Chapter 68: Mortarion! This Will Be Difficult!
Barbarus
The air on Barbarus was a toxic soup of corrosive vapors and choking fog. Even for transhuman beings, it tested the limits of endurance. Mortarion, Primarch of the Death Guard, removed his rebreather mask for a moment, letting the poisonous atmosphere wash over his scarred features. He had grown used to it long ago.
Months earlier, word had reached him from Terra: a new brother had returned to the fold. Mortarion had felt little more than mild disgust at the news. Another gene-son foisted upon the galaxy by the Emperor. Another burden.
Then came the second message. The Emperor had not merely sent tidings—he had hurled the entire delegation of Word Bearers into Mortarion's domain. With the Great Crusade still raging across the stars, the last thing the Lord of Barbarus needed was a shipload of Lorgar's fanatics cluttering his world. Furious, Mortarion had returned from the front lines and endured nearly a month on his dismal homeworld before deciding enough was enough. He would leave Typhon in command and depart Barbarus. If the Word Bearers wanted him, they could chase him across the stars.
In truth, Erebus and his companions should have reached Barbarus long ago. A series of "minor incidents" aboard the Chronicle of Ashes had delayed them.
Aboard the Chronicle of Ashes
The corridors echoed with the agonized wails of bound daemons—Slaaneshi fiends, Khornate bloodletters, and worse. The great golden statues of the Faceless Emperor emitted a faint, calming radiance that kept the mortal crew and auxiliary forces strangely lucid. No whispers of the Warp touched their minds. Laughter rang out from the Word Bearers and Thousand Sons alike.
Praise for the Yellow-skinned God resounded through the halls.
Dantioch stepped back from his latest creation, admiring the work with satisfaction: a bound daemon now adorned with ritual tattoos of the Emperor's faceless image and crowned with tiny golden statues upon its horns. Beside him, Ahriman amused himself by putting a lesser warp entity through its paces like a trained hound.
"Praise the Blood God!" the creature snarled.
"Hush. Praise the Yellow-skinned God," Jarulek corrected, gently patting the daemon's face after inscribing the final holy verse upon its hide.
The three smiled at one another with wicked camaraderie.
"Do you wish to return to the Warp alive?" Jarulek asked sweetly. His words carried more malice than any daemon's.
The bloodletter remained stubbornly loyal, refusing to break. It gave its true name under duress and, lured by Jarulek's silver tongue, unwittingly summoned a companion it trusted. The second daemon arrived only to realize it had been deceived by mortals.
Humans. Deceiving warp entities.
"The Blood God will avenge me!" the first daemon howled in its final moments.
It watched in despair as the three figures advanced once more.
"Hail, Lord Erebus!"
Jarulek drew a ritual blade and began flaying the creature's skin, intending to carve scripture directly onto its bones. The apprenticeship was proceeding nicely.
Erebus turned away from the small observation port, a rare look of melancholy on his face. He still could not believe it. The ship was filled with captured daemons of the Warp, yet not a single brother had fallen to corruption. Even the mortal crew remained clear-headed beneath the protective aura of the Faceless Emperor statues. No one had heard the seductive whispers of Chaos.
Daemons no longer tempt mortals? He wondered.
Angron glanced at Erebus. At that moment, the chaplain looked like a despondent merchant whose sales had collapsed and commissions had vanished. His gloomy expression drew a heavy sigh from the Red Angel. This man truly never considered his own reputation.
How terrified every summoned daemon became the instant it learned Erebus's name.
How many had they witnessed kneeling, begging, and bargaining for their existence?
Khârn had even been fortunate enough to perform a summoning of his own. The moment the bloodletter realized whose vessel it had entered, it had nearly destroyed itself rather than face the chaplain. The incident left Khârn deeply upset—he felt he had somehow failed to live up to Erebus's teachings.
If Angron had to name it, he would call the ship a subspace menagerie. These madmen had turned daemon-binding into a recruitment tool.
Sometimes Angron wondered whether sacrificing his own gene-sons to soothe the Butcher's Nails in his brain was truly worth it.
But such thoughts were fleeting. Erebus soon dragged him along to the next chamber.
In this section of the ship, a bound warp daemon hung from the Faceless Emperor statue outside every door like a grotesque decoration.
"Are you familiar with Mortarion?" Erebus asked Angron as they walked.
"Not particularly," the World Eater grunted. "My mind was… not my own for a long time."
Erebus felt a flicker of helplessness at the answer.
"Perhaps Magnus would know what kind of man he is."
Though Erebus understood Mortarion was deeply twisted by resentment and pain, he had seen far stranger things. He was not Hades, and Mortarion was no true God of Death. Could he tell the Pale Lord that in the Warp he was the God of Death, the Emperor was Zeus, and they were brothers…?
Wait.
It might actually work.
No — if Mortarion became the God of Death, that would make him the Emperor's brother. Erebus had no desire to create yet another layer of convoluted genealogy. Better if they sorted out their own issues separately.
The mental image made Erebus burst into sudden laughter.
"Hahahaha!"
Angron looked at him in confusion. All around them, lesser warp imps began to weep openly. The psychological shock of hearing the master of this floating daemonic park laugh was too much for them.
Erebus and Angron reached the innermost sealed chamber. From the far side of the door came Lorgar's rhythmic chanting of holy verses.
Magnus looked up from the bloodthirsty hound they had tricked and bound earlier.
"So… you summoned a dog?" Erebus asked, stepping inside and dropping into a chair.
"A three-headed one. Quite the rare breed," Magnus replied dryly.
After a few more observations, Erebus turned serious. "Did you discover anything useful?"
"Khorne has cast out this creature—Kaharn, I believe it called itself. More importantly, the Blood God seems unusually fixated on our brother Sanguinius."
Magnus's expression was grim.
"Well, perhaps Khorne prefers the ones with wings," Erebus mused.
"So the Blood God lusts after the Lord of Change but cannot claim him?" Angron offered, his words as blunt as ever.
Erebus pinched the bridge of his nose. Brother, what are you even saying?
"What use is this hound, then?" Erebus asked, arms crossed. "We cannot simply gift it to Perturabo, can we?"
"If Perturabo likes it, I suppose it would be acceptable?" Lorgar suggested.
The comment startled Erebus, but he kept silent. The mental image of Perturabo with a three-headed daemon hound was strangely amusing.
He turned his thoughts back to Mortarion. Correcting the Death Lord's twisted worldview would be no simple task.
Erebus sighed, pressing down on the bloodthirsty hound's head with one gauntleted hand.
"Let us see what we can summon next. Why not try domesticating this one as well?"
He stretched, preparing for another act of magnificent deception.
(End of Chapter)