The First Heretic

Ingethel’s writhing dance came to an end. The maiden was bathed in sweat, her hair in greasy ringlets and her body shining in the firelight as if beaded with pearls. In her hands, she still gripped her wooden staff, the head carved in a curving crescent moon.

A tattooed god-talker stood before each of the occupied spears, blood from the slaughtered victims gathered into crude clay bowls that were clutched in white-knuckled hands. As Ingethel approached each in turn, the shaman would mark her flesh with a spiralling symbol, tracing blood onto her body with a fingertip.

It was impossible to miss the significance. They were drawing the Eye on her.

‘Incredible,’ said Lorgar. He looked pained – the veins in his temples swollen and pulsing.

‘I know this ritual,’ Xaphen said. ‘I know it from the old books.’

‘Yes,’ the primarch gave a strained smile. ‘This is an echo of an ancient Colchisian ceremony. Kingpriests – the rulers of old – were appointed like this. The maiden’s dance; the blood sacrifices; the constellations inked upon her flesh... All of it. Kor Phaeron would know it, as would Erebus. Both of them will have seen it before, with their own eyes, performed by the Covenant in the years before my arrival on Colchis.’

Argel Tal had considered their culture far beyond such decadence. Lorgar must have picked up on his disgusted thought, because the primarch turned to him with a sharp glance.

‘I do not perceive this as beautiful, Argel Tal. Merely necessary. You believe we have progressed past such superstition? I remind you that not all change is for the better. Buildings erode. Flesh weakens. Memories fade. These are all part of time’s progression, and all would be reversed, if a way could be found to do so.’

‘We are here to seek evidence for the existence of gods, sire. No gods worthy of worship could demand this of their followers.’

Lorgar turned back to the ceremony, massaging his temples. ‘Those, my son, are the wisest words anyone has spoken since we found this world. The answers I am finding have dismayed me. Torture? Human sacrifice?’ The primarch’s features drew into a slow wince. ‘Forgive me, I ramble. My mind aches. I wish they would stop laughing.’

The cavern echoed with the thunder of drums, and the air trembled with monotone chanting from hundreds of human throats.

‘No one is laughing, sire,’ said Argel Tal.

Lorgar turned a pitying smile on his son. ‘Yes, they are. You’ll see. It will not be long now.’

Ingethel came to the last god-talker. The shaman anointed her with Vendatha’s blood, outlining the Serrated Sun constellation on her bare stomach. With this last deed done, the maiden made her way back to the centre of the platform. There she stood, arms reaching out from her sides, head thrown back, crucified upon the very air.

The drumming intensified, a dragon’s heartbeat thudding harder and faster as it slipped from its rhythm. The chanting became shouted laments, with hands and faces raised to the rock ceiling.

Ingethel’s bare feet slowly left the ground. Blood was running down her legs in staining trails, dripping from her toes to the stone. The Cadians screamed. All of them, every single one, screamed. The captain’s helm dimmed its audio receptors to compensate, but it made no difference.

Lorgar closed his eyes, fingertips still at his temples.

‘Here it comes.’

Its arrival was heralded first by the reek of blood. Unbelievably potent, as rich and sour as spoiled wine, it flooded Argel Tal’s senses with enough violence to make him gag. Xaphen turned away and Lorgar’s eyes remained closed – Argel Tal alone saw what happened next.

Ingethel, risen above the ground in weightless crucifixion, died a dozen deaths in mere moments. Invisible forces excoriated her, flaying her skin away in ragged strips, letting them fall with wet slaps onto the stone below. Blood flowed from her mouth, her eyes, her ears and nose; from every entrance and exit in her body. She endured this for a handful of seconds, until what remained of her simply ruptured. Her musculature burst, showering the primarch and his sons with human meat and lifeblood.

Her skeleton, still articulated, remained before them for a moment more – only to splinter and shatter with the sound of smashing pottery. Bone chips cracked off Argel Tal’s armour, clacking like hailstones.

The maiden’s staff clattered to the ground.

Lorgar, said the creature taking form amidst the dead girl’s wreckage.

Lorgar placed the quill on the parchment and closed his eyes – a reflection of that moment in the cavern: months ago to Argel Tal, only a handful of nights ago to the primarch himself.