Chapter 283: Konrad Curze is a Madman
Sevatar drew in a deep breath, the sweet tang of blood running down his throat with the cold air.
He walked through the shadowed corridors of the Nightfall. Here, there was only eternal night.
As First Captain, he had already driven off countless prying gazes—whether through threats or sheer intimidation.
Their father, Konrad Curze, had never cared much for this legion of scattered sand. The Night Lords were riven with factions, and Sevatar was only barely able to keep his hands on the helm.
"If you want to run, then run now. No one will stop you."
His voice was gentle yet merciless as he spoke.
But there was nowhere to run. Huddled together in their ships, the Night Lords were already surrounded by the fleets of the Luna Wolves and the Death Guard.
The Death Guard vessels faced them in outright confrontation, while the Wolves' ships positioned themselves between the two sides—
—and, with a deft maneuver, cut off the Night Lords' escape.
Sevatar knew. Horus did not intend to let them go.
The only reason Curze and he were even aboard the Nightfall was because Sevatar, amid the chaos, had ordered their fleet to extract him and their Primarch.
After all, those scenes of the Death Guard storming the Vengeful Spirit had indeed provided the perfect cover.
Sevatar knew that if they didn't escape this time, there might never be another chance.
He still remembered the last time—after his father's duel with Dorn, when Curze was thrown into a cell. His mind had been fractured, unstable, haunted by some unyielding truth that left him babbling and broken.
Ever since, Sevatar had felt his father's grip on the Legion slip further into neglect and decay.
No. Their father—Konrad Curze—he could not endure another trial.
Sevatar knew how to hold the Legion together. He knew how to fight. He knew how to flay men alive, how to be more brutal, more cruel. He knew so much—he could do so much.
But when it came to their father, he was powerless.
The only thing Sevatar did know was this: Curze could not be caged aboard the Vengeful Spirit. That suffocating place would break him. The Night Haunter needed to return to the shadows—to the dim halls of the Nightfall.
And he had been right. The moment they brought him aboard, Curze—unconscious—convulsed, and then vanished without a trace.
Sevatar knew where his father had gone. But he could not chase him, not yet. The chaos of the situation still demanded resolution.
In silence, the First Captain transmitted an apology signal to both the Luna Wolves and the Death Guard, ordering Night Lords ships to stand down, to lower their weapons.
Cautiously, hesitantly, the Night Lords obeyed—
—all except the Nightfall.
From beginning to end, the grim warship held its weapons at full readiness. If it came to it, Sevatar was prepared to sacrifice the entire fleet for one chance to ram through to the Mandeville Point and make a forced warp jump.
But that choice was not his to make.
Sevatar was only the executor of orders, not the one who made them.
He walked the long corridor. Standing across from the Primarch's chambers, silent and mournful, was Shang, Curze's Equerry. He gazed at Sevatar as though at a funeral.
"How is the Primarch?" Sevatar asked.
Shang shook his head. His voice was hoarse, heavy with sorrow.
"I do not know."
So Sevatar pressed on. The faint sound of wailing began to press against his ears—sometimes sharp, sometimes low.
At last, he reached the door.
Expressionless, Sevatar lowered his eyes to the floor. From the cracks beneath the door seeped blood—layer upon layer. Some dried, some fresh.
He laid his hand upon the door, feeling its coldness.
"Father?"
The words slipped from Sevatar's lips in a hushed whisper.
The madness beyond the door did not relent in the slightest. That coldness still seeped through, gnawing at him.
Pain clawed at Sevatar, tearing into him until his whole body felt chilled.
He lowered his head, resting his brow against the door, and once again, like a prayer, he spoke softly.
"Father."
The door—seemingly indestructible—shifted, opening just enough for him to slip through. From the gap, the head of a man peeked out—ratlike, half-blind, a mortal. Behind him drifted the moans of the Primarch.
The old man, nervous but smiling, whispered, "Hey, Jago. I knew you'd come. You had to come."
"Keep your voice down," he added, "he's dreaming. Don't wake him."
But when Sevatar saw who had opened the door, whatever fragile, fleeting vulnerability he might have felt evaporated. His face hardened, eyes fixed on the old man.
"Trez. Call me Sevatar."
Ekra Trez—the Night Lords' Remembrancer, the Sin-Eater. He could watch dreams, slip inside them. For reasons Sevatar could not grasp, their father favored this little wretch, confiding in him truths even Sevatar could never touch.
The old man gave a sly, nervous grin.
"Of course, Jago."
The second time, Sevatar thought blankly. But he obeyed the advice nonetheless, stepping lightly—lightly—into the Primarch's chamber.
And froze.
Corpses.
Everywhere.
They hung inverted from rusted iron hooks, bodies swaying in the darkness. Thick, tar-like ichor dripped from their wounds, long since cold but still dragged downward by gravity, stretching and tearing like pitch.
Symbols Sevatar could not decipher were carved into their flesh—etched in blood and ragged wounds. Truths, perhaps, brought back from the dreams of a psyker mind.
Just looking at them made Sevatar's scalp prickle with icy dread.
Trez raised a finger to his lips, urging silence, and then scuttled away between the dangling corpses like a rat slipping through a nest.
Sevatar drew a sharp breath, cursing under his breath, and followed.
It was nearly impossible not to make a sound. The dead were too many, too close. He was not small and bent like Trez.
Bone shards crunched beneath his boots with brittle protest.
Wet flesh brushed against his pauldrons, torn strips dragging across him with a slick squelch, releasing faint pops as he pulled away.
Cold, pale, blue-tinged limbs brushed his face, swaying like the branches of some grotesque forest, reaching for him—pleading with him to turn back.
But he had no choice.
With grim resolve, Sevatar pressed forward. The moans, the curses, grew louder. He pushed through a sea of matted, blood-stiff hair, and at last, saw his father.
Curze lay curled within a nest built of butchered bodies, a throne of rot and despair. His face was shattered by grief and madness. He wailed, repented, raged, laughed, sobbed—scrabbling with his hands to tear open corpses, scrawling senseless symbols across their ruined flesh.
Sevatar inhaled sharply, frozen in place, forced to watch his father's torment.
What do I do now?
He dared not speak. Turning his head, he searched for the old man who had led him inside.
Within that charnel house, that slaughterhouse of a chamber, stood a small, unremarkable wooden table. Trez was already there, seated calmly upon a plain chair.
Without a word, he unfurled a vast sheet of parchment across the surface, placed his pen above it—
—and then stopped. Doing nothing.
Sevatar was about to call out to that damned old man when suddenly he realized something was wrong.
The chamber had gone silent.
He turned his head—
—and met a pair of eyes, pure black.
"Se."
The voice spoke.
. . . .
Curze was howling.
He saw Horus, the Lupercal who only moments ago had smiled at him, now twisted into a snarling monster. Curze couldn't control himself—he saw his own hand lifting a spear, thrusting it toward the Lupercal—
No—!
Konrad Curze tried desperately to let go, to pull back as if shocked, but the spear in his hands warped into a sword. Guilliman's furious eyes locked onto him, filled with despair.
No, no, no, no, no, no!
He hadn't meant to kill them!
Curze shrieked, retreating into the corner of the chamber, the rough stone scraping his back. The pain was almost comforting, a reminder of something real.
He turned—Vulkan slumped against the cell wall, broken and bleeding, barely clinging to life.
"Why did you do this, my brother?"
Curze screamed again. He hadn't wanted this! He hadn't willed it!
Scrabbling backward on hands and feet, he collided with something cold, horribly familiar.
Shaking, panting, he turned his head—
Mortarion lay there. At times he was as Curze remembered him, at times filthy and rotting, but always half gone—his lower body devoured by a black, seething mass. Black sludge poured from his eyes, writhing with noise.
"Then why didn't you save me?"
Mortarion's voice.
"I tried! I tried! You stopped me—you were the one who stopped me! Why did you stop me?!"
Curze screamed back, grasping onto the accusation as though it were salvation, shouting it like a revelation.
But it did nothing.
The half-body Mortarion only stared at him, then began to crawl toward him. Curze shrieked, backing away, but the chamber had closed in—
The blackness surged up, devouring everything. Horus, gone. Guilliman, gone. Vulkan, gone.
At last, even Mortarion was swallowed.
Now only Curze remained—
—but the black water kept rising. It covered his ankles, burning like fire, searing him. He opened his mouth wide, gasping. No, no, no! Mortarion was gone, why was the water still rising?
Where was it flowing from? Where?
Curze dropped to his knees, clawing madly at the water for its source, tearing through chunks of corpses—but nothing. Nothing but flesh. No other answer.
Then—a drop.
He froze.
In disbelief, he raised a trembling hand to his chin. The water ran down from there.
He opened his mouth, thrust his fingers inside—
—and pulled it out. A lump of meat. Cursed, damning him.
Curze's eyes flew open. He saw Se. His Se, standing there, lost and helpless, suffering. They were all suffering.
Se would die.
"Se."
His voice was soft as he called to his proudest son.
He stepped forward, studying Sevatar carefully. He told him not to be afraid. They would face judgment.
The Night Lords would be torn apart, entombed in cold. Se would die in some forgotten corner of the Great Crusade, as a warrior, fallen on the battlefield—
He stepped closer, cold eyes fixed on Se. He told him to let them come. The Night Lords had been right.
The Night Lords would be torn apart, entombed in cold. Se would die in conflict with his Primarch brothers, his proudest son falling in the act of protecting him—
And so Curze opened his eyes, and he saw Se.
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