'Sons of Horus!' bellowed Sedirae, his voice brimВming with the confidence that came to him so easily. 'For too long we have waited for our brother Legions to open the gate for us so we can put the doubters and the feeble-minded to the sword! At last, the hour has come! Lord Commander Eidolon has broken the siege and the time has come to show the Legions how the Sons of Horus fight!'
The warriors cheered and the lodge banners were raised high, displaying the facets of the beliefs underВpinning the lodge philosophies. A brazen claw reached down from the sky to crush a world in its fist, a black star shone eight rays of death upon a horde of enemies and a great winged beast with two heads stood resplendent on a mountain of corpses.
Images from beyond, conjured by the words of Davinite priests who could look into the warp, they displayed the Sons of Horus's allegiance to the powers their Warmaster embraced.
The enemy is in disarray,’ shouted Sedirae over the cheering. 'We will fall upon them and sweep
them away. You know your duties, Sons of Horus, and you all know that the paths you have followed have led you towards this day. For here we destroy the last vestiges of the old Crusade, and march towards the future!'
Sedirae's confidence was infectious and he knew they were ready.
Targhost stepped forward and raised his hands. He bore the rank of lodge captain himself, privy to the secrets of the Davinite ways and as much a holy man as a commander. He opened his mouth and unleashed a stream of brutal syllables, guttural and dark, the tongue of Davin wrought into a prayer of victory and blood.
The Sons of Horus answered the prayer, their voices raised in a relentless chant that echoed around the dead spires of the Choral City.
And when the prayers were done, the Sons of Horus marched to war.
Fire stormed around Tarvitz. Emperor's Children TerВminators raked the central dome with fire and the sounds of bmtal hand-to-hand combat came from the shattered gallery. Tarvitz ducked and ran as bolter fire kicked up fragments around him, sliding into cover beside Brother Solathen of Squad Nasicae
Solathen and about thirty loyalist Emperor's Children were pinned down behind a great fallen column, a few Luna Wolves among them.
'What in the Emperor's name happened?' shouted Tarvitz. 'How did they get in?'
1 don't know, sir,’ replied Solathen. They came from the east.'
"We should have had some warning,' said Tarvitz. That's Lucius's sector. Have you seen him at all?'
'Lucius?' asked Solathen. 'No, he must have fallen.'
Tarvitz shook his head. 'Not likely. I have to find him.'
"We can't hold out here,’ said Solathen. We have to pull back and we won't be able to wait for you.'
Tarvitz nodded, but knew that he had to try and find Lucius, even if it was just to recover his body. He doubted Lucius could ever really die, but knew that, amid this carnage, anything was possible.
"Very well,’ said Tarvitz. 'Go. Fall back in good order to the inner domes and the temple, there are barricades there. Go! And don't wait for me!'
He put his head briefly over the pillar and fired his bolter, kicking a burst of shots towards Eidolon's Emperor's Children swarming all over the far side of the dome. More covering fire sprayed from his warriors' guns as they began falling back by squads.
The dome between him and his goal was littered with bodies, some of them chewed into unrecogВnisable sprays of torn flesh. He waited until his warriors had put enough distance between them and the enemy and broke from cover.
Bolter shots tore up the ground beside him and he rolled into the cover of a fallen pillar, crawling as fast as he could to reach the passageway that led
from the dome and curved around its columned circumference towards the east wing of the PrecenВtor's Palace.
Lucius was somewhere in these ruins and Tarvitz had to find him.
Loken ducked and threw himself to the floor, skidВding along the fire-blackened tiles of the plaza. The palace loomed above him, whirling as Loken spun on his back and fired up at the closest World Eater. One shot caught the warrior in the leg and he colВlapsed in a roaring heap. Torgaddon leapt upon him, plunging his sword into the traitor's back.
Loken climbed to his feet as more fire stuttered across the plaza. He tried to get a bearing on the enemy among the heaps of the dead and the jagged slabs of marble sticking up from the edges of shell craters, but it was impossible.
The plaza between the chaos of the palace and the dark mass of the city was infested with World Eaters, charging forwards to exploit the breach made by the Emperor's Children.
There's a whole squad out here,’ said Torgaddon, wrenching his sword from the World Eater. We're right in the middle of them,’
Then we keep going,’ said Loken.
Back on his feet, he reloaded his bolter as they hurried through the wreckage and charnel heaps, scanning the darkness for movement. Torgaddon kept close behind him, sweeping his bolter between chunks of tiling or fallen masonry. Fire
snapped around them and the sounds of battle coming from the palace became ever more terrible, the war-cries and explosions tearing through the violent night.
'Down!' yelled Torgaddon as a burst of plasma fire lanced from the darkness. Loken threw himself to the ground as the searing bolt flashed past him and bored a hole in a slab of fallen stone behind him. A dark shape came at him and Loken saw the flash of a blade, bringing his bolter up in an instinctive block. He felt chainblade teeth grinding against the metal of his gun and kicked out at his attacker's groin.
The World Eater pivoted away from the blow easВily, turning to smash Torgaddon to the ground with the butt of his chainaxe. Torgaddon's attack gave Loken a chance to regain his feet and he threw aside the ruined bolter to draw his own sword.
Torgaddon wrestled with another World Eater on the ground, but his friend would have to fend for himself as Loken saw that his opponent was a capВtain, and not just any captain, but one of the World Eaters' best.
'Kharn!' said Loken as the warrior attacked.
Kharn paused in his attack and, for the briefest moment, Loken saw the noble warrior he had spoВken with in the Museum of Conquest, before something else swamped it again – something that twisted Kharn's face with hatred.
That second was enough for Loken, allowing him to dodge back behind a fan of broken stone jutting from the edge of crater. Bullets still carved through
the air and somewhere beyond his sight, TorgadВdon was fighting his own battle, but Loken could not worry about that now.
'What happened, Kharn?' cried Loken. 'What did they turn you into?'
Kharn screamed an incoherent bellow of rage and leapt towards him with his axe held high. Loken braced his stance and brought his blade up to catch Kharn's axe as it slashed towards him and the two warriors clashed in a desperate battle of strength
'Kharn…' said Loken through gritted teeth as the World Eater forced the chainaxe's whirling teeth towards his face. 'This is not the man I knew! What have you become?'
As their eyes met, Loken saw Kharn's soul and despaired. He saw the warrior who had sworn oaths of brotherhood and pledged himself to the Crusade as he himself had done, the warrior who had seen the terrors and tragedies of the Crusade as well as its victories. And he saw the dark madness that had swamped that in bloodshed and betrayals yet to be enacted.
'I am the Eightfold Path,’ snapped Kharn, his every words punctuated by a froth of blood.
'No!' shouted Loken, pushing the World Eater away. 'It doesn't have to be this way'
'It does,’ said Kharn. 'There is no way off the Path. We must always go further,’
The humanity drained from Kharn's face and Loken knew that the World Eater was truly gone and that only in death would this battle end.
Loken backed away, fending off a flurry of blows from Kharn's axe, until he was forced back against a slab of rubble. His foe's axe buried itself in the stone beside him and Loken slammed the pommel of his sword into Kharn's head. Kharn rode the blow and smashed his forehead into Loken's face, grabbing his sword arm and wrestling him to the ground.