The First Heretic

‘Do it,’ Lorgar snarled. The psychic wind, the misty fire – all were gone now. He was as he’d always been: Lorgar, the Seventeenth Son, the image of his father, the one soul in twenty who’d never wished to be a soldier. And here he would die, at the heart of a battlefield.

The foul irony of the moment settled on his shoulders, feeling grotesquely apt. He couldn’t move his legs. His body was a temple to nothing but pain. He could barely even see his executioner, for his psychic efforts had left him quivering with both weakness and a vision-blurring ache in his mind. A faint outline met his gaze, the blurred image of scythe-blades raised high.

‘Do it!’ Lorgar screamed at his brother.

The claw fell, and struck opposing metal.

Corax looked to meet eyes as black as his, in a face as pale as his own. His claw strained against a mirroring weapon, both sets of blades scraping as they ground against each other. One claw seeking to fall and kill, the other unyielding in its rising defence.

Where the Raven Guard primarch’s features were fierce with effort, the other face wore a grin. It was a smile both taut and mirthless – a dead man’s smile, once his lips surrendered to rigor mortis.

‘Corax,’ said the other primarch.

‘Curze,’ Corax said the name as the curse it was.

‘Look into my eyes,’ said the progenitor of the Night Lords Legion, ‘and see your death.’

Corax sought to wrench his claw free, but Curze’s second gauntlet closed on his brother’s wrist. ‘No,’ Curze’s laughter as was joyless as his smile. ‘Do not fly away, little raven. Stay. We are not finished, you and I.’

‘Konrad,’ Corax tried. ‘Why have you done this?’

Curze ignored the plea. He turned his void-like eyes on the prone Lorgar, with disgust written plain across his carcass face. ‘Rise from your knees, you accursed coward.’

Lorgar sought to do just that, using his brother’s midnight-blue armour as a crutch to haul himself to his feet. Curze bared his sharpened teeth. ‘You are the foulest weakling I have ever seen, Lorgar.’

Corax was not idle as this exchange took place. He fired his flight pack, burning his fuel reserves to escape Curze’s grip. The Raven Lord’s claw ripped free, and Corax soared skyward, carried on jet thrust away from Curze’s rising laughter.

On the ground, Curze shook himself free of Lorgar. ‘Sevatar,’ he spoke into the vox. ‘The Raven comes to you, to free his men.’

Battle sounds. Bolter fire. The roar of tank engines. ‘We will deal with him, lord.’

‘See that you do.’ Curze shoved Lorgar back towards his Word Bearers. Around them both, the grey Legion warred with the warriors in black. ‘I am done with you, golden one. Go back to killing Astartes with your pretty hammer.’

Lorgar’s preternatural biology was regenerating his damaged tissue with alacrity, but the primarch was shivery and weak as he reached for the fallen crozius.

‘Thank you, Konrad.’

Curze spat at Lorgar’s feet. ‘I will let you die next time. And if you...’

The Night Lord trailed off, his black eyes narrowing as he watched the figures appearing at Lorgar’s side. Their armour was crimson ceramite and ridged bone. Great claws, both metallic weapons and fleshy, jointed talons, extended from bestial arms. Every helm was horned. Every faceplate was split by a daemon’s skullish leer.

‘You are so much more than merely foul,’ Curze turned his back. ‘You are rancid in your corruption.’

Lorgar watched his brother stalking back through the ranks of Night Lords and Word Bearers, wading through them to reach the Raven Guard once more. Soon enough, the silver claws began to rise and fall as they always had, shearing through the armoured bodies of Curze’s enemies.

Lorgar turned to the Gal Vorbak. ‘Argel Tal,’ he smiled at one of them, knowing him instantly.

The creature grunted, twitchy with the need to shed blood. ‘It is I, sire.’

‘The warriors I would need,’ Lorgar murmured the old words with awe tainting his breath. ‘Truly, you are blessed by the gods. Go. Hunt. Kill.’

The Gal Vorbak withdrew from their lord, launching themselves back into the battle with leaps and snarls. Argel Tal lingered. A claw of ceramite and bone closed on Lorgar’s arm.

‘Father. I could not reach you in time.’

‘It does not matter. I live still. Hunt well, my son.’

The daemon nodded and obeyed.

Thunderhawk gunships in the colours of the Raven Guard and the Salamanders exploded at the launch site as the Iron Warriors turned their weapons from the slaughter and targeted the loyalists’ only avenues of escape.