Horus Heresy: Scars Page 31

  The fighting was bizarre – close-packed, frenzied, confused and brutal, but strangely detached. No fighter whooped or cried out in battle-cant. They fought with a cold discipline, going through the movements with consummate skill but taking no joy in it.

  We have become wretched, thought Shiban as he powered up through the press of bodies, twisting, punching, lashing out. We have become what we once hated.

  He thrust upwards, smashing a defender out of his path with a haymaker from his gauntlet.

  ‘You always went too fast, brother,’ came a familiar voice from above.

  Shiban ducked, feeling the blade-swipe lash across him. He dropped to one knee before driving upwards again, glaive extended.

  Torghun was too quick, evading the disruptor point and parrying with his power sword. The blades crackled together in a storm of energy-auras before leaping apart.

  ‘What did they promise you?’ snarled Shiban, coiling for another strike.

  Torghun thrust first, handling his tulwar with suitably impressive dexterity. They clashed again, exchanging a flurry of heavy blows before springing back apart.

  ‘Nothing,’ he grunted. ‘It’s about loyalty.’

  Shiban pressed the assault, using his glaive’s reach to batter Torghun onto the back foot. ‘Loyalty?’

  Torghun countered at speed. Sparks showered across his armour as the energy fields snarled and burned. ‘Horus is the Warmaster. Why do you resist it?’

  Then he broke free of the sequence of blows and launched his own strike, ducking around the glaive and angling in low.

  ‘That is not enough,’ gasped Shiban, only just blocking the strike and nearly losing his footing. All around them, warriors grappled and cut, blasted and blocked, gripped in a hundred duels of their own. Shattered masonry flew from the architraves above them, smashed loose by bolter-fire. ‘You know it. You’ve been used.’

  Torghun fell back, retreating a pace up the stairs to give himself room, and Shiban went after him.

  ‘Used?’ Torghun scoffed, incredulous. ‘Where is the Emperor, brother? Where are the Legions at his side? Look at the world below – look at it!’

  Shiban crashed into contact again, swinging the glaive in a tight arc and hammering against Torghun’s defence. Together, they rocked and swayed, climbing steadily, surrounded by the tumult of combat. The summit of the stairway drew closer. With a burst of exhilaration, Shiban saw that they were forcing the defenders back.

  ‘Give this up,’ urged Shiban. ‘You can still call it off.’

  Torghun fell back again, reaching the landing beyond and letting Shiban come to him. Bolter-fire hammered out again, launched from positions further up, hidden against the pillars and terraces of the bridge’s main antechamber.

  As always, Torghun had organised his defences well – there were layers after layers, each harder to breach than the last.

  ‘I have my orders,’ Torghun said again, repeating the words with the same growl of defiance. By then he stood at the entrance to the antechamber, covered by bolter fire-arcs and flanked by his steadily retreating brotherhood, sword held in guard, stance resolute.

  It was hard not to admire his conviction. Shiban had always noted the way that the Terrans fought in defence – steadfast, gritty, bloody-minded.

  There were things to learn, even in the heart of the madness.

  ‘Damn your orders!’ Shiban roared, rousing his warriors for the final push. ‘For the Khagan!’

  With an answering wave of aggression, they surged up the final incline, sweeping over the lip of the stairs and into the new storm. Torghun held position, and the two of them slammed back into the duel, blades whirling in a storm of flaring disruptors.

  Mortarion took a few steps towards the Khan. Qin Xa moved to intervene, but the Khan gave him a wordless battle-sign, and he retreated with the others. The two primarchs stood alone, shadowed by their respective bodyguards.

  Mortarion was a little broader, the Khan a little taller. Mortarion’s armour was heavy, almost crude, where the Khan’s was fine-wrought. Silence was a gigantic weapon forged from a chunk of adamantium and glittering with archeotech fixings; the Khan’s dao was a slender, perfectly curved piece of flawless metal, deriving its strength from its form rather than its size. It could be made to move faster than any blade in the Imperium.

  Speed against implacability. An interesting contest.

  ‘You were not meant to be here,’ said Mortarion. ‘You were meant to join the Alpha Legion at Alaxxes.’

  The Khan nodded. ‘Or return to Terra.’

  ‘We did not wish that. Why would we?’

  ‘The Alpha Legion held us at Chondax. They wanted us to hear from Dorn.’

  Mortarion raised a hairless eyebrow. ‘Indeed? You surprise me, but perhaps you shouldn’t. It seems that Alpharius is never wholly of one mind.’ He chuckled darkly. ‘He plays a dangerous game. His own intrigues will throttle him.’

  ‘So why you?’ asked the Khan.

  ‘Why not me, brother?’

  ‘I assumed it would be Horus.’

  ‘Vanity. He has many things to keep him busy.’

  The Khan’s eyes narrowed. Mortarion did not seem too sure of himself. For all the show, all the projected force, he was on shaky ground. ‘Horus didn’t send you, did he?’

  ‘That means nothing.’

  ‘It means everything,’ said the Khan, studying his brother’s reaction. ‘Magnus told me how the war stands – some souls are still to be decided on. There were always those of us on the edge. I was one, you were another.’

  Mortarion snorted. ‘My Legion was at Isstvan, so put aside any thoughts that we are not committed. The outcome is already determined, and your choice is simple – preservation or destruction. Come, Jaghatai, you’ve never even believed in Unity. You saw through it even when Guilliman was lecturing us all to tears, back when there were still xenos standing between our father and the galaxy’s edge.’

  ‘Then tell me the alternative.’

  ‘A galaxy of warriors,’ said Mortarion. ‘A galaxy of hunters, where the strong are given their freedom. A galaxy in which there is no dead hand at the tiller, constraining us, lying to us.’

  ‘And all this led by Horus.’

  Mortarion shrugged. ‘He’s the start. He is the champion, the sacrificial king. He may burn himself out to get to Terra, he may not. Either way, there will be room for others to rise.’ Mortarion drew closer, and the Khan smelt the chemical tang of his armour. ‘You should never have thrown your lot in with the Angel, brother, let alone Magnus. I hated to see it, the three of you, getting dragged in deeper. I always thought you’d break away, see through it, get tired of the hypocrisy.’

  ‘They were never hypocrites.’

  ‘No?’ Mortarion exhaled a parched laugh. ‘I hoped you’d have understood them sooner. It’s the warp, Jaghatai. Our father tried to pretend it wasn’t there, as if he weren’t already up to his elbows in its soul-sucking filth. It should have been cordoned off, put away, forgotten about. It’s not for us. It’s a sickness, a blight.’

  Mortarion became agitated. He calmed down slowly, wheezing through his gas-shrouded mask. The Khan heard a faint hiss, and guessed at what kind of suppressants had been shunted into his bloodstream.

  ‘I see what has happened,’ he said, quietly.

  Mortarion cocked his head. ‘Oh?’

  ‘You were always sincere, I will give you that,’ said the Khan. ‘You never hid what you wanted. I can guess how you thought it would go. First, hobble the sorcerers. Silence the witches. Drive them out, and rule passes to the uncorrupted. The healthy. That was your great project. You even told me of it, that day on Ullanor. I thought back then that they were empty threats, but I should have known. You do not make empty threats.’

  As the Khan spoke, Mortarion’s mask-locked expression remained inscrutable. Every so often his eyes would go filmy, or his finger would twitch. There was a kind of febrile energy about him, spilling out of the cracks just
as the noxious fumes did.

  ‘But it has gone wrong, hasn’t it?’ the Khan went on. ‘You have completed your great mission, but there are more sorcerers than ever. Horus has sponsored them, Lorgar has shown them new tricks. If Magnus has not already made up his mind then he soon will, and then you will be surrounded. You’ve destroyed the Librarius only to find the witches are now untrammelled. They played you well. You have done their work for them, and soon you will be dragged into it yourself, as warp-sick as they are.’

  ‘You think that–’

  ‘I see it perfectly. Magnus showed me. Your Legion may be free of it for now, but the change will come. You made your pacts, and now they will come to collect. You fool.’

  Mortarion stiffened. His eyes blazed with anger for a second, quickly quelled. ‘You do not–’

  ‘And that is why you came to find me,’ said the Khan. ‘You’ve run out of friends. Who will stand with you against the aether-weavers now? Angron? What an ally. Curze? Good luck.’ The Khan gazed at Mortarion disdainfully. ‘You’ve tasted the fruits of treachery and found them bitter. Don’t drag me into your ruin. You’re on your own, brother.’

  Mortarion’s expression fractured behind the mask – shifting into an enraged snarl, disfiguring rapidly. Silence quivered, and he took half a step forward, his free fist clenching.

  ‘I came to give you a choice,’ Mortarion said, keeping his voice under control with some difficulty. ‘Half your Legion are already declared for Horus, the others will follow wherever you order them. Our father’s time is over – you can be a part of the order that replaces him.’

  The Khan smiled – a cold smile, imperious in its contempt. ‘A new emperor.’

  Mortarion glared back at him, though he could not hide the doubt. ‘Why not? Why should it not be you?’

  The Khan nodded, finally understanding. ‘Or you. Why not indeed?’ He drew closer, noticing for the first time the discolouration of the skin around the edge of his brother’s rebreather. How long had he worn it? ‘I’ll tell you why. Because we were never the empire-builders. We were the outriders. You chafed at it, I embraced it.’

  Mortarion began to back away. As he did so, Silence crackled into life, sparking with green-tinged energy. The Deathshroud lowered their scythes in a combat posture.

  ‘Then you will not be persuaded,’ said Mortarion, his filtered voice sunken into a surly growl. ‘A shame. I invested much energy to save you, brother. I shall take no pleasure in your destruction.’

  Behind the Khan, the keshig readied their blades.

  ‘And there is the difference between you and me,’ said the Khan, moving his dao into guard. ‘By the time I make my kills, I am always laughing.’

  It was poor fighting, cramped and bitter. None of them let loose with the flamboyance that they were used to. Shiban urged his brothers onwards, trying to instil the virtues of greater speed, greater power. Torghun did the same – exhorting those about him into a typically dogged defence.

  Neither side relished the carnage. Blood began to splatter across the marble, trodden in and smeared by hundreds of tramping armoured boots. Blades found their mark, cutting between breastplate and pauldron, punching into leather-brown skin and lacerating transhuman organs. The enclosed spaces rang with the peculiar noises of Space Marine combat: amplified roars of aggression, the judder and crash of bolters, the snarl of power weapons clashing.

  Shiban and Torghun fought at the heart of it all, feinting and thrusting as they circled one another, each going for the opening just as the other closed it down. Neither had made a mistake – they fought perfectly, each adopting the style of their home world. Torghun was methodical, solid, organised; Shiban was creative, dynamic, persistent.

  The Brotherhood of the Moon fought as competently as their khan, but it steadily became apparent they had taken heavier casualties during the initial engagement than the attackers. Despite the early advantage of high ground, they were driven back further into the chambers beyond, step by bloody step, forced up into the bridge’s lower antechamber and on across the long hallway beyond.

  Shiban fought on, feeling the first spikes of fatigue in his arms and ignoring them. Torghun was not giving up.

  ‘I will never understand it,’ Shiban snarled, spinning into contact, pivoting on his left foot to slam the glaive into Torghun’s midriff. ‘I will never understand why.’

  ‘No, you will not,’ grunted Torghun, parrying the blow but staggering back. A bolt-round whistled past his shoulder, grazing the pauldron and scarring the half-moon icon.

  ‘You had everything,’ pressed Shiban. Anger was driving him now, not exuberance. It was a wretched feeling.

  Torghun held his ground, working his blade expertly in a figure-of-eight before going back onto the offensive. ‘It wasn’t mine.’ The snatched words carried a taste of resentment. ‘None of it was mine.’

  His blows became more vicious, and Shiban had to work hard to meet them. Torghun’s fury eroded his discipline, though, and Shiban countered hard, nearly stabbing the glaive-point clean into his chest.

  ‘You had whatever you wanted,’ said Shiban scornfully, driving him back another few metres. All around him, his brothers were doing the same, fuelled by the greater fervour – they knew exactly where their allegiance lay.

  ‘You know nothing of what I wanted,’ said Torghun. ‘You could never see beyond Chogoris.’

  Shiban laughed – a sour, joyless snort. ‘Chogoris is everything, brother.’

  Torghun ceded more ground, following the path of his steadily retreating brothers through rows of gothic arches. ‘Exactly.’

  The fighting surged up a shallow incline, overlooked by vast chandelier-lumens of gold and glass. Shiban’s forces pushed up through the narrowing space, gaining ground with every surge. Many fell to the concentrated volleys of covering fire, their armour pulverised in the withering barrage, but their momentum was not halted. Torghun’s forces had lost too many warriors to hold the ground, and now struggled to keep them back.

  Shiban drove onwards, beyond the ramp’s summit and through the previously sealed doors into the lower reaches of the command hall. The ceiling soared away from them, impossibly high up, studded with glassaic and lit by a thousand suspensor globes. The bridge’s hubbub of activity was drowned by the thunder of combat; hundreds of servitors and crew lit up the proximity detectors in Shiban’s helm-display. The space opened up before them, packed with bodies that milled like the crowds on a hive-world.

  ‘Secure the tactical stations,’ he voxed to his brothers, still fighting hard. ‘Keep together. Watch for strikes from the sensor-pits.’

  The brotherhood tore out into the main hall, driving the defenders before them in ragged, battered squads. Just as the arch of the observation deck soared away ahead of them, Torghun’s forces fell back en masse. Torghun himself broke from combat, the last of the defenders to do so, following his retreating warriors. They all went quickly, decisively, as if the move had been long planned.

  Shiban’s instinct was to charge after them, cutting them down as they broke. All around him his brothers did the same, sprinting ahead to run the enemy down.

  Withdraw, then return.

  ‘No!’ Shiban roared, suddenly seeing the danger.

  He skidded to a halt, crouching down, just as the hurricane hit. From high up on the terraces on either side of the bridge, lodged many metres up between the pillars and suspended platforms, massed bolter-fire tore up the floor in a cloud of debris. Many of Shiban’s warriors, having pursued Torghun’s retreating forces too closely, were caught up in the wave of impacts, their armour shredded.

  The rest of them retreated to what cover they could – cogitator banks, sensor stations, observation gantries. Shiban made for the shadow of a huge raised platform crowned with brass-framed viewscreens. Just as he did so, the wave of bolter-fire ceased.

  Moving carefully, he shifted around the foot of the platform and scanned the area ahead. Torghun’s warriors had hunkered down
in a long line across the servitor pits bisecting the hall. Dozens of sharp-shooters were stationed above them on the terraces, holding fire for now but still primed. Beyond that, he saw more heavy infantry holding position around the epicentre of the bridge itself – the command throne. Hasik’s own keshig were amongst them, hulking in Terminator plate. Other defending White Scars occupied strategic points on the observation deck beyond.

  There must have been hundreds in total. The bridge was covered, locked down, utterly secure.

  ‘This is enough, khan,’ came Hasik’s voice from the throne.

  Ilya cowered behind her auspex station, hunched low with her hands over her ears. The noise when they had broken in was incredible – a hammering, drumming wall of sound, punctured by vox-augmented roars of belligerence. Space Marines in everyday life were intimidating enough; in combat, they were astonishing.

  Halji had broken away from her position as soon as it had happened, rushing up the steps to a vantage point closer to the command dais. He had drawn his bolter and held it two-handed in front of him. Disorientated, thrown by the horrific storm of damage around her, Ilya had hardly noticed him fire, but he had not hesitated for a moment. As though it were the most natural thing in the world, he had opened up on his comrades, joining in the barrage that had sent them reeling backwards and scrambling for cover. It had clearly been arranged – Halji had known that they were coming.

  She glanced up, through the damaged remains of her cogitator units and towards the command throne. Hasik looked as stoic as ever, addressing the crouching intruders, trying to get them to stand down.

  Ilya’s gaze travelled up to the roof-lines. Marksmen had been placed high up the walls. There seemed to be armoured warriors everywhere. The rest of the mortal crew were doing what she was – cowering out of the gunlines, lost in shock.

  Ilya crawled over to what remained of her console and stared at the auspex readings. The four incoming warships were drifting closer, utterly incautious, prowling through local space as though they owned it. Now up close, she could see the fleet-markings – XIV Legion, the Death Guard. That seemed as incongruous to her as anything that had happened since the encounters at Chondax.