The First Heretic

He managed a reassuring smile. It split the ceramite of his helm, and the faceplate smiled with him. She couldn’t see the daemonic visage leering up at her.

‘Nothing. Only the change. Watch over me, Cyrene. Hide me from Aquillon. I can control this. I will not harm you.’

He raised a hand, watching through swimming vision as the edges of everything grew blurry and indistinct. A bladed claw met his stare, a human hand coated in cracked crimson ceramite, the black talons stroking her hair with inhuman care. For a time, he simply watched his new claws catch what little light existed in the room’s ever-present darkness – the metal of his armour now an epidermis of ceramite, and the claws of his gauntlets now the talons of his own hand.

‘Your voice is different,’ she said.

His vision focused, the blurs fading, gelling into acuity. The claw was no more than his own gauntleted hand, as human as it had always been.

‘Do not worry,’ Argel Tal told her. ‘One way or another, it will be over soon.’

The Gal Vorbak did not remain in seclusion for long. Most emerged from their sealed chambers within a handful of nights. Xaphen was the first, leaving his chamber seemingly unchanged, though he was never without his helm as he travelled the ship’s decks. A brazier burned at all times from its cage mounting on his power pack, trailing the scent of ashes and coals wherever he went. He spent his time visiting the other Gal Vorbak in their meditation chambers, allowing no other visitors.

Argel Tal left Cyrene’s chamber after three nights. Aquillon was in the sparring halls, just as the Word Bearer had expected.

‘I had a feeling you’d be here,’ he said.

The Custodes stepped back from one another: Aquillon had been duelling with Sythran, both of them wielding live weapons and wearing full armour, including their crested helms.

Sythran deactivated his guardian spear, the spear blade turning off with a snap of discharged energy. Aquillon lowered his blade, but left it active.

‘A long meditation,’ he said, watching through ruby eye lenses.

‘Is that suspicion in your voice, brother?’ Argel Tal grinned behind his faceplate. ‘I had a great deal to dwell upon. Sythran, may I borrow your spear? I wish to duel.’

Sythran turned his head to Aquillon, saying nothing. The Occuli Imperator spoke for him. ‘Our weapons are keyed to our genetic spoor. They would not activate in your hands. As an addendum, it is considered the height of insult for one of us to let another touch the blades issued into our care by the Emperor himself.’

‘Very well. I meant no offence.’ Argel Tal moved to the weapon rack, donning a battered, ancient pair of power claws over his gauntlets. ‘Shall we?’

Aquillon’s golden helm tilted slightly. ‘Live weapons?’

‘Duellem Extremis,’ Argel Tal confirmed, tensing his fists to activate the electrical power fields around the long claws.

Sythran left the practice cage, sealing his commander and the Crimson Lord within. He’d seen Argel Tal and Aquillon cross blades on hundreds of occasions, and an educated, experienced estimate would see the Word Bearer defeated within sixty to eighty seconds.

The commencement chime sounded. Eleven clashes and five seconds later, the bout was over.

‘Again?’ enquired the Astartes. He heard Sythran’s quiet exhalation in place of speech. Aquillon said nothing, either.

‘Is something amiss?’ Argel Tal asked. With the claws on his gauntlets, he couldn’t offer a hand to help Aquillon rise.

‘No. Nothing is amiss. I had not expected you to attack, that is all.’

The Custodian regained his feet, his own armour joints humming as false muscles of machine-nerve and cable-sinew flexed and tensed.

‘Again?’

Aquillon hefted his long blade. ‘Again.’

The two warriors flew at one another, each strike flashing aside with bursts from their opposing power fields. Every second saw three strikes made, and each strike snapped back with the weapons’ electrical fields repelling one another after the metal kissed for the briefest moment. The air was rich with the ozone scent of abused power fields in only a matter of heartbeats.

This time, the two warriors were more evenly matched. Argel Tal’s strength lay in his awareness, not only of his own blade work but his enemy’s potential, betrayed by their own movements. It had always allowed him to stand his ground against superior weapon-masters, such as Aquillon, for a respectable amount of time before being unable to deflect the winning blow. Now he coupled that perceptive gift with speed to match the Custodian’s, and Aquillon was forced to bring desperate defensive strokes to bear for the first time in any of his duels with Argel Tal.