Chapter 279: Night, Wolves, and Death
Normally, Horus would effortlessly command the room, the very axis upon which attention turned—only Sanguinius could rival him for such brilliance.
But like calls to like. In a gathering of shining brothers, it was only natural that two who shared the same aura would be drawn toward one another.
Neither had expected the other's presence.
The Lupercal's private chamber was draped with banners—an aged Lunar Wolves standard hung beside the two-headed aquila. Pale-gold carpet covered the floor, and single-cushion sofas of fine weave were arranged in a casual ring, all facing the chamber's central projector.
Horus activated the device, and at once the target system bloomed into being before them. He drew in a measured breath, then turned back with a smile—
Mortarion sat silently on one of the sofas, his posture as still and cold as a statue.
The pale bone-white of his armor seemed drained of all vitality. Scratches marred its surface, left unrepaired; there was no ornament, no embellishment, nothing to soften its hollow bleakness. For many Primarchs, such imperfection was intolerable, but Mortarion wore it with indifference. His deep-set eyes were veiled within the cowl's shadow, unreadable.
From beneath his mask came the rasping wheeze of a dying man. Every breath suggested torment, as though some cruel burden gnawed at him without cease. Horus had long suspected it was the toxic miasma locked inside Mortarion's respirator—but he could never comprehend why his brother chose such a form of self-inflicted suffering.
Konrad Curze, by contrast, sat with twisted unease, as if the sofa were a seat of thorns and nails.
Horus knew well these chairs were of the softest fabric, so comfortable even an infant would drift instantly to sleep.
The Night Haunter was swathed in his midnight plate, its edges ending in razored talons that gleamed with pitiless light. Iron spikes jutted from his armor, each impaling a skull that stared hollow-eyed at Horus in mute agony.
Strands of greasy hair clung together with the residue of dried fluids, the Primarch's long black mane tangled and foul. Among them, Horus could swear he glimpsed congealed lumps of something better left unidentified.
Unlike Mortarion, who cloaked his face entirely, Curze revealed his in full: skin pallid as ice, lips tinted a corpse-blue and stained with the dried maroon of old blood.
Looking at the pair of them, Horus was struck by a strange realization. These two—so often misfits among their brothers—mirrored one another in an unsettling way. An unkind comparison stirred in his thoughts: Mortarion and Curze were like Guilliman and Dorn, opposites made twins by circumstance.
In short, both looked like corpses. The difference lay only in their flavor of death: Mortarion resembled a tubercular cadaver long buried in the earth, while Curze evoked a blood-drained body kept too long in an icehouse.
All right, Horus admitted to himself, even I must confess this pairing is… troublesome.
Not as troublesome as that banquet, though—and for that, he was profoundly grateful.
He forced his tone into something light, turning to the two silent figures who clearly had no intention of speaking first.
"Before we begin, we should at least exchange introductions," Horus said warmly. "It will make cooperation far smoother on the battlefield."
He, of course, had already fought beside both legions. The Lunar Wolves knew the Death Guard. They knew the Night Lords. But Mortarion and Curze had yet to stand face to face.
The Night Haunter lifted his gaze from the tangle of hair that veiled his features. His eyes were pure black voids. For a moment, he regarded Horus with melancholy.
And in that instant, Curze saw.
A broken puppet, wreathed in formless fire, roaring as it tore the sun itself asunder.
He was no longer looking at Horus.
Brother turned against brother, kin against kin. At last he spoke:
"Konrad Curze. Night Lords."
The words were soft and rasping, but they were enough to draw every eye onto him.
"Mortarion. Death Guard. Lord of Barbarus."
Curze cast a fleeting glance toward Mortarion—
And in that instant he saw: gardens hemmed by walls choked with vines and maggots; kneeling figures ground into the dirt; the seekers of suffering who found only tragedy.
Another soul without choice.
The weight of sorrow and ruin pressed down on him again. Nightmares clung to him like mottled shadows on a midnight wall. Justice, redemption—empty illusions, screaming in his mind, trying to tear him apart.
"Konrad?"
Horus's voice dragged him back. Curze shook his head sharply, signaling his brother to continue with the briefing.
The target was a prosperous pocket-kingdom, one boasting respectable system defenses. Most of its people lived upon the homeworld, where technology and military power had advanced to a formidable degree.
Again and again the Imperium had dispatched envoys. Again and again they had been rebuffed. Now the last delegation remained in chains.
Curze only half-listened to Horus's speech. His hopeless brother still clung to the idea that this civilization could be redeemed. He wanted to give them the chance to yield, to reason with them.
Horus insisted on negotiation—smash the orbital defenses, then array the legions and force them to capitulate under the threat of annihilation.
It was a familiar refrain, endless words about "why they still have hope." Platitudes. Tiresome. Curze grew bored. He drifted back to the screams of the flayed, to the shrieks that usually accompanied his thoughts—but here, in Horus's dull council chamber, even those screams were muted.
Horus. Guilliman. Dorn. Cloaked in their pious veneers, blind to the truth. Mercy and forgiveness only bred rot. Only merciless judgment could forge order from chaos.
Fear births justice. Pain births fear.
He could already foresee it: when the Night Lords bent their foes with terror's blade, Horus would rebuke him again, the Lupercal's disappointment ringing in his ears.
Men of form and appearances—so willing to trade a few drops of blood for oceans of sacrifice. Why refuse to face the truth? Did they truly prefer to watch their sons die in droves rather than admit the necessity of his methods?
No—they simply refused to confront their guilt. They would not face the sins they themselves had authored in war.
"—If in the first phase they still refuse to heed our offers, the legions can make planetfall on Continent Three's eastern seaboard," Horus was saying. "It is their major transport artery. Cut it off and the pressure will break them. They cannot hold out longer than three standard Terran months—"
"No."
The ghost of Nostramo breathed the words softly. "Three standard Terran weeks. At most."
Horus faltered.
"They still have the southern routes. They won't collapse so fast—"
But his voice weakened, for he already knew what Curze meant to propose.
"Give that southern artery—the great city at its heart, the one swollen with people—to the Night Lords. Do not jam their transmissions. Let the others witness."
Curze spoke the words like a knife sliding free.
Horus turned to him sharply, brow furrowing.
"Konrad. Tell me this: how can you be certain their will shall break? That they will not answer with only deeper hatred, deeper defiance?"
Mortarion, who had never fought beside the Eighth, did not grasp the exchange. Yet some instinctive sympathy stirred in him at his first impression of Curze, and so he kept silent.
"Because…"
Curze rasped, grinding the edges of the blades at his fingertips together, craving the feel of flesh and heartbeat squirming between his hands—anything but this sterile chamber, anything but these meaningless words with Horus.
"Reality will prove me right."
"By this planet's climate, three weeks is enough for the corpses to exude a most exquisite stench. If we pile them high enough, the deep fermentation will ride the monsoon winds, spreading fear into the cities still unbroken."
Konrad lifted his hand before his face and inhaled deeply, enraptured, as though the sweet rot of the carrion mound was already in his lungs. He imagined pus trickling from hollow sockets, the air heavy with decay.
"They will surrender soon enough—long before their stores run dry," he said carelessly, and Horus thought he could hear the Night Haunter's low, rasping chuckle beneath the words.
"You cannot—"
Mortarion raised a hand, cutting him off.
"If it is merely a matter of hastening decay, the Death Guard can provide the necessary viruses. The flesh will rot faster, the fumes thicker. It will shorten the time further."
The Lord of Death spoke without judgment, simply as a statement of fact.
This time Konrad's chuckle filled the chamber, swelling until it threatened to become laughter.
"Mortarion, my brother—my thanks. With your gift, we can break this world in two weeks."
Beneath his hood, faint creases deepened around Mortarion's eyes. Horus realized, with a tightening in his chest, that even the dour Lord of Death was smiling.
Horus drew in a slow breath and raised his hand, pulling both their attentions back to him. He spoke as gently as he could.
"This is a highly advanced human civilization. There is no tyranny here, no oppression." His gaze flicked quickly to Mortarion. "They have done no wrong. They have only built, only prospered." Then his eyes locked with Konrad's.
"They deserve a war fought with honor—not terror and massacre."
"Give me a chance. Their rulers are not fools. Once they grasp the full measure of the Imperium's strength, they will surrender. They need not be broken."
"My brother, Horus…"
Mortarion's rasping voice coiled through the chamber.
"It is because their rulers are not fools that they will resist to the last—militarily or in spirit. Only incompetents surrender early. Such men, in the face of invasion, first dream of resistance to preserve their lofty thrones. And when the truth of their weakness is laid bare, they are always the quickest to yield—for they must preserve those thrones."
The memory of Galaspar flickered unbidden. When the Death Guard's ranks scaled the hive-spires, the ruling caste had already scrambled to offer their submission. Mortarion had not accepted it.
"This civilization rests upon dynastic cult. A king who bears responsibility for his people, and a people who adore their sovereign. It thrives. Its culture will never permit surrender to a foe drenched in its blood. You must break them—shatter them until they cannot even imagine defiance."
"Or," Konrad murmured, seizing the thread, "drown them in terror so complete that it smothers every other emotion."
The two Primarchs were of one mind, their words entwined in shared contempt for Horus's hope.
But Horus was the Lupercal, and his voice carried the Emperor's will. He saw the shape of their defiance, the shadow of methods the Master of Mankind would not abide. The genial mask he had worn at the council's opening slipped away, and his face hardened like iron.
Before them now stood the imposing Lupercal. Horus's eyes burned with severity as they fixed upon Curze and Mortarion.
"My brothers, you must understand," Horus began, his voice heavy with command, "The Imperium did not send us here merely to conquer."
"We are liberators of mankind. We bring civilization, not death and tyranny. The Great Crusade is a radiant emancipation—we free humanity from the grasp of xenos and tyrants, not chain them beneath oppression."
Fine words indeed—if spoken by the Luna Wolves, the Ultramarines, or some other glittering, shining Legion.
"They resist the Imperium. That is their sin. And sin must be judged."
Curze stared back at Horus, his pupils black voids devoid of light, fangs bared in a faint snarl.
"They must learn that resistance ends only in death. And their deaths, steeped in terror, will serve as a lesson to the rest—that obedience is survival, and defiance is ruin."
Where Horus and Curze's voices had sharpened into clash, Mortarion grew quiet. He recalled the chastisements he had once endured from Manus and Vulkan, and in contrast, the savage excesses of Perturabo—who would shell friend and foe alike without hesitation.
The Lord of Death had come to realize that his brothers judged all things by their own whims. Even the very meaning of the Great Crusade was not the same from one to the next.
He found himself wondering, not without bitterness, what lies the Emperor—the great deceiver—had whispered to each of them. What promises, what hollow truths, had He spun to bind His sons to His cause?
But after all Mortarion had seen, such debates had long ceased to matter. They did not change reality, nor shield against what was to come. His gaze was fixed on the dreadful future, a vision that made even him shudder. That alone was worthy of concern.
How this particular world was to be broken? He cared little. So long as the Death Guard were spared needless slaughter from poor strategy, Mortarion had no other stake in it.
Unless the world bore the marks of psyker, or oppressor, or xenos—he would remain a detached observer.
And so he listened with a strange, detached interest as Konrad Curze and Horus clashed in debate, the balance of his mind tilting—almost imperceptibly—toward the Night Haunter.
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