Chapter 146 - Nurgle's Most Favored
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By the Emperor, what blasphemy.
Everyone present reacted with horror and fury at the daemon's answer.
Guilliman and Kaelen were comparatively calm, expected, in the circumstances. The Eldar Farseer looked surprised.
Kaelen pressed on.
"The Angel's fragment. Who holds it now?"
"It rests in the hands of Rotigus the Rainfather. Afterward, by the Plague Lord's command, it shall be delivered to His most beloved chief Great Unclean One, Ku'gath Plaguefather. You have 5 questions remaining."
A large hand settled on Kaelen's shoulder.
Guilliman.
"Let me question him, Kaelen."
The mortal stepped back. The Primarch stepped forward.
Guilliman studied the daemon in silence, his gaze measured and unhurried. Then he asked.
"Does he intend to use this god-plague to corrupt me and my brothers again?"
"The god's will is inscrutable, son of the Accursed One." The daemon smiled, slow and sly. "But I will tell you this — if you could be corrupted, the Plague Lord would certainly be willing."
"You have 4 questions remaining."
Guilliman needed to know. What insidious trap had the Plague Lord Nurgle set using his brother's soul? He feared that Horus, out on campaign, might stumble back into the same ruin with a single careless step. He feared whether he himself might fall to such a plague. Be infected. Be hollowed out.
And then his mind went somewhere worse.
The soul fragment merging with the god-plague. Fusing into something twisted. Something that should not exist.
For his cherished brother Sanguinius, it would be a desecration.
---
Yaksis.
A corrupted Imperial world.
Ku'gath Plaguefather was brewing a fine pot of soup. From his perspective, that was precisely what it was.
He was not happy about it.
He stirred the cauldron Papa Nurgle had gifted him with sullen, rhythmic discontent. Their war had suffered setbacks. His favorite subordinate had been utterly killed by Guilliman, cut down by that Sword of the Emperor the Accursed One had bestowed upon him. And Typhus, his colleague, the mortal champion who seemed to be the true master of the Death Guard, he had taken wounds as well.
Which meant Ku'gath now had to cooperate with Mortarion.
That arrogant, condescending, insufferably self-righteous former son of the Accursed One. The mere thought of that figure made the Plaguefather's sulk deepen and curdle, and he carelessly brought his foot down on one of his Plaguebearers.
The little creature burst like an overfull sack.
Ku'gath sighed. What a waste. That tiny body had been carrying no fewer than a hundred diseases and viruses. Deployed on Guilliman's Ultramar, it would have done beautiful work.
Then the rain came.
Sour, putrid, corrosive rain.
Ku'gath's displeasure did not need a face to read. Someone even worse than Mortarion had arrived.
Rotigus the Rainfather. A bloated, decaying mass as vast as Ku'gath himself materialized from within the simmering brew, his rotten bulk parting the thick soup like a body sinking into a bath.
Second only to Ku'gath in standing. The second most beloved by Papa Nurgle.
"Oh, detestable Rotigus, what are you doing here?" Ku'gath's voice came out in a rough growl. "Get out! This cauldron is Papa's gift to me!"
He assumed his colleague had come to steal it.
Rotigus ignored him entirely. He settled into the thick soup the way a man settles into a hot spring, unhurried, deeply comfortable, and extended one finger to dip it into the brew. The stuff that would rot a mortal from the inside out if swallowed. The stuff that could corrode common iron at a touch.
He smacked his lips. Savoring.
"Most unclean. Most infectious. Hmm." He tilted his head. "Still missing something."
"But I will admit," he added, "this concoction is quite invigorating. Killing the Accursed One's little toy-people, though — that will still be difficult."
"You're jealous!" Ku'gath slapped his ladle against the rim of the cauldron. "This is called the God-Plague! It is enough to kill the Accursed One's little toy-people! This plague is better than the one that created me! It could even kill you!"
"Yes, yes."
The Rainfather's tone was the tone of someone agreeing to end a conversation.
"I'm sure you can manage it. And yet here I stand, alive and well, which rather suggests this pot of yours, "
He grinned at his colleague, wide and wet.
"But—"
Ku'gath never finished the sentence.
"The reason I came," Rotigus said, "is to remind you, Plaguefather, that you are wasting time. The Changer of Ways' armies are already moving against Papa's Garden. Khorne and Tzeentch have joined forces. They mean to seize what Papa has won. It will happen in the Scourge Stars."
He rolled his enormous eyes.
"Papa will not welcome anyone who shows up to this party unprepared. Ku'gath, my old friend. My brother. My colleague. My rival. Will you be that person? Like that tedious Mortarion?"
At the name, Rotigus spat into the cauldron.
He despised Mortarion. Even if the man was a Primarch, he was not a pure Great Unclean One, and that distinction mattered.
"And now more of the Accursed One's sons are waking and returning to the material universe. No small inconvenience. Especially that Lupercal and Sanguinius."
The news of Ka'Bandha's beating at the hands of the Wolf Shepherd and the Great Angel had spread across the Empyrean. The gods' favored Greater Daemons had mostly laughed. A few had thought carefully. Rotigus was the latter.
He had been at the Siege of Terra 10,000 years ago. He had seen with his own eyes what the Wolf Shepherd looked like when the gods poured their power into him. The memory still made something cold move through his vast, rotten body.
"If you can manage it, dear Ku'gath, I would very much like your soup to corrupt him a second time. For the Accursed One, that would be a humiliation worth savoring."
"Are you giving me orders?"
The Plaguefather's ladle struck the cauldron rim hard.
"Not at all, dear brother."
Rotigus shrugged.
"Merely a suggestion. Though I do also come bearing Papa's instructions."
He paused.
"If at all possible, kill the mortal. He will be the most troublesome piece on the board in this game of the gods."
"A mortal? Which mortal?"
Ku'gath blinked.
Rotigus looked up toward whatever passed for a sky and exhaled a long, suffering sigh. This fool was beyond help. The ability to drag a dead Primarch back into the material world was more alarming than the Primarchs' return itself, and Ku'gath hadn't even heard of it? He hadn't listened to a single word of the news Abaddon had sent ringing through the Empyrean.
"Horus's attendant. Guilliman's now, perhaps. Who knows. He is at Guilliman's side. If the plague can reach him, so much the better."
"He will be more trouble for Papa than any son of the Accursed One."
As he said it, the Rainfather's hand dipped downward, fingers working between the folds of his bulk, and emerged holding a small vial.
The vial was spotless. Pristine in a way that made the entire seething cauldron around it look grey and dim.
"That is..."
Ku'gath stared at what lay inside. A pale golden fragment, small as a shard of bone.
"A soul. One of the Accursed One's little toy-people. Papa's share of the spoils from that old war." Rotigus's voice dropped, just slightly. "Papa says that if you merge this with the God-Plague, what emerges will be something truly horrific."
"Do not disappoint His expectations, Ku'gath."
A beat.
"Remember. Papa's favor is not eternal. I stand at second place. How long do you plan to hold onto first?"
➤ Next: Trazyn Comes to Visit
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