The First Heretic

He gleaned the flaw in the Word Bearer’s sudden thrusts – that edge of indelicacy, the suggestion of imperfect balance – and struck out when the next opportunity presented itself. The flat of his blade crashed against Argel Tal’s breastplate, sending the Astartes stumbling back. Aquillon’s lips were already creasing into a smile as the crimson-clad warrior thudded to the deck.

‘There. The balance is restored. You are back where you belong: on the floor.’

Argel Tal’s voice told of the grin behind his faceplate. ‘I almost had you.’

‘Not a chance,’ the Custodian replied, wondering why it was suddenly true. ‘But you are different, brother. Energised. Vital.’

‘I feel different. Forgive me for now – I have duties to attend to.’

‘By your word,’ said the Custodian.

Both Aquillon and Sythran watched the Astartes leave. In the silence afterward, Aquillon said ‘Something has changed.’

Sythran, true to his vow of silence, merely nodded.

TWENTY-FOUR

Isstvan V

Traitors

In Midnight Clad

Isstvan – an unremarkable sun, far from Terra, precious Throneworld of the Imperium.

The system’s third world, comfortably close enough to the sun to support human life, was a virus-soaked mass grave marking the anger of Horus Lupercal. The world’s population was nothing more than contaminated ash scattered over lifeless continents, while the bones of their cities remained as blackened smears of burnt stone – a civilisation reduced to memory in a single day. The orbital bombardment from the Warmaster’s fleet, payloads of incendiary shells and virus-laden biological warfare pods, had seemingly spared nothing and no one anywhere in the world.

Isstvan III lingered now in silent orbit around its sun, almost grand in the extent of its absolute devastation, serving as the scarred tombstone for the death of an empire.

The system’s fifth planet was a colder globe, able to support only the most resistant and genetically valiant life. Its skies were thick with storms, its skin was scabbed by tundra, and nothing on the face of the world promised an easy life for any that would settle upon it.

Ringing Isstvan V was one of the largest fleets ever gathered in the history of the human species. Without a doubt, it was the most impressive coalition of Astartes vessels, with the scouts, cruisers, destroyers and command ships of seven entire Legions. The matt-black hulls of the Raven Guard’s vessels blended into the void around their flagship, the sleek, vast and vicious Shadow of the Emperor. In a tighter formation, the green armour-plated warships of the Salamanders clustered in orbit around their primarch’s vessel, the immense Flamewrought, its edges and battlements bedecked in leering, draconic gargoyles of burnished bronze.

A much smaller fleet hovered in the high atmosphere, comprised almost entirely of smaller escorts around the hulking capital ship Ferrum, marked the presence of the Iron Hands. The vessels were denser, their armour thicker, and their black hulls were trimmed with gunmetal grey and polished silver. The Iron Hands had sent their elite companies, while the bulk of the Legion’s fleet remained en route.

Of the enemy fleet, there was no sign at all. The vessels of the Death Guard, the Emperor’s Children, the World Eaters and the arch traitorous Sons of Horus were gone – hidden from Imperial eyes and the Emperor’s vengeance.

In preternatural concordance, hundreds of vessels drifted closer to the world from the system’s farthest reaches. Clad in armour of midnight-blue, the warships at the vanguard bore the skullish insignia and bronze statuary of the Night Lords Legion. The Iron Warriors drifted alongside their brothers, bastion-ships of composite metals and dull iron ceramite barely reflecting the stars. The vessels of the Alpha Legion formed the peripheries of the massed fleet, their sea-coloured hulls painted with stylised scales in honour of the reptilian beast they’d taken as their symbol. Embossed hydras snarled into space from their places along the ships’ hulls.

At the core of the approaching armada, with more warships than any of their brother Legions, came the stone-grey battlefleet of the Word Bearers. The XVII Legion flagship, Fidelitas Lex, carved its way closer to the world ahead, massive engines vibrating with the gentle power of an approach vector’s thrust.

So many vessels breaking from the warp at once should have been a maelstrom of colliding hulls and spinning junk, yet the armada coasted closer to Isstvan V with maddening calm, safe distances maintained between every craft, and the void shields of each ship never once coming into crackling contact.

With a precision that required mass calculation, the fleets of seven Astartes Legions hung in the skies above Isstvan V. Shuttles and gunships ferried between the heaviest cruisers, while the decks of every warship made ready to deploy their warriors in an unprecedented, unified planetfall.