Chapter 175 - The Plague War Ends
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"Oh, servants of the Corpse-Emperor. You have lived far too long."
Deep in the hospital ruins, Ku'gath Plaguefather gripped a rust-eaten daemon sword, his bloated bulk sprawled before the great cauldron churning with dark-green sludge.
Before him stood what remained of Mathieu's Crusade force.
Tens of thousands had marched when they set out. Fewer than thirteen were still breathing.
The Astartes of the Nova Marines stood with them.
Once Justinian's squad understood the priest's mission, they had gritted their teeth and shouldered the full weight of the daemon horde, fighting through it all to reach this place.
Mathieu walked at the front.
No protective gear. Bare feet on Nurgle's reeking ground, soaked through with infectious pus.
He was a believer in this moment, eyes brimming with tears, heart filled with hope.
He walked forward smiling, and the Nurgle daemons along the path actually shrank back.
The ones that touched him crumbled to ash on the spot.
Ku'gath knew something was wrong. He wanted Mathieu dead.
But every time the daemon sword came down, an Astartes stepped into the blow.
When the last warrior fell, seven remained. One priest. Six Astartes.
Ku'gath looked at those seven and found himself thinking of the numerology Mortarion had once spoken of.
Seven. A number most fitting for the loving father Nurgle, was it not?
A smile of victory spread across the daemon's face.
"You will all die, trinkets of the Accursed One. You will die just like all his other little toy soldiers."
He muttered, and just as he moved to grant these seven the mercy of death, a roar interrupted him.
A Leman Russ battle tank smashed through the ruins and came charging in.
Commanding it was Colonel Odrameyer of the Cadian 402nd Armored Regiment.
The tank stalled the instant it struck the Plague Father. Warp corruption bled outward, bolter shells going soft, armor plating blooming with rust. The colonel's arm began to fuse with the tank's metal hull.
He bit down against the pain, wrenched hard, and tore himself free. Power Sword in hand, he vaulted onto the top deck and stared directly into the Greater Daemon's eyes.
Not much to look at, really. These fearsome Greater Daemons. Just filthy, hideous things when you got close enough.
"And who are you?" Ku'gath asked.
"A faithful servant of the Emperor! Daemon!"
The colonel used the last of his strength. He drove the Power Sword through Ku'gath's eye socket and into his brain, then disrupted the disruption field.
Ku'gath's head burst apart.
"It is over," the colonel murmured, and his body toppled.
He was dead.
With a sigh, Ku'gath's soul fled back to the Garden of Nurgle, where only the Plague Father's disappointed gaze was waiting for him.
The daemons, seeing their master break and run, fought harder.
Justinian and his battle-brothers spent the last of what they had to buy Mathieu time.
"Priest!" Justinian bellowed. "We are counting on you! The Primarch's fate and the Imperium's rests with you!"
"I know!" Mathieu scrambled on hands and knees toward the cauldron. "For the God-Emperor! I give him my final loyalty!"
Even with the Emperor's blessing, the cauldron was still a potent Nurgle artifact.
As Mathieu drew close, his skin began to rot and slough away. There was no stopping it.
In the last second of his life, he thought of the God-Emperor. He thought of the Primarch. He thought of the countless billions of Imperial subjects. And he thought of his beloved teacher.
"God-Emperor, witness me!"
Mathieu screamed in ecstasy.
The radiance erupting from inside him consumed him whole. Heart-rending screams tore through the air from every direction. Plague daemons evaporated in the blaze of that light. Justinian and the others were hurled backward by the shockwave.
Before he went down, Justinian forced his head up one last time.
Mathieu was gone. Standing in that radiance was a golden-armored giant, eyes full of sorrow, resolute, swinging a golden greatsword.
A bell tolled, its peal rolling out clear and deep. A sense of deliverance spread with it, and every trace of corruption in that place was carried away.
Justinian's consciousness went dark.
----------
Before all of this, when Guilliman still stood on the scorched earth of Iax, Kaelen had told him something.
"You will be dragged into the Garden of Nurgle. Mortarion wants to corrupt more than the Five Hundred Worlds. He wants to corrupt you, because your very concept has become bound to them. But don't worry. Your father will intervene."
So Guilliman turned the trap into a weapon.
He let Mortarion drag him into the Garden of Nurgle, so his father could act.
It was a gamble with nothing certain about it. He might genuinely die.
But he had already died once for the Emperor. What was once more?
Mortarion hauled Guilliman through a rift in the Warp, with no idea whatsoever what he was bringing into the Plague Father's domain. Just as they neared the garden's depths, the Death Lord stopped dead.
He sensed it. The cauldron was gone.
The garden shook from the bell's tremor. Daemons wailed in agony.
"Impossible," the Death Lord murmured.
Guilliman's corpse twitched.
The Armour of Fate began to move again, as though announcing that its master was not finished yet.
Mortarion watched his brother's blackened face begin to turn toward him. A mighty presence was moving through the Warp, bearing down on this body. He could feel it clearly.
Damn you, Guilliman.
He snapped his scythe up in a panic, meaning to take the Master of Ultramar's head and seize his soul before the trouble he'd brought here finished arriving.
Too late.
Nurglings shrieked and scattered. Daemon flies swarmed away in droves.
The scythe stopped a hair's breadth from Guilliman's neck, and Mortarion found he could not move.
Bewilderment. Agitation. Panic. They spread across the daemon primarch's face one after another.
Guilliman's eyes blazed with blinding white light. The rotted flesh knit itself back together. The Armour of Fate turned pristine and gleaming.
He straightened to his full height. His gaze swept across the garden. And Mortarion felt it, something behind him, another vast presence, casting its attention here, watching silently from behind those forever-shuttered windows.
Golden radiance blazed out, so fierce Mortarion could not look at it.
The Emperor's Sword ignited once more and returned to Guilliman's hand.
"Father?"
Mortarion's voice was trembling. Soft. Small. Like a child who knew what it had done wrong.
"Is that you?"
----------
On the battlefields of Iax.
Horus felt it clearly. The Death Angel's attacks had fallen off sharply. Something had struck it, and it was dropping toward the ground like a wounded bird.
It tried to push back to its feet and fight. It had nothing left.
Horus was done talking. He closed his grip on Worldbreaker. Golden light engulfed the warhammer, and the silent Legion of the Damned warrior Ferrus lent his flame to the Wolf of Luna, then vanished.
Fire wrapped itself around the hammer.
Horus looked at this thing wearing his brother's face.
Then he swung.
The Death Angel's skull cracked open. Its entire body crumbled to ash under the hungry lick of the flames.
➤ Next: The Enemies Ahead
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