Horus took another step, and was almost at the top of the dais, almost within striking distance of this traitor who dared to profane the name of the Emperor.
'Think about it, Horus,’ urged Temba. The whole history of the galaxy has been the gradual realisation that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect an underlying destiny. That destiny is Chaos,’
'Chaos?'
'Yes!' shouted Temba. 'Say it again, my friend. Chaos is the first power in the universe and it will be the last. When the first ape creatures bashed each other's brains out with bones, or cried to the heavens in the death throes of plague, they fed and nurtured Chaos. The blissful release of excess and the glee of intrigue – all is grist for the soul mills of Chaos. So long as Man endures, so too does Chaos,’
Horus reached the top of the dais and stood face to face with Temba, a man he had once counted as his friend and comrade in this great undertaking. Though the thing spoke with Temba's voice and its stretched features were still those of his comrade, there was nothing left of that fine man, only this wretched creature of the warp.
'You have to die,’ said Horus.
'No, for that is the glory of Nurgh-leth,’ chuckled Temba. 'I will never die,’
'We'll soon see about that,’ snarled Horus, and drove his sword into Temba's chest, the golden blade easily sliding through the layers of blubber towards the traitor's heart.
Horas ripped his sword free in a wash of black blood and stinking pus, the stench almost too much for even him to bear. Temba laughed, apparently untroubled by such a mortal wound, and brought up his own sword, its glinting, fractured blade like patterned obsidian.
He brought the blade to his blue lips and said, The Warmaster Horus.'
With a speed that was unnatural in its swiftness, the tip of the blade speared for the Warmaster's throat.
Horas threw up his sword, deflecting Temba's weapon barely a centimetre from his neck, and took a step backwards as the traitor lurched towards him. Recovering from the surprise attack, Horus gripped his sword two-handed, blocking every lethal thrust and cut that Temba made.
Horus fought like never before, his every move to parry and defend. Eugan Temba had never been a swordsman, so where this sudden, horrifying skill came from Horus had no idea. The two men traded blows back and forth across the command deck, the bloated form of Eugan Temba moving with a speed and dexterity quite beyond anything that should have been possible for someone of such vast bulk. Indeed, Horus had the distinct impression that it was not Temba's skill with a blade that he was up against, but the blade itself.
He ducked beneath a decapitating strike and spun inside Temba's guard, slashing his sword through his opponent's belly, a thick gruel of infected blood and fat spilling onto the deck. The dark blade darted out and struck his shoulder guard, ripping it from his armour in a flash of purple sparks.
Horus danced back from the blow as the return stroke arced towards his head. He dropped and rolled away as Temba turned his bloody, carven body back towards him. Any normal man would have died a dozen times or more, but Temba seemed untroubled by such killing wounds.
Temba's face shone with glistening sweat, and Horus blinked as the monster's outline wavered, like those of the cyclopean monsters that he had fought in the ship's central spine. Frantic motion shimmered and he could see something deep within the monstrously swollen body, the faint outline of a screaming man, his hands clasped to his ears and his face twisted in a rictus grin of horror.
Trailing his innards like gooey ropes, Eugan Temba descended the steps of the dais like a socialite making her entrance at one of the Merican balls. Horas saw the cursed sword gleaming with a terrible hunger, its edges twitching in Temba's hand, as though aching to bury itself in his flesh.
'It doesn't have to end this way, Horas,’ gurgled Temba. 'We need not be enemies,’
'Уев,’ said Horus. 'We do. You killed my friend and you betrayed the Emperor. It can be no other way,’
Even before the words were out of his mouth, the smoky grey blade streaked towards him, and Horus threw himself back as the razor-sharp edge grazed his breastplate and cut into the ceramite. Horus backed away from Temba, hearing twin cracks as the monstrously bloated traitor's anklebones finally snapped under his weight.
Horas watched as Temba dragged himself forwards unsteadily, the splintered ends of bone jutting from the bloody flesh of his ankles. No normal man could endure such agony, and Horus felt a flickering ember of compassion for his former friend stir within his breast. No
man deserved to be abused so, and Horus vowed to end Temba's suffering, seeing again the jagged after-image sputtering within the alien flesh of the warp. 'I should have listened to you, Eugan,’ he whispered. Temba didn't reply. The glimmering blade wove bright patterns in the air, but Horas ignored it, too seasoned a warrior to be caught by such an elementary trick.
Once again, Temba's blade reached out for him, but Horus was now gaining a measure of its hunger to do him harm. It attacked without thought or reason, only the simple lust to destroy. He looped his own blade around the quillons of Temba's sword and swept his arm out in a disarming move, before closing to deliver the deathblow.
Instead of releasing the blade for fear of a shattered wrist, however, Temba retained his grip on the sword, its tip twisting in the air and plunging towards Horus's shoulder.
Both blades pierced flesh at the same instant, Horus's tearing through his foe's chest and into his heart and lungs, as Temba's stabbed into the muscle of Horus's shoulder where his armour had been torn away.
Horus yelled in sudden pain, his arm burning with the shimmering sword's touch, and reacted with all the speed the Emperor had bred into him. His golden sword slashed out, severing Temba's arm just above the elbow and the sword clanged to the deck where it twitched in the grip of the severed arm with a loathsome life of its
own.
Temba wavered and fell to his knees with a cry of agony, and Horus reared above his foe with his sword upraised. His shoulder ached and bled, but victory was now his and he roared with anger, as he stood ready to enact his vengeance.
Through the red mist of anger and hurt, he saw the pathetic, weeping and soiled form of Eugan Temba
stripped of the loathsome power of the warp that had claimed him. Still bloated and massive, the dark light in his eyes was gone, replaced by tears and pain as the enormity of his betrayal crashed down upon him.
'What have I done?' asked Temba, his voice little more than a whisper.
The anger went out of Horus in an instant and he lowered his sword, kneeling beside the dying man that had once been his trusted friend.
Juddering sobs of agony and remorse wracked Temba's body and he reached up with his remaining hand to grip the Warmaster's armour.
'Forgive me, my friend,’ he said. 'I didn't know. None of us did,’
'Hush now, Eugan,’ soothed Horus. 'It was the warp. The tribes of the moon must have used it against you. They would have called it magic,’
'No… I'm so sorry,’ wept Temba, his eyes dimming as death reached up to claim him. They showed us what it could do and I saw the power of it. I saw beyond and into the warp. I saw the powers that dwell there and, Emperor forgive me, I still said yes to it,’
There are no powers that dwell there, Eugan,’ said Horus. 'You were deceived,’
'No!' said Teffiba, gripping Horus's arm tightly. 'I was weak and I fell willingly, but it is done with me now. There is great evil in the warp and I need you to know the truth of Chaos before the galaxy is condemned to the fate that awaits it,’
