The First Heretic

Red shards of hull were scattered across the surrounding terrain, while one engine still valiantly coughed, wheezing smoke too oily and black to be healthy thruster emission. For almost a hundred metres behind, a furrow was carved into the soil where the Thunderhawk had come down and slid, shuddering, along the ground before ploughing headfirst into the ruins of a city wall. This eroded stone stood as warden around a long-forgotten city, home of a long-dead culture. Chunks of masonry broke off as the gunship smashed to a halt, and old stone rained onto the mangled hull plating, punctuating the abuse with a final insult.

The sky lightened over the wreckage as sunrise came to Isstvan V. An unremarkable star winked over the horizon, more white than yellow, too distant to offer much warmth. On the other side of the continent, a great funeral pyre still burned.

He breathed the cold dawn air through open jaws, tasting burning oil on the wind. His brothers, his crimson kin, hunted around and through the gunship’s wreckage, seeking any spoor. Behind them, their drop-pod still hissed and creaked as the metal strained in the aftermath of plummeting through the atmosphere.

‘They have not been down long enough to hide.’ Xaphen spoke the words as an assured threat. At his side, Malnor was a twitching, ragged creature that drooled venom. Torgal climbed the gunship like something grotesquely simian, leaping and hooking into the hull with his bone-scythes to haul himself upward. His blinded face jerked to the side as he gave canine snuffs. Argel Tal stalked around the gunship’s base, his claws folding closed into knuckly fists, then opening again into raptor talons. Like a desert jackal pack, the eleven remaining Gal Vorbak swarmed the downed Thunderhawk, sniffing out their prey. They did not need to hunt for long.

‘So, at last, comes the Crimson Lord.’ Aquillon’s voice was biting in its insincerity. ‘Revealing his true self to those he has betrayed.’

The Custodes walked from the shadow of a broken wing, their weapons held in loose hands. Each of them exuded rigid confidence. Their gait was assured, their shoulders back, their armour damaged and dented, but ostensibly whole.

The Gal Vorbak closed in. At the centre of the crimson circle, the three golden warriors went back to back. They offered the Word Bearers nothing but breastplates emblazoned with the Imperial eagle, and blades that would only ever rise in the Emperor’s service. Of the Astartes Legions, only one had ever been honoured enough to engrave the aquila upon their armour – the once-noble Emperor’s Children, now a core part of the Warmaster’s rebellion. But these were Imperial Custodians, the praetorians of the Master of Mankind, and kept their mandate far above such concerns. The Custodes wore the aquila more often than the primarchs themselves. Each eagle symbol shone on their chests in solid silver, clutching lightning bolts in their claws. Nowhere else in the Imperium were the two symbols of the Emperor’s ascension twinned like this: forged into the armour of his chosen guardians.

The hunters drew even closer. At their vanguard, Argel Tal spared a brief moment’s concern for the fact the Custodes had not fired upon them. Perhaps they lacked ammunition after the battle aboard the ship. Perhaps they wished to end this cleanly, with blades rather than bolters.

‘You killed Cyrene,’ he said, the words thickened by spite and the acidic bile stringing between his jaws.

‘I executed a traitor who had borne witness to a Legion’s sins.’ Aquillon aimed at his sword at Argel Tal’s warped visage. ‘In the name of the Emperor, what are you? You seem more nightmare than man.’

‘We are the truth,’ Xaphen barked at the trapped Custodes. ‘We are the Gal Vorbak, the chosen of the gods.’ All the while, the Word Bearers stalked closer. A noose was closing around the Custodians.

‘Look upon yourselves,’ Aquillon said in disbelief. ‘You have cast aside the Emperor’s vision of perfection. You have abandoned everything it meant to be human.’

‘We were never human!’ Hissing spit sprayed from Argel Tal’s jaws as he roared the words. ‘We. Were. Never. Human. We were taken from our families to fight the Forever War in the name of a thousand lies. Do you believe this truth is easy to bear? Look at us. Look at us! Humanity will embrace the gods, or humanity will embrace oblivion. We have seen the Imperium burn. We have seen the species brought to extinction. We have seen it happen, as it happened before. The cycle of life in a galaxy owned by laughing, thirsting gods.’

Aquillon’s voice held nothing but kindness, and that made it all the crueller. ‘My friend, my brother, you have been deceived. The Emperor–’

‘The Emperor knows far more than he has ever revealed to you,’ Xaphen cut in. ‘The Emperor knows the Primordial Truth. He has challenged the gods and damned humanity with his hubris. Only through allegiance....’