Half of them seemed to take that as an order, for they fled immediately. Revus watched their dark-armoured forms slipping into servants’ passages, and despite himself, couldn’t wish harm upon them for their cowardice.
The house-captain remained in the screaming maelstrom with eight men: all too proud or too dutiful to run, and all on the veteran side of forty.
‘We’re with you,’ one of them said, his voice raised to make it above the shouts.
‘Defend me!’ the hideous girl wailed again. ‘You have to protect me.’
Revus spoke a small prayer of reverence, wishing the shade of her father well, and promising to see him soon in the afterlife.
The invaders rose again. The screams faded to moans and grunts. They reached for weapons that had fallen into the gore.
Revus yelled ‘Charge!’ and did exactly that.
He cared nothing for slaying one of the invaders, for he knew he couldn’t. All he wished to do was break his blade upon their red armour – to land a single blow, when so many of the royal guard had died without even striking once.
One moment he ran and roared, the next, he was crashing to the floor. There wasn’t even any pain as his legs went out from under him, just a moment of dizziness, before looking up to see the crimson warrior towering above. His blade remained unbroken. His last wish, denied.
The invader stepped on the dying man’s chest, crushing every bone in his torso and pulping the organs. House-Captain Revus died without even knowing his legs and waist were three metres away, severed from his body by the red warrior’s first blow.
Torgal dispatched the last of the ardent defenders, reaching the throne before the other Gal Vorbak. Acidic bile still stung his throat, but control and strength alike had returned to his limbs. The vox was a frenetic exchange of squads all reporting the same crippling pain and the sound of laughter.
‘Leave my world!’ the psychopomp squealed from her chair.
Torgal plucked her up by her fat neck. The weight was considerable, even for Astartes battle armour. He felt gyros in his shoulder and elbow joints lock to deal with the strain.
Next to him, Seltharis was replacing his helm after spitting black bile at one of the dead bodies. ‘Just kill the piggish creature. We need to return to orbit. Something is wrong.’
Torgal shook his head. ‘Nothing is wrong.’ He did his best to ignore the girl’s weeping protests. ‘But we must commune with the Chaplain at once. If this is the ordained hour, we must–’
‘What?’ Seltharis was almost laughing. ‘What must we do? I am hearing a spirit laughing inside my skull, while my blood boils hot enough to burn my bones. We have no plan for this. None of us truly believed it would ever come.’
‘Leave my world!’ the matriarch insisted. ‘Leave us in peace!’
Torgal sneered at her behind his faceplate, loathing her down to the wretched, alien fish-stink of her sweating skin. What abominable event in this world’s past had led to such deviancy? What could make such desecration – the corruption of the human genome with alien genetics – a necessary reality? These people seemed no stronger, no more enlightened, no more industrious than any other human culture. In truth, they were less advanced than most.
‘Why did you do this to yourselves?’ the Astartes asked.
‘Leave my world! Leave!’
He threw her aside. The fleshy pile crashed to the ground, her dynasty ended by a broken neck.
‘Burn everything,’ ordered Torgal. ‘Burn it all, and summon a Thunderhawk. We stand at the ordained hour. I will report to the Crimson Lord.’
The Crimson Lord surveyed the courtyard. Empty, but for the grounded gunship.
He lowered his claws.
Torgal reported the monarch’s downfall almost an hour before, but Argel Tal’s fervour had faded even before the announcement. With the echo of that silent scream still drifting through his skull, he stood in the shadows of his Thunderhawk, Rising Sun, abstaining from the final slaughter within the palace. With flamers and incendiary grenades, the Gal Vorbak were erasing all evidence of royal life, gutting the pillared palace from within.
Most were voxing questions to one another, coating the communication network in a buzz of aggressive, amused voices. The words Ordained Time surfaced with sickening frequency. Their blood was up, for it seemed the gods had called.
Aquillon had followed him, which was the first thing he expected, and the very last thing he needed. The four Custodes were scattered among the Word Bearers assaulting the palace. They had surely seen everything, and that was going to become a problem sooner rather than later.
Argel Tal watched the man he would soon be ordered to kill, and wondered if he were capable of the act, both physically and morally.
‘I have no answer for you,’ Argel Tal told him. ‘I do not know what happened. A momentary weakness played over me. I forced it back. That is all I can tell you.’
The Custodes sighed through his helm speaker. ‘And you are well now?’
‘Yes. My strength returned quickly. There has been no moment of similar weakness.’
‘My men report similar incidents,’ the Custodian said. ‘Many of the Gal Vorbak fell as if struck by unseen hands, at the same moment you lapsed yourself.’ Aquillon removed his helm in a gesture of familiarity. It was a gesture that went unreturned. ‘We have detected no enemy weaponry capable of creating such an effect.’
He could only meet Aquillon’s gaze with his own eyes guarded by the lenses of his helm.
‘If I knew what had afflicted me,’ Argel Tal said, ‘I would tell you, brother.’
‘We have to consider that this is some previously unknown flaw in your Legion’s gene-seed.’
Argel Tal grunted a vague noise that may or may not have been affirmation.
‘You understand,’ the Custodian continued, ‘I must report this to the Emperor, beloved by all, at once.’
Behind his faceplate, Argel Tal was drooling blood again.
‘Yes,’ he said, licking his lips clean. ‘Of course you must.’
At first, he believed the scream was returning. Only after listening to its ululating wail for several moments did he turn back towards the palace walls.
‘Do you hear that?’ he asked.
This time, Aquillon nodded. ‘Yes. I do.’
When the siren started, almost all of the Word Bearers requested confirmation of its origins. The Colchisian rune flickering across hundreds of retinal displays told a blunt, stark tale, but it was a story that made no sense.
Even among the Gal Vorbak, the red-clad warriors hesitated in their fire-bearing purges, voxing to the orbiting fleet for immediate confirmation and explanation.
In the courtyard, Argel Tal and Aquillon boarded the Rising Sun, ordering their warriors to return to their dropships without hesitation. The psychopomp’s palace no longer mattered. This entire compliance was now meaningless.
‘All Word Bearers, all Custodes, all Imperial Army forces of the 1,301st Expeditionary Fleet – hear these words. This is Argel Tal, Master of the Serrated Sun. Word has reached De Profundis from Terra itself, bearing the seal of the Emperor. The Isstvan System is in open rebellion, led by four of our own Legions. Rumours are rife, and facts are few. It is said the Warmaster has renounced his blood-oaths to the Throneworld. True or false, we will not go to war blinded by ignorance. But we will answer the primarch’s call, for Lorgar himself demands we respond.
‘Disengage from the surface attack, and regroup at your transports. Return to orbit at once. We are ordered to Isstvan, and we will obey as we were born to obey. The Word Bearers will cut to the heart of this betrayal, tearing the truth out from within. Officers, to your stations. Warriors, to your duties.
That is all, for now.’
Aquillon stood with the Crimson Lord in the gunship’s crew bay. ‘I cannot give this even a moment’s belief. Horus? A traitor?’ The Custodian ran his fingertips over the flat of his sword’s blade. ‘This cannot be true.’