Heresy Ad Infinitum

[Corsair]

Heresy Ad Infinitum

By Tim Sweeney

 

‘Now,’

 

With but a single word did Heresy begin.

 

I

 

He crouched over the body of the Astropath like a starving predator over fresh-caught prey. The corpse had come apart in his grip, the soul-bonded psyker as frail in death as she had been in life.

 

‘By all the fires of Nocturne, what did you do?’

 

Virhaddon's eyes snapped upward, adrenaline still coursing through his veins. Both his hearts pounded arrythmically, seeming to slam against his rib cage. The speaker knelt beside him, clad in power armour a much deeper, more verdant shade of green than his own. His head was bare, revealing jet-black skin and pupil-less red eyes.

 

Salamander, he remembered, the thought dredged up through the malaise gripping his mind. Nu’kim.

 

‘Virhaddon?’

 

The others stared at him. They had not heard the words – the treacherous, blasphemous words – the Astropath had whispered to him, well-justified terror on her blind, withered face.

 

Holcius was the second speaker, concern furrowing his handsome brow. The purple-clad Emperor’s Child was the opposite of the monstrous-seeming Salamander, lean and pale and fair. He was as much a mirror of his Primarch as Captain Aximand was of Horus.

 

‘She spoke out of turn,’ Virhaddon said, voice hoarse. Acidic bile burned the back of his throat. His very body rose up against him at the thought of the Warmaster.

 

‘They do that sometimes, these mortals,’ said Usker, the words spoken in his usual buzzing monotone, issuing forth forth from the vox-speaker mounted upon the front of the Iron Hand’s insect-like helm. ‘The flesh is weak and often insubordinate.’

 

‘Is that worth murdering them for, Usker?’ Nu’kim snapped, fiery eyes still focussed on Virhaddon.

 

‘Even I think that was an overreaction, Luna Wolf,’ Cerck laughed harshly from where he sat on an ammunition crate, the numerous skulls hanging from his lightning-marked armour rattling against each other. He still refused to acknowledge that the Legion had been renamed the Sons of Horus, seeing it as a slight against his own Primarch.

 

‘”Overreaction,” Night Lord?’ whispered Dagmar. The Alpha Legionnaire always spoke softly, calmly, with the unearned aloofness so typical of his arrogant young Legion. ‘It was both wasteful and unnecessary. I expected better from Horus’ progeny.’

 

‘Enough!’ spittle flew from between clenched teeth as Virhaddon sprang to his feet. He watched Nu’kim’s hand reach instinctively for the gladius hanging at his hip, stopping at the last moment from drawing the blade.

 

‘Peace, brother,’ said Holcius, hands raised as though he were soothing an unruly child. The Emperor’s Child was ever the peacemaker, trying to placate the disparate band whenever tempers were lost. It had certainly had plenty of practice, as of late. They had been trapped aboard the tiny courier vessel for several weeks now, a catastrophic warp drive failure leaving them stranded what had seemed like mere hours after leaving Terra, yet the Navigator had no inkling of where the Empyrean had spat them out. Tensions grew higher by the day.

 

‘What did the human say?” asked Usker, not bothering to look up from the bolter he was working on. The weapon belonged to Cerck, the last of their weapons to be improved upon by the Iron Hand in the time they had been trapped, giving them a level of attention rare outside the officer cadre of their respective Legions. It had been a gesture of camaraderie, reminding Virhaddon once again that even the seemingly emotionless Iron Hands showed more humanity than the accursed Night Lords.

 

‘Yes, what terrible heresy was worth killing our only contact with the Imperium?’ asked Dagmar, one eyebrow raised.

 

‘Rescue is on the way,” Virhaddon slumped, the anger of a moment before gone. He felt empty now, as though a part of him had died with his rage. Worst of all, he felt afraid. Actual fear.

 

‘That bitch,’ said Cerck sardonically, lips twisted in a cruel smile.

 

‘What else, Delzyle?’ Holcius laid a hand on his shoulder, still speaking slowly and calmly.

 

The rage returned in an instant, and Virhaddon welcomed it. He stepped forward, seizing the Emperor’s Child by the armoured collar. His fist, still dripping with the blood of the Astropath, connected with the blonde man’s face before he even registered what was truly happening, sending him crashing to the deck.

 

‘Damn you, Fulgrim’s gilded bastard, you will not speak to me like I am mentally deficient!’

 

Nu’kim crashed into him from the side, Dagmar moving in to help the Salamander pin Virhaddon face-up on the deck. He thrashed and swore, trying to escape.

 

‘What else did she say, Delzyle?’ Holcius had already returned to his feet, nose leaking blood. The Emperor’s Child smiled sadly. 'Tell us the truth, brother. If not for me, then-'

 

'-For the Emperor!'

 

Virhaddon threw back his head and laughed at the mocking war cry. He watched as the Emperor's Child howled his mantra over and over again, the words rendered into a deadly weapon by the grotesque vox-speaker and dark mechanisms that replaced his lower jaw.

 

The White Scar dropped to his knees before the warped Marine, skin flensed from his face, muscle sloughing off bone, skull cracking and crumbling to dust.

 

'Virhaddon!' The warped Marine howled now. 'Virhad'-

 

Something came to rest against Virhaddon’s throat, bringing him back to reality. He blinked, shaking his head in an attempt to snap out of...whatever it was. Shock, perhaps?

 

Dagmar knelt on his chest, holding a dagger against his jugular. The blackened blade was long and wickedly curved. It drew blood the moment it touched his skin, a thin line of crimson appearing before coagulating almost instantly.

 

‘She said we betrayed the Emperor,’ he mumbled. His temples were throbbing.

 

‘Repeat?’ the Iron Hand leaned forward, mechadendrite tendrils springing forth from his jaw and quivering with his agitation.

 

‘She said that Horus, the most favoured son, has betrayed the Emperor. She said that he has led fully half the Legions in a massacre of their loyalist brethren in the Isstvaan system.’

 

Stunned silence greeted his words, even Cerck’s liquid-black eyes registering shock.

 

‘Who?’ asked Nu’kim, the big Salamander relaxing his grip on Virhaddon ever so slightly.

 

‘Us, obviously,’ he began, voice cracking.

 

‘Who else?’

 

‘The Word Bearers. The Death Guard. The World Eaters. The Iron Warriors. The Thousand Sons-‘

 

‘Get to it, man,’ Dagmar grunted, putting more pressure on the knife against Virhaddon’s throat.

 

‘Alpha Legion,’ the Son of Horus said. He felt blood trickle from his neck as the blade bit into his flesh, deeper this time. The Legionnaire’s hand shook, although Virhaddon had the strangest impression that, hidden within the depths of his cowl, there was the faintest of smiles upon Dagmar's lips.

 

‘Night Lords,’

 

Cerck snarled, springing to his feet. His clawed fingertips sparked as he unconsciously triggered the disruption field built into his gauntlets.

 

'You will settle down, Night Lord.' Usker buzzed, calm as always.

 

‘Do not attempt to order me around, Iron Hand,’ spat Cerck, taking a step toward the seated Marine. ‘Push me far enough and I will feast upon what little flesh you have left.’

 

‘Who else, brother?’ asked Holcius softly, absentmindedly stroking the golden aquila standing proud upon his chest.

 

‘The Emperor’s Children,’ Virhaddon exhaled, head lolling back against the deck. Part of him wished that Dagmar would just drive the knife home and end it.

 

‘What utter grox balls!’ Cerck paced back and forth like a caged animal, talons sparking with deadly energy. ‘There is no way the Emperor’s golden boys would rebel, it is ridiculous.’

 

‘I agree with the Night Lord,’ said Nu’kim. ‘We have no idea whether the Astropath was telling the truth, and we certainly will not be asking her now.’

 

Despite the words, Virhaddon could hear the relief in the Salamander’s voice. His own Legion had not been named, after all. Vulkan was still loyal.

 

‘We have no proof that the source of communication was valid,’ agreed Dagmar. ‘The Astropath could have believed what she was told without it being the truth.’

 

The others began to nod their agreement. Virhaddon watched as they convinced themselves it was some elaborate ploy to sow dissension, the work of recidivists or traitors or even xenos.

 

The Son of Horus began to laugh then, great guffaws wracking him as he lay prone upon the deck. Their nattering ceased.

They stared at him.

 

‘It’s true, you fools, it is completely true,’ he knew that he sounded hysterical, but at that moment hysteria was an entirely appropriate reaction.

 

‘How can you know that, brother?’ asked Holcius. Virhaddon took a long moment before replying. He felt, somehow, like he had been here before.

 

‘Because,' he murmured, voice thick. 'The vessel coming to rescue us, the vessel to which the Astropath spoke, belongs to Malcador the Sigilite.'

 

- - -

 

‘Lovely detail, my Lord.’

 

‘Thank you, my son.’

 

And with that, the Heresy continued.

 

End Part I

[Corsair]

II

 

 

‘By the grace of the Phoenician, enough Cerck!’

 

The Night Lord paid Holcius no mind, kicking an iron shelving unit laden with ammunition, causing it to tumble over as though it weighed nothing. The frame crashed to the deck, accompanied by crunch of flakboard crates and a tinkling cascade of brass shells.

 

‘Let me up,’ Virhaddon muttered, his words barely audible over Cerck’s keening.

 

Dagmar, still squatting over his chest, did not acknowledge the words.

 

“Dagmar, I said let me up,” Virhaddon said, louder this time. The Alpha Legionnaire tilted his head to the side, as though listening to a voice only he could hear. Their eyes locked.

 

“Dagm-“

 

-ar.

 

Virhaddon tried to close his eyes against the horrible nothingness he floated in, but they would not respond.

 

“I am Alpharius,” came the whisper from his left.

 

You are Vido Dagmar. The words were not spoken, so much as they tore a hole in his skull and gouged their way inside.

 

He shuddered, knowing, somehow, that he would be next.

 

“I am Alpharius,” still proud. Still defiant.

 

You are Vido Dagmar.

 

“I am Alpharius,” a whimper this time.

 

You are Vido Dagmar.

 

“I am Alpharius!” An agonised scream.

 

You are Vido Dagm-

 

“-ar,”

 

Virhaddon tore his eyes away from the Alpha Legionnaire’s as he repeated the other Marine’s name. An impossible dizziness gripped him, unlike anything he had experienced since he had left mortality behind.

 

After a heartbeat, Dagmar nodded, eyes flickering back to the Night Lord. The Alpha Legionnaire kept his wicked blade in his hand, hiding it in the folds of his robes.

 

Virhaddon pulled himself to his feet, resisting the urge to place a trembling hand on the shoulder of his brother Legionary; his brother traitor.

 

He felt weak. Slow, like the arthritic old man he would never become.

 

Cerck slashed his lightning claws down through a work bench, the metal screeching as it was torn in half. Miniature blazes puffed into existence and were extinguished mere seconds later, wreathing the blood-red gauntlets in sputtering flame, the pools of lubricating oils and sacred unguents providing a fine fuel.

 

‘Brother,’ Virhaddon called, voice hoarse. ‘Please, calm yourself.’

 

The Night Lord spun upon him then, claws squealing painfully as he ripped them free of the steel bench.

 

‘I am not your brother, traitorous filth!’ he hissed, lank black hair hanging over his maggot-pale face. He crouched low to the deck, shoulders hunched, his body arched as though he were in horrible agony.

 

‘According to the Sigilite, that is exactly what makes you brothers,’ Usker’s voice was as emotionless as always, but he still held Cerck’s boltgun in his mechanical hands, the weapon trained unwaveringly upon its owner’s head.

 

Virhaddon was disgusted when he noticed that Nu’kim, perhaps the only Marine present besides Holcius that he truly called friend, had joined with the Iron Hand, his own combi-weapon aimed squarely at the ‘traitors’.

 

Holcius stepped calmly between the two groups, hands raised. He looked almost serene, a friendly smile upon his face despite the galaxy shaking news of the past few minutes.

 

‘Please, my brothers, let us all be rational here,’ the Emperor’s Child said. ‘Whatever the truth, it does not change the weeks of friendship we have shared aboard this vessel. We are all trapped here togeth-'

 

He cut off abruptly. Virhaddon watched, wide-eyed, as a small, perfectly-round hole appeared in the center of Holcius’ forehead. The purple-armoured Marine went cross-eyed for a heartbeat, as though trying to look inward to see what had so rudely interrupted him.

 

Then, with the dull crump so familiar all members of the Legiones Astartes, the head of the Emperor’s Child detonated in a fountain of gore and bone.

 

Usker was still seated, the bolter in his hands smoking faintly.

 

‘This is the only truth,’ Usker stated as Holcius’ headless body toppled to the deck with a resounding crash. ‘By the decree of the Emperor’s right hand, you are all traitors. Surrender now, or be terminated.’

 

Virhaddon glanced at Nu’kim. A look of shock registered upon the Salamander’s normally taciturn features as he stared at the body of their friend. The obsidian-skinned warrior noticed his gaze and slowly, almost imperceptibly, shook his head.

 

So, he would stand with the Iron Hand. Virhaddon was not surprised; he was not sure if he would have acted differently had the situation been reversed.

 

‘So this is how it will be, then?’ spat Cerck, edging closer to Nu’kim. ‘Our loyal brothers taking the third-hand retelling of words attributed to the Emperor’s bloody secretary as the truth that determines whether we live or die?’

 

‘You murder one of us – a friend, no less – in cold blood, and yet we are the traitors?’ Dagmar added. He barked a short laugh, face still hidden inside the hood of his robe, dagger secreted in the folds of his robe.

 

‘Yes, you are,’ buzzed Usker, unmoved. The pool of blood from the stump of Holcius’ neck had reached the Iron Hand’s boot, staining the black armour.

 

‘Your thoughts on this, brother?’ Virhaddon addressed Nu’kim. The Salamander was being too quiet.

 

‘Surrender,’ he said after a moment. ‘Even if what Malcador says is true, you three have not strayed. I am sure the Sigilite will show you mercy.’

 

‘Mercy?’ Cerck threw back his head, roaring with bitter laughter. ‘What cruel twist of fate saw the day arrive where the Legiones Astartes should beg for mercy, from a mortal no less?'

 

‘Please, brothers,’ said Nu’kim, a near-echo of the dead Emperor’s Child.

 

‘I grow tired of talk,’ said Usker, midnight-blue bolter grasped in mechanical hands.

 

‘Me too,’ hissed Cerck, once again activating his clawed gauntlets with a mind-impulse.

 

‘Is this how it has to be?’ asked Virhaddon, rhetorically; he knew it was; it always was. Even as he spoke, he reached behind his back, grasping for the holdout bolt pistol he kept mag-locked to the inside surface of his power plant.

 

In response, Usker and Nu’kim opened fire.

 

 

 

- - -

 

‘It is rare for the Loyalists to take first blood,’

 

‘And yet it always ends the same, does it not?’

 

And indeed, the Heresy always ended the same way.

 

 

 

 

End Part II

[Corsair]

III

 

 

Virhaddon threw himself backwards, crashing to deck while bringing the pistol up to fire between the knees of his armour.

 

He watched as the Night Lord seemed to flow to the side, impossibly fast even for a Space Marine, each of Usker’s perfectly aimed shots somehow missing by a hairsbreadth. The Iron Hand did not have another chance to fire as Cerck launched himself through the air to tackle the Loyalist to the deck.

 

The bay filled suddenly with dirty flame, the stink of burning promethium heralding Nu'kim firing the flamer attached to his bolter. The loose ammunition scattered across the deck began to cook off, shrapnel scything across the open space. The move was one obviously designed to give the Salamander some cover, the flamethrower unlikely to harm one of the heavily armoured traitors.

 

Traitors, he thought as he lost sight of the onyx-skinned Marine amongst the smoke and flame. How easy it was to identify by that term now.

 

‘I told you I would eat your flesh,’ Cerck’s triumphant howl echoed through the bay, accompanied by the shriek of his talons tearing into ceramite and Usker’s static-filled roar of pain.

 

The Night Lord’s gloating was short-lived. The staccato crump-crump-crump of a bolter being fired on full-auto overrode his keening, the accompanying flashes silhouetting Nu’kim in the hazy darkness.

 

Virhaddon drew a bead on him, finger tensing on the trigger.

 

Cerck screamed as the Salamander’s rounds stitched up the side of his body, detonating in rapid succession. The Night Lord’s body was smashed across the room, sliding to a stop at Virhaddon’s feet.

 

The murderous son of the Night Haunter was a mess, his armour rent and torn where the shells had connected on his right side. Splintered bone and ragged flesh was all that remained of his arm and most of his leg, and a portion of his skull was simply gone.

 

‘Kill…you…’ Cerck's remaining hand twitched, claws spluttering as their power failed. Virhaddon experienced a moment of shock that the Night Lord still lived.

 

‘Enough,’ whispered Nu’kim, a note of desperation in his voice.

 

His bolt pistol was still aimed at the Salamander, still wavering.

 

'Please, stand down Virhaddon, or I will kill you as well.’

 

Virhaddon could not pull the trigger.

 

He did not have to.

 

The Salamander must have seen something in his eyes. He began to spin, finger squeezing the trigger of his combi-bolter.

 

Virhaddon heard the crack of a bolt exiting the barrel of the gun, the hiss as the propellant ignited. Then his world exploded.

A crimson light hovered before him.

 

You are Delzyle Virhaddon.

 

‘I am Delzyle Virhaddon,’

 

You are a Son of Horus, formerly known as the Luna Wolves.

 

‘B-B-Black…Black…’ he stuttered.

 

YOU ARE A SON OF HORUS, FORMERLY KNOWN AS THE LUNA WOLVES.

 

‘S-Son of Horus, yes,’ tears formed in his eyes; he had failed again.

 

You are a line battle-brother of the Seventh Company.

 

He nodded. He remembered this.

 

You are unimportant, unspectacular. You are as nothing compared to your Primarch and your Legion brothers, who will soon shape your destiny and the future of the entire galaxy.

 

He nodded again, the tears beginning to flow as he sensed his own mediocrity. There was blood in his mouth.

 

‘Did I bite my tongue?’

 

FOCUS! You are one of six marines of different Legions, travelling aboard a fast courier after attending to special duties upon Terra.

 

‘What duties?’ he gurgled around a mouthful of his own vitae. ‘Why were we together?’

 

It matters not. Your vessel is damaged, stranded in the dead space between inhabited systems. After weeks trapped awaiting rescue, you have received word via Astropath that help is on the way at last.

 

He smiled at this, forgetting his doubts. Bloody drool leaked down his chin.

 

In addition to this message, the Astropath has relayed that Horus, Warmaster and leader of your own Legion, has rebelled against the Emperor.

 

‘What?’ Virhaddon screamed, echoed by other voices in the dark. ‘Your lies will not stand, Astropath!’

 

It is true. He has taken the World Eaters, the Iron Warriors, the Emperor’s Children, the Alpha-

 

-Legion.

Virhaddon clutched the side of his head, blood streaming between his fingers where one of Nu’kim’s errant bolts had creased his temple.

 

Dagmar rose from the darkness, his grey robe blending perfectly into the smoke, giving him the aspect of a vengeful spectre from Cthonian legend. Nu’kim’s finger had depressed the trigger as he had turned, clenching spasmodically as the Alpha Legionnaire drove the point of his dagger directly through the side of the Salamander’s exposed neck, sawing the blade backward through iron-like flesh and muscle until it wedged fast in the bone.

 

Nu’kim continued his turn, bringing his still-firing bolter around in rapidly weakening hands. At such point blank range, the dying Salamander was guaranteed to kill the unarmoured Dagmar.

 

Closing his eyes, Virhaddon squeezed the trigger.

 

For one beautiful heartbeat, the bay was silent.

 

‘My thanks, brother.’ The Son of Horus opened his eyes at the words to see a blood-soaked Dagmar standing over him, offering his hand.

 

He did not take it, instead pulling himself heavily to his feet, swaying drunkenly. He surveyed the wreckage of the vehicle bay that had so recently been their communal home. Nu’kim lay still upon the deck, the upper half of his head lolling back grotesquely, attached only by his spine and a thin flap of flesh.

 

It had been a prodigious shot, finishing the work begun by the blade of the Alpha Legionnaire.

 

Cerck was crawling slowly toward the prone body of Usker, the clawed fingers of his one remaining gauntlet digging curling furrows in the deck. His battered armour squealed as it was dragged, leaving a trail of midnight blue paint and thick black blood behind him.

 

Virhaddon got his first good look at the Iron Hand since the madness had broken out. He was flat on his back, torso ripped open from the Night Lord’s assault. Cerck had inflicted heavy damage with his claws, enough to kill most Space Marines. Usker, however, lay there, disabled but still alive, limbs spasming uncontrollably. A soft stream of binaric nonsense streamed forth from his helmet vox, mechadendrite mandibles twitching in time to the machine code bursts.

 

‘Eat…flesh…’ Dagmar casually stepped over the delirious Night Lord, ignoring his vicious mutterings. He bent to retrieve the bolter Usker had clutched in his artificial hands.

 

‘What-?‘ Virhaddon started to ask.

 

The Alpha Legionnaire fired three quick shots into the prone Usker, two in the chest, one in the head. Still buzzing incomprehensibly, the Iron Hand’s body came apart in a spray of black-tinged gore.

 

In one smooth movement, Dagmar spun back to the crawling Night Lord and fired a single bolt through Cerck’s eye, finishing the job that Nu’kim had started mere minutes before.

 

'Why did you kill him?' Virhaddon asked after all was still. 'Are we not fellow betrayers?'

 

'If you find a wounded animal in the wilds, do you not put it down?' Dagmar smirked, tossing the bolter carelessly to one side.

 

'We fought on-'

 

'-the same side, you treacherous bastard!' Virhaddon roared, chainsword whistling through the air as the damnably fast Night Lord dodged yet another blow.

 

'And how did that end?' Cerck cackled, serrated black teeth glistening wetly through the taught lips of his rotting flesh-mask. 'Your Despoiler is as pathetic and weak as Horus ever was,'

 

'That-'

 

'-one had no concept of loyalty or brotherhood,' Dagmar was looking at him strangely, head tilted to the side.

 

Virhaddon lowered his hand from where it grasped his torn skull; the wound was a distraction he could ill afford.

 

'Come brother, let us prepare to be "rescued" by the Sigilite,' the Alpha Legionnaire said after another long pause. He walked toward the door, turning his back on the Son of Horus.

 

Virhaddon considered shooting the traitor in the back.

 

He considered placing the bolt pistol against his own temple.

 

Instead, he followed the retreating Alpha Legionnaire, feeling a piece of him die as he betrayed everything he had ever known in the name of his treacherous father.

 

Again.

 

Again and again and again and again-

 

- - -

'Control experiments are complete, my Lord.'

 

They watched as the Iron Hand and Night Lord finally began thrashing in their restraints, awakening from their death-sleep.

 

'I would know why it happens this way, my son.'

 

'I am sure we shall discover the truth soon-

 

'No, I must know now!'

 

Surely there must be more than this? He clenched his fists, the flesh squirming and reforming under his gaze in an endless cycle.

 

'Begin the next phase,' he hissed.

 

In his anger did Heresy begin anew.

 

 

End Part III

[Corsair]

IV

 

-againandagainandagainandagainand-

 

He awoke in the void. Eyes wide. Veins bulging. Lips drawn back over gritted teeth.

 

It all came flooding back. The becalmed courier vessel. The weeks spent living with brothers from different Legions.

 

Betrayal. Bloodshed. Death.

 

And it was all a lie.

 

He screamed, then; a wordless cry of rage and anguish and bitter, bitter fear.

 

He was Delzyle Virhaddon, Champion of the Black Legion and a warlord swearing allegiance to Abaddon the Despoiler himself.

 

He had crushed countless worlds beneath his boot. He had enslaved billions to the will of the Dark Gods, and slaughtered billions more.

 

He had been at Isstvaan, fighting alongside his battle-brothers and slaughtering the misbegotten followers of the treacherous Corpse-Emperor.

 

'Why?' He shouted into the inky blackness, over and over, voice cracking. He was soon joined by five others, their cries merging together into a horrible, anguish-filled dirge.

 

The crimson light appeared.

 

- - -

 

He awoke to darkness so black it impenetrable to even his superhuman vision.

 

He shook his head, attempting to clear the fog from his mind. He remembered nothing, not even his name.

 

Manacles encircled his wrists, heavy chains keeping him suspended in the void. The floor, if indeed there was one, could have been the merest hairsbreadth or thousands of kilometres below his feet. He realised, abruptly, that it did not matter.

 

He remembered almost nothing, but that one simple truth enveloped him, a comforting blanket against the dread blackness that engulfed him: Nothing mattered, there in the void.

 

The light appeared then, as it always did. A sickening sense of deja vu gripped him then, nausea causing his stomach to clench spasmodically.

 

The light was tiny, yet incredibly bright; a single, crimson pinprick against the all-encompassing darkness. He groaned, startled to hear four other voices echo him in near harmony. A fifth seemed to be weeping with the softness only utter hopelessness could bring.

 

As the light divided into two, he wondered if it was real or simply a figment of his imagination. Certainly, the growing brightness did nothing to illuminate his surroundings.

 

It does not matter, came the sibilant little whisper in the back of his mind.

 

'It matters,' he whispered, tears caressing his scarified cheeks. He blinked them away, unsure of what they meant.

 

The lights began to blink rapidly, flickering through all the colours of the known spectrum and several others besides. They pulsed, faster and faster, gradually drawing closer to his face until they gazed into his eyes.

 

They stopped blinking then, hovering unnaturally between a bilious green and a dirty bronze, without ever quite being either. They filled his eyes, making him long for the return of the pure darkness.

 

The hair upon his neck stood upright, the skin upon his chest quivering as he felt something sharp brush against his chest, a pair of sharp points like the tusks of some gigantic beast.

 

The glowing eyes suddenly leapt forward; the tusks thrust through him, goring him. Invisible arms engulfed him with bone-crushing force, ethereal muscles bulging with daemonic power, non-existent skin furnace-hot.

 

His collarbone snapped. His arms were turned to ruptured, bleeding strips of bone-shredded meat. Ossified ribs turned to dust. Hearts burst in his chest, gore erupting from his throat and through the thousands of rents in his skin.

 

The screams began around him. Four voices, masculine, powerful, screaming like frightened children into the uncaring void, accompanied by the whimpers of one who was already broken.

 

He tried to scream with them, but could only manage to gurgle around a mouthful of his own viscera before he died.

 

- - -

 

'This one is strong,'

 

'All of these Legionaries are strong,' he laughed, then, the sound resembling nothing that could be created by a human throat. 'They are Space Marines.'

 

'One of them is already broken. But this one resists.'

 

'They will all break in the end.'

 

'Yet he resists to the point of death,'

 

'His resistance means nothing.'

 

- - -

 

You are Delzyle Virhaddon.

 

‘I am Delzyle Virhaddon,’

 

You are a Luna Wolf. The Emperor had decreed that your Legion would be renamed the Sons of Horus, but the Warmaster has refused this honour. His humility does him proud.

 

'Black...Legion...' he stammered.

 

NO! Not Black Legion, you stubborn fool. Luna Wolf. LUNA WOLF!

 

'Luna Wolf,' he cried, hot blood bursting from his pores as the horrific voice screamed inside his head.

 

You are a line battle-brother of the Seventh Company.

 

He nodded quickly, unwilling to anger the voice further.

 

You are unimportant, unspectacular. You are nothing compared to those who will soon reshape the galaxy.

 

He nodded again, tears causing streaks of flesh to show through the drying blood on his face.

 

You are one of six marines of different Legions, travelling aboard a fast courier.

 

'Where were we?' he gasped, the words painful. 'Why are we together?'

 

IT IS IRRELEVANT! Your vessel is stranded. After weeks trapped aboard, you have received word via Astropath that help is on the way.

 

He smiled, the doubts peeling away from his mind, little rivulets of blood flowing between his clenched teeth.

 

In addition to this message, the Astropath has relayed terrible news. Guilliman of the Ultramarines has betrayed the Imperium to found his own empire, and has been joined by several other Legions, the Salamanders, Alpha Legion, and Iron Hands amongst them.

 

'What?' Virhaddon screamed, echoed by several other voices in the dark. 'Why would you say such things, human?'

 

It is the truth. Relive it.

 

- - -

 

He faced the Astropath, eyes wide at the stunning news the frail psyker had just brought him. His off-white armour - his second skin since being recruited from Cthonia so many years ago - shielded the woman and her treacherous, treacherous words from the rest of the room. He stared into her empty eye sockets, somehow knowing that she told the truth.

 

'Flee from here,' he whispered. 'Lock yourself in your cabin, seal the doors with anything you can and tell the rescue vessel to hurry.'

 

She hesitated for a long moment, terror writ plainly upon her wizened face, before finally nodding and darting back through the bay doors.

 

'By the fires, she looks as though she has seen a ghost,' Nu'kim had stepped up behind him, a look of concern on his face. 'What did she say?'

 

Looking at his kindly friend, so worried about the wellbeing of the mortal, Virhaddon found he could not respond.

 

'Spit it out, Wolf,' Cerck leant against the bulkhead, sending little puffs of power through his lightning claws, making them flicker and buzz. He seemed eternally fascinated by the crimson-stained weapons, almost obsessive.

 

'I...' Virhaddon hesitated, the news so monumental, so utterly ridiculous, that words would not come.

 

'It is alright, brother,' said Holcius. The ever-present smile upon his handsome face seemed drawn, hollow somehow. False.

 

'Rescue is on the way,' he began.

 

'This is not what has you flustered,' buzzed Usker. The Iron Hand's mechadendrites waved in front of his face as though floating in a gentle sea current, giving the absurd impression of a mechanical squid mounted upon the neck of a sable-armoured body. The thought had always quietly amused Virhaddon, though at this moment the humour was lost on him. 'Your heart rate is substantially elevated, and your breathing is shallow.'

 

'The tinman here is right, what has your loincloth in a twist?' Cerck's black eyes had locked onto Virhaddon's, claws glowing faintly as they were fully powered up.

 

The Luna Wolf wondered if it was intentional.

 

'There has been a rebellion,' he said, slowly.

 

'There always is,' whispered Dagmar softly from where he sat upon a crate of speeder parts, a peculiar smile upon his lips. He had the hood of his grey robe up, as always. Virhaddon had never seen the Alpha Legionnaire clad for war.

 

'It was the Ultramarines.' He let the words hang in the air for a moment, greeted by stunned silence.

 

Usker, of all of them, was the first to break it. The noise began as a series of buzzing clicks, gradually growing in both length and volume. Buzz-click buzz-click buzz-click.

 

Virhaddon shared a confused look with Holcius; was it binaric?

 

'He's laughing,' Cerck's slug-like lips formed the words slowly, as though he did not truly believe what he was saying. 'I think the damned robot is laughing.'

 

'The Ultramarines, rebels?' The Iron Hand's words were barely intelligible, sounding like a half-scrambled vox transmission. 'You will tell us the Word Bearers have rebelled next. Guilliman and Lorgar, perhaps the two most loyal of sons besides Horus himself, rebelling?'

 

His buzzing laughter filled the hold. 'This does not compute.'

 

Virhaddon understood; the pronouncement was absurd.

 

'The Ultramarines were not the only ones,' Dagmar had not laughed.

 

'No, they were not.'

 

'Who else?' Nu'kim stared at him, daemonic red eyes burning into his own.

 

'The World Eaters, Dark Angels, Death Guard, White Scars, and Thousand Sons have all betrayed the Emperor,' he looked away, finding he could no longer meet that burning gaze.

 

'Who else?' repeated the Salamander.

 

'The Alpha Legion,' he closed his eyes, not wanting to witness the effect of his words. 'The Iron Hands. The Salamanders.'

 

He heard a hiss of pain and a heavy crash. Virhaddon opened his eyes.

 

- - -

 

'That was...unexpected.'

 

'Indeed it was,' he said. He formed lips upon his face so that he could twist them into a smile. 'The most obvious sign yet that they suspected what was coming.'

 

Of them all, the members of the XXth had been the most difficult to acquire; even the so-called 'Loyalists' had been easier.

 

'It matters not,' he said after a long moment. 'I have had my suspicions for quite some time, but it does not factor into my work.'

 

It was interesting, though. The motives for Heresy were always quite interesting indeed.

 

End Part IV