With a heavy tread, the Wolf Lord stepped over the bodies of Andras and his men, leaving bloody footprints on the steps as he climbed his way to the Speaker’s chair. The wood creaked under his weight as he sat himself upon it and rested his bloody axe across his knees. Outside, the people of Antimon were still cheering their deliverance when the first bombs began to fall.
Scions of the Storm
(Anthony Reynolds)
Isolated for countless millennia in the stygian darkness of Old Night, the inhabitants of the world designated Forty-seven Sixteen had at first rejoiced to be reunited with their long-lost brothers. For over four thousand years they had thought themselves alone in the universe, and had come to regard ancient Terra as little more than a vague, half-forgotten race-memory; an allegorical myth, a fabled genesis world invented by their ancestors. They had greeted the Word Bearers envoys with open arms, gazing upon the immense, grey-armoured Astartes warriors with awe and reverence.
‘Irrevocably corrupt worshippers of a heathen deity,’ First Captain Kor Phaeron stated damningly upon his return from the meeting.
‘Is it not the duty of the crusade to embrace all the distinct strands of humanity, even its most wayward sons?’ said Sor Talgron, Captain of Thirty-fourth Company. ‘Would not the God-Emperor wish His most devoted Legion to lead these blind children to enlightenment?’
Officially, the expanding Imperium of Man was a secular one, promoting and expounding the ‘truths’ of science and reason over the ‘falsehoods’ of religion and spiritualism. The XVII Legion, however, understood the truth, though it was, at times, a heavy burden to bear. Sor Talgron knew that the time was drawing near when the acknowledgement of the Emperor’s divinity would be universally embraced. Faith would become the greatest strength of the Imperium, greater than the untold billions of soldiers that constituted the Imperial Army; greater even than the might of the Legions of Astartes. Faith would be the mortar that held all the disparate elements of mankind together.
Even the most blinded of Legions, those who most vocally denied Lorgar’s holy scripture, would in time come to understand the inherent truth in the primarch’s words. And they would be forced to beg his forgiveness for having ever cast doubt upon his words. That the Emperor denied His divine nature did little to smother the fires of devotion within the XVII Legion; only the truly divine deny their divinity, Lorgar himself had written.
‘You know the Emperor’s mind now, Talgron?’ Kor Phaeron growled. ‘If you have such insight, please enlighten us lesser mortals.’
‘I claim no such thing, First Captain,’ Sor Talgron snapped.
Sor Talgron and Kor Phaeron glared at each other with undisguised venom through the cloying incense smoke rising from dozens of hanging censers. The circular, tiered room where the war council was taking place was deep in the heart of the Fidelitas Lex, Lorgar’s flagship, and the captains of the other Grand Companies stood silently around its circumference, watching with interest from the shadows to see how this confrontation would develop. However, Erebus, the softly spoken First Chaplain of the Legion, interposed himself between Kor Phaeron and Sor Talgron, ever the mediator, moving into the centre of the sunken command pulpit and breaking their venomous glares.
‘The First Captain and I shall consult with the Urizen,’ Erebus said smoothly, ending the discussion. ‘Lorgar’s wisdom shall guide us.’
Still glowering, Sor Talgron had bowed to the First Chaplain before spinning on his heel and striding from the room along with the other dismissed captains. He waved skulking robed servants out of his path, intending to travel by Stormbird back to his own cruiser, the Dominatus Sanctus, and rejoin Thirty-fourth Company.
It had been more than a month since Sor Talgron had seen the blessed primarch of the XVII Legion, and the Urizen’s absence at the war council had been keenly felt. Tempers were fraying, and dissent was beginning to spread through the ranks; the Legion needed Lorgar to return to them.
The holy primarch had been locked within his personal shrine-chamber in self-exile for a full Terran month – ever since his audience with the Emperor of Mankind. In that time he had allowed none bar Kor Phaeron and Erebus, his closest advisors and comrades, into his presence. The entire Forty-seventh Expeditionary Fleet had sat dormant while it waited for its primarch’s orders.
Sor Talgron had snatched a momentary glimpse of his primarch as the Urizen was ushered into his private quarters upon his return from his meeting with the Emperor, and had been shocked to the core of his being by what he had seen.
Always, Lorgar had radiated a palpable aura of passion and belief, an unassailable shield of faith that was at once awesome and terrifying. Whereas it was said that the Wolf’s strength was his irrepressible ferocity, the Lion’s his relentless tenacity, and Guilliman’s his strategic and logistical brilliance, Lorgar’s strength was his unshakeable faith, his profound self-belief, his ruthless and unwavering devotion.
Though Erebus had sought to hide the Urizen from the gaze of the Legion, Sor Talgron’s eyes had locked with those of his primarch for the briefest of moments before a hatch had slammed down, blocking his vision. The depth of despair he had seen in Lorgar’s eyes had forced him to his knees. His eyes had filled with tears and his stomach had knotted painfully, his mind reeling. What could possibly have transpired upon the Emperor’s battle-barge to have so shaken the unshakeable?
He had not even reached the embarkation deck of the Fidelitas Lex when he was contacted by Erebus, requesting his return to the war chamber: the Urizen had made his decision.
As he marched back through the labyrinthine corridors of the Fidelitas Lex, Captain Sor Talgron prayed that Lorgar himself would be present, though in this he was to be disappointed.
Still, at least a decision had been made – after a month of idleness, the XVII Legion at last had purpose.
‘In his great mercy,’ Erebus said, addressing the reassembled gathering of Word Bearers captains, ‘the Urizen wishes that this long-lost strand of humanity be brought to compliance; that they be embraced into the fold of the Imperial Truth.’
Murmurs spread around the gathered captains, and Sor Talgron nodded his head in approval. Such was the way that the XVII Legion had operated since the start of the crusade. They had brought the glory of the Imperial Truth to every world that they had encountered thus far, and though their progress might not have been as swift as that of some of the other Legions, those worlds left behind by the XVII Legion were the most devout and loyal of all. Those who refused the word and those deemed unworthy were, of course, zealously crushed, ground to dust beneath the armoured heel of Lorgar’s Astartes, but those who accepted their teachings were embraced into the Imperial truth, their loyalty assured.
Sor Talgron cast a triumphant glance towards Kor Phaeron, but the First Captain did not look displeased by the proclamation, for all that he had been braying for war earlier.
‘However,’ Erebus continued, ‘it is with sadness and remorse that the Urizen has come to his decision. The Emperor is displeased with our Legion, brothers.’