The First Heretic

‘Brother? Brother, what ails you?’

Argel Tal used his claws to rise, digging them into the wall and dragging himself to his feet. Black bubbles, silvered by saliva, swelled and popped at his mouth grille.

‘Rakarssshhhk,’ he said, in a greasy blurt of vox. The twitching was subsiding, but the Word Bearer seemed in no hurry to move.

‘What struck you down?’

‘Hnh. Nothing. Nothing.’ Argel Tal’s voice was a breathy wheeze. ‘I... Tell me you hear that.’

‘Hear what?’

Argel Tal gave no answer. The scream in his mind went on and on, a sound of sorrow and anger somehow ripened by amusement – a meaningless melange of incompatible emotion, curdled into a single scream. Each second it lasted, his blood boiled hotter.

‘Let’s move on,’ he growled at Aquillon through chattering teeth.

‘Brother?’

‘Move on.’

Torgal screamed in unison with the distant cry, sending human defenders panicking before him. The Gal Vorbak warriors by his side dropped their weapons, hands clutching at helms, wordless shouts of anguish vox- roaring throughout the throne chamber.

Psychopomp Shal Vess Nalia IX watched this sudden madness through tears in her eyes. The ruler of the planet Calis had, before this moment, been curled in her oversized throne – a mess of rich robes containing rolls of fat – weeping and wailing for all to hear. The last survivors of her royal guard, those who’d not fled to leave her to die at the hands of the invaders, were similarly taken aback now as the red-armoured slaughterers howled and ceased their butchery.

The guards’ ceremonial blades were worthless against Astartes armour, as were their solid-shot rifles. Instead of pressing the attack, they used the momentary respite to fall back to the psychopomp’s throne.

‘Highness, it’s time to leave,’ a house-captain told her. This was a refrain he’d been trying for days, but if it wouldn’t work now, at least he’d never need to try again.

She blubbed in response. Her chins jiggled.

‘Forget her,’ one of the others said. All of their faces were taut under the pressure of the invaders screaming so loud. ‘This is our chance, Revus.’

‘Defend me!’ the matriarch wailed. ‘Do your duty! Kill them all!’

Revus was fifty-two years old, and had served most loyally as house-captain to the current psychopomp’s father, who’d been a charismatic and effective ruler beloved by his people – everything his fat bitch of a daughter was not.

But he couldn’t leave. Or rather, he wouldn’t.

Revus turned to the prone invaders, watching them kneel and cry out in the sea of carved corpses around them, and made the last decision he would ever make. He would not run. It was not in him to do so. Instead, he would defend his sire’s indolent daughter with his life, breaking his blade upon the armour of his enemies, making sure his final words would be to spit defiance in their faces.

‘Turn and run, dogs,’ he snarled at his own men. ‘I will die doing my duty.’

Half of them seemed to take that as an order, for they fled immediately. Revus watched their dark-armoured forms slipping into servants’ passages, and despite himself, couldn’t wish harm upon them for their cowardice.

The house-captain remained in the screaming maelstrom with eight men: all too proud or too dutiful to run, and all on the veteran side of forty.

‘We’re with you,’ one of them said, his voice raised to make it above the shouts.

‘Defend me!’ the hideous girl wailed again. ‘You have to protect me.’

Revus spoke a small prayer of reverence, wishing the shade of her father well, and promising to see him soon in the afterlife.

The invaders rose again. The screams faded to moans and grunts. They reached for weapons that had fallen into the gore.

Revus yelled ‘Charge!’ and did exactly that.

He cared nothing for slaying one of the invaders, for he knew he couldn’t. All he wished to do was break his blade upon their red armour – to land a single blow, when so many of the royal guard had died without even striking once.

One moment he ran and roared, the next, he was crashing to the floor. There wasn’t even any pain as his legs went out from under him, just a moment of dizziness, before looking up to see the crimson warrior towering above. His blade remained unbroken. His last wish, denied.

The invader stepped on the dying man’s chest, crushing every bone in his torso and pulping the organs. House-Captain Revus died without even knowing his legs and waist were three metres away, severed from his body by the red warrior’s first blow.

Torgal dispatched the last of the ardent defenders, reaching the throne before the other Gal Vorbak. Acidic bile still stung his throat, but control and strength alike had returned to his limbs. The vox was a frenetic exchange of squads all reporting the same crippling pain and the sound of laughter.

‘Leave my world!’ the psychopomp squealed from her chair.

Torgal plucked her up by her fat neck. The weight was considerable, even for Astartes battle armour. He felt