The First Heretic

‘Something,’ the captain said. ‘You did not say “someone”.’

The robed man nodded. ‘Do not ask me to explain, for I cannot. It sounds human, but is not. The way you would hear another warrior’s accent and know him to be from another part of your home world, the astropathic choir hears something inhuman screaming in human tongues.’

Lorgar cut off the discussion with a motion of his hand. ‘This region is unmapped and unnamed. What vessels were lost in the journey through the storm?’

Phi-44 answered before the fleetmaster could. ‘The Unending Reverence, the Gregorian and the Shield of Scarus.’

The Word Bearers present inclined their heads in respect. The Shield had been the strike cruiser of their own Captain Scarus and his 52nd Company. Their loss was a savage blow to the Serrated Sun, finding itself at two-thirds strength purely by the warp’s fickle winds.

‘Very well,’ said Lorgar. ‘Ensure all stellar cartography is updated, with records sent back to Terra. This region is hereafter known as Scarus Sector.’

‘Will we make planetfall, sire?’ This from Deumos.

With infinite care, the primarch took a rolled parchment from a wooden tube at his belt. He unrolled it with a precious lack of haste, and finally turned it to face them all. On the papyrus scroll, a spiralling stain was sketched in charcoal. Everyone recognised it immediately. It was already before them – the stain across the stars.

As the commanders watched, a vicious shiver ran through the ship. Emergency lighting stained all vision red for several seconds, and the hololithic winked out of existence. Argel Tal re-keyed the activation code as the lights returned.

The image flared back into jagged, unreliable life.

‘Bitch of a storm,’ Major Jesmetine muttered. A few quiet agreements were all the response he got.

‘This is drawn from memory,’ said Lorgar, meeting their eyes in turn. ‘But my Word Bearers will recognise it.’

‘The empyrean,’ the Legion officers said at once.

‘The Gate of Heaven,’ Xaphen amended, ‘from the old scrolls.’

‘We were summoned here,’ Lorgar said, his voice low and clear and unbroken by doubt’s shadow. ‘Something called out to our astropathic choir through the storm. Something wanted us here, and something awaits us on the planet below.’

The astropath broke decorum, possibly for the first time in his quiet and sheltered life. ‘How... how can you know that?’ he stammered the words through pale lips.

Lorgar let the scroll fall onto the table. Something like anger burned behind his eyes.

‘Because I hear the screaming, too. And it is not wordless. Something on the world beneath us is crying out my name into the psychic storm.’

FOURTEEN

Violet Eyes

Two Voices

Answers

Argel Tal looked at his reflection in the cup of water. Thin fingers touched the stark geography of his face. It was like stroking a skull.

Lorgar didn’t look up from writing.

‘Planetfall,’ said the captain.

Violet eyes.

It was only apparent deviation from the purestrain human breed. With violet eyes, the people stared at the emissaries from the stars. Barbarians, dressed in rags and wielding spears tipped by flint blades, confronted Lorgar and his sons.

And yet, the primitives showed little fear. They approached the Word Bearers’ landing site as a disjointed horde, divided by tribes, each host carrying flayed-skin banners and animal bone totems denoting their allegiance to the spirits and devils of their world’s faith.

Lorgar had taken a small host to make first contact with the humans of 1301-12. The rest of the fleet remained ready in the heavens above, but Lorgar preferred to orchestrate first contact in more humble ways.

At his side stood Deumos, Master of the Serrated Sun, with the captains Argel Tal and Tsar Quorel of the Seventh and Thirty-Ninth Companies respectively. Both captains brought their Chaplains, who in turn stood with their crozius mauls drawn. Behind them, one figure stood skeletally slender, clad in a hooded robe. Three mechanical eyes peered out from the cowl as Xi-Nu 73 watched proceedings taking place. At his side, Incarnadine waited motionless, exuding threat without moving a gear.

Only one figure stood apart from the pack; clad in gold, bearing a spear of exquisite craftsmanship. Vendatha, the Custodian. Aquillon would not be dissuaded from one of his brothers joining them. The Occuli Imperator made it a point for at least one of his warriors to always accompany the primarch on incidents of first contact.

The Custodian’s red helmet crest fluttered in the wind, as did the parchment scrolls bound to the Word Bearers’ armour. He stood closest to Argel Tal. In all Vendatha’s time with the fleet, no other Astartes present had showed him – or the other Custodes – the ghost of respect, let alone an offer of friendship.

At their backs, a Legion Thunderhawk sat at rest – traditional granite-grey, for Lorgar’s golden Stormbird remained with the 47th Expedition. The primarch didn’t miss it, even three years since last setting eyes upon it. The gunship’s ostentation had always reeked more of gaudiness than grandeur. Let the preening Fulgrim adorn his war machines like works of art. Lorgar’s tastes ran to less puerile pursuits.

‘Their eyes,’ said Xaphen. ‘Every one of them has violet irises.’