Chapter 100 - The Indomitus Crusade (1)
~ Every 100 Power Stones = Bonus Chapter! Your votes keep this climbing. Thanks!
The unrest in the Terran Council Chamber didn't last long.
Kullen's presence was simply too much.
Those High Lords and councilors, long accustomed to bickering, bribe-taking, and backroom dealings, watched their mental defenses collapse in an instant.
Roboute Guilliman, Regent of the Imperium, seized supreme power over the Imperium in the most efficient and brutal manner possible.
The conservative hardliners on the list were dragged off by the Custodes that same day. Those with conclusive evidence against them were executed on the spot outside the palace square. No lengthy courtroom debates. No quid pro quo.
A flood of young, pragmatic officials, men whose loyalty to the Imperium was absolute, were promoted at breakneck speed to fill the vacuum.
The entire Terran bureaucracy underwent a brutal reshuffle in a matter of days.
The High Lords who'd surrendered their power kept their mouths obediently shut, content to serve as senior stewards executing Guilliman's decrees.
The fact that these old foxes, men who'd marinated in palace politics for centuries, folded so quickly owed everything to Kullen.
The Bat of Nostramo had been very diligent in fulfilling his promise to Guilliman.
No mass bloodshed. No high-profile assassinations. Kullen simply picked off a few officials who were still scheming in the shadows, trying to sabotage the Indomitus Crusade's preparations.
On the first night, those officials' estates bristled with security—walls of privately hired guards standing thick around the perimeter.
The next morning, those same officials woke in their beds, pulled back the covers, and found the sheets soaked red.
Beside them lay several glistening chunks of bloody flesh, a pile of dead rats, and, nailed to the wall, the perfectly intact skin of their captains of the guard.
The moment that classic terror tactic landed, productivity in the Terran Administratum and Treasury skyrocketed. Officials worked round-the-clock overtime without being asked, all terrified that moving too slowly would invite a personal visit from the Lord of the Night.
Under Guilliman's iron hand, preparations for the Indomitus Crusade accelerated at a pace that bordered on absurd.
Fleets from every sector answered the call, crossing vast warp routes to assemble in near-Terra orbit.
Hundreds upon hundreds of mighty battleships and cruisers arrayed themselves in formations of stunning scale.
Tens of millions of Astra Militarum troopers, along with Astartes Chapters in every imaginable livery, descended on the Throneworld.
At the Crusade's oath-taking ceremony, when Guilliman, Horus, Sanguinius, and Kullen,whom Sanguinius had forcibly stuffed into a respectable robe—appeared together on the reviewing platform, the assembly erupted.
The cheers were earth-shaking. They nearly tore the atmosphere apart.
It was the first time in ten thousand years that the Imperium of Man had gathered four Primarchs in one place.
Every soldier, every Space Marine, believed with absolute conviction that the rotting wreckage of the Imperium was finally about to be turned over. That humanity would see a true dawn.
---
"Cawl upgraded my power armor like this, and I'm still not satisfied."
The Imperial Palace on Terra. Inside the Armorium.
Horus was being armored by his most beloved son Loken and the old knight Kullen. His Terminator power armor, Serpent's Scales, had been overhauled and modified by the Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl.
Bristling now with compact weapon modules, Horus's armor could lay down enough firepower to suppress an entire battlefield.
The Wolf God knew perfectly well that even after the upgrade, his armor still couldn't match those of his two brothers, Perturabo's Logos and Ferrus's Medusan Carapace. Those two masters of mechanical craft outclassed him in weapons engineering by a wide margin.
Horus didn't envy their specialized skills. His own greatest strength had always been absorbing the experience and techniques of others, then refining them to fit his own purposes.
But the Archmagos had reached his limit. The work couldn't be pushed any further. Which is what prompted Horus to grumble to his friend Karen, standing nearby.
"If I could, I'd go to the Iron Hands Chapter and ask them to rebuild Serpent's Scales into the same model as my brother Ferrus's."
"I wouldn't recommend visiting the Iron Hands, my Wolf God."
Karen shook his head, his smile awkward and strained.
Horus frowned.
"Why not?"
"Remember what I told you and Kullen before, about some of the things you did during your fallen period? Like that bit where you sat on the throne of the Vengeful Spirit eating an apple?"
"Eating an apple? Yes, I remember."
"I have to tell you now—that 'apple' was actually Ferrus's head. If you ever visit the Iron Hands' chapter museum, you'll see the bite marks on Ferrus's skull."
"...Then I think I'll pass."
Horus looked faintly embarrassed.
His fallen self had really racked up an obscene amount of sin.
"Instead of fussing over your armor, aren't you thinking about rebuilding the Luna Wolves Legion?" Karen tilted his head, genuinely curious.
Rebuild the Legion.
The moment those words left Karen's mouth, Loken's breath caught. He looked up at his gene-father, eyes burning with hope.
Horus's expression turned grave in an instant.
"I no longer have a homeworld, Karen." His voice was low. "Cthonia was annihilated by the Lion and the First Legion. Unless I go searching for a new recruitment world, and I absolutely refuse to do that."
Horus glanced at Loken's crestfallen face and laid a heavy hand on his son's shoulder.
"It would cause Roboute enormous trouble and invite unnecessary rumors. It would drive a wedge into the trust between us as brothers. And once suspicion takes root within, the enemy will pour through the cracks."
He turned, looking at the rows of new weapons mounted along the Armorium walls.
"The age of warlords carving out their own fiefdoms and fighting their own wars is over." Horus's voice was rock-steady. "I am now simply a professional general serving the Imperium, and serving Roboute. That is enough for me."
The Wolf God paused, then continued, laying out his vision.
"Rather than rebuilding a legion under my personal banner, what I'm thinking about now is how to command the various Astartes Chapters in coordinated operations more efficiently. That's the real challenge." A satisfied look crossed his face. "I never imagined Cawl had buried that many Primaris Marines beneath Mars. Enough to field twenty-four full-strength Chapters in one stroke."
These new Chapters didn't draw their gene-seed from a single Primarch.
On Horus's recommendation and with Guilliman's final approval, the recruitment composition of the new Chapters broke completely with tradition.
Nearly all of them were mixed formations, built from multiple gene-seeds at once.
Within a single Chapter, you'd find the discipline of the Ultramarines, the ferocity of the Space Wolves, the courageous assault of the Blood Angels, and the tactical execution of the Dark Angels, all at once.
"This kind of composite makeup will significantly boost overall combat effectiveness and tactical flexibility." Horus spoke of soldiering with real fire in his eyes. "It forces warriors of different bloodlines to fight shoulder to shoulder. It forges friendships that span legions."
"You're going to have a hell of a mess in the early adjustment phase." Karen pointed out the flaw without mercy. "Stick Space Wolves and Dark Angels in the same squad and they'll be brawling in the barracks every night."
"Exactly. But once we get past that adjustment period, the cohesion and combat power of these new Chapters will be unstoppable!" Horus's fist clenched tight.
This, in truth, was something the Emperor had wanted to do but never gotten around to. Now these two commanders were making it a reality, baked straight into the Indomitus Crusade.
Listening from the sidelines, the small ache in Loken's chest finally eased. As long as he could keep fighting for humanity at his father's side, the name on the banner didn't matter at all.
"And what do Lord Sanguinius and Lord Kullen think of these new Chapters?" Kullen asked from beside him, curious.
"Sanguinius is, of course, fully in favor." Horus smiled.
Just yesterday, the Great Angel had personally gone to inspect the Primaris recruits carrying his bloodline.
He'd stood before those towering sons who had never seen him before, and offered a few gentle words of encouragement. On the spot, those massive new soldiers had been moved to tears.
Every one of them pounded their chestplates and swore to win honor for the Blood Angels within their new Chapters, never to betray their gene-father's faith in them.
"And Kullen?" Karen raised an eyebrow.
"Kullen had no opinion at all." Horus shrugged helplessly.
The same as he'd been during the Great Crusade, and still incorrigible now. Kullen had taken exactly one look at the recruits bearing his gene-seed, dropped a single line, "Don't embarrass me.", and then vanished, slipping off into some ventilation shaft from which no amount of calling could lure him out.
Karen smiled, resigned.
Lord Sevatar, without you there would be no Eighth Legion! Kullen doesn't manage a damn thing!
"What about the old Chapters? You're not going to drag the new system over to them too, are you?"
Karen was thinking of the successor Chapters of the First Founding that had answered Guilliman's summons. Most of those twelve Chapters had arrived under-strength, short on materiel and a dozen other things.
"No. We won't do that. The old Chapters will keep their original systems. They probably wouldn't accept the change anyway."
➤ Next: The Indomitus Crusade (2)
— .—— .—— .—— .—— .——
Enjoying the story?
Read 60+ chapters ahead on Patreon.
Join the free community tier for early access to the latest updates:
patreon(.)com/DarkGolds