Chapter 94 94 - Azrael: Asmodai Is an Idiot!
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Kullen stood on the Imperial Palace landing pad, a Custodian at his side. The old knight watched coldly as a shuttle bearing the winged-sword Legion insignia made its slow descent.
His little brothers had come looking for him.
Three primarchs gathered on Terra, news of that magnitude couldn't be concealed, and Guilliman hadn't tried. The Astropathic Choir had worked in rotating shifts for 3 full days and nights, broadcasting the announcement of the primarchs' return across the entire Imperial Sanctum.
But tucked at the very end of that exceedingly lengthy proclamation, almost invisible, was a single addendum.
[The God-Emperor has bestowed an honorific title upon an ancient Son of the Lion.]
An ordinary official reading that line would take it as a casual note about the Emperor rewarding some old veteran. They wouldn't give it a second thought.
But when it reached the ears of the Dark Angels Inner Circle, that one sentence set their nerves on fire.
An ancient Son of the Lion? On Terra? Granted a title by the God-Emperor himself?
The Inner Circle's highest echelon and the Chapter's top command exploded into chaos. They dispatched personnel to Terra immediately.
These younger warriors in green power armor came under the nominal pretext of paying homage to the three returned primarchs, a pilgrimage, they called it. In truth, they were here to confirm the identity of this so-called "Son of the Lion." If it was a Fallen, then even at the risk of defying orders, they would take him quietly. Or deal with him.
In the past, if Kullen had known these obsessive juniors were coming for him, his first instinct would have been to pack his bags and run.
The past ten thousand years had been suffocating.
He was a veteran who had fought through the final stages of the Unification Wars, through the entirety of the Solar campaign, who had survived 3 brutal Rangdan engagements. To spend ten millennia hunted by juniors who knew nothing of the true history, it had rankled him to the bone.
It had also left him with resentment toward his Gene-Sire. Toward Lion El'Jonson.
But now, all of that could be laid to rest.
The Emperor of Mankind had absolved him.
At that thought, Kullen straightened, chest out, chin up, and waited for his little brothers with a faint, deliberate disdain.
More than the posture, though, he held onto something deeper: the absolute conviction that he had never betrayed anyone, and had certainly never fallen. When the conflict erupted on Caliban, it was the Lion who had returned with the fleet. The Lion who, without a single word of explanation, had ordered the orbital bombardment of their homeworld.
The shuttle touched down.
Kullen's fists tightened without thinking.
Pressure relief valves vented great plumes of white steam.
The hatch lowered.
Heavy tactical boots struck the metal boarding ramp in slow, dull thuds.
At the front walked the current Chapter Master in the Lion Helm, Supreme Grand Master Azrael, with several bone-white Deathwing Terminators at his back.
Kullen could see his little brothers exercising extreme restraint. This was the Imperial Palace. If they intended to make a move, they'd have to ask the Custodian beside him first.
What actually concerned the old knight was the figure at the rear of the group, shrouded in a tattered black robe. A skull mask covered most of his face. In one hand he carried a power maul crackling with high-voltage arcs.
Even through his power helmet, Kullen could almost see the twisted expression behind that visor.
Asmodai.
On that black armor, he caught the familiar scent of the Fallen. And beneath it, something else, that lofty, utterly undisguised contempt.
It dragged Asmodai back in an instant. Back to when he was still a raw recruit in the Eighth Company, and the unbearable humiliation he had suffered at the hands of a Fallen named Malvin. That shame had driven him to swear an oath in his own blood: capture every last Fallen Angel, and torture them until their minds broke.
"REPENT!"
He didn't give Azrael a chance to speak. He didn't even register where he was. Asmodai's voice cracked into a shriek, and he came at Kullen like a rabid dog, power maul raised.
Behind his visor, Azrael's face went green.
He had expected Asmodai to be agitated. He had not, in his worst nightmares, expected the man to launch an attack on the Imperial Palace landing pad.
Does he have a death wish?!
Before Azrael could get a word out, the Custodian moved.
The golden-armored warrior moved so fast there were no afterimages to track.
The guardian spear swept a single, precise arc through the air. The massive gunstock came around in a backhand strike and slammed into Asmodai's chest.
BOOM!
The Interrogator-Chaplain went airborne like a sack of scrap metal and crashed hard onto the deck.
Before he could even begin to struggle upright, the Custodian's boot came down on his head.
The spear tip swung to rest at the back of the Chaplain's skull. The bolter mechanism clicked, a sound that carried no ambiguity whatsoever.
"This is the Imperial Palace." The Custodian's voice was deep and utterly without warmth. Pure killing intent, nothing else.
"Are you attempting open rebellion? Betraying the Master of Mankind? Astartes of the Dark Angels Chapter!"
A charge heavier than the sky itself came crashing down on them all.
This was not the Rock. This was not some forgotten system on the edge of the galaxy. This was the foot of the God-Emperor's throne.
Cold sweat broke down Azrael's back in a single rush.
Pinned under the Custodian's boot, Asmodai was still thrashing. His hands flailed. His mouth poured out incoherent filth. He was actually trying to grab the Custodian's ankle and claw his way toward Kullen.
"Get him up." Azrael was done.
He crossed the deck in three strides, no comradely courtesy, no hesitation. He drew back his right fist and drove it into Asmodai's skull mask with everything he had.
THUD!
Asmodai's head snapped sideways. He went limp.
Azrael turned on the Deathwing Terminators standing there with their mouths open. "What are you staring at?! Restrain him!"
Only after all of that did he let out a long, slow breath.
He looked at the Custodian, dipped his head in a brief apology. The Custodian withdrew his spear and resumed his position at Kullen's side without a word.
The situation was barely under control. Azrael finally had the capacity to face the man he'd actually come here for.
He reached up and removed the Lion Helm. The face beneath it was younger than Kullen's, and written entirely in wariness.
"You..." Azrael started.
"No need to guess." Kullen's tone was completely level. "As you can see, I am exactly the Fallen Angel you've spent years hunting — the one you dream about dragging in for interrogation."
"My name is Kullen. Dreadwing, First Legion, Great Crusade era. Your predecessor."
That blunt self-declaration made Azrael's eyelid twitch.
He forced the turbulence down. His gaze moved between Kullen and the Custodian, then back again.
"I genuinely did not expect you to walk so openly into the public eye." He kept his voice low, and the wariness in it was unmistakable. "What exactly are you after?"
Kullen knew precisely what his little brother was afraid of.
He was terrified that the Dark Angels' ten-thousand-year-old secret would be stripped bare for the entire Imperium to see.
"Put your heart at ease, Supreme Grand Master." Kullen folded his arms. "I follow the mission and revelation given to me by the Master of Mankind. I have not aired the First Legion's old, rotten business to anyone."
Azrael visibly exhaled.
Good. It hadn't been exposed.
That was already the best possible outcome.
He hadn't even finished catching his breath when Kullen added, lightly, almost as an afterthought:
"That said — Lord Lupercal and Lord Sanguinius are already fully aware of what happened."
God-Emperor above.
Azrael had steeled himself for the news of Horus and Sanguinius returning. He had prepared for that. But hearing that the Chapter's most absolutely un-leakable secrets were now known to two living myths, the Chapter Master felt his vision go dark at the edges.
"Have the two primarch lords already decided to..." Azrael's voice came out dry. He couldn't even bring himself to say the word. Reckoning.
Kullen watched the other man's expression — that particular look of someone watching the sky fall, and felt a quiet, private satisfaction. He let 2 full seconds pass before he answered.
"They aren't that idle. The lords have said they will uphold the honor of Lion El'Jonson and the First Legion. They won't use this as leverage."
"That's good... that's good..."
Azrael muttered it twice and pressed a hand to his forehead.
His emotions had been hauled up and dropped twice in the span of five minutes. The Chapter Master decided, privately, that this had been more agonizing than fighting an entire campaign.
➤ Next: Curze: I Don't Want a Bath
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