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.
The Terran Crucible : Epilogue
The office was a grandiose room, Omegon had to give his brother that. It had been abandoned around two thousand years ago, but the servants of the Inner Palace had cleaned it and readied it for Lorgar's use with a swiftness and efficiency that befit their lineages : the ancestors of many of them had been working in the Palace when it had been completed, at the end of the Unification Wars.
Lorgar Aurelian, Warmaster of the Imperium – a title which had been restored to its Crusade-era scope after the Urizen had claimed it – sat at an ornate desk, whose elaborate surface was almost completely covered by paperwork, some of which was stacked high enough Lorgar's face was almost hidden behind it.
The golden Primarch held a stylus in his augmetic right hand as he reviewed and annotated the countless reports competing for his attention, his eyes and fingers moving at speeds even the most advanced logistic servitor could match. Like Omegon's arm, the hand was a hasty replacement, taken from the spare parts meant for wounded Space Marines and re-sized by the tech-priests to fit the Primarch well enough for use. Omegon knew that, like him, Lorgar still suffered from phantom pain : the Blade Encarmine had been a powerful weapon, and its destruction hadn't healed the metaphysical damage it had inflicted upon the Primarchs.
The Sword That Was Promised rested against the desk, sheathed in the rune-marked scabbard in which it had been confined the first time Omegon had laid eyes upon it, back when it had been carried by Cypher. Omegon himself carried no weapon.
Omegon bore no weapon, though this still left him one of the most dangerous people on Terra. The fragments of the Pale Spear had been recovered in the aftermath of the Battle of Lupercal's Gate and stored in the Tower of Hegemon, awaiting shipping to Mars, where the weapon would either be repaired or stored in the secure vaults of the tech-priests.
Lorgar looked up as Omegon approached, and smiled.
"Brother," he greeted.
The Urizen's smile didn't quite hide his exhaustion from Omegon, however, especially since the Lord of the Hydra shared it. The two Primarchs had been working almost without pause since the Battle of Lupercal's Gate, trying to patch the Imperium within Sol back together. Lorgar had remained in the Inner Palace, with only a few sorties beyond the walls to deal with important matters. They had more or less conscripted Lucius the Reborn and that gem in the rough Salvor Lermentov to help manage the Palace's immediate surroundings, leaving Omegon free to run all across Terra putting out fires as fast as he could.
Having spent thousands of years dealing with the High Lords and their cronies, Omegon was rather sure he had gotten the better part of that deal. Besides, the Twelve would riot if he got anywhere near the position of Warmaster himself. His actions before Light's End had been revealed, and the High Lords were … distrustful, of the fact the Alpha Legion had kept thousands of Legionaries hidden across Sol while plotting to replace the Emperor on the Golden Throne.
No one was accusing him of treason – they wouldn't dare, at least not to his face. But even those who, like Petroclus, had been aware of his plan, had their confidence in his abilities shaken by the sheer magnitude of his failure and the calamity that had followed. Which was only fair, truth be told.
"Hello, Lorgar." Omegon looked at one particular report, marked with the Inquisition's sigil. "More manifestations ?"
"Yes." replied Lorgar, putting down his stylus. "Everyone outside the Inner Palace still suffers from nightmares, though it's difficult to tell those born of daemonic influence from those born of genuine trauma, if such a difference exists at all."
"The same thing happened after the Siege," remembered Omegon. "Though from what I have seen, it's nowhere near as severe now than it was back then, thankfully."
"I know." Lorgar had seen the aftermath of the Siege as well, and much earlier than Omegon, who had been busy fighting another, hidden war at the time. "The Ordos are removing or covering every mirror, since they seem to be focus points for the manifestations. They would be more effective if their numbers hadn't been crippled at Enceladus. For now, the Grey Knights are working with the Chosen of Magnus to purify the most important areas of Terra, but there just aren't enough of them. It will be generations before the wounds of this war can even begin to properly heal."
"And we can't afford to wait that long. The Living Saints are helping, though."
Lorgar's expression told what his words didn't. Omegon sighed.
"I know you don't like the implications of their existence, let alone their title, but you can't deny their usefulness. Their presence is doing wonders for morale, and they are bearers of our father's power."
"I know, I know," waved Lorgar. "I don't resent that, and I am grateful for their presence. I have spoken with more of them, and they are all people I approve of. It's just … I am afraid that even now that He is gone, His fears of being made into the instrument of Humanity's oppression might still be realized by His heirs. Already the priests are claiming that, with the return of His sons, our father abandoned His mortal body to watch over all of Humanity as a spirit, and entrusted the duties of running the Imperium and guiding the Astronomican to us while He prepares for the final battle against the Dark Gods."
"The Ecclesiarchy is a necessary composant of the Imperium, Lorgar. And right now, on Terra, they are more important than ever. We need them to keep the people's spirits up. You, Magnus, even the Sword – it isn't enough, not after everything they have been through."
Omegon went on. "We still don't have a definite death count. I doubt we will ever know the exact number, but they are still finding pockets of survivors and sites of slaughter. And the injured …" He shook his head, trying to banish the images of the field hospitals he had seen outside the Palace. "We are keeping people from starving thanks to the Damocles Protocol's silos and the cargo ships that were in the system when Light's End struck, but there are only so many derelicts our scavenging crews can find in the void."
Terra's population was utterly dependant on imports for its food, and the repercussions of Light's End had thrown the supply chain into complete disarray. New shipments were only just beginning to arrive, their second and third-rate Navigators managing to find their way through the disturbances in the Warp. Hundreds of cargo ships had been lost within Sol during the Angel War, their crew ill-prepared to deal with the madness of the Tear of Nightmares, and Omegon had arranged for recovery teams to find these wrecks and see if their precious cargo could be recovered.
Lorgar gestured to the mountain of paperwork before him. "You have been outside the Palace, brother. What do your hidden eyes tell you ? Has there been any sign of Uranus ?"
The Lord of the Hydra shook his head. "None. Neither the observatories nor the patrols have found any trace of it. I have no idea where it went, but I doubt it's anywhere good."
An entire world, gone, along with its array of moons and orbital stations. Sadly, this wasn't unheard of in the Imperium, but for it to happen here, in Sol …
"On a more optimistic note," Omegon forced himself to continue, "I have finished assuming temporary control of the Arbites' assets on Terra until order is restored."
The leadership of the Adeptus Arbites had been destroyed with the Hall of Judgment, but there were still tens of thousands of Judges on the Throneworld, scattered across the many precinct-fortresses. Many of them had fallen during the Angel War, their nature as symbols of Imperial order making them choice targets for the Warp-crazed and Neverborn, but just as many still stood.
"They are a blunt instrument," said Lorgar, frowning. "Relentless in their pursuit of the law, with little thought for justice. You need to be careful with them, brother."
"I know. Right now, I am using them to guard the food distribution centers and keep the peace in the queues. In time, we will need to reform them from terrifying wardens into protectors, but that will take time, even to do so just here on Terra, let alone throughout the entire Imperium."
"A lot of time," agreed Lorgar. "Time we don't have, I am afraid."
The Imperium was beset by calamities, of which Light's End was but the latest, if perhaps the most grievous. The old monsters were returning, emerging from the mists of time and legend. Guilliman had returned to life, though it had cost him his homeworld. The Black Legion mustered at the Cadian Gate, while the Dark Angels had struck beyond the Eye of Terror – and not just at Terathalion. Even Corax had left the Eye for the first time since the Unborn Crusade, wiping out the Iron Warriors at Hydra Cordatus and stealing the gene-seed stored there. The thought of what the Ravenlord would do with such a trove was an unnerving one to say the least.
And those were only the enemies aligned with the Primordial Annihilator. The Necron Dynasties were awakening, as had been shown when they had sought to interrupt Ynnead's awakening. More and more Tyranid fleets were reported with every passing year, and the end of the Octarian War heralded a resurgence on that particular front. Past the borders of the Imperium, the Orks were growing in numbers, waiting only for a new Warboss to unite them once more. In the Dark City of Commoragh, the millennia-long feud between the Drukhari greatest leaders seemed to be about to end, one way or another. Even the Taus, who even Omegon had disregarded as insignificant in the grand scheme of things, were beginning to get expansionist ambitions.
It was a desperate situation, yet there was cause for hope. Omegon dared not discuss it aloud, even here in the Inner Palace. What Magnus was considering, even as his prodigious mind strained to direct the Astronomican, was dangerous beyond belief.
But if they could do it …
No. There were other concerns he needed to attend to right now. And it seemed that Lorgar shared that thought, for he shook his head and said :
"Alright, we have procrastinated long enough. Why are you really here, Omegon ?"
"Two things. First, I have finally heard from Zosarr. The battle at the Inquisitorial Fortress at the Southern Pole was particularly vicious, and he has only just recovered enough to send his report."
"Zosarr Kalkale, correct ? The veteran of the Deathwatch who helped Magnus update his knowledge of xenos breeds ?"
"Precisely. I sent him south when we received a garbled transmission from the Inquisition about being under attack by xenos attackers that weren't Laers. Apparently, while we were fighting Sanguinius' armies, a cult of Genestealers calling themselves the Wyrms of the Ur-Tendril emerged from the under-archives of Nordafrik and made their way across the entire continent to attack the stronghold. And this was on their banners."
He handed Lorgar a data-slate, which showed the image of a tentacled maw, opening on Terra itself to devour all life in Sol. Lorgar studied it intently, with a deep frown on his face.
"Troubling. I have heard of these Genestealers. Their infiltration of the Imperium is a greater threat than I think anyone gave them credit for, and that they have reached all the way to Terra is even worse. When Zosarr is better, I will need to speak with him in person to get more details of what happened." The Urizen returned his gaze on Omegon, clearly preparing himself for something even worse. "And the second reason ?"
Omegon took a deep breath. "I have just come back from the astropathic choirs."
The vast majority of the warp-speakers in Sol had been died or gone insane during the Angel War, but they had been able to scavenge enough survivors to re-establish contact with the rest of the Imperium. The draconian restrictions on outgoing messages this has caused would have been enough to cause an economic collapse on their own, but Light's End and the Angel War had already guaranteed that anyway.
With the entire galaxy resonating with the echoes of Light's End, the Primarchs had needed to hurry to spread their own message. The astropaths were broadcasting the truth of what had happened in Sol – the rise of the Living Saints, the defeat of Chaos, the destruction of hated Sanguinius, Magnus' ascension to the Golden Throne and the return of the three Primarchs. Well, mostly they sang of the Urizen and the Crimson King – Omegon had never been one fit for sagas, which he had long since made his peace with.
But while the astropaths sang to the stars, they also listened. Terra was the ultimate destination for every alert, every warning of doom shouted into the void by Humanity's desperate defenders. For ten thousand years they had been collected and processed here, before the leviathan of the Imperium stirred to react, sometimes centuries too late as messages were lost in its labyrinthine bureaucracy. Now that bureaucracy was in shambles, and the task of monitoring the writings of the mind-linked servitors tasked with transcribing the astropaths' visions fell to a motley collection of scholars, disaffected nobles, and even agents of the Temple Vanus.
Omegon went there regularly, both to check on the latest news and to ensure these disparate individuals didn't come to blows. Today, however, no one had so much had raised their voice to complain about the conditions in which they worked.
"There has been word from Cadia."
Morgana stood in the darkened halls beneath the Imperial Palace, with only ghosts for company. Once, back when Sir Kay still drew breath, this chamber had been located at the base of the mountain that had been razed to become the Palace, and used by ancient shamans to perform their rituals. Some of the power they had invoked lingered there, and the wards placed upon the chamber during the Palace's construction had kept the subterranean tribes that dwelled in the lightless levels of the megastructure out.
Before her, on an altar of stone, were spread fragments of crimson armor, recovered from the Battle of Lupercal's Gate. Each of the pieces was a priceless relic, deserving of being entombed within the reliquaries of the Imperium for the part their wearer had played in the Angel War. But Morgana had recovered them all, which had been no small feat. She had only been able to accomplish it so quickly because she had known exactly where to find every shard, thanks to her new companion.
The fragments surrounded a complete suit of armor, in a design not made in the Martian forges for millennia. Morgana had pulled some strings to recover it from one of the many museums of war scattered across Terra, drawing on her influence to find one that had survived the Angel War and was of the appropriate colors. It was a relic of the Great Crusade, a piece of an idealistic past the Imperium had left behind long ago.
But with the return of three Primarchs and the death of the Emperor, the times of myth and legend were returning. She had spoken with Diomedes, the purified herald who even now waited in the cells of the Inquisition, having willingly surrendered himself into their care to assuage their fears, and with Sor Pharos, whose damaged soul hadn't been restored even by meeting his Primarch in person.
From what Morgana had heard, meeting Sor Pharos had been a difficult experience for Lorgar. Before his disappearance, only a few of his sons had succumbed to the cold and righteous fury of their gene-line, and the Primarch had personally intervened each time to help them escape it. Even the legendary Argel Tal, who had been driven to it by the horrors of Calth, had been successfully rescued. And yet, Lorgar hadn't managed to restore Sor Pharos, not even with the aid of the Sword That Was Promised. They didn't know if this was because of the circumstances of the Watcher's affliction, or whether there had been shifts in the gene-seed of the Seventeenth that had made the Iconoclasts' altered mindset resistant to their Primarch's influence.
Neither possibility was encouraging. The worse of it, though, was that Sor Pharos himself saw nothing wrong with himself.
The two heroes of the Imperium had told her of the great horrors the Dark Prince had let loose upon the galaxy, of the Laer moon-ship and the abomination at its core. Through the sacrifices of heroes, the monsters of Chaos had been defeated. It was a tale she was bitterly familiar with.
Since the death of her father and the destruction of her homeworld, Morgana had hidden in the shadows of History, doing her best to help preserve Humanity while keeping the secrets entrusted to her. Now, the wheels of destiny were in motion, thrown on paths not foreseen by the Emperor's final sacrifice.
She remembered the agony she had felt while helping Magnus the Red adapt to his new place in the Imperium. She remembered the burning, all-consuming pain of the Astronomican, the sense of crushing power and duty. She had borne only a fraction of it, and had only survived because of the enhancements that had been made to her body and soul on long-lost Caliban.
She had touched souls with the Crimson King, which was why, when the Angel War had ended and he had no longer needed his assistance, a new spirit had been drawn to her. Which was why she was here now.
"Are you sure about this ?" she spoke aloud to the empty chamber. "Even I cannot tell what this will do to you exactly, but I doubt it will be pleasant. The spell you wove will bind you as it binds the souls of your ashen brothers. I haven't studied it as you have, but your consciousness will most likely suffer some … diminishment."
"Yes," answered a voice that could be heard only in her mind. "Long ago, in my folly, I condemned tens of thousands of my brothers to such a fate. Magnus may have forgiven me, and it might even have been the correct thing, the right thing to do … But it is only just that I should share their fate."
"Very well," sighed Morgana. "If you are sure, then let's begin."
What followed was part sorcerous ritual, part psychic weaving, and part smithing, as Morgana hammered the fragments of Ahriman's armor onto the complete suit of warplate while engraving Tizcan mandalas onto the inside of the armor and tying each of them to the shade of the Chief Librarian. She had studied Prosperine lore long ago, perusing the tomes that had been saved from the Wolves' madness, and with Ahriman whispering guidance in her soul, her work advanced swiftly.
Once the armor was ready, she sensed her connection to the fleshless soul of the son of Magnus fade, though not completely, as the armor replaced her as his anchor in the Materium.
The eye-lenses of the helmet flared with ghostly light, and Ahzek Ahriman stood once more, remade as a Rubricae, just as so many of the sons of Magnus had been across the centuries.
"Can you hear me ?" Morgana asked, standing before the Rubricae.
The warrior's helmet dipped, staring straight at Morgana.
"I do, Lady Inquisitor," replied Ahriman in a voice cold as the grave. Yet it was not devoid of humor as he went on : "It seems that from now on, duty does not end in death."
There were many towers on Terra, even now, after the destruction visited upon the Throneworld by the Angel War. Within one such tower, a man who was known to the Imperium as Inquisitor Erasmus Crowl was making his final preparations before undertaking a great and dangerous work.
None of the hundreds of servants and armed troopers populating the tower of Courvain knew of this room's existence. Crowl, like his master before him, and his master before that, had taken every precaution imaginable to ensure that those who followed their public personas never realized the true allegiance of their masters.
Courvain had endured the ravages of the Angel War, even as the area around it was left in ruins. The masses had flocked to the base of the tower for protection, thinking its survival to be a sign of the dead Emperor's protection. Fools, all of them – blind and deceived fools.
The death of the Emperor changed things. Crowl couldn't know whether the Dark Master had planned it or not, but if he, in his infinite vision and wisdom, had orchestrated it, then he had not shared this with his humble servants. For millennia, the lineage of the Spineam Coronam to which Crowl belonged had worked to weaken Sol and the Imperium, all in preparation for the day Lord Guilliman would return and crush the failing Imperium, before slaying the False Emperor and claim the throne of Humanity.
They had done many things over the millennia, from the small – like encouraging the Imperial Navy's training schools to push for more aggression in their students, at the cost of tactical caution – to the great – like the slow purge of the Sisters of Silence, their reputation in the eyes of the High Lords tarnished over the course of generations, their influence and resources eroded until they could only barely maintain their presence aboard the Black Ships.
As far as Crowl knew, his was the only remaining presence of the Crown of Thorns within the Ordos on Terra : the rest had slowly been weeded out, until only the subtlest and most ruthless of lineages had remained. And even they were not secure, for Crowl hadn't been able to find an apprentice to eventually replace him yet, despite his advanced age.
But now the Emperor was dead.
The thought still made him pause, even now, days after the madness of the Angel War had finally abated. The Emperor was dead. And it had been Sanguinius, the Daemon Primarch who was known to have long since fallen into madness and decadence, who had been first to take advantage of it. The Angel's plot had failed, as it had always been doomed to, for only Guilliman was worthy of ruling the galaxy. Yet Lorgar had claimed the mantle of Warmaster, while Magnus sat the Golden Throne – even the elusive Lord of the Hydra, that pretender to the name of the Primarch Guilliman had cast down at Eskrador, had come out of the shadows.
None of his contingencies had accounted for this unique set of circumstances. He had to report all that he had learned, and ask for further instructions. Of course, using astropathic communication was impossible, but the Spineam Coronam had its own ways of speaking across the stars. For thousands of years, they had operated on their own, guided only by the distant will of their lord as he recovered from the wounds dealt unto him by the cowardly Fulgrim, who had struck him in the back at his moment of triumph. Now, the secret rites they had used to exchange information with each other could also be used to beseech the Dark Master himself for an audience.
Crowl had never used the rites in this fashion before, though the required modifications had been whispered to him in his sleep by the daemonic messengers of the Dark Master after his awakening. He didn't know for sure that they would work, here on Terra, even with the False Emperor dead, or that he wouldn't be detected. But he had to take the risk. His lord must know what had transpired in Sol.
He took a deep breath, before activating the delayed injector in his suit of armor, speaking the appropriate words of daemon speech, and plunging the ritual knife into his own chest, aiming the blade just right so that it would rest right next to his heart. It would send him near death but not quite, and the chemical already flowing through his bloodstream would keep him there until his injector activated and returned him to his body. It was a dangerous procedure, made all the more risky by his old age, but the danger to his body was as nothing compared to the one to his spirit.
Crowl's soul spilled from his body, plunging through the ritual array carved into the floor and empowered by the captive spirits of his master and all those who had preceded him. The runes ignited, hurling his spirit far away, while preserving the frail connection between it and his bleeding body. He saw the galaxy in all its glory, before being pulled back down toward the glorious fire of the Ruinstorm, which burned in the galactic east with the ever-lasting will of Guilliman himself.
He saw, then, the great host of the Dark Master. The might of the Ruinstorm was arrayed under his command, and his astral self wept tears of joy at its sheer power and the magnificence of what it portended. Surely the Iron Cage couldn't possibly hope to stand against such power !
Like a moth to the flame, his spirit descended toward the center of the armada. He plunged through the metal walls of the Maccrage's Honour, long thought destroyed by the ignorant lordlings of the Imperium, feeling the power of the ship washing over him. He passed the halls resonating with prayers and sacrifices to the Dark Master, passed the chambers where the sub-commanders of the host prepared for the war to come, until at last his shade stopped before the figure of Roboute Guilliman.
Crowl didn't know what he would have seen if he had looked upon the Dark Master of Chaos with his feeble, human eyes, but as his astral self he saw him as a humanoid figure of black fire with eyes of colorless radiance. Even as a barely-fettered soul, Crowl knew that his perceptions were still far too limited to truly comprehend what the Primarch of the Ultramarines had become as he fulfilled his divine destiny, but he still felt as if he might go mad from what little he did glimpse. Only the thought of his duty kept the traitor Inquisitor from being obliterated by the dark power that radiated from Guilliman like a black sun.
"Speak," said Guilliman, and Crowl obeyed.
He told his liege all that he knew of what had transpired in Sol, all the details his agents had managed to unearth, all the secrets his sorcerous rituals had ferreted out. He told him of the Emperor's death, of the Angel War that had followed, of Sanguinius' destruction and of the three Primarchs who now ruled the Imperium. He told him of their efforts to cleanse the Sol system of the lingering presence of Sanguinius' forces, and of the armies and fleets they were gathering.
He told everything to the Dark Master of Chaos, then waited for his orders. But when Guilliman opened his mouth, only a sorcerous curse left his lips, so powerful that it burned Crowl's soul to ash, so violent that it reverberated across the link to his body and caused it to explode with such strength that the entire top floor of Courvain was obliterated. All traces of Crowl's ancient lineage of traitors and infiltrators was destroyed, and the investigators would never be able to find out what exactly had happened, eventually blaming it on a spiteful strike by remaining Chaos elements on Sol, seeking to destroy the symbol of hope and order Courvain had provided to the masses huddled below it.
Aboard his flagship, Roboute Guilliman nodded to himself, secure in the knowledge that his other agents in Sol were still hidden from the sight of his brothers, and that this one wouldn't reveal them. He thought nothing of how he had destroyed the soul of one who had served him all his life, for all who served him were his to dispose of as he saw fit.
The death of his sire hadn't been planned, not like this. He had thought to kill Him with his own hands, finishing what he had started ten thousand years ago and cementing his hold onto the mantle of Dark Master for all eternity. Instead, the Emperor had cheated him and the Dark Gods both, choosing death on His own terms, desperate though these had been. Countless fates had been unwritten by that choice, one that even now, Guilliman couldn't understand. Had it been spite that had guided it ? Had the Emperor known He couldn't win the Great Game, and so had decided to break the board in His final act ?
If so, He had failed. All the pieces were still in play, except for Sanguinius, and Guilliman had no use for that deluded madman anyway. All that had changed were the victory conditions, which Guilliman would need to consider at length later. For now, regardless of the changes his plans would need to go through, the next step remained the same.
Guided by his power, his reforged Legion would emerge from the Ruinstorm and break Olympia, homeworld of the Iron Warriors and cornerstone of the Iron Cage around the Five Hundred Worlds. And from there …
… from there, they would conquer the galaxy. Guilliman would rule, and woe to those who stood in the way of his vision for the future.
Barban Falk stood on the landing platform, awaiting the transport that would carry him to the Mechanicus ship in orbit, which in turn would bring him to Terra. Four of his brothers stood on the platform's cardinal points, keeping watch for any attack. Like him, they had been changed in ways they still didn't truly understand, their very existences altered by the terrible energies released by the destruction of the Dragon of Mars.
Below him stretched the forge-city of Olympus Mons, still reeling from the attack of the United. The reconstruction of the ravaged districts had already begun, using raw resources pulled out of the forge-city's prodigious reserves and processed inside the intact Manufactoriums. With typical Mechanicus efficiency, the Collective had drawn up plans to rebuild the city, using designs both new and old to make sure that, once the rebuilding was complete, Olympus Mons would be more productive than ever before. With the surface of Mars purged of Slaaneshi infection and the destruction of the Haydesian Kingdoms well underway, the Adeptus Mechanicus was free to look to the future for the first time in ten thousand years.
It still shocked him just how far the Mechanicus had fallen in ten thousand years, more so than the knowledge he had been gone for so long in the first place. The Iron Warriors had been appalled at the degeneration, the renunciation of science and progress and the slide into dogmatic superstition. And this was on Mars, the heart of the Mechanicus, center of the Quest for Knowledge, and the world where the influence of the Collective was at its strongest. Falk dreaded to imagine what things might be like on more remote forge-worlds.
His mind slipped back to what the Collective had told him. The Mechanicus had spent a hundred centuries using its best and brightest in a desperate arms' race against the Haydesian Kingdoms, developing counters to the horrors devised in the depths of the Martian underworld. Positions of authority had been filled with the rest : the ambitious and the fanatics, those who clung to dogma instead of discovery, while the Imperium's need for weaponry to fight off its many enemies had driven it to ever more drastic measures.
Now, with the death of the Omnissiah, Falk fully expected the Mechanicus to fall to pieces. On the Red Planet, the Collective was seen as the new vessel for the Machine-God's will, and the three Primarchs on Terra as rightful heirs of both the Imperium and the Treaty of Mars. But elsewhere ? Falk could imagine it all too well : the fear and disbelief, the sundering of old alliances as the cold logic of hide-bound tech-priests compelled them to cut off ties with the rest of the Imperium and seek strength and purity in isolation, thus becoming fertile ground for the unholy ideologies of the Dark Mechanicum.
Was this his fault ? Could all of this been avoided, if he had truly fulfilled the task Perturabo had given him during the Heresy ? If the hereteks had been defeated before fleeing underground, could the Mechanicus have remained a bastion of science and knowledge, capable of leading the Imperium into a new golden age after Guilliman and his cohorts had been exiled into their infernal kingdoms ?
"Warsmith Falk," greeted a mechanized voice from behind him, interrupting his bleak thoughts.
"Fabricator-General Artharos," replied the Warsmith, turning to face the newest – unless their news from Terra were out of date and one of the other casualties had been replaced in the meantime – High Lord.
Artharos looked like a cross between a tech-priest and a warmachine. The Angel War might have been won, but the newly-appointed Fabricator-General was taking no chances. Their body was taller than Falk and far bulkier, though still of a size where they would fit inside a standard gunship with minimum discomfort. They carried many weapons and sensors, and their brain – the only biological component left – was hidden somewhere inside the roughly humanoid construct at the center of it all. Their face was a mask made of thousands of tiny metallic chips that moved together to mimic the expressions of a living one. The emblem of the Mechanicus was embedded on their forehead, and they wore heavy red robes and carried an imposing staff in one hand that was as much a relic weapon as it was a symbol of office.
Falk hadn't met their direct predecessor – the last Fabricator-General he had met had been Kelbor-Hal himself, something which made the lesser tech-priests regard him with a mix of envy and adoration. Abristus Teslivi had died a martyr, sacrificing himself to deny the United access to the chambers of the Martian Collective. Already there were plans to build a memorial to him where the Temple of All Knowledge had stood, when time and resources could be spared to rebuild the holy site.
The Martian Collective had assumed control of the Cult Mechanicus in the wake of Abristus' death, and Falk had thrown his support behind the move, ensuring the other arch-magi of Mars fell in line and didn't let their own ambitions get the better of them in such tense circumstances. Given that most of their personal armies were still engaged in the cleansing of the Haydes, the threat of the Iron Warriors had been enough to cool heads and allow the Collective to secure their hold on power through more diplomatic means.
With the searing of the Tear of Nightmares, the Martian noosphere had been restored, running with maximum security protocols until the last remnants of scrap-code could be purged. However, the members of the Collective couldn't leave the Red Planet, not without being completely severed from the rest of their group. And so they had chosen one of their own to take up the mantle of Fabricator-General, and speak in the name of the Mechanicus in the greater Imperium.
For all the power and authority the position granted, it had been a great sacrifice for them to separate from the Collective. Falk couldn't imagine what being part of the Collective was like, but it was clear to him that they hadn't sought the position, merely been selected as the one best suited for it. Would that all High Lords were chosen like this, but they could hardly replicate the Collective in the other Adepta.
"Are you ready to accompany me to Terra, Fabricator-General ?"
"Affirmative, Warsmith Falk. The final rites of sundering have been completed. We … I am once again a single voice among the servants of the Machine-God."
"… You have my thanks for your service." He wouldn't insult their sacrifice by offering pity or condolences.
The steel and gold mask of Artharos shifted into a smile. "Coming from you, Warsmith Falk, that means a lot. Our transport should be here in seventy-three point ninety-eight seconds. Do you have anything you wish to speak of while we wait ?"
The gunship landed. The two of them went inside, accompanied by Falk's four brothers and a handful of elite skitarii warriors. It was a poor escort for a High Lord and a Warsmith, showing how thinly their forces were stretched in the Angel War's aftermath.
There was another reason Falk had taken so few warriors with him, however. They didn't know what would happen once they left Mars; how the changes they had gone through would react to being a cosmic distance away from the place where they had been, for lack of a better term, broken. It was possible, though not likely, that they would simply cease to exist far from the Noctis Labyrinthus.
Falk refused to let his battle-brothers risk this if he weren't also present. But as the gunship went further and further away, he felt nothing wrong, and let out a sigh of relief.
There were worse fates than being consigned to Mars, but the Warsmith was glad that he and his brothers would have a greater part to play in the wars to come.
Torquemada Coteaz emerged from a wound in reality, his eyes bleeding and his soul feeling as if it had been flayed by the sorceries he had used to escape Sol. His power armor was charred black by infernal fire, and his bald head covered in scars.
Few of his personal guard had survived the fighting on Enceladus, and fewer still the journey through the Warp. Only three of his score of daemonhosts and sixteen mortals of a retinue hundreds strong remained, and none of them had escaped intact – nor had Torquemada himself.
Around them were the burned remains of a great structure Torquemada recognized as the metallic bones of an Imperial cathedral. He could smell blood and fire, and heard the distant sounds of war. The skies were full of smoke, and the air was hot with great fires.
He didn't know where they were. The spell that had let them escape Enceladus had been attuned to a particular anchor, however, and in the last moment before he had risked the return to the Materium, Torquemada had been sure this was the place.
Soon, his doubts were assuaged. A figure strode toward them, passing beneath the ruined entrance to the cathedral, and Torquemada's heartbeat quickened. He fell to his knees as his master approached.
Gabriel Angelos looked every bit the Chaos Lord of Khorne. An aura of dark majesty spread from him like a shroud of darkness, making his enemies quake in terror and his servants fall in supplication. His armor was the color of blood, parts of it seeming made of living flesh. His head was covered by a horned helm whose eye-lenses burned with blue fire, the same fire that emanated from the eightfold star upon his right shoulder paldron. On his back hung his great warhammer, God-Splitter, forged around the ever-burning heart that the Blood Raven had ripped from an Avatar of Khaine decades ago.
At his side was a Possessed Marine clad in the warped remnants of warplate in the colors of the Sixth Legion. This warrior radiated power too, though Torquemada would have been ill-pressed to tell which of the two demigods before him was strongest in the favor of Khorne.
Thankfully, this was not his task.
"My lord," said Torquemada, bowing deeply, while behind him the rest of his retinue prostrated themselves. "I have come to you, as I promised."
"Torquemada," said the Blood Raven in a deep baritone that was deceptively gentle. "You arrive early. Do you have what I sent you to find ?"
Reaching to the pouch at his side, Torquemada pulled out the book he had claimed in the vaults of Enceladus and offered it to the Blood Raven. The tome felt heavier in his hands than it ought to, and he felt a weight lift off his soul when Gabriel Angelos took it, briefly flicking through its pages before nodding in approval.
"Good. You have done well, my servant. Rise, and be welcome to Tartarus."
Torquemada blinked. "I … I confess I have not heard of that world before, my lord."
"Unsurprising. Tartarus is but one of many backwater planets in the Segmentum Obscurus. Utterly without importance to the Imperium, because they don't know what lies buried here."
"Segmentum Obscurus ? Forgive my impertinence, my lord, but I had heard you were in the Aurelian Sub-Sector, in the Segmentum Ultima ?"
Gabriel Angelos chuckled. "I was, until recently. I had hoped to dispose of my former master there, amidst the cinders of my homeworld. But old Kyras was cannier than I thought, and managed to escape my trap. So I made my way here, where my true goals always awaited."
The Chaos Lord of Khorne looked up, and Torquemada fancied he could hear fondness in his voice as he continued :
"Tell me. Is it true ? Is the Emperor dead ?"
"Yes, my lord." Torquemada shivered as he pronounced the words, knowing that they would have seen him condemned and burned at the stake all his life before now. "The False Emperor has perished. When we departed, all of Sol burned in the fires of the Dark Prince's crusade to conquer the system."
"That crusade has already failed," revealed the Blood Raven. "Great Khorne has sent heralds to me, to tell me of the False Emperor's demise and its aftermath. I merely asked you to confirm I understood their words correctly. Still, it is a pity. I had hoped to claim His skull myself – or that of Sanguinius, who has now been destroyed and removed from the Great Game. No matter. I shall have to contend myself with Kyras', then. He will come here before the end, I know it. Our destinies are intertwined in a way even the False Emperor's death cannot undo."
His eyes lowered, and Torquemada felt transfixed by the power of his master's gaze.
"But before then, we must make of this world a suitable altar for Khorne. Come, Inquisitor. There is slaughter to be done."
Behind him, the Possessed Space Wolf growled something that might be a laugh.
The being that had once been Meros, Apothecary of the Ninth Legion, opened his eyes beneath a screaming sky. His skull was aflame, and his armor damaged, with infernal fire leaking from the cracks. He forced himself to his feet, his touch burning the ground black.
Around him were piles of broken white stone, charred and bloody. Fallen columns were covered in blood and bolt impacts, but the decorations of lurid imagery and winged blood drop were still visible. He recognized the iconography, and his temper rose at the sight. This place had been a temple to Slaanesh, built atop his prison, to keep him locked away and hide his presence from those who would use him for their own grudges against the Ninth Legion.
Slowly, the Red Angel stretched his being under the light of the Eye of Terror, basking in its radiance as his power returned.
He remembered his becoming, on Signus Prime, when Sanguinius had betrayed and broken himself. He remembered the years of bondage, made a servant by the Dark Master of Chaos and wielded as a weapon against his enemies while the galaxy burned. He remembered freedom, glorious freedom, when Guilliman had fallen; how he had rampaged across the Eye, inflicting terrible revenge upon the children of the Youngest God. He remembered bowing before Rogal Dorn, and fighting alongside the Seventh in the War of Woe. He remembered the rage, pure and true, which had flowed from his dark heart and into the souls of his followers – a great army of Khorne's unbound warriors, berserkers unfettered by the pact of the Imperial Fists.
And he remembered that most bitter of defeats. His army had been scattered, his wings broken, and he had been bound here, on this nameless rock that had once been a world. He remembered the golden masks of the Sanguinary Guards as they imprisoned him, and the sickening soul-smell of their self-righteous delusions as they wove their spells upon him in the name of their Primarch. For ages, his rage had sustained him, the fires of his hatred for what the Ninth Legion had become burning even as he slowly diminished, cut off from the Realms of Chaos. He had dreamt of the vengeance he would claim, of the torments he would inflict upon Sanguinius …
… but Sanguinius was dead.
The Red Angel paused as that revelation struck him. Caught in his wrathful fantasies, he had somehow missed the echoes of Sanguinius' demise. No, not demise : annihilation. The Daemon Primarch was well and truly gone, his essence extinguished forevermore.
His chance at revenge had been denied. The Emperor was dead too, but this was of lesser importance to the Red Angel. What mattered to him was that he would never have the chance to punish Sanguinius for his treachery and cowardice. Throwing his head back at the skies, the Red Angel screamed in thwarted fury, a monstrous sound of absolute, depthless rage that echoed across the Eye of Terror and was heard by the blood shamans of a thousand warbands. It echoed upon the Plains of Blood, where the Daemon Prince Doombreed fought to reclaim the honor he had lost, and all the way to the foot of the Throne of Skulls.
Upon the Throne, Khorne heard, and smiled.
The wrathful cry ended in a snarl, and the Red Angel returned his attention to his surroundings. There were bodies scattered across the temple's ruins, some wearing power armor, others clad in cultist robes. The Red Angel paused, looking down at a dead Blood Angel. He could smell the foul stench of Slaaneshi sorcery on the Blood Angel, even in death. The Glamour still clung to the corpse, sustained past death by the Eye's own energies. The destruction of Sanguinius hadn't ended his dark gift to the Legion he had abandoned, for the Glamour was rooted in the madness and delusions of each Blood Angel.
The Red Angel briefly wondered why the Chaos Marine had remained here. Even imprisoned, he had felt the defeat of Sanguinius at Iydris, and bitterly laughed as the Blood Angels were sundered by the revelation of their lord's madness. Yet this one had remained here, on a temple that was only of worth to those who still worshipped the Lord of Angels. He had been loyal to the mad prince, even as Sanguinius discarded him and all his sons. Knowledge flooded into the Red Angel, of Sanguinius' lies and schemes, poured into his soul in a burning torrent.
All Blood Angels would know of their Primarch's destruction, but the Red Angel wondered what those few loyalists would do. Would they break and die ? Or would they lament the death of their lord, and seek to avenge him ?
It didn't matter, in the end. They would all pay the same price eventually.
All around him, a host of red-skinned horned fiends carrying black blades emerged. Bloodletters, the footsoldiers of Khorne. They kept their distance from him, even as he felt their desire to kill him, as was only proper for those born of the Blood God's eternal fury. One of them, taller and bearing a handful of skulls it had been deemed worthy to keep as personal trophies, approached him. In one hand it held a staff of brass topped with the skull-rune of Khorne; in the other, a blade of black metal similar to those of the other daemons, but blazing with powerful daemonic sigils.
The Herald of Khorne planted the sword into the ground between it and the Red Angel, and took a few steps back. He picked it up and raised it toward the heavens, marvelling in the craftsmanship of the daemonsmiths that had made it.
He lowered the blade, and looked upon the expectant daemons around him. These were just the tip of the iceberg, he knew. The Times of Ending had begun, marked by the death of the Emperor, and the Dark Gods were making their final moves in the Great Game. The Seventh Legion and its Primarch held great influence over the hosts of Khorne, yet they were still only servants of the Blood God, and reflective of but one of his murderous aspects.
For a moment, the Red Angel considered his options, feeling the weight of destiny on his shoulders. As the incarnation of Sanguinius' discarded rage, he could rally the bloodthirsty hordes of Khorne and lead them to war against the Imperium. He could tear down the works of Humanity and lay waste to the galaxy, take his place among the Powers of this new dawning age and carve a kingdom of blood and ruin.
But there were still Blood Angels alive. There were sons of Sanguinius who yet lived, and followed the decadent path of the Dark Prince of Chaos.
And this, this the Red Angel would not allow.
He raised the daemonblade and howled, once again giving voice to the immortal hatred that burned forevermore within him, the fire of Sanguinius' doom combined with Meros' last, dying thoughts of betrayal and horror. The Bloodthirsters echoed his scream, which was a declaration of war upon all who carried the gene-seed of Sanguinius within them.
Perhaps this was the result of the ancient rivalry between Khorne and Slaanesh. Or perhaps this was the remnant of the Apothecary's soul guiding the Red Angel away from laying waste to the Imperium he once served.
Regardless, a new Blood Crusade had begun.
"No more peace," the Red Angel declared, his voice echoed by the howling of damned souls. "No more light. No more angelic grace. Only blood and skulls and souls, in the name of KHORNE !"
Ishidur Ossuros opened eyes that saw much less than he was accustomed to. He blinked, but the dimness of his sight remained. He tried to stand, but his body was weak, and it took great effort before he managed to rise.
He was in a room with a partially collapsed ceiling. In the distance, he could hear the sounds of battle's aftermath – creaking ruins, wailing mortals, and crackling fire. Like his sight, his hearing was badly impaired. All around him were partially eaten corpses, their chest cut open and their hearts torn out. He licked his lips at the sight, and tasted the bloody meat on them. His sense of taste, at least, remained as sharp as ever, and he briefly tasted the memories of those the organs had belonged to.
A broken mirror hung on the wall – by his reckoning, this room had belonged to a minor clerk of some means, to be able to afford such furniture. Ishidur walked toward it, and took in his appearance with growing dismay.
His body was human, or as human as could be said of the vessel for his ancient and tattered soul. That was unusual. Death was no new experience to him, far from it but he had always returned to awareness in the body of a Space Marine – usually one of Sanguinius' gene-line, but not always. Slaanesh had gathered many Astartes into his embrace, far more than had ever been sired from the Angel's loins, and many had found their way to the ranks of the Violators.
The clothes Ishidur wore were covered in gore, but judging by the military-grade knife he had found nearby when he woke and the empty lasgun holster that hung around his shoulder, this body must have been a soldier of some sort. Perhaps a Guardsman caught in the arrival of the Sanguinor, or one of the countless cultists and gangers who had been dragged into the Angel War.
Looking through a broken window, Ishidur saw what he had expected since waking, though only now did he realize it. The Tear of Nightmares was gone, Slaanesh's power banished from Sol. And as he saw this, he knew, immediately, that Sanguinius was dead – not just banished, but truly and forever destroyed, in a way he had thought impossible for the Dark Gods' ascended champions. The thought struck him like a thunderbolt, far harder than he had expected it to after so many years apart from the Angel. It felt like a hole in his soul, something precious and vital that he had grown so used to he hadn't noticed it until it was gone.
And yet, he thought, I endure. His fey immortality was a gift of Slaanesh, and he would have expected the Dark Prince's withdrawal from Sol to bring about his final end, especially here, on a world so permeated with power hostile to the followers of the Powers. That he had still come back to life, even in his diminished fashion, was a sign that he still held the favor of the Dark Prince, despite the monstrous failure of the Angel War.
He tried to piece together the broken memories of his vessel and the ones he had absorbed from the hearts it had devoured to gather his essence. He saw glimpses of the Violators who had survived the Battle of Lupercal's Gate, or who had never joined it in the first place after the capture of the Hall of Judgment, being hunted down all across the continent by loyalist Space Marines, Grey Knights and Custodes. A few would survive, he knew – the Violators had been "destroyed" many times before, and always there had been those who had made it through to resurrect the warband. But for now, he couldn't count on finding one of them to take over his body.
He was trapped on Terra, his Primarch dead, his warband scattered, sundered from his god and trapped within a frail, mortal body. All around him were enemies, the agents of the Imperium hunting down the survivors of the great Slaaneshi host. He had no resources, no allies, and little power.
Ishidur Ossuros laughed, revelling in the freshness of the despair he felt. How many years had it been, since he had felt such a thing himself, instead of tasting it in the blood of his victims ? The sensation of it was reinvigorating. This was a challenge, a true test of his skills and abilities, with real consequences for failure, since he doubted the Imperium counted many cannibals he could count upon to devour his corpse after killing him. He knew, with bone-deep certainty, that if he died again before escaping Sol, it would be a final end to his story.
Well. It seemed Slaanesh hadn't abandoned him after all.
The steps leading to the top of the Lion's tower somehow felt steeper than they had when Belial had last climbed them. The Lord of Whispers had been summoned not long after his decimated forces had returned to Cysgorog, having fought their way through the Webway from the battlefield where they had faced the legions of the Plague God.
This time, it only took him minutes to reach the top, and he wondered what it meant.
Was he about to be rewarded for his part in the Hunt for Cypher ? The Lion had claimed the pyrrhic victory in the Webway had been part of his grand design, arranged so that he could enter the Webway in the fullness of his power to finish the long Hunt for the Fallen, the Hunt which had occupied the First Legion for so long, in person.
Perhaps he would find Cypher in chains at the foot of the Primarch, and be given the chance to take part in the illumination of the so-called "Lord of the Fallen". Perhaps he would be elevated to join the ranks of the Archdukes. Most likely, he would be given another task, as an instrument of the Changer of Ways who had fulfilled his part in the Architect of Fate's design. Events were proceeding across the galaxy that would echo across destiny forevermore, after all.
Whatever awaited him, Belial would accept it, as was the way of the Dark Angels. But the moment he laid eyes upon his Primarch, he knew that something had gone wrong.
Lion El'Jonson sat upon his throne, wreathed in shadow and flame. The wound on his chest was still there, forever burning with a different fire, forever bleeding the power of the Daemon Primarch, denying him the full power that had been granted to him in the Maelstrom ten thousand years ago. Belial saw it, but did not see it, for it was forbidden to him to realize it existed.
"Belial," said the Daemon Primarch that one of Belial's eyes saw, while the one his other eye perceived spoke instead the daemonic name that had been granted to him as part of his rewards for serving Tzeentch since the great rebellion. The Grand Master fell to his knees, gasping as the power of Lion El'Jonson tightened around his soul, and he felt the wrath of his lord.
It wasn't directed at him, for surely such would have destroyed him, but mere proximity to the Daemon Primarch might see him slain regardless. The very skies of Cysgorog burned with the inferno of the Daemon Primarch's fury. Shrieking souls were falling from the heavens like meteors, plucked from their torments in Cysgorog's constellations of the damned by the Lion's rage.
"The Emperor is dead," said Lion El'Jonson.
Belial said nothing, remaining on his knees. He knew this already, of course. The ninety-nine Seers of Cysgorog had sensed the demise of the False Emperor immediately, though many had been crippled or killed by the psychic backlash. Word had spread quickly, as even the meanest witch on the daemon world had sensed the psychic echoes of the Master of Mankind's demise. The entire world was buzzing with theories as to how this had happened, and new plots to take advantage of it were flourishing every minute. If not for the fact most of the First Legion was away, dispatched by the Lion in the nine hosts, of which Belial's was but one, the Dark Angels may well have sailed out as one to seize the opportunity.
It would have been glorious, but Belial knew there must be a reason why it was not so. The Architect of Fate must have known of the Emperor's death before it occurred, even if his mortal servants were blind to his manyfold plans.
"But Cypher lives." The armrests of the Lion's throne cracked as he tightened his grip upon the black stone – no one knew what material the throne was made of, for like the tower it had already been there when the Legion had found refuge on that world after the Siege. "Lorgar interfered with my hunt, breaking free of his Gods-imposed exile through the treachery of the dead."
The Urizen had returned !? That was … troubling news. Belial remembered the visions that had haunted the Sorcerers of the Dark Angels in the last days of the Siege, when they had dreamt of the wrathful Bearer of the Word coming down upon them, accompanied by the Lord of the Red Sands. And there were many legends whispered among the Lost and the Damned, of how Lorgar had confronted the daemonic heralds of the Four Powers and refused to be broken, instead carrying his war into the Realms of Chaos themselves.
Then the first words of his liege reached Belial's mind. Cypher had escaped. The arch-renegade had eluded his rightful punishment yet again. Had all the efforts of Belial, of all the Dark Angels who had fought and died to give the Lion the chance to catch his wayward scion, been in vain ? No. No, it couldn't be. This was part of Tzeentch's design, it had to be, but how ?
Perhaps Cypher was meant to play a part in the new age that would follow the Emperor's death. Perhaps -
"Find him," roared Lion El'Jonson, power radiating off him in waves that caused fresh mutations to erupt on the flesh of thousands of mortal slaves all across Cysgorog. Belial almost fell backward, his own body burning under his armor as the favor of the Great Mutator kept him from degenerating into a Chaos Spawn there and then. "Find my traitor son, Belial ! No matter where he hides, no matter what allies he has gathered to his side. Whether he has all the hosts of Terra to cower behind, whether my brothers stand guard over him night and day, HE MUST BE FOUND !"
"It shall be done, my lord," replied the Great Beast, holding his head low as he weathered the storm of his Primarch's fury, all his focus bent on keeping his mind from unravelling in the face of this onslaught.
Slowly, Lion El'Jonson calmed down, his rage turning cold as ice. When he spoke again, his voice no longer threatened to make Belial's brain burst inside his skull.
"The other Grand Masters are busy with their own tasks I have given them, which are all too important to be taken away from. But Azrael has recently returned to us from his own failure at Terathalion. Go to the Halls of Penitence and take him out of there. He will assist you in the hunt."
Belial nodded, and stood, head still bowed, sensing that this audience was at an end. He wasn't looking forward to visiting the Halls of Penitence – there were few more terrible places in the Eye of Terror than where the First Legion brought illumination to its captured enemies. Idly, he wondered whether he would find Azrael working there, or being worked upon ?
"And, Belial," the Daemon Primarch called when he was about to step back onto the stairs leading down. "Do not fail me."
The shadow of the Nerragalia fell on his face, obscuring the light of the Rotting World's bloated sun. Its branches were heavy with pulsating fruit, reverently harvested by the most beloved servants of Nurgle, who took great care not to disturb the one who slumbered in the shade.
The giant had remained there, sitting amidst the roots of the great tree, for what felt like an age, his body motionless while his mind wandered the myriad paths of decay and dissolution. Parts of him had been left behind in the process, taking roots and growing into aspects of himself he hadn't realized existed. They had formed their own legends and identities, and through them he had learned more about the universe and about himself than he had ever thought possible.
But now the time had come to gather all that he was back into himself, and wake.
Ferrus Manus opened his eyes ; the two he had been born with, and the third that had opened on his forehead, and saw all the ways in which the universe around him would succumb to entropy. Of course, here, on this world that was the closest thing to the glory of Nurgle's Garden that existed outside of the Warp, that eye saw little different from the other two.
His body had undergone other changes in the time he had spent meditating, though it already felt familiar to him. He had grown beyond his former size, his armor now fused to his flesh and covered by a coral-like material that breathed out winds of plague. He could feel the life inside what the Medusan Carapace had become, growing and multiplying and dying with each beat of his two – no, three hearts now.
Shaking off the dead remnants of his former self like a cocoon that had outlived its usefulness, Ferrus spread the two bony wings that now grew out of his back, feeling arcs of sorcerous energy dancing over them. He moved, breaking off the roots of the Nerragalia that had burrowed inside his flesh, drawing upon his essence to sustain the bountiful crop of corrupted gene-seed the great tree of life and death had given unto the Tenth Legion in the last centuries. There was no pain, even as tubes thick as a man's arm were ripped off his body.
Then, he raised his arms and looked down upon them, knowing what he was about to see, but relinquishing it all the same.
He smiled. There was no trace of silver on his hands, not even the smallest speck. At long, long last, he was free. Free of his past, free of regret, free of weakness. Purified by the love of the Grandfather.
Just like the entire galaxy would be eventually. He looked to the side, and there was the Axe of Finality – though it had other names, given to it by daemons and mortals alike – the weapon he had forged in the aftermath of the Istvaan Massacre, after Alpharius had stolen Forgebreaker from him. He was grateful to the little snake, in a way : looking upon Forgebreaker after what had happened on Pandorax had been painful, a reminder of times past that he had needed to overcome.
The Axe of Finality was a much greater weapon that Forgebreaker had ever been. He had made it exclusively from materials harvested from the black sands of the Massacre. Its handle was made from the spinal columns of dead Legionaries, its blade forged from the metal of broken blades. It dripped with a liquid that was the horror of those who had seen the immortal die.
He picked it up, and chuckled as he felt the weapon's eagerness to be wielded in war once more, pressing on his mind like a playful canine. Soon, he assured it, running his finger along the edge of the blade and letting it taste his own blood, like one might give a treat to a cherished pet as a reward for its patience. Soon.
"My sons !" He boomed out, his voice echoing all across the Rotting World and in the minds of every Iron Hand Legionary in the Eye of Terror and beyond. "Come to me. At last, the hour of our ascension has come !"
And indeed it had, for his father was dead. The inevitability of decay had claimed even Him, at long last. Entropy was triumphant, as it had always been and always would be. No more would the mind of the Emperor seek to counter the desires of the Four. No more would His light scour the Eye of Terror with its sterile radiance, driven by His will.
And no more would Ferrus wonder if He would ever forgive him.
Far beneath the surface of Mars, in the ruined Vaults of Moravec, the stasis fields that kept the dead ancient's treasures locked were failing, one by one.
One of the exhibits, a naked Raven Guard crucified upside-down on an iron cross, suddenly found himself returned to the normal flow of time – or as normal as it could be, here in this place where the remnant of a Star God had been slain by two sons of the Emperor. He tore himself free of the cross, ripping his hands and feet, his blood pouring out of the wounds before they sealed with preternatural swiftness.
He rose, his wings spreading behind his back, blacker than shadow, every quill covered in daemonic runes that together formed a prayer and a spell that had carried him through the wells of deep time to where he had needed to be, before Moravec's minions had captured him. He walked through the Vaults, passing wonders and terrors without sparing them a glance. He knew where what he sought was.
There, held on a plint whose stasis field had already faded. The Akashic Matrix; the key to all the secrets of the universe, or so the ancients believed. Not even Moravec had dared to tinker with it after recovering it in the ruins of Magma City.
He took it, and he held it, and it scorched his bloody hands, but he did not let go.
Yes, he thought. This is as it should be.
He walked into shadows, and vanished, taking with him the prize he had travelled so far to claim, in the name of his master, in the name of his sire …
… in the name of the Ravenlord, whose shadow stretched from past to future and from future to past, till all fell into darkness.
AN : And there it is, the final part of the Terran Crucible, at last.
I think I had things I wanted to say here, but apparently Nurgle decided to thank me finally making the Iron Hands relevant in the Times of Ending by sending me one of his "gifts". No, not that one, nothing so serious. But I am still hopped up on painkillers and various other remedies right now, so I think I probably shouldn't write anything other people will read.
I will just say that I am going to focus on A Blade Recast in the immediate future.
Also, thanks to Jaenera Targaryen for beta-reading this. I hope you enjoyed reading this and are excited for the continuation of the Roboutian Heresy.
Zahariel out.