The First Heretic

Black-armoured Astartes tumbled to their hands and knees, only to be cut down by the sustained volley, finishing those who fell beneath the initial storm of head- and chest-shots. Seconds after the first chatter of bolters, beams of achingly bright laser slashed from behind the Word Bearers as the cannon mounts of Land Raiders, Predators and defensive bastion turrets gouged through the Raven Guard and the ground they stood upon.

Argel Tal saw precious little of the bigger picture. Beams of ice-blue, as thick as his arm, slashed and burst overhead as they carved furrows in the soil and sliced cleanly through bodies. At his side, the Gal Vorbak stood in silence, clutching their axes and blades. The Iron Warriors and Word Bearers around them were variously reloading, opening fire again, hurling grenades, and preparing to fall back.

In the eye of this storm, Argel Tal looked on with hooded eyes. The vox-link to Torisian remained open long enough for him to hear the warrior die, wordless gurgles transmitting over the channel as the captain crashed to the ground.

Kor Phaeron licked his yellow teeth.

The wind howled around them, funnelled through the Urgall Depression in a noisy roar that challenged the battlefield’s thunder for supremacy. It was an unclean wind, carrying the bowel-smoke of tank engines in its breeze.

‘I cannot see,’ he confessed. ‘It is too far.’

The Word Bearers Legion had taken up landing positions on the west of the field, ready to sweep down and engage the Raven Guard from the flank. Three figures stood atop the roof of an ornate command tank, the Land Raider’s bronze and grey armour decked out with flapping banners and etched with fingernail-fine scripture over every visible surface.

Kor Phaeron, Master of the Faith, watched the distant dropsite through a desperate squint. He was unhelmed, and his massive Terminator warplate gave him the appearance of a hunched, armour-plated giant.

Erebus stood at his side, watching without effort, his Astartes vision keen enough to offer clarity.

‘We are winning,’ he said. ‘Nothing else matters.’ Only a flicker of emotion in his eyes betrayed his humour. Erebus was a dry soul, right to his core. ‘But already, the Raven Guard attacks the barricades. Far to the other side, the Salamanders fall to the guns of the other Legions. In the centre of it all, the few remaining Iron Hands encircle their doomed lord.’

Lorgar towered above both of them, but had no attention to spare for the treacherous opening salvoes against the warriors of the Raven Guard and Salamanders Legions. He stared into the battlefield’s heart, his eyes wide even in the wind, his lips gently parted as he watched his brothers killing each other.

Fulgrim and Ferrus, the fading sunlight flaring from the edges of their swinging weapons. The wind stole the clash and clang of their parries, but even in silence the duel was beyond captivating. No senses but a primarch’s could have followed such instant, liquid movements. The perfection of it all almost brought a smile to Lorgar’s lips.

Lorgar knew them both, though never as well as he’d wanted to. His approaches to Fulgrim had always been rebuffed with diplomatic grace, but his brother’s ire was clear: Lorgar, among all of the Emperor’s sons, was the failure that just wouldn’t remain silent. Even in the fifty years since his humiliation in Monarchia, as the Word Bearers had conquered more than any other Legion, desperate to match the tallies of the Sons of Horus and the Ultramarines. Fulgrim still wished nothing to do with him. The Lord of the Emperor’s Children – and oh, how proud he was that his sons alone among the Astartes could wear the Emperor’s aquila on their armour – had never voiced his distaste in express terms, but Fulgrim’s feelings were transparent enough. He was a being that valued nothing but perfection, and Lorgar was irrevocably stained by his flaws.

Ferrus, Lord of the Iron Hands, was an open book where Fulgrim was a closed one. Lorgar’s passion was ever on the surface, as was the passion of his Legion on the battlefield. Ferrus contained his wrath beneath a dignified facade but never buried it, and asked the same of his warriors. While Ferrus treasured those times on Terra he had spent working at the forge, shaping metal into weapons worthy of gifting to his demigod brothers, Lorgar had sequestered himself in the palace itself, debating philosophy, ancient history and human nature with Magnus and the Emperor’s more cerebral courtiers, advisers and viziers.

The closest they’d come to an accord was still a memory barely worthy of any family. Lorgar had come to find Ferrus in his forge, working at the construction of something molten, dangerous and undoubtedly destined to be a weapon of war. It seemed all the Iron Hands primarch was capable of.