The Horus Heresy: Vengeful Spirit

They sealed the armoury and carried the wounded from the site of the battle. Nobody would miss the signs of fighting, but at least they could keep the bodies from being discovered for a while. Cayne swiftly navigated forgotten passageways and corridors in search of somewhere isolated and secure.

They tried not to leave a trail of blood.

The chamber Cayne led them to was filled with wrecked tables and chairs, its walls covered in water-damaged murals and obscene graffiti. Some seemed oddly familiar to Loken. The scale of the furnishings and its abandoned nature told him it had once been a retreat for mortals, but he could think of no reason why he might have come to a place like this.

Nohai went to work on Varren and Zaven. Rubio offered his aid, and Nohai gratefully accepted it. Both fallen warriors were badly hurt, but of the two, Zaven’s wounds were the more serious.

‘Will they make it?’ asked Qruze.

‘In the apothecarion, yes. Here, I don’t know,’ said Nohai.

‘Do what you can, Altan.’

Loken sat with his back to a long bar, toying with a set of mildewed cards marked with swords, cups and coins. He’d known someone who’d played an old game of the Franc with such cards, but couldn’t focus on the face. A man? Yes, someone of poetically low character and unexpectedly high morals. The name remained elusive, frustratingly so for a transhuman warrior with a supposedly eidetic memory.

He felt eyes upon him and looked up.

Tubal Cayne stood beneath an obscene mural rendered in anatomically precise detail – thankfully, time and water damage had obscured the offending portions. Cayne sat with one hand on his device, the other resting on the grip of his bolter.

‘What?’ said Loken.

‘You are finding it onerous being here, Loken,’ said Cayne.

‘Is that a question or a statement?’

‘I have not yet decided. Call it a question for now.’

‘It’s strange,’ admitted Loken, slipping the cards into a pouch at his waist. ‘But there’s little left of the ship I knew. This vessel bears the same name, but it’s not the Vengeful Spirit. Not the one I knew. This is a twisted reflection of that proud ship. It’s unpleasant, but no more than I’d expected.’

‘Truly? I had concluded you were experiencing significant psychological difficulties. Why else would you not take part in the fighting at the armoury?’

Loken was immediately on guard, but forced down an outright denial. He stood and brushed water droplets from his armour.

‘This used to be my home,’ he said, walking slowly towards Cayne. ‘Those Sons of Horus used to be my brothers. It shames me that they are now traitors.’

‘It shames us all,’ added Qruze from a booth across the room where he was cleaning his bolter.

‘Speak for yourself,’ said Severian, who sat on the long bar etching kill-notches into his vambrace with his newly-acquired photonic combat blade. The punctured lung made his words breathy.

‘No,’ said Cayne. ‘That is not it. If it were, I would expect to see the same psychological markers in Iacton Qruze and… wait, what is your full name, Severian?’

‘Severian’s all you need to know, and even that’s too much.’