Its kin. The daemon’s words resurfaced in Argel Tal’s aching mind. ‘Yes. One of my kin. It comes for you.’
He felt something slither within him. Something stirring, wrapping around the bones of his arms and legs, coiling in a tight spiral around his spine.
‘Summon every warrior to the bridge,’ he ordered, hearing his own voice echoing in his mind, a silent chorus twinned with his words.
‘And Dagotal,’ said Argel Tal, ‘get us out of here.’
The ship that limped its way from the warp storm was a far cry from the noble Imperial vessel that had cut its way in. It trailed psychic fog around its membrane-thin Geller Field, turning in a slow roll that spoke of flawed guidance systems and damaged stabilisers.
Pulsing from its mangled communications towers was a repeated message, the Colchisian words rendered into fuzz by detuned vox.
‘This is the Orfeo’s Lament. Critical casualties sustained. Grievous damage. Requesting extraction. This is the Orfeo’s Lament...’
‘Contact re-established with Orfeo’s Lament,’ called out one of the bridge crew.
The command deck of De Profundis was alive with activity – a hive of officers, servitors, analysts and crew members of every stripe, all working around a central platform that rose above the consoles. On the platform, a golden giant in robes of grey silk watched the occulus screen. His face, so close to the face of his father, was softened in a way the Emperor’s never was: Lorgar was both curious and concerned.
‘Already?’ he said, glancing to the officers at the vox-console.
‘Sire,’ the Master of Auspex called from his bank of flickering monitors, ‘the ship is... horrifically damaged.’
The bustle of the bridge began to quieten, as more and more crew members watched the occulus, seeing the Orfeo’s Lament in its powerless drift.
‘How can this be?’ Lorgar leaned on the handrail ringing the raised podium, his golden fingers gripping the steel. ‘That’s not possible.’
‘Receiving a distress pulse,’ said one of the vox-officers. ‘Sire... My primarch... The Orfeo’s Lament has suffered critical casualties. We’re getting an automated message.’
Lorgar covered his parted lips with a hand, unable to conceal his unrest where another primarch might have stood stoic. Worry was etched onto his handsome features, replacing the confusion that had taken hold moments before.
‘Play the message, please,’ he asked in a soft voice.
It came through in a crackle of vox, grating across the bridge speakers.
‘...the Orfeo’s Lament. Critical casualties sustained. Grievous damage. Requesting extraction. This is the Orfeo’s Lament...’
‘How can this be?’ he asked again. ‘Master of Vox, get me a signal to that ship.’
‘By your word, sire.’
‘Argel Tal,’ Lorgar breathed his son’s name. ‘I know his voice. That was Argel Tal.’
At his side, Fleetmaster Baloc Torvus nodded, his stern features emotionless where his primarch’s were tormented. ‘Aye, sire. It was.’
Contact took three and a half minutes to restore, during which the rest of the 1,301st Fleet had raised its shields and armed all weapons. Tug-ships sailed from the flagship’s docking bays, ready to drag the limping Lament back to its sister vessels.
At last, a picture resolved on the occulus, showing the other vessel’s bridge. Audio contact filtered back a few seconds afterwards, heralded by a burst of static.
‘Blood of the Emperor,’ Lorgar whispered as he watched.
Argel Tal wore no helm. His face was gaunt, a pathetic wraith of his former vitality, with his eyes ringed by the dark smears of countless restless nights. Speckles of old blood decorated the left side of his face, and his armour – what was left of it – was pitted and cracked, devoid of any holy parchment.
He rose from his command throne on unsteady legs and saluted. There was the softest bang as his fist hit his breastplate.
‘You’re... still here,’ he rasped. All strength was gone from his voice.
Lorgar was the one to break the silence. ‘My son. What has befallen you? What madness is this?’
Behind Argel Tal, other figures were moving into view. Word Bearers, all. They were just as weak, just as ruined, as their commander. One fell to his knees as Lorgar watched, praying in a senseless stream of conflicting words. It took several moments for the primarch to realise it was Xaphen, recognisable only because of the broken black armour.
Argel Tal closed his eyes, letting out a breath. ‘Sire, we have returned, as ordered.’
Lorgar glanced at Torvus, before turning back to Argel Tal. ‘Captain, you’ve been gone no more than sixty seconds. We just witnessed the Lament enter the edges of the storm. You return to us less than a minute after your departure.’
Argel Tal scratched his ravaged face, shaking his head. ‘No. No, that cannot be.’
‘It can be,’ Lorgar stared hard at him, ‘and it is. My son, what happened to you?’
‘Seven months,’ the captain sagged, leaning on the arm of his throne to keep standing. ‘Seven. Months. There are barely forty of us left. No food. We ate the crew... hateful mouthfuls of leathery flesh and dry bones. There was no water. Water tanks ruptured in the storm damage. We drank promethium fuel... weapon oils... engine coolant... Sire, we’ve been killing each other. We have been drinking each other’s blood to stay alive.’
Lorgar looked away only for long enough to address one of the vox-officers. ‘Bring them in,’ he said, pitching his voice low. ‘Get my sons off that ship.’
‘Sire? Sire?’
‘I am here, Argel Tal.’
‘The Lament has had its final flight. We are on guidance thrusters alone.’
‘Thunderhawks are already launching,’ the primarch assured him. ‘We will return to safer space together.’
‘Thank you, sire.’
‘Argel Tal,’ Lorgar hesitated. ‘Did you slay the crew of Orfeo’s Lament?’
‘No. No, sire, never. We ate their carcasses. Carrion-feeders. Like the desert jackals of Colchis. Anything to survive. We had to bring you the answers you sought. Sire, please... There is something you have to know. We have the answers to all your questions, but one above all.’
‘Tell me,’ the golden giant whispered. He was unashamed at the tears in his eyes, to see his sons reduced to... to this. ‘Tell me, Argel Tal.’
‘This place. This realm. Future generations will name it the Great Eye, the Eye of Terror, the Occularis Terribus. In hushed voices, they will give a thousand foolish names to something they cannot understand. But you were right, my lord.
‘Here,’ Argel Tal gestured with a weak hand at the seething warp storm visible through the bridge windows, ‘is where gods and mortals meet.’
Soon, he was in isolation. Taken from his brothers.
This was not entirely unexpected, but they had also taken his weapons – ‘for much-needed maintenance, brother’ – and that, he’d not foreseen. They were cautious around him now. The escorts walking him to his meditation chamber had been tense, reluctant to speak, hesitant to answer even the simplest questions.
Never before had he felt this raw distrust between brothers. He knew what its genesis was, of course. The truth could never be hidden, and he had no desire to hide it. Yes, the survivors had eaten the human dead. Yes, they had butchered their own brothers. But not for sport. Not for glory. For survival.
To quench a lethal thirst, with the coppery wine that runs from cut veins.
What other choice was there? To die? To die away from the fleet, with the answers to every question the primarch had ever asked locked behind their dead lips?