Dan Abnett - Know no fear. The Battle of Calth

Guilliman steps back. He opens his mouth, but he is too stunned to reply.

‘Whatever you think of me, Roboute,’ says Lorgar, ‘whatever your opinion, and I know it is about as low as it can be, you know I’m not a stupid man. I would betray my brother and attack the assembled might of the XIII Legion… for a grudge? Really? Really? Practical, Roboute! I am here to exterminate you and the Ultramarines because you are the only force left in the Emperor’s camp that can possibly stop Horus. You are too dangerous to live, and I am here to make sure you do not.’

Lorgar leans forward. The light catches his teeth.

‘I’m here to remove you from the game, Roboute.’

Guilliman steps back.

‘Either you’re insane, or the galaxy has gone mad,’ he says with remarkable steadiness. ‘Whichever, I am coming for you, and I will put you and your heathen killers down. Excommunicate Traitoris. You will not have any opportunity to reflect upon the monstrosity of this crime.’

‘Oh, Roboute, I can always rely on you to sound like a giant pompous arsehole. Come and get me. We’ll see who burns first.’

Lorgar turns to step out of the light, and then hesitates.

‘One last thing you need to know, Roboute. You really don’t appreciate what you’re up against.’

‘A madman,’ snaps Guilliman, turning his back.

Lorgar alters.

His holocast form shifts, like fat melting, like bones deforming, like wax dripping. His smile tears in half and something rises up out of his human shape. It is not human.

Guilliman senses it. He turns back. He sees it.

His eyes widen.

He can smell it. He can smell the pitch-black nightmare, the cosmic stench of the warp. The thing is growing, still growing. Lorgar’s empty skin sloughs off like a snake’s.

It is a horror from the most lightless voids. It is glistening black flesh and tangled veins, it is frogspawn mucus and beads of blinking eyes, it is teeth and batwings. It is an anatomical atrocity. It is teratology, the shaping of monsters.

Filthy light veils it and invests it like velvet robes. It is a shadow and it is smoke. Its crest is the horns of an aurochs, four metres high, ribbed and brown. It snorts. There is a rumble of intestines and gas, of a predator’s growl. A smell of blood. A whiff of acid. A tang of venom.

The things that hovered behind Lorgar are transforming too. They turn beetle-black, gleaming, iridescent blue. Their boneless limbs and pseudopods writhe. They stir vibrissae and clack like insects. Multiple faces fold and ooze into one another, mutating into ghastly diprosopia. Overlapping mouths pucker and lisp Guilliman’s name.

Guilliman steadies himself. He will know no fear.

‘I’ve seen enough of his charlatan tricks,’ he says. ‘Break the lithocast link.’

‘The… link…’ begins the Master of Vox. ‘Sir, the link is already broken.’

Guilliman sweeps back to face the nightmare, the thing-that-is-no-longer-Lorgar. His hand reaches for the hilt of his sword.

The thing speaks. Its voice is madness.

‘Roboute,’ it says. ‘Let the galaxy burn.’

It lunges, jaws wide, spittle flying.

Blood, many hundreds of litres of human blood, suddenly sprays the walls of the flagship’s bridge under pressure. The crystalflex window ports blow out in blizzards of shards, voiding into space.

The bridge tower of the immense battleship Macragge’s Honour explodes.

It gets light early. Another beautiful day on the estuary. The light’s so good, Oll reckons they can get an extra hour or so’s work done. An hour is an additional two loads of swartgrass. A day of hard labour for good returns.

His hands are sore from the harvest work, but he has slept well and his spirits are good. Strong sunlight always lifts him.

He rises, says a prayer. In the whitewashed lean-to at the back of the hab, there’s a gravity shower. He pulls the cord and stands under its downpour. As he washes, he can hear her singing in the kitchen.

When he goes into the kitchen, dried and dressed, she’s not there. He can smell warm bread. The kitchen door is open, and sunlight streams in across the flagstones. She must have just stepped out for a moment. Stepped out to get eggs. He can smell the swartgrass straw on the warm air.

He sits down at the worn kitchen table.

‘It’s time to get to work, Oll.’

He looks up. There’s a man standing in the doorway, backlit by the sun so that Oll can’t see his face for shadow.

But Oll Persson knows him anyway. Oll touches the little symbol around his neck, an instinctive gesture of protection.

‘I said–’

‘I heard you. I’ll get there when I’m good and ready. My wife’s making breakfast.’

‘You’ll lose the light, Oll.’

‘My wife’s making breakfast.’

‘She isn’t, Oll.’

The man comes into the kitchen. He hasn’t changed. He wouldn’t though, would he? He never will. That confidence. That good-looking… charm.

‘I don’t recall inviting you in,’ says Oll.

‘No one ever does,’ replies the man. He helps himself to a cup of milk.

‘I’m not interested in this,’ Oll says firmly. ‘Whatever you’ve come to say, I’m not interested. You’ve wasted a trip. This is my life now.’

The man sits down facing him.

‘It isn’t, Oll.’

Oll sighs.

‘It’s great to see you again, John. Now get out of my hab.’

‘Don’t be like that, Oll. How’ve you been? Still pious and devoted?’

‘This is my life now, John.’

‘It isn’t,’ the man says.

‘Get out. I don’t want anything to do with anything.’

‘You don’t have a choice, I’m afraid. Sorry. Things have escalated a little.’

‘John–’ Oll almost growls the warning.

‘I’m serious. There aren’t many of us, Oll. You know that. You and me, we could set our hands on the table here, and count them off, and we’d still have fingers spare. There never were many of us. Now there are even fewer.’

Oll gets up.

‘John, listen. Let me be as plain as I can. I never had time for this. I never wanted to be part of anything. I don’t want to know what trouble you’ve brought to my door. I like you, John. Honestly, I do. But I hoped never to see you again. I just want to live my life.’

‘Don’t be greedy. You’ve lived several.’

‘John–’

‘Come on, Oll! You and me? Anatol Hive? Come on. The Panpacific? Tell me that doesn’t count for anything.’

‘It was a lifetime ago.’

‘Several. Several lifetimes.’

‘This is my life now.’

‘No, it isn’t.’

Oll glares at him.

‘I’d like you to go, John. Go. Now. Before my wife gets back from the coops.’

‘She’s not coming back from the coops, Oll. She never went out to the coops.’

‘Get out, John.’

‘This is your life, is it? This? An ex-soldier turned farmer? Retired to a life of bucolic harmony? Good honest toil in exchange for plain food and a good night’s rest? Really, Oll? This is your life?’