False Gods

'Very well. Be careful, Tybalt,' said Loken before turning away from the disgusting sight of Marr pulling apart Temba's corpse.

His men began searching the bridge and Loken climbed the steps to the captain's throne, staring out over the crew pits, now filled with all ma

He circled the throne, pausing as his foot co

He bent down and saw a polished wooden casket. Its surfaces were smooth and clean, and it was clearly out of place in this reeking tomb. Perhaps the length and thickness of a man's arm, the wood was rich brown with strange symbols carved along its length. The lid opened on golden hinges and Loken released the delicate catch that held it shut.

The casket was empty, padded with a red velvet insert, and as he stared at its emptiness, Loken realised how thoughtless he'd been in opening it. He ran his fingers along the length of the casket, tracing the outline of the symbols, seeing something familiar in their elegantly cursive forms.

'Over here!' shouted one of Locasta, and Loken quickly gathered up the casket and made his way towards the source of the call. While Tybalt Marr disassembled the traitor's rotten body, Astartes warriors surrounded something that gleamed on the deck.

Loken saw that it was Eugan Temba's severed arm, the fingers still wrapped around the hilt of a strange, glittering sword with a blade that looked like grey flint.

'It's Temba's arm right enough,' said Vipus, reaching down to lift the sword.

'Don't touch it,' said Loken. 'If it laid the Warmaster low, I don't want to know what it could do to us.'

Vipus recoiled from the sword as though it were a snake.

'What's that?' asked Torgaddon, pointing at the casket.

Loken dropped to his haunches, laying the casket next to the sword, unsurprised when he saw that the sword would fit snugly inside.

'I think it once contained this sword.'

'Looks pretty new,' said Vipus. 'And what's that on the side? Writing?'

Loken didn't answer, reaching out to prise Temba's dead fingers from the sword hilt. Though he knew it was absurd, he grimaced with each finger he pried loose, expecting the hand to leap to life and attack him.

Eventually, the sword was free, and Loken gingerly lifted the weapon.

'Careful,' said Torgaddon.

'Thanks, Tarik, and here was me about to throw it.'

'Sorry.'

Loken slowly lowered the sword into the casket. The handle tingled and he had felt a curious sensation as he had said Tarik's name, a sense of the monstrous harm the weapon could inflict. He snapped the lid shut, letting out a pent-up breath.

'How in the name of Terra did someone like Temba get hold of a weapon like that?' asked Torgaddon. 'It didn't even look human-made.'

'It's not,' said Loken as the familiarity of the symbols on the side of the casket fell horribly into place. 'It's kinebrach.'

'Kinebrach?' asked Torgaddon. 'But weren't they—'

'Yes,' said Loken, carefully lifting the casket from the deck. 'This is the anathame that was stolen from the Hall of Devices on Xenobia.'

The word went out across the Vengeful Spirit at the speed of thought, and weeping men and women lined their route. Hundreds filed each passageway as the Astartes bore the Warmaster on a bier of kite-shaped shields. Clad in his ceremonial armour of winter white with burnished gold trims and the glaring red eye, the Warmaster's hands were clasped across his golden sword, and a laurel wreath of silver sat upon his noble brow.

Abaddon, Aximand, Luc Sedirae, Serghar Targost, Falkus Kibre and Kalus Ekaddon carried him, and behind the Warmaster came Hektor Varvarus and Maloghurst. Each one wore shining armour and their company cloaks billowed behind them as they walked. Heralds and criers a

In lieu of flowers, the people threw torn scraps of tearstained paper, each with words of hope and love written on them. Shown that the Warmaster still lived, his people burned herbs said to have healing properties, hanging them from smoking censers all along the route, and from somewhere a band played the Legion March.

Candles burned with a sweet smell and men and women, soldiers and civilians, tore at themselves in their grief. Army ba

Aximand was awed by the outpouring of sorrow and love for the Warmaster, the scale of people's grief at his wounding beyond anything in his experience. To him the Warmaster was a figure of magnificence, but first and foremost, he was a warrior - a leader of men and one of the Emperor's chosen.

To these mortals, he was so much more. To them, the Warmaster was a symbol of something noble and heroic beyond anything they could ever aspire to, a symbol of the new galaxy they were forging from the ashes of the Age of Strife.

Horus's very existence promised an end to the suffering and death that had plagued humanity for centuries.

Old Night was drawing to a close and, thanks to heroes like the Warmaster, the first rays of a new dawn were breaking on the horizon.

All that was under threat now, and Aximand knew he had made the right choice in allowing the others to take Horus to Davin. The Lodge of the Serpent would heal the Warmaster, and if that involved powers he might once have condemned, then so be it.

The die was cast and all he had left to cling to was his faith that the Warmaster would be restored to them. He smiled as he remembered something the Warmaster had said to him on the subject of faith. The Warmaster had typically delivered his words of wisdom at a wholly inappropriate time - right before they had leapt from the belly of a screaming Stormbird into the green skin city on Ullanor.

'When you have come to the edge of all that you know and are about to drop off into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things will happen,' the Warmaster had told him.

'And what are they?' he had asked.

'That there will be something solid to stand on or you'll be taught to fly,' laughed Horus as he jumped.

The memory made the tears come all the harder as the huge iron gate of the embarkation deck rumbled closed behind them and the Astartes marched towards the Warmaster's waiting Stormbird.