‘Then speak it and begone.’ Lorgar reached for his crozius on the ground, and dragged it up from the ash. Dust rained from its spiked head.
‘These five warriors of the Legiones Custodes,’ the Ultramarines’ primarch inclined his head to them. ‘They are not alone. Fifteen more remain on my flagship. Our father has ordered them to accompany you, brother.’
Argel Tal closed his eyes at this final indignity. After kneeling in the ashes of failure, after being told by the Emperor that all their achievements were worthless... Now this.
Lorgar laughed, the sound ripe with derision. His face was still smeared with dust.
‘I refuse. They are not needed.’
‘Our father believes otherwise,’ Guilliman said. ‘These warriors are to be his eyes as your Legion rejoins the Great Crusade.’
‘And does our father set hounds to watch over you? Do they reside in your precious empire of Ultramar, whispering of your every move? I see the shadow of a smile on your lips. These others do not know you as I do, brother. Our sons may not see the amusement in your eyes, but I am not blind to such nuance.’
‘You have always possessed an active imagination. Today has proven that.’
‘My devotion is my strength.’ Lorgar clenched his perfect teeth. ‘You have no heart, and no soul.’ A snort blackened his angelic features with a disgusted twist. ‘I pray that one day, you feel as I feel. Would you smile if one of Ultramar’s worlds died in fire? Tarentus? Espandor? Calth?’
‘You should return to your fleet, brother.’ Guilliman uncrossed his arms, revealing the golden aquila emblazoned across his chest. The eagle’s spread wings glinted with reflected sunlight. ‘You have much work to do.’
The blow came from nowhere. In its wake, the air rang with the echo of metal on metal, the clashing chime of a great cathedral bell. It was almost beautiful.
A primarch lay in the dust, surrounded by his warriors. None present had ever witnessed such a thing. Argel Tal’s bolter was raised, aimed at the ranks of Ultramarines who mirrored the gesture in kind. A hundred gun barrels levelled at a hundred thousand. The Seventh Captain needed three attempts to form words.
‘Hold your fire,’ he whispered into the general vox-channel. ‘Do not fire unless fired upon.’
Lorgar rested the immense crozius mace on his golden shoulder. His grey eyes flickered with uncertain emotion as he bared his teeth at the fallen Lord of Macragge.
‘You will never mock me again, brother. Is that understood?’
Guilliman’s rise was slow, almost hesitant. The golden eagle on his breastplate was split, a valley-crack running through its body.
‘You go too far,’ a softer voice said. Malcador, First Lord of Terra, still clutched his staff. It was all that kept him standing. ‘You go too far.’
‘Be silent, worm. The next time you bleed my patience dry, I will do more than slap you aside.’
Guilliman was on his feet now. He turned an expressionless face back to his brother.
‘Is your tantrum concluded, Lorgar? I must return to the Crusade.’
‘Come, my son,’ Kor Phaeron’s corpse-sneer was directed at Guilliman even as his words were meant for his primarch. ‘Come. We have much to discuss.’
Lorgar exhaled, and nodded once. The anger was fading, and no longer offered a shield against shame. ‘Yes. Back to the ships.’
‘All companies,’ Kor Phaeron spat across the vox, ‘return to orbit.’
‘Yes, First Captain,’ Argel Tal replied with the others. ‘By your word.’
Argel Tal’s Thunderhawk nestled in the shadow cast by a ruined wall. This blasted slice of architecture stood almost alone in the ash desert, the last lingering piece of a building that would never rise again. The captain walked with Xaphen and his subcommanders, Brother-Sergeants Malnor and Torgal. Squads embarked aboard their own gunships, despondent gatherings of warriors walking in near-silence.
‘There will be no resettlement,’ Torgal said. ‘The city is a tomb. There is nothing left to rebuild.’
‘It is noted in many historical archives,’ said Xaphen, ‘that even the most enlightened primitive cultures on pre-Imperial Terra would salt the earth after razing a city to the ground. Nothing would grow for generations. The people of the defeated city had no choice but to leave and begin new lives elsewhere, rather than rebuild.’
‘How fascinating,’ said Malnor.
‘Be quiet,’ Torgal grunted. ‘Please continue, Chaplain.’
‘I am sure none of us are blind to the echoes of those ancient events taking place here. How many orbital bombardments have we prosecuted ourselves? How many times have we battled in the ruins of a sky-blasted city? This was more than simple destruction. This was eradication. The Ultramarines did as they meant to do, and wiped every significant remnant of Khur’s culture from the face of the planet. A lesson for us, and a lesson for the people.’
Argel Tal led the group into the Thunderhawk’s open cargo bay. Their boots clanged up the ramp.
‘I had my bolter aimed at one of the XIII Legion,’ he said at last. ‘Aimed at his throat.’ He tapped the softer fibre bundle cabling in his own armour’s flexible layered collar. ‘If I’d pulled the trigger, he would be dead.’
‘You didn’t pull the trigger,’ Torgal said. ‘None of us did. That’s what matters.’
Argel Tal nodded to a squad of Seventh Company as they moved past, and punched the sealant plate, activating the ramps’ pistons. The hydraulics compacted, lifting the gangway back up in a slow machine-grind.
‘I didn’t,’ the captain said. ‘But I wanted to. After what they did to our city. After they saw us kneel in false shame. I wanted to, and I almost did. I gave the order to hold fire, while silently hoping someone would break it.’
Malnor didn’t move. Xaphen said nothing. After several seconds, Torgal offered an unsure ‘Sir?’
Argel Tal stared through the diminishing slit of daylight allowed by the rising ramp. Without a word, he thudded a fist onto the control plate, halting the seal. The captain moved to the gang ramp as it made its shuddering descent again.
‘Sir?’ Torgal tried again.
‘I saw something. Movement, in the distance, at the edge of the northern craters.’
His visor zoomed and refocused, panning across the uneven horizon. Nothing. Less than nothing.
‘Dust and dead rock,’ said Malnor.
‘I will return shortly.’ Argel Tal was already moving back down the ramp. He didn’t reach for the bolter at his hip or the twin blades sheathed on his back.
‘Captain,’ Xaphen said. ‘We were ordered to return to orbit. Is this necessary?’
‘Yes. Someone is alive out there.’
The stranger staggered over the broken ground. When her foot caught on a jutting hump of rock, she tumbled forward without a sound, crashing down hard. There she remained, prone in the ash, breathing in arrhythmic wheezes as she sought to summon the strength to stand again.
Judging by the bleeding sores on her palms and knees, it was a performance she’d repeated many times, over many days.
Her scarlet robes were filthy and shredded, though they were clearly of inexpensive weave even before they’d suffered the indignity of neglect. Argel Tal watched her from afar, as the lurching figure made her painful way across the blasted terrain. She seemed to have no specific direction in mind, often turning back on herself, and pausing to crouch and catch her breath after each stumble.
The Astartes moved closer. The stranger’s head came up immediately.
‘Who’s there?’ she called.
Argel Tal’s helm turned his answer into a machine-growl, with a waspish, sawing edge. ‘Who indeed?’
The captain kept his gauntleted hands in full view, palms outward in the Khurian custom of greeting another without hostility. The young woman looked in his direction, but made no eye contact. She stared vaguely off to Argel Tal’s side.