And yet Horus Lupercal was doing such a thing more and more. Oh, he followed where Erebus led, that was certain, but he did it less quickly than he had at first. The Warmaster’s head was being turned and he was wilful with it. At times, the Word Bearer allowed himself to wonder; was the master of the rebels listening to other voices than he?
Not to dwell, though. This was to be expected. Horus was a primarch. One could no more hope to shackle one down and command him than a person might saddle an ephemeral animus. The First Chaplain reminded himself of this.
Horus must be allowed to be Horus, he told himself. And when the time is upon him… He will be ready.
Still; the voyage to Dagonet, the fogging of the lines. That did not disperse. If anything, it grew worse. In his meditations Erebus had searched the egosphere of the planet turning below them, but the screaming and the fear drowned out every subtle tell. All he could divine was a trace of the familiar.
The pariah-thing. His Spear. Perhaps no longer on this world, perhaps just the spoor of its passing, but certainly something. For a while he was content to accept this as the truth, but with the passing of the hours Erebus could not leave the matter be. He worried at it, picked at the psy-mark like a fresh scab.
Why had Spear come to Dagonet? What possible reason could there be for the killer to venture off the path Erebus had laid out for him? And, more to the troubling point of it, why had Horus chosen to show the flag here? The Word Bearer believed that coincidence was something that existed only in the minds of men too feeble-brained to see the true spider web of the universe’s cruel truth.
It vexed him that the answer was there below on the planet, if only he could reach out for it.
And so he was utterly unprepared for what came next. The rising of the black shriek of a sudden psionic implosion. In the chamber, sensing the edges of it, turning his thoughts to the dark places within and allowing the void to speak to him.
A mistake. The death-energy of his assassin-proxy, hurtling up from the planet’s surface, the escaping daemon beast brushing him as it fled back to the safety of the immaterium. It hit him hard, and he was not ready for it.
He felt Spear die, and with him died the weapon-power. The phantom gun at the head of the unknowing Emperor, shattered before it could even be fired.
Erebus’s fury drove him from his chambers, through the corridors of the ship. His plan, this thread of the pathway, had been broken, and for Hades’s sake he would know why. He would go down to Dagonet and sift the ashes of it through his fingers. He would know why.
Composing himself, the Word Bearer entered the Lupercal’s Court without waiting to be granted entry, but even as Maloghurst moved to block his path, the Warmaster turned from the great window and beckoned Erebus closer. He became aware of alert sirens hooting and beyond the armourglass, fashioned in the oval of an open eye, he saw rods of laser fire sweeping the void ahead of the flagship’s prow.
Horus nodded to him, the hellish light of the weapons discharges casting his hard-edged face like blunt stone. He was, as ever, resplendent in his battle gear. In his haste, Erebus had come to the Court still in his dark robes, and for a moment the Word Bearer felt every bit of his inferiority to the Warmaster, as Horus seemed to loom over him.
None of this he showed, however. He bottled it away, his aspect never changing. Erebus was a prince of lies, and well-practised with it. ‘My lord,’ he began. ‘If it pleases the Warmaster, I have a request to make. A matter to address–’
‘On the surface?’ Horus looked away. ‘We’ll visit Dagonet soon enough, my friend. For the work to be done.’
Erebus maintained his outwardly neutral aspect, but within it took an effort to restrain his tension. ‘Of course. But perhaps, if I might have leave to venture down before the rites proper, I could… smooth the path, as it were.’
‘Soon enough,’ Horus repeated, his tone light; but the chaplain knew then that was the end to it.
Maloghurst hobbled closer, bearing a data-slate. He shot the Word Bearer a look as he stepped in front of him. ‘Message from the pickets,’ he said. ‘The other target is too fast. They scored hits but it will make space before they catch it.’
The Warmaster’s lips thinned. ‘Let it go. What of the other, our ghost?’ He gestured at the inferno raging outside.
‘Indeterminate,’ the equerry sniffed. ‘Gun crews on the perimeter ships report phantom signals, multiple echoes. They’re carving up dead sky, and finding nothing.’ Erebus saw his scarred face’s perpetual frown deepening. ‘I’ve drawn back the fighter screen as you ordered, lord.’
Horus nodded. ‘If he dares come so close to me, I want to look him in the eyes.’
The Word Bearer followed the Warmaster’s gaze out through the windows.
The slate in Maloghurst’s gnarled fingers emitted a melodic chime, at odds with the urgency of its new message. ‘Sensors read… something,’ said the equerry. ‘Closing fast. A collision course! But weapons can’t find it…’
‘An aura cloak,’ said Erebus, peering into the stormy dark. ‘But such a device is beyond the Dagoneti.’
‘Yes.’ Horus smiled, unconcerned. ‘Do you see him?’ The Warmaster stepped to the window and pressed his hands to the grey glass.
Out among the maelstrom of energy, as javelins of fire crossed and recrossed one another, scouring the sky for the hidden attacker, for one instant the Chaplain saw something like oil moving over water. Just the suggestion of a raptor-like object lensing the light of the distant stars behind it. ‘There!’ He pointed.
Maloghurst snapped out a command over his vox. ‘Target located. Engage and destroy!’
The gun crews converged their fire. The craft was close, closer than the illusory ghost image had suggested. Unbidden, Erebus backed away a step from the viewing portal.
Horus’s smile grew wider and the Word Bearer heard the words he whispered, a faint rumble in the deepest register. ‘Kill me,’ said the Warmaster, ‘if you dare.’
Ultio burned around him.
The pilot was already dead in the loosest sense, the cyborg’s higher mental functions boiled in the short-circuit surge from a hit on the starboard wing; but his core brain was intact, and through that the ship dodged and spun as the sky itself seemed to turn upon them.
The ship trailed pieces of fuselage in a comet tail of wreckage and burning plasma. The deck trembled and smoke filled the bridge compartment. A vista of red warning runes met Kell’s eyes wherever he looked. Autonomic systems had triggered the last-chance protocols, opening an iris hatch in the floor to a tiny saviour pod mounted beneath the cockpit. Blue light spilling from the hatch beckoned the Vindicare for a moment. He had his Exitus pistol at his hip and he was still alive. He would only need to take a step…
But to where? Even if he survived the next ten seconds, where could he escape to? What reason did he have to live? His mission… The mission was all Eristede Kell had left in his echoing, empty existence.
The command tower of the Vengeful Spirit rose through the forward canopy, acres of old steel and black iron, backlit by volleys of energy and the red threads of lasers. Set atop it was a single unblinking eye of grey and amber glass, lined in shining gold.
And within the eye, a figure. Kell was sure of it, an immense outline, a demigod daring him to come closer. His hand found the manual throttle bar and he pressed it all the way to the redline, as the killing fires found his range.