The path of glory
Seventeen minutes and thirteen seconds into the fight. Constantin has lost three more men, but he has gained a foothold on the fallen orbital plate’s ragged escarpment. The approach routes through the ruins to the edge of the plate are thick with traitors of the XVI and XVII Legions, and still more defend the mangled gantries and exposed deck layers at the structure’s lower end. Enough to hold off any army. The astute combination of the XVI’s intense discipline and the XVII’s zealous fury is punishing Constantin’s far smaller force mercilessly.
But his men are Legio Custodes, and far more than men. The filth he is fighting are mere Astartes, and far, far less.
Constantin scales the crumpled hull plates in the shadow of one of the plate’s remaining suspension engines, a huge drum the size of a bastion tower that is slanted to the left, its base half-buried in the ground. The orbital plate fell hard when it fell. Mass-reactives and las-bolts slice the air around him. Traitors, high above, are trying to knock him off the metal cliff, their angle of fire almost vertical.
The orbital plate is little more than a lump of wreckage, albeit one almost two kilometres square and half a kilometre thick. It is dead and destroyed, partially burned-out, and has no obvious strategic significance. But it’s being defended for a reason. The Word Bearers may be frenzied and unthinking, but the Sons of Horus are most surely not.
The Emperor’s war cry originated from this vicinity. Valdor’s King-of-Ages could be inside the structure. The Warmaster could be inside it. Abaddon certainly is.
Horus’ First Captain is a head worth taking. Constantin wants Abaddon dead. And before he dies, Constantin wants Abaddon talking. If anyone knows the location of the thrice-damned first-found, it will be Ezekyle Abaddon.
A Word Bearers Cataphractii appears on a ledge just metres above Constantin, his heavy cannon whirring as it angles down to splash Valdor off the artificial cliff. Constantin thrusts upwards with his spear. Clean and true, the weapon punches through an overhanging lip of sheared hull, and impales the Word Bearer leaning over it. Blood showers out of his punctured breast plating, and fire blooms out of his back. The Apollonian Spear has ruptured the heavy armour’s power plant. The blast takes off one side of the bulky traitor. As the burning, incomplete body plunges past him, Valdor clambers over the lip of hull, and frees the spear. He’s on an internal deck level now. The orbital plate was sheared through like a geological sample, its deck layers exposed. The deck slopes up ahead of him at a sharp angle, distorted by impact. The walls are buckled.
He starts to advance, without hesitation. He has Abaddon’s tag in clear view on his helm display. Ten metres in, two more Word Bearers and a Sons of Horus legionary appear to intercept him. He slays one of the XVII with a swift, underarm thrust, but mass-reactives from the other two detonate against his left shoulder and ribs, and slam him into the hallway wall. He tastes blood and pain. They may be children to him, but their weapons bite. He knows they could kill him if they tried hard enough.
And they are trying very hard.
A blinding beam of Adrathics sears past him, and blows his two aggressors into jellied shrapnel. Ludovicus and Erastes have gained access behind him. Wordlessly, they take the lead, and he falls in behind them. Erastes’ Adrathic demolishes the blast hatches that the traitors have tried to close to compartmentalise the plate’s internal structure. What are they hiding here? What are the traitors trying to defend?
Stablising his injuries, Valdor follows his men up the crumpled hallway. They break through into a large gallery where the deck is canted up at a thirty-degree angle.
Erastes dies just seconds after they enter. He is blitzed by heavy fire that even a Custodian could not survive. Justaerin Terminators, black shapes so bulked by their heavy plate they seem as big as the Custodes, close from all sides.
Clever, thinks Constantin. Bait and ambush. First Captain Abaddon has lost none of his flair. There’s nothing hidden inside the orbital plate except death. Constantin disembowels one of the Terminators, then uses the corpse as a shield as he rushes the rest. In seconds, it’s close quarters, a churning brawl. Ludovicus is mobbed by five of the Justaerin, his blade hacking to fend them off. Eight more close on Constantin. One, tag-marked Otun Rindol, a notorious brute, clips Constantin with his power fist. Constantin reels, spitting blood and broken teeth, his helm deformed and pushed into his cheek. A chainblade saws into his right hip. He feels his plate and flesh shudder as it chews deep. Flecks of gold and bloody tissue spray out. He blanks the pain. He has no time for it. Pain is just pain, and it comes weighted with shock and hesitation. He puts the haft of the spear into the side of Rindol’s head hard enough to fracture the helmet. He grabs a second Terminator, tag-marked Lael Gustus, and turns him bodily. Gustus struggles, overpowered by Constantin’s superior strength. He has the spear across Gustus’ throat, and his right hand clamped on Gustus’ right forearm, where the chainblade is still revving and shedding particles of Valdor’s gore. He heaves the Justaerin forward and drives the chainblade into the sternum of another, tag-marked Ketron Bargaddon. The chainblade wedges so deep in the Terminator’s carapace that it chokes out, shredding broken teeth and coughing a huge cloud of bloody vapour.
The air is wet. Constantin can’t see Ludovicus. Something hits him across the back and neck, and he loses his grip on Gustus. He tries to turn. Hands claw at him, and seize him. A power fist clamps his throat and smashes him into a bulkhead. He’s choking, his throat crushing. A blade stabs into his belly. He feels the quick ice of it. He sees a tag-marker through the haze.
Hellas Sycar.
‘Captain Abaddon sends his regards, old man,’ says the Master of the Justaerin.
‘They won’t hold them, Ezekyle,’ says Erebus. ‘Your training and your doctrines tell you that, surely?’
They are holding position at the highest point of the orbital plate’s upper hull, well defended by the ceramite vanes of the downed structure’s remaining engine vents. Below those vanes, which rise above them like the taut sails of an ancient sea-craft, Abaddon has six squads drawn from his company and Baraxa’s, along with a less formal phalanx of veteran Word Bearers. Down-hull, where the vast, ridged and broken back of the orbital plate slopes away from them like a gentle mountain, there are rapid flashes in the gloom, and the chatter of heavy weapons. Sensoria have positively identified the assaulting formation. Custodes. Among them, Tribune Diocletian Coros, Proconsul Ludovicus, Telamok, Maezari and Valdor himself.
‘Barely thirty of them,’ Abaddon replies.
‘Yes, but they are Custodes,’ Erebus replies, ‘and they are about as highly motivated as it is possible to be. Valdor alone–’
‘We have them flanked, and pinned in crossfire and defilade,’ Abaddon says firmly. ‘We have the advantage of higher terrain and cover. We outnumber them thirty to one. We have established Repulse Exactus in overlap, first order Pavis Indomitus, and Captain Jeraddon stands ready with Antecessum Purgatus to lock the kill-box as soon as they are drawn in. They took my bait. Their haste in escalade will be their undoing. As for Valdor, Sycar’s Justaerin are targeting him directly. Highest prejudice.’
‘Oh, Ezekyle,’ says Erebus. ‘Still thinking like a soldier. Still acting as though good soldiering will win this. You’re not a soldier, not any more.’
‘Shut up,’ says Abaddon.
‘Stop thinking with your pride,’ says Erebus. ‘This isn’t about your reputation, it’s about your father. We must defend the Court against any potential interloper. And Valdor certainly qualifies.’
‘The First Captain told you to shut up,’ says Baraxa, but Abaddon knows the Dark Apostle is right. Tactical shows him tag-markers greying out at an alarming rate. Bargaddon and two other Justaerin have just gone dark.
‘I’ll kill him myself,’ Abaddon declares. He hefts up his blade. ‘Valdor and any other of his gilded monsters.’
‘You could try,’ says Erebus.
Ulnok, squad leader Fermel, and the praetor Phaeto Zeletsis stir angrily. Baraxa takes a menacing step towards the Word Bearer.
‘Azelas, Azelas!’ Erebus soothes. ‘I am not disparaging the dear captain’s prowess. A finer Astartes warrior I cannot think of. But the operative word there is “Astartes”. Valdor is Custodes. Valdor is the Emperor’s oldest weapon. His men, few though they may be, are killing-machines. Any one of them outclasses any one of us. Would you be foolish enough to wager on an outcome?’
‘Then what do you suggest?’ Baraxa snaps.
‘Oh, Ezekyle knows, don’t you, Ezekyle? We have other advantages, and they’ve got us this far. We are stronger in ways they can’t imagine. Yet the First Captain is reluctant to make use of the gifts his father has supplied. All of your companies, in fact, seem hesitant to accept the path of glory. I think it’s time to revise that thinking.’
Baraxa looks sharply at Abaddon. A tempest gust of the warp storm churning above soughs between the vanes with a long, slow groan. A patter of dirty rain falls across them briefly.
Control, not controlled. Abaddon can see it in his friend’s eyes.
‘Control, not controlled… Your little mantra,’ says Erebus, playful but not quite mocking. ‘It’s been whispered to me. You are so cautious. I admire that, really. I’m not suggesting your submission. I have no wish to see you become a mindless terror-weapon like Ekron Fal or Vorus Ikari. I have no desire to see you degenerate like the sons of Angron or Fulgrim. But I can harness these gifts for you. You can retain control. In fact, you must. You are too gifted a leader to lose. Accept what I offer you, Ezekyle. Valdor will be as nothing if you do.’
‘My captain will have no part of this,’ says Baraxa.
‘Then your captain will not be the son his father needs, Azelas,’ replies Erebus with a diffident shrug. ‘He will not be the son his father expects. There will be no place for him in the new age, or for you either. His resistance to the new ways is admirable. I mean it. But the old ways of warfare are no longer sufficient, nor are they adequate. Besides, he’s tasted the potential already.’
‘What?’ says Baraxa.
‘How do you suppose he found his way to the bridge decks?’ asks Erebus. He looks over at Abaddon. ‘You felt then the power that awaits, the power your father offers. You felt the joy of it, yet remained in complete control. Thus, you accomplished something you could not have otherwise done. Listen to me, all of you. I speak frankly. These rewards are yours already. They’ve been in your grasp since the moment you took up this cause, the moment you stood by your father, despite the fact that it meant turning your backs on the Imperium you oathed to protect. It doesn’t matter how you justify that, or reconcile the choice in your minds. You stood by your father. You committed to this usurpation. You are walking the path of glory already. There’s no going back, not ever.’
Baraxa stares at Abaddon.
Abaddon glares at the scarred hull. He can hear the rapid-fire exchanges echoing through the decks below him. The Pavis Indomitus has just broken. Valdor’s killers are coming.
He doesn’t want to remember the enargeia, but he can’t help himself. The dopamine hit of pulling on the threads of Chaos, of turning them into reins. It obeyed him. It served him. He was the master. Control, not controlled.
‘There were wrongs to right,’ he murmurs. ‘The Emperor used us like toys, and withheld from us. We were right to rise. But, so help me, Horus was a fool to go so far into the darkness.’
‘Horus has just slain the Bright Angel,’ says Erebus. ‘How does that make him a fool?’
Abaddon looks up sharply.
‘It’s true,’ says Erebus. ‘He broke the Angel. That is a measure of his power. Likewise, he will soon break the False Emperor. Ezekyle, it is necessary for your father so be so steeped. He is the instrument of Chaos, and you will most likely find that disquieting when next you greet him. There is no need for you to go that far. You are not the chosen of the gods. Your father will need, hereafter, a First Captain who can keep him grounded, who has one foot in the materia. But through me, you can avail yourself of the endowments you need. I will not let you slip, I swear.’
‘We must defend the Court,’ Abaddon says to Baraxa.
‘Ezekyle, no…’
‘We must,’ says Abaddon. ‘My life for Lupercal. Ulnok, signal Sycar. Tell him to disengage and fall back. Tell him to draw those Custodes bastards this way. Phaeto, get cutters. We’re opening the hull. We’re going down to meet them.’
He turns to Erebus.
‘What must I do?’ he asks.
‘Trust me,’ says Erebus. ‘Accept my word and my guidance.’
‘Instruct me, so I understand.’
‘It cannot be understood. It is not a manual or a treatise of–’
‘I’m not playing games, Apostle!’ Abaddon snarls.
‘Neither am I, Ezekyle,’ Erebus replies. ‘I mean that literally. It defies understanding. Trust me. You’ve seen the power of my words, and I bear many of them. I will tell you what must be said.’