THE HORUS HERESY

IT IS A TIME OF LEGEND.

THE GALAXY IS IN FLAMES. THE EMPEROR’S GLORIOUS VISION FOR HUMANITY IS IN RUINS. HIS FAVOURED SON, HORUS, HAS TURNED FROM HIS FATHER’S LIGHT AND EMBRACED CHAOS.

HIS ARMIES, THE MIGHTY AND REDOUBTABLE SPACE MARINES, ARE LOCKED IN A BRUTAL CIVIL WAR. ONCE, THESE ULTIMATE WARRIORS FOUGHT SIDE BY SIDE AS BROTHERS, PROTECTING THE GALAXY AND BRINGING MANKIND BACK INTO THE EMPEROR’S LIGHT. NOW THEY ARE DIVIDED.

SOME REMAIN LOYAL TO THE EMPEROR, WHILST OTHERS HAVE SIDED WITH THE WARMASTER. PRE-EMINENT AMONGST THEM, THE LEADERS OF THEIR THOUSANDS-STRONG LEGIONS ARE THE PRIMARCHS. MAGNIFICENT, SUPERHUMAN BEINGS, THEY ARE THE CROWNING ACHIEVEMENT OF THE EMPEROR’S GENETIC SCIENCE. THRUST INTO BATTLE AGAINST ONE ANOTHER, VICTORY IS UNCERTAIN FOR EITHER SIDE.

WORLDS ARE BURNING. AT ISSTVAN V, HORUS DEALT A VICIOUS BLOW AND THREE LOYAL LEGIONS WERE ALL BUT DESTROYED. WAR WAS BEGUN, A CONFLICT THAT WILL ENGULF ALL MANKIND IN FIRE. TREACHERY AND BETRAYAL HAVE USURPED HONOUR AND NOBILITY. ASSASSINS LURK IN EVERY SHADOW. ARMIES ARE GATHERING. ALL MUST CHOOSE A SIDE OR DIE.

HORUS MUSTERS HIS ARMADA, TERRA ITSELF THE OBJECT OF HIS WRATH. SEATED UPON THE GOLDEN THRONE, THE EMPEROR WAITS FOR HIS WAYWARD SON TO RETURN. BUT HIS TRUE ENEMY IS CHAOS, A PRIMORDIAL FORCE THAT SEEKS TO ENSLAVE MANKIND TO ITS CAPRICIOUS WHIMS.

THE SCREAMS OF THE INNOCENT, THE PLEAS OF THE RIGHTEOUS RESOUND TO THE CRUEL LAUGHTER OF DARK GODS. SUFFERING AND DAMNATION AWAIT ALL SHOULD THE EMPEROR FAIL AND THE WAR BE LOST.

THE AGE OF KNOWLEDGE AND ENLIGHTENMENT HAS ENDED. THE AGE OF DARKNESS HAS BEGUN.

~ DRAMATIS PERSONAE ~

The XIX Legion ‘Raven Guard’

CORVUS CORAX, Primarch

AGAPITO, Commander of the Talons

SOUKHOUNOU, Commander of the Hawks

BRANNE, Commander of the Raptors

STRADON BINALT, Techmarine

NAVAR HEF, Raptor Sergeant

The XVII Legion ‘World Eaters’

AZOR NATHRAKIN, Librarian-sorcerer

SAGITHA ALONS NEORTALLIN, Indentured Navigator

The Mechanicum of Constanix II

DELVERE, Archmagos, Master of Iapetus

VANGELLIN, Cognoscenti Magokritarch of Atlas

LORIARK, Cybernetics Magos of Third District

BASSILI, Biologis, Primus Cogenitor, Third District

FIRAX, Magos Biologis, Third District

SALVA KANAR, Magos Logistica, Third District

LACRYMENTHIS, Cogitatoris Regular, Third District

I

HE HAD NOT felt this way for a long time. Not in the decades since he had fought alongside the primarch to rid his home of its technocratic enslavers had Agapito been possessed of such vigour. It burned through him, giving him strength beyond his transhuman physique, every swing of his power sword energised by the purity of his cause.

Righteousness.

It was a hatred that boiled inside the Raven Guard commander, sending him without hesitation into the slaves of the accursed Word Bearers. Following Corax on the Emperors Great Crusade had given Agapito purpose and determination, but the near-rage that propelled him into battle now was of an order far above duty and dedication.

It was fate that had delivered the hated foe into the hands of the Raven Guard. A chance encounter on the edge of the Cassik system - the Word Bearers caught with warp engine trouble and unable to flee. Agapito would not let the opportunity pass lightly.

This was providence, though from what higher power Agapito did not know, nor care. The slayers of his brothers would in turn be slain. The betrayal of Isstvan would be avenged, one traitor at a time if necessary. The memories of thousands of Raven Guard culled like vermin by the guns of the Word Bearers were like daggers in the commander's chest, their piercing a goad to drive him onwards.

He spied a traitor legionary amongst the crew that had spilled forth along the corridors to defend their strike cruiser against the boarding of the Raven Guard. The sight of the Word Bearer brought back a flood of recollection, cannons and las-fire scything across the Urgall Depression, leaving scores of dead sons of Deliverance with each salvo; the vox-net swamped by the cries of the dying and the shock of treachery; warriors he had fought alongside for many years ripped from the world of the living by cold-blooded murderers.

The half-human servitors and misshapen henchmen of the traitor legionary were no obstacle, easily thrown aside by Agapito’s charge. In the confines of the strike cruiser the Raven Guard could not be matched. Agapito wreaked bloody ruin with sword and fist, slashing and punching his way into the press of mutated foes without a moment’s regard for the blades and mauls clattering from his armour.

Towering over the mass of freakish slaves, Agapito could see the Word Bearer as the traitor exhorted his minions to hurl themselves against the Raven Guard warriors. Dozens of slaves fell, their bodies rent with gruesome wounds, as Agapito and his legionaries thrust along the passage.

Breaking free from the throng, the commander paused, eyes fixed on his target as the red-armoured legionary waited a few metres away The Word Bearer raised his chainsword to the grille of his helm, a mocking salute and a challenge to mortal combat.

Agapito was not here to duel, to exchange strike and parry in an effort to determine the worthy. He was here to avenge, to punish, to kill.

A blast from his plasma pistol seared through the armoured breast of the Word Bearer as he lowered his blade, turning ceramite and flesh to greasy slag. The Word Bearer toppled face-first to the deck as Agapito dashed onwards, carving into the sub-human creatures that served the Legion of Lorgar.

A few more seconds, a flurry of blows and shots and Agapito was left standing over a mound of dead foes. A squad of his Talons - all survivors of Isstvan too - gathered around their leader.

‘Quadrant clear, commander,’ reported Sergeant Ashel. The legionary’s armour was coated with blood, the black paint glistening with fresh gore. He looked down at the remains of the enemy. The corpses were of men and women twisted and mutated, with eyes and skin like snakes, and sharp teeth filling wide mouths. ‘Vile filth.’

‘Not so vile as those that lead them,’ snarled Agapito.

He listened to the vox-net for a few seconds, picking out the interleaved reports and messages from other forces spreading out through the enemy strike cruiser. Squads Chovani and Kalain were encountering stiffer resistance than the others; more Word Bearers.

‘We head to starboard,’ the commander told his companions. ‘Follow me.’

‘The reactor chamber is aft, commander,’ Ashel replied, staying where he was as Agapito took a step. ‘The primarch’s orders are-’

‘The enemy are to starboard,’ Agapito snapped. ‘As are the escape shuttles. Do you wish them to elude their punishment? Have you forgotten Isstvan so quickly?’

Ashel glanced back at his squad for a moment, and shook his head.

‘For Isstvan,’ the sergeant said, lifting his bolter.

‘For Isstvan,’ Agapito replied.

DISGUST WELLED UP inside Corax as he pulled the blades of his lightning claw from the body of the crewman. The liquid that sprayed across the corridor was not human blood but a foul greenish fluid, fed through the slave from a brass cylinder riveted to his back. Many others, similarly altered, lay dead around him. At first Corax had thought the creatures mindless servitors, but the fear and desperation in their eyes had betrayed a spark of life not seen in the half-human creations of the Mechanicum. They were men and women with fully human faculties, modified and experimented upon by their Word Bearers masters.

The primarch’s disgust was not for the pitiful figures that flung themselves into his path, but for the traitors that had created them. The followers of Lorgar had become wicked, inhuman things - a twisted parody of the honourable legionaries they had once been.

In the red light of the passageway his lightning claws gleamed. Crafted by his own hand on Deliverance after the victory at the Perfect Fortress, the weapons made him feel complete again. The Raven’s Talons, his warriors called them - as much a symbol to the Legion of their determination to fight on despite their losses, as they were weapons. Corax had forgone his flight pack in the close confines of the boarding action, but he felt as comfortable in the arched halls and winding corridors as he did the open skies.

He had been taught to fight in a place like this, a maze of ferrocrete and metal where every corner hid a potential foe. In the prison where he had been raised, endless passageways had become his hunting ground. He had never forgotten the lessons.

He did not head directly for the strategium but chose a less obvious path that would circumvent the strongest defences. The strike cruiser was like so many others in layout, with a central corridor running for most of the length of the ship; but Corax instead made his way along the gun decks, already ravaged by the broadsides of the Avenger as the battle-barge had closed for the boarding. In places the hull had been cracked wide, leaving the batteries open to the freezing void. The primarch, with a memorised schematic of the Avenger’s last pre-attack scan in mind, found routes around the breached sections, moving up and down through the decks to keep the defenders uncertain of the Raven Guard’s route.

With him came a company from the Avenger, but for the moment the legionaries were little more than onlookers as the primarch carved his way towards the starship’s strategium. It seemed the Word Bearers had thought it wiser to unleash their horde of mutated creations rather than face the ire of the primarch themselves.

They were not wrong.

Advancing swiftly, Corax encountered several dozen more slaves in the next gallery, armed with nothing more than wrenches, hammers and lengths of chain. Some had cybernetics grafted to them, others carried the artificial ichor-tanks he had already seen. All of them had pale skin slicked with the sweat of exertion and dread, their eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot. They did not shout any war cry as they ran at the primarch, and there was resignation, perhaps even relief in their eyes as his lightning claws slashed left and right, hewing them down by the handful.

None of the crew-creatures survived long enough to strike Corax as he waded into their midst, his energy-sheathed fists turning metal to splinters and flesh to spatters. Glancing through the windows of the gallery he saw the Avenger holding course alongside the boarded ship, and beyond that the gleam of plasma engines from the Triumph and Aeruginosis, while further away still waited the rest of the Raven Guard flotilla.

Had they arrived two or three days later the Word Bearers might have continued on their way, to wreak whatever malevolence they intended. Good fortune for the Raven Guard had brought the enemy out of the warp just a few thousand kilometres from where the Legion had been mustering. Even before the bombardment of the Raven Guard the traitor ship had had signs of prolonged combat, damaged warp engines amongst its more obvious battle scars. Whatever had forced the strike cruiser to travel in such a state had to be important.

So it was that Corax sought to capture the vessel and learn its secrets, rather than destroy it out of hand.

Resistance grew stronger as the Raven Guard neared their objective. Securing the chambers and halls surrounding the strategium, the primarch and his warriors created a cordon clear of enemies. The rooms were strangely devoid of decoration. On the few occasions that Corax had spent time on Word Bearers ships before the Warmaster had turned, he had marvelled at the carvings and banners, icons and murals dedicated to the celebration of the Emperor and his deeds. What must have once been the officers’ quarters were now empty shells, devoid of furnishing and embellishment, as though everything that once had lauded the Emperor had been expunged.

The strategium portals - two sets of huge double doors sealed by immense lockbolts - proved to be only a minor obstacle; Corax’s lightning claws cut through one of the doors with a few blows, sending the reinforced plasteel tumbling into the darkened command chamber.

Corax was taken aback for a moment by the quiet. He had expected a hail of fire to greet his entry, and his charge onto the mezzanine overlooking the main floor of the bridge faltered as he met no resistance.

Glancing around the chamber, the primarch was confronted by clusters of interred servitors meshed with glowing consoles, their half-dead faces and withered limbs nearly white in the glow of the static that filled the main screen. Lights winked on and off in the gloom, the red and amber of failing systems, while exposed wiring buzzed and flickered. The chamber was filled with a faint smell of decay, coming from the servitors; of flesh slowly going rank, mixed with oil and rust.

‘Where are the Word Bearers?’ asked Commander Soukhounou. As he had stormed into the strategium behind Corax, he too had come to a halt, confused by the absence of foes.

‘Not here,’ was the only answer Corax could give.

His gaze was drawn to a shape swaddled in bloodied robes, pierced by many pipes and cables, at the heart of the strategium. The figure’s corpse-like thinness showed her human skeleton despite the profusion of implanted machinery. All that could be seen of her face was a slack mouth showing a few broken, yellowed teeth, the rest of her head encased in a many-faceted helm of ceramite into which passed dozens of coiled filaments.

Corax descended the steps to the main hall, his footsteps resounding across the quiet murmuring of the servitors and the buzz of poorly shielded circuits. To Corax’s amazement, the woman stirred. She raised her head as though looking at him, a small black gem fixed to the brow of the enclosing helm.

‘Release me,’ she whispered. Blood-flecked saliva drooled from between cracked lips, a dark tongue lolling across raw gums. ‘I can serve no more.’

‘We are not your captors,’ Corax told the woman as he stopped beside her. Now, closer, he saw the glint of silver thread in the tatters of her clothes. The patterns were broken, but taken together the remnants revealed the woman to be a Navigator. ‘I am Corax, of the Raven Guard.’

‘Corax...’ She breathed the name and her lips twisted into a hideous smile. ‘Grant me my death. You are the lord of Deliverance and I need delivering from this torment.’

The primarch moved one of his energy-sheathed claws towards the Navigator, but he hesitated before granting her wish. It tore at his conscience, but a harder part of him - the part that had sent atomic charges into the cities of Kiavahr to kill thousands of innocents, and allowed him to pacify worlds resisting compliance - stayed his hand.

‘Soon, I promise you, but first I have need of answers,’ he told her. The Navigator slumped, causing the pipes and wires to rattle fiercely like the twitching of a grotesque puppet’s strings.

Before Corax could begin his questioning he diverted his attention to the vox-net, distracted by an exchange between Branne and Agapito on the command channel.

‘We can’t break through here,’ Branne was saying. ‘You were supposed to flank the forces defending the reactor, brother.’

‘I will be with you shortly,’ Agapito replied, breathing heavily. ‘One of the bastards fled, the coward. We’ll have him cornered soon.’

From long acquaintance Corax could sense Branne holding his temper in check, with some effort.

‘Reactor readings are reaching critical,’ the commander eventually responded. ‘The reactor will reach meltdown if we do not seize control of it. We can deal with the Word Bearers once the ship is secure.’

‘Agapito, what is causing your delay?’ the primarch demanded, irritated by the commander’s tardiness in completing his mission.

‘I...’ Agapito’s voice trailed away. When he spoke again a moment later, there was contrition in his voice. ‘Apologies, Lord Corax. We will make all haste to the reactor chamber.’

‘As you should have already, commander. We will speak of this later.’

‘Yes, Lord Corax. Forgive my distraction.’

‘If we are still alive in ten minutes, I will consider it,’ Corax replied. He knelt down next to the imprisoned Navigator and spoke gently. ‘I am sorry, but I must attend to another matter first. Be strong.’

He stood up and turned to Soukhounou.

‘See what you can do to slow the reactor overload from here,’ the primarch said, pointing to the engineering station where a rheumy-eyed servitor murmured a monologue of status reports. ‘I want this ship taken intact.’

WARNING LIGHTS GLARED red along the corridors surrounding the plasma core chamber. The accompanying sirens had been cut off abruptly from the strategium, but the ruddy gloom was a reminder to Commander Branne that the ship was far from secured.

‘Cavall, Nerror, Hok,’ Branne called out to three nearby sergeants. ‘Flank right, one deck up.’

Their squads peeled away to a stairwell as Branne led the rest of the company forwards. The waves of grotesque ship slaves had ceased for the moment, no doubt pulled back to form a last defence around the overloading reactor. Branne did not know whether that was a final act of spite from the Word Bearers, or to prevent the Raven Guard discovering the crew’s purpose in the sector. He did know that Lord Corax had issued no warning of an evacuation and within the next one hundred and twenty seconds it would be too late for the boarding parties to escape the doomed ship.

Branne’s Raptors were fighting well and he felt a moment of pride as he watched them sweeping along the engineering deck, efficient and deadly. They had been fully blooded at the Perfect Fortress, and in later engagements against the forces of the Death Guard at Monettan, and the seizing of several traitor Imperial Army warships that had been intercepted during an attack at Tholingeist. With each battle they gained valuable experience.

Now they had been transformed from instinctively superior fighters to disciplined, effective warriors. Even those that had been twisted by the later gene-seed mutations had surpassed their bodily difficulties, fighting as equals amongst their clean-limbed brothers. Branne had become so familiar with his charges that he barely noticed the deformities that marred them. They were all simply his Raptors, though he knew that there were others in the Legion who did not wholly trust them.

The feeling of pride passed, to be replaced by an ever-present sense of profound responsibility. The Raptors, both the perfectly formed and those that had suffered the body-altering mutations, were a new generation of Raven Guard, the future of the Legion, Lord Corax had called them. The primarch certainly had no qualms about utilising the Raptors’ abilities, enhanced by their improved Mark VI armour systems. As Corax had promised, the Raptors were treated as any other fighting force from Deliverance, given ample opportunity to prove themselves worthy as legionaries.

A huge detonation ahead shattered Branne’s contemplation. For a split second he thought the plasma wards had been breached, his Raptor squads silhouetted against the sheet of white fire erupting along walls and floor, creating a stark vignette.

The instant passed as the fire washed over Branne for several seconds. Temperature warning alerts rang in his ear but his suit’s systems were more than a match for the flames, dumping coolant from the armour’s power plant into the secondary systems. Paint blistered and bubbled and thick sweat ran from Branne’s pores, but no lasting damage was done. The conflagration passed in moments, leaving the commander to assess the damage.

‘What was that?’ he demanded, striding forwards. Ahead of him the Raptors closer to the blast had not fared so well. The broken remains of a handful of his warriors lay at the top of the stairwell where the explosion had originated.

The surviving Raptors picked themselves up and regained their senses.

‘Improvised charge, commander,’ reported Sergeant Chayvan. ‘A shell from a close-defence turret, I think.’

‘Self-terminating strike,’ added Streckel, one of Chayvan’s warriors. ‘It was being carried by one of the slaves. Insane bastard.’

‘What have they got to lose?’ replied Branne as he reached the stairs. The steps had been turned to dripping slag a dozen metres below him, the walls spattered with droplets of molten plasteel. ‘Stay vigilant. There will be more of them. I want them taken out before they can self-detonate.’

Affirmatives rang across the vox-net as Branne looked up the shaft. The flight of stairs to the upper deck had been incinerated, stranding the commander and his companions below the entry-way to the main plasma conduit chambers. He glanced at the chronometer.

Eighty seconds left. Still there had been no word from Lord Corax.

The Raptors fanned out through the corridors, auspex scanners sweeping for a stair or conveyor. There was no effort wasted on Mourning the fallen,everyone knew that they would share the same fate if they could not stop the reactor overload.

There was a calm, measured fatalism about the Raptors that Branne found reassuring. Perhaps it was something about the nature of their founding, or maybe his own outlook that had shaped their demeanour. Whatever the cause, he considered the members of his company to be amongst the most sober of the XIX Legion - youthful exuberance had quickly given way to deep gravitas in the light of galactic civil war and the very likely possibility that the Raptors might be the last generation of Raven Guard to become legionaries.

Branne knew that his company would always be a step aside from the rest of the Raven Guard, despite the primarch’s words and the platitudes of the other senior officers. They were different not just physically, but in temperament also. It was nothing new. There had always been subtle divisions amongst the warriors of the Legion. There were the Terrans, who had fought alongside the Emperor himself, their legacy traced back to the start of the Great Crusade. Yet despite their proud heritage, the Terrans had never shared the same intimate bond with Lord Corax enjoyed by those who had fought for the salvation of Deliverance. The ex-prisoners, Branne amongst the many thousands who had taken part in the uprising, had taken Corax as one of their own, first as protectors and then as followers. The Terrans treated Corax with awe and respect as their gene-father, but their entire history with him was as the Emperors warrior-servants, never as equals.

Now the Raptors were added to the mix. They all shared two common experiences, they had been inducted into the Legion after the treachery of Horus had been revealed, and they had not suffered through the massacre at the dropsite and subsequent running battles. It was this that set them apart from both Deliverance-born and Terran. They were not warriors of the Great Crusade; they had a darker but no less vital purpose. The Raptors were trained not for the pacification of non-compliant worlds nor the eradication of alien foes, but for the simple task of destroying other Space Marines.

The Isstvan survivors were still haunted by their experience, either by anger or guilt, bearing a burden of loss that Branne could never share. Perhaps this was why Corax had chosen Branne to lead the newest recruits, sensing he would share an affinity with this untainted generation that he could never wholly regain with the massacre survivors. It would be typical of Corax’s wisdom and his keen insight into the minds of his warriors.

‘Enemy contacts, several hundred,’ reported Sergeant Klaverin from one of the lead squads. ‘More than a dozen Word Bearers leading the defence, commander.’

‘Acknowledged. Eliminate all resistance. Access to the plasma chamber is highest priority.’

AGAPITO HACKED DOWN another foe, the gleaming blade of his power sword slicing through flesh that was mottled a pale blue, the crewman’s strangely canine face splitting from brow to chin. The commander turned his next blow against a slave-mutant with bulging eyes and a forked tongue, driving the blade into the hideous creature’s chest.

‘One hundred metres more!’ he barked, swinging his sword to urge on the Raven Guard around him.

There had been only a handful of Word Bearers between Agapito and the reactor chamber, but that did not make progress any easier. Perhaps wishing to end their miserable lives, the deformed crew had flooded into the aft sections of the ship, using themselves as a barrier to prevent the Raven Guard accessing the reactor chamber. It was no spiteful scheme of the slaves to take the boarding parties with them, but a calculated sacrifice by the Word Bearers. The critical state of the plasma reactor could only be possible if they had started to push it into overdrive the moment that they had been discovered.

Across the vox-net Agapito heard the reports of other squads advancing to link up with Branne and his Raptors, attempting to force a coherent line through the mass of defenders so that a concerted effort could be made on the conduit chambers and engine rooms.

There had been no thought of retreat, and no intimation that they should abandon the ship. Intelligence was key to the war being waged by the Raven Guard; knowledge of where the enemy were weakest and where they were strong was essential to the strategy of Corax. The ship was too valuable to lose and Agapito fought like a berserker from the XII Legion to atone for his earlier distraction.

Eventually the Raven Guard ploughed through the press of defenders, the corridor thick with dismembered bodies behind them as they reached the passageway leading to the main reactor vault. Agapito detailed two squads to stand rearguard and led the rest, some seventy warriors, directly for the reactor control room.

An emergency blast door barred their path at the end of the corridor, but three well-placed melta-bombs from the Talons blew a hole through it large enough for the armoured legionaries to pass into the heart of the engine decks.

Sergeant Chovani was the first through, just ahead of Agapito.

‘Hold fire!’ the sergeant barked, lifting his bolter out of the firing position.

Ahead of them was a Raptor squad - not fine-limbed warriors in their battle plate, but the twisted unfortunates that had survived the later gene-seed implantations by the primarch. Some were wrapped in robes, too bulky even to wear power armour. Others could still wear their suits, albeit with extensive modification.

Agapito could not help but compare the late-generation Raptors with the slave-mutants he had been slaying. Scaled skin, inhuman eyes, clawed hands, clumps of wiry hair and nodules of bone and cartilage disfigured the Raven Guard warriors. Their sergeant had a hunched look; he was still able to wear armour, but elongated ears and a ridge of bone across his brow could not be encompassed by a helm. All the skin that Agapito could see, whether furred or smooth, lizard-like or broken with warty growths, was almost white in colour. They all had jet black hair and the comparison to the bleached flesh and black eyes of Lord Corax was unavoidable.

For all their physical similarities with the ship slaves, the Raptors could not have been more different in poise and attitude. They were guarding a stairwell, attentive and alert, holding themselves up with as much bearing as their warped frames allowed. All of the physical abuses heaped upon them could not mask the pride and strength of their legionary training, but their appearance still unsettled Agapito, especially in comparison to the monstrosities created by the Word Bearers. Thinking on that did not entirely make the existence of the deformed Raptors easy to accept.

‘Commander Agapito,’ the sergeant said, bowing his head in a deferential greeting. His lips were thin and revealed dark gums and tongue as he spoke, but his voice was calm and quiet, with a youthful pitch. ‘Commander Branne is securing the reactor chamber as we speak.’

‘You are?’ asked Agapito.

‘Sergeant Hef, commander. Navar Hef.’

‘Link up with my Talons, Navar,’ said Agapito, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder towards the remnants of the door. ‘I think the enemy are broken, but there may be enough of them left to try some kind of counter-attack.’

Techmarines are securing the plasma wards right now, commander,’ said Hef. ‘Commander Branne said to pass word for you to meet him in the main chamber.’

‘I’m sure he did, thought Agapito, but out loud said, ‘Very well, sergeant. Carry on.’

Agapito turned his attention to the trio of sergeants who had joined him, awaiting their orders.

‘Lock the whole area down and link up with any other Raptors,’ he told them. ‘Nothing passes the line.’

The commander was already turning away, thoughts moving back to Branne as the sergeants voiced affirmatives and returned to their squads. The route to the main reactor took Agapito up one deck, passing two more Raptor squads guarding the stairwells, and along a short corridor. The area was well within the perimeter and he sheathed his sword and holstered his pistol as he neared the reactor chamber.

Branne met him at the doorway, stepping into the passage as Agapito strode towards the chamber, no doubt informed of his fellow commander’s approach. Branne said nothing at first, but stepped past to address the squad of Raven Guard at the end of the corridor.

‘This area is secure, move down three decks,’ Branne ordered. There were a few glances at the two commanders - it was clear that they were not being moved on for strategic reasons - but the legionaries departed without comment. The ring of their boots on the metal steps grew fainter.

‘Brother, I am s-’

Branne grabbed the lip of his brother’s breastplate in a fist and thrust Agapito against the wall.

‘Sorry is not good enough!’ Though Agapito could see nothing of his brother’s expression inside his helm, Branne’s posture and voice conveyed his rage as purposefully as any snarl or frown. ‘Our orders were simple. What happened to you?’

‘I was killing Word Bearers, brother,’ Agapito replied, trying to keep calm against Branne’s rage. ‘That’s what we do now. We kill traitors.’

Agapito moved to step out of Branne’s grasp but his brother shoved him back against the wall once more, cracking the rough plaster with the impact.

‘One minute,’ rasped Branne. ‘One more minute and we would all be dead.’

‘Do you value your life so highly?’ asked Agapito, lashing out with his words, stung by the arrogance of Branne to appoint himself as judge. ‘Perhaps you should have fought harder.’

Branne raised a gauntleted fist, arm trembling, but he did not strike the blow.

‘Corax is on this ship, brother. Did you not think of him while you were pursuing your personal revenge against the Word Bearers?’

This time Agapito did not make any attempt to control his anger. He smashed Branne’s arm aside and pushed him away, almost sending him to the deck.

‘Personal revenge? Seventy thousand of our brothers died on Isstvan Five. Do you think it is only me that desires to avenge them? And what of the other Legions? The Salamanders and the Iron Hands? Ferrus Manus was slain, probably Lord Vulkan too. Lord Corax? I watched those bastards Lorgar and Curze try to kill him while you were on the other side of the galaxy, so do not tell me that I put the primarch in danger.’

Branne stepped away, shaking his head.

‘You disobeyed orders. A direct command from the primarch. Is that what has become of you?’ The anger in his voice had become sorrow. ‘You cannot change what happened on Isstvan. Our dead brothers would not thank you for jeopardising a mission for their memory.’

‘What would you know?’ snapped Agapito. He tapped the side of his helmet with a finger. ‘You don’t have the same memories as me, you were not there, brother.’

‘A fate that you never fail to mention when given the chance,’ Branne said with a sigh. He pointed to the grey sigil that could barely be seen against the black of Agapito’s left pauldron. ‘The campaign honour for Isstvan that your Talons wear is a mark of respect for the fallen, not a badge of shame. Many died there. You did not. Be thankful. You have nothing to atone for.’

‘I am not trying to atone,’ said Agapito. He could not find the words to express the mixture of feelings that swirled inside him when he thought about the dropsite massacre. He gave up and turned away from his brother. ‘I do not blame you for your absence, brother, but you will never understand.’

THE RAVAGED FACE of the Navigator turned towards Corax as he laid a gentle hand upon her shoulder.

‘Constanix,’ she whispered. ‘That is the system you seek. Now, please, release me from this bondage.’

Delving into his encyclopaedic memory, Corax recalled that Constanix II was a forge world less than fifty light years from their current position. Its allegiance in the civil war that had engulfed the Imperium was unknown, but the fact that the Word Bearers had been there, or were heading there at all, did not bode well.

‘What purpose do the traitors have there?’ he asked softly.

‘I do not know. Twice we have travelled to the system, since we escaped from Calth and dared the Ruinstorm.’

‘Ruinstorm?’ Corax had not heard the term before.

‘The tumult of the warp,’ wheezed the Navigator. ‘It is an artifice of Lorgar’s followers. They did this to me, infected me with... Turned my mind into a vessel for one of their inhuman allies to guide-’

‘Lord Corax, the ship is secured,’ announced Soukhounou. The commander had removed his helm and a sheen of sweat across his dark skin glistened in the amber lights of the reactor displays. He ran a hand through short, curled black hair, his relief evident. His smile twisted the pale scars etched into his face; tribal tattoos that marked him out as a former praise-singer of the Sahelian League on Terra. ‘Plasma containment stabilised. Commanders Branne and Agapito are coming to the strategium to report.’

Corax nodded but did not reply, his attention returning to the broken Navigator.

‘This thing they placed inside you - is it still there?’

‘It fled.’ The Navigator shuddered and gasped, the cables and pipes piercing her flesh rattling and swaying as her whole body twitched at the thought. Still blinded by her mask, she nevertheless looked up at Corax, jaw clenched. ‘I know what you will ask of me.’

‘It is not necessary,’ said Corax. He moved his hand so that the tip of one of his claws was millimetres from her throat, just below the chin. ‘Our own Navigators can take us to Constanix.’

‘The powers entreated by the Word Bearers keep watch on the system. They will block you. They know the Kamiel, this ship, and I can take you through their wards.’ She drew in a long, ragged breath. ‘I will endure for a while longer to see the works of my tormentors ended; the malice their abuse of me has brought forth thwarted by your efforts. The Emperor would expect nothing less.’

‘I will have my Apothecaries tend to you, as best they can.’

‘The wounds of my body are the least severe injuries I have suffered. They can do nothing for the agonies heaped upon my soul. Only death will cleanse the taint.’ The Navigator straightened further, giving a glimpse of the poise and elegance she must have once Possessed before the cruel attentions of the traitors had debased her. I am Sagitha Alons Neortallin, and I will serve the lord of the Raven Guard as my last act.’

Corax withdrew his lightning claw and stood up. Stepping back, he bowed his head in acknowledgement of Sagitha’s sacrifice.

‘By such spirit and courage as yours will Horus be defeated. You will be honoured.’

The tramp of boots on the deck above caught Corax’s attention and he turned to see Branne and Agapito at the rail of the balcony. He gestured to Soukhounou to accompany him as he made his way up the steps. The Raven Guard who stood sentry by the strategium’s portal needed no instruction to depart, silently moving away to leave their commanders free to talk.

‘The Word Bearers have some link to the forge world of ConstanixTwo,’ Corax told the others. ‘For the moment we can only guess what fresh nightmares they concoct there.’

‘A dilemma,’ said Soukhounou. He looked at Branne and Agapito, whose silence betrayed fresh tension between them. ‘The fleet is ready to attack the traitors on Euesa, but it will not be a swift campaign. Whatever the Word Bearers plan for Constanix may come to fruition while we wage war on Fulgrim’s disciples.’

‘Commander Aloni and the Therions will be expecting us to reinforce their assault on Euesa, we cannot leave them unsupported,’ countered Branne. ‘All manner of trouble could await us at this forge world and substantially delay our arrival.’

‘The greater obvious victory is on Euesa,’ said Corax, ‘for if we can rid that world of the traitors’ influence the whole Vandreggan Reach will likely remain loyal to the Emperor. But I do not like the Word Bearers’ machinations. Constanix is strategically insignificant, a minor forge world in the scheme of the Imperium. Had the world been more prominent their purpose would be clearer, but the seizing of Constanix will do little to aid Horus’s war effort. I do not like mysteries.’

‘Any mission that sees more traitors dead is a worthwhile mission,’ said Agapito. ‘Lord Corax, we do not need all of our forces at Euesa. Let me lead some of my Talons to Constanix and the Word Bearers’ plans will be halted for certain.’

‘Our Legion is small enough,’ Branne argued, shaking his head. ‘Dividing our forces now would weaken us further.’

‘So it’s your plan to allow the Word Bearers free rein to wreak more destruction?’ snapped Agapito. He mastered his anger and turned to Corax, his tone almost pleading. ‘Lord, the traitors must be faced down at every turn and the damage inflicted to the Emperor’s cause by the Word Bearers could be considerable if left unchecked. They spread hatred of Terra as surely as they once proclaimed their loyalty. Constanix will not be the last world they try to corrupt if we allow them to escape.’

‘I have no intention of ignoring the Word Bearers,’ replied the primarch.

‘But the attack on Euesa-’

Corax’s raised hand silenced Branne’s protest. ‘Soukhounou, what is your appraisal?’

‘Forgive me, Lord Corax, but I am sure you have already made a decision,’ Soukhounou said with a shrug. ‘I do not think my counsel will sway you to another course.’

‘You do not have an opinion?’

‘I believe it is still your intent that we should bring punishment to the rebels wherever they are encountered, lord. We should attack the foe both at Euesa and at Constanix. Or at the least, the Word Bearers’ activities should be investigated and assessed.’

Although Agapito may have a different motivation for wishing to pursue the Word Bearers, I approve of his strategy,’ said the primarch. He turned away from his commanders and looked across the strategium. They came up beside him, remaining silent for his orders. ‘The enemy at Euesa are well-scouted and well-known. Branne, Soukhounou, you are more than capable of leading the campaign with Aloni. I have every confidence that you will earn another victory for the Legion.’

‘You will not be coming with us?’ Branne was taken aback by the pronouncement.

‘My presence will be more useful with Agapito at Constanix. We shall take three hundred warriors only. Judging by the remnants of the Word Bearers that were left on this ship, we should not expect a large contingent of them to be waiting for us.’

‘And if Constanix has fallen to our enemies?’ said Soukhounou. ‘It may be a minor forge world but they will still have many thousands of Mechanicum soldiers and war machines.’

‘If opposition proves insurmountable, we shall do what we always do.’

‘Attack, withdraw and attack again,’ chorused the commanders after a moment’s pause.

‘Just so,’ Corax told them with a smile. He paused, retrieving what he knew of the forge world from the depths of his mind. ‘I shall take this vessel, recrewed from our own ships, to ensure our arrival goes unseen. Agapito, detail two hundred legionaries to accompany us. Soukhounou, I will need one hundred more of your auxiliary vehicle crews, armed as assault troops. Constanix is dominated by acidic oceans, with few sizeable land masses. There are eight major atmospheric cities kept aloft by anti-grav technologies, so we will need to think aerially. I need warriors trained with flight and jump packs, plus a full complement of Thunderhawks, Shadowhawks, Stormbirds, Fire Raptor gunships and whatever smaller assault craft the fleet can spare and will fit into the launch bays. And a team from the armoury. The Kamiel’s warp engines and other major systems need to be repaired quickly if our strike is to be timely. If we can defeat the Word Bearers with this force, all will be well. If not... Well, the Legion will have its next target.’

The commanders nodded and agreed. With a gesture, Corax despatched them to their duties but called out as they reached the main doors.

‘And Agapito, it is at least seven days’ journey to Constanix. You and I will have plenty of time to discuss your actions today.’

The Talons’ commander seemed to sag inside his armour.

‘Yes, Lord Corax,’ Agapito replied.

II

THE SHADOWHAWK SLID silently down through the night, its black hull almost invisible against the thick clouds that blotted out the light of moons and stars. Thermal dampening vanes jutted from its cunningly-faceted, oily black canopy, the drop-craft looking like a huge, broad-winged spiny beetle. Just a few dozen metres below foam flecked the acidic seas of Constanix, lit by the bioluminescence of indigenous bacteria. In the distance, several kilometres from the Shadowhawk’s glide path, the navigation lights of multi-hull trawlers glinted and strobed; red and green flashes almost lost in the deluge of rain that pattered from the drop-ship’s hull. Bright wakes churned behind the ships as they ploughed back and forth, their reinforced scoop keels dredging thousands of tonnes rich organic material for the Mechanicum’s processors and bio-laboratories.

Two kilometres ahead, floating half a kilometre above the ocean, the barge-city of Atlas drifted through the downpour, smoke and steam from its furnace-houses and foundries leaving a ruddy trail in its wake. A red glare from scores of manufactories and smelteries illuminated the heart of the seventeen-kilometres-wide edifice. Cranes and booms with amber lamps arrayed along their length sprawled from the wharfs that ringed Atlas, their orange glows little more than pinpricks in the darkness.

Between the light of the docks and the fiery aura of the city’s centre lay a gloom of smog and lightlessness. It was towards this that the Shadowhawk glided, with only the breeze whispering from its wingtips to betray its presence. The pilot guided the craft into a steep climb that turned into a swift dive, bypassing the bright quaysides and seeking the shelter of the shrouded city streets.

The quiet hum of anti-grav motors rose as the stealth lander pitched towards an area of waste ground strewn with slag heaps and the acid-scarred skeletons of ancient machines. The smog swirled heavily as it landed, the Shadowhawk nestling neatly between a great pile of discarded engine parts and a slope of rubble-littered spoil.

Swathed by darkness, the ramp at the rear of the drop-ship eased open. There was no light from within and the black-clad figures that emerged made barely a sound. Morphic treads on their boots muted their footfalls as ten Raven Guard legionaries fanned out into a perimeter around their craft. Ducking through the opening, Corax followed, his armour the colour of raven feathers, the white skin of his face obscured behind a layer of black camouflage. In his youth he had hidden his flesh with the soot of Lycaeus’s furnaces, these days a more sophisticated compound he had developed with the Mechanicum of Kiavahr served even better.

He spoke a few words, the syllables barely heard. Even had some casual observer been close enough to hear, they would have made no sense of what had been said. The primarch’s voice was a combination of wind-whispers and delicate sighs, almost indistinguishable from the keening of the breeze across the wasteland, the stalk-argot of the Legion, with which basic commands could be issued in total secrecy.

Falling into pairs, the Raven Guard spread out further while Corax made his way towards the closest buildings. The wasteland, perhaps ten hectares broad, was surrounded on three sides by high tenements. Though taller and reinforced with plasteel columns, the buildings bore a resemblance to the work habitats of Kiavahr, but the razorwire-topped fences and barred windows reminded him more of the prison-complexes on Lycaeus, and the memory stirred distaste in the primarch. Feeble yellow light glowed from a handful of slit-like windows on the upper storeys, but they had chosen the darkest part of night to make their insertion - between midnight and dawn, when the work teams would be sound asleep in their exhaustion - and he could hear no sounds of activity.

The fourth edge of the waste ground petered out into a ferrocrete yard adjoining the empty shell of a sprawling factory. The site appeared to have been stripped of anything useful but for the walls of the buildings themselves. It was easy to conclude that Constanix had been isolated, unable to ship in the raw materials needed for its manufactories due to the Ruinstorm and the other effects of the civil war spreading across the galaxy. The Mechanicum rulers had taken to cannibalising their own, though to what end Corax did not yet know. He was determined to find out.

Issuing an order to his warriors to guard the landing zone, and to use non-lethal force against any intruders, if possible, the primarch set off alone towards the empty factory. Beyond the grey slab walls he could see the city’s central temple of the Mechanicum priesthood soaring up from the heart of the city, a three-hundred-metre-high structure. Secondary turrets and bastions broke its outline and curving accessways and lifting engines further crowded its stepped levels. At the summit burned a white flame surrounded by smaller fires, massive chimneys looking like ceremonial braziers from this distance.

Clear of the wasteland, Corax headed directly through the abandoned manufactorum. The wind keened through empty windows and across half-collapsed mezzanines. The darkness was no obstacle to the primarch and he navigated across desolate spaces that had once been assembly chambers. Even the doors to the overseers’ offices had been taken, creating a vast, cavernous interior. Cracked ferrocrete separated the various work sheds, here and there covered with patches of lichen and stunted plants.

Corax realised that the rain that had fallen on the Shadowhawk since breaching the cloud layer did not blanket the city as it did the seas. Looking up at the low clouds, he could see just the faintest blur of a weather-shield protecting Atlas from the elements. It was likely not the only energy defence possessed by the barge-cities. Even so, the air was thick with humidity, the acrid taste bringing to mind the chemical-tainted air of an ice refinery.

The complex extended for about a kilometre - a distance quickly covered by the primarch’s long strides. Coming out of the other side of the buildings, he discovered a broad roadway that marked the inner perimeter of the factory site, potholes and wide welts in the surface showing that the poor maintenance extended beyond the manufactorum. There were no street lamps, but dim light trickled from the windows of the surrounding tenements, which rose up on either side like the walls of a ravine.

The quiet was unlike any forge world he had ever seen. Normally the Mechanicum ran their production lines day and night, shift after shift of tech-priests and labourers toiling for the glory of their Machine-God. Atlas was almost silent, starved of the ore and other materials it needed, the only sound the background electrical buzz of generators feeding the worker habs.

The primarch was here to gather intelligence, but he was at a loss for a moment regarding where to find the information he desired. The stealthy entry of the Shadowhawk had precluded any form of close-range scan that might have been picked up by the local sensor grid, so his first priority was to establish the general layout and strategic disposition of the city. Equally important was the need to find out whether the ruling elite of the Mechanicum were aligned to the Word Bearers, or if the forge world had simply suffered attack from the Kamiel.

The first would be a simple matter of navigating the city from one side to the other. Corax’s superior mind could catalogue everything he saw in minute detail, taking account of side routes, elevations, firing positions, choke points and everything else he needed to know. The second was a far more difficult proposition and would require either careful first-hand observation or interaction with some of the locals. For both, time was limited. He did not know when the morning labour shift would begin, but it would be within a few hours.

Corax took a pace out onto the roadway and then stopped. Someone was watching him.

He scanned the soaring blocks around him and spied a silhouette at one of the lighted windows. It was a woman, but her back was turned. She was holding a fussing child, patting him gently on the back as he gazed down wide-eyed at the giant warrior.

I am not here, Corax thought, drawing on the inner power he had to cloud his presence from the perception of others. Just as it had worked on prison guards and traitors, his innate ability shifted him from the conscious thoughts of the child, who shook his head in confusion and then laid his cheek upon his mothers shoulder, content.

Though powerful, his ability was not without limit. It would be better to seek a less observed route into the city. Still cloaked by his aura of misdirection, Corax activated his flight pack. Metal-feathered wings extended with a soft whirr. He took two steps and leapt into the air, the flight pack lifting him up into the smog that shrouded the rooftops of the tenements.

Alighting on the flat summit of the closest, Corax broke into a run, eyes scanning left and right to take in the layout of the city as he sprinted along the wall at the roof’s edge. Another bound took him across the road, gliding silently through the darkness like a bat.

From building to building he roamed, criss-crossing the tightly-packed worker blocks as he made his way towards the heart of Atlas. Amongst the run-down slums he noticed a patch of light smeared in the fumes that blanketed the city. On artificial wings, he steered his way towards the illumination, dropping down between the hab-blocks to settle on a metal walkway overlooking the scene.

Below was a low, squat Mechanicum temple, much smaller than the main ziggurat. In shape it was a truncated pyramid, three storeys high, with yellow light spilling from arched windows casting shadows of the skull-cog sigil of the Machine-God into the haze. Girder-like iron columns ran up the walls, becoming a vaulted scaffolding above the summit of the temple. Here brass and silver icons hung from heavy chains, glinting in the glow of forge-fire cast up from skylights in the roof, half-hidden in the polluted swirl from a dozen short chimney stacks.

The murmuring of voices, muted by thick walls, came to the primarch’s ears and from his vantage point he watched cowled figures moving past the windows on the upper storey. He left his perch and skimmed through the smog, aiming for the arched metalwork above one of the grand windows. Grasping hold of the pitted metal, he furled his wings and leaned closer.

The storey was a single chamber, at its heart a furnace burned, its shutter doors wide open to spill heat and light across the gathered tech-priests. Corax counted five standing in a group to his right, while shovel-handed servitors plodded back and forth from a fuel chute to the left, feeding the sacred fires of the Omnissiah with pale fuel cubes.

Corax looked for means of entry and exit, analysing the tactical situation. The engine and cage of a conveyor stood not far from the window and a spiral staircase on the far side of the chamber led up to the temple roof and down to the lower levels. The five tech-priests were close to each other, a single target group, and with the conveyor carriage already on this floor only the furnace-servitors offered any potential additional threat - and they looked like monotasks, incapable of performing any other action.

The ruddy walls of the temple room were adorned with inlaid precious metals wrought into alchemical sigils and formulae, sprawling equations displayed as holy texts. Centred on the furnace, the tiled floor was inlaid with an obsidian-like stone in the shape of a large gear, diamonds fashioned as skulls set into the black material on each of the twelve lugs.

Much of the room was filled with a clutter of ancient brass instruments on stands and altar-tables. Astrolabes and quadrants were set out on velvet cloths, alongside torquetums and complex orreries. Ornately etched theodolites stood in front of shelves full of alembics and spectrographs, barometers and microscopes, magnetographs and oscilloscopes, las-callipers and nanocouplers. Some Were clearly replicas of far more ancient technologies, others appeared to be in functioning order. There seemed to be no pattern to the collection, a random conglomeration of artefacts of no use to the tech-priests’ work but kept in this museum out of reverence  as artifices of the Machine-God.

The hoods of the Mechanicum priests swathed their faces in shadow, but the glassaic was not so thick that it barred their words from reaching the primarch. Their low voices set the window’s surface vibrating just enough for his keen ears to pick up every word, now that he was close.

‘This latest call for our resources cannot be ignored,’ one of the tech-priests said. A claw-handed cybernetic arm protruded from his left sleeve, gleaming in the furnace-light. ‘Vangellin made it clear that if we did not liquidate the Third District then he would remove us and see us condemned to servitude.’

‘Would he really turn the skitarii against his own?’ asked another. Corax identified the owner, a tall, barrel-chested individual with sapphire-like lenses shining in the shadow of his cowl.

‘More than skitarii... if the rumours from Iapetus... are to be believed,’ said a third. His breathing was laboured, the front of his robe open around a whirring, pumping machine set into his torso. Each time he spoke, pistons in the artificial lung clattered. ‘The words may come... from Vangellin, but we know... the command originates with... Archmagos Delvere. He has the support of... the Cognoscenti ... and so we must obey.’

‘Delvere speaks the words of another.’ This fourth voice was artificial; clipped and metallic. ‘The Word Bearer Nathrakin shares equal blame. He is not to be trusted.’

‘Trust is irrelevant,’ said the second tech-priest. ‘Force wins all arguments.’

‘The Cognoscenti have not decreed such,’ said the fifth member of the group. He was short, no more than a metre and a half tall, his back cruelly bent and the hunch further exaggerated by a sprawl of pipes curving from his spine to canisters around his waist. ‘The skitarii are loyal but they will not follow blindly to act against their masters.’

‘It is folly to contemplate armed resistance,’ said the first tech- priest. ‘What have we to lose by compliance? The Word Bearers bring assurances from Mars. Delvere follows the will of the Fabricator-General.’

‘Such assurances... can be easily... falsified. The Word Bearers seek… to defy the Omnissiah. Their creations are... abhorrent. We cannot support this in good... conscience.’

‘It is not like you, Firax, to be so dismissive of learning,’ said the first voice. ‘Lord Nathrakin has opened our research to areas we thought impossible. Are these new creations any more abhorrent than what we do for Geller fields and warp drives?’

‘Azor Nathrakin is a liar,’ said the metallic voice. ‘Pure knowledge resides not in the alternate but in the reality we inhabit. He has corrupted Archmagos Delvere’s thinking.’

‘I will not be part of this rebellion,’ said the first tech-priest, turning away.

‘Lacrymenthis... do not be hasty,’ Firax called out as the recalcitrant tech-priest headed towards the conveyor cage.

‘A rebellion against rebels,’ said the stunted one. ‘Surely a contradiction. A paradox.’

The primarch caught the look in the eyes of the dissident priest as he opened the doors of the cage. He saw conviction and defiance in that gaze and knew in an instant that he meant to betray his companions. He had seen that look in the eyes of other traitors.

He acted instantly, crashing through the window into the temple, showering broken glassaic and leading into the room. Before the tech-Priests reacted he was next to the departing adept. The primarch thrust out a hand, tempering his strength so that the blow merely knocked the semi-mechanical man to the ground rather than pulverising his body.

‘Make no alarm!’ Corax barked at the others, the authority in his voice quelling their instinct to shout out. He continued before the shock of his appearance wore off. ‘I am Corax of the Raven Guard, primarch of the Emperor. We seek a similar end to the Word Bearers’ presence here.’

The servitors continued their monotonous plodding as primarch and tech-priests stared at each other, motionless. In that moment Corax calculated his next attack should the Mechanicum priests oppose him; half a dozen strides and four strikes from his lightning claws would see them all headless in two seconds.

‘The liberator... of Kiavahr,’ wheezed Firax, holding up a gnarled hand in a gesture of peace. ‘On Constanix... no less.’

‘Is he dead?’ asked the priest with sapphire eyes, motioning towards Lacrymenthis’s supine form.

‘Not yet,’ Corax replied, straightening. ‘He knows more than he has told you.’

‘Inquiry,’ said the artificially-voiced tech-priest. ‘What brings the Lord of Deliverance to our planet?’

‘My entrance will bring remark from others,’ said Corax, ignoring the question as he glanced back at the shattered window and then to the conveyor. ‘Is this place safe?’

‘There are no... others,’ said the wheezing tech-priest. ‘Just the five here... and mindless servitors. I am Firax, Magos... Biologis of the Third... District. Our demesne has... fallen in favour of late and... our adepts departed.’

‘Loriark,’ said the tech-priest with the metal voice. ‘Cybernetica. Magos Senioris of this temple.’

‘I am the Magos Logistica, Salva Kanar,’ the hunchback told the primarch, pulling back his hood to reveal a misshapen, wart-marked face. He pointed at the fallen tech-priest. ‘That one is Lacrymenthis, our Cogitatoris Regular. I always thought him a lackey of Delvere, never liked him.’

Corax turned his attention to the sapphire-lensed adept, who appeared to be fixated on the unconscious tech-priest. The adept noticed the silence and looked up at Corax. Shutters blinked rapidly over his blue eyepieces in surprise.

‘Bassili, Primus Cogenitor of the Biologis,’ he said abruptly. He looked back at the downed tech-priest, shaking his head in astonishment, his voice an awed whisper. ‘Lacrymenthis was augmented well, yet you felled him as easily as an infant.’

‘I am a primarch,’ Corax answered simply. ‘He is just a man. Do you command any forces of note?’

‘Some skitarii commanders may still answer to me,’ said Loriark.

‘More may heed... the word of a... primarch,’ added Firax. ‘You are the essence... of the Omnissiah given form. Perhaps... even Delvere will... heed your words when our... protestations fall on uncaring... ears.’

‘If your Archmagos shares counsel with the Word Bearers, I have no words for him,’ said Corax, lifting up a lightning claw. ‘Only deeds.’

‘Then what need have you of our warriors, when the Legion of the Raven Guard await your command?’ asked Loriark.

The question surprised Corax, causing him a moment’s pause. He saw expectation in the faces of the tech-priests - those whose faces were capable of movement. Loriark’s was simply a steel mask, with a respirator grille and eye holes behind which blackened orbs regarded the primarch without emotion.

‘I have enough legionaries with me for the task,’ said Corax. ‘The remainder of my Legion prosecutes the war against Horus on other worlds.’

‘And how do you propose to bring Delvere to account?’ asked Loriark, his words implacable, and though the monotone irritated Corax the truth of the question vexed him more. ‘Your fleet will annihilate Iapetus from orbit?’

‘No,’ Corax replied vehemently. That he had no fleet was irrelevant. ‘I will not condemn thousands of innocents to death so swiftly. Our fight is with the Archmagos and the Word Bearers, not the people of Constanix. Such brutality is the weapon of our enemies - not the Raven Guard.’

‘You showed no such mercy to the men and women of Kiavahr,’ said the hunch-backed Kanar.

‘A necessary evil, to prevent even more casualties,’ Corax replied quietly, shaking his head. ‘The threat of greater destruction ended the war. I do not think that Delvere and this Word Bearer commander will be swayed by such measures.’

‘Perhaps you will fly to Iapetus tonight and storm the grand temple yourself?’ suggested Loriark. His artificial voice made it impossible to judge if he was being sarcastic.

‘I might consider the possibility,’ the primarch replied. ‘Perhaps it would be better to gain control of Atlas first, all things being equal. With the power of a barge-city to command we can confront Delvere on a more even footing.’

Silence followed as the primarch and his potential allies regarded each other. Corax wondered if he could trust these men - half-men. From his experience with the Mechanicum who had come to Kiavahr, he knew that their motives and agenda were different from those of pure flesh and blood. As a group they seemed to be aligned against the Archmagos, but individually Corax had no measure of them or their trustworthiness.

Now that he had revealed himself, only two courses presented themselves, make alliance with the priests of this district, or kill them now. Niro Therman, one of Corax’s foster mothers on Lycaeus, had lectured the young primarch at length regarding the sanctity of life. Corax was loath to kill out of hand, but far more was at stake than the lives of five tech-priests.

Kanar seemed to have reached the same conclusion, his augmented brain thinking almost as quickly as the primarch’s.

‘We can only offer our assurances of common cause,’ said the magos, his face twisting into a puckered grimace. ‘Other than our lives there is no bond we can give you for our good conduct.’

‘We have nothing to lose,’ grated Loriark. ‘Lacrymenthis was correct in one regard, we obey the Archmagos or we will be deemed enemy and destroyed. We are not alone. The cities of Pallas and Crius have moved to the southern currents, away from Iapetus, and their Magokritarchs have withdrawn from the council of the Cognoscenti. We must presume the other cities are in accord with the Archmagos.’

‘How many other cities?’

‘Five, including the capital. For the moment, Delvere counts Atlas amongst his friends. Magokritarch Vangellin is of the Templum Aetherica, as is the Archmagos. Even now, Atlas travels the capital current towards Iapetus.’

Corax absorbed this information, comparing what he heard to what he knew of other Mechanicum societies. No two forge world authorities were ever quite the same, and the specific nature of Constanix’s independent cities had given rise to a confederate arrangement that could be exploited. The Archmagos clearly held the centre of power, but only by the accord of the Cognoscenti, who it seemed were the paramount authorities on each of the barge-cities. Unless the Word Bearers’ influence had extended far structure of the Mechanicum - unlikely, given that they a been present for only a short while and the tech-priests were traditionally conservative towards any outside interference - it would be possible to regain the world with the removal of Delvere and the Word Bearers.

‘Vangellin, your Magokritarch, do you think he could be persuaded to align against the Archmagos?’ Corax asked.

The tech-priests looked at each other, their expressions doubtful.

‘Given sufficient leverage... he may be turned against Delvere,’ wheezed Firax.

‘And the rest of the Cognoscenti, how united will they be in purpose?’ asked the primarch. ‘Would one be a natural successor to the Archmagos, loyal to our cause?’

‘Such matters are complicated,’ answered Loriark. ‘It is not for flesh to decide, but only to divine the will of the Machine-God.’

Of course it is, thought Corax, mystified that such brilliant minds amongst the Mechanicum still clung to primitive techno-theologies - the tech-guilds of Kiavahr, for all their sins, had never pretended to serve a supernatural power. That the Emperor had been forced to treat with such a superstitious cult was proof of Mars’s importance to the Imperium, though; an importance that Corax was being forced to acknowledge at that precise moment.

‘Influence is applied through a mixture of promise and threat,’ he said aloud, quoting another of his prison mentors. ‘What promises does Delvere offer that we can counter?’

‘Only one of us can perhaps answer that question,’ replied Kanar, gesturing towards the unconscious Lacrymenthis.

‘Can you wake him?’ asked Corax.

‘Easily enough,’ said Kanar. The deformed magos crossed the chamber and stooped over his fallen colleague. He reached a hand into the man’s hood, fingers passing behind the neck. Lacrymenthis spasmed once, hard enough to lift his whole body from the floor. He continued to shudder slightly, fingers and feet twitching for several moments. His metallic claw scratched across the tiles, leaving three ragged marks.

‘Cerebral re-boot,’ Kanar said by way of explanation. ‘I installed it myself.’

Lacrymenthis opened bloodshot eyes, vacant for a few seconds as they stared at the ceiling. Life returned as he sat up, actuators whirring somewhere inside his body. Corax moved into an attack stance, one hand drawn back, as the tech-priest’s gaze met the primarch’s.

‘Make sure he makes no transmission,’ Corax told the others, his deathly stare fixed on Lacrymenthis.

‘His signal to the temple circuit interface has been disconnected,’ Loriark said. ‘No alarm will be raised.’

‘Flesh is irrelevant,’ said Lacrymenthis, focusing on Corax. ‘Threat of physical torture is inconsequential. My pain receptors have been reduced to minimum input.’

‘Neural core dump renders coercion unnecessary,’ said Kanar. ‘Core function downstrip will reveal memory receptacle interfaces. Your cooperation, however gained, is surplus.’

‘Memory core access will haemorrhage organic life processes,’ Lacrymenthis protested, flexing his metal hand. ‘Catastrophic personality failure would be irreversible. My loyalty to the wishes of the Archmagos and Magokritarch should not render me subject to total subjectivity termination. I sought to act to the benefit of Third District.’

And in doing so... acted against the... determined order... of compliance set by... your direct Magos Superior,’ said Firax. He Waved a hand towards Corax. ‘The prospects of... the Third District’s continued... prominence and prosperity... have been altered.’

‘I am capable of altering my perception of the situation also,’ claimed Lacrymenthis. ‘It seems detrimental to the cause of the temple to defy the will of the superior force, but the presence of the primarch adjusts the parameters considerably.’

‘Misfortune for you,’ said Kanar. ‘Should logic dictate that the best interest of Third District be served by your promotion to Magos Superior, you would not hesitate to cross-connect purpose with that of Delvere once more. To change loyalty is proof that further alterations of allegiance may be forthcoming.’

‘I would rather he was not killed, if it could be avoided,’ Corax said, understanding a little of Lacrymenthis’s complaint. When the tech-priest had made his decision to break from his fellows there had been sense in complying with the Archmagos’s demands rather than being replaced by someone else who would simply enact Delvere’s wishes anyway. Corax did not wish to punish ignorance too severely.

The primarch was no stranger to moral compromise. During the uprisings in Lycaeus he had needed every able man and woman for his freedom fighters and not all of the prisoners on the moon had been political internees. Some had been justly convicted murderers, rapists, thieves and wretches of the worst order. The overthrow of the corrupt regime had meant compromising the punishment - and justice for the victims - of these miscreants, but such was the necessity. In turn, once the techno-cults had been overthrown those that survived had been granted pardon for their deeds during the war, as Corax had been forced to promise them.

To the agents of the Mechanicum, the struggle between the forces of Horus and the Emperor might appear to be a morally ambivalent situation. Horus had done well to win the Fabricator-General of Mars to his cause before his betrayal became known, and now it could not be guaranteed whether any individual forge world was a potential ally or enemy of the Raven Guard.

‘Total personality assimilation with the temple will insure there is no misdirection or falsification,’ announced Loriark. He waved for Kanar and Bassili to seize Lacrymenthis. ‘Precision is ultimate.’

Lacrymenthis made no protest, shoulders sagging inside his heavy robe, resigned to his fate.

‘His datacore will relinquish its secrets over the next few hours, primarch,’ said Kanar. ‘If we hasten the process it could lead to data corruption.’

‘You doubt the strength of our dedication to alliance, but how are we to know what you intend for the future of our world?’ said Loriark, turning his attention back to Corax. ‘Before we sacrifice one of our own, can you assure us that we will not suffer the same fate as Kiavahr?’

The discussion had reached an impasse, with both sides locked together by mutual need yet unable to prove the commitment required to further their plans. Corax did not like to use his Emperor-given gifts to cow others to his will - such measures were rarely lasting - but he pulled himself up to his full height, head nearly scraping the ceiling of the temple, and allowed the grandeur of his primarch essence to show. Pale flesh burned through blackened camouflage, revealing a ghost-white face, Corax’s eyes becoming orbs of utter darkness. He held up his claws; a mental command sent blue fronds of energy crackling along their length.

Should I wish it, I could kill you all now and depart. From here I would leave with my foes none the wiser, to return with my Legion to raze this planet and eradicate any threat it presents. No world is beyond the jurisdiction of the Emperor and his agents. Seven Legions were sent to destroy me at Isstvan, yet I survived. Do not think for a moment that this world possesses the power to destroy me. Any that move against the Nineteenth, as sure as iron rusts and flesh fails, I will see them slain by my own hand. Your need is greater than mine; do not scorn the opportunity of my presence.’

The effect on the tech-priests was immediate. Stunned by the magnificence and ferocity of the creature before them, they backed away, heads bowed to the authority of the primarch.

Corax allowed his presence to fade, reeling back the majesty of his nature behind walls of discipline and humility. The facade he had built during those years hiding amongst the prisoners of Lycaeus felt like a return to normality rather than a caging of his might. Always had it been his preference to inspire his followers with deeds and words rather than force subservience through coercion. His eyes dimmed as he looked at the cowering magi.

‘Such is the threat,’ he said quietly. He held out a hand, offering reassurance and friendship. ‘The promise is to free Constanix from the coming tyranny of Delvere and the Word Bearers. Make no mistake, an alliance with their kind will doom your planet to slavery or destruction. Make your choice well.’

III

THREE SLEEK WHISPERCUTTER landers skimmed across Atlas, the ten-man craft invisible in the last minutes of darkness. The Whispercutters were little more than winged anti-grav engines, the Raven Guard clinging to their sides exposed to the elements as they soared above the roofs of refineries and worker habitats. Dropped at high altitude from beneath the belly of a Stormbird, the landers were almost undetectable.

‘Hard to port,’ warned Stanz, shifting his weight.

Agapito clutched the grab rail tighter as the pilot harnessed in guidance cupola just in front of the commander brought the Whispercutter into a tight turn, steering away from the centre of the city. The other two craft split towards their separate destinations, assigned during Agapito’s briefing before they had left the Kamiel.

Below, Atlas was in turmoil. The headlights of a skitarii column moved along a main avenue towards the Third District, where three fires were burning; arson at empty ruins chosen by Corax to attract attention without putting the populace in needless danger. Here and there, not far from the blazes, the crack of gunfire echoed from the tenements and manufactoria. Las-fire sparkled from several rooftops, targeting one of the abandoned structures.

On the ground, squads of troopers moved from street to street, alley to alley, building to building. Most were normal men, raised under the aegis of the Mechanicum, dedicated to the cult of the Machine-God but otherwise unaugmented. Their squad leaders and officers were boosted, some throughxybernetics and augmetics, some through gene-therapy and biological enhancement depending upon the temple and magos to whom they were sworn.

At the forefront of the search for the city’s elusive attackers was a small cadre of praetorians. These were the favoured warriors of the Mechanicum, some sporting near-completely artificial bodies. Each was unique, whether sleek and fast or bulky and beweaponed, possessing energy-crackling blades or multiple rocket launchers. Led by lesser tech-priests in the hierarchy of Atlas, the praetorians were as much dedications to the Machine-God as they were flesh- and-blood fighters.

Looking down, Agapito was glad that Atlas - indeed, Constanix as a whole, as far as the intelligence went - had no herakli. The monstrous, heavily-gunned brutes that had assisted in the fighting against the tech-guild rebels during the latest insurrection on Kiavahr would have been a tough proposition to face. Even so, the enemy had tanks, armoured walkers and transports in abundance, though several companies of infantry were loyal to the magi allying themselves to Lord Corax. It was mainly these divided forces that were currently bearing the brunt of Magokritarch Vangellin’s reprisal against the Third District.

Workers had been forced from their homes in the pre-shift hours, filling the streets with dazed, fatigued crowds that hindered both sides. To their credit, the skitarii of Vangellin were as unwilling as those of Loriark and his peers to endanger the non-combatants in the barge-city.

‘What is the First Axiom of Victory?’ Agapito asked Lieutenant Caderil, who was poised on the side of the Whispercutter behind the commander. A Terran veteran, Caderil would have made company command by now had the Legion not been devastated at the Dropsite Massacre. They exchanged over the vox-net - at this altitude the wind would have required them to shout over their external communicators.

‘To be where the enemy desires one not to be,’ replied Caderil.

Agapito turned his attention to another of the honour guard he had hand-picked for the mission. ‘Harne, what is the First Axiom of Stealth?’

‘To be other than where the enemy believes you to be,’ came the legionary’s sharp reply.

‘So what do we do to gain victory by stealth?’ the commander continued.

‘Attack where the enemy does not want us to be, whilst feigning presence elsewhere,’ said Caderil. He pointed towards the centre of the floating city. ‘The main temple is our objective, but it is too well defended for direct assault. We have to draw out the enemy force, leaving the temple vulnerable to counter-attack.’

‘Just like the Perfect Fortress,’ said Harne.

‘And Copatia, and Rigus Three, and lots of other places,’ said Agapito. ‘We don’t have the numbers or firepower for a straight feint-and-attack here. Vangellin and his tech-priests won’t deplete their defences unless they really need to, so our attack is a second diversionary assault. We have to make the enemy believe we’re in much greater strength than we actually are.’

‘The lord primarch gets the killing blow,’ said Harne with a nod ‘I understand that.’

‘It sounds like there’s something you don’t understand, Harne.’

‘If the Word Bearers are on Iapetus, why are we fighting to take over Atlas?’

‘Caderil, what is your explanation?’ Agapito replied.

‘A simple decapitation mission is unlikely to succeed without the element of surprise, and with the defences of the capital against us we lack the time needed to prepare a proper assaut. Atlas is only achievable thanks to the presence of Loriark and his dissidents. There is no guarantee we would have any support on Iapetus. We simply don’t have the numbers without the aid of the skitarii. Once we control Atlas, we have an established base of operations and also the firepower of a barge-city at our disposal.’

‘And any skitarii that survive will likely side with the winners, regardless of who is commanding them at the moment,’ added Shorin from the other side of the Whispercutter’s narrow fuselage.

‘A good assessment,’ said Agapito.

‘Four hundred metres from drop-point,’ warned Stanz. The Whispercutter started dropping groundwards.

‘Power up,’ ordered Agapito. The whine of jump packs reverberated along the length of the lander as turbines spun into life.

The Whispercutter banked sharply between two smoke-belching chimneys, descending into the glare of an outdoor assembly line. The cabins of mechanical diggers were being attached to their chassis, line after line of servitor labourers with welding torches and grafted facemasks lighting the ground with white sparks and dribbling lines of red-hot metal. Ghosting above them, the Raven Guard passed unseen.

Lining up on the roadway beyond the factory, the Whispercutter glided down to fifty metres. In the lenses of Agapito’s helm an objective reticule glowed into life, centred on a junction ahead. The metres counted down rapidly beside it.

‘Drop!’ he snapped the moment the countdown reached zero.

As one the Raven Guard released the grab rails and fell groundwards. Stanz had activated the machine-spirit guide in the moments before leaving; the Whispercutter ascended swiftly into the darkness, and would then head out to sea before ditching itself.

The ten Space Marines fell towards the road, activating their jump packs a few metres from impact to slow their descent. Even so, they hit the ground hard, ferrocrete cracking under their boots.

‘Caderil, up and left.’ Agapito was issuing orders without a moment’s pause, waving half their number with his second- in-command towards an elevated railroad station on the north-eastern corner of the junction. Heading directly to the right, the commander led the other four warriors into the shadow of a large silo. A momentary flick of his helm display to the local cartography confirmed that they were just over a kilometre from the main temple, outside its priority defence grid.

‘Follow me,’ he told the squad, igniting his jump pack as he headed towards his objective.

THE MECHANICUM STRATEGY-NET was a pleasingly efficient way of conducting war, Corax concluded. He issued another set of orders to the lexmechanics and logisticians gathered around him on the lower level of the temple. Without hesitation, the augmented machine-cultists translated and disseminated the information to their sub-commanders fighting across the city. Neurally connected to the command channels, the platoon leaders acted swiftly, breaking away from the fighting where they were likely to be overwhelmed, gathering again where the enemy were weakest.

Unlike the shrine at the top of the district temple, the command chamber was purely functional. Communications and monitoring servitors relayed information to the lexmechanics, who analysed the data-stream for pertinent information which they then passed to the logisticians updating the battle-space display. Systems that were more usually tasked with the marshalling of raw materials, fuel, manpower and production were equally suited to doing the same for soldiers and war engines.

‘Your strategy interface reminds me of one of the many battle simulations devised by my brother Guilliman,’ Corax remarked to Salva Kanar, who was overseeing the coterie of attendants. Just as then, the squads and men of the tech-guard acted by the will of Corax, effortlessly moved from one position to another as the primarch surveyed the scene depicted on a three-dimensional hololithic representation of Atlas, focused upon the Third District. Intelligence updates were fast and accurate, far more so than was possible with his Therion Cohort allies.

‘I have heard that the primarch of the Ultramarines constantly tested his war theories and stratagems during the Great Crusade in the artificial constructs of metriculator engines, as well as with real warriors,’ replied the magos.

‘Even the most sophisticated simulation is crude compared to real war,’ remarked the primarch. ‘Guilliman tried to learn everything he could from the experiences of his brothers when he first met them. I was constantly vexing him with complaints that he focused too much on distinct military units, not taking into account possible civilian participation. To him there was a line between combatants and non-combatants that I did not see. Before our first encounter Guilliman’s treatises had been swift to rule out casualty-depleted combat forces as incapable, since he was so used to wielding whole battalions and Chapters rather than handfuls of warriors. I demonstrated the error of these beliefs on several occasions, creating effective resistance out of meagre resources that Roboute had considered no longer viable.’

‘An occurrence to be proud of, I am sure,’ Kanar said evenly.

‘The cry of "no retreat" is meaningless to the Raven Guard,’ explained Corax, ‘a prideful boast rather than a sensible tactical doctrine. It was not until our third confrontation that Guilliman realised this for himself.’

‘To best one of the greatest strategos in the Imperium is no mean feat. We are blessed by your attendance.’

‘I make no such claim,’ Corax replied with a lopsided smile. ‘From the fourth simulation on, he had my mark and I could not beat him. He learns well, my brother, and he has far greater vision than me. While I was rescuing a single world from slavery, he was already building an empire of hundreds. I won battles against him, but never a war.’

Corax allowed himself a moment of reflection. He had received no word from Roboute Guilliman since before the treachery on Isstvan, though he had assumed that the Ultramarines were fighting against Horns given their primarch’s unquestioning adherence to the Emperors commands in the past. They had been operating far to the galactic east, around their burgeoning realm of Ultramar, far from the carnage that Horus’s forces had wrought over the following months. Isolated by the vicious warp tempests - the Ruinstorm, as Sagitha had called it - Ultramar might as well have been in another galaxy altogether.

However, the Navigator who had been imprisoned aboard the Kamiel had been able to provide more information regarding the XIII Legion. The Word Bearers had attempted to destroy Guilliman and his forces at the muster on Calth, and though their ambush had not quite succeeded in obliterating the Ultramarines as a threat, Guilliman’s warriors were sorely beset on the many worlds of their domain.

There was unlikely to be any swift victory in the galactic east, and Corax’s determination to slow and counter Horus’s advance was being vindicated with every world prised from his grip, every potential ally hardened against the wiles of the traitor primarchs.

It was this that lent such weight to the fight here on Constanix II. The resources of one world, even a forge world, were inconsequential in and of themselves in an Imperium of more than a million such planets, but every system that fell to Horus could tip the balance in the Warmaster’s favour.

Unfortunately, the forces loyal to Magokritarch Vangellin benefited from the same strategic facilities as Corax, though they lacked a primarch’s brilliance to orchestrate the entire affair. Less than two minutes had passed before Corax was needed to make adjustments to his battle plan once more.

‘Your adepts have arrived,’ announced the metallic voice of Loriark from the doorway behind Corax.

‘Adepts?’ said the primarch as he turned.

With the magos was Stradon Binalt, the chief Techmarine of Corax’s small force. His helmet was hanging on his belt and his expression was one of frustration.

‘Your pardon, Lord Corax, but you told me that the magi had given their permission for our work,’ said the Techmarine.

‘I was assured full cooperation,’ replied Corax, turning his gaze to Loriark. ‘Is there some problem, magos?’

‘Adept Binalt’s working methods are highly unorthodox, primarch,’ said the tech-priest with a shake of his head. ‘He tampers with complex mechanisms without the proper rites. Though there is much merit to your plan, it risks disabling one of our greatest combat assets if the correct procedures are ignored.’

‘We don’t have time for mumblings and censer-swinging, lord primarch,’ protested Stradon. ‘We’ve done it a dozen times before on ships, we know what we are doing.’

‘I concur,’ said Corax. ‘Magos Loriark, please ensure that my Tech-marines can continue their modifications without interruption’

Loriark bowed his head in acquiescence but the hunch of his shoulders communicated his displeasure without words.

Corax turned to Stradon. ‘All is well. Return to the arming bay and ensure the work is completed on schedule. By my reckoning, Commander Agapito will be making his move in a little under four minutes. You have twenty to be in position.’

‘We’ll be ready,’ said the Techmarine, leaving with swift steps.

There was grave misgiving in Loriark’s posture and although Corax had no time for the superstitions of the Mechanicum, it was important that he did nothing to unnecessarily alienate his allies.

‘When the battle at hand is won, you may perform whatever rites and checks you deem necessary,’ he told the magos.

Mollified by this concession, Loriark bowed and left. Corax returned his attention to the hololith. Vangellin’s forces were pushing into Third District from the east and north, just as Corax had planned. He snapped off a couple of commands to draw them further from the main temple complex, widening the gap for Agapito to exploit. Beside the primarch, Kanar was looking pensively at the display as the red runes of their foes approached within two kilometres of the temple.

‘Relax,’ Corax told him, soothing the tech-priest’s worries with a calm tone. ‘We’ll know if the plan has worked in mere minutes.’

‘And if it has failed?’ asked Kanar.

‘Plenty of time to come up with another.’ Corax gently laid a reassuring hand on the magos’s shoulder. ‘Do you trust me?’

Kanar looked up at the primarch’s face and saw only his honest intent, despite Corax’s concerns.

‘Yes, lord primarch, yes I do.’

‘Then send the signal,’ Corax said quietly, fastening his armour seals ready to leave. ‘Open a path to the temple. An invitation Vangellin cannot ignore.’

He was passing command to Kanar and his fellow tech-priests. If they planned to betray him, then that would be the prime opportunity. But with such a small force at his disposal, the primarch had no other option.

AN EXPLOSION SEVERAL kilometres away lit up the skyline of the First District at Atlas’s heart. Agapito knew it was the charges set by Sergeant Chamell’s team, destroying a refinery feedline on the far side of the main temple complex. He watched the fireball ascending into the heavens without magnification, his armoured suit running on minimal power as he and the two squads with him crouched atop the roof of an empty transit terminal half a kilometre from the main gates.

Powered down, the Raven Guard were giant statues of black in the darkness, their armour running only essential support systems. With no display chronometer to keep track of time, Agapito mentally counted down from the blast, allowing Vangellin time to react and send out forces to counter-attack. Forty-three seconds passed before a flurry of anti-grav skimmers ascended through the lights of the temple and headed south towards the fresh blaze. Warning sirens echoed along the deserted streets as a column of russet-painted armoured quadrupeds emerged from the widening gate - ‘Syrbotus-class’, Corax had called them - followed by dozens of infantry heading out at a run.

The Raven Guard commander waited patiently as the ten vehicles turned along a sidestreet, lumbering in the direction of Chamell’s attack. The red-armoured infantry followed close behind, lasguns glinting in the light of the refinery fire. The last of the column was almost through the gate when Agapito ordered the squads to move. At the edge of his vision, he saw Sergeant Korell’s squad moving in on a convergent course from the left while Caderil’s combat squad approached from the right.

Their timing was perfect.

Energy flooded through his armours systems and Agapito’s jump pack flared as he leapt across the road to the next rooftop, his warriors bounding along behind him. His tactical display glimmered into life, targeting reticules springing up everywhere he looked. Landing, he took three swift strides and jumped again, aiming for a crane gantry that straddled the next road.

They covered the first three hundred metres in fifteen seconds, coming together again atop the corner towers of a keep-like outpost overlooked by the gate guns. To their right, out of sight, more detonations shook the buildings as Chamell’s concealed plasma mines took out the lead walkers. Agapito’s enhanced hearing and all-frequency scanner picked up the panicked shouts and garbled comm-chatter of the shocked skitarii.

He led the Raven Guard on without any need for an order to be given; they all knew what to do.

The twenty legionaries fell upon the rear squads of the column, frag grenades announcing their arrival as they plunged towards the road with jump packs and bolters blazing.

Agapito landed squarely upon a soldier with a bionic arm, crushing him with his armoured weight. He lashed out with his sword, chopping through the midsection of another. The tower guns on the temple perimeter stayed silent, prevented from firing by their automated friend-or-foe protocols as the Raven Guard shredded the rear echelon without effort. Agapito could easily imagine the desperate tech-adepts inside the defence towers frantically trying to override those protocols.

With more than fifty foes slain in a few seconds, Agapito ordered his squads to relocate, leaping back up to the rampart of the outer tower seconds before the cannons of the temple wall opened fire, obliterating a score more of their own fighters. Someone evidently had disarmed the protocols.

Several heavily armoured walkers had turned back towards the attack on their column and were raising their turret guns towards Agapito’s position.

‘Split by fives, quadrants three and four,’ he ordered, activating his jump pack to launch himself towards the incoming walking tanks.

The Raven Guard broke apart into their combat squads, fanning out to either side of the column, using the cover of the rooftops to close the distance as the walkers opened fire. Incendiary shells and plasma missiles slammed into the buildings, smashing ferrocrete and turning plasteel to molten splashes of red. The legionaries were too fast to track, sprinting and leaping towards the Syrbotae.

Each squad fell upon a different target, melta-bombs in hand as they plunged down onto the slab-roofed war engines. Stubby point-defence guns spat hails of bullets as the crews of the walkers tried to bring fire against their attackers, but the response was too slow; the legionaries were atop the armoured Mechanicum creations in moments.

Agapito landed heavily as one of the machines reared up to meet him, amber warning signals flaring across his vision while impact compensators strained in the legs of his armour. Grunting through the dull ache in his knees he slammed a discus-shaped melta-bomb onto a hatchway and stepped back. A second later the charge detonated, punching through the cupola to leave a ragged, vvhite-edged hole. The charred corpse of a crewman who had been preparing to open the hatch fell to one side as Agapito pushed his plasma pistol through the breach and fired towards the driver’s compartment. The Syrbotus shuddered as though injured, and came to a stop.

Two frag grenades went down into the hole to ensure that nobody survived to take the dead driver’s place.

Around the commander the rest of the Raven Guard were blasting and tearing their way into the other Syrbotae. Las-fire from the accompanying infantry sliced from their power armour and pattered against the armoured hulls of their targets. Several of the legionaries turned their attention to the escorts, firing back with hails of bolts that tore through the armoured breastplates and padded suits of the unaugmented infantry.

One by one the remaining Syrbotae were felled by detonations from within, crew slain and vital mechanics destroyed. From further down the road came a fresh storm of fire, aimed not at the Raven Guard but at their enemies. Laying down a barrage with plasma fire and rockets, Chamell’s warriors covered Agapito and his squads as they broke free, withdrawing once more to the rooftops.

As expected, more forces poured from the temple gates over the following minutes. Open-topped transports carrying squads of heavily armed praetorian infantry, accompanied by multi-turreted crawlers, ploughed onto the streets, unleashing a storm of shells and lascannon fire as Agapito’s and Chamell’s warriors fell back from the attack, fading into the night.

Gun towers further up the huge temple pyramid rained down balls of plasma and incendiary charges onto the city below, shattering buildings as the tech-priests spewed forth their spite, inconsiderate of the damage they were wreaking upon their own city. A few legionaries were caught in the open, armour broken by shell detonations, bodies seared by white-hot promethium explosions, but the commander led most of them to safety.

Using rooftops and alleys to shield themselves from the vengeful machine-cultists, the Space Marines withdrew from their objective. To the Mechanicum defenders, it looked as though the Raven Guard assault on the gate towers had been foiled.

Nothing could have been further from the truth.

ABOVE ATLAS, CORAX circled, his flight pack aided by the thermals rising from a score of burning buildings. He watched the scene unfolding below with a calculating gaze; Raven Guard squads collapsing back towards Third District as skitarii regiments loyal to Loriark and his companions moved eastwards, holding the brunt of the counter-assault from Second District.

There appeared to be a fatal error in the retreat, an opening that Vangellin evidently saw, a column of tanks and warriors advanced down a wide boulevard like a red spear aimed away from the rebel temple. A handful of Raven Guard lobbed plasma charges and fired missiles from the shelter of broken doorways and shattered windows, forcing the part-machine praetorians to bail out of their transports and giving the illusion that the attack had not been abandoned altogether. The legionaries retreated into the shadows before the return fire of blast-carbines and crackling lightning guns, drawing the Magokritarch’s forces onwards for another few hundred metres.

At the far end of the boulevard the ruddy sky shimmered, the night clouds lit by the flames of the burning city. There was a deeper haze between the advancing column and the Third District temple, almost undetectable even though Corax knew it was there.

As though coalescing from the shroud of smoke that lay upon Atlas, the Warlord Titan Castor Terminus disengaged its newly adapted reflex shields, powering up its weapons.

The immense walker straddled the boulevard like a colossus of legend, its white and pale blue livery stark against the night sky as search lamps blazed into life and cockpit canopies in its head lit up like gleaming azure eyes. Constanix did not have a Titan Legio of its own, but several war machines from the Legio Nivalis, the Ice Giants, were stationed amongst the planet’s cities. Modifying the war engine’s void shields with Kiavahran reflex technology had allowed the Titan to move unseen by the sensors of Vangellin’s forces, traversing four kilometres from its arming bay in the south of Third District.

Castor Terminus opened fire with all four of its main weapon systems. A multi-barrelled las-blaster hanging from the right shoulder mount chewed through half a dozen tanks, lighting up engines and ammunition stores with a flurry of white beams. The macro-cannon of the left arm pounded out immense shells, obliterating dozens more of the onrushing vehicles. From the Titan’s crenellated carapace, micro-munitions dischargers launched hundreds of guided explosive darts into the air, the detonations of which rolled along the street like a hurricane of fire, engulfing everything in their path.

The tanks and praetorians were taken completely by surprise and barely a shot was loosed in return during thirty seconds of fire and fury. Wrecks and corpses littered the wide street, secondary detonations and burning fuel lighting up the boulevard, the cracks of Popping metal and burning rounds ringing from the buildings.

As quickly as it appeared the Castor Terminus disappeared again as the reflex shields engaged once more. Corax caught a last glimpse of the immense war engine turning away towards the east as the great guns of the temple started to rain shells down onto its position. Without void shields, surprise had been the Titan’s greatest defence and now the princeps would retreat, his mission completed.

‘Dive!’ the primarch commanded, arrowing groundwards. There was no time to lose, Vangellin had realised that his counter-attack was failing and was drawing back forces to protect the temple.

Behind the primarch, a Shadowhawk gunship plunged from the fume clouds contained within Atlas’s weather-shield, a blur of black against the dark sky. Four sets of triple-mounted heavy bolters opened fire, impacts rippling along the street as they scythed through a flood of infantry surging back towards the gatehouses.

The Shadowhawk’s strafing run was just the last in the long series of feints, drawing streams of tracer fire from the temple’s anti-air turrets as it swept past, bright flashes tearing through the drop- ship’s wake but missing their mark.

Unnoticed, Corax dropped down towards the upper storeys of the temple.

He aimed for a balcony on the highest tier of the ziggurat, in front of a tall arched window. The primarch allowed himself a grim smile, he often mused that if he had possessed such a flight pack during the uprising on Deliverance, then he could have taken the Ravenspire himself and saved weeks of bitter fighting.

Barely slowing, Corax crashed into the temple feet-first, shattering the inches-thick crystalflex with clawed boots. Luxurious carpet and stone beneath were torn to shreds as he dragged himself to a halt on the floor within.

Standing in front of a massive display screen was Vangellin, the Magokritarch obvious by his long red robes stitched with golden Mechanicum runes. He held a cog-topped staff of office in one hand, the other was a hooked claw that twitched spasmodically as the ruler of Atlas turned towards the intruder.

Three hulking combat servitors lumbered towards Corax, weapon barrels spinning up, chainblades screeching. Overpowering his talons, the primarch sent sparking arcs of energy into two of the half-machine brutes. He leapt to the right as the third opened fire, diving over the stream of las-bolts that erupted from its twin cannons. A step and a jump sent Corax past his mechanical foe, lightning claw carving through its midriff from gut to spine, cutting the servitor in half.

As blood and fuel spewed across the room Corax turned his attention to three tech-priests at the bank of consoles to his right, only now reacting to the intruder in their midst. There was no time for subtlety, to gauge their individual tolerances to injury, killing blows were unfortunate but necessary.

His next strike took the head off the closest - a female adept reaching for a pistol at her belt. Behind her the next tech-priest clenched an articulated metal fist. The bionic appendage was sent flying across the chamber as Corax’s following sweep took the Mechanicum cultist through the shoulder and sank deep into his tube-pierced chest. The third, eyes replaced with goggle-like ruby lenses, opened his mouth to shout a warning moments before Corax’s claw jabbed up through the bottom of his jaw, erupting from the top of his scalp with a spray of bluish fluid.

Corax pulled his weapon free and turned to the Magokritarch. The primarch wanted him alive.

Vangellin thrust his staff towards Corax, a spew of energy bolts erupting from its tip. Corax had been warned of the weapon by his allies and was ready, dodging a fusillade that shattered dials and gauges behind him. A leap and a kick sent the Magokritarch flying across the chamber to crash into a panel of screens with an eruption of cobalt sparks.

Looming over Vangellin, reflected in the polished ebon plate that made up almost half of the Mechanicum magos’s face, Corax raised his claw in readiness for another blow.

‘Stand your warriors down, and yield,’ he snarled.

Vangellin’s remaining eye regarded the towering primarch with all-too-human fear. Oily blood trickled from a gash across the tech-priest’s forehead, pooling around the rivets that ran in a line down the centre of his face.

‘Enough,’ wheezed the lord of Atlas. ‘You have my surrender.’

IV

ATLAS’S MAIN TEMPLE chamber was filled with tech-adepts, attending to the damage control circuits and mechanisms that commanded and monitored the barge-city’s defences, energy grid and a dozen other vital systems. Agapito had escorted Loriark and the other magi of Third District to Corax a few minutes earlier, along with an entourage from other precincts. These were swiftly led back out again as they bombarded the primarch with questions and demands. Now only Loriark, Firax and Agapito remained, and between them sat the former Magokritarch Vangellin, hunched in a chair with his natural hand held across a dented metal chestplate. He glowered at Corax.

‘Your victory will be short-lived.’ Exposed by his ripped robe, his sallow skin was covered with spots of thick, drying blood. ‘Do you think I freely gave in to Delvere’s demands? He wields a power greater than even a primarch.’

‘The power of the Omnissiah?’ said Agapito, standing beside his lord. ‘Your Machine-God will save him from vengeance?’

‘The power of the warp.’ What little could be seen of Vangellin’s cracked lips twisted in a sneer. ‘The warp unchained.’

‘You have seen this for yourself?’ grated Loriark. ‘What manner of creations is the Archmagos forging on Iapetus?’

‘What did you learn from the memory stores of your companion?’ Corax asked, ignoring the Magokritarch’s posturing. ‘Did he know what Delvere is planning?’

‘Nothing more than we could have guessed,’ replied Loriark with a shake of the head. ‘Delvere is long-studied in the mechanics and arts of the warp and with the aid of the Word Bearer, Nathrakin, is creating new engines to harness its power.’

‘Not only to harness it, but bring it to life, to give it divine mechanical form!’ snapped Vangellin. ‘The warp sustained - yes, that is what he has achieved. The synthesis of material and immaterial. The symbiosis of the physical and the incorporeal. Even as he threatened me with its power, he showed me the heights of greatness to which Constanix can now aspire. We will rival Anvillus, Gryphonne, perhaps even Mars itself when our power is revealed.’

‘More powerful... than the sacred... Red Planet?’ Even with his laboured words, Firax’s incredulity was plain to hear. ‘If you believe... such lies then you... are a fool. It is rights, that we resisted your... delusions.’

Corax turned away from the others and stared out of the shattered remains of the window. Dawn was spreading across Atlas, now strangely peaceful in the pinkish light. Vangellin had been true to his word of surrender, formally handing power to Loriark in exchange for his life. The fighting had lasted only a few minutes more as word had spread that order had been restored, the speed of the command network as swift to restore peace as it had been to break it. Loriark had sent a brief statement to the outer districts explaining that Vangellin had been accused of techno-heresies and would face judgement by his fellow magi in due course. Freed from the threats of Vangellin the other district temples had been swift to acknowledge Loriark’s claim, backed as it was by more Raven Guard arriving from orbit in the dawn hours.

Squads of soldiers and battle engines had been withdrawn, to be replaced by teams of labourers and repair equipment. Cranes and grav-lifters, cyber-reticulated work crews and myriad other men and machines were clearing the rubble, shoring up damaged buildings and dousing the flames left by just three hours of close fighting.

‘If Delvere’s studies into the warp are so advanced, how can a legionary of the Word Bearers help him?’ Agapito asked. Corax glanced over his shoulder to see the commander standing over Vangellin, arms folded across his chest. ‘What could this Nathrakin know of the warp that the Archmagos doesn’t?’

‘The wrong sort of knowledge,’ said Corax before Vangellin could answer. ‘You remember the Word Bearers at Cruciax? Or those poor creatures on the Kamiel. The hideous beasts that came at us on Isstvan Five?’

Agapito’s grimace showed clearly that he remembered the mutated warriors who had followed Lorgar during the dropsite massacre. Corax knew that there had been whispers and rumours ever since of mysterious powers at play.

He had been too focused on rebuilding the Legion and then striking back at Horus to quell the chattering, but now it was time to make certain truths known. Truths that had been revealed to him directly by the Emperor, truths that even now were hinted at in the recesses of his mind where the last memories the Emperor had passed to Corax still dwelt, like shadows at the bottom of a gorge.

He trusted Agapito, and had done so since they had first stood together so many decades ago. Though hot-headed of late, he needed to know the nature of the foes they were now facing, all of the Raven Guard deserved that after suffering so much at their hands.

‘There are creatures that live within the warp,’ said Corax. Agapito nodded in understanding and was about to reply but the primarch cut him off. ‘Things not just in the warp but of the warp. The creatures that can consume a ship if its Geller fields fail. The creatures that the Navigators call the empyrean predators, and the Emperor calls daemons.’

Agapito muttered with distaste while a cruel laugh erupted from Vangellin. The other tech-priests listened with interest, seemingly detached from concern.

‘Yes, daemons,’ said Corax. ‘Beings not of flesh but of the stuff of the warp itself.’

‘But what has that got to do with the Word Bearers?’ asked Agapito.

‘I saw the power in them, and I saw it written in the eyes of Lorgar as I confronted him. There is another name of the warp, which the Emperor knew and I now remember. Chaos.’

There was a flicker of recognition in the eyes of Agapito as he heard the word that had been whispered amongst the ranks, but never spoken outright. Corax continued.

‘The daemons of Chaos cannot exist in our world without a conduit. They are made up of the warp and so reality leeches their power. The Word Bearers we have fought, the twisted warriors that we faced, made themselves such conduits. They gave up a portion of their flesh, parts of their minds, so that these creatures could reside within them.’

Agapito turned on Vangellin and seized him by the throat, dragging him from the chair.

‘Delvere and Nathrakin are infecting the people of Iapetus with this daemon-curse?’ he growled. ‘You knew of this and allied with them?’

‘Nothing so crude,’ whispered Vangellin. ‘Flesh is temporal, impermanent. Machine... Machine is immortal, fitting for the hosts of the Great Ones.’

‘Let him go,’ Corax said quietly. Agapito obeyed without comment, dropping the deposed Magokritarch back into his seat. The primarch looked at Loriark and Firax. ‘Is it possible? Could Chaos become manifest in a creation of wire and circuit, adamantium and plasteel?’

‘If it is possible, Delvere will find a way,’ said Loriark. ‘At the smallest level, flesh is nothing more than a mechanism too, composed of electrical impulses and exchanges of information. Life is simply a biological machine.’

Corax took a deep breath and pursed his lips. He had thought that perhaps the Word Bearers had been coming in desperation to Constanix, seeking repairs or fresh arms and armour. The reality was far more grave, and made the primarch all the more glad that he had followed his instinct to come to the forge world. Constanix II had not been chosen by Nathrakin because it was rich in resources, but for the opposite reason. It was inconsequential - out of sight and out of mind. What better place to conduct experiments of the nature being discussed?

‘Whatever advancements our enemies have made, they must be stopped,’ he told the others. ‘Not only must we destroy any machines they have created, the knowledge of their creation cannot leave this world.’

‘And the Word Bearers?’ Agapito asked the question casually, but Corax could feel the anger concealed beneath the commander’s calm.

‘They will be dealt with in due course,’ the primarch replied carefully. ‘The mission is to rid Constanix of their corrupting influence. To thwart their plans will be punishment enough. This is no time for vendetta. Victory is vengeance.’

Agapito did not reply, and it was plain that the primarch’s words were not to his liking.

‘There is far more at stake than simply revenge against the traitors that tried to exterminate us,’ Corax said solemnly, trying to make Agapito understand. ‘It was such errors of judgement, the desire to put personal need and gain above duty and service, which has led to so many following the Warmaster into treachery. It is the ambitions of the weak that the daemons of Chaos seek to exploit. Even here, their temptations have lured the Archmagos down a corrupt path, twisting his pursuit of knowledge into something far darker.’

It was not clear whether the commander understood fully the threat that Horus’s alliance had unleashed, but he nodded in compliance and stepped towards the door.

‘I have to see to the marshalling of the Talons arriving from the Kamiel,’ Agapito said. ‘If you will excuse me, lord primarch?’

‘One moment more, commander. Loriark, how soon do you think Delvere will learn of what has happened here?’

‘A brief examination of the transmission logs shows that communication with the capital was sparse during the battle,’ the magos replied. ‘Delvere knows that there has been an uprising and will deduce from the lack of contact that it was successful. There is nothing to indicate that your presence is known.’

‘Good,’ said Corax, looking back to Agapito. ‘Ensure that every weapon system on Atlas is operational. Coordinate with the magi and skitarii force commanders to create assault companies. I will review the preparations in two hours.’

‘Assault companies?’ wheezed Firax. ‘Surely we must... see to the defence of... Atlas first. The highest probability... is that Delvere’s response... will be a counter-attack.’

‘We will not be giving him the opportunity. We have the initiative and we will keep it. Magokritarch Loriark, set Atlas on a course for the capital. We will attack Iapetus at the earliest opportunity.’

ALMOST LOST IN the ever-present low cloud of Constanix, vapour contrails cut across the midday sky. Corax watched them coming closer from the observatorium atop the main temple of Atlas, gazing skywards with Loriark beside him. Glimmers of engines rose up from the barge-city to meet the approaching craft from Iapetus. From this vantage point he could also see the grey-foamed seas stretching unbroken to the horizon, a low haze rising from the acidic waters.

Massive anti-grav repellers and plasma drives kept the city aloft, and though the shields kept Atlas protected from the acid storms that occasionally surged across its path they did nothing to ward away the chill of the air five hundred metres above sea level. To Corax the cold was of no consequence but he was keenly aware of the discomfort it would be causing the unaugmented populace of the city. They were for the most part hard at work in munitions factories, manufacturing shells and energy packs for the skitarii and their war engines. Corax had gone to some lengths to make the people of Atlas feel as much a part of this endeavour as his warriors and the soldiers of the Mechanicum, the factory shift labourers had just as much to lose in the coming battle and had already suffered casualties in the struggle for possession of Atlas.

‘Are you sure it is wise to allow them to approach so closely?’ asked the tech-priest.

‘It is essential,’ replied Corax. He watched as the two squadrons converged on each other, the reconnaissance craft from the capital splitting apart as the six Primaris Lightning interceptors broke into pairs to rise above them. ‘I want Delvere to see Atlas and think that he faces only Mechanicum forces. The presence of my Raven Guard is best hidden behind false intelligence. Your pilots have been correctly briefed?’

‘They will allow one of the enemy spycraft to evade destruction and return to Iapetus, as we discussed.’

‘Then I must do as the rest of my troops and make myself unseen.’

Corax headed down the broad stairwell into the upper level of the temple, Loriark at his heel. In the barge-city’s control centre adepts manned the scanner arrays, seeking to pinpoint the capital’s current location. It had taken nearly three days to cover more than twelve hundred kilometres, but now the primarch felt that his target was, relatively speaking, close at hand. The recon craft overhead had a range in hundreds of kilometres but it seemed unlikely that Delvere would have retreated in the face of the approaching barge-city. If anything, the tech-priests predicted Iapetus was most likely on a closing course to bring retribution to Atlas. Moving at full speed, the two cities were likely to come within sight of each other some time in the next ten hours.

It was unfortunate that the Kamiel had to remain hidden from Iapetus’s considerable sensors and defence cannons, an orbital scan would have located Iapetus with ease. As things stood, the captured strike cruiser had been forced to disengage into deeper space after despatching its cargo of legionaries and strike craft, to avoid detection by the Mechanicum’s orbital stations and patrolling monitor craft. Those same orbital assets were no doubt fixed upon Atlas’s current path and Delvere would know exactly where his enemies were. It was for this reason that Corax had permitted the recon overflight, the enemy could learn little more than they already knew, and the opportunity to mislead the foe was to be seized, turning the disadvantage around.

If Corax could not be somewhere other than where his enemy believed him to be, a good compromise was to feign lesser strength until the final moment. As he had laid down in the combat doctrine of his Legion, if utter concealment was impossible, partial concealment was still preferable to none.

The hunched Salva Kanar approached Corax and the Magokritarch with a deferential nod of the head.

‘Radio stream analysis has detected a confluence of signals approximately three hundred kilometres distant on bearing zero-eighty. The spycraft above are drone-operated and we are attempting to reveal-trace the source of their control signals. This should allow us to triangulate with our other readings.’

‘Prepare anti-air batteries to fire,’ Corax said, motioning Loriark to the servitors and adepts manning the weapons metriculators. ‘Our drop-craft are concealed as best we could manage but let us not give the enemy the opportunity of too much time.’

Loriark obeyed without comment, he seemed to have acquiesced to Corax’s authority easily enough, but the primarch knew it was out of necessity rather than any deeper loyalty. Corax unconsciously checked that the five Raven Guard legionaries stationed in the command chamber were alert and was pleased to see the black-armoured warriors paying close attention to everything that passed. If given the chance, Loriark might well decide to sacrifice the Raven Guard in an attempt to bargain for peace with Delvere. The primarch was not willing to afford the Magokritarch that chance.

A distinct hum set the temple vibrating slightly as power channels were opened and Atlas’s weapons systems came online. It was likely that only Corax noticed the change, registering not only the miniscule trembling but also the subtle alteration in the electromagnetic field that sheathed the barge-city. Any target more than a kilometre distant was beyond the energy shield and targeting the recon jets required very careful calibration between the gun batteries and the field’s internal frequency.

‘Ready to fire, lord primarch,’ Loriark informed him.

‘Open fire,’ Corax replied with a nod.

The energy field stuttered for a few microseconds, enough time for the lasers of the anti-aircraft turrets to loose a salvo of shots towards the enemy craft circling overhead.

‘No hits,’ reported one of the adepts.

‘Enemy craft withdrawing from immediate airspace,’ another confirmed from the sensor banks.

‘Lightning flight leaders requesting authorisation for pursuit,’ a third adept announced.

‘Twenty kilometres, no more,’ Corax ordered. ‘Clear Atlas’s airspace and then they are to return to maintain air patrol cover.’

‘Yes, lord primarch.’

Corax watched patiently as glowing runes slid across the strategic displays while the interceptors hounded the enemy recon craft away to the south-east. He noted that the direction the fleeing spy-craft took was towards the radio anomaly detected earlier, Iapetus was almost directly in Atlas’s path.

‘Magokritarch, we convene pre-battle council in one hour. All forces are to be on utmost readiness. Our enemy is close. Send word to all stations, squadrons and company leaders, make battle preparations.’

Receiving an affirmative from Loriark, Corax quit the command level and made his way down the central stairwells of the temple, it was too undignified for him to crouch inside the conveyor cages that transported the smaller tech-priests from storey to storey.

‘Agapito,’ he called over the vox-net. ‘Meet me at the main temple gatehouse. I have plans we need to discuss.’

‘Yes, Lord Corax,’ came the commander’s reply. ‘I am overseeing the assembly of the first assault column. I will be at the temple in seven minutes, with your leave.’

‘Very well. Attend to immediate concerns first, commander. I will come to you.’

Corax ignored the stares from the multitude of tech-priests as he made his way down to ground level. The primarch was alert at every moment, conscious that any one of the Mechanicum cultists might have been swayed to the cause of Delvere. He did not fear attack - not even together would the gathered machine-men be a match for him - but he watched for any sign of treachery. If Delvere and his allies were to receive warning that they faced a primarch, Corax’s entire strategy would be put in jeopardy.

Gauging the emotions of the tech-priests was not as easy as with normal men. Many had their faces concealed behind masks, or their features were heavily modified with bionics and augmetics. Some were incapable of emotion at all, their consciousness transferred to inorganic cogitators that made them creatures of pure logic. It was these metriculatii that worried Corax the most. Fear of reprisal would keep most of the tech-priests in check, but if circumstances changed enough that the logical course of action would be to turn on the Raven Guard there were those amongst the cult of Atlas who would do so in a nanosecond. It was the primarch’s intention to ensure that his course of action would prove superior, eliminating the possibility of betrayal.

It was with such thoughts, his expression guarded, that Corax exited the main temple building into the compound. Glancing up, he saw the vapour trails of the dogfight were quickly dissipating in the high winds.

‘I’ve shown you want you wanted to see,’ he whispered to himself. ‘Now come and get us.’

THE CLATTER OF rivet drivers, whine of ceramite bonders and hiss of spark-welders rang loudly throughout the hangar-like arming house of the Fourth District. Overseen by red-robed tech-adepts, gangs of workers swarmed across three lines of tracked tanks, assault guns and personnel carriers, affixing additional armour plating to the fronts of the vehicles. Agapito walked between the lines of armoured carriers and turreted behemoths, casting his eye over the work being done.

Everything was proceeding in a timely and orderly fashion. The work-teams laboured with quiet determination while crew captains and squad leaders inspected the modifications being made to their vehicles with keen interest, they would be the men and women pushing head-on into the enemy defence, and their lives were being staked upon the improvised upgrades.

Behind the columns of armoured vehicles were lined batteries of field guns and self-propelled artillery pieces. Laser-based cannons, rotary guns and shell-firers sat alongside more esoteric lightning throwers and fusion beams, sonic destructors and conversion beamers. Many of the designs were familiar to the Raven Guard commander, but in all the years he had fought for the Legion he had never trusted the more outlandish Mechanicum designs. They could be devastating when functioning, but the required maintenance and constant tech-priest attention made them impractical within the primarch’s code of self-sufficiency and flexibility. He much preferred a trained legionary with a missile launcher to any of the bizarre war engines on display.

Sergeant Caldour announced that Corax had arrived at the armoury complex, and Agapito left the main workshop to meet his primarch in one of the overseer galleries above the manufactory floor. He met Corax at the foot of the stairwell and was waved to precede the primarch to the upper level.

‘Everything is progressing?’ asked the primarch, speaking over the comm-net. Corax had emphasised the need to maintain strict communications security on Atlas and the command channel was the most secure vox-transmission available. The ciphers were changed every hour and keyed to the individual transponders located in every Raven Guard’s armour. It would be all but impossible for any of the Mechanicum to listen in.

‘Two more hours and everything will be in accordance with your orders, Lord Corax.’ Agapito kept his reply formal, uncertain why the primarch had chosen to visit him. The commander wondered if he was under scrutiny for his recent actions and wanted to show a disciplined, trustworthy appearance.

‘What do you make of our allies’ resources?’ The two of them reached the upper landing and Agapito led Corax out onto a mesh-work balcony overlooking the arming bay. ‘Do you think they will serve our purposes?’

‘Well armed, and with the upgrades to the frontal armour they’ll be able to take a lot of damage going into the enemy, lord,’ Agapito replied. ‘Slow, though. Even slower than normal, with the extra weight. This won’t be any lightning assault.’

‘No,’ Corax said quietly. The primarch paused for a moment, obviously in thought. Too slow perhaps. I have re-evaluated the battle plan and made some adjustments. I wanted to brief you first. I will inform the Magokritarch and the others when the time is appropriate.’

‘What changes, Lord Corax? I have mustered four attack columns across the prow districts of Atlas in preparation for a three-pronged assault and a moving reserve as you requested. It will take some time to relocate them.’

‘The Mechanicum forces will deploy as planned, there is no need for a reorganisation at this stage. It is our warriors whose role I have changed.’

‘You do not wish for us to act as mobile support for the assault columns? Atlas cannot match Iapetus’s defenders on a one-for-one basis. We need to maintain the Raven Guard as a mobile element to create breakthrough points.’

‘We do, which is why I have a new role for you and the legionaries, Agapito.’ Corax laid a reassuring hand on the commander’s shoulder and looked down at the assembled war engines. ‘I plan to take Iapetus the same way we took Atlas. We’ll draw out Delvere’s forces and then make a decapitation strike on the main temple.’

‘You are going after Delvere and Nathrakin alone?’ Agapito would never second-guess his primarch’s decisions, nor underestimate his prowess in battle, but a single-handed attack seemed suicidal.

‘I’ll take two squads with me, in Shadowhawks. Atlas’s army is simply too slow to achieve the victory we need.’ The primarch folded his arms and stared out across the arming area, though his gaze seemed far more distant, as though he was looking away to his target. ‘If Delvere senses he is losing there is every chance he will attempt to escape. If he does so, he will relocate to another barge-city or perhaps even leave Constanix altogether. The knowledge he has gained from the Word Bearers cannot be allowed to leave this planet. We need to seize control of the temple complex and contain the traitors as quickly as possible, preferably before Delvere realises he is danger of losing the war.’

‘So how will the Talons fight, Lord Corax?’ Agapito had recovered some of his composure, acknowledging the reasoning of his primarch. ‘There are likely to be Word Bearers protecting the capital as well as the Mechanicum soldiers, and we have no idea how many of Lorgar’s scum have come here.’

‘There cannot be many Word Bearers,’ said Corax. ‘It would appear the Kamiel is the only contact they have made with Constanix, and even at full complement she would carry no more than five hundred legionaries. From the account of the Navigator, the Word Bearers were pulled together from several formations on Calth, survivors banding together under Nathrakin. Also, if Nathrakin had a more numerous contingent then it would be in his interests to spread them throughout all of the barge-cities to establish wider control, rather than concentrate his force in one place. A follower of Lorgar would not hesitate to spread influence and proselytise their creed if given the opportunity. No, I must conclude that the Word Bearers do not outnumber us here. Quite the opposite, in fact.’

‘But we cannot ignore them as a military threat, lord,’ said Agapito. ‘With those same numbers we were able to take control of Atlas. If we fight them head-on we simply negate the advantage of our presence.’

‘That is exactly why we will not engage the Word Bearers directly, but leave them to the greater numbers of the skitarii. We must concentrate our effort and strength on achieving the central objective - the temple and Delvere.’

1 cannot order the Talons to ignore the Word Bearers, Lord,’ protested Agapito, though the argument was more from his own feeling than for his legionaries. ‘Our warriors have scores to settle.’

‘The legionaries will do as they are ordered,’ growled the primarch, turning his black stare on Agapito, making it clear that he included Agapito in that remark. The commander flinched as if he had been struck. ‘We have spent many years fighting alongside each other, Agapito, but do not test our friendship any further. I am your primarch and Legion commander and you will not disobey me. The Talons take their lead from you. You will set the right example.’

‘Yes, Lord Corax’ Agapito cast his gaze downwards, shamed by Corax’s words. ‘It will be as you say.’

‘Good.’ The primarch’s anger vanished as swiftly as it had appeared. ‘Delvere and Nathrakin will be expecting an attack from the tech-guard. In fact, I believe they will seek to attack first, forcing Atlas onto the defensive. We cannot allow that to happen. To ensure that surprise is maximised, the Raven Guard will form the first attack wave. Every Shadowhawk, Whispercutter and other craft you can muster will carry a single assault force into the heart of the enemy city. Your Talons must be like a lodestone, dragging the enemy into battle, forcing them to abandon their perimeter to contest against an attack from inside their lines.’

‘Hard fighting,’ said Agapito. ‘The best place for us. I take it that there can be no possibility of extraction?’

‘Only if annihilation is the alternative. This is not a terminus mission. Commander, I expect you to win through with as few casualties as possible. Manoeuvre, attack and speed.’

‘Attack, withdraw, attack again,’ Agapito said with a nod. ‘This is not my first battle, Lord Corax.’

The primarch smiled and shook his head.

‘Of course not. The longer you can remain fighting, the more forces will be drawn to you, and the further Loriark’s army can create an axis of attack for my assault. The temple is located in the starboard quadrant of the city, I will calculate the best routes and angles of attack to turn the enemy’s attention to the port districts and then I will swoop and claim the prize.’

‘I understand, lord,’ said Agapito. He banged a fist to his chest and bowed his head. ‘You can rely on the Talons.’

‘Do not allow yourselves to be surrounded, commander,’ Corax said with a grim expression. ‘There will be no reserves to break through to your position. Engage the enemy and lure them away from the temple. That is your only concern.’

Agapito nodded again, unsure if the primarch’s insistence was a sign of doubt or simply the wish to make certain that he was understood. There was no further assurance the commander could offer to his lord. If decades of valiant and dedicated service were not enough to convince Corax of his intent, words would not help.

Corax nodded a farewell and departed, leaving Agapito with mixed thoughts. The commander knew that if the primarch had serious doubts then he would have no hesitation in replacing Agapito as commander, Caderil and others were quite prepared for the role. On the other hand, Agapito did not know if he could trust himself. The primarch had explicitly ordered that the Talons should not go after the Word Bearers, but if the Word Bearers came for them then he might not shun the opportunity to exact a little revenge.

THE SMOG RISING from Iapetus’s scores of chimneys and furnaces fouled the horizon, though the capital city itself was still out of sight. Atlas closed steadily on the dark smear, cruising five hundred metres above the sea. In the skies over both cities clouds of aircraft circled like carrion birds sighting a carcass. The last peals of the warning sirens echoed along the empty streets of Atlas, sending stragglers dashing for the basements and bunkers cut into the bedrock of the city.

Beneath the constant groan of massive anti-grav engines came the rumbling of vehicle motors and the thud of booted feet, accompanied by the whine of bionically-augmented warriors. Columns of skitarii gathered half a kilometre from the prow quays. Crews made final checks of their vehicles. Squad leaders called out the last muster rolls. Inside the control chamber, Corax monitored the relative positions of the two barge-cities, a little less than fifty kilometres apart, two and a half hours if Atlas continued at its current speed. Iapetus had hove to, remaining in place as Delvere waited for the insurrectionists to make their move.

‘Extend fighter screen to thirty kilometres,’ the primarch ordered ‘No recon overflights this time.’

A lexmechanic relayed the command in a dull monotone and a servitor burbled a burst of the tech-priests’ argot - the lingua-technis - as a meaningless stream of piercing syllables and husky grunts. While the primarch waited patiently, Loriark paced back and forth behind him, hands lost in the sleeves of his robes as he clasped them at his waist, his strides short with agitation. Corax did not allow the Magokritarch’s behaviour to distract him, each man dealt with the nervous lull before battle in their own way and to force Loriark to cease his perambulations would only serve to perturb the tech-priest further.

Arms folded across his chest, Corax stared at the display screens and scanner panels, alert for any sign that would warn of Delvere’s intent. It was likely that the Archmagos was no veteran of war, but with the Word Bearer to guide him, he was not to be underestimated.

If there was one lesson that the primarch had taken from Isstvan V, it was never to expect victory as a right, and even as he cast a glance across flickering displays he gauged the mood of the overseeing tech-priests. For the moment they seemed calm enough, given the circumstances, but the coming battle afforded no room for hesitation or error.

Corax’s way of war was finely tuned, the timings perfect, the manoeuvres precise. Though underlined with brutal simplicity - an encircling attack designed to separate the bulk of the enemy from Iapetus’s main temple - the assault plans of the Raven Guard and skitarii were an intricately-choreographed process devised through many hours of study of Iapetus’s layout and what was known or could be supposed concerning the forces under Delvere’s command.

‘I searched your archives for precedents of this battle,’ Corax said conversationally, attempting to engage Loriark and distract the tech-priest from whatever doom-laden scenarios he was considering. Even so, the primarch’s gaze did not stray from the monitor banks. ‘There was civil war on Constanix during the Long Night, but few details survive.’

‘It is true.’ Loriark’s artificially modulated voice had only one volume and tempo, making it impossible to gauge his mood. ‘Twelve hundred and sixty-eight years have passed since the Years of Peril and much that was known was destroyed in the war. The magi loyal to the purity of the Machine-God’s creed prevailed, but at great cost. Data was lost that will never be recovered. A great setback to our cause.’

‘You have studied the old recordings and logs?’

‘I have spent much of my life with them, lord primarch,’ said Loriark. It was impossible to know for sure, but it seemed that there was chastisement in the magos’s posture and sharp gestures, perhaps resentment that Corax would think Loriark ignorant of his world’s history. ‘I am familiar with the accounts of inter-city battle. It seems destructive and wasteful of resources. The arrangement of the Cognoscenti is a far superior form of conflict resolution.’

‘I agree.’

‘Yet you are a warrior and a general, lord primarch. It is your nature to wage war.’

Corax paused before replying, telling himself that no insult was intended by the tech-priest, only observation. He chose his words carefully, trying to summarise a lifetime’s philosophy in a few sentences.

‘War is a necessity to bring peace. Some of my brothers are war-makers, pure and simple, but I am not. Some, like Rogal Dorn, are architects, both of fortresses and of worlds. Guilliman’s empire stands testament to his abilities as statesman as well as warleader. The Emperor created us as perfect warriors and commanders, but the primarchs are far greater than simple warlords.’

‘And what do you build, lord primarch?’ Loriark’s dark eyes fixed Corax with a long stare. ‘If Horus had not turned, what would your legacy have been, if not a trail of conquered worlds, a multitude of widowed and orphaned people?’

‘I build hope, in the hearts of men and women. I show them that from the Long Night we can emerge into enlightenment. I never persecuted those I conquered and I never refused a surrender sincerely offered. I have shed the blood of the guilty and the innocent, laid waste to civilisations for the cause of the Emperor, but I never brought ruin needlessly. Each death was laid as a sacrifice to a better future, a life free from suppression and tyranny.’

‘Would not a tyrant claim the same? No man believes himself to do wrong.’

‘No tyrant would be willing to give up his power once all enemies were thwarted. I was prepared for just such an eventuality.’

‘I speak not of you, but the Emperor. What makes his vision of the galaxy any purer than that of Horus, or yours, or the Mechanicum’s? You may have been the weapon the Emperor used against a galaxy of foes, but it was his power that wielded you, unleashed your Legions against those that opposed him.’

Again Corax was forced to think for a moment, to formulate his reply so that a knot of instinct and simple knowing could be unravelled into something more reasoned.

‘The Emperor is all the things he wishes to be. He has been a tyrant and compassionate, merciless and merciful. But I have seen into him, and I have touched minds with him in a way no other can. And at the core of what others see is a man of humility and wisdom and learning. He is a man driven by the rational. A tyrant craves domination, but the Emperor carries his power like a burden, the responsibility for all of humanity on his shoulders. He is everything he must be, not out of desire, but from duty and necessity.’

Loriark said nothing, and it was impossible to know whether he believed Corax or not. Talk of the Emperor always left Corax feeling grateful and humbled.

Grateful for the gene-father that had created him.

Humbled by the power of the ruler who had guided him.

The rebellion of the Warmaster and the primarchs who had sided with him made all the more clear the temptations and perils that came with near-unlimited power. Hunger for glory, desire for personal ambition, resentment and hatred had all taken their toll upon the mightiest creations of the Emperor. What effort of will did it take for the Emperor not to succumb to the same? What inhuman mind could spend millennia seeing the galaxy fall to ruin and yet never once abandon the vision of a greater future? Corax had been sorely tested, from the moment he had awoken in the ice caves of Lycaeus to this very second, but never could he come close to knowing the decisions that weighed so heavily upon his Imperial master.

Wrapped up with these thoughts, he regarded the monitors with some regret. More would die today, soldier and civilian alike. He could not count the numbers dead by his actions over a long lifetime of bloodshed. Billions, surely. Yet just as the Emperor carried the burden of his responsibility without complaint, so too would Corax.

And if ever true peace was to come, then he would look back on his bloody life without regret, knowing that the cause had always been just.

AGAPITO TAPPED OUT a quick beat on the plate of his leg armour as he waited in the confines of the Shadowhawk. He made himself stop, conscious that it might be seen as a sign of nervousness and was probably irritating to the other Raven Guard, though none would ever voice complaint.

Two hours from Iapetus.

Two hours that would crawl past, his thoughts alive with possibilities, his death and the death of his companions, victory or defeat, vengeance or failure. He tried to move his thoughts elsewhere, to rites of battle and the layout of the target city. He mentally recited Corax’s doctrines, but they were no longer the calming mantra they had once been.

Two hours, not of fear, but anticipation. He tapped his fingers not as a response to dread but in excitement.

Two hours until another battle. Two hours until the righteousness would claim him again and he could drown out the haunting cries of his dead brothers with the din of war.

Without conscious thought, his fingers started to tap again.

V

OVER THE LONG decades of the Years of Peril, the barge-cities of Constanix had evolved through a bloody process of weapon and counter-measure, attack and defence so that they had each become near-impregnable to the assaults of the others. Forced by bloody stalemate into consensus, the rulers of the tech-temples had not waged war since. Yet still there remained an ordained way to wage war between cities, a process that Corax had studied carefully, seeking to overturn the dogma of centuries of received wisdom.

The energy shields of Atlas and Iapetus rendered long-range attack a waste of energy and munitions - in order to maximise its capabilities of bombardment in an effort to overload an opponent’s defences, a barge-city would first have to weaken its own shield to allow its guns to fire out, rendering it vulnerable to a swift counter-attack.

Instead of such artillery exchanges, the approach of Atlas to Iapetus was heralded by a battle in the skies.

The energy fields provided no barrier to aircraft and both sides wove tangled trails about each other as they attempted to bring their foundation-penetrating payloads over the enemy city, if one side gained the upper hand they would be able to target the power field generators of the enemy, neutralising their defences and leaving them open to crushing waves of artillery and the devastating blasts of volcano cannons. Another option was to destroy the engines and grav-matrices that kept the enemy city afloat, but Corax had no desire to see Iapetus plunged into the sea. Not only would the loss of life be incredible, there was no guarantee that Delvere and his allies would not simply escape the destruction of the capital by gunship or other craft.

As the two air forces duelled overhead, scores of strike craft exchanged missile, bolter and heavy cannon fire, both attempting to pierce the cordon and pave a way for the heavier bombers and ground attack craft. Explosions blossomed against the dark clouds and the burning trails of wrecked fighters and debris cut downwards towards the tossing ocean.

‘Why are we slowing?’ Corax asked as he noticed the soft nudge of deceleration. ‘I gave no such order.’

‘Until Iapetus’s energy field has been weakened we must stand our ground,’ replied Loriark. ‘Power is being diverted to air defence turrets in case of enemy breakthrough. Delvere’s aerial assets outnumber ours, we must take precautionary measures.’

‘Continue at full speed,’ Corax barked at the gaggle of tech-adepts standing by the city’s engine controls. He turned back to Loriark. ‘I have no intention of waiting while we lose the aerial battle.’

‘On our current course we will collide with Iapetus,’ said the Magokritarch, though whether this was a protest or simply an observation was unclear.

‘That is my intent,’ Corax replied. ‘We will treat this as a boarding action. Perhaps the largest the galaxy will ever see. Atlas will ram Iapetus and then we will move ground forces over.’

‘Ram?’ The magos seemed put out by the simple word. It is more logical to render Iapetus’s defence grid incapable and then dock at lower speed to precipitate the ground assault.’

‘War is not always about logic, Loriark,’ Corax said calmly.

‘But if the enemy energy field is still operational, we will have to drop our own defences to prevent a feedback cycle of possibly devastating proportions.’

‘How devastating?’

Loriark turned to the other tech-priests and there followed a brief crackling exchange of lingua-technis as they consulted with each other. Shaking his head, Loriark returned his attention back to Corax.

‘We are unsure. Possibly catastrophic. Highly inadvisable.’

‘War is a series of intentional catastrophes, Magokritarch,’ Corax said sternly. ‘Continue at full speed, course set for Iapetus.’

No further protest was forthcoming, though more exchanges buzzed between the tech-priests as the order was carried out. Checking the main viewer, Corax could see Iapetus clearly, only three kilometres distant. The grey of the turbulent seas between the two barge-cities seemed to be growing smaller with a glacial slowness, but in truth Atlas was closing at nearly twenty kilometres per hour. Even if the merging of the energy shields did not cause widespread damage, the impact certainly would.

Alarms cried shrilly in the control chamber, and banks of lights flashed red.

A lexmechanic issued a proximity warning. ‘Two hundred metres to power field overlap.’

Sirens sounded out across the city once more and the comm-net was filled with warnings for exposed troops to brace themselves and take whatever cover was available.

At one hundred metres the ionised air between the two energy shields crackled while the sea beneath began to churn, issuing fountains of acidic steam clouds hundreds of metres into the air.

At fifty metres, arcs of coloured lightning rippled across the narrowing space, the miniature storm boiling between the cities cracking and thundering like an artillery barrage in full effect.

As the outer edges of the two fields touched, a kilometre out from the prow of Atlas, the lightning formed two massive domes, one above each city. The sky seethed with energy and sparks danced over Corax’s skin. Several tech-adepts stumbled and fell, two of them crying out as the electromagnetic charge permeating the atmosphere overloaded parts of their cybernetic bodies.

Loriark’s voice projector emitted a high-pitched wail and forks of electricity coruscated along his bionic arm as he staggered backwards. Corax grabbed the front of his robe to prevent the tech-priest from falling, feeling a surge of voltage up his arm at the contact. Dark veins throbbed beneath the primarch’s pale skin.

The temple was at the epicentre of the electrical storm, a miasma of power swirling about its summit. A twin tempest engulfed the main precinct of Iapetus, and the barge-cities shook as generators set into their foundations overheated.

Finally they could take no more of the titanic pressure.

Atlas’s starboard field generator exploded first, wiping out two empty tenement blocks and an abandoned manufactorum in a blast that rocketed debris half a kilometre into the air and showered dust and debris across two districts. A second detonation erupted in Seventh District at the rear of the barge-city, roaring out across the ocean, sending a kilometre of dockworks and quays arcing down into the sea. Similar explosions were wracking Iapetus, toppling buildings and sending plumes of flame into the tormented air above the capital.

The combined energy fields exploded out with a deafening boom, sending waves as tall as a Titan rippling out across the ocean. Dog-fighting aircraft were thrown into spins and stalls by the blast.

‘Open fire, all batteries!’ snapped Corax, even as the tech-adepts dragged themselves back to their posts. ‘Target enemy weapon arrays and the city perimeter. I want a blanket of fire to cover our approach.’

From turrets atop the main temple and spread through the city, macro-lasers and volcano cannons roared into action. Shells the size of battle tanks arced into the air towards Iapetus while ruby-coloured beams sprang into life between the two cities. Rocket launchers sent flaring missiles streaming across the gap by the score, twisting and turning towards their designated targets.

Flurries of explosions lit up the nearest sectors of the capital where the beams touched, cutting through armoured turrets and plated embrasures. The shells of the cannons fell, flattening buildings in a line along the port districts. Another second later and the rockets struck home, their warheads punching into the foundation of Iapetus before exploding, rending immense craters from the surface like bullet holes in flesh. Airburst shells and submunitions showered incendiary destruction onto the already wounded city, setting fires as gas lines and fuel tanks detonated while weaponry depots were torn to scattered rubble.

Delvere and his cohort were slower to react, the fourth salvo from Atlas was landing even as the capital’s surviving guns returned fire. Atlas was rocked by the impacts, shuddering under the tonnage of shells descending upon its streets and buildings. Corax gritted his teeth as rockets slammed into the armoured sheath of the temple building and he was glad that one of his first orders had been to plate over the ostentatious but vulnerable windows.

Thick ceramite and ferrocrete cladding held, though the temple shook under the impacts sending several servitors and Mechani- cum adepts sprawling.

The stormy exchange of artillery continued as Atlas closed with her target, lessening as counter-battery fire from each city destroyed the cannons and emplacements of the other. For more than five minutes the bombardments continued until both barge-cities were nothing more than ruined wastelands, dotted with shells of buildings like ragged teeth, destroyed power plants and factories belching smoke and fumes.

Corax knew that there would be casualties, but he did not need to know the details. The point of commitment had been reached the moment they had set course for Iapetus, now all that remained was to endure the pain and see his charges through to victory. Later the losses could be mourned, but for the moment his entire intellect and will was bent towards the destruction of his enemies.

AGAPITO HAD CLAMBERED up to the cockpit to look out of the canopy after the first shell impacts. He had seen many sights in his battle-strewn life, both stirring and dismal, but the sight of two cities blasting each other to pieces pretty much eclipsed them all. Perhaps only a full fleet bombardment from orbit could match the sheer amount of firepower being unleashed.

The jagged, tangled remains of Iapetus’s docks loomed large in his view. The capital was trying to rise up, hoping to avoid the coming collision, but Atlas was ascending also, driving on directly towards the enemy-held city. Only a few hundred metres separated the two gigantic craft and the commander made his way back to the main compartment and lowered himself into the brace harness.

‘Get ready for launch. Pilot, I want to be airborne before these two bastards meet head-on.’

‘Affirmative, commander’, replied Stanz.

‘This is Agapito to all commands, prepare for assault.’

A series of confirmations echoed back across the vox as he spread his fingers, forcing himself to relax. He pulled his power sword free from the stanchion above his head and laid it across his lap, fingers creating a rattling tattoo along its ebony sheath.

The waiting was almost over.

Agapito felt the Shadowhawk taxiing out of the armoured bunker where it had been hidden, and a few seconds later felt it rising up into the air. He turned his head to look out of the slit-like viewing port beside him. There was almost nothing to see through the haze of fire and smoke, but where the gusting winds parted the clouds, he watched as Atlas rammed Iapetus.

The barrage-ravaged prow of the barge-city ploughed into the equally ruined dockyards of the capital. Spars and the wreckage of loading cranes bent like grass in a wind while armoured plates sheared into each other, sending metre-long splinters spinning through the air. As the cities seemed to drop away beneath him, Agapito could see more - chasms opening up along the roads, splitting the gutted remnants of buildings.

A huge cloud of dust was thrown up by the impact, engulfing the Shadowhawk and sending it lurching to port while debris rattled against the hull.

‘Losing trim. This is going to be tricky,’ Stanz warned.

A moment later the turbulence threw the drop-ship to starboard. Restraining harnesses creaked and the Raven Guard muttered curses as they were tipped over, the hull clanging with impacts, the groan of straining metal reverberating around them.

While Stanz wrestled the craft out of its wild roll, Agapito glanced out of the vision slit again. Tall buildings on both sides of the collision were toppling towards each other, slow and majestic yet terrible to witness. He knew that much of Atlas’s populace was safe deep into the foundation of the city, but had Delvere shown similar concern for the citizens of the capital? It seemed unlikely. In all probability, thousands were dying.

The concern was soon replaced with another emotion. Agapito flexed his gauntleted fingers and wrapped them around his sword, and smiled as the calm hatred of righteousness gripped him.

The smoke bank blotting out the sky above Iapetus was cut by the shape of a dozen sleek craft arrowing towards the centre of the city. Shadowhawks and Whispercutters slid almost invisibly down through the miasma, yet this was no stealth approach. Heavy weapons fire spewed from the craft as they skimmed across the rooftops and angled down the ruined streets, spitting death into the traitor skitarii beneath. Plasma bombs rained down from a Stormbird while two dart-like interceptors raked along the wide roads with anti-tank rockets and autocannons.

Agapito wanted the enemy to know exactly where he was.

Jets blaring, the Shadowhawks descended into the central plaza, dominated by the mangled remains of great abstract sculptures once raised in praise to the Machine-God’s artifices. There seemed to be not a building left intact, the pavements and streets scattered with debris, blocked in places where taller edifices had collapsed to their foundations. The drop-ships hovered a few metres above the uneven ground while their cargoes of black-armoured warriors disembarked, spilling out in a wave with jump packs flaring. Whispercutters circled noiselessly overhead, piloted by simple machine-spirits that relayed visual, audio and scanner information across the strategy-net to the Raven Guard leaders.

With practised ease the assault force dispersed, moving into the buildings while heavy weapons squads laid down covering fire from amidst the rubble, driving back the disorganised and scattered defenders.

Quickly, relentlessly, the Raven Guard pushed on, grenade blasts and flamer bursts heralding their progress as they moved from one shattered chamber to another.

There were bodies crushed amongst the debris, but Agapito ignored them as he led the first squad into the next set of ruins - the tumbled remains of a wire production facility. Articulated conveyor belts and lifting engines protruded from the piles of broken masonry and twisted plasteel rebar.

A heavily armoured combat servitor stood watch from above, unleashing a stream of fire from its heavy bolters as the commander ducked through the remains of a doorway. It seemed unlikely to have clambered up to the higher floor by itself and must have miraculously survived when the rest of the building had come crashing down.

Bolts flaring from the rubble around him, Agapito cut to the right, drawing the fire of the mindless half-man. He fired his jump pack and leapt up to the next storey as return fire from a squad on the ground floor converged on the sentry machine. The white beam of a lascannon sheared through its tracks, scattering links and the molten remnants of broad-spoked wheels, slicing the servitor from waist to neck.

Moving up further, Agapito sought a vantage point from which to view the city. Reaching the pinnacle of a shattered stairway, he was able to see back towards Atlas and across the city to the towering edifice of the main temple.

The lightning insertion by the Raven Guard had achieved complete surprise, but the defenders of Iapetus were now responding. A trio of lightly armed walkers rounded a junction three hundred metres down the street. They had bulbous sensor lenses, like glittering spider eyes, and an array of communications dishes and antennae.

‘Recon walkers,’ the commander told the company. ‘Let them see us and then destroy them.’

Sergeant Varsio led his squad out into the street, bounding with their jump packs from one heap of rubble to another directly in front of the enemy spy vehicles. The recon walkers turned as one, false eyes sparkling as they locked on to the moving figures. Half a minute passed as Varsio and his warriors disappeared into the ruin of a flattened hab-block opposite, enough time for the scouts to signal back their discovery.

Missiles and plasma fire erupted from the upper levels of a nearby shuttle docking port, punching though the walkers’ thin armour with ease and turning them into three smoking wrecks in a matter of seconds.

‘Good. Designate main temple as bearing zero. Insertion point is grid one. Company, relocate to grids four and six. Cannat, Garsa and Hasul, break right and set up a welcoming party by that communications tower at the end of the roadway.’

The ad-hoc company moved as ordered, forming a rough perimeter around a square kilometre of city with the central plaza at its heart.

It was not long before the skitarii arrived, the lead elements transported in tracked open-topped carriers that were easy targets for the heavy weapons that had been moved into position to greet them. Part-cybernetic warriors spilled from the burning remains of the two lead vehicles while the others quickly tried to reverse, only to be caught in a crossfire of plasma grenades and bolter fire from a pair of Raven Guard squads that had moved in behind them through the cover of a demolished hab-complex.

The rest of the counter-attacking force approached more cautiously. Agapito moved from position to position, ensuring that the lines of sight of each squad were maximised, creating killing grounds where possible, leaving some routes open to encourage the enemy to venture further forwards than was safe. He had studied under Corax himself and attended to the fine detail of his force’s disposition with the same care with which a tech-priest might administer maintenance to the circuitry of a cogitator.

As he moved, he assessed the enemy strength. About five hundred infantry, moving ahead of a dozen battle tanks and three support guns. The vehicle commanders were understandably wary of advancing too far into the mess of broken buildings and haphazard rubble piles, instead sending in the infantry brigade to clear a path first.

Agapito detailed three squads to follow him as he dropped down to ground level. They gathered in the shadow of a leaning rail stanchion, the rest of the bridge had fallen to block the road behind them. Picking their way sure-footedly through the debris, the Raven Guard circled to the left around the incoming squads of infantry. Concealed by the pall of smoke, using their heat-detecting autosenses to track the progress of their foes, they waited.

A minute later, the Raven Guard stationed around the enemy line of advance opened fire, tearing into the infantry with their bolters. Several dozen were cut down in the opening salvo. Not willing to stay in the open, the Mechanicum soldiers broke ranks and moved into the cover of the shattered buildings, and it was then that Agapito made his move. Splitting his force, the commander led the charge into the enemy, power sword in one hand, plasma pistol in the other.

Though their bonded plasteel breastplates and bionic limbs made the skitarii superior to the unaugmented soldiers of the Imperial Army, they were no match for thirty-one warriors of the Legiones Astartes. Agapito did not use his pistol, instead hewing down a handful of foes in the first few seconds of the combat. Fragmentation grenades exploded ahead of him as another squad charged into the fray, shrapnel from the charges combining with splinters from the littered masonry in a deadly firestorm.

In a hail of bolter shots, chainsword swings and savage punches the Raven Guard cleaved into the foe without pause. Those enemies that chose to retreat from the assault strayed into the fire of the legionaries still waiting behind, and in minutes all but a handful lay dead or dying. A few black-armoured Legion warriors lay amongst the fallen, taken out by lucky blows or desperate hacks from the power weapons of the skitarii squad leaders, but Agapito quickly calculated the kill ratio to be a satisfactory seventy-to-one or more.

Robbed of their infantry support the tanks withdrew, covering their retreat with a barrage of shells from main guns and a hail of las-fire from secondary weapons, creating even more dust and debris but inflicting no casualties upon the Raven Guard.

As the growl of engines receded, Agapito could hear the thump of larger guns in the distance - the main advance of Atlas’s own troops. Five hundred infantry and three scout walkers was nowhere near enough damage to ease the attack of the Mechanicum acolytes. The commander needed to make even more of an impact if the enemy were to be drawn into a full attack.

He activated his command link to the patrolling Whispercutters overhead, half of his visual display flicking from one to the next as he built up a sense of the surrounding enemy forces. A sizeable combined column was advancing from bearing one-seventy, almost directly opposite the approach to the tech-temple, about a kilometre away and coming closer.

They were of little concern for the moment.

Of more interest was the Warhound-class Scout Titan picking its way along a rubble-strewn street two kilometres to his left, at bearing two-six-five. With it came assault guns and at least a thousand infantry, many of them with praetorian upgrades, supported by tracked Rapier laser destroyers, mobile rocket pods and other heavy weaponry.

‘Regroup, grid seven,’ he commanded, shutting down the link. ‘Shadowhawk command, interdiction strike on Titan advancing through grid four-six. Assault group, follow, attack vector eight, two-two, two-three. Stealth approach. It’s time to make our presence really felt.’

‘PROGRESS IS TOO slow,’ growled Corax, turning an angry stare towards Loriark. ‘Your skitarii have to make ground quicker and push the enemy towards the left flank.’

‘I shall pass on your instructions, lord primarch, but they are facing stubborn opposition.’

‘The longer you take, the more stubborn it will get. Advance quickly and the defenders do not have time to reinforce their positions against your attack.’

Loriark said nothing but simply bowed his head in acquiescence and returned to conferring with his fellow tech-priests.

Corax glowered at the main display. The bulk of Atlas’s forces had been committed and still they had made no more than four kilometres into Iapetus’s streets. For two hours of fighting it simply was not good enough and the primarch had expected better.

He focused on the rune-shapes depicting the locations of his Raven Guard and felt more positive. Agapito and his Talons had been making themselves a constant aggravation to Delvere’s forces, pushing closer and closer towards the Archmagos’s temple whilst drawing skitarii away from the fight with Atlas’s army. It could not continue indefinitely, though, sooner or later Loriark’s soldiers would have to break through to Agapito or the Raven Guard would eventually be caught and destroyed.

Corax stared at the screen as if by will alone he could alter the course of the battle.

AGAPITO HAD LOST around a fifth of his command, but now the enemy were taking the Raven Guard seriously. More and more infantry in particular had been streaming back through the streets, as if to swamp the Space Marines by numbers alone. Intelligence from the two Whispercutters that still remained airborne pointed to a mass assault coming from the right, which would push the Raven Guard towards the ruined dockyards at the city’s edge.

Alert to the danger, Agapito ordered the assault force to contract on his position, to create a single, mobile element that would be able to extract at a moment’s notice. The beast that was Delvere’s forces had finally been roused to strike with all its power and it would not serve the Raven Guard’s purpose to be caught out of position when the blow landed.

Leaping across shattered rooftops with his jump pack, Agapito rejoined his warriors as they gathered in the buildings surrounding a massive wreckage-filled crater. Overhead the Shadowhawks blurred past, remaining concealed once more until they were needed to strike. By the commander’s reckoning, nearly six thousand troops and at least a hundred battle-engines were now preparing to launch an all-out frontal attack. The Raven Guard would withdraw in the face of the first assault and circle back to grid one at the plaza, dragging the enemy closer to the most advanced prong of the Atlas assault and away from the Archmagos’s temple.

To confirm the rationale of his plan he took another look through the artificial eyes of the Whispercutters, watching for any detail that he had missed. He saw nothing unexpected and was about to cut the link when a blur of colour caught his eye - dark red against the grey shroud of smog. He sent a signal up to the armoured glider, turning it in a tight circle to come from the other direction.

It revealed red-armoured figures advancing through shattered buildings a kilometre away, slightly apart from the main body of defenders. Switching to the thermal view, he counted more than fifty signals, the distinctive heat plumes of legionaries at a fast run.

The Word Bearers had come to deal with the Raven Guard. They were trying to outflank them.

The rage started as a swelling of heat in his gut, spreading through his body as the thought of vengeance took hold in the commanders mind. As with the discovery of the Kamiel, providence was offering an opportunity to avenge his fallen brothers on Isstvan. In the Whispercutter display fluttered a banner, ragged and soiled, but unmistakably covered in golden script surrounding a bright red laurel on a white field.

Agapito had seen that same banner amongst the ranks of Lorgar’s whelps at the Isstvan dropsite, held proudly aloft as the Word Bearers had turned their guns upon their cousins in the Raven Guard. In the weeks that followed the massacre, a brutal XVII Legion Chapter commander named Elexis had been dogged in his persecution of the surviving Raven Guard. Despite Agapito’s entreaties to the primarch, every opportunity to strike back had slipped away... But now, Elexis had come to Constanix. Memories crowded into the commander’s thoughts, each a tableau of destruction and death clamouring for his attention. His battle-brothers’ cries grew louder in his ears, the smell of blood and burnt ceramite strengthened in his nostrils.

He gripped the hilt of his power sword tightly, his breath coming in short, rasping gasps. This was a second chance, Agapito would slay the bearer of that banner and see the colours cast down and trodden underfoot, Elexis crushed as his own Legion had once been crushed.

‘Commander?’ Lieutenant Caderil’s voice was loud across the vox, filled with concern. ‘Commander, the enemy are moving within range.’

Every fibre of Agapito called out for him to order the attack and he knew that the Talons would gladly obey once they saw the target. His hearts hammered and blood throbbed through his body, flushing him with rage.

A detonation rocked the building across the street as the first of the skitarii war engines clanked into range, sending an avalanche of smashed masonry onto the road.

Agapito barely noticed the explosion.

He was here to avenge, to punish, to kill.

Yet at the burning heart of his anger there was a cold core, formed of pure hatred. It did not fuel his rage but cut through it, gifting him with clarity, shredding the fugue of ire that clouded his thoughts.

‘Victory is vengeance,’ the commander muttered.

‘Please repeat, commander, what are your orders?’

‘Victory is vengeance,’ Agapito said, louder and more confidently. He could see the traitors with his own eyes now, a few hundred metres away, cutting through a bombarded district temple. Beyond them he spied larger shapes moving through the gloom of the smoke, Mechanicum reinforcements. If the Raven Guard attacked, then they would certainly be surrounded, even if they destroyed the Word Bearers.

Cold, rational hatred won over blind fury.

‘Withdraw to grid one, at speed.’ He issued the order through gritted teeth, as though the words were forcing themselves from his throat under protest.

‘Affirmative, commander’, replied Caderil, sounding relieved. The Raven Guard ran and bounded away into the darkness, leaving Agapito to stare at the Word Bearers in the distance, their banner to the fore.

‘Tomorrow, Elexis - you gutless coward. Tomorrow, you find out how the Raven Guard fight when we don’t have our backs turned. Tomorrow, I’ll show you bastards the same mercy you showed us on Isstvan.’

VI

LIGHTNING CLAWS SPITTING SPARKS, Corax slashed the head from another cyborg praetorian and stepped over the twitching corpse to meet its companions. Flanking him, two squads of legionaries laid down a swathe of bolter and heavy bolter fire, explosive rounds cutting through more of the skitarii elite.

The Iapetus central temple complex covered more than a square kilometre of the city, the main ziggurat surrounded by smaller forges and furnace-houses. While a pair of Shadowhawks conducted attack runs against the few remaining defence turrets on the boundary wall Corax and his warriors drove into the Mechanicum cultists. Las-fire, bullets and bolts criss-crossed through the fumes and smoke, the surrounding buildings ringing to the cacophony of battle. Higher up, amongst the plumes of smoke rising from the city, Fire Raptors patrolled, watchful for any shuttle or gunship that tried to escape from the Machine-God’s shrine.

Amongst the praetorians moved squads of heavily armoured foes, soldiers whose armour had been bonded into their flesh, their bodies turned into weapons. Bolter fire sparked harmlessly from ferrous carapaces while the brutally augmented warriors returned fire with arcs of lightning and blasts of plasma. Thallaxii, they were called - more machines than men, nerves deadened to withstand the agony of the insertion into their armour, the lobes of their brains replaced with calculating machines, turning them into efficient, unfeeling slayers.

Corax hurtled into the thallaxii as his Raven Guard pulled back, four black-armoured legionaries slain by the enemy’s devastating weapons. A plasma bolt smashed into Corax’s left shoulder, burning through the ceramite of his armour to set a fire of pain in his arm. He ignored it and took to the air, his flight pack flaring as he leapt skywards. Twisting, he dived into the midst of the thallaxii like a comet, claws scything to the left and right, armoured boots cracking open reinforced exoskeletons.

Heartened by their primarch’s attack the Raven Guard followed in his wake, emptying magazines at full-automatic into the stricken Mechanicum warriors, pouring more and more firepower into those that managed to evade Corax’s assault. One by one the thallaxii were shredded by lightning claws and weapons fire, yet still they fought to the last warrior rather than retreating.

The assault force was still coming under considerable fire from embrasures atop the temple and other buildings. Corax split the platoon, sending one squad towards a large forge-house to the right, taking the others with him as he headed directly for the main temple doors.

‘Primarch!’

Corax turned at the shout of alarm, just in time to see three immense mechanical beasts issuing from the furnace chamber. Each was larger than a battle tank, standing on six mechanical limbs, a plethora of cannons and guns dotting their oddly-shaped hulls. What looked like muscle and sinew glistened between their ceramite-sheathed plates, slick with organic fluid. The war engines were armed with huge claws, spinning saw-discs and serrated, glowing blades. Worst of all, their armour was carved with strange icons, disturbing runes that writhed with a dark energy of their own. Corax had seen similar upon the battleplate of Lorgar and his legionaries, and knew immediately what the sigils were for, to bind the power of Chaos into mortal form.

The Raven Guard stood transfixed by the half-daemon creations charging towards them. Corax took a breath - the warnings of the tech-priests did little justice to the horror of the raging behemoths themselves.

The daemonically-powered engines issued bizarre roars and howls as they fell upon the Raven Guard squad with blades and talons slashing. The legionaries stood no chance against the arachnoid giants, their bolts and blades ineffective against the inscribed armour of their attackers.

Corax broke into a sprint, powering straight for the war engines, claws ready for the attack. He arrived too late - the last of the Raven Guard squad was hurled bodily through the air by a kick from one of the machines, to land several dozen metres away on the hard rockcrete.

With a snarl of pure rage, Corax launched himself at the closest engine.

It met his claws with its own. Lightning rippled over the mechanical beast’s segmented plating. Warp-powered servos contested against genhanced muscles, Corax gritting his teeth and the daemon engine letting forth a moaning cry that was more animal than machine.

The raw power of the primarch prevailed over the warp’s artifice as Corax slashed through the engine’s arm, sending the claw clattering across the ground. Punching a fist into what might have been its chest, the primarch heaved up to his full height, turning the machine to the left. It flailed its good arm, a hissing blue blade passing within centimetres of Corax’s face, and its legs spasmed as it tried to stay upright.

With a grunt, Corax hauled the creature onto its back and drove his other fist into its underbelly, parting armour plates with his claws. Bubbling green, oily fluid spurted from the wound as pneumatics wheezed and the mortally wounded creature emitted a piercing wail.

As Corax pulled his hands free, something seized his right arm from behind. He was lifted into the air as another claw grabbed hold of his leg. Aloft, he had no purchase to fight against the second daemon engine’s grip. Armour buckled and cracked under the strain, pressure fractures splintering along the length of the primarch’s arm and leg.

He twisted as best he could and lashed out with his free claw, slicing through trailing hydraulic cables. The claw holding his leg snapped open, leaving him dangling by one arm. Before he could repeat the move, the war engine swung the primarch groundwards, dashing him hard against the rockcrete. Stunned, Corax could do nothing as twice more he was slammed into the ground, his shoulder almost separating with each swing from the daemon engine.

The third machine closed in, its circular blades spinning. But before it could attack, twin explosions rocked it from behind. The roar of plasma jets drowned out its pained cry as a Shadowhawk descended, heavy bolters spewing fire. Another missile streaked down, punching into a rent in the daemon-thing’s armour, detonating the ammunition stores inside its segmented carapace.

Pain spearing into his chest from his injured shoulder, Corax bent his arm and swung both feet into the frontal hull of the daemon holding him. The impact thundered a deep dent into the red-painted metal, but more importantly it gave the primarch the leverage he needed.

Firing his flight pack, he thrust away from the machine, his free lightning claw carving through the appendage holding him. The armature came away in a shower of black sparks, cabling and vile fluid spilling from the tear. Letting the twitching mechanical limb drop from his fingers, Corax climbed high into the air and then dropped like a stone, using his own bulk to slam into the top of the war machine.

The daemonic construct exploded as if hit by shell, the fireball scattering machine parts and burning fuel. As the flames dissipated, Corax was left crouching in the ruin, scorched but alive, his pale skin blackened with oil and soot.

Knowing that Delvere, and possibly Nathrakin, would not be far from their daemonic creations, he headed towards the forge from where the machines had emerged.

THE BROAD GATES of the furnace-house were open, revealing a hellish scene within. Lit by a reddish-purple light was what seemed to be a monstrous assembly line for gigantic mechanical spiders. Limbs and curved armour plates hung from cranes and lifting chains, while beneath worked gangs of cowled labourers and servitors. Those capable of free thought threw down their tools and fled as Corax stalked into the horrific interior, while the more mindless drones continued with the tasks they were programmed to carry out, oblivious to the killer in their midst.

A squad of Word Bearers charged out of the gloom, their bolters blazing. Impacts showered Corax but he shrugged off the detonations and lunged towards the traitor legionaries, spearing the first on the tip of his claw, and shearing the head and arm from a second. As he carved down the third, Corax could see over the heads of the renegades, into the depths of the infernal forge.

The walls were lined with cages, inside which naked figures stared blankly out. Their bodies were smeared with grime and blood - blood from deep rune-wounds carved into their flesh. They moaned in desperation, pushing hands through the bars of their prisons, shorn heads gleaming in the unnatural light. The cages themselves were hung with long ropes of knotted cable that flared and sparked as if siphoning off their misery, and the cables trailed in chained loops towards the depths of the forge.

At the far end had been raised a grotesque pedestal, an amalgam of metal, stone, bones and skulls, connected to the prison cages. Strangely-angled artificial stalagmites jutted from this pile, forming huge barbs whose lengths were carved with more of the damnable runes. Between them the air shimmered with unnatural energy, flooding the furnace hall with the pulsing un-light of the immaterium.

A chainsword snapped against Corax’s thigh and he struck out with the back of his fist, launching a Word Bearer across the chamber to slam into a dangling engine block. A kick smashed in the chest of another traitor even as Corax’s claws swept down to eviscerate a third.

Beside the swirling miasma of the warp rift stood two figures. The first Corax recognised from the descriptions Loriark had given him - it was clearly Delvere. The Archmagos was robed in red, like his fellows, his face hidden in the shadow of his hood. From his back splayed half a dozen writhing mechadendrites, each tipped with some sparking, whirring device or hooked, serrated blade.

The other figure could only be Nathrakin, clad in thick Terminator armour painted in the livery of the Word Bearers and chased with golden runes and lines of cuneiform script. He wore no helm, and his scalp and neck were pierced with snaking coils of wires and cables that pulsed under the flesh, glowing with psychic power. A former Librarian, no doubt, now turned sorcerer.

As the last of the Word Bearers fell to Corax, the primarch raised a claw towards the pair and shouted his challenge.

‘Ask for swift deaths and I will grant them.’ He stalked between the lines of mechanical parts and imprisoned human suffering.

‘Too late to ask for clemency?’ Nathrakin called back.

‘No mercy,’ snarled Corax, breaking into a run.

The pair of renegades split. Delvere stood his ground, raising his bionic arms to lift an oversized rotor cannon towards the onrushing primarch. Nathrakin strode up the mound of the Chaos altar and with a contemptuous glance back at Corax thrust his hand into the whirling vortex.

Delvere’s first salvo screamed down the hall, forcing Corax to his left as wicked shells flickered towards him. The prisoners let out great howls of agony as the stray shots ripped into them, punching through flesh where the infernal shells set dark fires in their bodies, burning swiftly until they were all but consumed.

Changing his route, Corax leapt up amongst the hanging machine parts, steering his flight pack between the swinging chains and swaying carapaces. Delvere’s next volley tore into the rafters above, splitting metal links and cutting through armoured plates.

Corax landed next to the Archmagos as burning rounds seared past the primarch’s head, his lightning claw slashing through the spinning barrels of the cannon with a single blow. Delvere’s mechadendrite tentacles lashed forwards like a nest of serpents, striking a flurry of hits across Corax’s chest and shoulder, their combined strength enough to hurl him back several metres. The primarch swept out with a lightning claw, cutting the ends from half of the tendrils and eliciting a snarl of pain from the Archmagos.

As Delvere reeled back, the remaining mechadendrites undulating wildly, Corax struck. He pounced forwards, left claw held out like a lance, blades and taloned fingers punching into the chest of the Archmagos. Digits like steel ripped through plates of metal and mechanical organs, tore through a plasteel-ribbed spine to erupt from Delvere’s back. The Archmagos screeched in staccato lingua-technis as Corax lifted him up.

‘The punishment for traitors is death,’ the primarch growled.

He swept his other claw across the head of Delvere, severing vertebrae and shearing away the top of his scalp. Letting the decapitated corpse drop to the ground, Corax rounded on Nathrakin.

The Word Bearer stood in front of the pulsing warp portal, red and purple flames flickering along his arm. Tendrils of unnatural power lashed at him from the sphere of glowing energy, seeming to pass into his body, leaving pulsating trails beneath his skin. His face was locked in a rictus grimace, eyes burning with fire.

The plates of his Terminator armour slewed and melted, bubbling like scalded flesh, expanding and merging. As more warp power flowed into him, Nathrakin grew in stature, limbs lengthening, torso widening. Claws like steel erupted from his fingertips and three curling horns sprouted from his brow, each tipped with a golden rune. The backplate and power pack of his armour extended, extrusions of ceramite and adamantium forming a serrated arch above his head like a deformed halo.

Corax took a step towards the traitor but stopped, wary of coming too close to the ravening energies spewing from the warp rift. Violet and green shadows danced around the Word Bearer’s feet.

Wrenching his hand from the pulsating globe of energy, Nathrakin took several paces towards the primarch. Where his boots touched the melded skulls and bones, they left pools of black flame. He lifted his arms and smiled, as four adamantium-edged bone-blades erupted from each of his wrists, in a twisted parody of Corax’s own talons.

When he spoke, the warped traitors voice was deep, reverberating across the hall, resonant with echoes of power.

‘You have met your match, primarch,’ Nathrakin taunted. He let his arms drop, flames springing up from his fists, burning with black fire. ‘Nothing can withstand the power of Immortal Chaos.’

‘Let’s test that boast, traitor filth.’

All apprehension gone, Corax leapt at Nathrakin, claws extended. With a speed that nearly matched the primarch’s, the sorcerer stepped aside, striking out with his arm-blades to score a welt across Corax’s plackart. Without pause, Corax regained his balance and pivoted as Nathrakin slammed into him, driving the two of them down the pile of the unholy altar.

Corax rammed a knee up into his enemy’s gut, lifting Nathrakin from the ground and releasing his grip. A tenebrous vapour flowed from the warp portal, surrounding the sorcerer with a pulsing aura as he pushed himself back to his feet, flexing his talons, a slender tendril connecting him with the rift.

Nathrakin laughed.

‘You see? Any mortal, even a Space Marine, would have been slain by that blow alone. You have not even winded me, Corax. How does it feel to face your last battle?’

Corax struck as a blur, raining blows down upon the upstart champion of Chaos, claws raking and slashing in a frenzy against Nathrakin’s upraised arms, shredding armour and showering blood. The primarch’s attack drove him away from the portal step by step, but still the immaterial tether linking the Word Bearer to the source of his power remained.

‘Enough!’ Nathrakin’s roar almost deafened Corax. The sorcerer struck out with a straight punch that connected with the primarch’s jaw, hurling him back a dozen metres to crash into a hanging mechanical leg. Black flame crawled across the primarch’s face, trying to eat into his flesh, stinging his eyes.

‘Never enough,’ Corax replied grimly as the flames on his face guttered out. ‘You will never defeat me.’

The two charged at each other, but at the last moment Corax jumped, igniting his pack to execute a twisting somersault over his opponent. Landing behind Nathrakin, Corax rammed both sets of claws into the traitor’s back. Lightning crackling across armour-flesh, blood boiling from the wound as steam.

Corax’s wings flattened as he bounded straight up, the flare of rockets propelling them both into the broad girders that held up the furnace hall’s roof. Turning and spinning, the primarch slammed Nathrakin against the rafters, smashing his head upon steel, ramming him bodily into the struts. The Chaos champion screamed, from frustration rather than pain, unable to bring his talons to bear against his attacker.

Turning groundwards, the primarch dived, driving himself and Nathrakin into the floor like a meteor. The Shockwave of their impact set the chains and hanging engine components clanging and banging. Withdrawing his claws, Corax stood over the traitor and stomped on him, crashing his foot again and again into Nathrakin’s back, the bare rockcrete floor beneath him cracking and splintering.

The champion of Chaos lay still and Corax stepped back, breathing heavily. He listened. The faint beating of twin hearts still pulsed. Shallow rasps of breath still passed Nathrakin’s lips.

In the moment before Corax could strike again, Nathrakin rolled onto his back, fists thrust out. Ebon fire spewed from his hands, splashing across Corax’s face and chest, driving him back.

Regaining his feet, Nathrakin laughed once more.

‘Is that all you can offer, Corax? To think that you almost bested Lord Aurelian.’

Corax looked at the Word Bearer. His armour was buckled and rent, blood streaming from dozens of wounds. His face was little more than mashed flesh - lips split, teeth broken, nose flattened. One of his horns had snapped.

‘You seem to be a poor judge of who is winning this fight,’ the primarch said. ‘I am only just getting started.’

The two charged at each other again, claws clashing against talons with a fountain of electricity and warp energy spraying into the air. Corax came face-to-face with his enemy, slowly pushing Nathrakin’s fists closer and closer, the primarch’s claws edging towards the traitor’s throat.

‘Let’s see you boast with no head, renegade scum. I will destroy every warp-spawned, Chaos-tainted creature in the galaxy before I die.’

Nathrakin’s ruby gaze flickered away from Corax’s for a moment, quickly glancing down at the crackling blades only millimetres from his throat.

‘You should start your hunt a little closer to home, primarch.’

The sorcerer looked directly into Corax’s eyes, and the primarch saw himself reflected there, a giant with white skin and eyes like coal.

Nathrakin laughed. ‘Did you think the primarchs were something pure?’

In that moment Corax thought of the poor Raptors that had been mutated by his gene-seed tampering and suddenly feared just what it was that he had unleashed in them. Was their bestial appearance something to do with the raw primarch genes he had used?

Nathrakin sensed his hesitation and sneered.

‘How could the Emperor create such demi-gods with science alone? Warriors that can withstand tank shells? Leaders whose every word must be obeyed? Creatures with powers far beyond any Thunder Warrior or legionary? Why do you think the Emperor decided not to simply recreate his children when they were lost? What unqiue gifts of darkness did he pass to you?’

Corax’s moment of doubt was all Nathrakin needed. With a triumphant bellow, the Word Bearer threw back the primarch, revealing scorch marks across his throat. Droplets of black fire dripped from his bone-blades as he advanced.

‘Lorgar saw the truth! Time that you saw it too. Accept the nature of Chaos and join your brothers on the true path of righteousness.’

Corax had heard enough, and lashed out with astounding speed.

‘Silence!’

Caught up in his taunting, Nathrakin reacted too slowly. A lightning claw swept the Word Bearer’s head from his shoulders and sent it flying into the gloom.

Panting, Corax lowered into a crouch, shaking his head. The traitor had been lying, trying to save his skin. The Emperor was sworn to destroy Chaos - he had told Corax that himself. Flickers of memory from the Emperor pushed at Corax’s consciousness, images of his creator in his laboratory tending to the nascent zygotes that would become his immortal gene-sons.

‘No.’ Corax stood up, his doubts dissipating. The Emperor could not have lied, he would have seen it. ‘I am no creature of Chaos.’

He noticed then that the aura surrounding Nathrakin’s corpse was thickening, the tendril of warp energy undulating from the warp portal moving more quickly.

The body twitched.

Corax felt a chill of anxiety as he heard a quiet chuckle.

Nathrakin’s mangled breastplate was moving, his abdomen splitting into a maw lined with adamantium teeth, ruby eyes pushing out from his pectorals. A thin, serpentine tongue slid over needle-like fangs as the Chaos champion sat up.

‘Chaosh cannot be deshtroyed’ lisped the deformed mouth, lips of ceramite moulding from the armour.’It ish eternal.’

Corax shook his head in disbelief as Nathrakin pushed himself to his feet. With a shudder, a sting-tipped tail erupted from behind him, swinging up over his shoulder. The stump of his neck grew metal barbs, forming a bestial mouth. The black flames engulfed his hands once more.

‘Shubmit or be shlain. It is that shimple.’

Taking two strides, Corax punched the claws of his right fist into the fallen champion’s new face and lifted him up. Black fire streamed around the two of them as Nathrakin screeched and pounded his talons against the primarch’s head and face, tearing at skin and flesh and metal. Corax ignored the pain and staggered towards the open warp rift.

‘Chaos may be immortal,’ he snarled, heaving the Word Bearer towards the portal. ‘Flesh is not.’

With a roar, Corax threw Nathrakin into the swirling globe of energy.

It flashed bright as the Word Bearer seemed to stick to its surface. Daemonic faces appeared from within the shimmering sphere, laughing and leering. Clawed hands grabbed the sorcerer and dragged him deeper into its depths, until he was obscured by the crackling energy.

Corax struck out, smashing down the nearest stalagmite sustaining the rift. He whirled around the monstrous altar, claws crashing through the upthrusts of metal and bone, the portal pulsing more and more wildly as each was toppled. As the final jutting spike was severed, the rift imploded. Corax felt the shock of it at the core of his being, as though a fist had clenched around his heart.

The moment passed.

‘Lies,’ he muttered, turning away. ‘The Emperor told me that too - lies and deceit are the only weapons Chaos truly wields.’

Yet the words sounded hollow as he spoke them, for he also knew that the most convincing lies were those wrapped around a core of truth.

The wounds on his face itched and his shoulder was sore, but there was still fighting to be done. Iapetus was not yet claimed for the Emperor.

EPILOGUE

CORAX STOOD UPON the bridge of the Kamiel, alone with Sagitha Alons Neortallin.

‘Iapetus is under my control and those who did this to you are dead,’ he told the Navigator. ‘The Mechanicum have a ship that I can use to rejoin my Legion. Know peace.’

The primarch hesitated, recalling the words of Nathrakin. He wondered what Sagitha beheld when she looked at him. What manner of creature did she see with that warp eye of hers?

‘A good man,’ she whispered, somehow in answer to his unspoken question. ‘A good and loyal servant of the Emperor. Nothing more, nothing less.’

A tear trickled down the Navigator’s scarred cheek as Corax placed the tip of a claw beneath her ravaged chin.

‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gav Thorpe is the New York Times bestselling author of ‘The Lion’, a novella in the collection The Primarchs. He has written many other Black Library books, including the Horns Heresy novel Deliverance Lost and audio drama Ravens Flight as well as fan-favourite Warhammer 40,000 novel Angels of Darkness and the epic Time of Legends trilogy, The Sundering. He is currently working on a new Dark Angels series, The Legacy of Caliban. Gav hails from Nottingham, where he shares his hideout with the evil genius that is Dennis, the mechanical hamster.

Table of Contents

Preface

Title Page

Introduction

Dramatis Personae

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

Epilogue

About the Author