"Damn it!"
Varkan the Red clenched his gore-slicked axe and stared up at the towering Lion. His body trembled, ever so slightly, with fear.
The Khorne-chosen champion realized that on this landing craft he alone remained; the foe had butchered every other warrior.
What in the hells did the Lion intend?
Varkan worried at the question, hunting for an answer.
Could that bastard truly be trying to challenge the entire Chaos fleet? That was impossible. No one could pull off something so insane!
While he was wringing the last drops out of his limited wits to find a counter, the Lion had already taken a single step forward.
"Rroar—!
Blood for the Blood God!"
Varkan had no time left to think. With a bellow he yanked up his axe and hewed down with all his might. The blow's force was terrifying, enough to smash through any heavy war-plate.
He had to go all out against a returned legend.
Yet in the Lion's eyes the Khorne champion's attack was feather-light. A casual lift of the blade—nothing more—and every stroke was turned aside.
Shhk, shhk, shhk.
Lances of disintegration-field light flickered. The champion's hacks, the barbed tentacles lashing in, his limbs—everything—were shorn away. He tumbled to the deck.
Like a maggot.
Caustic slime bled from that hideous body, hissing white smoke out of the steel floor.
With immaculate knightly swordcraft the Lion disposed of the champion of Khorne. Truthfully, he could have finished this furious… obstacle… even faster.
But to spare the bridge any damage, he chose the most cautious, measured method—fighting so cleanly that not a single console or strut in the compartment was harmed.
"Why… why did I fall so fast?!"
As Varkan toppled, only that thought crawled through his mind.
He was furious. A champion of Khorne, and yet he had lasted a mere eight seconds before the Lion and then collapsed into utter defeat.
The Lion—this legend—was terrifying beyond belief. What sort of warrior could overcome him?
"Hhh~"
Varkan panted raggedly and strained to lift his head, trying to see that legendary figure one more time.
All he saw was a black muzzle.
The Lion walked past the champion of Khorne, drew the plasma blaster he had slung at his side, and squeezed the trigger.
THOOM!
A lance of plasma screamed out, vaporizing the champion's skull and half his shoulder, ending him in an instant.
The wet thud of ruptured flesh only deepened the horror that clung to the bridge like a shroud.
It wasn't just the bridge crew—slaves of Chaos all—who were stunned; even the Lion himself felt a flicker of surprise.
He had found the weapon in a neat little case—one of the high-grade supplies the Savior had provided—and he hadn't expected it to hit this hard.
New tech, then.
"Our master is dead…"
The landing craft's crew—Chaos thralls to a one—stared dumbly at the corpse and at the Lion coming closer, shivering uncontrollably.
They wanted to turn and run, screaming. Under the Lion's gaze and the weight of his presence, not a single muscle would obey.
All they could do was stand where they were and await judgment.
"Comply with my orders."
The Lion's voice rolled out—no threats, no bluster—just command.
Irrefusable.
Such profaned lackeys weren't worth any more of his feeling.
Holstering the plasma weapon, he strode to the command throne and took it, every bit the master of the ship.
The Lion's eyes were hard as winter steel.
He'd caught the scent of a counterstroke. Time to break atmo, to take more victories out there.
His force needed a bigger ship if they were going to reach their destination quickly.
A battleship, say.
That would mean an ugly boarding action.
He'd need to face down a sea of foes alone and punch through an entire battleship's defense architecture.
Then take her for his own.
But that was for later.
Right now he had one task only: before the fleet fully reacted, punch through to low orbit and close with the flagship.
Their confidence had drawn them too tight to the planet, leaving precious little room to maneuver.
Light rippled over the hololithic sand-table.
In a bare handful of heartbeats the Lion had mastered the craft's command schema; it differed little from the days of the Great Crusade.
His hand moved over the tactical projection too fast to follow, leaving only afterimages.
The First Primarch, Lord of the First Legion, possessed exquisite gifts of command; in seconds he issued dozens of orders.
The Chaos crew bent utterly beneath his will. Not one dared defy him. Shaking, they executed every command.
Vmmm!
The bridge tilted, then shuddered.
The view beyond the observation ports changed:
The ground slid away. A sallow sky opened. Above it, packed together so thick they blotted out the system's three suns, lay the Chaos fleet.
The craft ended its dive at blistering speed, rolled, and clawed for the near-orbital bands toward the Chaos formation.
Hull-shadows swelled, swelled again. The shapes sharpened into cruel silhouettes.
The Lion watched those warships, gaze growing ever more severe. Ninety-nine seconds more and they'd be within boarding range.
At last, his wretched luck had turned. He had bet right. The road back would finally clear!
Then his brow creased as he studied the sky.
In the volume below the Chaos fleet, points of light winked into being—brightening, brightening—
A heartbeat later the Lion understood, scalp prickling. "Damn it. Orbital fire. A full fleet strike!"
Bee-bee-bee.
The landing craft's emitters shrieked with a needle-keen alarm, and the hololithic grid flooded with red pips.
Every one of them was an incoming kill-shot.
"What is that?!"
"Orbital bombardment—orbital bombardment! The fleet means to erase us!"
"Blood God save us—we're done! This craft can't evade—"
The sheer density of the barrage broke the Chaos crew's minds. Panic. Despair. A fate that looked like a certainty.
"The boarding plan has failed."
The Lion's eyes hardened. He cut off any futile commands.
"The fleet's commander is anything but complacent—he's cautious. He knows me, or else… fears me."
Orbital strikes need time to spin up.
For the volleys to drop this promptly, the enemy commander had decided the instant the landing flotillas launched to wipe every craft that entered atmosphere.
Even at the cost of allies aboard them.
All to remove any risk—to keep the Lion from seizing a chance to counterattack.
Such ruthless resolve.
No question—the enemy commander had chosen well.
"Has malign fortune not done with me yet?"
The Lion let out a breath.
His road home had hit another wall. Worse: a danger he might not weather—one that might demand his life.
Utterly wretched.
Without a heartbeat's hesitation he left the command throne and smashed the observation port.
Abandon ship.
WHOOM—
He had barely hurled himself out when the landing craft vanished under a storm of ship-guns. The blast-front slammed into him like a titan's fist, the fireball hurling him end-over-end.
Thank the Emperor it wasn't a direct hit. His primarch-plate blunted the worst of the heat, sparing his flesh from being charred to slag.
Even so, burning gases tore down his airways into his lungs and seared them raw.
Like swallowing red-hot iron.
The shock was so savage that even his jump pack couldn't keep him aloft; it only bled off the fall.
Just enough to soften the landing.
"Kh—kh—kh!"
The Lion fought through the tumble, adjusted twice, then cratered into the earth so hard he gouged a pit meters deep.
His organs took another hammering. He spat blood.
Now his cloak hung in scorched tatters, burn-marks blackened every plate, and both his jump pack and the plasma weapon were wreckage.
"My Lord!"
Zabriel sprinted to him, hauling his gene-father up by the arm, worry etched into every line of his face.
"I'm fine."
The Lion got to his feet and waved off his son's concern. His voice was roughened to a rasp.
Such hurts couldn't kill a primarch.
That didn't mean he was safe.
The Lion and his warriors looked up. The sky was fire—ship-hulls falling in burning chunks, while more light-lances smashed apart the surviving craft.
Greater detonations rolled.
From the ground it looked as if the heavens themselves had been set alight; a burning pressure-wave pressed down, and more flaming meteors crashed into the distant plains, flipping earth and mountain like parchment.
The very image of the world's ending.
"By the Emperor…"
Hada and the other knights drawn from the tribes went hollow-eyed before such terror from on high. Fear swallowed them whole.
They could only gape—no thought of running even rose.
This was a god's wrath no mortal could defy. There was no escape from such unmaking.
Not everyone broke.
The Lion and his gene-son Zabriel had lived through apocalypse a dozen times over.
In the Horus Heresy the fires had burned from the galaxy's edge all the way to Terra itself. Orbital strikes like this were hardly rare.
They had, in fact, witnessed the death of an entire world.
That was destruction.
Compared to that, these barrages were nothing to frighten them.
Of course, they were still lethal.
They had no ships, no orbital defenses—no means to break or answer the fire.
Let this continue, and only annihilation awaited.
"All of you—into the forest! Use its cover against the bombardment!"
The Lion had not discarded hope.
He gave the order and led his warriors into the dun-hued forest.
Ironwood trunks hundreds of meters tall, shelves of solid rock—perhaps there they might yet steal a chance to live.
If the enemy didn't loose cyclonic torpedoes and crack the world in two.
A world without orbital defenses was a lamb on the chopping block before a fleet—no way to resist, no way to evade doom.
Still, the Lion held onto a splinter of hope.
Because from the forest's deep brown heart he felt a call—like the tug that had greeted him when he first woke.
"What have you sensed, my Lord?"
Zabriel seemed to feel his sire's change as well.
They ran at the Lion's side while behind them orbital fury harrowed the ground. The earth burned and rolled; the treeline's edge turned to charcoal.
"I don't know what it is."
The Lion frowned. "I can't even say I feel anything concrete. It's more like… something calling me. Pointing the way."
"Some kind of device? A relic from the deep past?"
Zabriel's caution showed; there were relics of black science that could project such calls.
Some even had a kind of will—baiting victims to come, to serve some hidden purpose.
The Lion shook his head and gave his verdict. "All I can say is this: we will not face danger."
There was no mind to the thing. No malice. Only a yearning to leave this world and go elsewhere.
A yearning that felt like his own blood-deep nature.
"The forest… and Avalonis?"
The thought rose in the Lion's heart, unbidden: through the forest to Avalonis—the nexus-world, the refuge of his Fallen sons.
It was strange.
As if all he had to do was keep walking and he would step out of Caliban's woods and into the place he sought.
Perhaps the path beneath the boughs led straight to Avalonis.
Absurd—but the notion sat in him, solid as iron.
"If I had a fleet, I would never be in such a state!"
Bile burned in the Lion's throat.
How he longed, in this moment, for a fleet—just a few cruisers would do!
At least there was a sliver of a chance now.
Behind him the world burned and thundered.
Yet his heart surged with hope.
"Get there. Reach that place. So long as I can reach that place—"
If he could make it to Avalonis, he could gather the Fallen, rebuild his strength, and raise a fleet.
Zabriel had said it himself: reclaim the local Imperial Navy and a full sector patrol-fleet would be his.
At least one battleship. A dozen cruisers or more.
Subtle changes were already stirring. Power seeped through the veil.
Suddenly, the world around the Lion and his men changed.
In a blink they strode among green boughs—the forests of Caliban.
"To Avalonis."
Soot smeared the Lion's face, and he cut a ragged figure.
He lengthened his stride, thinking only that.
…
A short time earlier.
Low orbit, aboard the Profane Oath, bridge.
"This is necessary. Never—ever—underestimate the Lion!"
Baelor glared at the tactical holo, fingers digging into its steel lip until it creaked.
Once a son of the Lion himself, he knew what their gene-sire was. He would give the primarch no chance to turn the board.
So when Varkan the Red ignored counsel and took a landing craft to the surface, the chaos-tainted Fallen, commander of the Ten Thousand Eyes, made his choice at once—
Erase every landing craft that broke atmo. Seal the Crimson One and the Lion onto that dirtball. Then wait for more allies to arrive.
Would the Lion die under orbital fire?
If a legend could be killed so easily—then let him die.
Baelor gave the order without a qualm.
The Profane Oath shivered, and tens of tons of high-explosive death went screaming into the void, knifed through the atmosphere, and fell upon the landing flotillas.
What followed proved him right. The Lion slew the Crimson One, seized a ship, and burned for near-orbit.
Watching it happen, Baelor felt a cold thread of fear.
Even with a fleet under him, he had the absurd sensation of being hunted—of being surrounded by the Lion.
He didn't look away from the tactical display. Not once. Not until every shell blossomed and every landing craft came apart to dust.
Only then did he let the breath out.
"The Lion can't escape us now. Signal our master—"
Relief softened Baelor's face into a smile.
The alarm cut him off. The star-map filled with red.
Pickett craft on the perimeter screamed their warnings:
"Multiple Imperial contacts—large fleet. Warning… it's a large fleet!"
A heartbeat later those pickets died, silent.
"Damn it! The Imperial Navy picked up the Lion's distress call!"
Baelor smashed a fist into the holo-table, leaving a deep dent.
He stared at the dun-brown world below and choked on his bitterness.
Even so, he gave the order to withdraw. They had chased the Lion here in haste with barely any hulls.
This light squadron could not face an Imperial task force; the Ten Thousand Eyes' main fleet would not arrive in time.
So they would yield—for now.
At least they had their prize: proof the Lion lived and had returned.
The warhost tore the veil and slipped into a kaleidoscope wound in the air, sailing the Warp away.
No sooner had the Chaos fleet vanished than new ripples shivered through the void.
Ship after Imperial ship punched out of the Warp and closed on the dun world—ten times the number the traitors had brought.
Drop-craft fell toward the surface in waves.
On the flag-deck:
"Have we found the Lion?"
The fleet's commander—a pallid man with warped fingers—spoke in a faint, reedy voice.
A voidborn, and high-ranked.
For such people—born among the stars, raised in rad-washed decks and manufactorums—command of a fleet was no easy summit.
His name was José, born aboard a pilgrim ship.
Sixty years earlier he had bent the knee to the Savior and entered the Loyal Scions Naval College. He'd graduated, fought, and risen—now he wore the baton of Commander, Redemption Fifteenth Fleet.
The Fifteenth was newly raised. Ten battleships, over eighty cruisers, and a host of escorts.
But being a scratch fleet, most of its crews were old Imperial Navy—only lightly tempered by the Savior's naval doctrine.
They weren't a true Redemption Fleet—not yet. They needed war to season them.
By the Savior's order—the Emperor's order—José had come to pull the Lion out of the fire, and then place the fleet under the primarch's command.
Let him grind the edge on it.
Primarchs were the greatest of commanders—especially the Lion. In his hands, a fleet could become a scalpel.
Reports rose from the surface.
No contact with the Lion.
From the scuffed tracks and residual energy traces, the primarch and his warriors had entered the forest and then… slipped away in some kind of Warp-borne translation, missing the rendezvous by heartbeats.
"I understand."
José tugged at the glove that hid his twisted hand and spoke softly:
"Recall all ships. We'll report directly to His Majesty the Savior…"
—
Aboard the Malevolent Eye.
Within the ship's Ecclesiarchy chapel.
The Emperor's statue lay broken, half a face buried in rubble, its stone smeared with blood-daubed blasphemies.
Skulls and desiccated viscera of Adeptus Astartes hung everywhere. In the center, a blood-daubed cross spiked with a primarch's helm.
Left for the First Primarch.
Together they formed a warped sorcerous array.
"My lord."
Baelor knelt, penitence tightening his features.
"Ah, Baelor. You failed."
The Lord of the Ten Thousand Eyes, Seraphax, spoke in a voice like poisonous serpents woven from raw Warp-energy.
At some point a throne of hell-light had appeared on the fallen statue's crown, and upon it a phantom of witch-green fire lounged.
The apparition's heel rested on the broken sacred face—arrogance without limit.
At those words Baelor bent his head even lower.
He drew breath to answer—Seraphax stilled him with one languid finger.
"I do not blame you, my loyal hound. If catching our quarry—the Lion—had been so easy, that would trouble me.
It would mean my prophecy was wrong. The Lion will not be taken on that world—but upon a hub, where strands of fate knot.
Avalonis. There we will hunt him, and bring him here, to begin the final rite of profanation and reshape the galaxy entire."
Baelor remembered something else and added:
"My lord, there is a new enemy—a figure called the Savior. His fleet has entered this region.
From the wake-prints we captured, the Savior's heading is also Avalonis.
He may seek to aid the Lion. I fear he may disrupt our hunt."
Seraphax only smiled, voice touched with mockery.
"Of no consequence. I foresaw that one long ago.
He's a name and a noise. Nothing more. Only that fool Abaddon, blinded by hate, could be played by him.
He borrows holy power to strut before daemons—but not for long.
Remember our true prey: the Lion—and the pitiful bones upon the Golden Throne."
The sorcerer-lord had plainly heard some of the Savior's tales and cared not a whit. In a dying Imperium, how much hard force could a century-born upstart raise?
And in any case, the prophecies told him the Savior was no true threat—and Seraphax had spells ready to break him.
He slouched deeper on his throne, fist propping his chin.
"I feel a darkness, bottomless and near. The Ten Thousand Eyes must move quickly. Call our allies.
If the Lion—or the Savior—shows himself on Avalonis, send the fleets. Encircle it. Burn it.
Let blood rain across the earth."
…
At the same time.
Avalonis System, a certain volume of space.
Aboard Dreamweaver, on the bridge.
Eden received the transmission. He stood beneath the observation dome, brow furrowed.
"This is going to be trouble…"
(End of Chapter)
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