Chapter 115 - The Unfamiliar Lion
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When Zabriel and the others heard the Lion speak the name of the aged Astartes standing before them, one as old as themselves, they lost their composure instantly.
The Prince of Crows. Yago Sevatar Rion.
During the Great Crusade ten thousand years ago, he had been a figure of towering renown. As famous as the legendary warriors of that era: Abaddon of the Luna Wolves, Eidolon of the Emperor's Children, and their own Dark Angels' Corswain.
It was said that Sevatar had once dueled the equally renowned Imperial Fists sword-master Sigismund, and the two had fought to a standstill, until Sevatar won the duel with a headbutt.
But that was the past. In the Horus Heresy that followed, he had joined the traitors.
Zabriel and the other three raised their guns, lifted their blades, ready at any moment to take this traitor's head on the spot.
The Lion gave no such order. He himself had no intention of killing this traitor.
"You've grown old, Sevatar."
"As have you, my Lord. Older than I imagined."
The Lion let out a cold laugh.
"I never expected a damned traitor like you to survive this long. Have you been here on Avalons the entire time since the Heresy?"
Sevatar was silent for a moment, then answered honestly.
"Yes. After I boarded your flagship alongside my Gene-Sire, I was captured. I later found a way to escape my cell, and have been living in seclusion here ever since."
The Lion narrowed his eyes and studied him.
Sevatar felt as though a forest predator had fixed its gaze on him. It sent a chill straight through him.
"My Lord, shall we..."
Akai made a throat-slitting gesture toward the Lion.
The Lion glanced at him and gave a faint shake of his head. Then he asked.
"Why have you chosen to live in seclusion here? Have you been tainted by Chaos during this time? Do you still maintain contact with your Legion?"
Three questions. Concise and clear.
"I have been on Avalons watching over the bloodline of a Starspeak girl who was aboard your flagship all those years ago."
"I have not been tainted by Chaos. My Gene-Sire despised it, and I would never let myself be touched by that filthy thing."
"As for the Legion?"
Sevatar let out a cold laugh.
"At the time I gave them only one order: they were free to leave the Legion and do as they pleased. But I had only one demand of them: make the Imperium bleed!"
That was hardly a friendly thing to say.
A dangerous light flickered through the Lion's emerald eyes. But he smiled, a smile filled with contempt.
"No wonder your Legion is made up of a pack of scum. Every last one of you deserves to die."
"You are not wrong, my Lord. We do deserve to die. But who caused all of this? Who granted my father the ability to foresee the future, and who refused to heed my father's prophecy of the coming Heresy?"
Sevatar's voice was dark and brooding, the words ground out through clenched teeth.
"It is all the fault of the False Emperor!"
The old salted meat on the Golden Throne, having been named, let out a psychic sneeze.
That blasphemous title successfully ignited the fury of Zabriel and the others.
"Silence! Traitor!" Zabriel barked.
"I should be silent? Do the Dark Angels have the nerve to call themselves loyal?" Sevatar sneered. "Just as my father said in the Hall of Saguasath—do you remember, Lion?"
The Lion of course remembered. Back then, the First Legion and the Eighth Legion had been fighting in the Salamar System for some time, and midway through, Curze had actually invited him to talk.
"I remember it well. It was a trap."
"Everything Curze said was nothing but the flatulence of a beast, as far as I am concerned!"
"Oh? It seems you have already forgotten those words, my Lord. Allow me to repeat them for you. The Lion's long refusal to return to Terra: the Lion must harbor treacherous intent! The archives and historical records of later ages will show the world why the master of the mightiest First Legion failed to return to Terra at the critical moment!"
Sevatar spoke each word deliberately.
"The world will fabricate lies, saying that Lion El'Jonson's loyalty was lesser than Rogal Dorn's!"
The Lion only looked at him with a calm, level gaze.
"Do you remember what I said before?"
The Lion walked forward slowly, closing the distance between them step by step.
"I told Curze: I do not care, because loyalty is its own reward. And you, Sevatar, you had the ability to restrain your Gene-Sire, yet you let him do as he pleased. By comparison, Barabas Dantioch was far more steadfast than you. He betrayed Perturabo, yes, but his loyalty to the Imperium and the Emperor of Mankind, that I witnessed with my own eyes."
The Lion looked down upon this former enemy from above.
The scenes of that time surged into his mind. He and Curze had fought each other, their escorts joining the fray, and his proud son, the Grand Master of the Ninth Order, Araklion, had been beheaded by Sevatar.
He could never forget that hatred.
The Prince of Crows had also guessed what the Lion intended to do next. He set down the bolt pistol at his hip, then tilted his neck back to make it easy for the Lion to take his head.
"Do it, my Lord. End this utterly wretched life of mine." There was complete and total release in Sevatar's voice.
One second. Two seconds.
The expected stroke of the blade did not come.
"I will not kill you."
That single offhand sentence made Sevatar's eyes snap wide open, his face full of bewilderment.
"You are too old, Sevatar." The Lion let out a derisive snort. "When I hunted in the forests of Caliban, I never stooped to preying on the old and infirm who were already half in the grave."
The genuine psychological damage those words inflicted was more devastating than being flayed alive.
Sevatar felt a mouthful of old blood lodged in his chest. This always cold and merciless old lion was actually pitying him?!
"Are you deliberately humiliating me?!" He clenched his fists tight, the words practically forced out through gritted teeth. "Where has the proud master of the First Legion gone?!"
"Yes, I am humiliating you. As a loyalist, I have every right to grind a traitor's face underfoot." The Lion raised his boot and kicked the bolt pistol on the ground, sending it skidding more than ten meters away.
"I must admit that I am indeed humiliating you, First Company Captain of the Eighth Legion. You are a traitor, and as a loyalist I am entitled to do so..." The Lion's voice trailed off, and a very complicated light flickered through his eyes. "My instincts tell me you cannot die yet. Tell me, Sevatar, why did you show yourself before me at all? You could have played deaf and dumb and continued your life of seclusion."
This old lion was as sharp as ever.
The Prince of Crows took a deep breath, then answered in the manner of a cruel joke.
"Because I saw the return of the Night Haunter."
"He is on Baal."
Konrad Curze, on Baal?
"Your psychic prophecy told you this?"
The Lion pressed him.
"I had a dream. I dreamed of my Gene-Sire's return. His movements were as swift as they were in the old days. Lion, I suspect that age has left you unable to keep up with his speed. If the two of you face each other again, the only winner will be my father!"
"The Lion still has us, Sevatar!"
Zabriel cut in.
"We will buy the Lion even a single second!"
"Do not forget, my father still has me. If you do not kill me here and now, I will certainly aid my Gene-Sire when our Gene-Sires face each other."
Sevatar's tone was dark and brooding. He craved death. He craved punishment.
Yet the Lion paused and mulled it over, and that contemplative expression surprised Sevatar.
The Lion looked at him again.
"If he appears, I will use you as a hostage, Sevatar."
"How utterly despicable, Lion."
"I do not care what others think of me." The Lion let out a sigh, as though he had worked something out. "In truth, your father is different from the other traitor Primarchs. He was simply a madman."
"Looking at it now, he was actually the most normal one among the traitors. The motives of your Eighth Legion and his were plain enough: purely opposing the Imperium and the Emperor of Mankind."
In the Lion's view, Sevatar had not been tainted by Warp corruption. He had spent ten thousand years quietly serving as a mortal caretaker, keeping to himself.
In an age overrun by daemons and monsters, that baseline of integrity was something rare and precious.
For the Lion, who had just awakened and found everything around him unfamiliar, this old bat could even barely be counted as a familiar face, someone he actually recognized. He could not help but feel a flicker of compassion.
"Let's go." The Lion withdrew his gaze and pointed toward the gates of the Governor's Palace.
Sevatar blinked.
"Where?"
"To meet the bloodline descendant of that Starspeak girl you mentioned." The Lion strode forward at a brisk pace, not even turning his head. "I need to verify your words myself. Once I have sorted that out, I will decide whether to tear you apart limb from limb, or keep you around to deal with Curze."
➤ Next: The Arrival of the Lamenters
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