Indications were that life had once existed here, but now did not. What had caused such a system-wide cataclysm was unknown, but as the fleet made its way towards the sun, it became clear that life on the fifth planet had somehow survived the disaster.
How Magnus had known this insignificant shoal of the galaxy had included a planet inhabited by a severed offshoot of humanity was a mystery, for there were no residual electromagnetics or long-dead emissions to suggest anything lived here.
The Rehahti urged Magnus to order the fleet onwards, for the Crusade was at its height and the Thousand Sons had their share of plaudits yet to earn. Nearly two centuries had passed since the Crusade was launched in glory and fanfare, two centuries of exploration and war that had seen world after world folded into the body of the resurgent Imperium of Man.
Of those two centuries, the Thousand Sons had fought for less than a hundred years.
In the early years of the Crusade, prior to the coming of Magnus, the Astartes of the Thousand Sons had proven especially susceptible to unstable genes, resulting in spontaneous tissue rejection, vastly increased psychic potential and numerous other variations from the norm. Labels like “mutants” and “freaks” were hung upon the Thousand Sons, and for a time it seemed as though they would suffer an ignoble ending as a footnote in the history of the Great Crusade.
Then the Emperor’s fleet had discovered Magnus the Red in a forgotten backwater of the galaxy, on the remote world of Prospero, and everything changed.
“As I am your son, they shall become mine,” were Magnus’ words to the Emperor, words that had changed the destiny of the Thousand Sons forever.
United with the Legion that carried his genetic legacy, Magnus bent every shred of his towering intellect to undoing the damage their aberrant genes had done.
And he had succeeded.
Magnus saved his Legion, but the Crusade had progressed in the time it had taken him to do it, and his warriors were eager to share in the glory their brothers were earning with every passing day.
The Expedition Fleets of the Legions pushed ever outwards from the cradle of humanity to reunify the Emperor’s realm. Like squabbling brothers, each of the primarchs vied for a place at their father’s side, but only one was ever good enough to fight alongside the saviour of humanity: Horus Lupercal, Primarch of the Luna Wolves and beloved son of the Emperor.
The Emperor stood at the head of the Luna Wolves and Guilliman’s Ultramarines, ready to unleash his terrible thunder against the greenskin of Ullanor, a war that promised to be gruelling and punishing. Who better than the favoured son of the Emperor to stand at his side as they throttled the life from this barbarian foe?
Ullanor would be a war to end all wars, but there was fighting closer to hand that demanded the attention of the Thousand Sons. Lorgar’s Word Bearers and the Space Wolves of Leman Russ fought in the Ark Reach Cluster, a group of binary stars occupied by a number of belligerent planetary empires that rejected the Imperium’s offer to become part of something greater.
The Wolf King had sent repeated calls for the XV Legion to join the fighting, but Magnus ignored them all.
He had found something of greater interest on Aghoru. He had found the Mountain.
CHAPTER TWO
Drums of the Mountain/Temple of the Syrbotae/A Place of the Dead
THEY HAD ONLY been climbing for twenty minutes, but already Lemuel was beginning to regret his hasty idea to spy upon the Thousand Sons. He’d discovered the steps hidden in the rocks on one of his frequent solitary walks in the lower reaches of the titanic mountain. Set in a cunningly concealed cleft a hundred metres from the deadstones, the steps wound through the rock of the Mountain, climbing a steep, but far more direct path than the Astartes would be following.
It might be more direct, but it certainly wasn’t easier. His banyan was stained with sweat, and he imagined he didn’t smell too pleasant. The sound of his heart was like the pounding kettledrums of a triumphal band welcoming the Emperor himself.
“How much further is it?” asked Camille. She was relishing this chance to venture deeper into the Mountain, though Kallista appeared rather less enthusiastic. The Astartes awed and scared her, but the idea of spying on them had sent a delicious thrill through her when he had suggested it. He couldn’t read her aura, but her expression said she was regretting her decision to come along.
Lemuel paused, looking up at the metal yellow of the sky to catch his breath and slow his racing heartbeat.
“Another ten minutes, maybe,” he said.
“You sure you’ll last that long?” asked Camille, only half-joking.
“I’ll be fine,” he assured her, taking a swig of water from his canteen. “I’ve climbed this way before. It’s not much higher. I think.”
“Just don’t collapse on me,” said Camille. “I don’t want to have to carry you back down.”
“You can always roll me back down,” replied Lemuel, attempting some levity.
“Seriously,” said Camille, “are you sure you’re up to this climb?”
“I’m fine,” he insisted, with more conviction than he felt. “Trust me, it’s worth the effort.”
Back at the deadstones it had seemed like a grand adventure for the three of them to undertake, but the numbness of the senses he felt was like having his ears stoppered and his eyes sewn shut. From below, the mountain had been a black wall of nothingness, but climbing deeper into the rocks, Lemuel felt as if that nothingness was swallowing him whole.
He passed the canteen around, grateful that Kallista and Camille indulged his desire to stop for a rest. It was early evening, but the day’s heat hadn’t let up. Still, at least there was some shade here. They could afford a brief stop, for the only other route he knew would take at least an hour to traverse, even for Astartes.
Lemuel took the bandanna from around his neck and mopped his face. The cloth was soaked by the time he was done, and he wrung it out with a grimace. Camille looked up the steps, craning her neck to try to see the top.
“So where does this lead exactly?” she asked.
“There’s a plateau a bit higher up,” he said. “It’s like a viewing platform of some sort.”
“A viewing platform?” asked Kallista. “For what?”
“It looks out over a wide valley I call the Temple of the Syrbotae.”
“Syrbotae?” asked Camille. “What’s that?”
“A very old legend of my homeland,” replied Lemuel. “The Syrbotae were a race of giants from the Aethiopian kingdom of Meroe.”
“Why do you call it that, a temple I mean?” asked Kallista, horrified at the word.
“You’ll understand when we get there.”
“You have a way of choosing words that could get you into trouble,” said Camille.
“Not at all, my dear,” said Lemuel. “The Thousand Sons are nothing if not rebels. I think they would appreciate the irony.”
“Rebels? What are you talking about?” asked Kallista angrily.
“Nothing,” said Lemuel, realising he had said too much. Stripped of his ability to read auras, he was being careless. “Just a bad joke.”
He smiled to reassure Kallista he had been joking, and she smiled back.
“Come on,” he said. “We should get going. I want to show you something spectacular.”
IT TOOK THEM another thirty minutes to reach the plateau, by which time Lemuel swore never to climb the mountain again, no matter how spectacular the views or what the enticement. The sound of his drumming heartbeat seemed louder than ever, and Lemuel vowed to shed some weight before it killed him.