'Horus!' said Angron, his voice rough and brutal. 'I see the Warmaster welcomes his brother like a king. Am I your subject now?'
Angron,’ replied Horns unperturbed, 'it is good that you could join us.'
'And miss all this prettiness? Not for the world,' said Angron, his voice loaded with the threat of a smouldering volcano.
A second delegation arrived through another of the arches, arrayed in the purple and gold of the Emperor's Children. Led by Eidolon in all his magВnificence, a squad of Astartes with glittering swords marched alongside the lord commander, their batВtle gear as ornate as their leader's.
'Warmaster, the Lord Fulgrim sends his regards,’ stated Eidolon formally and with great humility. Loken saw that Eidolon had learned the ways of a practiced diplomat since he had last spoken to the Warmaster. 'He assures you that his task is well under way and that he will join us soon. I speak for him and command the Legion in his stead.'
Loken's eyes darted from Angron to Eidolon, seeing the obvious antipathy between the two Legions. The Emperor's Children and the World Eaters were as difВferent as could be – Angron's Legion fought and won through raw aggression, while the Emperor's ChilВdren had perfected the art of picking an enemy force apart and destroying it a piece at a time.
'Lord Angron,' said Eidolon with a bow, 'it is an honour.'
Angron did not deign to reply and Loken saw Eidolon stiffen at this insult, but any immediate confrontation was averted as the final delegation to the Warmaster entered the Lupercal's Court.
Mortarion, Primarch of the Death Guard was backed by a unit of warriors armoured in the dull gleam of unpainted Terminator plate. Mortarion's armour was also bare, with the brass skull of the Death Guard on one shoulder guard. His pallid face and scalp were hairless and pocked, his mouth and throat hidden by a heavy collar that hissed spurts of grey steam as he breathed.
A Death Guard captain marched beside the priВmarch, and Loken recognised him with a smile. Captain Nathanial Garro had fought alongside the Sons of Horns in the days when they had been known as the Luna Wolves. The Terran-born capВtain had won many friends within the Warmaster's Legion for his unshakeable code of honour and his straightforward, honest manner.
The Death Guard warrior caught Loken's gaze and gave a perfunctory nod of greeting.
'With our brother Mortarion,’ said Horus, 'we are complete,’
The Warmaster stood and descended from the elevated throne to the centre of the court as the lights dimmed and a glowing globe appeared above him, hovering just below the ceiling.
This,’ said Horus, 'is Isstvan III, courtesy of servitor-manned stellar cartography drones. Remember it well, for history will be made here,’
Jonah Aruken paused in his labours and slipped a small hip flask from beneath his uniform jacket as he checked for anyone watching. The hangar bay
was bustling with activity, as it always seemed to be these days, but no one was paying him any attenВtion. The days when an Imperator Titan being made ready for war would pause even the most jaded war maker in his tracks were long past, for there were few here who had not seen the mighty form of the Dies Irae being furnished for battle scores of times already.
He took a hit from the flask and looked up at the old girl.
The Titan's hull was scored and dented with wounds the Mechanicum servitors had not yet had time to patch and Jonah patted the thick plates of her leg armour affectionately.
"Well, old girl,’ he said. "You've certainly seen some action, but I still love you,’
He smiled at the thought of a man being in love with a machine, but he'd love anything that had saved his life as often as the Dies Irae had. Through the fires of uncounted battles, they had fought together and as much as Titus Cassar denied it, Jonah knew that there was a mighty heart and soul at the core of this glorious war machine.
Jonah took another drink from his flask as his expression turned sour thinking of Titus and his damned sermons. Titus said he felt the light of the Emperor within him, but Jonah didn't feel much of anything any more.
As much as he wanted to believe in what Titus was preaching, he just couldn't let go of the sceptiВcal core at the centre of his being. To believe in
things that weren't there, that couldn't be seen or felt? Titus called it faith, but Jonah was a man who needed to believe in what was real, what could be touched and experienced.
Princeps Turnet would discharge him from the crew of the Dies Irae if he knew he had attended prayer meetings back on Davin, and the thought of spending the rest of the Crusade as a menial, denied forever the thrill of commanding the finest war machine ever to come from the forges of Mars sent a cold shiver down his spine.
Every few days, Titus would ask him to come to another prayer meeting and the times he said yes, they would furtively make their way to some forВsaken part of the ship to listen to passages read from the Lectitio Divinitatus. Each time he would sweat the journey back for fear of discovery and the court martial that would no doubt follow.
Jonah had been a career Titan crewman since the day he had first set foot aboard his inaugural postВing, a Warhound Titan called the Venator, and he knew that if it came down to a choice, he would choose the Dies Irae over the Lectitio Divinitatus every time.
But still, the thought that Titus might be right continued to nag at him.
He leaned back against the Titan's leg, sliding down until he was sitting on his haunches with his knees drawn up to his chest.
'Faith,’ he whispered, 'you can't earn it and you can't buy it. Where then do I find it?'
'Well,’ said a voice behind and above him, 'you can start by putting that flask away and coming with me.'
Jonah looked up and saw Titus Cassar, resplenВdent as always in his parade-ready uniform, standing in the arched entrance to the Titan's leg bastions.
'Titus,’ said Jonah, hurriedly stuffing the hip flask back into his jacket. 'What's up?'
'We have to go,’ said Titus urgently. 'The saint is in danger,’
Maggard stalked along the shadowed compan-ionways of the Vengeful Spirit at a brisk pace, marching at double time with the vigour of a man on his way to a welcome rendezvous. His hulking form had been steadily growing over the last few months, as though he were afflicted with some hideous form of rapid gigantism.
But the procedures the Warmaster's apothecaries were performing on his frame were anything but hideous. His body was changing growing and transВforming beyond anything the crude surgeries of House Carpinus had ever managed. Already he could feel the new organs within him reshaping his flesh and bone into something greater than he could ever have imagined, and this was just the beginning. . His Kirlian blade was unsheathed, shimmering with a strange glow in the dim light of the corridor. He wore fresh white robes, his enlarging physique already too massive for his armour. Legion artificers
stood ready to reshape it once his flesh had settled into its new form, and he missed its reassuring solidity enclosing him.
Like him, his armour would be born anew, forged into something worthy of the Warmaster and his chosen warriors. Maggard knew he was not yet ready for such inclusion, but he had already carved himself a niche within the Sons of Horus. He walked where the Astartes could not, acted where they could not be seen to act and spilled blood where they needed to be seen as peacemakers.
It required a special kind of man to do such work, efficiently and conscience-free, and Maggard was perfectly suited to his new role. He had killed hunВdreds of people at the behest of House Carpinus and many more than that before he had been capВtured by them, but these had been poor, messy killings compared to the death he now carried.