The First Heretic

Xaphen snorted, already turning away. ‘Now is hardly the time. We’ve a world to bring to compliance.’

‘Do not walk away from me, Chaplain.’

Their gazes met – the captain’s slanted eye lenses locked to the Chaplain’s narrowed eyes. ‘What is it?’ asked Xaphen. ‘What has you so unfocused?’ His tone mellowed, conciliatory despite its sternness. Argel Tal knew the voice well. It was how Xaphen spoke when warriors brought their doubts to him. Without knowing why, Argel Tal found it tainting his temper.

The captain aimed his sword down the street, where two squads were tending to their wounded. Much of the roadway was taken up by the corpse of another Obsidian, and Dagotal’s bikes undergoing battlefield repair by Xi-Nu 73.

‘We are all blind,’ said the captain, ‘except you. We are fighting as ordered, exterminating a heretic culture. And Aurelian was right – it is a purge of the past, and good for the blood. The Legion needed to stand in victory after gathering to commemorate failure. But after a month of silence since the perfect city’s grave, we are still blind.’

‘What would you have me say?’ Xaphen approached again, his gauntlet lifted as calculating indecision played across his features. He withdrew the hand, sensing if he rested it on Argel Tal’s shoulder, it would aggravate the captain, not remind him of kinship.

‘I would have you answer the question and enlighten your brothers, as your duty demands.’

Xaphen exhaled, and his patience left with his breath. ‘The gatherings of those in Black are inviolate and sacrosanct. None of us may speak of what transpires. You know this, yet still you ask? What of tradition, brother?’

Argel Tal lowered the sword. ‘What tradition?’ he laughed. ‘What of a Legion kneeling in the dust, and our primarch offering us nothing but silence for a month? The rest of us need answers, Xaphen. I need answers.’

‘By your word, captain. But all I may say are words I’ve spoken before. We look to the Word, and seek a new path. The Legion is lost, and we seek the answers to guide it again. Do you begrudge us that? Should we linger, lost in the void, cast from the Emperor’s light?’

Argel Tal felt acidic saliva stinging under his tongue. ‘Meanwhile, the Legion waits and wages war, equally blind in both states. Do the Chaplains have the answers they sought?’

‘Yes, brother. We believe so.’

‘And when did you plan to share these truths with us?’

Xaphen drew his crozius, clutching it in both hands as he turned back to the gathered squads. ‘Why do you think we came here? Purely to end these miserable blasphemers? To wipe this pathetic empire of one lonely world from the face of history?’

‘If you find my insight lacking,’ the captain spoke through clenched teeth, ‘then enlighten me.’

‘Peace, my brother. Lorgar knows the value of symbolism, and the purity of purpose. We followed a false path that ended in a city of ashes. In another city of ashes, we will take the first steps on the true path. He will show us the way, and we will perform the Rite of Remembrance as it should be performed, with honour and sincerity. Not collared by the Emperor and abused like disloyal hounds.’

This was, and wasn’t, a surprise to Argel Tal. It didn’t take a prophet to predict the primarch would speak after this compliance, but to have it framed as some first step on a new odyssey was both captivating and unnerving.

‘I lament that the Chaplain brotherhood kept this from us, but I thank you for speaking at last.’

‘There was little to tell before the primarch’s return today. It‘s no secret, in truth.’ Warmth returned to Xaphen’s craggy face as he smiled. ‘I expect word is filtering through the Legion even now. Aurelian will meet us in the heart of the city, once we’ve extinguished the last of this world’s unholy life. And this time, when the Legion kneels in the dust of a dead city, it will be because that city died in righteous flame.’

The vox chose that moment to crackle back to life.

‘Sir? Sir?’

‘This is Argel Tal. Speak, Torgal.’

‘Captain, I apologise for another unpleasant surprise, but you won’t believe what I’m looking at.’

Argel Tal swore under his breath, the clipped Colchisian syllables not carrying over the vox. He was growing tired of hearing those words on this world.

The five warriors killed in silence, their glaives spinning with the force and speed of turbine rotors, lashing through limbs and torsos with the ease of knives through mist. At last, with the Legion breaching deep into the city, Imperial forces encountered human resistance. The army of constructs seemed defeated, reduced to scattered pockets. It fell to the militia and the civilian population to die fighting, taking to the streets armed with weapons that would prove useless, seeking to squander their lives rather than surrender them.