War Without End Read online

  ‘After this,’ said Vulkan, angrily jabbing a finger towards the empty darkness and imagining the swathe of atmospheric dust that used to be Nostramo. ‘How?’

  Horus smiled in a way that suggested he already knew this would work, and had but to convince Vulkan of it.

  ‘Each of us shall take him under our wing, nurture him.’ He gestured with his hands, miming the next part. ‘Mould him into the weapon he needs to be, not the jagged implement he is right now.’

  Vulkan frowned, thinking of the midnight-clad prisoner they held, doubting the sagacity of his brother’s suggestion.

  ‘Think of it like this,’ said Horus, his optimism unwavering. ‘You are a weapon maker, the weapon maker. Curze is but an untempered blade that requires its edge honing. Remake him, as you would remake a broken sword, Vulkan.’

  There was a vibrancy to his eyes as Horus made his pitch, his certainty for his wayward brother’s resurgence becoming infectious.

  ‘I believed him,’ said Vulkan, leaving the past behind. ‘Curze was to be separated from the bulk of his Legion, in the hope that – free of Nostramo’s malign influence – he could change. I would take him first, then Dorn… once he was healed.’

  ‘Healed?’

  Vulkan’s expression turned rueful. His eyes met the forge master’s. ‘Curze had tried to kill Rogal.’

  T’kell cursed under his breath at this admission.

  ‘The Praetorian of Terra?’

  ‘I know of no other,’ said Vulkan. ‘For Horus’s plan to work, it was vital that the relationship between Dorn and Curze be repaired. But after Kharaatan I knew we had erred. I don’t know whom Horus had planned to put Curze with next, but we didn’t get that far. The demands of the Great Crusade and his new position as Warmaster kept Horus in a distant orbit. I couldn’t attend the Triumph at Ullanor, so I had not seen him in person since Nostramo. Years had passed without word between us, but I knew I must disturb him for this. I had seen what was within Curze’s heart. It was nightmarish and broken. I pitied my brother, hated his deeds but not him, and feared what he would do or become if allowed to continue.

  ‘Horus and I met across a lithocast projection. I had already spoken to Dorn, who had returned to Terra by that point, and we were of the same mind. Foolishly, I thought Horus would be too. His initial greeting was warm enough, if a little more prickly than I had once known.’

  ‘Brother Vulkan, what matter of great import do you come to me with that warrants my time and the disruption of our father’s Crusade?’

  The Warmaster stood amongst warriors on the bridge of his flagship, an array of sensorium and auguries suggested along the edges of the hololith. He wore different battleplate to their last meeting aboard the Vengeful Spirit, repainted in the deep sea green of his newly renamed Legion.

  The Sons of Horus.

  ‘The undertone of condescension was hard to miss,’ Vulkan said to T’kell. ‘I have no doubt it was deliberate.’

  ‘I apologise, brother, for taking you away from your duties, but I believe this matter is dire enough that it must come to your attention.’

  Horus’s eyes widened and Vulkan could not deny the sense that his brother was mocking him.

  ‘It must? Well, then you had best speak of it, Vulkan, so I can gauge for myself just how dire the matter is.’

  It was more than just the Warmaster’s tone that worried Vulkan – something deeper, implied rather than overtly expressed. Though little of the ship was discernible behind Horus in the hololith, there was enough to suggest that it had been changed. Markings that had not been there before, strange symbols Vulkan did not know the meaning or significance of, were partly visible. At first, he considered they might be lodge sigils, as it was Horus who had instigated these traditions within the Legions. Vulkan had eschewed them, despite his brother’s overtures, such bonding rituals redundant in the face of the Drake’s own Promethean Creed.

  But what he saw did not seem entirely related to lodge culture. There was something else, something inscrutable…

  ‘It was as if another being were wearing my brother’s skin,’ Vulkan explained. ‘Yet even that skin, with all its usual trappings, was a darker version of what I knew.’

  ‘You believed him changed?’ asked T’kell.

  ‘It was more than that. I recounted what had happened on Kharaatan – Curze’s mania, his suicidal, nihilistic tendencies. Despite the strange mood I had found him in, I expected Horus to be appalled.’

  Vulkan paused, his jaw hardening at the memory.

  ‘But he laughed,’ he said, frowning incredulously. ‘I was angry and confused.’

  ‘I see nothing amusing in this, brother,’ Vulkan said, wondering what had happened to the noble warrior he had once so admired. ‘We have failed.’

  Horus’s mirth turned to serious intensity. ‘On the contrary. You have succeeded.’

  ‘I do not see how.’

  ‘Curze cannot be tamed. His is a necessary evil, a monster to help us win this long war and keep our hands clean.’

  ‘How are they clean? They are tainted just as his, perhaps not with murder, but with complacency in the full knowledge of Curze’s homicidal pathology.’

  Horus leaned in, his face filling the grainy hololith.

  ‘Every general needs a weapon of terror, an instrument to threaten the hardiest of his enemies with. You have sharpened ours well, Vulkan. From what you’ve told me, Curze has turned fear into a blade that I can wield.’

  ‘This is no weapon we should harness. His mind is broken, Horus. He needs help.’

  ‘He’s had help. Yours. And I am grateful for it.’ Horus leaned back again. ‘If there is nothing further?’

  ‘I saw something in Horus,’ Vulkan said to T’kell. ‘Something that stopped me from replying. It made me withhold the gift I had made for him. It made me realise that my pleas would forever fall on deaf ears. It has also driven me to my decision about the vault. Some weapons are simply too dangerous, in the wrong hands.’

  Despite everything he had heard, T’kell still pleaded.

  ‘You are not the leader of a rebellion against the Emperor. It is not your army that we go to censure on Isstvan. You are not Horus.’

  Vulkan’s eyes strayed to the vault. ‘Why is it so important to you that we do not destroy them?’

  ‘Because they are your work and legacy. Destroy them and the galaxy will never see their like again.’

  ‘And would that be such a terrible thing, my son? As weapon maker, I have forged an arsenal that could cause unimaginable death and suffering. That is not a legacy I want.’

  ‘Then why fashion them in the first place?’

  Vulkan leaned forward so he could place his hand on T’kell’s shoulder. The gesture dwarfed the forge master, but was paternal and reassuring.

  ‘Because it was my purpose, the one my father made me perform, and back then I did not believe any of us were the wrong hands. Through Curze and Horus, I now sadly know different. One maniac in our midst, a tragic error of nurture over nature that I can understand and accept. Horus is rational. Not only that, he is the very best of us. I would freely admit that it terrifies me to think of him wilfully inciting rebellion. He is an enemy I would not wish to fight on any level, not least of which because he is my brother. And should my craft, what lies beyond those vault doors, be taken by Horus… I cannot be responsible for that, T’kell.’

  Vulkan rose to his feet to declare the matter closed, taking up the hammer Dawnbringer as he did so.

  ‘Come. I’ll show you what must be done.’

  Together they crossed the smoke-thronged forge, their armour reflecting the lambent firelight, until they reached the door of the vault.

  It was immense, as was the vault itself, and Vulkan used an icon he had fashioned as part of his armour to unlock it. The small fuller slipped into a recess wrough
t into the door’s ornate surface. It was difficult to see, and T’kell realised he would not have found it without the primarch to show him.

  One twist and the cavernous space was filled with the dull clunk of gears, pulleys and chains – the sound of an old mechanism churning to life. After a few seconds the door began to open, slowly but inexorably. It split down the middle, each half opening outwards and into the forge.

  When the gap was wide enough, Vulkan stepped through and led T’kell into the vault after him.

  As he passed through this slender portal, T’kell marvelled at how thick the doors were, at the sheer incredible artifice of their construction. Despite their ostensible function, they were as beauteous as any of Vulkan’s creations. Had Ferrus Manus made these doors they would be cold, ugly things. Impervious, secure, but ultimately bland.

  Where the Lord of Iron was a smith, Vulkan was an artisan, or so T’kell believed.

  ‘You are the first and only one of my sons to see this vault,’ said Vulkan. ‘Held safe within its walls is every artefact I have ever forged.’

  Muttering a word of command, Vulkan ignited the braziers around the room. Flickering torchlight cast the contents of the vault in tones of umber and crimson, filling every recess with shadow. Only hints of the wonders that the primarch had fashioned were revealed.

  T’kell recognised some, and knew their names.

  Obsidian Chariot.

  Vermillion Sphere.

  Light of Unmaking.

  Some were constructed as simple blades; others were larger, more complex mechanisms. All were named.

  Names had power, as Vulkan often said. To name a thing was to give it identity, resonance. An enemy does not fear a man who wields a sword, but would give pause to one who held the Fangblade of Ignarak. Such things mattered to the Lord of Drakes and were a part of his teachings.

  ‘Such wonders…’ breathed T’kell, scarcely able to comprehend his primarch’s magnificent labours.

  Vulkan had set the hammer Dawnbringer down amongst the other treasures and was about to reach for his spear when he stopped, fingers poised to wrap around the haft. Sword and spear were his preferred weapons, Thunderhead having been destroyed earlier during the Great Crusade.

  ‘I hope your indecision represents a change of heart, primarch,’ ventured T’kell when he had recovered his composure enough to speak.

  ‘It does not. The artefacts must be destroyed. I am bound for Isstvan so cannot do it myself, which is why you must, T’kell.’

  ‘Then what is wrong, primarch?’

  Leaving the spear where it stood shackled to the rack, Vulkan took up Dawnbringer.

  ‘I believed I had chosen poorly, although this feels right,’ he said. ‘Fitting. Perhaps its epithet will see my brother illuminated after all.’

  T’kell looked on despairingly at the artefacts, desperate to preserve them and his lord’s legacy.

  ‘Primarch, I beseech you,’ he uttered, bowing to one knee. ‘Please do not ask me to do this. At least save something.’

  Vulkan looked down at his forge master, then to the inside of the vault.

  ‘There are weapons here that can destroy worlds, my son…’

  ‘Or save them from destruction,’ T’kell replied, looking up at his lord, ‘in the right hands.’

  ‘Mine?’ asked Vulkan, meeting the forge master’s pleading gaze.

  ‘Yes! Or Lord Dorn, or Guilliman. Even Russ!’

  Vulkan held T’kell’s gaze a moment longer before turning away.

  ‘Rise, forge master. I would not have one of my sons beg me on his knees.’ There was a snarl in Vulkan’s voice and for an instant T’kell thought he might have overstepped.

  ‘I am driven to it, primarch.’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘My lord?’

  Vulkan faced him.

  ‘I said, very well. Something should remain. If I destroy everything, then I have given up on hope and seeing loyalty and honour endure in my brothers. I won’t do that.’

  T’kell visibly relaxed, the relief at his primarch’s words evident on his face.

  ‘You are to remain here, T’kell. You won’t come to the Isstvan System – your place is now on Nocturne and Prometheus.’

  ‘But, primarch–’

  ‘Do not defy me a second time,’ Vulkan warned. ‘I am not that tolerant.’

  T’kell bowed his head in contrition.

  ‘You shall become Forgefather, and keeper of the artefacts in this vault.’

  ‘Forgefather?’ asked T’kell, frowning. ‘Am I not your forge master, my lord?’

  ‘Of course. A legionary can be more than one thing, T’kell. I am entrusting you with this duty, just as I entrusted you with the vault.’

  ‘What duty, primarch? Name it, and it shall be done.’

  ‘To act as custodian. To swear you will protect these artefacts and should anything happen to me, ensure they are well hidden, far from those who would seek to use them poorly.’

  T’kell saluted vehemently. ‘I swear it, Lord Vulkan.’

  ‘Good. Choose seven to remain, and only seven. One for each of our realms on Nocturne.’

  ‘There are thousands in here, primarch. How can I possibly–’

  ‘Indeed there are,’ said Vulkan, tying the hammer off around his belt and reaching for his gauntlet. Kesare’s drake scale mantle was already hanging around his broad shoulders. ‘Seven, Forgefather, that is what your primarch decrees.’ Vulkan was leaving, his mind now firmly on a reckoning with Horus.

  ‘I go to join with Ferrus’s fleet,’ he called back to T’kell. ‘See it is done before I return.’

  He walked away bound for the spaceport, leaving T’kell behind.

  The Forgefather regarded the contents of the vault, trying to contemplate the impossible task before him.

  ‘Seven…’

  The cavernous corridors of the Imperial Palace echoed with the rhythmic clatter of armour plate. The foot knights of the Legio Custodes marched with brazen purpose, the synchronised movement of ceramite and gold an elevated heartbeat in the hallowed halls. It was the sound of tranquil urgency – of vigilance, noble and true.

  Shield-Captain Enobar Stentonox was part of that vigilance, and had been for a long time. Today was different, however. Today he felt his own heart beating to the same rhythm as his marching step. Today he had the Palace watch: his first. For twenty-four hours, the security of the Imperial Palace – and by extension, of the Emperor himself – was in Stentonox’s hands.

  More than just a wonder crafted in blood and stone, the colossal Palace was many things to many people. To the Custodian Guard it was both security-sanctum and protectorate. To the primarch Rogal Dorn it was a bastion to fortify. To the army of ambassadors and Administratum officials that swarmed its halls, it was the heart of human governance. To the trillions of citizens on Ancient Terra and the worlds beyond, it was the centre of the known galaxy. As Master of the Watch, Stentonox would need to meet the competing demands of such roles, whilst maintaining the inviolate preservation of the Emperor’s person within the Palace’s mighty walls.

  The shield-captain’s steps were long with pride, but also heavy – not just with the ceremonial bulk of his plate, but also the crushing burden of his responsibilities. As his rattling stride took him through the Belvedereon Great Hall, he passed a marble statue of the Emperor. Couched in metaphor, it depicted the Emperor at the Declaration of Unity, balancing Terra upon one globed shoulder. For a moment, Stentonox allowed himself the indulgence of equating the honour and encumbrance to his own.

  As the Great Hall became the Colonnade Simulacrux, Stentonox’s march fell into step with the party of Custodians making their brisk way up the vaulted and pillar-lined passage. The architectural theme of the Great Hall had spilled out into the colossal space, and many heroes of the Unificatio
n Wars – including members of the Emperor’s personal guard – were immortalised in the stone of the columns. One of these giants also strode up the grand colonnade in the flesh, leading the party that Stentonox had joined.

  Constantin Valdor.

  A loyal Terran, Captain-General of the Legio Custodes and Chief Custodian of the Emperor of Mankind – in that order – he walked the lofty corridors of his master’s fortified palace. Brazier light dappled the golden brilliance of his battleplate, while the red of his robes honoured the blood historically spilled in the effort to safeguard his Emperor. Stentonox suspected that there would be a great deal more blood spilled in the near future.

  Flanked by members of his Ares Guard, Valdor was attended upon, at Stentonox’s arrangement, by the Sentinel-Securitas Justinian Arcadius. Like a small continent, the dimensions of the Palace were broad and wide, but the Captain-General’s itinerarium – known only to a few, including the Master of the Watch – now placed Valdor in the Upper Ward, which was where Stentonox had intended to meet him for the dawn report. Like a wall of beaten bronze perpetually at their back, the Custodian Dreadnought Indemnion tramped up the corridor with hydraulic menace. Its aged hull streamed with the aegis honours and ribbon banners of its own decorated service to the Emperor.

  Despite the early hour, the Captain-General had a smile for Stentonox, though the shield-captain doubted that Valdor had seen the inside of his personal chambers in several days. ‘Your first Palace watch?’

  ‘Yes, Captain-General,’ Stentonox confirmed.

  ‘Then I wish you a quiet duty,’ Valdor said. ‘Though they rarely are.’

  ‘If you have any advice to offer, Captain-General, then I would be glad of its guidance.’

  The Chief Custodian grunted with good humour. ‘Don’t get too attached to your protocols and regulata. Schedules are usually shattered by the second hour. Think of the solemn observance of our responsibilities as written in stone – but freshly inscribed in volcanic rock. Each day brings new challenges that test our routines, fresh eruptions that turn the cold certainty of ritual and order to situations that are fast moving and fluid. You must live the contradiction of being adaptable, and yet unyielding. And know that the word that will fall from your lips most often today will be “no”. Anything else, shield-captain?’