‘A painful death,’ remarked the sergeant, examining his fingers. ‘See here?’ He showed off a tiny scratch on the ceramite of the knuckle joint. ‘He bit me in his last agonies, not that it mattered.’
Sedirae threw a look at the command tent. No one had emerged to see what was going on outside. He doubted Horus and the rest of his Mournival were even aware of the killing taking place. They had so much to occupy them, after all. So many plans and great schemes to helm…
‘I’ll inform the Warmaster,’ he heard himself say.
Erebus took a step closer. ‘Do you think that is necessary?’
Sedirae glanced at the Chaplain. The Word Bearer had a way of drawing attention directly when he wished it, almost as if he could drag a gaze towards him like a black sun would pull in light and matter in order to consume it; and by turns he could do the opposite, making himself a ghost in a room full of people, allowing sight to slide off him as if he were not there. In his more honest moments, Luc Sedirae would admit that the presence of Erebus left him unsettled. The captain of the 13th could not quite shake the disquiet that clouded his thoughts every time the Word Bearer chose to speak. Not for the first time, despite all the fealty he had sworn to the Luna Wolves – now the Sons of Horus in name and banner – Sedirae asked himself why the Warmaster needed Erebus so close in order to prosecute his just and right insurrection against the Emperor. It was one of many doubts that he carried, these days. The burden of them seemed to grow ever greater with each passing month that the Warmaster’s forces dallied out here in the deeps, while the prize of Terra herself remained out of reach.
He gave a low snort and gestured at the corpse. ‘Someone just tried to kill him. Yes, cousin, I think Horus Lupercal might consider that of interest.’
‘Tell me you are not so naïve as to imagine that this pitiful attempt was the first such act against the Warmaster?’
Sedirae narrowed his eyes at Erebus’s light, almost dismissive tone. ‘The first to come so close, I would warrant.’
‘A few steps more and he would have been inside the tent,’ muttered Korda.
‘Distance is relative,’ Erebus replied. ‘Lethality is the key factor.’
Korda stood up. ‘I wonder who sent him.’
‘The Warmaster’s father,’ said Erebus immediately. ‘Or, if not by the Emperor’s direct decree, then by that of his lackeys.’
‘You seem very certain,’ Sedirae noted. ‘But Horus has made many enemies.’
The Word Bearer gave a slight smile and shook his head. ‘None of concern on this day.’ He took a breath. ‘We three ended this threat before it became an issue. It need not become one after the fact.’ Erebus nodded towards the tent. ‘The Warmaster has a galaxy to conquer. He has more than enough to absorb his attention as it is. Would you wish to distract your primarch with this triviality, Sedirae?’ He prodded the corpse with the tip of his boot.
‘I believe the Warmaster should make that choice for himself.’ Irritation flared in Sedirae’s manner and his lip curled. ‘Perhaps–’ He caught himself and fell silent, arresting the train of thought even as it formed.
‘Perhaps?’ echoed Erebus, immediately seizing on the word as if he knew what would have followed it. ‘Speak your mind, captain. We are all kinsmen here. All brothers of the lodge.’
He deliberated for a long moment on the words pushing at his lips, and then finally gave them leave. ‘Perhaps, Word Bearer, if matters such as these were not kept from Horus, then he might wish to move along a swifter path. Perhaps, if he were not kept ignorant of the threats to our campaign, he might–’
‘Push on to the Segmentum Solar, and to Earth?’ Erebus seemed to close the distance between them without actually moving. ‘That is the root of it, am I right? You feel that the measured pace of our advance is too slow. You wish to lay siege to the Imperial Palace tomorrow.’
‘My captain is not alone in that regard,’ said Korda, with feeling.
‘A month would be enough,’ retorted Sedirae, showing teeth. ‘It could be done. We all know it.’
Erebus’s smile lengthened. ‘I am sure that from where the warriors of the 13th Company stand, it doubtless seems that simple. But let me assure you, it is not. There’s still so much to be done, Luc Sedirae. So many pieces to be placed, so many factors not yet ready.’
The captain gave an angry snort. ‘What are you saying? That we must wait for the stars to be right?’
The smile faded and the Word Bearer became grim. ‘Exactly that, cousin. Exactly that.’
The sudden coldness in Erebus’s words gave Sedirae a moment’s pause. ‘Clearly I lack your insight, then,’ he grated. ‘As I fail to see the merit in this leisurely strategy.’
‘As long as we follow the Warmaster, all will be as it should,’ Erebus told him. ‘Victory will come soon enough.’ He paused over the corpse, which had begun to disintegrate into dust, pulled away by the winds. ‘Perhaps even sooner than any of us might expect.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Korda.
‘A truism of warfare.’ Erebus did not look up from his examination of the dead assassin. ‘If a tactic can be used against us, then it can be used by us.’
Dawn brought with it the clouds, and under the mellow amber glow of the rising sun, the bright jewels of the Taebian Stars began to fade away as pure blue washed in to lighten the darkness of lost night. Pressed to one window of the coleopter’s cramped cabin, Yosef Sabrat took a moment to pull the collar of his greatcoat a little tighter around his neck. The long summer season of Iesta Veracrux was well and truly over, and the new autuwinter was on the horizon, coming in slow and careful. Up here, in the cold morning sky, he could feel it. In a matter of weeks, the rains would come in earnest; and not before time, either. This year’s crop would be one for the record books, so they were saying.
The flyer bumped through a pocket of turbulent air and Yosef bounced in his seat; like most of the craft in service with the Sentine, it was an old thing but well cared for, one of many machines that could date back their lineage to the Second Establishment and the great colonial influx. The ducted rotor vanes behind the passenger compartment thrummed, the engine note changing as the pilot put it into a shallow portside turn. Yosef let gravity turn his head and he looked past the two jagers who were the only other passengers, and out through the seamless bowl of glassaic at the empty observer’s station.
Sparse pennants of thin white cloud drifted away to give him a better view. They were passing over the Breghoot Canyon, where the sheer rock face of red stone fell away into deeps that saw little daylight, even at high sun. The terraces of the vineyards there were just opening up for the day, fans of solar arrays on the tiled roofs turning and unfolding like black sails on some ocean schooner. Beyond, clinging to the vast kilometre-long trellises that extended out off the edges of the cliffs, waves of greenery resembled strange cataracts of emerald frozen in mid-fall. Had they been closer, Yosef imagined he would be able to see the shapes of harvestmen and their ceramic-clad gatherer automatons moving in among the frames, taking the bounty from the web of vines.
The coleopter rumbled again as it forded an updraught and righted itself, giving a wide berth to the hab-towers reaching high from the cliff top and into the lightening sky. Acres of white stucco coated the flanks of the tall, skinny minarets, and across most of them the shutters were still closed over their windows, the new day yet to be greeted. Most of the capital’s populace were still slumbering at this dawn hour, and Yosef did in all honesty envy them to great degree. The hasty mug of recaf that had been his breakfast sat poorly in his stomach. He’d slept fitfully last night – something that seemed to be happening more often these days – and so when the vox had pulled him the rest of the way from his dreamless half-slumber, it had almost been a kindness. Almost.