'Why him?'

Why not him? He was angry at you for overlooking him, and his anger made him vulnerable. The tendrils of the warp are always eager to exploit such chinks in the mind. I imagine the insurgents hoped that scores of your men would fall under the power they had let loose, but Tenth Company had more resolve than that. Samus was just a voice from the Chaotic realm that briefly anchored itself to Jubal's flesh. You dealt with it well. It could have been far worse.'

'You're sure of this, sir?'

Horus grinned again. The sight of that grin filled Loken with sudden warmth. 'Ing Mae Sing, Mistress of Astropaths, informed me of a rapid warp spike in this region just after you disembarked. The data is solid and substantive. The locals used their limited knowledge of the warp, which they probably understood as magic, to unleash the horror of the Empyrean upon you as a weapon.'

'Why have we been told so little about the warp, sir?' Loken asked. He looked direcdy into Horas's wide-set eyes as he asked the question.

'Because so litde is known,' the Warmaster replied. 'Do you know why I am Warmaster, my son?'

'Because you are the most worthy, sir?'

Horus laughed and, pouring another glass of wine, shook his head. 'I am Warmaster, Garviel, because the Emperor is busy. He has not retired to Terra because he is weary of the crusade. He has gone there because he has more important work to do.'

'More important than the crusade?' Loken asked.

Horus nodded. 'So he said to me. After Ullanor, he believed the time had come when he could leave the crusading work in the hands of the primarchs so that he might be freed to undertake a still higher calling.'

'Which is?' Loken waited for an answer, expecting some transcendent truth.

What the Warmaster said was, 'I don't know. He didn't tell me. He hasn't told anyone.’

Horus paused. For what seemed like an age, the wind banged against the longhouse shutters. 'Not even me.’ Horus whispered. Loken sensed a terrible hurt in his commander, a wounded pride that he, even he, had not been worthy enough to know this secret.

In a second, the Warmaster was smiling at Loken again, his dark mood forgotten. 'He didn't want to burden me.’ he said briskly, 'but I'm not a fool. I can speculate. As I said, the Imperium would not exist but for the warp. We are obliged to use it, but we know perilously little about it. I believe that I am Warmaster because the Emperor is occupied in unlocking its secrets. He has committed his great mind to the ultimate mastery of the warp, for the good of mankind. He has realised that without final and full understanding of the Immaterium, we will founder and fall, no matter how many worlds we conquer.’

'What if he fails?' Loken asked.

'He won't.’ the Warmaster replied bluntly.

'What if we fail?'

'We won't.’ Horus said, 'because we are his true servants and sons. Because we cannot fail him.’ He looked

at his half-drunk glass and put it aside. 'I came here looking for spirits,' he joked, 'and all I find is wine. There's a lesson for you.'

TRUDGING, UNSPEAKING, THE warriors of Tenth Company clambered from the cooling stormbirds and streamed away across the embarkation deck towards their barracks. There was no sound save for the clink of their armour and the clank of their feet.

In their midst, brothers carried the biers on which the dead of Brakespur lay, shrouded in Legion banners. Four of them carried Flora and Van Krasten too, though no formal flags draped the coffins of the dead remembrancers. The Bell of Return rang out across the vast deck. The men made the sign of the aquila and pulled off their helms.

Loken wandered away towards his arming chamber, calling for the service of his artificers. He carried his left shoulder guard in his hands, Jubal's sword still stuck fast through it.

Entering the chamber, he was about to hurl the miserable memento away into a corner, but he pulled up short, realising he was not alone.

Mersadie Oliton stood in the shadows.

'Mistress.’ he said, setting the broken guard down.

'Captain, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to intrude. Your equerry let me wait here, knowing you were about to return. I wanted to see you. I wanted to apologise.’

'For what?' Loken asked, hooking his battered helm on the top strut of his armour rack.

She stepped forward, the light glowing off her black skin and her long, augmented cranium. 'For missing the opportunity you gave me. You were kind enough to suggest me as a candidate to accompany the undertaking, and I did not attend in time.’

'Be grateful for that.’ he said.

She frowned. 'I... there was a problem, you see. A friend of mine, a fellow remembrancer. The poet Ignace Karkasy. He finds himself in a deal of trouble, and I was taken up trying to assist him. It so detained me, I missed the appointment.’

'You didn't miss anything, mistress.’ Loken said as he began to strip off his armour.

'I would like to speak with you about Ignace's plight. I hesitate to ask, but I believe someone of your influence might help him.’

'I'm listening.’ Loken said.

'So am I, sir.’ Mersadie said. She stepped forward and placed a tiny hand on his arm to restrain him slightly. He had been throwing off his armour with such vigorous, angry motions.

'I am a remembrancer, sir.’ she said. Your remembrancer, if it is not too bold to say so. Do you want to tell me what happened on the surface? Is there any memory you would like to share with me?'

Loken looked down at her. His eyes were the colour of rain. He pulled away from her touch.

'No.’ he said.

Loathe and love

This world is Murder

A hunger for glory

EVEN AFTER HE'D slain a fair number of them, Saul Tarvitz was still unable to say with any certainty where the biology of the megarachnid stopped and their technology began. They were the most seamless things, a perfect fusion of artifice and organism. They did not wear their armour or carry their weapons. Their armour was an integument bonded to their arthropod shells, and mey possessed weapons as naturally as a man might own fingers or a mouth.

Tarvitz loamed mem, and loved them too. He loathed them for their abominable want of human perfection. He loved them because diey were genuinely testing foes, and in mastering them, the Emperor's Children would take another stride closer to attaining their full potential. 'We always need a rival.’ his lord Eidolon had once said, and the words had stuck forever in Tarvitz's mind, 'a true rival, of considerable strength and fortitude. Only against such a rival can our prowess be properly measured.’

There was more at stake here than the Legion's prowess, however, and Tarvitz understood that solemnly. Brother Astartes were in trouble, and this was a mission - though no one had dared actually use the term - of rescue. It was thoroughly improper to openly suggest that the Blood Angels needed rescuing.

Reinforcement. That was the word they had been told to use, but it was hard to reinforce what you could not find. They had been on the surface of Murder for sixty-six hours, and had found no sign of the 140th Expedition forces.

Or even, for the most part, of each other.

Lord Commander Eidolon had committed the entire company to the surface drop. The descent had been foul, worse than the warnings they had been given prior to the drop, and the warnings had been grim enough. Nightmarish atmospherics had scattered their drop pods like chaff, casting them wildly astray from their projected landing vectors. Tarvitz knew it was likely many pods hadn't even made it to the ground intact. He found himself one of two captains in charge of just over thirty men, around one third of the company force, and all that had been able to regroup after planetfall. Due to the storm-cover, they couldn't raise the fleet in orbit, nor could they raise Eidolon or any other part of the landing force.