148 - The Plague Strikes

“Contact Fakus.” Abaddon turned to the sorcerer in the beast mask, who was carving an eight-pointed summoning rune into a table. “Let me hear how his part of the plan is progressing.”

“As you wish, Warmaster.” The Chaos sorcerer bowed deeply. As always, he was careful to avert his gaze, lest he anger his cold-blooded, tyrannical master. Abaddon regarded him with contempt. A coward, but a useful one.

Ritual incense burned. Smoke drifted across the bridge, mingling with the smell of burning human bones. Harsh syllables of the Dark Tongue rose from the sorcerer's eight-pointed array. More than a dozen black-robed attendants growled blasphemous ritual words and strange prayers. The air above the octagon shimmered. Unnatural currents swirled, then stilled.

Fakus's red armor and twisted form gradually took shape in the mist. The sorcerer bowed again and withdrew into the shadows with his attendants. Fakus had been one of the highest-ranking commanders of the Sixteenth Legion, the Sons of Horus, and one of the few senior officers to survive the battle for Terra.

After their defeat, he had fled into the Eye of Terror with Horus's body. Later, an Emperor's Children warband and other Traitor Legions had smashed the Sons of Horus's most cherished memorial hall and stolen the remains. Desperate to recover his gene-father's body, Fakus had searched for the Vengeful Spirit, hoping to use that terrible weapon of war to take it back. In doing so, he had found Abaddon and persuaded him to return, assume command, and establish the Black Legion.

“Report your situation, Fakus,” Abaddon said.

“We have sent a plea for aid in the name of this pitiful fleet. The Primarch who calls himself a savior will not abandon his followers. We need only wait for him to come. Until then, we must keep these people where they are.”

“Are the hunters ready in every direction? I hunger for that Primarch's head and blood.”

“Once he enters, there will be no escape. To suppress his power, we have prepared a weapon blessed by the gods. One small cut will bring him face-to-face with all four. No creature can confront those ancient beings.”

Abaddon nodded. “Guilliman has always been a shortsighted fool. This time I will hang his head on my bridge and show him that the age of Primarchs is over.”

“It will be as you wish, Warmaster. Those deceived by the Corpse Emperor never come to a good end.”

“Everything will unfold as planned.” Abaddon reached for Drach'nyen's scabbard, promising it that slaughter was close at hand. He signaled for the ship to get underway. A bank of servitors jerked to life, their red lights flickering.

“This world will burn. A Primarch's fall is inevitable.” He made the declaration with a shark's smile, baring his pointed teeth.

“Keep dreaming. A fool like you thinks he can hurt the Regent?” the captive Primaris said. Pain strained his voice, but its hatred was unrestrained.

“You will be defeated. The Emperor's light will shine upon every world, and the Regent's will shall reach across the stars. You traitors will face your final reckoning.”

“Enough, fool.” A curt gesture from Abaddon extinguished the incense and cut off Fakus's report. He strode toward the prisoner, drawing Drach'nyen. The daemon-haunted sword made an ugly sound.

Drach'nyen was itself a daemon, born of the first murder: the cause, the act, and the consequence of one human taking another's life.

Human history had known many great moments. Taming fire had set mankind apart from beasts. The wheel, gunpowder, and paper had followed. There had been the discoveries of relativity, fundamental mechanics, and the quantum realm; the first journey into the stars, the first colony, and the discovery of the Navigator gene. Many historians regarded these as the turning points of history.

Those who truly understood knew that the first murder had been the turning point. Even the most deranged and foolish religions condemned it. That killing had divided humanity, fed the creatures of the Warp, and set mankind upon its destined path of peril. Drach'nyen was also called the End of Empires.

It had given the Emperor his first revelation. Humanity needed laws and a sovereign to rule it. Judgment must rest with law and sovereign, never with those seeking vengeance. That was the first truth the Emperor had understood.

Christianity, the religion he had founded, told the story of Cain murdering his older brother Adam out of jealousy. Through that story, the Emperor had offered humanity a veiled warning. The blood of betrayal and murder was a curse borne by the entire species.

Over the long ages, mankind had repeated the same acts of fratricide, betrayal, and murder. The Old Ones had fallen to the Necrontyr and the C'tan. The Aeldari had fallen to unrestrained desire. Humanity alone had fallen to betrayal. First came the rebellion of the Men of Stone and Men of Iron, beings humanity had created and given equal standing.

Countless accounts showed that, during the Dark Age of Technology, the Men of Iron and Men of Stone had been humanity's brothers and friends, not its servants. Yet the terrible rebellion had happened all the same, leaving humans with a lasting hatred of artificial intelligence.

The second betrayal came from Horus, the Emperor's seventeenth son. He had spent thirty years at the Emperor's side, the only Primarch to grow to adulthood beside him. Victory at Ullanor during the Great Crusade had earned him the title of Warmaster and command of all the Imperium's armies.

Because of his pact with the four gods, the Emperor had known that Primarchs would rebel. He had never imagined Horus would be among them. Perhaps he had felt little for some of his other sons. Perhaps he had failed them. But he had not failed Horus. He had given that son what tenderness remained to him, patiently teaching and guiding him. In the end, Horus had rebelled, and nine Traitor Primarchs had fought nine loyal brothers in a bloody war.

The Imperium had almost never been brought to ruin by an external foe. Again and again, it had been defeated from within. Betrayal and murder marked both the beginning and the end of humanity's suffering. However powerful mankind became, whatever it achieved, its final fate was to stain its hands with brothers' blood and perish in endless conflict.

But noble Dante had shifted that supposedly immutable fate. Through his death, he had awakened Sanguinius from the four gods' trap. A brother's blood upon one's hands could now mean something else: redemption.

As Drach'nyen came free of its scabbard, twisted faces covered its blade. They were the souls of the dead it had devoured. Its hunger for human blood and souls never ceased.

The daemon already sensed that something was wrong. Its power over humanity seemed much weaker. Mankind's curse was fading. It needed more human blood and more souls to strengthen its hold, or it would become no more than an ordinary daemon.

Abaddon lowered the glowing point toward the prisoner's throat. With practiced skill, he used the sword's malevolent flame-wreathed blade to slit the fallen warrior's throat and extract his gene-seed.

The Primaris spat at him. Acidic saliva hissed against his boot. Abaddon sneered and drove Drach'nyen into the steel deck, making the prisoner watch himself die. “You will never return to that rotting Corpse Emperor. Your soul will be trapped, cursed forever, with no release.”

Drach'nyen gleamed with evil light, showing the Primaris how futile his dying struggle was. Little by little, his soul was being drawn into the sword.

“No.” The loyalist forced out the word. He wanted to return to the Emperor's embrace, not remain a daemon's prisoner forever.

“Enjoy your fear, fool,” Abaddon said. “Guilliman will join you soon.”

Within the storm's vast vortex, the fleet still struggled onward. Celestine had donned a Navigator's helmet. Kaleb and the others formed a circle around her, singing the Emperor's praises. Through the helmet, she amplified the holy light surrounding her into searing shock waves. The storm could no longer tear ships away from the fleet.

Each pulse felt as though it set her body on fire. She understood the Emperor's pain more deeply now. Merely using her psychic power to keep a single fleet moving subjected her to such torment. He had to sustain the Astronomican, preserve humanity's passage through the Warp, and hold back a full-scale invasion from beyond reality. At critical moments, he even sent his Legion of the Damned to defend lost Imperial worlds. How much greater must his suffering be?

At last, Celestine understood her own arrogance and folly. She should never have defied Guilliman and separated the fleet. Countless warriors had died for nothing because of her decision.

Perhaps realizing that the storm could no longer harm them as before, the ships hidden in the Warp began to emerge. They split into small hunting groups and attacked the expeditionary fleet. Its warriors fought them again and again, running themselves to exhaustion.

While the fleet passed through a belt of acidic mist, a swarm of plague flies attacked. Its scale rivaled a flotilla of escort ships. Crews aboard the smaller vessels suffered terrible casualties. Warp-borne disease took hold of the survivors.

Kaleb had to leave Celestine to help the afflicted. Under the protection of several Primaris, he traveled to the infected ships. Revulsion struck him as he stepped out of the teleportation chamber. The plague had infected more than human flesh. It had infected the entire warship.

Patches of rust marked the walls. These vessels had been refitted only recently at forge worlds under Ultramar's control. Now corrosion covered them. Faint whispers drifted through the air.

Buzzing flies obscured the round ceiling lamps and swirled like smoke around the electronic equipment. Warriors carrying flamers passed back and forth, trying to burn them all. But the insects slipped into cracks before the flames reached them, then emerged again once the soldiers had gone.

They searched for gaps in protective clothing and clogged the vents in seething masses. No one aboard dared remove their protective gear, yet it could not prevent the suffering. Blisters and pustules covered the infected; the slightest touch brought agonizing pain. Kaleb watched his unfortunate companions scream and sob.

“Kill me. Please.” A soldier rushed toward him, pleading. Through the man's faceplate, black specks could be seen writhing beneath his skin. Every so often, a fly burst from a pustule on his face and buzzed its wings. The corrupting daemon flies had made him an incubator. Countless insects were breaking out from inside his body, and all he could do was wait to die.

A doctor approached, his own face covered in pustules and rotting, suppurating wounds. He soothed the soldier, injected him with a sedative, and took him somewhere with slightly fewer flies.

Doctors and Legion Apothecaries hurried among the sick, trying to cure their comrades. They too were already infected.

Regret overwhelmed Kaleb. They had been fools. Watching Guilliman win victory after victory, they had decided the Warp was nothing to fear. Now the enemy was showing them how terrible it truly was.

They were near collapse before a frontal assault had even begun. There was no retreat. Faced with these enemies, they had no answer and no idea what to do. Countless soldiers and Primaris had died because of them.