PROLOGUE

Carandiru [Day of Vengeance – DV]

‘You think one legionary can take back a world?’

A burst of bolter fire accompanied the question from the Emperor’s Children warrior, ripping through the plas-board wall that separated the main floor of the auditorium from the holo-projection chamber.

Soukhounou kept perfectly still, crouched behind the bulk of the projector itself.

‘You chose the wrong allegiance,’ the traitor continued.

The Raven Guard commander listened to the tread of boots ascending bare stone steps between the rows of chairs. He tensed as they came closer. Servos wheezed as the renegade stopped just outside the door. Another burst of fire shredded a row of metal cabinets just to Soukhounou’s right. He edged to the left, moving around the projector plinth.

‘You cannot turn back the tide.’

Soukhounou was not listening to the words. As the traitor finished speaking, the Raven Guard heard the distinctive click of a magazine being ejected.

He was up and out of his hiding place in an instant, sprinting towards the wall. His pistol spat a hail of bolts, adding to the fist-sized holes already breaking the plas-board. Hitting the separating wall at full speed, he crashed through, slamming into the side of the purple-clad traitor legionary.

The Raven Guard’s impetus sent them both toppling, spinning and crashing back down the steps of the auditorium. Reaching the main floor both warriors rolled to their feet, still locked together. Soukhounou had the advantage, the fibre bundles in his armour churning with power as he drove the renegade backwards, sending both of them crashing out through high glass doors onto a broad balcony. The two Space Marines thudded against the balustrade, looking down at the square. A black banner emblazoned with the Eye of Horus hung below.

The plaza seethed with people – ordinary men and women surging across the cobbles, seemingly oblivious to the bolter and heavy weapons fire from the citadel garrison. Sporadic las-fire flashed up from the crowd but it was their numbers that were their greatest weapon. Thousands, maybe tens of thousands, thronged the streets, converging on the traitor enclave. Beyond, darkness was spreading across the city, block after block engulfed in creeping shadow.

‘Not just one legionary,’ snarled Soukhounou. He freed his left hand, fist glowing as a powered blade slid from the back of his gauntlet. ‘A symbol. A message.’

He slammed the punch-dagger up into the throat of the traitor. The crowd below roared as Soukhounou tossed the corpse of the Emperor’s Children legionary over the balcony. He lifted his hand in salute. The liberation of Carandiru had begun.

Seven more legionaries blocked Corax’s path. Five were clad in warplate painted in the livery of the Emperor’s Children; another sported deep red armour marked by the sigils of the Word Bearers; the last wore the colours of the Sons of Horus. Corax wondered what slight or crime the legionaries had committed to have been allocated such onerous duty. No warrior of the Legiones Astartes would volunteer to garrison a prison world when there was glory in battle to be won elsewhere. They did not look injured or otherwise infirm, which might have explained the need for a non-battlefield role.

It was a mystery the primarch was prepared to live with. His anger was up and he was in no mood for taking prisoners.

Three of the Emperor’s Children opened fire with their bolters, sparking rounds from Corax’s armour as he advanced into the vestibule outside the central strategium. The other two had pistols and chainswords at the ready but made no move to meet the primarch. The legionary from the Sons of Horus drew paired diamond-edged blades, but he also stayed back. The Word Bearer, helmetless, grinned fangs as he raised a plasma gun.

Corax jumped as the legionary opened fire, the blast of plasma screaming beneath the primarch as he twisted on black wings. Jump pack flaring, he covered the intervening distance in a moment, the fingers of his left hand outstretched. His gauntleted fist punched through the traitor’s chest as Corax landed, ripping through ceramite and carving open fused bone. A bolt-round snapped from the side of his helmet, and more detonated across his back and shoulder; he turned to the others, and with a flick of the wrist he threw the dead Word Bearer into one of the Emperor’s Children, knocking the Space Marine to the ground.

A wingtip lashed out, slicing through the blades of the Sons of Horus legionary and decapitating him. Spinning with the attack, Corax smashed the heel of his boot into the head of the downed warrior of the III Legion, crushing helm and skull into the floor.

The remaining Emperor’s Children turned and ran, sprinting towards the open doorway behind them. The primarch lifted his right hand and his combi-weapon spat fire, sending a flurry of bolts after the fleeing Space Marines. Detonations sparked from armour and one of the renegades went down, head turned to bony shrapnel that embedded into the ceramite of his companions. The others reached a bulkhead, the last of them slowing to stretch a hand towards
a keypad on the wall. A shaped charge from the other barrel of Corax’s combi-weapon smashed into the renegade’s back, splitting armour in an instant before ejecting its melta core through his spine.

The last two survivors fled down the corridor, not looking back. Corax dashed after them, long strides assisted by half-opened wings so that he seemed to glide between every step. Reaching his prey, he drove his armoured hands through their backpacks, shattering vertebrae, and lifted them both from the ground. Their panicked flailing caused him no difficulty.

Another door opened to his left as he tossed their twitching bodies aside. He turned to see several Raven Guard, weapons at the ready, with Arendi at their head.

‘Follow me,’ said the primarch. He turned his back on the new arrivals to head down the corridor towards the main chamber of the keep.

‘Press on! Fight harder! The primarch’s life depends on it!’

Branne’s bellow rang out over the din of gunfire as he fired his combi-bolter in a long burst, mowing down a handful of the turncoat prison guards. Men and women in scarlet and black uniforms pitched to the floor, bodies rent by bolt detonations. Lifting his power sword, he waved the others forward.

Around the Raven Guard commander, his Raptors stormed along the ramp leading up to the central courtyard. Some were clean-limbed, wearing the distinctively snouted helms of Mark VI armour. They laid down a curtain of fire with bolters and heavy weapons, pinning back the crush of humanity standing between them and the huge exit gates.

Around them, the other Raptors boiled forwards.

These were the warriors suffering gene-seed mutation. Some could still wear armour, or pieces of it; others were dressed in padded coveralls furnished with dense mesh and artisan-fashioned plate. The Techmarines had done their best to provide their twisted battle-brothers with the same protection as those free from the gene-taint. Bestial roars and screeches took the place of proud battlecries as they lumbered, skittered and ran towards the enemy. Many carried weapons – bolt pistols, power axes, chainswords – but some sported claws and bony protrusions that served just as well.

Between them, the two Raptor-kin cleaved into hundreds of renegade soldiers that had poured down into the lower cells to stem the jailbreak, little knowing they faced a battle-group of Legiones Astartes. Some tried to retreat, blocking the entry of others, while bolts, las-blasts and bullets whined, cracked and zipped through the close confines of the subterranean complex.

Branne glanced at the chronometer in his helm display. Lord Corax would be making his final move for the commandant’s keep. The dampening field of the cell block, powered by a sub-generator to prevent teleportation and communications, was still blocking all signals.

The Raven Guard commander had to get to the surface, still an agonising three hundred metres away.

He had to warn his primarch about the traitor.

I

The battle-barge Avenger
[DV -128 days, Terran adjusted standard]

Corax summoned his commanders to him, with Arcatus of the Legio Custodes and Captain Noriz of the Imperial Fists, so that all factions of his force were represented. They had come from afar, brought together by the call of the Raven Guard primarch.

Scattered across dozens of systems, the Raven Guard had been waging their guerrilla war against the forces of Horus and the other traitors. Reinforcements ambushed en route to the battlefields creeping closer to Terra; supplies intercepted and taken by the Raven Guard, turned on those that sought to benefit from the shipments of arms and armour coming out of traitor-held forge worlds; scouting fleets destroyed.

In the years since Corax had made the Avenger his flagship much had changed. Once Commander Branne’s chambers, now the rooms of the primarch had been extended, refitted and turned into a sub-strategium. The main room was still plainly decorated, plasteel walls a muted blue. A carved relief of the Raven Guard’s device – a heraldic bird with wings and claws stretched, surrounded by a coiled chain – marked the wooden boards of the floor. The table that had once stood upon the symbol was now relegated to a side chamber, for when aboard ship Corax preferred to conduct his councils and briefings standing, to give urgency and movement to the thoughts of his commanders.

Around the walls were the blank screens of monitoring and communications stations, keyboards and runepads neatly stowed, stools tucked under the counters. For the past several days the primarch had waited here listening to the incoming reports from returning ships and flotillas, but all ancillary staff had been dismissed. He wanted his subordinates and the others to speak their minds freely without fear of showing dissent or hesitation in front of lesser ranks.

Corax waited for the last attendee to settle himself – Noriz, in his ochre battleplate. As Corax’s gaze fell upon him the captain stood sharply to attention, his crested helm under one arm. He had recently arrived from Deliverance, where his Legion’s particular skills had been put to good use; the home-moon of the Raven Guard and the forge world it orbited would be far more secure after a year of defensive improvements by the Imperial Fists. He was the youngest, head sporting a crop of blond curls, bright blue eyes that never rested.

At the opposite end of the scale, the eldest was Aloni, with Asiatic complexion and a naturally bald scalp riveted with many gilded service studs. The leader of the assault companies of the Falcons, his armour showed the most recent repairs and maintenance, sporting fresh-bonded rivets and plates yet to be adorned with the ceremonial black paint. Despite his ragtag appearance, his wargear was in good order, metal oiled and gleaming, pouches and mag-packs on thighs and greaves filled with ammunition and grenades.

Agapito and Aloni stood to Noriz’s right, Branne and Soukhounou to the left, all clad in the midnight hue of the Raven Guard. As brothers, Branne and Agapito were not quite identical, but both had square jaws, heavy brows and flat cheeks. There was a sallow cast to their skin from being born and raised under the artificial lights of Lycaeus, which even the augmentations of the Legiones Astartes could not remove. Agapito was marked out by a weathered scar on his face.

Soukhounou was the darkest of them all, a testament to his gene-heritage amongst the Sahelian League on Terra. He had short-cropped, curled black hair and a beard of the same furred his chin and cheeks; he had arrived only the day before and was yet to shave off the growth of the last patrol. His dark flesh was cut by pale scars and tribal tattoos from his childhood, where he had been raised as a praise-singer before being taken by the Emperor’s newly raised Legions.

All were large men, boosted by their Space Marine genes, but they were slightly shorter than Arcatus, who was not only physically larger – though not as big as Corax – but held himself straight, with easy poise and grace. A thin face, sharp nose and swept-back blond hair had earnt him a nickname amongst the Raven Guard: the Emperor’s Eagle.

Corax nodded a greeting to each of them and then started to speak, eyes moving from one to the other and back, gauging their reactions without accusation.

‘We have fought hard since the disaster at Ravendelve curtailed any hope that we might return the Legion to some semblance of its former strength. In the way only the Raven Guard know best we have struck at Horus time and again, sapping his strength, drawing his ire away from other forces.’ Corax sighed. ‘It is not enough. The Warmaster’s armies and fleets still constrict like a noose upon Terra.’

‘Are you suggesting we return to the Throneworld?’ said Noriz, with hope in his voice. ‘Are we going to join the defence?’

‘I would rather lay down my life amongst the stars than cower behind a wall,’ said Agapito.

‘Cower?’ Noriz bridled at the comment. ‘You think Lord Dorn a coward?’

‘Your pardon, I did not mean any such thing,’ said Agapito, raising a hand in apology. He looked at the primarch. ‘We fought to be free of imprisonment, my lord. To incarcerate ourselves within walls once more would make a mockery of everything we believe.’

‘What more can we do?’ asked Soukhounou. ‘We only have so many men, so many ships. As skilled as we are in such conditions, we cannot conjure warriors from nothing.’

‘From nothing?’ Corax shook his head, eyes closed. ‘I tried that, and it has caused us great pain.’

His mind was swept back to the events at Ravendelve some years earlier.

Fear and desperation. Not in the eyes of the men he had turned into beasts, but hiding in his own heart. Having faced death twice, almost succumbing to the despair, it had been a different sort of fear that had propelled him into such recklessness – the fear of being wrong.

Hundreds of Deliverance’s brightest had paid the price of Corax’s desperation and were paying it still. Every passing month took more of a toll on their mutated physiques and he had to watch them being slowly crippled by the blight he had loosed into their bodies. The war allowed no time for pity, no time to go back to his research to look for a cure; the data itself had been too dangerous to keep and what remained of the psychic knowledge implanted into his memory by the Master of Mankind had all but faded.

If he could win the war he could deliver up the broken Raptors to his gene-father for a cure. If there was any hope for them being returned to normal, it would be in the hands of the Emperor.

But the war had to be won first.

He opened his eyes.

‘No, we do not seek to conjure warriors from nothing. There are other fighters to be found, though. We hear word of them, catching their transmissions – the messages of their astropaths. Remnants, companies, squads of Legions broken by war, distant expeditions now returning, garrisons half-forgotten since the crusade began, survivors of offensives and counter-attacks that have broken apart from the Imperium. They are scattered out here with us, fighting as best they can. I will bring them together and we will train them in our way of fighting. That is how we will grow strong again.’

‘It would take forever to round up every waif and stray legionary, even just those within a few thousand light years,’ said Arcatus.

‘We will not go to them, they will come to us. A single, simple message to pierce the roiling warp storms. A clarion call for those without a leader to come together. We will issue the cry to muster and we will strike back with more ferocity than before. We will make Horus rue the day he underestimated us! If the Warmaster wants the galaxy to burn, we will see him consumed by its flames.’

‘If loyalist factions hear this summoning, will not also our enemies?’ Noriz said quietly.

‘Undoubtedly,’ said Corax. He shrugged away the captain’s concerns and looked at Arcatus. ‘If you intercepted an enemy message openly broadcast, calling forces to a particular place, what would you make of it?’

‘I would suspect it to be a trap,’ said the Custodian. ‘It would seem like the perfect opportunity for an ambush.’

‘But won’t our allies think it also?’ said Soukhounou. ‘A rebel ruse to bring them to one place?’

‘Perhaps, but lone ships, small flotillas have more chance of eluding such a trap than a massed fleet. And they will want to believe it is true, whereas our enemy will be guided by caution. When they begin to arrive we can have them send their own messages, so that by word of their own more will be brought to us.’

The Custodian looked unconvinced, and rubbed his chin in thought.

‘By whose authority would you command these forces? You assume much if you think that warriors from many Legions will follow you. The last person to be granted such power was the Warmaster…’

‘I need no greater authority than I was given by the Emperor on the day he made me commander of the Nineteenth Legion,’ Corax replied. ‘I am a primarch of the Legiones Astartes, and though that title has been sullied these past years, it still means something to me, and to others. I will restore the honour of that role and prove that loyalty remains a virtue in these dark times.’

‘And where would we muster this army?’ asked Arcatus.

Corax turned to the controls on the wall and activated a hololithic map, projected from lenses installed in the high ceiling. He manipulated the dials and pad until the view zoomed in to an isolated star system a few dozen light years away.

‘Here,’ said the primarch. ‘A system we liberated only fifty days ago – Scarato.’

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