‘Decided by you?’ Delerax’s question was harsh with scorn. ‘Who are you to make such a decision?’

‘I am Alpharius,’ said the Legionnaire.

‘Remove yourself from my bridge, or I will have your corpse removed.’

Delerax glimpsed Kordassis to his left, pulling a bolt pistol from its holster. The World Eater smiled at the Alpha Legionnaire. His smile faded as he felt the cold touch of a muzzle against his cheek. He turned his head a fraction to see Kordassis holding his pistol to Delerax’s head.

‘What is this?’ the lieutenant-commander hissed. ‘What are you doing, Kordassis?’

‘I am not Kordassis,’ said the Space Marine holding the bolt pistol. ‘I am Alpharius.’

Delerax twisted and made a lunge for the traitor’s gun. Muzzle flash blinded the World Eater and an instant later he felt the side of his skull exploding.

BRANNE STOOD IN the docking bay watching the drop-ships landing. The first were already disembarking their passengers. With weary steps, the survivors of the Raven Guard filed down the ramps onto the deck.

They were a terrible sight. Most showed signs of injury. Their armour was a patchwork of colours; here the silver of an Iron Warrior shoulder pad; there the grey breastplate of a Word Bearer. Their armour was cracked and broken, bloodied and stained, and every face Branne looked upon was etched with fatigue. Glassy-eyed, the last survivors of the dropsite massacre trudged across the loading bay, welcomed by smiles and cheers from Branne’s warriors.

The last of the shuttles touched down. Branne approached it as the docking ramp lowered. The first Space Marine out was a bizarre sight, his armour a mess of colours and bare ceramite. Only his shoulder pad bearing the Legion’s badge remained from his original suit. He took off his helmet and tossed it the floor.

‘Agapito!’ Branne laughed. He slapped a hand to his true brother’s chest. ‘I knew you would be alive. Too stubborn to let something like this kill you.’

Branne looked closely at his brother, amazed by his outlandish appearance. A new scar ran from his right cheek to his throat, but beyond that it was the same face Branne had known for his whole life. Agapito returned the smile wearily. His deep brown eyes regarded Branne warmly. He reached a hand behind Branne’s head and pulled him closer. The two touched foreheads in a sign of respect and comradeship.

‘I see you have not managed to stay out of trouble, Branne.’

The commander stepped back from Agapito to see Corax descending the ramp. The primarch towered over his Legiones Astartes, his black armour showing as much wear and tear as that of those under his command.

‘I was monitoring your transmissions,’ said Corax. ‘Why did the enemy abort their attack?’

‘I have no idea, Lord Corax,’ said Branne. ‘Perhaps they thought better of the idea, taking on three vessels at once.’

‘Where are they now?’ asked the primarch.

‘They’ve withdrawn to a hundred thousand kilometres,’ Branne replied. ‘They don’t look as if they’ll try to attack again.’

‘Odd,’ said Corax. He shook his head as if dismissing a thought. ‘Signal the other ships to make course for Deliverance.’

‘Yes, Lord Corax,’ Branne said, holding his fist to his chest. ‘And where are we to head?’

‘Terra,’ replied the primarch. ‘I must have an audience with the Emperor.’

BLOOD AND BRAINS leaked from the side of Delerax’s skull. The World Eaters lieutenant-commander could feel his life leaking away with it. He could not move his legs and arms, and could feel nothing below his neck. It was an effort just to breathe.

He swivelled his eyes up to Kordassis, wondering who it was he looked at.

‘Why?’ he asked, his voice barely a whisper.

The Alpha Legionnaire loomed into view, stooping over Delerax. The World Eater could see his ravaged face reflected in the dark eye lenses of the Alpha Legionnaire’s helmet. That blank mask betrayed nothing of the Space Marine’s thoughts or mood. His metal-edged voice seemed distant as Delerax drew a last, rattling breath.

‘In times such as these, even the most trusted face can conceal an enemy.’

LITTLE HORUS

Dan Abnett

‘Look like the innocent flower,

but be the serpent under it.’

– Litus, Remarks.

LET US SPEAK of Little Horus, Little Horus Aximand. His aspect was the half moon, and his disposition, according to the humours, was inclining towards melancholia. This explained, many thought, his prevailing mood of sorrow and inner trouble, though he frequently denied it. ‘The melancholic humour is misunderstood,’ he said. ‘You think too literally. It has, in fact, the quality of autumn. It is the spirit of contemplative change, the accelerator of death, the enabler of ends and beginnings. Autumn clears away the world so that a new one may rise. This is my purpose. I am not sad.’

Of course, once they reattached his face, all he ever really looked was angry.

DWELL LAY IN their path, and illumination was required. The Dwellers were not Old Wayignorant. The shadows of the Long Night had been previously banished from their shores, and they had been compliant since their recovery thirty-two years earlier. The Dwellers had supplied eighty fine, loyalregiments to the Crusade armies.

Isstvan was fresh in the memory, however, and blood-stained rumours of the infamy were spreading. A ferocious series of repercussive combats had flared through the Momed, Instar and Oqueth sectors. The instigator was a leader of the Iron Tenth, a flesh-spare warleader of the Sorrgol Clan named Shadrak Meduson, and it was he who marshalled the loyalists against the approaching fleet of the Warmaster’s 63rd Expedition. Meduson and his formations had come too late to stand with their Iron-handed master at Isstvan V. Rage, and calculated vengeance, smoked in his alloy heart. He had gathered fifty-eight full battalions of the Imperial Army about him, war hosts from the Momed voidhives, along with a flotilla of siege hulks from Nahan Instar, a half-broken cadre of Salamanders, some Mechanicum claves, and a White Scars raid-force rerouted from a return voyage to the Chondax war front.

Dwell, with its fortified cities, orbital batteries, ship schools, and eight million pinnacle-grade fighting men, would be the cornerstone of Meduson’s line. And any fool could see the Elders of Dwell would never side against the Throne.

It was a matter of priority that their ignorance be illuminated swiftly, before they fell in step with the determined son of Medusa.

AXIMAND’S FACE HAD earned him his name, though he was not the only member of the Sixteenth Legion who resembled the primarch. For a good many, including the First Captain, elective genetics had guaranteed it. They were sons, truesons, amongst the Sons.

Aximand was the most alike of them all. It was not only the face; there was something in the manner of him.

Of course, he was Horus too, a common Cthonic name made popular because of the primarch. They were all sons of Horus in the end.

Little Horus. That’s what he was called, in tones simultaneously affectionate and mocking: Little Horus Aximand.

There was nothing little about him. Captain of the Fifth. One quarter of the Mournival.

‘He who serves as a captain here would be as a primarch in the company of others,’ said Abaddon, and he was talking of Aximand when he said it.

The reattachment left a scar. It set the character of the face differently, altered the seating of the muscles. Somehow, the wrongness, the imperfection, made him more like Horus, not less.

Steel forged on Medusa has such a fine edge.

HE HAD A dream he never shared with anyone. First Captain Abaddon had indeed proclaimed that dreams were a weakness to be eschewed by all the Adeptus Astartes. The dreamless Luna Wolves were surely the purest of all.