Warhammer 40K: System Error, I Summoned the Arch-Traitor!

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These were Space Marines whose luck had bottomed out completely, soaked through with pessimism.

But in Horus's eyes, they were also the sons who most resembled Sanguinius.

10 minutes ago, these Astartes of the Lamenters Chapter had arrived aboard a Thunderhawk Gunship trailing black smoke from its engines, wobbling unsteadily as it touched down on the Glory of Terra's landing bay.

As their greeter, Horus had set aside the oppressive weight of his Terminator armor and changed into a plain robe instead.

Now the Wolf Shepherd stood studying the fewer than thirty men before him.

The yellow paint on their power armor had long been buried under gunsmoke and dried blood, unrecognizable beneath the grime. The bleeding heart on each shoulder pauldron was webbed with fine cracks. Not a single piece of intact equipment. Not a single suit of unbroken power armor.

What concerned Horus more was their bearing.

He had seen far too many Blood Angels on Baal. When those warriors looked at him, the "great traitor," their eyes burned with barely leashed fury and killing intent.

These Lamenters were different.

There was none of that aggressive contempt, none of that hatred. In its place was something far more subtle: a careful restraint, and a bone-deep pessimism, as though the entire universe had thrown them away.

Horus could even hear a few of them quietly sobbing beneath their helmets.

"Your paint scheme is quite distinctive, Chapter Master Phoros," Horus said, speaking first, his voice pitched low.

Standing at the front, Malakim Phoros gave a slight bow. The Chapter Master's left arm armor had been half-melted away by corrosive acid, exposing the barely patched cables within.

"Just marks to remember the pain by, Lord Lupercal." Phoros's tone was carefully courteous. He was working hard to keep himself from recalling the maddening curses woven into the bloodline of Sanguinius. Facing a Warmaster from ten thousand years ago, he held himself with impeccable composure.

In the brief exchange just now, Horus had learned this Chapter's history.

They placed saving civilians above everything else. For ordinary mortals they had never even met, they would spend the Chapter to the last man without hesitation.

If he hadn't seen the insignia on their armor and their faces, Horus would have almost believed he was looking at sons of Vulkan.

"I believe my brother would like you very much, Chapter Master Phoros," Horus said, and meant it. "A certain quality in you perfectly inherits his most precious aspect."

"You flatter me, my lord." Phoros kept his head lowered.

Then, from the thick metal passageway leading to the landing bay, came a set of footsteps. Crisp. Unhurried.

Whoosh.

Every Lamenter turned their head at almost the exact same second, eyes fixed on the passageway exit.

Phoros took half a step forward without thinking, his body trembling.

The hatch doors slid open.

Sanguinius walked out. His pristine white wings caught the light and glowed with a soft halo. Half a step behind him, Kullen was leaning in to say something to the Great Angel, then raised a hand and pointed at the group of yellow-armored warriors on the landing bay who had gone completely, utterly still.

THUD!

No rehearsal. No command.

Twenty-eight Lamenters dropped to one knee on the deck in perfect unison.

Over a hundred years of suppressed grief, fear, and joy broke open all at once.

At the rear of the formation, a new recruit cracked first, a choked sob forcing its way out.

That sound was a switch. It blew open the floodgates for every Lamenter in the room.

Sanguinius quickened his pace and walked up before them.

"My lord..."

Phoros dragged the words up from the depths of his throat, his voice scraped raw.

It was real.

Even after bearing the most venomous curses for ten thousand years. Even after suffering every misery this godforsaken universe could throw at them. Their gene-father was truly, actually standing before them.

"Rise, my sons." The Great Angel's voice carried a frequency that seemed to reach straight into the soul.

The Lamenters helped each other to their feet.

"Remove your helmets," Sanguinius said quietly. "Let me see your faces."

Hissing depressurization, one after another.

Twenty-eight helmets cradled against twenty-eight chests.

Sanguinius looked at twenty-eight faces streaked with tears, hollowed out with exhaustion.

Battle-hardened Space Marines, every one of them. Weeping like children who had finally found their way home.

The Great Angel said nothing grand. No speeches, no ceremony.

He stepped forward, stood before Phoros, and raised a hand capable of tearing a daemon apart to gently wipe the tears from the corner of the Chapter Master's eyes.

Then the next.

He went down the line one by one, meeting the gaze of each son directly, wiping the tears from their faces with his own hands.

He saw the profound melancholy in the depths of these children's eyes. He also saw, clearly, that quality of preferring death to surrender, and the radiance of something genuinely noble in their humanity.

When he had wiped away the last warrior's tears, Sanguinius returned to stand before the formation.

"I have heard of your deeds." The Great Angel smiled. "You are my bravest children. The ones who make me most proud."

Every Lamenter raised their head. Every lip was trembling.

"The Badab War. The enemy exploited your honor, deceived you, branded you traitors, and sent you off on some bullshit penitent crusade." Sanguinius's voice picked up speed. "But you did not use that as an excuse to fall. You kept protecting those defenseless people of the Imperium."

He swept a hand.

"I don't care about the traitor label. Not at all. Through your actions, you upheld every conviction I left behind ten thousand years ago. You did not let that vicious pressure crush you."

The Great Angel drew a slow breath.

Then he knelt on one knee, and opened his arms wide toward his sons.

"Welcome home, my children."

The Lamenters froze.

Some of them thought it was a Warp hallucination. Some malicious trick of the immaterium. Until Sanguinius stepped forward himself and gently pulled the still-dazed Phoros into his arms.

Real. Solid. Warm.

Phoros closed his eyes. Tears ran down his face in streams. Then his arms came up and locked tight around his gene-father.

The rest of the Lamenters couldn't hold back anymore. They surged forward and closed around the Great Angel from every side.

From a distance, Kullen watched the reunion for a moment, then very tactfully tugged on Horus's sleeve.

The two of them turned and walked into the adjacent passageway, leaving the space to the fathers and sons.

The metal door had barely shut when Kullen rubbed his chin.

"There's something I'm not sure I should say." He smacked his lips. "I'm genuinely relieved there are less than thirty of these Lamenters left. If this were a full-strength Chapter and Sanguinius had to hug them one by one, he'd be there all week."

Horus laughed and reached out to pat the mortal's shoulder.

"Don't joke about that, my friend. My brother would never care about the numbers." His tone was full of something quiet and genuine. "Even if this Chapter had ten thousand men, he would stand there and embrace every single one of them. That's just who Sanguinius is."

The two walked side by side deeper into the corridor.

"I truly envy him for having sons like that," Horus said. "The humanity they show in extreme adversity, it's a model for every warrior in the Imperium. If I hadn't seen it myself, I'd have suspected they were Vulkan's sons. The Salamanders were famous for protecting civilians during the Great Crusade."

"Though..." The Wolf Shepherd's tone shifted, one brow arching. "I probed them with my psychic senses just now. There's something genuinely foul clinging to them. What does ancient Terran literature call it? Bad luck?"

"That's exactly right. They're a bunch of cursed saints."

Kullen shrugged, then laid out the Lamenters' history.

"Betrayed by allies. Lost in Warp storms. Tried to do the right thing, got dragged into a civil war, then used as scapegoats and branded traitors, shipped off on a penitent crusade. And halfway through, they flew headlong into the teeth of a Tyranid Hive Fleet's main force. If their luck weren't so stubborn, they might not have even scraped together these twenty-odd men."

He clicked his tongue.

"With that kind of luck, if it had been Abaddon's Black Legion, they'd have been wiped out in the very first round."

Hearing all of it, the Wolf Shepherd's footsteps slowed. He drew a long breath.

"But even after all that, they still didn't betray the Imperium." Horus shook his head and laughed, low and self-deprecating. "If it had been me during the Great Crusade, suffering that kind of utterly shameless betrayal and false accusation, I probably wouldn't have even needed the Chaos Gods. I'd have assembled the Luna Wolves' fleet and gone straight to Terra to demand an accounting."

"Oh?" Kullen slanted a look at the Warmaster. "Is that the truth?"

Horus spread his hands. "Mortals go mad when betrayed. I believe Primarchs are human too. Being stabbed in the back by the very convictions you bled for, that confusion where love curdles into hate, that's what drives a person to the edge faster than anything."

The Wolf Shepherd sighed.

"So after going through all this, I just want to learn from my brother Leman Russ. Be an axe that doesn't need to think, just needs to chop. That's the most carefree way to live."

"Give me a break." Kullen tore him down without ceremony. "You think Russ is a brainless husky? That Space Wolf knows exactly what he's doing. Before Prospero kicked off, he was holding the execution order you'd tampered with, and he still spent ages on the comm channel trying to talk Magnus into surrendering. The man plays dumb. He's not actually dumb."

Horus paused, then broke into a rueful laugh.

"Fair enough." Kullen pulled out his tactical canteen and took a sip. "But the one we're about to meet next, that's a different story. The Lion's temper, tsk..."

"The Lion?" Horus snorted, something like old familiarity creeping into his voice. "That man was an absolute bastard when he was young. Always had loyalty on his lips, blindly carrying out Father's orders without ever stopping to ask why. A paranoid who wouldn't hear a word against his convictions."

"Though, considering he's been asleep for ten thousand years, I'm hoping this old lion wakes up with a slightly shorter fuse."

"Yeah, right." Kullen hung the canteen back on his belt and looked at Horus with a sly grin. "With that shiny bald head of yours, the moment the Lion lays eyes on you, his temper is going to detonate on the spot."

Horus touched his smooth scalp, looking faintly pained.

"But still..." Kullen leaned in a little closer. "You just need to do one thing, and that old lion's attitude will flip a full 180 degrees."

"Like handing him the position of Warmaster?"

The next second, laughter rang through the corridor, bright and unplanned, from both of them at once.

➤ Next: Lolicon, Holding Back Laughter

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