Aaron Dembski-Bowden - The First Heretic

Lorgar turned to the Gal Vorbak. ‘Argel Tal,’ he smiled at one of them, knowing him instantly.

The creature grunted, twitchy with the need to shed blood. ‘It is I, sire.’

‘The warriors I would need,’ Lorgar murmured the old words with awe tainting his breath. ‘Truly, you are blessed by the gods. Go. Hunt. Kill.’

The Gal Vorbak withdrew from their lord, launching themselves back into the battle with leaps and snarls. Argel Tal lingered. A claw of ceramite and bone closed on Lorgar’s arm.

‘Father. I could not reach you in time.’

‘It does not matter. I live still. Hunt well, my son.’

The daemon nodded and obeyed.

Thunderhawk gunships in the colours of the Raven Guard and the Salamanders exploded at the launch site as the Iron Warriors turned their weapons from the slaughter and targeted the loyalists’ only avenues of escape.

Despite the grind of battle, dozens of the landing craft managed to make it back into the air. Most of these were soon sent spiralling back down to earth, streaming black smoke from lascannon wounds in propulsion systems. The Iron Warriors fired with impunity, caring nothing that many of the downed gunships fell groundward into the battle still being waged. The burning hulls of destroyed Astartes craft rained onto the killing fields, pulverising Word Bearers and Night Lords more often than they crashed into the few remaining pockets of Raven Guard and Salamanders survivors.

When contacted by Legion commanders protesting the careless destruction, the Iron Warriors captains replied with laughter that bordered on betrayal.

‘We are all bleeding today,’ an Iron Warriors captain voxed back to Kor Phaeron. ‘ Have faith, Word Bearer.’ The link went dead to the sound of chuckling.

Time ceased to have any meaning for Argel Tal. When he was not killing, he was moving, hunting, seeking something else to kill. His claws savaged any Raven Guard warrior that came within his grip. Corax had thinned the ranks of the Gal Vorbak before Lorgar’s intercession, but enough of the chosen sons remained to form a feral pack that led their Legion, cutting into the diminishing foe.

In battle, he changed. His was not the ascendant consciousness. He ceded a measure of control to Raum, the surrender coming as naturally as breathing: it seemed simply a function of his new form. The daemon in possession added strength to even his lighter blows, and tore chunks from his enemies even as Argel Tal sought only to clutch onto them. His every motion was made feverish, hungrier somehow, drenched in blood and inhuman needs. As he wrapped his claws around a Raven Guard’s throat with the intent to strangle, his talons sank into the warrior’s neck and hooked around his spine. Every motion was instinctively more violent, breeding more pain in those foolish enough to stand before him.

Many of the Raven Guard sought to run. Argel Tal let these live, knowing his grey-armoured kin would cut these down with their bolters. It was a chore to resist the animalistic need to chase down prey – just seeing them flee from him was enough to tense his muscles into the desire for pursuit – but he knew his role in this war. He was a warrior, not a hunter.

A connection he’d not known existed went hollow and cold, and he felt, rather than saw, Dagotal die.

You are all bound. Blessed and bound.

A second of pain, like the memory of an old wound, and a curious loss stole over him. It was a lessening, as if the warmth of the sun had fallen behind a greying sky. The momentary chill passed, but the knowledge of his brother’s demise was etched into him, as cold as a stone in his skull.

He died in fire. Raum’s voice was as ecstatic as it was breathless. A cascade of chopping images flickered in Argel Tal’s mind, showing Dagotal engulfed in flame, surrounded by Raven Guard bearing flamer units. They bathed him in the corrosive fire, layering chemical propellant over his mutated armour, stoic against the unbelievable stench their murder was making.

The images flashed away, and Argel Tal dropped the corpse he’d strangled. Immediately, the need took him again. Like a hunger, a need for satiation, he physically ached unless he was moving toward prey. And he knew this ferocious need was the only emotion the neverborn could ever feel. This was how their minds worked – in stunted, brutal instinct.

The daemon moved to sate his new hunger.

The tremors eased, but didn’t cease. Still, Ishaq was thankful for small mercies. Nonessential bulkheads were grinding open now. The red light staining everything flickered back to standard illumination. He assumed De Profundis was pulling free of the main battle for... some reason. To rearm? To regroup? Whatever, he didn’t know and it didn’t matter. He was bolting through the corridors the moment he heard the first bulkhead unsealing.

Many were still shut tight, blocking off voided sections of the deck. This, too, didn’t matter. He didn’t want to explore any more, he just wanted to get out of here alive.

It was strangely worse to slow down and walk solemnly past Euchar infantry patrols than it was to pick and weave between the dead bodies that adorned some of the more damaged corridors. The Euchar squads were here to clean up, and he didn’t envy them that job. On several occasions, he moved past them in a dignified walk, seeing them gathering the fallen and bagging them up. He made sure his face was covered by the serf hood, and did his best to seem as if he paid little heed.

Once he was free of the monastic deck, he made his way to the Cellar, shaking loose the Legion robe on his way. His picter scanner was kept in a white-knuckled grip that would’ve broken a cheaper, less sturdy model.

The doors opened before him, revealing the Cellar in all its bustling slum hole glory. Even in the midst of the battle, the remembrancers and civilian crew had gathered here, gambling and drinking and doing their damndest to ignore the war raging outside. In truth, he didn’t blame them. He’d done it himself in smaller battles before.

His hands were shaking when he reached an empty table. A passing girl brought him something he didn’t order, and wouldn’t like even if he was in the mood to drink it. He scattered the few coins he had left, not caring that he overpaid. He just needed to be around people. Normal people.

‘Ishaq Kadeen. The imagist. I have your pict of De Profundis. A masterpiece, young sir.’

Ishaq looked up to meet the speaker’s dark-ringed eyes. He recognised the old man immediately.

‘You’re the astropath. The astropath for the Occuli Imperator.’

‘Guilty,’ the old man performed a strangely courtly bow, ‘as charged.’ He gestured to the chair. ‘Absolom Cartik at your service. May I sit?’

Ishaq’s grunt passed as a yes. The elder seemed nervous in the Cellar, just as he had last time Ishaq saw him in here. ‘I’ve not seen you in a couple of weeks. There was talk you’d be forsaking this place for good.’

‘I do not fit in well, but at times, the quiet gets to me. I feel the need to be around other people.’ Cartik gestured to the walls. ‘The battle,’ he swallowed. ‘They always get to me.’

‘I know that feeling. Sorry, but I’m not exactly wonderful company right now,’ Ishaq said.

The astropath was watching him with unwavering focus. ‘Your thoughts are very loud.’

All the blood drained from Kadeen’s face. ‘You’re reading my mind?’ He stood up fast enough to make himself dizzy. ‘Is that legal?’

The astropath waved his concerns aside. ‘I could never read a mind as you would understand it. Suffice to say, you are broadcasting your emotion with great intensity. Just as someone might see you laugh or cry, knowing your thoughts from your face, I can see the distress in your mind. No details, but it is very... loud,’ he finished lamely.