Graham McNeill - A Thousand Sons

proficiency of some sort, like a gifted apprentice or something.”

“Ah.”

The Astartes warrior halted, towering over them like a solid slab of ceramite. His battle armour

was gloriously intricate, the crimson plates engraved with geometric forms and sigils that Lemuel

recognised as similar to those woven into his banyan. Sobek’s right shoulder-guard was stamped

with a golden scarab, while the left bore the serpentine star icon of the Thousand Sons.

In the centre of the star was a black raven’s head, smaller than the scarab, yet subtly given more

relevance thanks to its positioning within the Legion’s symbol. This was the symbol of the

Corvidae, one of the cults of the Thousand Sons, though he had been able to glean precious little of

is tenets during his time with the 28th Expedition.

“Lord Ahriman sends this hes of water,” said Sobek. His voice was sonorous and fulsome, as

though produced in a deep well within his chest. Lemuel supposed the peculiar Astartes tone was

due to the sheer volume of biological hardware within his body.

“That’s very gracious of him,” said Camille, holding her hands out to receive the hes.

“Lord Ahriman instructed me go give the water to Remembrancer Eris,” said Sobek.

Camille frowned and said, “Oh, right. Well, here she is.”

Kallista took the proffered hes with a grateful smile.

“Please send Lord Ahriman my thanks,” she said, placing the heavy vase on the ground. “It’s

most considerate of him to think of me.”

“I shall pass your message to him when he returns,” said Sobek.

“Returns?” asked Lemuel. “Where’s he gone?”

Sobek glared down at him, and then marched back towards his encampment. The Astartes had

not answered his question, but Lemuel caught an upward flicker of Sobek’s eyes towards the

mountain.

“Friendly sort, isn’t he?” remarked Camille. “Makes you wonder why we bother, eh?”

“I know what you mean; none of them are exactly welcoming, are they?” said Lemuel.

“Some are,” pointed out Kallista, emptying water into her canteen, and managing to spill more

than she transferred. “Ankhu Anen has helped us, hasn’t he? And Captain Ahriman is quite

forthcoming in his remembrances. I’ve learned a lot from him about the Great Crusade.”

“Here, let me help you,” said Lemuel, kneeling beside her and holding the vase steady. Like

most things designed for or by Astartes, it was oversized and heavy in mortal hands, more so now

that it was filled with water.

“I’d be fascinated to read what you’ve accumulated so far,” he said.

“Of course, Lemuel,” said Kallista. She smiled at him, and he felt his soul shine.

“So where do you think Ahriman’s gone?” asked Camille.

“I think I know,” said Lemuel with a conspiratorial grin. “Want to go look?”

The Sekhmet, The Scarab Occult, Magnus’ Veterans, whichever name they bore, it was one of

fierce pride and devotion. None of lower grade than a Philosophus, the last cult rank a warrior could

hold before facing the Dominus Liminus, these veterans were the best and brightest of the Legion.

Having transcended their likes and dislikes, defied their mortality and broken down their idea of

self, these warriors fought from a place of perfect calm.

The Khan had called them automatons, Russ decried their fighting spirit and Ferrus Manus had

likened them to robots. Having heard his primarch’s tales of the master of the Iron Hands, Ahriman

suspected the latter comment was intended as a compliment.

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Clad in hulking suits of burnished crimson Terminator armour, the Sekhmet crunched out over

the salt plains and onto the lower slopes of the Mountain. Ahriman felt the presence of his Tutelary

above him, sensing its unease as the psychic void beyond the deadstones loomed ever closer.

Phosis T’kar and Hathor Maat marched alongside him, their strides sure and eager. The

shimmering forms of Tutelaries darted thorough the air like wary shoals of fish in the presence of

pack predators. Like Aaetpio, the Tutelaries of his fellow warriors and captains were fearful in the

face of the Mountain’s emptiness.

To those without aether-sight, Tutelaries were invisible, but to the Thousand Sons with power

they were bright visions of exquisite beauty. Aaetpio had served Ahriman faithfully for nearly a

century, its form inconstant and beautiful, a vision of eyes and ever turning wheels of light. Utipa

was a bullish entity of formless energy, as bellicose as Phosis T’kar, where Paeoc resembled an

eagle fashioned from a million golden suns, as vain and proud as Hathor Maat.

Ahriman had thought them angels at first, but that was an old word, a word cast aside by those

who studied the mysteries of the aether as too emotive, too loaded with connotations of the divine.

Tutelaries were simply fragments of the Primordial Creator given form and function by those with

the power to bend them to their will.

He linked his thoughts briefly with Aaetpio’s. If Magnus was in trouble, then they would need to

find out without the sight or aid of their Tutelaries.

Though he had seen nothing tangible in any of his divinations, Ahriman’s intuition told him

something was amiss. As Magister Templi of all Prospero’s cults, Magnus taught that intuition was

just as important a tool for sifting meaning from the currents of the Great Ocean as direct vision.

Ahriman suspected trouble, but Phosis T’kar and Hathor Maat longed for it.

The 28th Expedition had come to Aghoru three months ago. Its official designation in the War

Council Records was Twenty-Eight Sixteen, though no one in the XV Legion ever called it that.

Following the successful compliance of Twenty-Eight Fifteen, the sixty-three ships of the 28th

Expedition translated from the Great Ocean to find a system of dead worlds, empty of life and

desolate.

Indications were that life had once existed here, but now did not. What had caused such a

system-wide cataclysm was unknown, but as the fleet made its way towards the sun, it became clear

that life on the fifth planet had somehow survived the disaster.

How Magnus had known this insignificant shoal of the galaxy had included a planet inhabited

by a severed offshoot of humanity was a mystery, for there were no residual electromagnetics or

long-dead emissions to suggest anything lived here.

The Rehahti urged Magnus to order the fleet onwards, for the Crusade was at its height and the

Thousand Sons had their share of plaudits yet to earn. Nearly two centuries had passed since the

Crusade was launched in glory and fanfare, two centuries of exploration and war that had seen

world after world folded into the body of the resurgent Imperium of Man.

Of those two centuries, the Thousand Sons had fought for less than a hundred years.

In the early years of the Crusade, prior to the coming of Magnus, the Astartes of the Thousand

Sons had proven especially susceptible to unstable genes, resulting in spontaneous tissue rejection,

vastly increased psychic potential and numerous other variations from the norm. Labels like

“mutants” and “freaks” were hung upon the Thousand Sons, and for a time it seemed as though they

would suffer an ignoble ending as a footnote in the history of the Great Crusade.

Then the Emperor’s fleet had discovered Magnus the Red in a forgotten backwater of the galaxy,

on the remote world of Prospero, and everything changed.

“As I am your son, they shall become mine,” were Magnus’ words to the Emperor, words that