‘What have you done?’
It didn’t matter how softly Khârn asked the question, anger was still the emotion that drove it. A cold anger though, rather than the heat of rage. This wasn’t born of the Nails. It was much more personal.
Lorgar’s newly-claimed reflection chamber aboard the Trisagion was a humble space of bare iron and naked steel, untouched as yet by the personal touches of a soul at home. Khârn knew that in time it would become another library-temple, housing whatever scrolls and tomes the primarch chose to devote himself to. For now, its emptiness made it much less inviting, yet strangely more tolerable. The chamber had no windows, no portals looking out into the warp. Khârn couldn’t tell if that change was significant or not. The primarch was mercurial; guessing his moods and methods was a trial at the best of times.
Lorgar was robed as he usually was when away from battle. He worked at a writing desk, the scratching of his quill a continuous whisper.
‘I did what needed to be done, Khârn.’
The former equerry stepped forwards. ‘There’s a… a daemon shackled in the Conqueror’s hold.’
Lorgar still didn’t look up. ‘It is Angron. Nothing more, nothing less.’
‘Nothing more?’ Disbelief made him bold. ‘It butchered hundreds of my men before you bound it. It does nothing more than roar down there in the dark, breeding shipquakes. Lotara wants to jettison it into space – several decks around it have turned to human flesh, Lord Aurelian. The walls have started shrieking at us with moving mouths. Our water supplies are turning to blood as soon as they’re reprocessed. Whatever is down there is not “Angron and nothing more”. What did you do?’
‘Go down there.’ Lorgar still wrote; scratch-scratch went the quill. ‘See for yourself.’
‘What did you do? Answer me.’
Lorgar raised his head with threatening slowness. His eyes blazed with warp light. Looking into them was like staring into the Sea of Souls itself.
‘I saved him, Khârn. It was the only way. I alone sought to save him from the Nails that were killing him by degrees. I alone looked into the ways to free him from an existence of unrivalled agony. And I alone acted to save him.’
‘But…’
Lorgar’s glare silenced him. ‘Go down there and see for yourself. Angron is the future, our future. Humanity’s future. Immortal strength, and an eternity to learn the universe’s secret metaphysics. He didn’t die, Khârn. He ascended.’
‘But he’s trapped.’
‘For all our safety,’ Lorgar agreed. ‘Ultramar is blighted by the Ruinstorm, cut off from the Imperium. But I know the way back through the fire. We will gather our fleets spread across the Five Hundred Worlds, then we shall rejoin Horus. Has Vel-Kheredar finished forging the blade?’
‘He has.’
‘Is it all I asked?’ Lorgar asked calmly.
‘Its blade is black. It burns with god-runes.’
‘Bring it to me, Khârn. I will deliver it to Angron, just as I will release him when the time is right.’
‘When will that be?’
‘Can’t you guess? When we next reach a world that must bleed like never before.’ He smiled, though it was a sad thing to see. ‘Is that so different from how Angron has lived his life these last decades? Summoned only for slaughter?’
Khârn had no answer to that. No sense arguing with the truth.
‘Is he in pain?’
‘Yes.’ The primarch went back to his writing. ‘But nothing compared to what has wracked him since his gestation pod first crashed on Nuceria, and the Desh’eans hammered the Nails into his skull.’
Another silence stretched out between them. Khârn broke it by bowing; his armour joints snarled at the movement.
‘I’ll see with my own eyes, then.’ He turned to take his leave, but stopped when Lorgar said his name once more.
‘Khârn.’
The captain glanced back, expecting Lorgar to be occupied with his parchment. Instead, the primarch’s gaze was raw and pained; a dignified, restrained fury.
‘Lord?’
‘Would you like to know,’ Lorgar asked softly, ‘who killed Argel Tal?’
