He watched, shielding his mind from a spit-spray of formless psychic hate, as the statue of a dying god dragged itself from a grave of scarlet soil.
It couldn’t stand. In its struggles to rise, the creature crawled closer, hands digging into the earth to find loose purchase. But it couldn’t seem to stand. The primarch watched it crawl, unable to see any distinct spinal injury along its cracked armour plating. The long mane of hair falling to either side of its snarling death-mask face looked to be composed of smoke. It streamed out, captured by the wind, a slave to the storm’s breath.
Lorgar backed away with slow care, boots crunching the dust, his own features bare of anything beyond curiosity. Whatever the crippled thing was, its wrath poured from it in an aura of physical pressure. Lorgar took another retreating step, still watching closely.
For all the god-statue’s majesty, it was plainly ruined by supernatural decay. A husk crawled where once a great entity would be striding over the land. Lorgar saw its banished glory when he narrowed his eyes, peering at the flickering after-images through his lashes. A being of tectonic armour plating: with eyes of white flame; a heart that beat magma over bones of unburnable black stone; a towering manifestation of incarnate rage and holy fire. Lorgar saw all of this through the swirling sand, and even smiled as the wind formed a false heat haze around the creature – another weak echo of what should have been truly majestic.
Had it been able to stand, it would have risen taller than a Legiones Astartes dreadnought. Even prone and destroyed, it was an immense thing, leaving a wretched trail in the dust.
He almost pitied it, in this devastated incarnation. Its black skin was faded to a greyish charcoal, split in old cracks that bled smoke into the storm. Lava-blood had dried to a sluggish flow of ember sludge; scabby crusts spoke of its own blood cooling, drying as it left its body. Where eyes of witchfire had once blazed, hollow eye sockets twisted in sightless, feral expressions.
‘I am Lorgar,’ he told the crawling god. ‘The seventeenth son of the Emperor of Man.’
The god bared black teeth and grey gums, seeking to shout. Nothing but ash left its snarling lips, spilling onto the sand beneath its chin, while the psychic aftershock of the denied scream battered uselessly against Lorgar’s guarded mind.
It crawled closer. Two of its fingers broke against the ground. Congealing magma oozed from the stumps, blackening as it dried.
‘I know you can hear me,’ the primarch kept his voice calm. His crozius hammer flared with energy, lightning sparking in a mad dance over its spiked head. ‘But you cannot answer, can you?’
He took another step backwards. In response, the god’s statue gave another soundless roar.
‘I see you cannot.’ The primarch’s smile faltered. ‘Nothing is left to you but this dull ache of unquenchable hatred. That is almost tragic.’
Lorgar.
Ingethel? He reached for the daemon’s voice. Ingethel? I have found… something. An echo. A wraith. I believe I will put it out of its misery.
It is an Avatar of Kaela Mensha Khaine.
Lorgar nearly shrugged. The name means nothing to me.
The war god of the soulbroken. You have disturbed the city’s heart, bringing living warmth to the coldest of places.
He returned the psychic equivalent of a snort. Whatever it once was, it is dying now. It has been dying for a long time, entombed beneath this poisonous soil.
As you say.A pause. A sense of amusement. Lorgar. Behind you.
The primarch turned from the crawling god, to face the slender figures walking from the gritty wind. He could see nothing in the way of detail; they were silhouettes in the storm, drifting closer, curved blades in their hands.
A dozen, two dozen, all ghosting closer. Not a single one of them betrayed the warm resonance of living sentience.
‘Mon-keigh,’ whispered the wind. ‘Sha’eil, Sha’eil, Sha’eil.’
He knew the word. Sha’eil. Hell. A place of absolute evil.
Lorgar blasted each of the silhouettes apart with focused projections of psychic force. It took no more than a moment’s focus. Heat haze shimmered in the wake of their discorporation – the primarch laughed as he realised he was wasting his strength on mirages.
A groaning, grinding moan rang out from behind. Lorgar turned again, in time to see the god’s statue finally rising to its knees. From the red sand, it drew forth an ancient and cracked blade. Through clenched teeth that wheezed with ash, it coughed its first words.
‘Suin Daellae,’ growled the withered god. The blade in its hands, used more as a crutch than a weapon, streamed with unhealthy black smoke, but didn’t burst into flame.
Lorgar watched the trembling creature with a cautious eye. Suin Daellae, he sent to his distant guide. I am not familiar with the words.
The Doom that Wails. It is the name of the blade in its hands.
Lorgar watched the Avatar topple again, crashing onto its hands and knees. I almost feel pity for the thing.
He was aware of the daemon taking form behind him, shaping itself from the wind, but felt no compunction to turn and face it.
You should not pity it, Lorgar. There is a lesson in this.
The primarch was sure there was, but he cared little for such unsubtle teachings. The Avatar’s skin cracked and peeled away by each of the statue’s joints.
‘I am ending this,’ he said aloud.
As you wish,Ingethel’s words drifted back.
Lorgar stepped forward, his mace heavy in his hands.
Remember this moment, Lorgar. Remember it for what it is, and what it stands for.
He drew closer to the collapsing statue and raised his crozius high, every inch the image of an executioner.
The Avatar’s cracking hand gripped his armour greave. Another of its fingers broke off.
‘I will end the misery of your ignorance,’ said Lorgar, and let the hammer fall.
A SINGLE STRIKE. A blow to the back of the head.
The crash of iron against stone. The hiss of dust captured by the wind. The rattle of grit against sealed ceramite.
There is a lesson here.
On the red soil, an outline of black ash marked the shape of a god’s grave.
Lorgar. Do you see it?
Lorgar turned back to the daemon. Ingethel was slavering, its jaws dripping with clear saliva that somehow failed to crystallise in the intense cold.
Do you see? it asked, unblinking. A divine being can be as ignorant, as lost, as blind as any mere mortal. They can be as stubborn in their defiance, and just as grave a threat to the truth. Look at the revenant you destroyed – an echo of a faith that failed long ago. Now it is gone, this world can heal, untainted by false and heathen belief. Do you see?
The irritation left his vox-grille as a raucous grunt. ‘You asked that question of my son, Argel Tal, and I do not wish for the same blunt instruction. Yes, Ingethel. I see.’
Even a god may die, Lorgar.
He laughed again. ‘Subtlety is poison to you, isn’t it?’
Even a god may die. You will remember those words, before the end.
The daemon’s silent tone gave him pause. ‘You speak of the end as if you know its outcome.’
I have walked the paths of possibility. I have seen what might be, and what is almost certain to be. But one cannot see what will be, until it has become what was.
Lorgar no longer felt like laughing. ‘What is most likely, then? How will this end?’