The boy takes the shot, and the shell goes wide.
With the cold air split by the crack of gunfire, the beast twists in the snow, ghost-light on the ground as it snarls at its attacker. Quivering black spines rise from the denser white fur at its back and neck, an instinctive defensive response. A tail lashes behind the beast in threatening rhythm, coiling and thrashing in time with the boy’s own heartbeat.
For a moment he sees what the elder knights all claimed to see – a sight he’d always believed to be the lies of ageing warriors girding their fading legends with false poetry.
Yet there it is in the beast’s black eyes, something beneath the raw desire to survive. Recognition stares back at him: a crude intelligence, malicious despite its feral simplicity. The moment shatters as the creature vents its anger. Something between a lion’s burbling snarl and a bear’s hoarse roar rings out in the cold air between them.
The boy fires again. Three more shots echo through the forest, disturbing the snow bundled on branches above. Shivering fingers seek to reload the primitive pistol, but his aim was true and his father’s pistol sang its killing song. The beast limps now, dragging itself closer in a grotesque, mangled run.
He feels the chunky shells scatter from his grip, spilling out onto the snow. It’s too cold to reload with his fingers numbed to raw senselessness. He drops the pistol, too. Not from fear or pain, but because he needs two hands for what will come next.
Steel whispers as it slides from his sheath, a sword almost as long as the boy is tall, clutched in two shivering hands. As the beast stalks closer, he sees the malign hunger in its eyes cool to a feral wariness. It’s dying, but that only makes it bolder. Its foul sentience knows it no longer has anything to lose. It hunts now out of malice alone.
Flakes of snow drift onto the blade, freezing into diamonds wedded to the steel.
‘Come on,’ the boy breathes the whispered words. ‘Come on…’
The beast leaps, striking his chest with the force of a stallion’s kick, and he’s down on his back. The beast weighs as much as a warhorse, its twitching bulk pressing down on the boy’s slender body. The ache in his chest is a dull, creaking crackle, as if his lungs are filled with dry leaves. He knows his ribs are shattered, but there’s almost no pain at all. Steaming blood courses down the blade and onto his hands.
Finally, the beast ceases its shaking. The boy gathers his strength and counts to three, rolling the stinking creature onto its side. The spines still quiver and leak clear fluid. He’s careful not to touch those.
The sword in his hands is bonded to his fingers by a coating of the beast’s cooling blood. He lets the blade fall into the snow, and draws the serrated skinning knife from his boot. Birds sing in the branches above, though birdsong on Caliban is never beautiful. Raptors cry challenges at one another, while carrion birds caw for corpse-meat.
Slowly, everything starts to whiten, to fade away as other, truer sounds begin infiltrating his thoughts: the sound of a ticking fan blade in a labouring air filtrator; boot-steps on the deck above; the omnipresent rumble of live engines.
At last, he opens his eyes.
Both of them. Both work. He looks at the harsh illumination globes above, smelling the sharp disinfectant smell of the medicae chambers.
With a pained grunt, Corswain rises and says, ‘Water.’
XVIII
HIS MIND WANDERED during the morning vigil. As Corswain knelt with his brothers, his muscles still stiff with aches and discoloured by bruises, he found the serenity of purposes ever more difficult to attain. His head remained bowed against the hilt of his sword, and he gave all the appearance of another knight in dutiful reflection of the coming crusade. In truth, he dwelled in memories. His thoughts flew back to a world that hated him.
Tsagualsa.
The name brought a sneer to his lips, hidden by the hood that cast his features into shadow. Tsagualsa, a dead world the Night Lords claimed as their own; a world where primarchs had been reduced to screaming brothers, and the foundations of a fortress would one day rise to become an enemy stronghold.
Tragan called to him once the reverence ended. The other knights filed from the chamber of reflection, their white surplice robes not enough the cover the battle scarring that ravaged every suit of black armour.
‘Your Grace,’ Tragan greeted him as he limped closer.
Corswain smiled in reply. ‘You do not need to call me that any more, captain. Is something amiss?’
Tragan, like his brothers, wore his full armour beneath a clean surplice. The hood was down, revealing his strong, aquiline features for all to see.
‘The Lion summons us,’ he said.
Corswain would‘ve checked his weapons, had they still been at his side. Instead, he nodded. ‘Very well.’
XIX
THE LORD OF the First Legion sat as he so often sat these nights, leaning back in his ornate throne of ivory and obsidian. His elbows rested upon the throne’s sculpted arms, while his fingers were steepled before his face, just barely touching his lips. Unblinking eyes, the brutal green of Caliban’s forests, stared dead ahead, watching the flickering hololith of embattled stars.
Tragan and Corswain approached the throne as one. In a display far from perfect unity, the captain drew his blade and knelt before his liege, while Corswain went down slower – his body still sore, muscles still at odds with his desires. The Lion watched their obeisance with impassive eyes. When he spoke, his voice was the grind of thunder at the horizon – it could never be mistaken for human, and the pale scar across his tanned throat didn’t help humanise his tone.
‘Rise.’
They rose as commanded. Corswain stood with muscles taut, arms crossed over his breastplate, his armour enlivened by the thick, white fur pelt draping down his back. The skinned beast’s fanged head draped over his shoulder guard, forming the cloak’s binding.
‘You summoned us, my liege?’
‘I did.’ The Lion remained seated with his fingers steepled before his lips. ‘We have made contact with Imperial forces.’
‘Orders?’ Corswain asked, feeling his heart beat faster. ‘A summons?’
‘Neither. We will not abandon the Thramas Crusade until these systems are ours. The Imperium lives and dies by what we do here in the deepest reaches. Defending Terra means nothing if the rest of the empire is ash.’
‘I do not understand, sire. What force has made contact with us?’
The Lion shook his crowned head again, watching the hololith. His eyes reflected bright clusters of stars and worlds, while his voice was uncharacteristically soft.
‘We have made contact with several of my brothers and their Legions,’ he said, ‘for the first time since we parted company with the Wolves.’
‘Is it the Wolf King, sire?’ Corswain made no effort to disguise his reluctance. The Angels and the Wolves had hardly parted on brotherly terms.
‘No, Cor. The hail comes from Guilliman and our cousins within the Thirteenth Legion. Knowing we have been unable to reach Terra, it seems the Lord of Ultramar wishes us at his side instead.’
Before the warriors could reply, the Lion narrowed his Calibanite eyes. ‘ Unending Imperial ambition has not bred warriors with the warm hearts of men, but angels with the cold hearts of weapons.’ He rose from his throne, circling the hololithic table, watching the worlds turn about their suns.
‘My sons,’ he smiled, though it was utterly without warmth. ‘It seems Horus is not the only soul to believe he is heir to the empire.’