The First Heretic

It had taken four months to reach Colchis from the ruin of Forty-Seven Sixteen. Four months of flight through stable warp conditions, four months of training and prayer, four months of listening to Xaphen debate about the Old Faith, and what hidden truths might be contained within the legend of the Pilgrimage. Argel Tal wasn’t sure what he believed, and the alien presence of doubt left him cold. He’d spent much of his time with Cyrene, as well as drilling the Seventh Company to battle readiness, and duelling Aquillon in the practice cages. The Custodian was a nightmare of an opponent, and both warriors enjoyed the challenge offered by the other. They weren’t even close to being friends, but grudging admiration was a fine foundation for meeting each other in the duelling ring.

With the four months of travel to Colchis added to the rest, Argel Tal and the Chapter of the Serrated Sun had been absent from their own expeditionary fleet for well over half a year. From what little word reached him, apparently the 1,301st Expedition was sending repeated pleas for the Serrated Sun to return, for they were locked in a vicious compliance that required Astartes aid to break the enemy. Already one of the smaller fleets, they were apparently grinding to a halt without their Legion contingent.

One of the messages had been addressed to him personally, as Chapter subcommander. It came directly from Fleetmaster Baloc Torvus – a veteran of void war, but self-confessed at lacking insight into planetary engagements.

‘We’re hurling men at one of their mountain strongholds, but they hold every advantage of terrain, and our armour divisions are ground down by ambushes in the foothills. Would that you were here, subcommander.The blades of the Seventh would make brutally short work of this place.’

Argel Tal had saved it in the data-slate’s memory archive as a form of penance. He sometimes brought it back up to read over, masochistic in his frustration.

Soon, though. They would return to the Great Crusade once breaking orbit from Colchis. The primarch had business here, and in truth, it was a blessing to be able to return to the home world. Argel Tal hadn’t been back himself in three decades.

‘I said, you will need to be careful on the surface,’ he repeated.

Cyrene had changed. Gone was the emaciated wraith who wept as she left the ashen remnants of the perfect city.

‘I don’t understand,’ she said. Her sightless eyes were closed – a habit she’d unconsciously been forming in the past few months. As she spoke, she was arranging her hair in a fashion that seemed needlessly complicated to Argel Tal. Her hands moved slowly, carefully, sensing by touch what her eyes couldn’t see. He enjoyed watching her; it was something of a guilty pleasure. While nothing of attraction existed between them, he often found himself captivated by her fragile, gentle movements, as if she was forever careful about affecting the world around her. She seemed to want to leave no mark, no imprint, on anything she touched. There was no fear in her grace, no hesitation. Simply respect. Care.

The captain stood in full armour but for his helm, leaving his head bare, so the voice she heard was his own, not his helm’s. Cyrene was slowly learning to differentiate his voice from Xaphen’s, mostly through their accents. Argel Tal had a rough, almost impolite edge to his guttural intonation, whereas Xaphen – born in the Urals on Terra – had a clipped tendency to turn S’s into Z’s. The Chaplain spoke like a foreign diplomat. The captain like a ganger, or a boy living on the streets.

‘What don’t you understand?’ he asked her.

She toyed with a lock of hair as it lay against her cheek. ‘I don’t understand why I have to be careful.’

This was a difficult subject. Word from the Legion fleet was constantly cycled back to Colchis, for the people of the home world took great interest, and great pride, in the conquests of their chosen champions. Mothers and fathers listened in the hope some chronicle would detail the glory of a son taken from them in childhood and reshaped as one of the Astartes. Covenant clergy listened for inspiration to preach of the primarch’s righteousness.

This network was maintained by astropaths, sending short psychic pulses of information back to their counterparts on the home world. Several times a week, broadcast from speaker towers across the Holy City, updates of the Legion’s progress drew flocks of listeners. City-wide celebrations were declared by the Covenant each time a Legion expedition reached compliance.

Everyone – everyone – had listened to the reports of Monarchia. The Legion’s humiliation. The Word Bearers kneeling. The Emperor destroying the Imperial Creed forever.