Warily he reached out to touch the spear. It was surprisingly cool and certainly inert, whatever past reaction it may have undergone now dormant but not yet spent. It hummed with a faint vibration, and the blade still threw off a lambent light that suggested its godlike provenance.

Monarchia… Yes, Elias remembered it well, too. He had wept that day, first tears of zealous joy as the cathedra had risen to the sky then righteous anger when the XIII had shamed his Legion and his primarch. He scarcely remembered the human dead, and felt the Emperor’s snub more keenly. Erebus had counselled him that day. He had counselled many. His master had seemed oddly sanguine, as if he knew some measure of what was going to happen before it had actually transpired. Thatwas power. To see fates, to bend and shape them to your will and benefit. Why Erebus had always skulked in the shadows, the power behind the throne instead of its incumbent king, Elias would never understand.

‘What does Erebus know that I–’

The thought was interrupted by the activation of his warp-flask.

Even in the eldritch fire of the flask, Erebus looked crooked and broken. He was dressed in dark robes with a deep cowl hiding his face and head.

Elias bowed at once. ‘Master… you are recovered?’

‘ Evidently not,’ said Erebus, gesturing to his bent-backed form, ‘ but I am healing.’

‘It is glorious to behold, my lord. When I left you in the apothecarion–’

Erebus interrupted. ‘ Tell me what is happening on Ranos.’

‘Of course,’ said Elias, bowing again so he could unclench his teeth without his anger being seen. He held up the spear. ‘The weapon,’ he announced proudly, ‘is in my possession.’

Erebus looked at him in silent incredulity.

Elias could not hide his confusion and said, ‘To win the war. Your last words to me before I left with my warriors.’

‘Your warriors, Elias?’

‘Yours, my lord, humbly appropriated for the task you gave me.’

‘ You have nothing but a spear, Elias. I meanweapons . That with which we shall win this war for Horus and the Pantheon.’ There was a slight angry tremor in Erebus’s voice when he mentioned the Warmaster’s name, and Elias briefly wondered what had happened between them. ‘ Sharpen our own, blunt theirs,’ Erebus told him. ‘ Whoever has the most weapons wins. Don’t you understand that yet?’

Elias was confused. He had done all that was asked of him and yet his master was obviously displeased. Erebus had also neglected to mention his injury, as if perhaps he already knew of it…

‘I… My lord?’ Elias began.

Erebus didn’t answer at first. He was muttering something as if speaking to someone Elias could not see, but the image in the flask showed a chamber that was empty save for Erebus.

‘ Where is John Grammaticus?’ he said at last.

‘Who? The human, you mean?’

‘ Where is he, Elias? You need him.’

‘I have men hunting for him as we speak. They are bringing him to me.’

‘ No,’ said Erebus. ‘ Do it yourself. Find John Grammaticus and hold him for me. Do not sully him in any way, that is my only warning to you.’

Elias raised an eyebrow, and tried to keep the fear out of his voice. ‘You are coming here?’

Erebus nodded. ‘ I have seen the mess you have made on Ranos.’

Fear turned to anger in Elias. ‘I could not have predicted the other legionaries’ presence here. Nor can I leave the ritual site. The Neverborn are–’

Erebus cut him off for the third time with a swipe of his hand. Elias noticed that it was a bionic and appended to his master’s severed wrist stump. ‘ As usual you have failed to grasp the subtleties of the warp. No more blood or further entreaties will get you what you want, Elias.’

‘I only serve you, my lord.’

Erebus chuckled. It was an unpleasant, throaty sound, like he was the victim of some pervasive cancer with only hours to live.

‘ I have matters to attend to here, but be ready for my coming. Be sure that Grammaticus is in your hands by the time that I arrive, or a fire-blackened limb will be the least of your concerns…’

The warp flame evaporated as quickly as it had manifested, leaving Elias alone. Despite the pain in his arm, his entire body tensed with barely contained anger.

‘I am your disciple…’ he gasped at the uncaring air. ‘Your follower. I saved you, took you from that chamber where you would have died without my help.’ His jaw clenched, so tightly that he could no longer utter words. All that came from Elias’s mouth was a spitting, frothing snarl. He fought for calm, found it in the dark pit of his rotten soul.

Elias called out to summon his equerry. ‘Jadrekk…’

The warrior appeared at the tent mouth almost immediately, bowing low.

‘We are leaving. Gather everyone, but leave two squads to maintain vigil over the pit. We are rejoining Narek and the others.’

Jadrekk bowed again and went to carry out his orders.

Thirty-seven legionaries awaited Elias beyond the confines of his sanctum. Twenty of those would stay behind, whilst the rest would reinforce Narek. It had never been intended as a battle force. It was an honour guard, Elias’s own personal cult. Mortals were but lambs to slaughter in the Pantheon’s name. Legionaries demanded sterner attention. Elias had thought the loyalists nothing more than an inconvenience, sustenance for the Neverborn when he unleashed them upon this world and forever tainted it for Chaos. Now they stood in the path of his deserved glory. They had proven resourceful so far, but their resistance was at an end. Sheathing the fulgurite spear in his scabbard, he lifted his mace with his good arm. It was heavy, but it felt good to wrap his fist around the skin-bound haft.

It would feel even better when it was cracking skulls, every blow a step towards his eventual apotheosis.

Erebus severed the psychic communion to his disciple and staggered. Reaching out, he supported himself against the wall of his cell and exhaled a shuddering breath. Even imbued by the power of the warp, his regeneration was slow. He looked down upon the bare metal of his bionic hand. It was already clenched in a fist, as if his will alone could sustain and restore him. The grimace on Erebus’s face was transformed into a smile. He saw it reflected in the metal floor of his sanctum, just as he saw the slow creeping of flesh that had begun to colonise his flayed visage. It was harder, darker than before. Tiny bone nubs protruded from his skull. His eyes took on a visceral cast. It was the favour of the gods, Erebus knew it. Lorgar and Horus might have forsaken him for now, but the Pantheon had not. He could feel their restlessness, however. Despite the Dark Apostle’s knowledge and manipulation of the fates, Horus was not the pawn that Erebus had claimed him to be.

In the earliest days, when sedition was muttered in whispers and the warrior lodges were in their infancy, there had been other choices. It need not have been Horus. None of that mattered now. Erebus was, above all, a survivor. His ravaged face and body bore testament to that.

‘I am still the architect of this heresy…’ he hissed to the darkness, which had been listening eagerly ever since he arrived.

His mistake was at Signus. Had he known, had he caught the slightest inkling of Horus’s jealousy… Sanguinius was supposed to have turned and become a Red Angel. Instead, he lived, and neither Horus nor Erebus had got what they wanted. He would be subtler next time. But he needed answers. The Angel and the Warmaster were not his concern now. Erebus’s eye had fallen upon another.

It took some effort, but he raised his head to meet the gaze of the other being in the room.

‘Can it kill him?’ he asked.

The creature manifest in a pall of roiling smoke opposite nodded its feathered heads. Its beaks chattered, incessantly mumbling. Erebus forced his mind to shut out these words, for they were madness and to hear them was to be damned to the same fate.