BOOMM--!!
Horus slammed his massive fist straight through the glass of the pict-screen that was displaying the transmission from the Imperator Titan Dies Irae.
The splintered image of the World Eaters' gunships cracked and shattered under the physical assault as his intense anger at Angron's blatant defiance finally boiled over.
One of his allies... No! One of his subordinates had dared to disobey his direct command and gone down to the planet to engage the survivors.
Little Horus Aximand, Ezekyle Abaddon, Erebus, and Maloghurst all eyed the Warmaster warily. He could easily sense their deep trepidation at the sudden news of Angron's impetuous, hot-headed and utterly stupid attack on the surface survivors of the virus bombing.
That there were any survivors at all on the planet's surface was completely irritating to his grand design, since it was bothersome to think that he had to waste more resources than necessary. But Angron's unhinged actions put a whole new spin on the entire Isstvan campaign. It wasted something that was almost more precious than resources: time.
And time was of the essence.
"And yet," he said, forcing himself to hold back his rising rage, "I am surprised at this."
"Warmaster," said Aximand, "what do you--"
"Angron is a killer!" Horus snapped, rounding aggressively on his Mournival son. "He solves every problem with raw violence. He attacks first and thinks later, if he thinks at all. And yet I never saw this! What else would he do when he saw the survivors of his Legion in the Choral City? Would he sit back and watch the rest of the fleet bombard them from orbit? Never! And yet I did nothing!"
The Warmaster glanced down at the ruined, smoking remains of the smashed pict-display. His anger rose just by seeing the remains, and he almost punched it again. He was absolutely livid.
"I will never be caught out like this again. There will be no twists of fate I do not see coming," he vowed to himself and the galaxy in that moment.
"The question remains, what shall we do about Angron?" asked Aximand, keeping his voice steady.
"Destroy him with the rest of the city," Abaddon said without a single moment of hesitation. "If he cannot be trusted to obey his Warmaster, then he is a liability."
"The World Eaters are an exceptionally effective weapon of terror. Why destroy them when they can wreak so much havoc among those loyal to the Emperor?" Aximand countered, shaking his head.
"There are always more soldiers," Abaddon retorted coldly. "Many will beg to join the Warmaster. There is no room for those who can't follow orders."
"Angron is a killer, yes, but he is predictable," Erebus chimed in smoothly from the shadows.
First Chaplain Erebus... one of the most prominent members of the Word Bearers and basically the harbinger of the Horus Heresy.
Horus visibly bristled at the implicit insult woven into the First Chaplain's words. He didn't like Erebus, but... no one liked Erebus, so that was normal. Horus, however, knew just how dangerous he truly was, and yet he was also useful, as long as he could control him.
"He can be kept obedient by letting him off the leash now and again," Erebus said.
"The Word Bearers may live by treachery and lies," Abaddon snarled, turning his fury onto the Chaplain, "but in the Sons of Horus, you are loyal, or you are dead!"
"What do you know of my Legion?" Erebus asked.
His towering frame rose to meet the First Captain's fierce ire as his usual mask of smirking calm began to slip away. He was a snake, a poisonous one, but a snake and didn't appreciate the slight towards his Legion.
"I know secrets that would destroy your mind! How dare you speak to me of deceit? This, this reality, all you know, this is the lie!" he said, close to shouting at the larger Abaddon.
"Erebus!" Horus roared, his booming voice ending the confrontation instantly. "This is not the place to evangelise your Legion. I have made my decision, and these are wasted words."
"Then Angron will be destroyed in the bombardment?" asked Maloghurst, seeking clarification.
"No. He will not," replied Horus, his expression hardening.
"But Warmaster, even if Angron prevails, he could be down there for weeks," Aximand pointed out logically.
Aximand was right, of course, and the Warmaster naturally knew that.
"And he will not fight alone. Do you know, my sons, why the Emperor appointed me Warmaster?" Horus asked.
"Because you were his favoured son," Maloghurst answered automatically. "You are the greatest warrior and tactician of the Great Crusade. Whole worlds have fallen at the mention of your name."
"I did not ask for flattery," Horus snarled, making Maloghurst flinch.
"Because you never lose," Abaddon said.
"I never lose," Horus nodded, glaring firmly between the four Astartes standing before him.
"Because I see only victory. I have never seen a situation that cannot be turned into triumph, no disadvantage that cannot be turned to an advantage. That is why I was made Warmaster. On Davin I fell, yet came through that ordeal stronger. Against the Auretian Technocracy, we faced dissent within our own fleet, so I used the conflict to purge those fomenting rebellion. There is no failing I cannot turn to a component in my victories. Angron has decided to turn Isstvan III into a ground assault; I can consider this a failure and limit its impact by bombing Angron and his World Eaters into dust along with the rest of the planet, or I can forge a triumph from it that will send echoes far into the future."
Before anyone could speak, a flashing tactical alert beeped from a secondary, undamaged monitor on the primary console. Maloghurst stepped forward, his eyes narrowed slightly as he read the scrolling data packets coming up from the planetary survey grids.
"Warmaster," Maloghurst interrupted, his brow furrowing. "The global firestorm has completed its sweep, but our orbital tracking sensors are reporting a severe anomaly on the western front."
Horus leaned over the console, his eyes tracking the thermal imagery of the planet below, and his mind was zooming through thousands of ideas and thoughts and solutions.
The entire globe of Isstvan III was a raging, blackened cinder, except for one small, highly specific patch to the far west where the Death Guard vanguard had been deployed. A strange barrier of unnatural gas and energy readings was actively registering on their scopes.
"The combustible gases did not ignite in that specific grid sector," Maloghurst explained, tapping the screen. "A localised cloud of unknown, glowing cerulean gas completely absorbed the thermal shockwave of the lance strike. It shielded the inner trench lines. The bunkers there are entirely intact, and the Dies Irae is standing close to the anomaly."
Horus's eyes narrowed into slits as he stared at the protected blue pocket on the map. He recognised the work of a Warp anomaly when he saw it, though he didn't yet know it was Alexei's doing. His brilliant strategic mind immediately adjusted to the new variable.
He reached out, his massive gauntlet flipping an unsealed, high-priority communication channel directly to the western front.
"Establish a link. Connect me to the bridge of Dies Irae."
The console hissed with localised static before the harsh audio grid snapped open, connecting the flagship directly to the command deck of the god-machine on the surface.
.
Moderati Titus Cassar had hung on for dear life as the cataclysmic firestorm raged violently around the Dies Irae. The large Titan swayed like a fragile weed in the wind, and he just hoped that the new stabilising gyros the Mechanicum had recently installed would hold firm in the face of the apocalyptic onslaught.
"Emperor save us. Emperor save us. Emperor save us," Aruken had whispered over and over again into his headset as the massive sheets of flame billowed and surged for what seemed like an eternity.
The heat inside the command bridge had quickly become intolerable. Because the external coolant units had been completely shut down when the Titan was airtightly sealed off from the outside world, the interior had transformed into a gigantic pressure cooker.
The temperature climbed so rapidly that Cassar had felt as if he could no longer draw a single breath without searing the interior of his lungs. He had closed his eyes, only to see the ghostly green scroll of technical data continue to flash across his retinas.
Sweat had poured from his skin in a heavy torrent. He had felt a creeping certainty that this was exactly how he would die: not fighting an honourable battle, and not saying the holy words of the Lectitio Divinitatus, but cooked to death inside the metal belly of his beloved Dies Irae.
He had completely lost track of how long they had been bathed in the global firestorm when the professional, analytical core of his mind noticed a shift. The temperature readings, which had been rising rapidly since the thermal shockwave hit, had then finally begun to flatten out on his monitors.
Cassar opened his eyes. Through the viewing bays of the Titan's massive head, he could still see the madly churning mass of the inferno. Still, he also saw patches of clear sky, burned a brilliant blue as the intense fire finally incinerated the last of the combustible gases released by the dead biological matter of Isstvan III.
"Temperature dropping," he said, his voice filled with genuine amazement that they were still alive.
Aruken let out a breathless laugh as he, too, realised they were actually going to live through the disaster.
Princeps Turnet slid back into his high command chair and immediately began bringing the Titan's primary systems back online. Cassar slid back into his own seat; the heavy leather backing was soaking wet where his sweat had pooled. He felt like a dry mummy at that moment.
He watched the readouts of the external surveyors flicker to life as the princeps once again opened their diagnostic systems to the outside world.
"Systems check," Turnet ordered sharply.
Aruken nodded, mopping his sweat-streaked brow with his uniform sleeve.
"Weapons fine, though we'll need to watch our rate of fire, since they're already pretty hot."
"Confirmed," said Cassar, checking his own tactical panels. "We won't be able to fire the plasma weapons any time soon either. We'll probably blow our arm off if we try."
"Understood," said Turnet, his expression grim. "Initiate emergency coolant procedures. I want those guns ready to fire as soon as possible."
Cassar nodded automatically, though he was entirely unsure as to the cause of the princeps's sudden urgency. Surely there could be nothing left alive out there that had survived a global firestorm? Certainly nothing that could pose a threat to a Titan.
"Incoming!" called Aruken suddenly.
Cassar looked up to see a flock of dark specks descending rapidly through the crystal-clear sky, flying incredibly low toward the blackened, smouldering ruins of the burned city to their east.
"Aruken, track them," snapped Turnet.
"Gunships," said Aruken, his fingers racing over his tracking console. "They're heading for the centre of the city, what's left of the palace."
"Whose are they?" Turnet demanded.
"Can't tell yet."
Cassar sat back in the cockpit seat and let the neural filaments of the Titan's command systems lock back into the forefront of his mind. He engaged the war machine's advanced targeting systems, and his vision plunged directly into the main target reticle, zooming in on the flying formation of gunships disappearing among the crumbling, fire-blackened ruins of the Choral City.
Through the digital magnification, he easily saw the bone-white colours trimmed with blue, and the unmistakable legion symbol of fanged jaws closing over a planet.
"World Eaters. They're the World Eaters. It must be the second wave."
"There is no second wave," said Turnet.
The vox channel crackled, and Turnet listened intently after realising who it was.
"Warmaster."
.
"Princeps Turnet," Horus's voice boomed through the channel, freezing cold and demanding. "Report. What is occurring on your flank, and what is the nature of the shroud protecting your sector?"
Turnet looked up at Moderati Cassar, who was trying very hard not to vomit after looking outside.
"Tell me what you see, Cassar," he barked.
Every time Cassar let his mind wander outside the systems of the Dies Irae, he saw nothing but the tangles of charred ruins. Or at least he did the first time he took a glimpse. His consciousness retreated into the machine, drawing his perception back into the Titan's massive form.
But now he was asked by his Princeps to take a closer look and could only nod.
"There's nothing out there, my Princ-- Wait! I see something. There seems to be a strange part... it seems the impact didn't reach there."
"Space Marines?"
"Death Guard, from the looks of it, my Princeps," Cassar said, and Aruka nodded his head.
Without delay, Turnet informed the Warmaster of this and confirmed the strange patch of the battlefield that was not touched by the bombing.
Horus didn't wait for the mortal princeps to finish gathering his wits. He cut the audio feed and turned back to face his assembled captains, the grand plan already fully formed in his mind. No matter what that was, it was clearly Warp in nature.
And two things came to mind right now.
One of them, by far the worst possible option, was that this was the Emperor's doing. But he shook his head; he knew that wasn't the case. It couldn't be.
The next option was that it was his brother Magnus again. That wouldn't be as bad, but it would be bothersome, since he counted on his scheme coming to fruition and Magnus inevitably joining his crusade against Terra.
Maloghurst broke the heavy silence that followed.
"What would you have us do, Warmaster?"
"Inform the other Legions that they are to prepare for a full assault on the loyalists in the Choral City. Ezekyle, assemble the Legion. Have them ready to launch the attack in two hours."
"I shall be proud to lead my Legion," said Abaddon, his eyes flashing with ambition and pride.
"You will not lead them. That honour will go to Sedirae and Targost."
The look of ambition and pride was replaced by a flash of genuine anger that flared across Abaddon's face.
"But I am the first captain. This battle, where resolve and brutality are qualities required for victory, is tailor-made for me!"
"You are a captain of the Mournival, Ezekyle," said Horus, his voice dropping into a dangerous degree. "I have another role in mind for you and Little Horus in this fight. One I feel sure you will relish."
"Yes, Warmaster," said Abaddon.
The frustration instantly disappeared from his face as he understood the implicit promise of slaughter. He lived for his father and saw him as the ultimate ruler in all things.
"As for you, Erebus…" Horus said and looked at the First Chaplain of the Word Bearers.
"Warmaster?"
"Stay out of our way. To your duties, Sons of Horus."