Chapter 190 - Dragon Forest Star
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The violet light of the Warp and the cold glitter of realspace flickered against the viewport in shifting patterns.
Lion stood before the observation window, watching the deep star-sea beyond.
He had just finished hearing the truth from Sanguinius.
The Dark Angels themselves had destroyed Caliban.
If it were the Lion of ten thousand years ago, learning that his own sons had shattered their homeworld with their own hands, he would have drawn his sword on the spot. He would have ordered every man involved seized and interrogated. He might have purged the entire Chapter. He would never permit betrayal, and he would never permit such senseless, irreversible destruction.
But now, his heart was calm. Extraordinarily, almost unnervingly calm.
The cabin door behind him opened. The Absolved Angel Zabriel stepped through.
Lion shifted to one side without a word, making space at the viewport.
The two of them stood shoulder to shoulder, looking out at the stars beyond the armored glass.
"My lord," Zabriel said.
"You thought I was going to lose my mind, didn't you?" Lion turned his head.
Zabriel didn't deny it.
He had, in fact, prepared himself to be sent through a bulkhead by an enraged primarch's fist.
Lion exhaled.
"If Caliban's destruction was a fated consequence, the cause begins with me." His voice was flat. Steady. "I left you there. I failed to resolve the problem of Luther. Whatever Azrael and the others did afterward — they were only settling a debt I created."
Zabriel stared at his Gene-Sire. The shock hit somewhere too deep for words.
"You don't blame them?" he asked.
"What would blame accomplish?" Lion shook his head. "The past is the past. I have already accepted Fallen who once stood against me on the opposite side of a battlefield. I'm not going to spend what remains of my time clutching at old wrongs."
Zabriel drew a slow, deep breath.
He was proud of the Lion's clarity. In all his time among the Absolved Angels, across every trial and revelation, it was moments like this that made him feel it most deeply, that pride, that unshakeable certainty of who his primarch was.
This was their Gene-Sire. Their Legion Master.
A knight of strength, integrity, and reason, in the truest sense of all three words.
"The sword of the First Legion, from this day forward, exists only to cut the chains of the future," Lion said. "We will not dwell on the rights and wrongs of the past. What stands before us is the enemy of the present."
"As I have chosen to face my brothers. Lupercal. Curze."
Zabriel nodded, hard and certain.
"Your will."
Lion smiled. He reached out and clapped Zabriel once on the shoulder plate.
"Go check your gear. We have a hard fight coming, and it could come at any moment. The Dark Angels need us."
---
Some time later.
The coalition fleet came through the Mandeville Point and arrived at the edge of the Somnium Catastrophe Belt, at the threshold of the Icon-Worshipper System.
The warship's armor plating groaned, a deep, grinding resonance of stressed metal.
Then the red alert klaxons tore through the bridge.
Lion was already moving toward the tactical console before the sound peaked.
Officers swarmed around their stations, calling out data streams over one another.
Sanguinius approached from the far side of the bridge, his brow drawn tight.
"Brother, there is serious trouble ahead." He gestured toward the hololithic star chart. "My foresight gave warning."
"What did you see?" Lion asked.
"Endless blood," Sanguinius said. His voice was heavy. "And roars of fury. Our brother, the Daemon Primarch Angron, is here. And he did not come alone — the enemy numbers far exceed anything conventional deployment would explain. This is a meat grinder, and it was built specifically for us."
Lion pressed the keys on the console.
The detection arrays began returning real-time data.
The main screen resolved onto a single planet.
A daemon world, saturated with Warp energy down to its bones. Green toxic mist wound around it in slow, permanent coils. What had once been knightly fortresses had been warped and hollowed into daemonic lairs. The glory markings of the First Legion had been smeared over, replaced with the eight-pointed star of Chaos.
Every Dark Angel on the bridge went silent.
Corahael and Zabriel. The veterans. All of them.
A sharp, collective intake of breath.
Lion couldn't look away from the screen.
The topography. The ridgelines running across the continent below. The ruins of the fortress complexes, still recognizable beneath the corruption.
One to one.
Caliban.
This was Caliban, cobbled together from its own shattered fragments. A blasphemous reconstruction. A deliberate desecration.
Dawnbreak Star.
Corahael's fists closed. Zabriel's jaw locked. The rest of the Lion's sons were already burning.
This was provocation. Naked and intentional.
"Those bastards!" Corahael's voice cracked open. "How dare they defile the ruins of our homeworld! This is the greatest insult the First Legion has ever suffered!"
"These Chaos dogs are tired of living!" a Dark Angels veteran snarled from behind him.
He actually turned toward the drop pod bays.
Lion's hand came up. His sons stopped.
"Hold your reason, my children." His eyes never left the screen. "The enemy put this here for exactly one purpose: to make us angry enough to stop thinking. Don't give them what they want."
"My lord!" The communications officer's voice cut across the bridge. "Distress signal from the Rock fleet — receiving now!"
The channel opened, forced through.
A warrior appeared in the hololithic projection, a Dark Angels successor Space Marine, his armour cracked, his background noise a rolling thunder of bolt detonations.
Grand Master Nakir of the Consecrators.
"This is Nakir!" His voice was raw, rapid. "The Rock is under massive boarding assault! We're overwhelmed on numbers!" He was breathing hard, pushing through each word. "They have the Black Legion and World Eaters, and other Chaos forces on top of that! The surface is worse! Chapter Master Azrael is trapped on Dawnbreak Star, surrounded by Angron and Chaos forces, holding the line with whatever Dark Angels he has left! The Rock's void shields are almost gone! We need reinforcements now!"
Corahael lunged forward a step.
"My lord, give the order! We assault immediately! We have to get the Chapter Master out!"
"We are not going to stand here and watch Angron tear him apart!"
Lion didn't answer.
He narrowed his emerald eyes and studied the battle disposition laid out across the hololithic display.
Something was wrong.
His instincts were screaming.
Sanguinius moved to his side and dropped his voice low.
"Brother. Do you remember what we were discussing earlier? The Tuchulcha Engine?"
Lion's pupils shrank a fraction.
He understood.
Dawnbreak Star placed visibly in their path. Azrael pinned on the surface. It wasn't a decisive engagement the enemy was engineering. It was a lure, something to pull every eye and every gun toward the ground while the real target sat unguarded.
"The Rock is what they actually want," Lion said, his voice quiet and precise. "Azrael is the bait. They draw us to the surface, the chaos covers their extraction, and the Tuchulcha Engine walks out in the confusion." He paused. "We cannot commit everything to the ground. We divide."
He turned.
"Corahael. Zabriel." The orders came clean and direct. "The Dark Angels Fourth Company and the Absolved Angels, full combat readiness. You come with me to the Rock. We clear the boarders."
Corahael looked like he wanted to argue. He remembered his oath. He nodded once, deep and firm.
Lion looked to Sanguinius.
"The ground battle is yours, brother." His tone softened. He inclined his head slightly, a small gesture, genuine. "The situation down there is too layered. My sons will need your hand steadying them. Once I've cleared the Rock, I'll come down and fight beside you."
Sanguinius smiled. His great white wings unfurled, clean and bright against the harsh light of the bridge.
"Leave it to me, brother. I've been looking forward to a conversation with our wrathful sibling." A quiet, easy warmth in his voice. "Someone has needed to correct Angron's temper for a very long time."
Lion drew the Sword of Loyalty. The energy field along the blade came alive with a low, resonant hum.
He turned to face his sons.
"Prepare for boarding action." His voice carried across the bridge without effort. "Today, I will show every last bastard who defiled the glory of the First Legion exactly how terrible our fury can be."
"YES, MY LORD!"
➤ Next: The Great Angel and the Red Angel
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