'What do you mean?' asked Sindermann, not likВing the way Qruze kept casting wary glances at the armed warriors that lined the walls of the chamber.
'Never mind,’ said Qruze.
'Iacton,’ commanded Euphrati, her voice laden with quiet authority. 'Look at me,’
The craggy-featured Astartes looked down at the slight form of Euphrati, and Sindermann could feel the power and determination that flowed from her.
'You are the half-heard no longer,’ said Euphrati. 'Now your voice will be heard louder than any other in your Legion. You cling to the old ways and wish them to return with the fond nostalgia of the venerable. Those days are dying here, Iacton, but with your help we can bring them back again,’ 'What are you talking about, woman?' snarled
Qruze.
'I want you to remember Cthonia,’ said Euphrati, and Sindermann recoiled as he felt an electric surge
of energy spark from her, as if her very skin was charged.
What do you know of the planet of my birth?' 'Only what I see inside you, Iacton,’ said Euphrati, a soft glow building behind her eyes and filling her words with promise and seduction. The honour and the valour from which the Luna Wolves were forged. You are the only one who remembers, IacВton. You're the only one left that still embodies what it is to be an Astartes,’
You know nothing of me,’ he said, though SinВdermann could see her words were reaching him, breaking down the barriers the Astartes erected between themselves and mortals.
Your brothers called you the Half-heard, but you do not take them to task for it. I know this is because a Cthonian warrior is honourable and cares not for petty insults. I also know that your counsel is not heard because yours is the voice of a past age, when the Great Crusade was a noble thing, done not for gain, but for the good of all humankind,’
Sindermann watched as Qruze's face spoke volВumes of the conflict raging within his soul.
Loyalty to his Legion vied with loyalty to the ideals that had forged it.
At last he smiled ruefully and said, '"Nothing too arduous" he said,’
He looked over towards the Warmaster and Mal-oghurst. 'Come,’ he said. 'Follow me,’
Where to?' asked Sindermann.
To safety,' replied Qruze. 'Loken asked me to look out for you and that's what I'm going to do. Now be silent and follow me.'
Qruze turned on his heel and marched towards one of the many doors that led out of the audience chamber. Euphrati followed the warrior and SinВdermann and Mersadie trotted along after her, unsure as to where they were going or why. Qruze reached the door, a large portal of polished bronze guarded by two warriors, moving them aside with a chopping wave of his hand. 'I'm taking these ones below,’ he said. 'Our orders are that no one is to leave,' said one
of the guards.
'And I am issuing you new orders,’ said Qruze, a steely determination that Sindermann had not noticed earlier underpinning his words. 'Move aside, or are you disobeying the order of a superior
officer?' 'No, sir,’ said the warriors, bowing and hauling
open the bronze door.
Qruze nodded to the guards and gestured that the four of them should pass through.
Sindermann, Euphrati and Mersadie left the audiВence chamber, the door slamming behind them with an awful finality. With the sounds of the dying planet and the gasps of shock suddenly cut off, the silence that enveloped them was positively unnervВing.
'Now what do we do?' asked Mersadie.
'I get us as far away from the Vengeful Spirit as posВsible,’ answered Qruze.
'Off the ship?' asked Sindermann.
Yes,’ said Qruze. 'It is not safe for your kind now. Not safe at all,’
TWELVE
Cleansing
Let the galaxy burn
God Machine
The screaming of the Choral City's death throes came in tremendous waves, battering against the Precentor's Palace like a tsunami. In the streets below and throughout the palace, the people of the Choral City were decaying where they stood, bodies coming apart in torrents of disintegrating flesh.
The people thronged in the streets to die, keening their hatred and fear up at the sky, imploring their gods to deliver them. Millions of people screamed at once and the result was a terrible black-stained gale of death. A Warsinger soared overhead, trying to ease the agony and terror of their deaths with her songs, but the virus found her too, and instead of singing the praises of Isstvan's gods she coughed out black plumes as the virus tore through her
insides. She fell like a shot bird, twirling towards the dying below.
A bulky shape appeared on the roof of the PreВcentor's Palace. Ancient Rylanor strode to the edge of the roof, overlooking the scenes of horror below, the viral carnage seething between the buildings. Rylanor's dreadnought body was sealed against the world outside, sealed far more effectively than any Astartes armour, and the deathly wind swirled harmlessly around him as he watched the city's death unfold.
Rylanor looked up towards the sky, where far above, the Warmaster's fleet was still emptying the last of its deathly payload onto Isstvan III. The ancient dreadnought stood alone, the only note of peace in the screaming horror of the Choral City's death.
'Good job we built these bunkers tough,' said CapВtain Ehrlen.
The darkness of the sealed bunker was only compounded by the sounds of death from beyond its thick walls. Pitifully few of the World Eaters had made it into the network of bunkers that fringed the edge of the trench network and barricaded themselves inside. They waited in the dark, listening to the virus killing off the city's population more efficiently than even their chainaxes could.
Tarvitz waited amongst them, listening to the deaths of millions of people in mute horror. The
World Eaters appeared to be unmoved, the deaths of civilians meaning nothing to them.
The screaming was dying down, replaced by a dull moaning. Pain and fear mingled in a distant roar of slow death.
'How much longer must we hide like rats in the dark?' demanded Ehrlen.
The virus will burn itself out quickly,' said Tarvitz. That's what it's designed to do: eat away anything living and leave a battlefield for the enemy to take.' 'How do you know?' asked Ehrlen. Tarvitz looked at him. He could tell Ehrlen the truth, and he knew that he deserved it, but what good would it do? The World Eaters might kill him for even saying it. After all, their own primarch was part of the Warmaster's conspiracy.
'I have seen such weapons employed before,’ said Tarvitz.
You had better be right,’ snarled Ehrlen, soundВing far from satisfied with Tarvitz's answer. 'I won't cower here for much longer!'
The World Eater looked over his warriors, their bloodstained armoured bodies packed close together in the darkness of the bunker. He raised his axe and called, Wrathe! Have you raised the Sons of Horus?'
'Not yet,’ replied Wrathe. Tarvitz could see he was a veteran, with numerous cortical implants blisВtered across his scalp. There's chatter, but nothing direct,’
'So they're still alive?'