Dan Abnett - The Horus Heresy - Horus Rising

Limbs limp, his torn garments flapping, he fell away like a stone down the open drop of the palace tower.

Ekaddon lowered his bolt pistol. 'I've never killed an emperor before.’ he laughed.

That wasn't the Emperor,' Loken yelled. 'You moron! The Emperor's been here all the time.’ He was close to the empty throne now, reaching out a hand to grab at one of the golden armrests. A blemish of light, almost

perfect, but not so perfect that shadows behaved correctly around it, recoiled in the seat.

This is a trap. Those four words were the next that Loken was going to utter. He never got the chance.

The golden throne trembled and broadcast a shock-wave of invisible force. It was a power like that which the elite guard had wielded, but a hundred times more potent. It slammed out in all directions, casting Loken and all the Catulan off their feet like corn sheaves in a hurricane. The windows of the tower top shattered outwards in a multicoloured blizzard of glass fragments.

Most of Catulan Reaver Squad simply vanished, blown out of the tower, arms flailing, on the bow-wave of energy. One struck a steel spar on his way out. Back snapped, his body tumbled away into the night like a broken doll. Ekaddon managed to grab hold of another spar as he was launched backwards. He clung on, plas-teel digits sinking into the metal for purchase, legs trailing out behind him horizontally as air and glass and gravitic energy assaulted him.

Loken, too close to the foot of the throne to be caught by the full force of the shockwave, was knocked flat. He slid across the ring platform towards the open fall, his white armour shrieking as it left deep grooves in the onyx surface. He went over the edge, over the sheer drop, but the wall of force carried him on like a leaf across the hole and slammed him hard against the far lip of the ring. He grabbed on, his arms over the lip, his legs dangling, held in place as much by the shock pressure as by the strength of his own, desperate arms.

Almost blacking out from the relentless force, he fought to hold on.

Inchoate light, green and dazzling, sputtered into being on the platform in front of his clawing hands. The tele-port flare became too bright to behold, and then died, revealing a god standing on the edge of the platform.

The god was a true giant, as large again to any Astartes warrior as an Astartes was to a normal man. His armour was white gold, like the sunlight at dawn, the work of master artificers. Many symbols covered its surfaces, the chief of which was the motif of a single, staring eye fashioned across the breastplate. Robes of white cloth fluttered out behind the terrible, haloed figure.

Above the breastplate, the face was bare, grimacing, perfect in every dimension and detail, suffused in radiance. So beautiful. So very beautiful.

For a moment, the god stood there, unflinching, beset by the gale of force, but unmoving, facing it down. Then he raised the storm bolter in his right hand and fired into the tumult.

One shot.

The echo of the detonation rolled around the tower. There was a choking scream, half lost in the uproar, and then the uproar itself stilled abruptly.

The wall of force died away. The hurricane faded. Splinters of glass tinkled as they rained back down onto the platform.

No longer impelled, Ekaddon crashed back down against the blown-out sill of the window frame. His grip was secure. He clawed his way back inside and got to his feet.

'My lord!' he exclaimed, and dropped to one knee, his head bowed.

With the pressure lapsed, Loken found he could no longer support himself. Hands grappling, he began to slide back over the lip where he had been hanging. He couldn't get any purchase on the gleaming onyx.

He slipped off the edge. A strong hand grabbed him around the wrist and hauled him up onto the platform.

Loken rolled over, shaking. He looked back across the ring at the golden throne. It was a smoking rain, its secret mechanisms exploded from within. Amidst the twisted,

ruptured plates and broken workings, a smouldering corpse sat upright, teeth grinning from a blackened skull, charred, skeletal arms still braced along the throne's coiled rests.

'So will I deal with all tyrants and deceivers.’ rumbled a deep voice.

Loken looked up at the god standing over him. 'Lupercal...' he murmured.

The god smiled. 'Not so formal, please, captain.’ whispered Horns.

'MAY I ASK you a question?' Mersadie Oliton said.

Loken had taken a robe down from a wall peg and was putting it on. 'Of course.’

'Could we not have just left them alone?'

'No. Ask a better question.’

Very well. What is he like?'

'What is who like, lady?' he asked.

'Horus.’

'If you have to ask, you've not met him.’ he said.

'No, I haven't yet, captain. I've been waiting for an audience. Still, I would like to know what you think of Horus-'

'I think he is Warmaster.’ Loken said. His tone was stone hard. 'I think he is the master of the Luna Wolves and the chosen proxy of the Emperor, praise be his name, in all our undertakings. He is the first and foremost of all primarchs. And I think I take offence when a mortal voices his name without respect or title.’

'Oh!' she said. 'I'm sorry, captain, I meant no-'

'I'm sure you didn't, but he is Warmaster Horus. You're a remembrancer. Remember that.’

Replevin

Amongst the remembrancers

Raised to the four

THREE MONTHS AFTER the battle for the High City, the first of the remembrancers had joined the expedition fleet, brought directly from Terra by mass conveyance. Various chroniclers and recorders had, of course, been accompanying Imperial forces since the commencement of the Great Crusade, two hundred sidereal years earlier. But they had been individuals, mostly volunteers or accidental witnesses, gathered up like road dust on the advancing wheels of the crusader hosts, and the records they had made had been piecemeal and irregular. They had commemorated events by happenstance, sometimes inspired by their own artistic appetites, sometimes encouraged by the patronage of a particular primarch or lord commander, who thought it fit to have his deeds immortalised in verse or text or image or composition.

Returning to Terra after the victory of Ullanor, the Emperor had decided it was time a more formal and authoritative celebration of mankind's reunification be

undertaken. The fledgling Council of Terra evidently agreed wholeheartedly, for the bill inaugurating the foundation and sponsorship of the remembrancer order had been countersigned by no less a person than Malcador the Sigilite, First Lord of the Council. Recruited from all levels of Terran society - and from the societies of other key Imperial worlds - simply on the merit of their creative gifts, the remembrancers were quickly accredited and assigned, and despatched to join all the key expedition fleets active in the expanding Imperium.

At that time, according to War Council logs, there were four thousand two hundred and eighty-seven primary expedition fleets engaged upon the business of the crusade, as well as sixty thousand odd secondary deployment groups involved in compliance or occupation endeavours, with a further three hundred and seventy-two primary expeditions in regroup and refit, or resupplying as they awaited new tasking orders. Almost four point three million remembrancers were sent abroad in the first months following the ratification of the bill. 'Arm the bastards.’ Primarch Russ had been reported as saying, 'and they might win a few bloody worlds for us in between verses.'

Russ's sour attitude reflected well the demeanor of the martial class. From primarch down to common army soldier, there was a general unease about the Emperor's decision to quit the crusade campaign and retire to the solitude of his palace on Terra. No one had questioned the choice of First Primarch Horns as Warmaster to act in his stead. They simply questioned the need for a proxy at all.