The First Heretic

Ishaq froze while the ship shook around him. If this soldier survived and identified him later, he was a dead man for being on the monastic deck.

‘Please,’ the trembling man begged.

Ishaq knelt by the soldier and heaved some of the wreckage off his legs. The Euchar screamed, and the imagist squinted through the emergency darkness to see why. Some of the detritus had pierced the soldier’s legs and belly, pinning him to the floor. There’d be no helping him, after all. Pulling this out was the work of a skilled surgeon, and even then, it likely wouldn’t be enough to save the poor wretch.

‘I can’t. I’m sorry. I can’t.’ He rose to his feet. ‘I can’t do anything.’

‘Shoot me, you stupid bast–’

‘I don’t have a–’ He saw the soldier’s rifle half-buried in the junk, and hauled it free. As he tried to take aim, the shuddering ship almost sent him sprawling.

Click, went the trigger. Click, click, click.

‘Safety,’ the soldier groaned. Blood was pooling beneath him. ‘The... switch.’

Ishaq flicked the switch along the gun’s side, and pulled the trigger. He’d never fired a lasweapon before. The crack-flash left dancing lights before his eyes, and he struggled at first to see the soldier. The man was dead now, his head emptied against the wall behind him. The corridor itself was blocked by debris, and Ishaq dropped the rifle with a clatter, turning to head back the way he’d come.

The bulkhead at the end of the concourse thunked shut with a finality Ishaq almost swore was smug, trapping him in a corridor with four dead bodies and a lot of wreckage. One door led out of here, marked by what looked like Colchisian verse on the damaged walls either side.

He pounded his fists against it, getting no answer. The door was warm, charged somehow, as if the room on the other side were a living thing. Ishaq hammered meaningless numbers into the keypad, receiving the same amount of success.

At last, he took up the lasrifle again, closed his eyes, and shot the security panel. The keypad shorted out, flickering with small flames, and the door at the heart of the monastic deck opened with a sweltering whisper of released air. The sigh of pressure was obscene in its biological origins, stinking of unwashed flesh and the faecal reek of prolonged deprivation. Voices drifted out from the room as if carried on the air. They mumbled and muttered, and made no sense.

Ishaq stood, staring inside, unable to form words at what he was seeing.

His picter flashed. This, at last, was the image to make his name.

His brother was a warrior, a warlord, and from the very first moment their weapons met, Corax was fighting to kill, while Lorgar fought to stay alive. The battle moved too fast for mortal eyes to perceive, with both primarchs pushing themselves beyond anything else they’d endured.

Corax evaded the crozius without even once parrying. He weaved aside, threw himself out of reach, or fired his flight pack with enough force to boost him up and over Lorgar’s heavy swings. By contrast, sweat stung Lorgar’s eyes as he desperately blocked each of his brother’s attacks. Illuminarum’s great hammerhead rang like a church bell as it battered aside the Raven Lord’s claws.

‘What are you doing?’ Corax cried into his brother’s face as their weapons locked. ‘What madness has taken you all?’

Lorgar disengaged, hurling Corax backward with enough strength to leave his brother unbalanced. The Raven Lord compensated instantly, his flight pack breathing fire and propelling him back at his brother. Bladed wings flashed out to the side, but Lorgar was ready for them. He ignored their scraping, cutting wounds as they knifed through his armour, and focused on hammering Corax’s claws aside. In the seconds’ safety he bought for himself, Lorgar at last landed a true blow. Corax was sent sprawling again as the crozius pounded into his breastplate. The power field around the maul’s head struck with enough force to send a shockwave blasting out from the warring brothers, throwing all nearby Astartes to the ground.

In less time than it took to breathe in, Corax was back on his feet, thrusters firing, spearing at Lorgar once more.

‘Answer me, traitor,’ the Raven Lord grunted. His dark eyes were narrowed at the sickening light that haloed Lorgar. ‘You... are a poor reflection of our father... with that psychic gold.’

Lorgar felt himself slipping back in the mud, his boots grinding across the earth as his brother’s strength leaned heavier against him. He couldn’t break the weapon lock this time. Both Corax’s claws clutched at Illuminarum’s haft, burning the handle and the Word Bearer’s hands.

‘I am bringing the truth to humanity,’ Lorgar breathed.

‘You are destroying the Imperium! You are betraying your own blood!’ The wildness in the Raven Lord’s black eyes was something Lorgar had never even imagined before. Corax had always seemed so taciturn, so devoid of passion. That this warrior lay beneath the albino facade was a horrendous revelation.

The claw tips, spitting with crackling power fields, were a finger’s length from Lorgar’s face now. ‘I will kill you, Lorgar.’

‘I know.’ He spoke through gritted teeth, feeling strength bleed from his bones. ‘But I have seen what will be. Our father, a bloodless corpse enthroned upon gold, and screaming into the void forever.’

‘Lies.’ The black eyes narrowed, and the Raven Lord’s pale muscles bunched, locking harder. ‘You are reducing a kingdom to chaos. Overthrowing the perfect order.’

Lorgar’s grey eyes danced with light despite the strain on his body. ‘The opposite of chaos is not order, brother. It is stasis. Lifeless, unchanging... stasis.’

With a last grunt, Lorgar’s strength gave. Quivering hands could no longer keep his brother’s weapons back.

‘Here it is,’ Corax promised in a hiss, his saliva flecking Lorgar’s eyes and cheeks. ‘Here is the death you so richly deserve.’