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“I do not like this, Sigillite.” Valdor moved silently through the throne room, despite the bulk of his arms and armour. The first of the Ten Thousand was utterly inhuman in his economy of movement, not a motion too excessive, not a breath wasted, as he accompanied Malcador. Behind them, a pair of Custodes trailed, each garbed in the panoply of war.
“I assure you, Captain-General, while the throne world is under siege, your preferences remain quite low on my list of concerns.”
“Throne, I –.” Constantin halted the string of curses on the tip of his tongue. In that space between breaths, Valdor had foresaw every possibility, and calculated a solution for all of them. “Very well. Let this be on your head if this goes awry. Hanumarasi.”
He turned to the Custodian behind him. “Do as the Sigillite has asked. Take the data slate with the instructions. Kill him Taranis if he shows any hint of subterfuge or refuses.”
Behind him, he could only hear the crackling of the flames of Malcador’s staff. Valdor paused, taking in the grandiose hall. Over there, the Primarch of the Fourth had fell to his own blade.
Malcador spoke again, as if reading his mind. “It has been long, since I’ve heard of thunder.”
Veteran Hesiod and his squad advanced quickly. The halls of the Sanctum Imperialis gleamed with unimaginable splendour, each pillar, and each mural crafted with unmistakable mastery. Behind him at the Marnix Confluence, Traitor battled Loyalist as the Warp ebbed and flowed through their ranks. Hesiod had taken a lull in their line, a gap left by the Sons of Sanguinius, as an opportunity to slip past. The Loyalists had roared in fury at their mistake, but they were able to do naught as Marines loyal to the Warmaster halted their attempts to stop them.
“Quickly now. March!” Hesiod roared through his vox. He cared little for the craft of the Librarius, but he knew enough about the Warp to know what it meant. A second’s pause might have meant they stumble out into a future where the Siege was already over. They could not let the chance slip by. The blood in his ears roared as his mind ran wild with the possibilities. The glories he would wrought if he were the first to reach the Throne of the former Master of Mankind.
Hesiod took quick stock. A hundred and a half managed to slip past. Several Terminators from his squad, all bearing the Eye of the Warmaster proudly on their chest, though most were painted under a coat of trans-human blood. The rest were battle brothers of the Sons of Horus, or Eater of Worlds, or the Death Guard.
“Faster!” A few more passageways, and they would be in the Throne room. A few more, and he would be raised to the Warmaster’s side as he rose to the ranks of the Gods themselves.
There. There in the distance, was the Throne. His helmet interface zeroed in on the monumental structure. The pyramid gleamed, layer upon layer of gleaming gold. Even in the dim darkness of the Throne room, the shadows seemed to retreat from the structure, as if yielding the space in fear. The remains of the Ten Thousand stood in their positions on the pyramid, unmoving. Few in number. Ten Thousand fools who Hesiod and his men would strike down.
Hesiod was so taken with the Throne, that he almost ignored the Marines marching towards him. A final task force left by Dorn perhaps, a fool’s reserve. The forces of the Warmaster would sweep this Throne room soon enough, and no paltry last stand would matter if they had gotten so far into the heart of the Imperium.
They grew closer. Perhaps two hundred. He signalled to one of his men to vox to their brothers outside their location. Something felt wrong in the air. Hesiod focused on the men marching towards them, trying to discern their legion markings. He found none. His eyes darted back and forth, drinking in their attire and war plate. Crude. Barbaric. Though they did not bear the marks of recent battles, their armour told of war aplenty; cracked plates, indented helmets, burn marks, bolter holes.
Astartes knew no fear. Hesiod felt something unfamiliar stir within him as the stench of violence grew closer. His breath hitched as he recognised what the man at their fore carried. The fabric was tattered, its dyes faded, its fringes burnt, but it was as if someone had captured a storm, and entombed it within cloth, its fury contained. These were no Marines.
The Emperor’s Lightning Banner.
He felt a shift in the line behind him.
Their war plate was primitive. Chainmail, steel, and ceramite blended together in an abominable mess. Lightning, thunder, eagles, and all manner of other beasts were frozen into their chests and pauldrons. Their plumes and leather straps were near scraps, damage from a thousand battles from an age long past. They were large, even more immense in their physical presence than the terminators. Not as large as the Primarchs, but they towered over all but the largest of the Astartes. Their helms, many unenclosed, left their faces uncovered. Some bore faces barely human, with their barely restrained madness and aggression plain to see. Others merely stared at the traitor line with a grim focus of men with only moments of fleeting clarity. They carried bolters, lasguns, even unpowered steel swords and axes; relics of a bygone age that would have been dismissed as scrap or toys in any legion, but somehow, Hesiod knew these were not mere curiosities in the hands of these men.
Their leader halted before they reached the traitor line, and with a purposefully heavy hand, planted the Lightning banner into the ground of the Sanctum Imperalis, cracking the stone beneath.
Hesiod had already been reaching for power sword, ready to cut this man down if he were to approach Hesiod, but he did not. The Son of Horus studied the man. He was the very image of the pre-unification techno-barbarian warlords he had seen from the old vids the Terra-born shared with them. His crimson plumed helmet was shaped in the snarling visage of some long forgotten beast of Old Earth, but he felt his eyes upon him all the same. Unlike his fellows every motion was measured. Purposeful. Deadly.
Hesiod watched as the man as he drew his steel. A great, ugly length of steel that rippled with power as he withdrew it from its sheath.
The Lightning Bearer raised his power sword pointing towards the sky.
“FOR UNITY!” He roared.
Like vocal cords being forced to speak instead of screaming, the men of the Emperor’s first legion, the Thunder Legion, echoed him with one voice.
“UNITY!”
Constantin arrived just as the last of the Traitors were torn apart. Some of the Cataegis had stormed off towards the breach where they had entered, intent on finding more traitors to slay. Others continued hacking long dead traitors apart with glee, seeing the faces of long-gone foes in the dead. A few Cataegis had fell, not more than a handful, but they had done it. The entire traitor company had been wiped out to a man. A few stood by diligently, standing by the Banner of Lightning, as their commander watched the gore unfold from a small distance away.
Valdor strode forward. He noted every tensing muscle as they watched him approach Taranis. He had no doubt they would attempt to strike him down within a second, if Taranis gave the word, or if their battle-lust seized them. The man was wiping the final stains of traitor blood off his blade.
“I trust that you will hold to your oath, and see to it your lives are spent well.”
Taranis appraised Valdor up and down. The greatest of their number, given command over the last of their kind, unfrozen from stasis. Malcador had kept them for when the end of days came, and now the end of days had come.
“It is the thunder and lightning. We will serve the Master of Mankind, as we have always done.”
Valdor could almost remember the sounds of Ararat, that moment as the storms reigned above, and the Banner of Lightning raised on the smouldering husk. That moment of triumph, moments before he and his kin had to do what they had to, he would never forget. Valdor noted with some irony it had been these men, deemed too unstable to take the stars, had been the only creation of the Master of Mankind aside from his Custodians that had served without question. His 'sons', his Astartes, all failed. Yet these men remained true to the words they had sworn before Unity.
“For Unity.” Valdor voiced.
“For Unity.” Taranis nodded, and he was gone, the heavy footsteps of his company growing softer as they marched away.