Aaron Dembski-Bowden: The First Heretic

One hundred thousand warriors in perfect formation, bolters held in grey fists, helmed heads raised in pride. A hundred thousand pairs of red eye lenses stared ahead. Squad by squad, led by sergeants. Company by company, led by captains. Chapter by Chapter, led by Masters.

Standard bearers stood before each company, banners held high even as their details faded in the dust. Borne by Sergeant Malnor, the Serrated Sun Chapter icon rose alongside the war banners of its three component companies, eclipsing them in both size and significance. A spiked circle of burnished bronze mirrored the symbol around every warrior’s left eye, decorated with sixty-eight bleached skulls hanging on black iron chains. The skulls were human and alien, each one the head of a fallen enemy champion worthy of remembrance. The left eye socket of every skull was ringed by the serrated sun symbol, painted with Astartes blood, blessed by the company Chaplains.

Similar icons were held above the mustered Legion. They rattled in the wind, trinkets chiming in grim melody, while the company war banners waved.

Argel Tal moved forward with the other commanders of the Serrated Sun, leaving their warriors in assembled columns. Although the Chapter was far from the primarch’s favour – such honour belonged to the larger and more prestigious Chapters made from twenty or more companies – their ranks still entitled them to stand at the forefront of the gathered Legion.

As he walked through ranks of statue-still Word Bearers, Argel Tal switched to the vox frequency secured by Seventh Company prior to planetfall.

‘Stand tall, brothers. Enlightenment will soon be ours.’

A series of ten vox-clicks signalled the acknowledgement of every squad sergeant under his command.

Several captains voxed quiet greetings as they assembled in an ordered line, their helms and shoulder guards marked with evidence of their own Chapter allegiances.

Before them all, the golden Stormbird stood at bay, resting in the midst of six Ultramarines Thunderhawk gunships. The edges of their ceramite hulls were scorched bare in places from the fires of atmospheric descent.

One captain broke ranks. He took a single step forward, and Argel Tal felt the ground’s miniscule tremor as the warrior moved.

In hulking Terminator armour, the silver-wrought warplate still fresh from the forges of Mars, First Captain Kor Phaeron stood apart from his brothers, as was his right. In the armour of the Legion’s elite, he towered a metre above the lesser captains, clad in layers of reverently sculpted ceramite as thick as the hull-skin of a battle tank. He carried no weapons beyond those his armour already offered: oversized gauntlets ending in talons extending from each finger, the individual blades as long and curved as the primitive scythes used to harvest crops on backwater Imperial worlds. Delicate circuitry threaded along the blades – veins of power that would invest the claws with crackling force upon the First Captain’s desire.

Unlike the gathered captains, Kor Phaeron wore no helm, and it was fair to say no poet or painter could ever portray the First Captain as a handsome being without liberal artistic license. Argel Tal watched Kor Phaeron’s finger-blades ripple with electric current, a sure sign of impatience. The larger warrior’s expression was locked in the sneer of a man who tastes nothing but bitterness and ash, which was the only face Argel Tal had ever seen him wear. Despite the impressive armour, Kor Phaeron’s visage was corpse-gaunt and bone-pale, as it had been on each of the rare occasions the two captains crossed paths.

‘I hate him,’ Xaphen whispered over the vox. ‘He wears that armour as a shield for one thousand weaknesses. I hate him, brother.’

Argel Tal remained unmoving, bolter across his chest. He’d heard this from the Chaplain many times before, and could offer no answer to ease his friend’s choler.

‘I know,’ he said, hoping Xaphen would fall silent. This was hardly the time for such things.

‘He is not one of us. A false Astartes.’ Xaphen fell into the familiar lament with teeth-clenching passion. ‘He is impure .’

‘This is not the time for old grudges.’

‘Laxity like that is why you will never carry a crozius,’ the Chaplain said.

The nepotism behind Kor Phaeron’s ascension to the First Captaincy was no secret. As the primarch’s spiritual counsel and foster father during the years of Lorgar’s youth away from the Imperium, Kor Phaeron had helped shape the growing demigod in ways his true father had not. They stood together through the years of sacrifice and revolution, through the holy wars that threatened to tear Colchis apart before its unity under the benevolent rule of Lorgar.

When the God-Emperor came to Colchis over a century before to offer Lorgar command of the XVII Legion, Kor Phaeron had been far too old to receive the organ implantations and prepubescent genetic manipulations necessary to grow into one of the Astartes. Instead, through rejuvenat surgery, costly bionics and limited gene-forging, Kor Phaeron was exalted above humanity as a sign of the value placed in him by the primarch.

Despite leaving humanity behind, he had not ascended to the ranks of true Astartes. Argel Tal watched him now, this pinnacle of genetic compromise. Respect stilled his tongue, even if admiration did not.

Kor Phaeron spat onto the broken ground. The acidic gobbet of saliva hissed as it ate into the ruined stone. Only then did Argel Tal reactivate the vox-channel to Xaphen by blink-clicking his brother’s name-rune.

‘Are you galled only by the First Captain’s impurity? Or is it his complete lack of Legion discipline, and that his victories eclipse yours and mine put together?’

Xaphen chuckled, the sound low and dark. His crozius hammer was in his fists, its mace head resting on the ground.

‘He is at the primarch’s side for each campaign. He commands the First Company, the Legion’s finest, and wears the armour of the Terminator elite. It would take a fool to fail in those circumstances.’

‘I have heard him preach, brother. As have you. I do not like him, but I respect him. He speaks the Word with an insight possessed by no other, and his wisdom pours fire into my blood. He orchestrated victory in a planet-wide civil war when he was merely a human priest. Do not underestimate him now.’

Xaphen’s voice was sterner. ‘Impurity cannot be forgiven.’

‘The primarch chose him,’ the captain’s tone also grew stonier in response. ‘Does that mean nothing to you?’

‘I do not doubt our father’s judgement,’ came the reluctant reply.

Just when Argel Tal sensed more to come, Xaphen fell silent, perhaps detecting an implied lecture in his brother’s disapproval.

‘Stand ready,’ Kor Phaeron growled, his grinding voice at odds with his cadaverous face. ‘The primarch comes.’

As those words hung in the air, the ramp beneath the cockpit of the golden Stormbird began to ease down on smooth gears.

Argel Tal breathed out, slow and tense, feeling his primary heart thud faster. Although he wasn’t in battle, his secondary heart started a slower counter-beat to the hammering of his first.

The figure descended the ramp alone, and the Seventh Captain felt the stinging threat of worshipful tears even as he kept his gaze on the ruined ground. He’d not seen his primarch in almost three years. To be cast away from his radiance, even in the name of sacred duty, was to walk in shadow, devoid of inspiration.

The vox came alive with thousands of muted voices as countless Word Bearers breathed their father’s name. Many thanked fate for the chance to stand within his presence once again. Reverent chants ghosted over the communication channels, never rising above whispers. Argel Tal was one of the few that remained silent at first, thanking fate in voiceless piety.