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

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In the end, the three of them let Bela go.

Partly Kullen's call. Partly Codicier Bevedan's. Between the two of them, Zabriel still couldn't make sense of it.

This was reckless. Completely reckless.

"Why did you let him go? Kullen, he's a traitor!" Zabriel's brow knotted tight. He was starting to wonder if Kullen and Bela were working together.

"He's useful."

Kullen watched Bela's shuttle punch through the atmosphere and disappear. Then he turned.

"Bela can't die yet. I planted a micro-tracker on him. The Thousand Eyes Warband's fleet position will be under constant surveillance."

A reasonable explanation. But Zabriel knew exactly what the Thousand Eyes Warband had in their arsenal. He cut in.

"We don't have the ships to match Seraphax's fleet. This intelligence edge, we—"

"Not your fleet. Our fleet."

Kullen's correction was flat.

Zabriel didn't know what to make of that. He glanced instinctively toward the Librarian.

"Besides you and Bela, my third request came from Kullen's side." Bevedan's smile was odd, like he was deliberately keeping something from Zabriel.

"A third-party force..."

Zabriel drew a sharp breath. The transformation in Kullen before him could only be explained by help from a faction he knew nothing about.

He still had no idea who they were. Bevedan read the look on his face.

"Kullen's request was simply for me to come out of retirement and serve the Emperor of Mankind and the Lion once more. The third-party force belongs to the Imperium."

Zabriel caught something in that.

"You already knew the Lion had returned? Kullen?"

He looked at Kullen.

"I knew before the Great Rift opened."

No hesitation.

"Someone told me. When I traveled to the Golden Throne to verify it, the Emperor of Mankind confirmed it himself. The Lion would awaken. He would return."

On first pass, the words were unremarkable. Zabriel's subconscious filed them away as ordinary. Then he actually thought about what he'd heard, and the cold crept in.

The Emperor of Mankind?

What was Kullen even saying?

A Fallen Angel, going to the Golden Throne for an audience with the Emperor of Mankind?

The words hit like a flood surge and scattered Zabriel's orderly mind completely. He took an involuntary step back.

"Oh, right." Kullen hadn't forgotten why he'd come. He turned deliberately to show Zabriel the Aquila on his breastplate, the mark of glory worn by the Terran-born, proof that they had once fought beside the Master of Mankind himself.

"Brother, I'm not actually a Fallen Angel anymore. The Emperor of Mankind pardoned me. Personally."

Zabriel's mind stopped working. He had never, not once in his long life, found it so hard to understand another person's words. It was like trying to grasp what it took to be admitted to the Inner Circle of the First Legion.

What did it even mean? The Emperor of Mankind pardoned a Fallen Angel?

"The Emperor of Mankind, he's still alive?"

It wasn't really a question he chose to ask. His mind was too scrambled for reason or deliberate thought. He was running on instinct. On reflex.

"He... is still alive."

Zabriel and Bevedan both noticed it, the bitter smile spreading slowly across Kullen's face, weighted with a sorrow that had no words.

"Holy Terra still stands?"

"It does."

"You came here on orders? To find the Lion?"

On orders? No. Kullen had come because he wanted to. He followed no one's orders, not Lupercal's, not Sanguinius's. He had come here following Kaelen's guidance, for one reason: to have Zabriel bring him before the Lion.

Kullen wanted to see his father.

"I'm only here to see him."

"I have things to tell him, to hand off to him. Will you bring me before him, Brother Zabriel?"

Zabriel studied Kullen with narrow suspicion. He couldn't fully trust any of this. There was nothing to verify it against. He even feared Kullen was a pawn of those Unforgiven brothers, set up to betray them and wipe out every Fallen Angel in one sweep.

So he looked at the Librarian.

Bevedan nodded. That was endorsement enough.

"Fine."

Zabriel let out a slow breath and led the two of them onto the shuttle, along with the pair of Fallen Angels he'd encountered at the Governor's palace.

----------

They came aboard the Lion's flagship.

Kullen walked at the front. His steps were steady, though not entirely patient. Zabriel kept close behind, watching every movement. Whatever happened here, the Lion's safety came first.

When the group reached the bridge, a towering figure stood with his back to them.

Lion El'Jonson.

The Fallen Angels, Kullen included, couldn't help it. Breath caught.

The gene-father had returned.

The massive frame turned, slow and unhurried. Kullen saw it immediately, exactly as Kaelen had described: the Lion had aged. His beard unshaved, his brow carved with deep, clear lines. But those emerald eyes had not changed at all. Sharp. Inescapable. Anyone who met that gaze felt something in them bend toward submission without quite knowing why.

Zabriel crossed to the Lion's side in three long strides and relayed what he knew of Kullen.

The Lion nodded. He already knew.

He didn't address Kullen first. Instead he moved among the other Fallen Angels, unhurried, his manner open and sincere, and invited his sons back into his ranks with genuine warmth. Every one of them accepted willingly.

Until the last one.

Kullen.

The Lion took him in: taller than every other son in the room, broader too, and Terran-born besides. His gaze was calm and level. When he spoke, it was not a request.

"Remove your helmet, child."

A slight tremor ran through Kullen. He obeyed.

Helmet off. One knee to the deck. He held it before him with both hands.

"The First Legion. Founding member of the Dreadwing. Knight Kullen, 3rd Company, 13th Chapter, here for you."

A pause.

"Forgive my impertinence, Father. You are older than I imagined."

The Lion looked at him. Something in the face was familiar, a ghost of his own younger features. He remembered now. An exceptional Dreadwing veteran. Had performed well in the First Rangdan War, even as that campaign ended in defeat for both the Imperium and the First Legion.

"Your impertinence is forgiven, Kullen." The Lion glanced at the gathered brothers around them. "But explain something, for me and your brothers here. Why are you so young? And so tall?"

"The Imperium's Primaris Space Marine process remade me into this."

He held his gene-father's gaze as he said it.

The Lion fell silent. Low whispers ran through the sons of the First Legion around them.

"I heard you received the Emperor of Mankind's pardon."

"Yes. I swear it by the name of the Throne."

"Who brought you there."

Kullen's lips pressed together for just a moment. What would the Lion do, hearing that name again? Curiosity tipped the scale. He answered.

"Roboute Guilliman."

"And Horus Lupercal. Along with a mortal friend of mine, Kaelen."

Time stopped.

The Fallen Angels in the room didn't know who Kaelen was. But the two names before that landed like something physical.

Those two names were spears. They drove straight through Lion's thoughts.

Guilliman?

Horus?

A beast. Lion urgently needed a beast's carcass. His knife, to flay the hide back and dismember what remained. Unfortunately, a flagship offered no such conditions.

His hands were trembling as he began to pace.

➤ Next: The Lion: I Am Not Alone, But My Brothers Are Too Strange

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