The ramp beneath the gunship’s chin released with a creak. Flakes of rust and calcified bone fell to the decking. The autoloaders in Perturabo’s armour cycled. Yellow steam swirled in the space beyond. A shape lumbered into view. Volk instinctively raised his weapon as it emerged into the light. Like the gunship, its form was crusted and spiked with coral-like growths. Scabrous boils the size of a fist dotted its torso. Pale fronds darted from tiny holes to lick the air. Beneath the growth, Volk could just identify the lines of Tartaros-pattern Terminator plate. It was the thing’s head that held his eyes, though. It was withered, the flesh sucked out of its features so that the parchment skin hung off its skull. Its mouth was a razor line slashed across the dry creases. It had three eyes, two lidless and yellow with cataracts, the third a blood-red orb set in its forehead. It blinked with its third eye as it looked at the assembled host.
Argonis was the first to speak.
‘Who are you?’
The figure did not look at him but turned its head in the socket of its armour.
‘The storm spoke and we answered,’ it said. Volk had expected a hiss or a dry rattle, but the voice was surprisingly strong.
‘You know who I am?’ said Perturabo.
The thing nodded, its armour creaking as it shifted posture.
‘You are the Lord of Iron. You are the warrior who passed through the Eye’s pupil and saw the truth. You are the breaker and ender of worlds. Yes… We know who you are.’
‘What have you done to our Navigators?’ growled Volk.
‘We…’ said the figure, shifting its gaze but still not looking at Volk, as though it were not seeing the same space or disposition of warriors as everyone else.
‘We have done nothing. The storm brought us here and so here we are.’ It paused, and then its head turned slowly back like a cog rotating in a machine. Its red eye fixed on Perturabo.
A murmur of weapons cycling to the point of firing filled the air. Perturabo shook his head.
‘The storm brought you?’
‘We are of the storm. It is our sire, we are its voice.’
Argonis stepped forwards, a bolt pistol in his hand. He levelled the gun.
‘Your name,’ he growled.
‘I was named Khalek,’ said the figure, holding its gaze on Perturabo. ‘I was called the Chieftain of the Hekora. I was called a Luna Wolf, and am now of the Sons of Horus.’
Argonis was very still.
‘Khalek has not been seen for three years,’ he said. ‘His force was lost in translation to Novageddon.’
‘And now we are found.’
Argonis’ finger tensed on the trigger of his bolt pistol.
Perturabo took a single step forwards, a targeting beam flicking from a shoulder-mounted weapon pod to hold steady on Argonis’ gun hand. Argonis did not fire. Perturabo held the targeting beam still. After a long moment the emissary dropped his aim and stepped back.
‘How were you sent?’ said Perturabo to Khalek.
‘We are the storm, its sevenfold winds are our sire, and we its children. Where it carries us, we go. We are its voice. It took us from the graveyard of ships in its heart, took us and gave us life again, and so we come to speak for it.’
‘The warp…’ breathed Volk. ‘It is… in them.’
‘The storm is within all,’ said Khalek.
‘What did the storm send you to say?’ asked Perturabo.
‘It sent us to make you an offer. There is a throne for you, Lord of Iron,’ said Khalek, and he shivered as he spoke. Volk noticed a flash of red on the paper-dry lips. ‘A throne that weeps with the tears of your enemies. And with the throne, a crown that once on your brow will make the iron of your blood eternal. You are rotting, Lord of Iron. You layer metal on your skin and bind the killing edges closer to you, because they make you feel the strength that is bleeding out of you. You feel this truth. You know it in the fever-tremble of your skin.’
Khalek’s body was moving, his shoulders heaving, as though the muscles inside his armour were writhing even as his voice held steady. ‘The Sixfold Prince has bitten deep and feasted long. The wound festers within your soul. You are dying. Your iron is rust.’
Perturabo did not move, but Volk thought that the shadows deepened in the hollows of his face.
Khalek’s convulsions ceased. His chin was wet with blood.
‘You resist,’ said Khalek. ‘You fight, but that only steals more from you. You seek the Son of Blood, the Dog of Bones snapping in its brass collar. Father Storm sees this – it sees and knows that if you find the Hound of Red Sands, you will die. You are weak, and he is beyond your weakness. He will not yield. He will not obey. He will test your metal, and it will be wanting. The Father sees, the Father knows.’ Khalek took a rasping breath and bowed his head. ‘You can rise, lord. You can be eternal, unbreaking, unbreakable.’
‘Is that the extent of what you have come to say?’ asked Perturabo.
Khalek raised and dipped his head.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Good,’ said Perturabo.
The air screamed. Beams of incandescent energy and streams of rounds burned through the space between Perturabo and Khalek. The warrior vanished. Armour plating, flesh and metal tore into shreds and vapour.
Volk’s visor dimmed to dull the blaze of light. Perturabo was a blur, charging forwards through the flames. The rest of the Iron Warriors froze on the point of firing as the primarch passed in front of them.
Khalek’s gunship was trying to rise from the deck. Thrusters coughed dirty jets of flame. Cannon mounts spun, grinding bone and rust flakes from their fittings. The Lord of Iron struck the front of the gunship as it rose from the deck. He had not had a weapon in his hands; the hammer Forgebreaker still rested in the hands of one of the Iron Circle, but it did not matter. Power wreathed the primarch’s fists as the first blow landed.
Armour shattered. Lightning arced out. The gunship dipped, its nose shattered, oil and clotted blood showering to the deck. A broken gun mount twitched in its chin. Perturabo punched into the wound. An explosion thumped into the air. The gunship burst apart. Shreds of corroded armour spun out, rattling off the shields of the Iron Circle as they surged to their master’s side. The cloud of flame rolled upwards, smoke curdling black at its edges. The air reeked of charring meat and melting metal. Perturabo walked from the fire. Soot darkened his armour. Fire glinted from its edges, and for a second it seemed to breathe in the inferno.
‘All ships engage,’ he said, his voice carrying over the fading roar of the explosion. ‘Make ready for warp translation on my command.’
‘The Navigators…’ began Argonis.
‘We will face the storm.’
Volk’s augmetic eye flickered with a sudden cascade of tactical data.
‘Lord, they are launching boarding craft and torpedoes.’ Volk blinked, his eyelid closing over the metal sphere of his right eye. It did not interrupt the flow of command data. ‘There are hundreds of them…’
‘Launch interceptors, all squadrons,’ said Perturabo, halting in his stride, suddenly still. His gaze was hollow. ‘Burn them from the void.’
