Chapter 102 - Departing for Baal
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"Horus, I've been thinking. What exactly does he mean to you?"
Private quarters aboard the flagship, Glory of Terra.
Horus and Sanguinius were playing chess, the way they always had, a friendship ten thousand years in the making, and a board between them whenever words needed coaxing out. Horus held a piece and didn't move it.
The Great Angel noticed. His eyes lit with quiet curiosity.
"A friend."
The Lupercal smiled.
"Simple as that."
"And what about me?"
Sanguinius gave him the smile Horus knew better than almost any other.
"Also a friend."
Horus's grin turned sly.
"Oh, my dear Lupercal. Since when did you get so good at brushing people off? That's not like you at all."
"You rank your friends, don't you. So where do I stand? And where do Kael and Kullen stand?"
Sanguinius knew Horus the way Horus knew him. Faced with that gently pointed pressure, the Lupercal deflected with practiced ease.
"Does it really matter to you?"
"A little. I've never seen you show this kind of genuine warmth to anyone else. And Kael isn't even your son..."
The Great Angel took a sip of red wine, then reached over and plucked a small bunch of grapes, eating them in one clean bite. The sweet-sour burst of flavor spread across his palate and he looked, for a moment, simply happy. He had once thought he would never taste fruit again after death. Thanks to Kael, he was wrong.
"I don't know how to describe what we are to each other," Horus said, pausing. "A relationship? A feeling? Maybe people who share the same ideals just... end up walking the same road."
"Like our father and Malcador the Sigillite?"
The Emperor of Mankind and the Sigillite.
Horus went still for a moment. Then he laughed, full and genuine.
"That's exactly right. Kael is to me what Uncle Malcador was to our father. Let me tell you, brother — when I had nothing left, when I was ready to end it, it was Kael who pulled me back. He was the one who made me want to stand up again."
"And when I faced Ezekyle, he and Kullen saved my life. Without them, Ezekyle would have killed me."
"I'm almost ashamed to say it. I'm a Primarch. But I still have the same feelings as any mortal. When I'm with him, I feel... easy. Like I can breathe."
Sanguinius listened without interrupting. The probing look faded from his face entirely, replaced by something warm and unguarded.
"If Kael gives you that, and keeps the past from dragging you under, then I absolutely want to raise a glass to the two of you."
The Great Angel lifted his wine and offered a small, sincere toast.
"You're my brother and my friend. When you're doing well, I can finally stop worrying."
They clinked glasses and drank.
Then, in the very next breath, Sanguinius pivoted.
"Since we're so close — could I borrow Kael for a while? Have him come work on my side?"
The smile on his face had taken on a new quality. Warmer, yes. Also considerably more dangerous.
"The situation on Baal is critical. I desperately need someone sharp who can actually think, without me having to manage a room full of rigid bureaucrats. I want him as my advisor."
"Not a chance, you arrogant little bird."
Horus refused without a heartbeat's hesitation, and casually dropped the nickname Konrad Curze had coined for the Great Angel while he was at it.
"My entire core team right now is Kael, Kullen, and Loken. If we ever actually track down that stubborn fool Lion, Kullen will probably have to go back where he belongs. You take Kael on top of that, and I'm a general with no army."
Sanguinius looked at him with an expression of complete innocence and kept pushing.
"After Baal, we'll be stationed in different sectors across the Imperium Nihilus. We could go months without seeing each other. Can't you make one exception? Have some pity on a brother who's being driven half-mad by xenos?"
"Don't play the pity card with me." Horus snorted and reached for the last grape in the fruit bowl. "Roboute gave you a full batch of Primaris recruits, and you still have your sons on Baal itself. Your hand is far stronger than mine right now. You want to poach my people? Not happening."
The conversation, which had started as something genuinely tender, ended in bickering and mutual stubbornness.
The chess game ended in a draw.
They pushed back their chairs, walked out of the private quarters, and went to find the man they'd been talking about.
There was a war to plan.
---
Strategic planning chamber.
Kael had been summoned by both Primarchs. Loken and Kullen came with him.
He didn't waste time.
"Before the Great Rift tore the galaxy open, the Blood Angels and their successors fought Hive Fleet Leviathan's tendril in the Cryptus System. They bled for it, but they tore a serious chunk out of the swarm."
"These creatures don't forget. Or rather, their purpose is absolute. They abandoned every agri-world within easy reach and drove straight for Baal without looking back."
Kael pulled up an image on the holodisplay. An aged Astartes, face carved by centuries of war.
"Lord Sanguinius, your son Dante is an exceptional commander. He used Exterminatus to scorch the swarm's approach routes — every planet in their path burned to glass. And before the swarm arrived, he sent out a blood summons to the entire galaxy."
Kael traced a wide arc across the holographic star chart.
"Right now, nearly 30,000 power-armored Astartes are assembled in the Baal system. Almost every successor chapter answered the call."
Thirty thousand Space Marines.
The number settled over the room like a physical weight. Even during the Great Crusade, that was a force capable of prosecuting an apocalyptic campaign. And now, all 30,000 of them were crammed onto Baal, fighting to hold a line.
Loken stared at the holographic swarm, at the tide of hideous, chitinous shapes rolling across the display, and his fist tightened at his side. "What could draw a xenos fleet of this scale to abandon everything else and come gnaw on this particular bone?"
"That's exactly what I'm getting to." Kael turned and looked at the golden-haired Primarch standing beside him.
The Great Angel looked back, puzzled.
Kael raised one finger and pointed directly at Sanguinius.
"Me?" The Great Angel's eyebrow went up.
"Yes." Kael nodded.
"To be precise, what they're after is your remains. The ones stored in the crypts beneath Baal." Kael let that land before continuing. "The Tyranids consumed a great many Blood Angel veterans in the Cryptus System. They've been analyzing the genetic sequences. They've extracted intelligence about the Primarchs."
"These things will not pass up a perfect creation like you. They want to devour the Primarch genome and evolve something even more monstrous from it."
Silence.
The temperature in the room dropped.
On Sanguinius's flawless face, something appeared that almost never did: pure, undisguised fury. He had a new body now, a living one. But those remains, the ones that had carried 10,000 years of his suffering, were untouchable. These chittering arthropods were squatting on his grave and desecrating it.
"I will not allow these filthy things to stain the soil of Baal." Sanguinius said it one word at a time.
Horus pressed both hands flat against the tactical table and studied the swarm's advance patterns.
"No matter how vast their numbers, they have a fatal weakness." The Lupercal went straight to the heart of it. "Tyranids have no individual intelligence. Every one of them runs on neural commands from synapse-node organisms in the field. Cut the nodes, and the whole network collapses."
"A sharp observation, sir," Loken said.
"Exactly right, my Wolf Lord." Kael nodded. "Eliminate the high-tier units, especially the synapse creatures, and their wave tactics fall apart completely."
He paused, and a gleam entered his eye.
"Now. These bugs ate the Blood Angels and absorbed their genes. Which means I have every reason to suspect they also picked up the Blood Angels' Black Rage along with everything else."
Kael looked at Horus and raised his eyebrows with undisguised delight.
"When we drop onto Baal, my Wolf Lord, you are going to see hillsides absolutely carpeted with arthropods. Eyes burning red. Acid dripping from their mandibles. Charging straight at you with zero regard for their own survival, screaming at the top of whatever passes for their lungs:"
"HORUS! YOUR LIFE IS MINE!"
The image was too vivid to resist.
Sanguinius, who had been radiating cold fury thirty seconds ago, suddenly pictured it: 10,000 shrieking bugs, claws raised, stampeding after Horus across the surface of Baal. A laugh burst out of him before he could stop it.
Horus shot Kael a look that could have curdled milk.
"Well. Apparently I'm getting the VIP experience." He turned and gave Sanguinius a deeply aggrieved look. "Brother, you are going to help me when the time comes. I am not getting double-teamed by a xenos swarm and your Black-Rage-addled nephews at the same time."
The Blood Angels, locked in desperate battle.
Reinforcements arrive: finally, yes, thank the Throne.
Reinforcements include Horus: wait. Black Rage activates. Red Thirst activates. And from a thousand throats at once,
HORUS!
Sanguinius pictured it and laughed again, helpless.
He waved a hand, still smiling.
"With me there, none of that will happen."
➤ Next: Curze's Life — The Conversation
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