Argel Tal didn’t rise to the bait. ‘You seemed to need the help. I’m just glad we were here to assist you.’
Aquillon chuckled and walked away, saying nothing more. The Custodes formed up in imprecise formation and marched ahead. Evidently, their leader wasn’t rising to any bait, either.
‘Sir?’ asked Torgal. ‘Should we go with them?’
Argel Tal was smiling despite himself.
‘Yes. For what little there is left to do, we’ll fight with them.’
By dawn, the glass city’s death-throes were over.
The place chosen for the Legion’s gathering was expansive out of necessity, but still deep within the urban sprawl. Crystal towers, purged of life by the Terminator elite, stood unburned around an immense park. The earth was soon churned to mud under the grinding treads of tanks and the boots of a hundred thousand Astartes. The park itself reached for kilometres in all directions. In better times, it had served as a place of peace and celebration for the people of the city; now it was being used to celebrate their annihilation, and Argel Tal found a quiet pleasure in that little slice of irony.
Seventh Company trickled in – not first, but far from last – and took their appointed places. Xi-Nu 73 and his four robotic warriors knew their place, and made no attempt to approach the assembling rows of Word Bearers. The captain and his squad leaders bid the tech-adept farewell at the edges of the Legion’s formation, and the last sight Argel Tal had of the Mechanicum priest was with Incarnadine, the Conqueror Primus. The robot stood slightly hunched at its master’s side, still towering above the augmetic human, its unliving eye lenses tracking left and right with a camera’s patience. Xi-Nu 73 absently stroked its armour plating, as if it were a pet to have its fur patted.
While they stood separate from the Astartes, they were far from alone. Carthage Cohort was comprised of dozens of maniples, of which Xi-Nu’s four wards were just one. It looked as though many advancing squads had summoned aid from the Legio Cybernetica forces allied to the XVII Legion, for over a hundred robots stood proud in their black and scarlet livery.
A few rare units had oath parchments and scrolls of scripture bound to their armour plating, marking them as particularly accomplished in battle. These robots, from a variety of classes and designs, were enrolled in the Fidelitas Lex’s archives as honorary members of the Word Bearers Legion.
Incarnadine was one of them. The robot bore the serrated sun icon, plated in gold upon its forehead.
Aquillon and the Custodians broke away as Argel Tal and his brothers began to form ranks.
‘Be well, captain,’ said the leader, and offered another salute.
Argel Tal acknowledged the warrior with a nod. ‘And you, Occuli Imperator.’
With that, the Custodes made their way through the gathered Legion to stand apart in a small cluster. Hundreds of grey helms followed the warriors’ movements, watching, judging, hating.
Argel Tal and Xaphen moved to the front ranks alongside Chapter Master Deumos and the other commanders of the Serrated Sun. Considering their victory here, the greetings were oddly subdued. It took a moment for Argel Tal to realise why.
‘How long were you with them?’ Deumos asked, just short of a demand.
Argel Tal glanced at the chron display counting up on the edge of his visor display. ‘Eight hours, forty-one minutes.’
Deumos was bareheaded, and his time-cracked face was set in an expectant glower.
‘Well?’
‘Well, what?’ asked Argel Tal. ‘Have I erred?’
‘Of course not. You have nothing to report?’
‘I do, sir.’ Argel Tal faced forward. ‘But it can wait.’
‘Look at them, brother.’ Deumos was too careful to gesture, but his meaning was clear nevertheless. ‘See how they stand away from us, yet still expect to hear the primarch’s words.’
The Custodes stood spear-straight in two lines of ten, horsehair crests blowing in the wind. Halberds held at attention, just as they would be in the Emperor’s presence. Products of a refined process, where the Astartes were mass-produced – it was easy to imagine these gilded knights hailed as humanity’s finest, beneath only the primarchs themselves in grandeur. It was the natural instinct of the untrained and inexperienced to presume such a thing. For those who perceived their flaws, matters were less cut and dried.
Argel Tal still hadn’t decided how he felt about them. They were stunning in battle, yet deeply flawed. Aquillon was appointed to watch over the Legion and report its actions to the Emperor, yet he had – irritatingly enough – been likable during the hours they’d battled together, and a demonstrably focused warrior.
The Word Bearers stood beneath the scripture-laden banner of Seventh Company and the icon of the serrated sun, as they waited for their brothers to take position.
‘Carthage stands apart from us, yet they will hear the primarch,’ said Argel Tal.
‘That’s different,’ Deumos growled. ‘The Carthage Primacy was signed and oathed over a century ago. Almost a dozen of their war machines have been inducted as honorary Legionnaires since then. Aurelian will order them to leave, mark my words, but at least they have earned the right to stand with us.’
‘Given time, Aquillon might earn the same.’
Deumos laughed, the sudden sound turning nearby heads in his direction. ‘Do you actually believe that, captain?’
Argel Tal tore his gaze from the clustered Custodians. ‘No, lord. Not for a moment.’
Even in the scalding flare of teleportation’s aftermath, every warrior noticed the same thing. Lorgar manifested not in the armour of the Word Bearers’ warlord, but in the robes of an archpriest of their home world.
Kor Phaeron and Erebus stood at the primarch’s side, as all had expected, and as tradition dictated. Yet they too wore the cowled robes of the Colchisian priesthood, their genhanced physiques draped in layered cloth the colour of ashen earth.
Oath papers pinned to the captains’ armour flapped and curled with the breath of displaced air. Rank by rank, from first to last, a hundred thousand warriors went to one knee. Each lowering rank gave a united thud of ceramite on soil as they knelt. Only the banners remained held high above an ocean of granite grey.
Lorgar carried his crozius over his shoulder, mirroring the posture of every Chaplain in the Legion standing before him. Despite its savagery, the ritual weapon wasn’t out of place in the primarch’s more peaceful aspect.
Without his armour, he couldn’t speak across the vox. To compensate, Legion serfs deployed servo-skulls – the skinned, bleached, augmented skulls of former Legion servants who were chosen to continue serving the Word Bearers even in death. The skulls hovered on humming anti-grav suspensors, their eye sockets containing pict-imagers, their grinning jaws replaced by vox-speakers.
One of them bobbed past Argel Tal in its leisurely pathfinding, and a disquieting thought was dredged up in the skull’s passing. This might be Cyrene’s fate one day. If she got her wish to serve the Legion in the decades to come... Argel Tal turned to watch the servo-skull, curious at his own sudden discomfort. Most mortal serfs relished the promise that they might be granted immortality in even this stunted way. But Cyrene–
‘What are you doing?’ Xaphen hissed. ‘Focus.’
Argel Tal snapped back to attention, facing the primarch. Lorgar had chosen his arrival point with great care, standing atop a natural rise in the land before the orderly ranks of warriors sworn to his name.
Before speaking, the cowl came down, pulled back with sublime patience to reveal his strong, handsome features – the features of his father, but inked gold, with his eyes ringed by kohl. He was the very image of a hierophant preacher in Ancient Gyptus: a faroah’s high priest, ministering to the faithful.