Before them, Sanguinius' beheaded body crumbled into dust and less than dust, which soon vanished completely. Ephrael knew, then, that the False Angel hadn't simply been banished back to the Empyrean, but annihilated. The Daemon Primarch had been abandoned by his Dark God, who had fled from them in fright, leaving the essence of Sanguinius to be completely consumed, removed from the Warp as Sarthorael's had been on Terathalion.
Suddenly, Ephrael realized the absurdity of her own thoughts. Fright. They had frightened a Dark God.
"We could have killed it," she whispered, the impossible thought demanding to be spoken aloud.
"Yes," replied Lorgar to her side. "Its flight proves that the Dark Prince feared us."
She turned, letting go of the Sword That Was Promised, and looked at him. Despite his injuries, Lorgar Aurelian was smiling – a joyful, but also savage smile.
"I thought … this was my destiny. That I would die here to stop him.
"The Emperor died so that there would be no such thing," said Lorgar. "So that we would make our own fates." He looked up, and his breath caught in his throat. "Look up, Ephrael." And she did.
The skies were miraculously clear of clouds. In the heavens, the hideous scar of the Tear of Nightmares was gone, seared close by the destruction of Sanguinius. Even the omnipresent pollution clouds of Terra had parted, revealing the black night sky, and the rays of the coming dawn on the horizon.
Without its baleful radiance and with their Dark Prince having fled from Sol, the daemonic legions across the system were already losing their hold onto corporeality, while the mortal followers of Slaanesh were struck with terror in their very souls, fleeing from battle as blind panic overwhelmed them. It would take months, years to cleanse the system from their taint, and the scars left by the Angel War would never fade away. But right now, right there, stillness descended upon the battlefield, as the soldiers of the Imperium realized that, against all odds and hopes, it was over.
Never, in all her lives, had Ephrael felt so exhausted.
"We won," she whispered.
Lucius breathed.
He was alive again. He had thought, when Sanguinius had struck him down that this would be his final death, the one from which he would not recover. It would have been a worthy end, as would have been every one of his previous deaths … and yet, here he was again. His armor was gone, leaving him clad only in drags. The sword Khalid had given him was right there at his side, and he picked it up as he stood and took in the changes around him.
One thing was obvious, which he had known since opening his eyes : they had won. Sanguinius was no more – not just banished, but well and truly gone. He felt Terra breathing a sigh of relief at the removal of this most terrible of threats. Already he could feel the crumbling of the Daemon Primarch's hordes across the Throneworld as mortal slaves of Ruin fled in terror, leaving behind Imperials too shocked by this sudden reversal of fortune to give pursuit.
But the threat hadn't passed. There remained many dangers to the Throneworld, some years or even decades in the future, others far more immediate. The people of Sol were traumatized by the atrocities of the Angel War, and those who had succumbed to the madness induced by the Tear of Nightmares hadn't been released by its searing. And beyond that, the Imperium had changed a great deal since the last time he had seen it, and few of these changes had been for the better.
Lucius could feel the fear, the deeply ingrained paranoia and distrust that existed in every Imperial institution. He sensed the fear the people of Terra held for the Space Marines, driven to a fevered peak by the fresh atrocities of the Angel War. He sensed the doubts within the High Lords, born of the failed conspiracy to bring the Emperor to apotheosis. There was only one path this didn't end with the Sol system, and by extension the Imperium, tore itself apart in the coming years. And they had to start walking that path now.
The Reborn walked across the stunned battlefield, and the weight of his mantle drew the eyes of the exhausted combatants. Then, under the gaze of thousands of Space Marines, Custodes, Guardsmen, Sisters, militia and countless others who had come together in defense of the Imperium in its hour of direst need, he knelt.
Lucius knelt before Lorgar, sword held in both hands, the tip of his blade planted into the ground, and spoke a single word that was heard by every faithful soul that had taken part in the Battle of Lupercal's Gate :
"Warmaster."
There was a moment of silence, as the future rested on the edge of a knife. Then :
"Warmaster !" roared Deradaeddon Nemo, standing up despite the grievous injuries that covered his body, holding up his blade in salute of the one who had, at last, avenged his long-lost Primarch. "Hail Lorgar ! Hail Warmaster Aurelian !"
"Warmaster !" shouted Salvor Lermentov, who had miraculously survived, brandishing a lasgun.
"Warmaster !" shouted the armies of the Imperium, a title and a crowning and a promise all at once. "Warmaster ! Warmaster !"
Exchanging a glance with Ephrael, Lorgar took up the Sword That Was Promised in his left hand and raised it up to the clear skies. He opened his mouth, and said :
"For the Emperor !"
From the shadows of Lupercal's Gate, where he had just arrived from the top, Omegon watched it all happen, and laughed, even as tears of grief and joy ran on his cheeks.
"For the Emperor indeed," he whispered to no one in particular. The words were old ones, an oath he and his Legion had employed for ten thousand years, now given a new meaning by his brother. No longer would they fight in His name : now they would fight so that His sacrifice wouldn't have been in vain.
Unseen, the Lord of the Hydra nodded to himself. He had lost his Spear, his armor was in shambles, his plan to make the Emperor a god had failed, his arm was missing and his Legion had revealed every asset it had in Sol as part of the Damocles Protocol.
There was much to be done. Victory was theirs, but victory wasn't enough.
Is this … victory ?
It is. Our brother is released, granted oblivion. The Angel of Slaanesh is ended, now and forevermore. May whatever shade remained of who he once was finally be at peace.
But this is not the end. Elsewhere, darkness gathers, revealed with the passing of Light's End.
The rules have changed, but the board remains. The pieces are in place, even if one of the players has run a sword through his own heart. The game will continue. Time does not stop even when your father is dead. That is the way it has always been for Humanity. Why should it be different for us ?
We see so many worlds, so many wars. Uralan. Cadia. Olympia. Sancour. Commoragh. Damnos. Tartarus.
We see the blood-soaked battlefields of the galaxy, altars upon which the future is set ablaze by the devotees of Ruin. A grand ritual of damnation to herald the coming of Chaos Ascendant. The Age of Nightmares is upon us, brothers.
Yet we shall not abandon the Dream, for in this victory are revealed the seeds of hope.
You and your secretive cabal have learned how to create gods, Omegon. But by the blade of Lorgar, the opposite lesson has been learned.
All things are impossible until done for the first time. With the sundering of our father, a god has died. The paradigm has shifted. The truth that has reigned since the Imperial Truth died in the fires of Guilliman's Heresy may now be changed. The precarious balance of this grim universe can be upset, one way or another.
We must now consider the metaphysics of deicide.
AN : Well, at last, here we are.
I am working on an epilogue to the Terran Crucible arc of the Times of Ending - a series of short scenes showing the aftermath of Light's End, the Angel War, and the Battle of Lupercal's Gate, as well as the other events that took place in that "book". Given that part one, the Hunt for Cypher, was published in mars 2019, writing that book took me over two years. Dear gods. Things were different back then, weren't there ? For each and everyone of us, I reckon.
According to a quick calculation and the numbers from Spacebattles, the Terran Crucible took a total of around 248 thousand words. I have said it before, but it bears repeating : I am never doing that again. Going forwards, each of the RH's "books" will be much closer in length to the Siege of Terathalion, or the Battle of Maccrage, with some being single-chapter issues, like the Rise of Ynnead or the Fall of Chemos - and oh, I have just noticed how those two titles mirror each other. Uh. That's weird.
Yes, Magnus' final speech contains a list of the next locations I intend to take this series. It is not absolute: I reserve the right to make changes to my plans if inspiration strikes. But for now, that is the plan I am going to follow.
Once the epilogue is finished, I am thinking of going back to A Blade Recast for a few chapters. But we will see.
Thanks to Jaenera Targaryen for beta-reading this chapter, and many, many thanks to Nemris, who held onto the illustration of this chapter for months before I was ready. As always, his artwork is nothing less than stellar.
If you have questions about this chapter, please ask them, and I will see if I can answer them in the next chapter's AN. With how long this arc took to write, it is inevitable that some details slipped through my mind.
I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter. Stay safe, everyone.
Zahariel out.