Chapter 205 - Diplomacy — The Conversation
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The conference hall was pure Iron Hands, cold iron-gray walls stripped of any decoration, nothing but the shadows of neat rivet lines running under the pale lights.
The air smelled faintly of scorched metal. The kind that lingers after grinding.
Iron Father Kardan held the head of the table, flanked by several senior Iron Hands officers. Silent. Solemn.
Horus and Kaelen sat opposite them.
A heavy metal platform ran between the two sides.
The meeting hadn't started yet.
Kaelen looked around the room.
A question was nagging at him. The Iron Hands and the traitor Iron Warriors, two Legions, both named after iron. What actually separated them?
"What are you thinking about?"
Horus asked, low.
"The difference between the Iron Hands and the Iron Warriors. Style-wise."
"Ha." A trace of genuine interest curved at the corner of Horus's mouth. Something of the Wolf King's old sharpness moved behind his eyes.
He let his voice rise just enough, not loud, not theatrical, but perfectly calibrated to carry across the length of the table.
"My brother Ferrus Manus believed in the iron tide. Breakthroughs, armored warfare — that was their domain."
"Perturabo had no interest in glory. Pure firepower. Attrition without counting the cost in lives. His Legion lived for sieges and defense."
"That's precisely why Ferrus Manus was chosen as Warmaster back then. The sheer efficiency of him and his Legion could grind down any enemy. Far beyond what Perturabo's Iron Warriors could manage."
"And as for war culture, Ferrus Manus's coordinated tactics, his cold logic, I genuinely respected that. Perturabo's disregard for cost, his iron-blooded ruthlessness..." Horus paused. "If I were an Iron Warrior, I wouldn't have lasted a day under that."
Kardan's face didn't move. Not a muscle. But somewhere behind that iron-cast composure, a pulse of pride rose and held.
"We were stronger than the Iron Warriors even during the Legion era."
The Iron Father's voice rang out, resonant and full.
"And if the traitor Iron Warriors come for this place someday?" Kaelen asked.
"Hmph." A company commander leaned forward, his voice carrying all the pride and contempt he could pack into it. "Then they'll be crushed under our armored tide. They are damned traitors following a weak-willed Primarch. Only the great Ferrus Manus ever truly achieved a heart of iron."
Kardan inclined his head, the gesture barely perceptible. Then he turned his gaze to Horus and Kaelen.
"Since you've both brought up Armageddon — is that what brings you here?"
"It is, Chapter Master Kardan."
Horus nodded.
"The Ork Warlord Ghazghkull is pressing hard on this world. We need to end that threat for the Imperium."
"Are you certain it isn't about reclaiming the world where you were crowned, my lord?"
A clan company commander said it with a thin smile, the words deliberate.
"Armageddon's former name is Ullanor."
The air in the conference hall shifted.
Every Iron Hands officer turned to watch Horus. Waiting.
Ullanor. The place where Horus had been crowned Warmaster. The highest point of his life, and the origin of everything that had since collapsed. If there was a word designed to find the wound, that was it.
He should have bristled.
Instead, the Warmaster drew a slow breath and let it out.
"And what if it is?" His voice was quiet. Steady. "Enough Imperial blood has already soaked this ground. We have to end a war that's bleeding the Imperium dry."
"Glory belongs to the past. In an age like this, those things don't matter."
The bionic eyes around the table flickered.
On Kardan's iron face, something in the rigid lines eased, just slightly, but it was there.
"That is well said, my lord."
"Then let us talk cooperation."
The Iron Father raised a hand. Armageddon's defensive projection bloomed in the air above the table.
The scale of Imperial forces gathered here was unlike anything that had come before, surpassing the combined strength of all three previous Armageddon Wars.
And that was before counting the local Astra Militarum regiments and scattered Astartes companies.
The First Expeditionary Fleet alone fielded three full Astartes Legions, ten thousand warriors each. Ten Titan Legions. Six Knight Houses.
And three Primarchs standing at the center of it.
Ghazghkull would want to think very carefully before bringing that fight.
Horus and Kardan worked through it together, defensive deployment, force distribution, coordinated strike plans, point by point.
The Iron Father could read the goodwill threaded through every proposal. Horus was inviting the Iron Hands into the joint command structure as full partners. He promised supplies, key strongholds, even certain positions that carried the weight of old honor.
His only ask in return was a thaw.
The room's temperature shifted. Under Horus's precise diplomatic touch and the plain pull of his presence, the Iron Hands began to loosen. The rigid set of their expressions softened by degrees. Even the red glow of their bionic eyes felt less like a threat.
Kaelen chose that moment to step in.
He laid out a proposal to deepen the cooperation: the Iron Hands would embed Techmarines in each of the three rebuilt Legions, serving as military advisors.
The three Legions weren't short on supplies or bodies. What they lacked was experience, hard-won practical knowledge of battlefield conditions and the technical depth to keep their equipment running right. That wasn't something you built overnight.
Kardan let the idea sit for a moment.
This wasn't a one-sided give. Expanding Iron Hands influence through embedded advisors was value in itself. And Techmarines placed inside three Legions meant eyes in places they currently had none.
Especially where Fulgrim was concerned.
"That proposal — we accept it."
Kardan nodded once. Then the warmth that had been building left his voice.
"But regarding..." He stopped. His throat worked, the Adam's apple shifting beneath the skin, as if he were physically forcing a word back down before it could escape.
"Fulgrim. You understand the situation. Between him and us, the enmity runs deep."
Kaelen understood exactly what sat behind that pause.
Ferrus Manus's head had been taken by Fulgrim's own hand. That was not the kind of wound that healed. Not with time. Not with pardons. Not with anything.
"I understand." Kaelen kept his voice level, genuine. "But there's something you need to hear directly. The Fulgrim standing with us now is not the traitor you knew."
"On Yax, in the Five Hundred Worlds of Ultramar, the final battle broke out, four loyalist Primarchs against two traitors."
He reached to his belt, pulled out a projection device, and set it on the cold metal surface between them.
The activation hum was the only sound in the hall. A beam of light rose into the air above the table, and the key recorded images of the Battle of Yax unfolded before every Iron Hands officer in the room.
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