In the immediate aftermath of the ambush, the three primarchs had withdrawn to their flagships to heal and recuperate. The Sons of Horus had levelled Tyjun in a spasm of retaliation, murdering its populace and leaving no stone upon another to root out any other attackers.
Five days later, the Warmaster’s assembled fleets set sail from Dwell, leaving the planet a smouldering wasteland.
Horus worked at a table encircled by a curtain-wall of books, folded charts, celestial hierarchies and tablets of carven formulae.
From the thickness of its spine and tabular aspect of its pages, the book that currently held the Warmaster’s attention was a Crusade log. Even upside down, Aximand recognised the violet campaign badge in the upper corner of the facing page.
‘Murder?’ said Aximand. ‘An old tally, that one.’
Horus closed the book and looked up, a strange irritation in his eyes, as though he had just read something in the log he hadn’t liked. Puckered scar tissue pulled at his mouth as he spoke.
‘An old one, but still relevant,’ said Horus. ‘Sometimes you can learn as much, if not more, from the battles you lose as the ones you win.’
‘We won that one,’ pointed out Aximand.
‘We shouldn’t have had to fight it at all,’ said Horus, and Aximand knew not to ask any more.
Instead he simply made his report. ‘You wanted to know when the fleets translated, sir.’
Horus nodded. ‘Any surprises I should know about?’
‘No, all Sons of Horus, Death Guard and Titanicus vessels are accounted for and have been duly entered in the mission registry,’ said Aximand.
‘What’s our journey time looking like?’
‘Master Comnenus estimates six weeks to reach Molech.’
Horus raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s quicker than he originally calculated. Why the revised journey time?’
‘With the Ruinstorm behind the fleets, our esteemed shipmaster tells me that, and I quote: “the path before us welcomes our fleets like a bordello welcomes bored soldiers with full pockets”.’
Horus’s earlier irritation vanished like a shadow on the sun. ‘That sounds like Boas. Perhaps Lorgar’s rampage across the Five Hundred Worlds has been more useful than I expected.’
‘Lorgar’s rampage?’
‘Yes, I suppose Angron is doing most of the rampaging,’ chuckled Horus. ‘And what of the Third Legion?’
Aximand was used to swift changes of tack in the Warmaster’s questioning, and had his answer at the ready. ‘Word comes that they set course for the Halikarnaxes Stars as ordered.’
‘I sense a “but” missing from that sentence,’ said Horus.
Aximand said, ‘But the word did not come from Primarch Fulgrim.’
‘No, it wouldn’t have,’ agreed Horus, waving to a couch set against one wall upon which hung a variety of punch daggers and quirinal cestus gauntlets. ‘Sit, take some wine, it’s Jovian.’
Aximand poured two goblets of wine from an amethyst bottle and handed one to Horus before sitting on the portion of the couch not obscured by the primarch’s reading material.
‘Tell me, little one, how are your Mournival brothers?’ asked Horus as he sipped some wine. ‘Fulgrim’s power shielded us from the worst of the gunships’ fire, but you…’
Aximand shrugged, also taking a drink and finding its flavour much to his liking. ‘Burns and bruises mainly. We’ll heal. Kibre acts like it never happened, and Grael is still trying to figure out how the Tenth Legion kept three Fire Raptors hidden for so long.’
‘Some dark age tech salvaged from Medusa, I expect,’ said Horus. ‘And Ezekyle?’
‘He’s about ready to fall on his sword,’ said Aximand. ‘You were almost killed, and he blames himself for that.’
‘I dismissed the Justaerin, if you remember,’ pointed out Horus. ‘Tell Ezekyle that if there’s blame to be apportioned, the bulk of it’s mine. He’s not at fault.’
‘It might help if that came from you.’
Horus waved away Aximand’s suggestion. ‘Ezekyle is a big boy, he’ll understand. And if he doesn’t, well, I know Falkus covets his rank.’
‘You’d make the Widowmaker First Captain?’
‘No, of course not,’ said Horus, lapsing into silence. Aximand knew better than to break it and took more wine.
‘I should have known Meduson would have a contingency in case the White Scars failed,’ said Horus at last.
‘Do you think Shadrak Meduson was on one of those gunships?’
‘Perhaps, but I doubt it,’ said Horus. He finished his wine and placed the cup to one side. ‘But what aggrieves me most is the destruction the Legion unleashed in retaliation. Especially the loss of the Mausolytic. Razing it and Tyjun was unnecessary. So much there still to be discovered.’
‘With respect, sir, it had to be done,’ replied Aximand. ‘What you learned, others could learn. And truthfully, I’m not sorry we burned it.’
‘No? Why?’
‘The dead should stay dead,’ said Aximand, trying not to look over the Warmaster’s shoulder at the ornately wrought box of lacquered wood and iron.
Horus grinned, and Aximand wondered if he knew of the dreams that had plagued him before the reattaching of his face. Those dreams were gone now, consigned to history in the wake of his invincible rebirth and rededication.
‘I never considered the Dwellers truly dead,’ said Horus turning to address the box. ‘But even so, a man ought not to be afraid of the dead, little one. They have no power to harm us.’
‘They don’t,’ agreed Aximand as Horus rose from his seat.
‘And they don’t answer back,’ said Horus, hiding a grimace of pain and beckoning Aximand to his feet. With a stiff gait, Horus made his way into an adjacent room. ‘Walk with me. I have something for you.’
Aximand followed Horus into a reverentially dim arming chamber, illumined only by a soft glow above the steel-limbed rack supporting the Warmaster’s battleplate. Spindle-limbed adepts in ragged chasubles worked to repair the damage done by the Fire Raptors’ cannons. Aximand smelled fixatives, molten ceramite and dark lacquer.
Worldbreaker hung on reinforced hooks next to the left gauntlet. The lion-flanked amber eye upon the plastron seemed to follow Aximand as they traversed the chamber. Horus might have died, it seemed to say, but Aximand shook off the sensation of judgement as they approached a high-vaulted forge of smelting and metalworking. The seething glow of a furnace hazed the air.
Only when Aximand followed Horus into the chamber did he see his error. No natural light of a furnace illuminated the forge, but something bright and dark at the same time, something that left a fleeting succession of negative impressions on his retina. Aximand felt corpse breath on the back of his neck and tasted human ash at the sight of a flame-wreathed abomination floating a metre above the deck.
It had once been a Blood Angel. Now it was… what? A daemon? A monster? Both. Its crimson armour was broken, cracked where the evil within it licked outwards in unnatural, eternal flames.
Whoever the legionary within that armour had once been was immaterial. All that remained of him was the scorched prime helix symbol of an Apothecary. It called itself the Cruor Angelus, but the Sons of Horus knew it as the Red Angel.
It had been bound and gagged by chains that were originally gleaming silver, but had since been scorched black. Its head went unhelmed, but its features were impossible to discern through the infernal flames, save for two white-hot eyes filled with the rage of a million damned souls.
‘Why is it here?’ said Aximand, unwilling to voice its name.