The First Heretic

The perfect, regimented anger of the assault run was crumbling, unsalvageable with so many vessels slowing and breaking away. All around them, the colossal fleet on the edge of open warfare collapsed, powering down their weapons. As an astral ballet, it was running through these final anticlimactic motions with clear reluctance. Again came the sense of the ships’ captains infecting their vessels with emotion.

The planet itself was close, close enough for the enemy fleet to edge into visual range. At this distance, they were little more than dark specks framed by dense cloud cover, hanging in low orbit. Deumos turned to his brothers, his subordinates, each one of them standing on the lesser steps of his raised dais.

‘Now we discover the truth in all this.’

‘Today will end in darkness,’ this from the Seventh Captain, his left eye ringed by the serrated sun. ‘We know the truth, we know what our brothers have done. No explanation will quench the primarch’s sorrow. No reasoning will quell his rage. You know this as well as I, master.’

Deumos nodded. He’d indulged a moment of concern that the Lex wouldn’t slow down, that it would drive like a grey blade into the heart of the opposing fleet, its weapon batteries aflame as they sang their lethal songs. Brother against brother, Astartes against Astartes.

Once, he would have smiled at the delicious blasphemy of an impossible idea. Not now.

‘We’re being hailed,’ one of the vox-officers called from his console.

At last. A fleet-wide message, from the only voice that mattered. The message was relayed across the bridge, ruined by vox-breakage but recognisable nonetheless.

‘My sons.’ No amount of distortion could conceal the hurt and affection in the words. ‘My sons, we have reached Khur. The last prayer from Monarchia must now be answered. Today we witness with our own eyes the ruin our brothers have made of the perfect city.’

The four Astartes warriors around the command throne shared a glance, though their expressions remained hidden behind their Mark III helms. Each of them heard the tremor in their father’s voice.

‘My sons,’ the message continued. ‘Blood demands blood. We will have the answers we seek before the day is done. This, I swear t–’

The message didn’t end, it was cut off. An overriding signal took hold of the vox-network, powerful enough to eclipse the words of the Legion’s own primarch.

This voice was deeper, colder, and just as sincere.

‘Warriors of the Word Bearers. I am Guilliman of the XIII Legion, Lord of Macragge. You are ordered to descend to the surface immediately and muster in the heart of the razed site once known as Monarchia. Coordinates are being conveyed. There will be no defiance of this mandate. Your Legion, in its entirety, will gather as ordered. That is all.’

The voice ceased, and silence reigned.

Almost a hundred souls – human, servitor and Astartes – gathered on the bridge of De Profundis. None of them spoke a word for almost a full minute.

Without even acknowledging the others, the Seventh Captain turned and stalked across the chamber, his armoured boots thudding on the plasteel decking.

‘Argel Tal?’ Deumos spoke into his helm’s vox-link. His visor display tracked his subordinate captain, scrolling white text feeds of biorhythmic data across his vision. He blinked at a peripheral rune to clear the automatic tactical display.

The Seventh Captain turned, making the sign of the holy aquila over his chest, his gauntlets forming the God-Emperor’s symbol over the polished breastplate.

‘I go to ready Seventh Company for planetfall,’ he said. ‘The answers we seek are on the surface of Khur, in the ruins of the perfect city. I want those answers, Deumos.’

The air was gritty, thickened by dust and smoke haze. The ground was a black ash desert, with heat-seared patches of glass and melted marble that reflected the sunlight until they were crunched underfoot.

Argel Tal breathed in, tasting the recycled filtration of his own suit – the sweat, the chemical tang of his gene-enhanced blood – but he couldn’t bring himself to seal his suit completely. Each breath drew in a penitent trace of the brimstone and scorched rock reek of the surrounding devastation.