The First Heretic

‘Highness, it’s time to leave,’ a house-captain told her. This was a refrain he’d been trying for days, but if it wouldn’t work now, at least he’d never need to try again.

She blubbed in response. Her chins jiggled.

‘Forget her,’ one of the others said. All of their faces were taut under the pressure of the invaders screaming so loud. ‘This is our chance, Revus.’

‘Defend me!’ the matriarch wailed. ‘Do your duty! Kill them all!’

Revus was fifty-two years old, and had served most loyally as house-captain to the current psychopomp’s father, who’d been a charismatic and effective ruler beloved by his people – everything his fat bitch of a daughter was not.

But he couldn’t leave. Or rather, he wouldn’t.

Revus turned to the prone invaders, watching them kneel and cry out in the sea of carved corpses around them, and made the last decision he would ever make. He would not run. It was not in him to do so. Instead, he would defend his sire’s indolent daughter with his life, breaking his blade upon the armour of his enemies, making sure his final words would be to spit defiance in their faces.

‘Turn and run, dogs,’ he snarled at his own men. ‘I will die doing my duty.’

Half of them seemed to take that as an order, for they fled immediately. Revus watched their dark-armoured forms slipping into servants’ passages, and despite himself, couldn’t wish harm upon them for their cowardice.

The house-captain remained in the screaming maelstrom with eight men: all too proud or too dutiful to run, and all on the veteran side of forty.

‘We’re with you,’ one of them said, his voice raised to make it above the shouts.

‘Defend me!’ the hideous girl wailed again. ‘You have to protect me.’

Revus spoke a small prayer of reverence, wishing the shade of her father well, and promising to see him soon in the afterlife.

The invaders rose again. The screams faded to moans and grunts. They reached for weapons that had fallen into the gore.

Revus yelled ‘Charge!’ and did exactly that.

He cared nothing for slaying one of the invaders, for he knew he couldn’t. All he wished to do was break his blade upon their red armour – to land a single blow, when so many of the royal guard had died without even striking once.

One moment he ran and roared, the next, he was crashing to the floor. There wasn’t even any pain as his legs went out from under him, just a moment of dizziness, before looking up to see the crimson warrior towering above. His blade remained unbroken. His last wish, denied.

The invader stepped on the dying man’s chest, crushing every bone in his torso and pulping the organs. House-Captain Revus died without even knowing his legs and waist were three metres away, severed from his body by the red warrior’s first blow.

Torgal dispatched the last of the ardent defenders, reaching the throne before the other Gal Vorbak. Acidic bile still stung his throat, but control and strength alike had returned to his limbs. The vox was a frenetic exchange of squads all reporting the same crippling pain and the sound of laughter.

‘Leave my world!’ the psychopomp squealed from her chair.

Torgal plucked her up by her fat neck. The weight was considerable, even for Astartes battle armour. He felt gyros in his shoulder and elbow joints lock to deal with the strain.

Next to him, Seltharis was replacing his helm after spitting black bile at one of the dead bodies. ‘Just kill the piggish creature. We need to return to orbit. Something is wrong.’

Torgal shook his head. ‘Nothing is wrong.’ He did his best to ignore the girl’s weeping protests. ‘But we must commune with the Chaplain at once. If this is the ordained hour, we must–’

‘What?’ Seltharis was almost laughing. ‘What must we do? I am hearing a spirit laughing inside my skull, while my blood boils hot enough to burn my bones. We have no plan for this. None of us truly believed it would ever come.’

‘Leave my world!’ the matriarch insisted. ‘Leave us in peace!’

Torgal sneered at her behind his faceplate, loathing her down to the wretched, alien fish-stink of her sweating skin. What abominable event in this world’s past had led to such deviancy? What could make such desecration – the corruption of the human genome with alien genetics – a necessary reality? These people seemed no stronger, no more enlightened, no more industrious than any other human culture. In truth, they were less advanced than most.

‘Why did you do this to yourselves?’ the Astartes asked.

‘Leave my world! Leave!’

He threw her aside. The fleshy pile crashed to the ground, her dynasty ended by a broken neck.

‘Burn everything,’ ordered Torgal. ‘Burn it all, and summon a Thunderhawk. We stand at the ordained hour. I will report to the Crimson Lord.’

The Crimson Lord surveyed the courtyard. Empty, but for the grounded gunship.

He lowered his claws.