Chapter 201 - Diplomatic Fallout
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Tarrek's dagger was three inches from Horus's throat.
The ceiling cracked open.
A dark shape dropped from above, boots landing squarely on Tarrek's helmet.
Metal caved. Bones shattered. Tarrek was driven straight into the floor, his head bursting beneath that boot into a smear of red and white pulp.
The dagger flew from his grip, bounced twice, and rolled into a corner.
Konrad Curze straightened up. His pale face held no expression at all.
He glanced down at the unrecognizable corpse beneath his foot, pulled his boot free, and wiped what clung to the sole against the clean floor.
The remaining four Iron Hands reacted fast.
Two raised their weapons simultaneously. The other two stepped back and reached for their grenades.
It didn't matter.
In their scopes, Curze was already nothing but a fading afterimage.
He swept past the first man's flank, talons slicing through the joints of the power armor, tearing free the spinal column along with the plate.
The second never got to pull the trigger. Curze wrenched his head off one-handed and flung it against the wall, trailing several vertebrae behind it.
The third tried to run.
Curze ran him down from behind, one hand pressing down on his shoulder, the other gripping the lower rim of his helmet and wrenching upward.
The metal connectors shrieked as they snapped. Curze didn't kill him. Instead he hoisted the man's entire body overhead and drove his knee up into him.
The spine broke with a dull, muffled crack, like snapping a wet branch.
The man's torso folded over Curze's knee at an impossible angle. His limbs convulsed a few times, then went completely still.
The last surviving assassin slumped to the floor, both legs dragging uselessly behind him, the servos of his power armor emitting a dying whine.
He reached for the grenade at his waist. Curze stomped down and snapped his wrist.
Horus had just wrenched himself free from the residual effects of the stasis field.
"Thank you, brother." Horus rolled his stiffened neck. "Your timing was impeccable."
"My visions told me you were in danger, so I came." Curze looked down, studying the man with the broken spine. "Lion taught me this one — breaking the spine. Very useful during interrogations."
"That's a bit cruel," Horus said, walking over.
Curze shrugged. "Far less than what I used to do. Ask your questions quickly."
He shoved the half-dead assassin toward Horus's feet and, as an afterthought, kicked apart every servo-arm and weapon mount on the back of the man's power armor.
Horus crouched, seized the assassin by the collar-plate, and hauled him upright.
"Who are you?"
"Death to the False Emperor!"
Horus sighed.
Curze crouched beside the man, rested his chin in his hand, and grinned unpleasantly. "The first man who shouted that slogan has already returned to the Emperor's fold, you know."
He reached out and pulled off the assassin's helmet.
An utterly unremarkable face.
Shaved head, plain features, the kind of face that would disappear without a trace in any crowd.
Horus stared at it for 3 seconds. His brow slowly furrowed.
That face reminded him of someone.
"You are not Iron Hands," Horus said. "You are a son of Alpharius."
"Your powers of observation are keen, my lord." The man didn't deny it. The smile at the corner of his mouth only deepened. "Your return is destined to fail. The same goes for the other Primarchs."
"At least during our return, we will protect the Imperium, and humanity, and my father's legacy." Fury filled Horus's voice.
He wanted to kill this man. Reason told him he couldn't.
He released his grip. His gaze swept the floor.
Tarrek's corpse lay soaking in the blood pooling from his own ruined skull. The dagger etched with Chaos runes rested beside it.
"Who sent you?" Horus asked. "My brother Alpharius?"
"The Hydra was here, is here, and shall be here. Alpharius is everywhere."
Horus laughed despite himself.
A textbook Alpha Legion riddle.
Even 10,000 years ago he had rarely dealt with this particular brother, and every single time they met, the man couldn't produce one straightforward sentence.
He was about to press further when a rapid, urgent beeping began emanating from the assassin still slumped on the floor.
Curze's expression changed instantly.
No hesitation. He seized Horus by the shoulder-plate, kicked off hard, and the two of them burst upward through the hole in the ceiling.
Behind them, the conference room ceased to exist.
The explosion started from within, first shredding every piece of furniture, every piece of equipment, every corpse, then blasting the walls and ceiling outward. The shockwave overturned the two adjacent rooms. Metal shards and jets of flame erupted through the breach, forming a brief wall of fire in the corridor.
By the time Kaelen and the others arrived, nothing remained of the conference room but a gaping, smoke-blackened crater.
Loken and Kullen charged in first with bolt rifles raised, more than a dozen fully armed warriors of the Lunar Wolves at their backs.
Something moved in the rubble.
Horus and Curze crawled out from beneath a heap of twisted metal plating. Both men's armor was scorched black with soot, but Horus's Terminator armor shield had overloaded around them both, and neither had taken serious injury.
"What happened, Wolf-God?"
Kaelen reached Horus's side and asked urgently.
"Assassins from the Alpha Legion. They came for me."
Horus's expression was grim.
He was already regretting that he hadn't taken the Chaos-rune-etched dagger when he left. Now the explosion had destroyed the assassins and the evidence together.
And what would Chapter Master Kardan of the Iron Hands, who knew nothing of any of this, make of what he found? What would the other Imperial forces think?
Horus, pardoned by the Emperor himself, had once again turned his blade against friendly forces. This was a diplomatic incident of the highest magnitude.
"They are trying to foment internal strife."
"Obviously."
Horus's expression was dark enough to wring water from.
Kaelen frowned and swept his gaze across the wreckage.
"How do we explain this to the Iron Hands?"
Horus drew a slow breath and steadied himself.
Then he started issuing orders.
"Loken, Kullen — seal the scene. Preserve as much as you can. If there are surveillance feeds, pull the footage. Then bring in the Librarians and have them conduct a psychic reconstruction of what happened here."
"Kaelen, come with me to the Iron Hands. I will go in person and offer my apologies."
Strictly speaking, this was the Iron Hands' fault. Their Chapter had allowed an Alpha Legion infiltration, and that infiltration had nearly triggered a catastrophic diplomatic disaster.
But Kaelen understood what Horus was doing.
Rather than explaining and pointing fingers, walking in and bowing your head made a statement. It wouldn't make the hostility worse. It might even take the edge off it.
"Curze."
Horus looked toward Konrad.
"Do me a favor. Go to the Space Wolves and tell Chapter Master Logan I'm requesting his presence. His word should carry weight with Kardan, and I need a third party to speak plainly on my behalf."
Curze tilted his head and studied Horus for a moment.
Then he smiled, slow and deliberate.
"You've actually been clever this time."
➤ Next: Loken and the Space Wolves
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