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Luther: First of the Fallen – Extract

A Black Library Publication

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TALE OF THE LONG NIGHT

He remembered the world breaking.

It was very confused; everything happened at the same time, a kaleidoscope of images, conflicting and noisy. The sky burned. No, not burned. A storm. A storm not of this reality, devouring the universe.

The gods had claimed their dues.

He had not expected anything quite so… apocalyptic.

Pain broke into his thoughts. Intense. Sharp.

A blade lanced into his side and he screamed.

He screamed at the memory of it. It was not in his side any longer. He could feel the wound, raw and bleeding. It mirrored the wound in the sky that had swallowed his army.

The hand that had driven the blade, inhumanly strong. Stronger even than he was. Stronger than the archaic technologies that had given him such endurance and long life. Stronger than the will of the gods.

Driven by hate that had burned in eyes the green of Caliban’s forests.

Caliban’s lost forests…

So long ago.

Eyes of a demigod, filled with rage.

A heartbeat. A thunderous heartbeat, drumming, drumming. His own? Why couldn’t he see? He had the memory of sight, but he was in darkness. They had fixed his eyes. He could see as well as a wildcat at night and a hawk in the day. One of the simplest procedures, but one of the most effective. How did one see the world as he did? What did the universe look like to a creature made of science and myth?

The drumming was not his heart. That slowly and surely resounded in his chest. He felt the pulse of it in the blood vessels in his neck, at his temples, throbbing through wrist and thigh. He had never been so aware of his body.

The drumming was footfalls. Quick strides thudding on rock.

Eyes made perfect by the arcane knowledge of the Dark Age finally adjusted to the gloom, picking out the slightest of light sources, sketching in broken ruins. A toppled statue lay to his left, of a knightly figure with blade held in salute, snapped at the waist. An archway had collapsed behind him.

Lights approached, a pair of lamps moving up and down in time with the foot-drums. Less than two hundred metres away, several metres lower than where he lay upon the slope of a tumbled wall.

His hearing had also been honed to preternatural accuracy and he detected another sound amidst the trickling of grit and dust, the patter of liquid from a ruptured pipe and the creak of settling masonry. The sound was a mechanical wheeze. As the lights grew brighter and brighter they brought with them a hum of electrical circuitry too.

The suit lamps dimmed, their illumination replaced by a sudden cerulean brightness that caused him to flinch. The movement sent a stab of pain crackling up through pulped ribs, searing through the coagulating wound in his flank.

The blue light flickered as a flame for several seconds before assuming the shape of an axe blade, forming a crackling field around the weapon. It was impossible to tell the colour of the armour in the harsh light. Dark, but black or green?

Smell.

Sweat. A lot of blood. His own, most likely. The residue of bolter rounds and ozone aftertaste of las and plasma discharge. Smells of battle. Smells he had learned as a child.

Lubricant, alien and strong. Not the maintenance oils used by the Order but something else. The approaching figure was not of this world. Martian smells.

One of the demigod’s warriors.

The Space Marine stopped at the bottom of the steep rubble slope, one booted foot crunching onto the shattered brick. He leaned forward, the light of the axe revealing a scarred face with trifurcated beard and a dark stubble breaking a bald scalp. The eyes widened with shock.

‘Luther.’

His name brought further clarity. Names had power and his brought him back to the present in a way that the barbs of broken stone in his spine had not. The voice was familiar, but the face was a mystery at first. The thud of other footsteps echoed behind the stranger as he slowly processed what he was looking at. Not one of the Order, one of the Dark Angels. A face he had not seen for more than five decades. He removed the scars, mentally healing the ravages of wars both old and recent, until he could place the features.

‘Farith?’ His voice was little more than a croaking whisper. ‘Wait… I need to–’

The warrior took a step.

‘Bastard traitor!’

Blue light blazed as the axe swung.

Harsh edges of metal brought him round, biting at wrists and ankles. He was in irons, chained to a chair. He had been stripped of his armour’s remnants and was clad in a stiff kilt of leather, such as one might train in when unarmed. The pain in his side was no more. Paralysis? His heart thudded at the thought, but the ache of the shackles on his legs proved the falseness of the theory.

He had been healed, then. By whom?

Opening his eyes revealed the face he last remembered before the axe had struck him. The flat of it, given that he still lived. The Paladin, Farith. One of the last to be squired to the Order by the Lion before the First Legion had arrived. He was a cold killer; Luther had disliked him but admired his ruthlessness, and he was utterly dedicated to the Lion. It was hard to reconcile the clean-cheeked youth with the haggard soldier in front of him. The years had not been kind.

Farith was also unarmoured, clad in a heavy sleeveless robe of dark green, embellished only with the Legion symbol upon the left breast – a downward-pointing sword flanked by wings, in thick white thread. They both sat in a chamber just a few metres square, furnished only with the two chairs. Something moved in the shadows beyond the door. Red eyes gleamed inside a dark hood, the height of a small child’s face, but Luther knew it was no infant. A Watcher in the Dark. It had been some time since he had laid eyes upon one of Caliban’s mysterious guardians. It was gone a heartbeat later.

‘Where is the Lion?’ asked Farith, leaning forward, thick forearms resting on his knees.

The question surprised Luther. His side spasmed as though the sword were still buried there. The room swirled in and out of focus, merging with flashes of memory and sights of what had not yet arrived. The storm that had engulfed them, that had swept up his warriors, now swirled inside his thoughts. With an effort he broke out of its nebulous grip, blinking as he focused on the legionary before him.

Luther was sure that there was something he was supposed to do, or say, but he could not recall it. Farith asked the question again, more forcefully.

‘I do not know what happened to the Lion. Aldurukh broke. We fell. He is not with you?’

Farith shook his head, eyes fixed on Luther. There was barely suppressed fury in that gaze.

‘Caliban…’ Farith looked away, jaw clenched. He was shaking, hands making fists and unclenching. The robe stretched as he took in a long breath and looked once more at his prisoner. ‘Caliban is no more. It was destroyed by the bombardment and warp storm. There is no sign of the primarch. Tell me what you remember.’

‘Little,’ confessed Luther, frowning. ‘My thoughts twist into themselves, more contorted than a forest path. Past, present, future. I wander among them. I cannot tell one from the other. Have we had this conversation before?’

‘Where did you send your followers?’

‘Send?’ Luther recalled the storm, tendrils of warp power flashing down, striking like lightning. ‘I sent them nowhere. They were taken. The storm! I remember what happened now. In shadow, at least. The storm. I had to get to the heart. The Lion and I… He stopped me before I could stop it. I needed to… I cannot recall. It was important, but the Lion… We fought, but I did not kill him. I would not.’

Farith sat back as he absorbed this, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

‘You protest innocence?’

‘I did not summon the storm, I did not kill the Lion,’ Luther assured him. Farith’s words filtered through the tumult of his mind, settling like debris on the shore of his thoughts. He looked around the cell, confused. ‘Caliban is no more?’

Farith nodded.

‘Broken by your sorcery and the guns of the fleet. Aldurukh’s energy fields sustain the tower, the rest is rock and ash scattered across the void.’

‘No, you are lying,’ said Luther. ‘I saved Caliban from destruction. I saw it. Or not. It is still moving, the fog and the storm.’

Panic set in, speeding his heart, sweating his palms as the notion took root. Farith said nothing, offering no word of defence.

‘I saved Caliban,’ Luther said again, but as he spoke his words fell quieter with doubt. ‘I saved Caliban…’

He was going to save Caliban. Was that it? Or save the Lion? Was it memory or something else?

‘You doomed Caliban.’ Farith’s sneer was more cutting than any sword edge. ‘You betrayed the Lion and destroyed our world.’

‘No, that was not how it happened,’ protested Luther. He tried to rise but the restraints bit into flesh and bone as he struggled. ‘No! He betrayed me! He abandoned us!’

Luther slumped into the chair, chains rattling, frustrated as Farith just glowered at him in silence. The storm. Everything breaking. The fall. Like the depths that had swallowed him and the Lion, his gut became a deep chasm.

Hollow, emptied out like a swine’s carcass for the roasting spit. As empty as the oaths he had taken. Oaths he had thrown away for… For what? It was hard to remember.

‘You killed the Lion and destroyed Caliban,’ said Farith, every word heavy with the weight of its accusation.

Luther raised no argument, letting the charges settle on him like a shroud. His mouth was dry, his bones ached and yet the greatest discomfort was the knowledge that Farith spoke the truth. Not about the Lion, but about Caliban’s fate. The planet of his birth was no more. He had tried to bring it back, to restore it to the way it was meant to be, but he had failed.

And he had dishonoured himself and the Order. For nothing. For lies and vainglory.

‘Are those tears, traitor?’ Farith grimaced, standing up. ‘You do not get to shed tears. You are not allowed sorrow for what you have done.’

Luther choked back his grief and nodded, acknowledging the right of Farith’s anger.

‘I… I was weak,’ he began.

I was weak when I thought I was being strong.

A moment was fast approaching when our fates would be set. Whose fates do I mean? Myself and my council, a mixture of disparate souls that had found common cause in our secession from the Imperium. Once we had been united under the auspices of the Legion, now we were bonded by something even stronger: mutual need.

My seneschal was perhaps the most unlikely of candidates, not even born of Caliban. The Terran veteran Sar Astelan, who bore a grudge against the Lion greater than any other of us. Astelan was my commander openly, and in secret he was my chief of espionage, enforcement and the other unpleasantries of rule. Our arrangement was simple but effective: he was loyal to me and I asked no questions about his business or what he did to maintain my authority and that of the Order.

My chief advisor was a companion of long acquaintance who had never been a Dark Angel direct, but by dint of her associations with command of the Order had benefited from the physical enhancements gifted to me and the other senior knights when the Emperor arrived. We were too old to become legionaries, but there were plenty of augmetics and bio-therapies that could still be applied to make us formidable, long-lived warriors. She was Saulus Maegon, the deadly mistress of the Angelicasta, who had been in command of Caliban’s greatest fortress for decades.

Then there was Sar Griffayn, the Spear-Cast, formerly the voted lieutenant of the Firewing. A traditionalist who had been returned to us on a fleet of ships sent for reinforcements and, following the death of their leader, Belath, come over to our cause along with the survivors of a brief but bloody internecine fight. His defection was perhaps the most important and heartening, for he had not been one of us isolated on Caliban and yet still saw the worth in our goals for autonomy. Inculcated in the oldest rites of the Legion, nevertheless his loyalty was to Caliban over the Dark Angels. It had boded well that we might encounter others who would lend ear to our arguments, and that those arguments came from one of such standing in the Legion gave them some weight outside of the Order.

Finally, there could be no council of the Order without the Lord Cypher. Guardian of our history and judge of our current character, the Lord Cypher was a figure steeped in the tradition of Aldurukh and Caliban and no Grand Master would have legitimacy without him. For us there was additional benefit to his inclusion, for my Lord Cypher had before been the Librarian Zahariel, a psyker, and so doubled as the master of my Mystai.

This was my council, the leaders of Caliban beneath me, the Grand Master of the Order.

Our great endeavour was now poised upon glory or ruin, our striving for independence about to face the final test of strength.

The Lion.

He was returning after many decades of fighting the battles of the Emperor. The massive war fleet of the First, the honoured Dark Angels, was but days or even hours from breaking warp at the edge of the system. Lord Cypher and our own warp auguries had confirmed as much, for so many ships do not travel unannounced through the immaterium. We had flotillas of our own: some won through guile and conquest; others raised in the shipyards of Zaramund, which we had made our colony; yet more supplied from other worlds that had been brought within the ruling sphere of Caliban.

The star system was a fortress yet to be tested, and the strength of the Lion was not certain. Yet always the advantage is with the defender, and so we were confident that if it came to martial examination we would not be found the weaker.

Not in military terms, at least.

It was Astelan that first raised concern when the council was convened. I remember it clearly. We met in the Chamber of Arthorus as we often did, lit by the early sun. Morning training had commenced and the noise of feigned combat rang through the open window from the mustering fields and shooting ranges beyond the Angelicasta.

‘They are ready,’ Maegon assured us. She and Astelan were jointly in charge of recruitment and training, combining the best rites and culture of the Order with the disciplines of the Legion we had left behind.

‘Physically,’ the Terran countered. He took fruit from the bowl on the table. A red apple, newly harvested from orchards on the western slopes. He did not take a bite but continued. ‘In their minds, in their hearts, we cannot be sure.’

‘Sure of what, Sar Astelan?’ Griffayn asked. The voted lieutenant was my void-general, the most experienced starship commander among us, and would lead the defence beyond the surface. ‘They are brave as any Space Marine can be.’

‘I do not question their courage,’ Astelan told us. He bit the apple and chewed for several seconds, brow furrowed, before speaking again. ‘I am sure they will face the blades and bolts of our foes without a moment’s hesitation. But we can’t say for sure if they will fight back.’

‘Their loyalty is to the Order,’ said Maegon. She looked at me, her tone insistent. ‘Every doctrine they know reinforces their allegiance to Aldurukh, to Caliban and to you.’

I rewarded her with a smile of confidence, for I knew of what Astelan spoke and it was no accusation against the mistress of the Angelicasta.

‘All is as I have required, Sarl Maegon,’ I assured her. ‘Their older companions have proven skilful on battlefields already and I have no doubt in their competence. But Sar Astelan’s point is correct. To be loyal is one matter. To turn blades against the Dark Angels, some of them Calibanites, is a different matter.’

Astelan’s concerns were a veiled question for me to answer. Always had our alliance been uneasy, our mutuality uncertain. His hatred for the Lion outweighed his attested loyalty to the Emperor Himself. If he was not willing to accuse me openly, I decided to answer in likewise oblique fashion.

‘There are those in the ranks that have already spilled the blood of the Dark Angels,’ I reminded him. ‘Veterans from the events in the Hall of Decemial. They are our lieutenants now, under Sar Griffayn.’

‘Two dozen, perhaps,’ added Lord Cypher. ‘Myself counted among those that executed the assassins in our midst.’

‘Two dozen among tens of thousands?’ scoffed Astelan. ‘I agree that they will give the order, but will fingers tighten on triggers, will swords leave sheaths on their word?’

‘You have picked the recruits and trained them, but you do not understand the nature of your army,’ I told Astelan, wearied by his arguments. ‘These are not legionaries of the Emperor fighting other legionaries. Save for a heart of former First like yourself, warriors who have proven their worth and loyalty already, the others are knights of the Order. They have sworn oaths only to me and to our institution.’

It was surprisingly Lord Cypher that made plainer the interrogation behind Astelan’s questions.

‘Will the order be given, Grand Master?’ he asked me directly. ‘All has been arranged with you at the centre. Without your command, our war for independence will end.’

‘Yes, Sar Luther,’ said Griffayn. ‘We stand as a weapon loaded but it is your finger upon the trigger.’

I raised eyebrows at how swiftly my lieutenants gathered about this theme against me. It was less of a shock that Astelan made more plain his unease with my command arrangements.

‘At least give us the defence activation code,’ he said. His tone was more demanding than I liked but I held my tongue. ‘All of our systems are slaved to a single phrase that only you know, Sar Luther. The delay of communication could prove costly during the battle.’

I looked at them each with slow regard, keeping my temper in check. This was no time for divisions or authoritarianism. If just one of them chose the Lion over me we would all be undone. In a way it was gratifying. There was no bickering, no distrust among them for each other. Their only concern was in their commander, which was disappointing on a personal level. I needed to choose my words with care, so as not to gloat or bludgeon, but to remind them of the pertinent facts.

There was one last question I had to ask myself: Did I trust them?

‘Caliban would still be a slave of the Emperor if not for me,’ I told them quietly. I sat back in my chair, relaxed. ‘I have been expecting this day for many years. We all have, but none for longer than me. Maegon, you and I alone remember Caliban before the Emperor, and perhaps yours was the even longer exile, condemned to remain in this fortress while the Legion departed for the Great Crusade. The rest of you are followers to the cause that I began, never forget that. We each have our reasons to be sat at this table now, but if Maegon has kept this fortress standing, it is by my will that it remains home to the Order alone. None of you could command the Order as I do, either by ability or tradition.’

I paused at that moment, giving them opportunity to gainsay my statement, for I wanted all debate to be aired then and not saved an hour longer.

Griffayn was the first to bow his head in acquiescence. Always obedient, what he had witnessed on the Great Crusade and in the fleet of Corswain had broken his faith in the Imperial cause – after I had highlighted the truth for him.

I thought Astelan would continue his argument, for he had no loyalty to the Order save for how it served his revenge against the Lion. But in this I found him the most trustworthy, of sorts, because he had no pretension to leadership or even Caliban’s independence. The Order and our world was a means to an end and as long as I promised to deliver that end he was absolutely dedicated to our success.

He stayed silent, but his annoyance remained clear.

Lord Cypher steepled his fingers before him and looked at me for some time through the lenses of his helm. It mattered nothing that I had given him his position and knew the man within, he was Lord Cypher now and carried all the respect and authority that entailed. Had I done him disservice with my doubts?

‘You are right, Sar Luther, that there is not another of us that could have created what we have here. I do not doubt your dedication to the Order. There is none that has done more in its long history to bring honour and glory to Aldurukh and no other I would entrust with its future.’

I expected some qualification or equivocation to follow, but none came. Lord Cypher clasped his hands together and nodded, satisfied with his input.

‘I will think on what you have said,’ I promised them, rising. ‘We convene again in two hours, for the last conference before battle. I will give you my answer then.’

I left them to discuss whatever matters that required such conversation and returned to my chambers. They had been enlarged in recent years, expanded to encompass the sizeable library I had assembled. The core of it remained the books of the Knights of Lupus I had taken, which had first introduced me to the truth beyond the teachings of the Order and the Imperial Truth.

Yet I had outgrown those tomes in time, having drained them of all knowledge with much reading. With the aid of Zahariel and a few select others, I had acquired more works, from across Caliban and ultimately other worlds. My Lord Cypher never spoke of it, but he had to know the manner of the books I took from him, and I knew that his Mystai were far more than the Librarians of the Space Marines.

Such works were not to be kept lightly: harsh experience had taught me that precautions had to be taken with some of the volumes of deeper lore. So it was that the inner sanctum of my quarters more closely resembled a vault or arsenal than it did personal chambers, much reinforced by beams inscribed with potent charms, the heavy lead-lined door from my study locked not only with physical bonds but also enchantments of a protective nature, taught to me by the Mystai and culled from the texts held within.

My dorm had become a place of only passing interest in the preceding years, for often I would study for days at a time, and when sleep finally crept upon me I would collapse in the cushioned chair behind my desk. I was always certain to retire from the library before too late in order that I remained of cogent enough mind to invoke the protections. The price of fatigue-induced carelessness would have been heavy indeed.

I see now that the library had gained more of a hold over me than I realised. Knowledge is powerful, but dangerous in obsession. And I had become obsessed. Not with knowledge for its own sake, but as a means to ensure the security and sanctity of Caliban against our coming foes. There were tracts that lingered in my mind long after their reading, and many are the nuggets of lore that fixed my thoughts and plagued my dreams for days or even weeks. I cannot recall any of them now, for they were ripped from my mind by the storm, even as it raged across our world.

And therein lies a lesson, I think. Knowledge only has power when earned, not freely imparted. At first I questioned the nature of what I read, what I was learning. The Knights of Lupus had protected their works for a reason and I similarly guarded against others, save the Mystai, learning what I possessed. Not honourable Griffayn, certainly not Astelan. And I would not inflict such a burden upon Maegon, oldest of my allies.

Upon returning that morning, after the council, I passed into the inner sanctum having prepared the wards for my passage and secured the outer chamber against intrusion by a subordinate, as I had done hundreds, thousands of times before. Always I was careful to be mindful of these actions, not to conduct them out of rote. Presence of mind in all things, I counsel. Be aware of thyself before all else.

The inner sanctum was a small room, sealed with layers of ferrocrete, lead and titanium, the walls behind the shelves laced with sorcerous alloys. It pains me to say it, but the artisans that created the inner sanctum perished soon after, taking the knowledge of its existence to their unmarked graves. As I said, be careful from whom one gains knowledge and be aware of the price of its acquisition.

Not only to contain were those wards raised, but to shield from view. For as long as records have been made, Aldurukh had been home to the creatures we called the Watchers in the Dark. Of late they had abandoned coming directly, seen only on the edge of vision, at the moment of sleep or waking, in the shadows of the last and first light. They remained but their scorn was palpable. Now suspicious of their intent, I sought to keep from their knowledge all that passed within my library.

Ha! But I speak wisely now, though as a fool I was. More clearly with the telling does this lesson become one I should have heard many years ago.

Within the inner sanctum the floor was cleared and upon it were carved symbols of summoning and containment, to channel and manifest the energies of the immaterium. Other accoutrements were set about a circle, which enclosed a pentagon, which in turn held within it a triangle. Just as the spiral of our martial training creates a better, more focused warrior, so the concentric wards honed the power of entreatment.

Within the triangle waited one of the nephilla. I learned many names for such creatures, but it was by the Calibanite term that I always titled them. Nephilla, spirits not of the mortal world. Even on a planet of fantastic beasts and semi-living forests the nephilla were something of a dubious subject, particularly after the coming of the Imperium’s servants and the brutal imposition of rationality and suppression of our traditional beliefs.

This particular specimen was my primary contact with the World Beyond, as I was wont to call the empyrean and all lands of the powers not of mortal origin. Its true name had been erased, but for my own benefit I called it a bastardised version in conversation: Ezqurol. Its form was impermanent as any denizen of the immaterial realm, but it favoured the aspect of a small, grumpy creature with flesh of blue flame. When I entered it was sitting with its back to me upon the charred planks of its containment, grumbling loudly in a language I could not understand. Wherever I walked in the chamber it appeared to be facing away from me.

It was almost laughable, infantile, but I knew better than to underestimate this creature. It quested always to be free of its imprisonment, either by being dismissed or by breaking its bonds. It had occasionally succeeded in the first and only been closely thwarted in the second. Today it was trying to be uncooperative, having delivered its message from the power that had conjured it into being at my request. Alas I cannot recall the identity of its creator in any detail now, even by allegory, save to recall a title: the Master of Magic. This herald had become my regular, though not sole, conduit to the powers that live beyond our realm.

‘You said that one of them would betray me,’ I said to it, coming to the lectern of black-lacquered wood that held open the volume to which I had been referring before the council. ‘You lied.’

‘Cannot lie,’ the creature said between more unintelligible complaints. ‘Bound by hex and word.’

‘But you will not tell me which one is the traitor,’ I said to it, as I traced through the lines of the conjuration on the open pages. I found what I was looking for, a few lines of text that would elicit a pained reaction from Ezqurol when spoken aloud.

I spoke them aloud.

‘Stop it!’ it snarled at me. ‘No lies!’

‘Perhaps I will keep you here instead, doing nothing at all.’ It changed form, rearranging itself without moving as such so that it was standing facing me, small flickers of fists raised in anger. I began to recite the words of punishment again and it screeched at me to stop.

‘No more! Relent! Mercy!’

‘Tell me again of the traitor,’ I said, as I stepped from the lectern, careful not to pass the outer bounds of the summoning ring. ‘Word by word, repeat what you said before.’

‘You asked if all on your council were sound,’ cackled the creature, as it showed rare mirth at my earlier moment of doubt. I had indeed consulted it to determine if it knew of any of my commanders moving against me. A precaution, fuelled by a paranoia made keen by the approaching confrontation.

It started to hum tunelessly, but soon a rhythm entered, in time with pulsing of its flames from deep blue to bright azure.

‘In Aldurukh, in shadows cold,

Where before the knights of old,

Had gathered in their pomp and glory,

Now is told a different story.’

The nephilla started to pirouette slowly, stretching out its arms as it continued, droplets of fire falling from its fingertips.

‘Conspirators, a clandestine meeting,

Veiled in darkness, silent greeting.

A lord to slay, their words unspoken,

Payment taken for oaths long broken.

‘And in their quiet confiding,

Another traitor smugly hiding,

To turn upon turncoats at the last,

And right the wrongs of distant past.

‘Truth is lost in blind ambition,

When loyalty gives way to grand suspicion,

And allies seek that which is gone,

Repent too late, the damage done.’

Its voice dropped to a gleeful whisper, eyes of bright sparks fixed upon me, a cruel smile showing teeth of silver needles.

‘All dreams must fail in passing time,

Hope is lost with bell’s last chime.

The lie to which your sons have striven,

Will forever remain the unforgiven.’

The creature of flame fell silent, glowering at me again from beneath brows of fire, fingers tapping tip to tip as it watched me, each contact like the flare of a match head.

The verse was the sort of vagueness I had come to expect from the messengers of the empyrean powers, and yet I knew from study, and the bindings I had placed upon Ezqurol, that they were neither random nor without aid. The warning was within them, but purposefully veiled.

‘Your advice is too generic!’ I complained, having listened to the words again. I had first heard them before dawn and pondered them until the meeting, hoping their meaning would be revealed by something that occurred during the council.

I had nothing more to help with deciphering the rhyme, and I wondered for some time whether it referred to a secret cabal not aligned with my council at all, though Astelan assured me that there was no resistance to our command anywhere on Caliban.

My next thought was for the Lord Cypher, and more specifically his Mystai. They had access to ancient texts that told of mysteries even older than those found in the Library of Lupus. Certainly Zahariel, as he had been, had shown himself capable of following his own agenda at times, but both my own reasoning and the probes of Astelan had found nothing to suggest that they would benefit from the failure of our endeavour.

Such is the nature of conspiracy and resistance. The needs of the one quickly become the needs of all. One cannot gain one’s own victories apart from the others, and so all goals becomes the same goal.

After that…?

Many a rebellion fails in the aftermath, when the enemy is overthrown and a new regime must reign. Was that the nature of Ezqurol’s warning? I thought. When the Lion was defeated, our common foe would be gone.

Certainly Astelan owed me nothing beyond that point. If any was the first to turn, it would be the Terran. But he lacked a power base. The few followers he had that I judged loyal to him before Caliban were imprisoned beneath the tower of the Angelicasta, and ranged against the strength of the Order they were too few to usurp power by force alone.

Over and over I cast each of my companions as the villain, trying to discern motive for their abandonment and the means by which it would transpire. I came up with nothing convincing, and not only because I offered more to them than continued service to the Lion or the Emperor. Each had a personal reason to see the task to its completion and to support the transition after.

As my frustration grew, so Ezqurol grew more animated, pacing its incorporeal prison, glaring and spitting.

If I could not trust all of my council, I could trust none of them. It was far too late in our plans to reform the inner circle.

I sensed impatience from my immaterial captive.

‘It is doubt!’ I shouted in triumph, rounding on the creature. It hissed in annoyance by way of reply. ‘Doubt, suspicion, uncertainty. They are the traitors in the dark counsels of our thoughts! Repent too late, the damage done! You think I will stay my hand, hold back the command when the time comes too.’

‘You have proven your weakness already,’ it said with a scowl. ‘You have your answer, let me be!’

‘I am not weak,’ I replied, and it was then that I committed the grave offence of listening to my ego. ‘The verse was about me? You call me traitor to my own cause?’

‘The architect knows best the flaws in his plans,’ Ezqurol replied. ‘The chain breaks at its weakest point. The ambition you harbour will devour you, mortal.’

‘I lead for Caliban,’ I declared, and in my rash mood I raised my fist, and in doing so my foot parted the outer ward of the binding hexes.

Ezqurol needed no further invite and hurled itself at me, a bolt of blue flame that surged up my leg, escaping the ring of containment.

Afire with sorcerous energy, I fell backwards, my shout held fast by the thick walls. Ezqurol formed into a semblance of its usual self, dancing upon my chest, singeing its footprints into my robe and flesh while it cackled a song of victory.

I swept out an arm but my warding limb passed through it with just a flutter of its fiery body.

‘Free!’ it screeched in my face, setting fingers of cerulean flame around my throat.

But I was not without a measure of sorcerous ability. The teachings of the Imperium would have you believe that it requires a freak of birth to make one a psyker, but my readings had revealed the lie of that. With practice and rite, one can open doors to strengthen the mind and access the powers that some can wield by mutation.

I summoned that energy now, cladding my fists in wreaths of lightning as I struck again, flinging the nephilla across the library. It exploded like a grenade against the ward-inscribed bookcase, wailing as it fell to the floor.

Quick as a cat it found its feet and this time, rather than attack me, it sought to escape. It threw itself at the walls as though to pass the material barrier, but found in a flash and bang that they were barred in the immortal plane also. In desperation it bounded to the ceiling, and scrambled above me moaning as runes burned its hands and feet with sanctuary force.

I turned and cornered it as it rebounded from the door charms, its fiery form laced through with tendrils of black and red as it flailed across the room.

I let streams of lightning rip from my fingertips, but it darted forward as quick as a las-blast, leaping for the lectern that held the spell which had bound it. I curbed my power for fear that destroying the tome might break what remained of the spell tying Ezqurol to the chamber.

The pages fluttered before it, its sparking eyes scanning the text, as I raced across the room. The fiend gave a triumphant cry just as my fingers, anointed with black fire, gripped its flaming limb and heaved it away. It rammed fingertips of fire into my face, blinding me, and in pain I cried out the words of unbinding I had committed to memory, while I hurled the creature back to the centre of the pentangle-bonds.

I heard a crack like thunder and the air smelt fresh and bright as in the aftermath of an electrical storm.

It took some time for my sight to recover, and my vision was still blurred when the occasion came for the council to next convene. While I donned my armour and hooded robe to conceal my wounds I pondered why the creature and its master had tried to undermine me. With the Lion defeated and Caliban free, did they fear I would turn from them? Or perhaps it was a final test of my resolve.

I would not be tricked. There would be no hesitation or discord.

‘Starfire,’ I announced when all were gathered again in the Hall of Arthorus. ‘Starfire is the word that will set the sky of Caliban alight.’

‘I once thought you the greatest of us,’ whispered Farith. ‘None of us could be the Lion, just as a hen will never be an eagle. But you were raised a mortal like me, a paragon that could be emulated, a measure that could be matched. Yet you were the worst of us, and forgot everything you had been in one moment of vanity.’

‘Vanity?’ Luther shook his head. ‘Is it vanity to recognise injustice? Was I vain to hope there could be a better future for my world?’

‘Vanity clouded your hearing, when the nephilla spoke truth perhaps for the only time. You were the traitor, Luther. It has never been about Caliban, it was always about you. I have seen the powers of the warp so closely these last years, but I remained strong. I rejected them. Nothing good comes of their patronage, but you accepted it all the same. You needed it because you knew you were weak and when you failed them, they took it all from you. Your army, your knowledge. Your soul…?’

Luther stared at his interrogator, eyes brimming with moisture. All of it was true, and the verse of Ezqurol returned to him, but this time the words were like sparkling diamonds of clarity. His lips moved almost silently as he spoke them again.

‘Repent too late, the damage done…’ With trembling hand, he reached out to Farith. ‘I am sorry.’

‘You have slain the only one whose forgiveness might release you,’ Farith growled. ‘“The lie to which your sons have striven will forever remain the unforgiven.” You were warned but did not listen. Deaf to both mortal and immortal, your fate was sealed.’

‘Wait!’ cried Luther as Farith turned away. ‘There is still time to learn. We are not yet doomed. Listen to me!’

The Paladin did not look back, and as the door swung shut Luther saw the glitter of red eyes in the dark.

Click here to buy Luther: First of the Fallen.

A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION

First published in Great Britain in 2020.
This eBook edition published in 2021 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Anna Lakisova.

Luther: First of the Fallen © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2021. Luther: First of the Fallen, The Horus Heresy Primarchs, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, The Horus Heresy, The Horus Heresy Eye logo, Space Marine, 40K, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, the ‘Aquila’ Double-headed Eagle logo, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
All Rights Reserved.

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ISBN: 978-1-80026-524-0

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

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Dedicated to Jervis Johnson, who first chronicled the ill fate of Caliban.

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