At last, Argel Tal lowered the blades. His muscles ached from only two hours of training. Before his journey into the Eye, such a poor performance would see him doing penance for a ritual ninety-nine nights.
‘Aquillon,’ he greeted his friend.
‘You look as though you died and forgot to lie down.’
The Word Bearer snorted. ‘I feel like it.’
‘A shame. You’d managed to last almost four minutes against me last time we stepped into these cages together.’
‘I see you are not in a merciful mood.’ In better times, this banter would have come easily to Argel Tal. ‘Did you come to speak of Ven?’
Aquillon opened the force cage and took up a practice blade twin to the one Argel Tal still held. The sparring cage’s hemispheres closed around them both. Both warriors wore robes: one, the white of Terra’s palace servants, one, the grey of the XVII Legion.
‘I wanted to hear it from you.’ He raised the blade in a two-handed grip, mimicking his favoured weapon. His warriors carried the traditional glaives, but Aquillon’s antique bidenhander broadsword was a blade apart. He carried this blade as he wielded his own sword: with a confident, effortless grip.
Argel Tal raised his own swords in a defensive cross, feeling the burn of lactic acid in his muscles. The two warriors tended to play to their strengths in the past: Aquillon was ferociously offensive in his blade work; Argel Tal remained consummately defensive.
‘So will you tell me what happened?’
Aquillon was indeed not in a merciful mood. Before the Word Bearer could even answer, Argel Tal’s blades were knocked from his hands and the captain found himself on the floor, breathing against the Custodian’s sword point. It scratched the dirty skin of his throat, and Aquillon shook his head.
‘Pathetic.’ He offered his hand to help Argel Tal rise. ‘Try again.’
The Word Bearer rose without the offered hand, retrieving his blades. ‘I do not like the pity in your voice.’
‘Then do something to get rid of it. But at least answer my question.’
The next clash lasted several seconds, but ended the same way. The Word Bearer backhanded Aquillon’s sword away from his neck.
‘Have you read the reports?’ he asked the Custodian, again refusing his friend’s offered hand and rising unaided.
‘Yes. They are vague, and I am being generous when I say even that.’
Argel Tal had read them as well. The surface of Cadia... The journey into the Eye... The reports of each event were loose and evasive fictions that almost moved him to laughter. ‘They are vague,’ he conceded, raising his blades again. ‘But they are accurate. I will enlighten you where I can.’
This time, Argel Tal attacked. Aquillon disarmed him in two swings of his blade, and a boot to the solar plexus sent the Word Bearer back down to the floor.
‘Begin with Vendatha. He told me that Lorgar was attending a heathen ritual and several of the officers would be with him.’
‘That’s true enough.’
‘You are still blocking the feinted thrust, by the way.’
‘I know.’
‘Good. Now speak.’
Something burned in his blood. Something reactive, unwilling to be dominated. Argel Tal bit back a sudden need to curse at the Custodian in a language that was and was not Colchisian.
‘It... was not a ritual in the sense that we feared it would be.’ He rose to his feet as he continued. ‘A tedious recital of ancient texts. Prayers to spirits of ancestors. Dances, drums and herbal narcotics.’
Blades in hands, Argel Tal attacked again. Another clash, clash, clash, and he was dumped back onto the floor – the back of his head perilously close to the buzzing bars of the force cage.
‘Lorgar sent you into the storm based on this? A... theatrical performance of old lies?’ This time, Aquillon didn’t offer to help Argel Tal stand. A doubting scowl passed over his features.
‘Don’t be foolish.’ The Word Bearer rolled his shoulders, wincing at the crackle of abused muscle and vertebrae. ‘He never sent us into the storm. I volunteered. We lacked standard Mechanicum explorator vessels, so we used the smallest warship in the fleet.’
The two warriors circled one another, blades half a metre apart. ‘You volunteered?’
‘It was a last attempt to salvage some worth from the journey. One last venture beyond Imperial borders, before we turn around and make for new space. Aquillon... there is nothing out here. Do you think we wish to heap further shame upon ourselves by admitting that? Plenty of expeditionary fleets take months, even years, to find a world worthy of conquest – but this is our primarch’s fleet, even if only temporarily. Desperation drove us to try one last time. Don’t hate us for doing our sworn duty.’
The Custodian attacked, his blade lashing one of Argel Tal’s blades out of the captain’s grip, while a kick smashed the other aside.
The Word Bearer smiled through a face streaked with sweat, and went to recover his blades yet again.
‘And Vendatha?’ Aquillon asked.
Argel Tal’s smile faded, wiped from his face. ‘Ven died with my brothers. Deumos fell first, then Rikus and Tsar Quorel. Ven was last.’ The Word Bearer met the Custodian’s eyes, letting his sincerity show. ‘He was my friend, Aquillon. I mourn him as you do.’
‘And this... riot... on the planet that killed three Astartes and a Custodes?’
‘When the primarch renounced the barbarians and refused to draw them into the Imperium, they rose up in anger. What could we do? Their rituals are too far from the Imperial Truth. Never will they accept the Emperor’s rule.’
‘Invasion?’
‘The planet is sparsely populated, and much of it is a paradise despite its proximity to the hellish storm. Cyclonic torpedoes will annihilate the tribes, and leave the planet free for future colonisation – if the Emperor wills it.’
Aquillon released a pent-up breath. There was something unarguably youthful about the warrior, despite his ageless, regenerative immortality. ‘I commend Lorgar’s actions in rejecting the primitives on the world below. I have seen compliance after compliance executed to perfection for three years, and I do not judge his actions as flawed now. It’s difficult to believe Ven is dead, that’s all. He’d earned twenty-seven names in the Emperor’s service over a century of immaculate duty. The same mentor taught us both to wield a blade. Amon will grieve to learn of his fate.’
‘He died in the Emperor’s service, defending a primarch from the rebellion of heathen culture. You may not respect my sire, but he is still a son of the Emperor. If I could choose my hour of death, it would be in battle at Lorgar’s side.’
Aquillon raised his sword en garde, speaking with a curious formality. ‘Thank you for your candour, Argel Tal. Our presence is loathed by your Legion, but the Custodes have always appreciated your friendship.’
The Word Bearer didn’t answer. His next attack was deflected and beaten back within a matter of moments.
Aquillon offered a hand again, and this time, Argel Tal took it as he rose.
‘What now for the Serrated Sun?’ asked the Custodian.
‘There’s nothing left for us out here. Once Cadia is purged, we press on as part of the 1,301st, returning to more promising territory. I believe the primarch will rejoin the main crusade fleet, with Erebus and Kor Phaeron. He will be done with these provincial conquests. I suspect he also wishes to speak with several of his brothers.’
Aquillon nodded, and returned his practice sword to the weapon rack. His white robe was unmarked, while Argel Tal’s was bathed in sweat stains down the spine and around the collar.
The Custodian saluted, making the sign of the aquila over his chest. Argel Tal returned it, as he always did in his friend’s presence.