“Of course, my king,” agreed Wyrdmake.

Russ returned his attention to Ahriman. The Wolf King was not looking at him as an individual, but as a target for his aggression. The primarch’s eyes darted over Ahriman’s armour, identifying weakened joints, areas of damage and points of entry for a blade. In an instant, Russ knew his physique better than he knew it himself, where his bones could most easily be broken, where a sword might best penetrate or where a fist would break open a protective plate and sunder internal organs.

“Where is your liege lord?” demanded Russ. “He should be here.”

“I am here,” said the deeply resonant voice of Magnus, and the force of Russ’ presence diminished, like a storm kept at bay by one of Phosis T’kar’s kine shields.

The Wolf King’s natural state of aggression slackened, the hostility he’d displayed towards Ahriman mitigated. Such was only to be expected, for Magnus was Russ’ brother, a genetic kinsman who shared a connection to the Emperor few other beings could claim.

Decades ago, Magnus had attempted to tell the tale of his creation to a gathering of the Rehahti. “Creation”, deliberately chosen instead of “birth”. Magnus had not been born as mortals were born, but had been willed into life by the designs of the Emperor. As philosophically advanced as his captains were, the concepts were too alien, too beyond mortal comprehension for any of them to understand.

To be conscious of your body growing around you, to have awareness of your brain taking shape as architecture instead of organism, and to have discourse with your creator even as your existence moved from conceptual possibility to tangible reality had proved too complex to explain to those who had not experienced such a uniquely hastened evolution.

And these were the simplest of concepts to absorb. To know these things and to not be driven insane required a singular mind, a mind advanced enough to grasp the ungraspable, to conceive the inconceivable: a primarch’s mind.

To have shared that moment of creation with another being, to know that amongst all the galaxy’s aeons of creation there had never existed beings like you and your brothers, had bonded the primarchs in ways unattainable by mortals.

Yet despite that shared heritage, there was no love lost between Magnus and Russ. The legendary brotherhood of primarchs, so beloved of the iterators orations was utterly absent.

“Brother Russ,” said Magnus the Red, moving past Ahriman to stand before the Wolf King. Magnus wore his horned armour of gold and leather, his feathered cloak snatched and fluttered by the winds. The two primarchs had served in the same war for just over six months and this was the first time they had met in thirty years.

Ahriman wasn’t sure what he had expected of two primarchs meeting after decades apart, but it certainly wasn’t this stilted display of forced friendship. Russ’ wolves snarled and bared their fangs. Magnus shook his head slowly, and they stepped back, pressing close to their master’s legs with their ears pressed flat to their skulls.

“Magnus,” said Leman Russ, the fraternal shake perfunctory and lacking any warmth. Russ looked Magnus up and down. “That cloak makes you look like the enemy. It’s the feathers.”

“Or perhaps, their cloaks make them look like me?”

“Either way, I don’t like it. You should get rid of it. A cloak is a liability in battle.”

“I could say the same of that mangy wolf pelt.”

“You could, but then I’d have to kill you,” replied Russ.

“You could try,” said Magnus, “but you wouldn’t succeed.”

“Is that what you think?”

“It’s what I know.”

Ahriman was horrified by this exchange. Then he saw the faintest smirk on Russ’ lips, and a glint of mischief in his primarch’s glittering amber eye.

He let out a tense breath, sensing a familiar pattern to their argumentative banter. Ahriman had often observed that soldiers who exchanged the most vulgar comments were often steadfast brothers-in-arms, where the level of friendship could be judged by how foul their greetings were to one another. Might this be something similar?

Despite his realisation, there was an edge to this exchange, as though cruel barbs neither primarch was aware of were concealed in the jests.

Or perhaps they wereaware of them. It was impossible to tell.

“What brings you to Raven’s Aerie 93, brother? I had not thought to see you until the assault on Phoenix Crag.”

“That time is upon us,” said Leman Russ, all levity absent from his icy tone. “My forces are poised to unleash the murder-make at our foe’s kings.”

“And the Urizen?” asked Magnus, using the Word Bearers devotional name for their primarch. “Is he also ready to strike?”

“Do not call him that,” said Leman Russ. “His name is Lorgar.”

“Why do you dislike that name so much?”

“I don’t know,” said Russ. “Do I need a reason?”

“No, I was simply curious.”

“Not everything needs an explanation, Magnus,” said Russ. “Some things just are. Now gather your warriors, it is time to finish this.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Phoenix Crag

EXPLOSIONS PAINTED THE sky, burning wrecks spiralled down to destruction, and streaking blasts of anti-aircraft fire stitched bright traceries across the heavens. Ahriman felt them all moments before they happened, flinching in anticipation of shells that hadn’t burst or zipping lines of flak that hadn’t been fired.

He reclined in a converted gravity harness built into the crew compartment of a heavily modified Stormhawk transporter designated Scarab Prime. Flying behind the main body of the aerial assault, the tempo of Ahriman’s pulse increased as the jerking images of the future blazed like miniature suns in his mind.

A dozen warriors of the Scarab Occult stood behind him in vertical restraints, bolters clamped to their chests, looking like reliquary statues at the entrance to an ancient king’s tomb. Lemuel Gaumon was dwarfed by their bulk, his ebony features pale and sweat-streaked as he kept his eyes screwed tightly shut.

To bring mortals on combat missions was a new development for the Thousand Sons, but in response to their repeated requests, Magnus had decreed that any remembrancers that desired to witness the full fury of an Astartes assault would be permitted to do so.

Surprisingly, only a few had accepted. Ahriman knew Lemuel was beginning to regret his hasty decision, but as a Neophyte it was only right that he be here. Camille Shivani travelled on a Thunderhawk of the 6th Fellowship, her mind relishing the chance to get close to the front lines of war. Her normal line of research dealt with civilisations long gone.

Now she might see one vanish before her very eyes.

Kallista Eris had chosen not to fly into harm’s way. Another attack of what she called the fire had left her drained and exhausted. Mahavastu Kallimakus travelled with Magnus, though compared to the panicked and exhilarated thoughts of his fellow remembrancers, his mind was dull, like a fire all but smothered by suffocating foam.

Within Ahriman’s Stormhawk, internal spaces normally reserved for troops and heavy equipment were filled with banks of surveyor gear and crystalline receptors. Heavy cables snaked across the armoured floor of the compartment, plugging into the elevated harness upon which he sat.

Ahriman’s head was encased in a gleaming hood of shimmering light, a gossamer-thin matrix of precisely cut crystals hewn from the Reflecting Caves beneath Tizca. His mind floated in a meditative state, unbound from his mortal flesh and occupying a detached state in the higher Enumerations.

Fine copper wires trailed from this crystal hood, their nickel-jacketed ends immersed in psi-reactive gels that amplified Ahriman’s thoughts and allowed others to receive them. His mind skimmed the surface of the Great Ocean, allowing Aaetpio to guide the currents of potential futures his way. This close to the present, such echoes were easy to find, and it was a simple matter for a Tutelary of a Master of the Corvidae to pluck them from the aether.