False Gods

army of Mechanicum servitors were required to facilitate the process.

Titus Cassar was exhausted. He'd spent the better part of the day prepping the Titan for its recovery and every­thing was in readiness for their return to the fleet. Until they were recovered, there wasn't much to do except wait, and that had become the hardest part of all for the men left behind on Davin's moon.

With time to wait, there was time to think; and with time to think, the human mind could conjure all man­ner of things from the depths of its imagination. Titus still couldn't believe that Horus had fallen. A being of such power, like unto a Titan himself, was not meant to fall in battle – he was invincible, the son of a god.

In the shadow of the Dies Irae, Titus fished out his Lec-titio Divinitatus chapbook and, once he was satisfied he was alone, began to read the words there. The badly printed scripture gave him comfort, turning his mind to the glory of the divine Emperor of Mankind.

'Oh Emperor, who is lord and god above us all, hear me in this hour of need. Your servant lies with death's cold touch upon him and I ask you to turn your benefi­cent gaze his way.'

He fished out a pendant from beneath his uniform jacket as he read. It was a delicately wrought thing of sil­ver and gold that he'd had one of the blank-faced servitors fashion for him. A silver capital T with a golden starburst at its centre, it represented hope and the promise of a better future.

He held it clasped to his breast as he recited more of the words of the Lectitio Divinitatus, feeling a familiar warmth suffuse him as he repeated the words.

Titus sensed the presence of other people behind him a second too late and turned to see Jonah Aruken and a group of the Titan's crew.

Like him, they were dirty and tired after the fight against the monsters of this place, but unlike him they did not have faith.

Guiltily, he closed his chapbook and waited for Jonah's inevitable barb. No one said anything, and as he looked closer, he saw a brittle edge of sorrow and the need for comfort in the faces of the men before him.

Titus,' said Jonah Aruken. 'We… uh… that is… the Warmaster. We wondered if…'

Titus smiled in welcome as understood what they'd come for.

He opened his chapbook again and said; 'Let us pray, brothers,’

The medical deck was a sterile, gleaming wilderness of tiled walls and brushed steel cabinets, a warren of soul­less glass rooms and laboratories. Petronella had completely lost all sense of direction, bewildered by the hasty summons that had brought her from the moon's surface back to the Vengeful Spirit.

Passing through the bloody embarkation deck, she saw that the upper levels of the ship were in pandemonium as word of the Warmaster's death had spread from vessel to vessel with all the fearsome rapidity of an epidemic.

Maloghurst the Twisted had issued a fleet-wide com­munique denying that the Warmaster was dead, but hysteria and paranoia had a firm head start on his words. Riots had taken hold aboard several ships as doomsayers and demagogues had arisen proclaiming that these were now the end times. Army units had been ruthlessly quashing such malcontents, but more sprang up faster then they could stop them.

It had been scant hours since the Warmaster's fall, but the 63rd Expedition was already beginning to tear itself apart without him.

Maggard followed Petronella, his wounds bound and sealed with syn-skin by a Legion apothecary on the jour­ney back to the Warmaster's flagship. His skin still had an unhealthy pallor and his armour was dented and torn, but he was alive and magnificent. Maggard was only an indentured servant, but he had impressed her and she resolved to treat him with the respect his talents deserved.

A helmeted Astartes warrior led her through the con­fusing maze of the medicae deck, eventually indicating

that she should enter a nondescript white door marked with a winged staff wrapped in a pair of twisting ser­pents.

Maggard opened the door for her and she entered a gleaming operating theatre, its circular walls covered, to waist height, in green enamelled tiles. Silver cabinets and hissing, pumping machines surrounded the War-master, who lay on the operating slab with a tangled web of tubes and wires attached to his flesh. A stool of gleaming metal sat next to the slab.

Medicae servitors lurked around the circumference of the room, set into niches around the wall, and a gurgling machine suspended above the Warmaster fed fluid and blood into his body.

Her eyes misted to see the Warmaster brought so low, and tears came at this violation of the natural order of things. A giant Astartes warrior in hooded surgical robes approached her and said, 'My name is Apothecary Vaddon, Miss Vivar,’

She brushed her hands across her eyes, conscious of how she must look – her dress torn and caked with mud, her eyes blackened with smudged make-up. She started to hold her hand out for a kiss, but realised how foolish that would be and simply nodded.

'I am Petronella Vivar,' she managed. 'I am the War-master's documentarist,’ 'I know,’ said Vaddon. 'He asked for you by name,’ Sudden hope flared in her breast. 'He's awake?' Vaddon nodded. 'He is. If it was up to me, you would not be here now, but I do not disobey the word of the commander, and he desires to speak with you,’ 'How is he?' she asked.

The apothecary shook his head. 'He fades in and out of lucidity, so do not expect too much of him. If I decide it is time for you to leave, then you leave. Do you under­stand me?'

'I do,’ she said, 'but please, may I speak with him now?'

Vaddon seemed reluctant to let her near the Warmaster, but moved aside and let her pass. She nodded her thanks and took a faltering step towards the operating slab, eager to see the Warmaster, but afraid of what she might find.

Petronella's hand leapt to her mouth to stifle an invol­untary gasp at the sight of him. The Warmaster's cheeks were sunken and hollow, his eyes dull and listless. Grey flesh hung from his skull, wrinkled and ancient looking, and his lips were the blue of a corpse.

'Do I look that bad?' asked Horus, his voice rasping and distant.

'No,’ she stammered. 'Not at all, I…'

'Don't lie to me, Miss Vivar. If you're to hear my valedic­tion then there must be no deceit between us,’

Valediction? No! I won't. You have to live,’

'Believe me, there's nothing I'd like more,’ he wheezed, but Vaddon tells me there's not much chance of that, and I don't intend to leave this life without a proper legacy: a record that says die things that must be said before the end,’

'Sir, your deeds alone stand as an eternal legacy, please don't ask this of me,’

Horus coughed a froth of blood onto his chest, gathering his strength before speaking once more, and his voice was the sUong and powerful one she remembered. You told me that it was your vocation to immortalise me, to record the glory of Horus for future generations, did you not?'

'I did,’ she sobbed.

Then do tins last thing for me, Miss Vivar,’ he said.

She swallowed hard and then fished out the data-slate and mnemo-quill from her reticule, before sitting on the high stool next to the operating slab.

Very well,’ she said at last. 'Let's start at the beginning,’

* * *

'It was too much,' began Horus. 'I promised my father I would make no