The Horus Heresy: Vengeful Spirit

A new Land Raider had been found for the Warmaster. Equipped with a flare shield, layered plates of bonded ceramite with ablative ion disruptors, shroud dispensers and frag-launchers, the Mechanicum had repeated their claim that it was proof against all but the weapons of a battle engine.

Horus let Ezekyle kill sixteen of them to remind them of the last time they had made that boast.

The Land Raider idled in the foothills of a mountain chain known as the Untar Mesas. Thousands of armoured vehicles surrounded it, connected together in laagers to form miniature fortresses. The Lord of Iron himself would have approved of the defences arranged around the Warmaster.

An unbroken chain of supply vehicles – tankers, ammo carriers and Mechanicum loaders – stretched back to the coast. Warhounds prowled the line of supply like watchful shepherds, and two Warlords in the colours of Legio Vulcanum stood sentinel over the Warmaster.

Horus climbed into the hills with the Mournival arranged around him in a tight circle. Farther out, Terminators of the Justaerin slogged uphill, looking more like relentless machines than living beings encased in armour.

Ger Gerradon’s Luperci were out there too, unseen in the darkness. Horus could feel their presence like a scratch on the roof of his mouth. Invisible, but impossible to ignore.

A sky the colour of disturbed sediment swirled overhead, and smoke curled from wrecked orbital batteries and missile silos on the mountaintops. Lightning split the night, a sky-wide sheet that silhouetted the jagged teeth of the mountain. Rain fell in a deluge. A hundred new waterfalls spilled from the cliffs. Horus knew grander peaks than these, but viewed from this perspective it seemed like they were the tallest he had ever seen. It looked like they might snag the moon at its passing.

Fire Raptors and Thunderhawks flew overhead through static-charged clouds. Their engines were distant burrs over thunder that sounded like artillery. Energy discharges from the fighting in low orbit had wreaked havoc in the planet’s atmospherics. A cascade effect of violent tempests was spreading all over Molech. Horus knew those storms were only going to get worse until a final apocalyptic event cleared the last of it.

‘It’s madness to stop like this,’ said Abaddon, his armour streaked with rainwater and moonlight. ‘We’re too exposed. First the gunships on Dwell and then those Knights. It’s almost like you’re trying to put yourself in harm’s way. It’s our job to take those kinds of risks.’

‘You’ve known me long enough to know I am not cut from that kind of cloth, Ezekyle,’ said Horus. ‘I am a warrior. I cannot always sit back and let others shed blood for me.’

‘You’re too valuable,’ pressed Abaddon.

‘We have been down this road before, my son,’ said Horus, letting all four of them understand that this was his final word on the subject.

Abaddon let the matter go, but like a hunting hound with the scent of blood in its nostrils, Horus knew he’d be back to that particular argument before long.

‘Very well, but every moment we delay, the deeper the bastards can dig in,’ said Abaddon.

‘You still believe this world matters?’ asked Noctua, as breathless as a mortal. Horus paused and listened to Grael’s heartbeat through the rain. His secondary heart was still catching up to the level of his original, and his circulation likely wouldn’t ever be as efficient as his supra-engineered biology required.