OLD WOUNDS, NEW SCARS
Graham McNeill
It is a time of legend.
The galaxy is in flames. The Emperor’s glorious vision for humanity is in ruins. His favoured son, Horus, has turned from his father’s light and embraced Chaos.
His armies, the mighty and redoubtable Space Marines, are locked in a brutal civil war. Once, these ultimate warriors fought side by side as brothers, protecting the galaxy and bringing mankind back into the Emperor’s light. Now they are divided.
Some remain loyal to the Emperor, whilst others have sided with the Warmaster. Pre-eminent amongst them, the leaders of their thousands-strong Legions are the primarchs. Magnificent, superhuman beings, they are the crowning achievement of the Emperor’s genetic science. Thrust into battle against one another, victory is uncertain for either side.
Worlds are burning. At Isstvan V, Horus dealt a vicious blow and three loyal Legions were all but destroyed. War was begun, a conflict that will engulf all mankind in fire. Treachery and betrayal have usurped honour and nobility. Assassins lurk in every shadow. Armies are gathering. All must choose a side or die.
Horus musters his armada, Terra itself the object of his wrath. Seated upon the Golden Throne, the Emperor waits for his wayward son to return. But his true enemy is Chaos, a primordial force that seeks to enslave mankind to its capricious whims.
The screams of the innocent, the pleas of the righteous resound to the cruel laughter of Dark Gods. Suffering and damnation await all should the Emperor fail and the war be lost.
“A voice from old heroic days,
When life was counted dust,
Weighed in the scale with nobler things,
Honour, and faith, and trust.”
The skies of Terra were what Alivia missed the most.
She remembered how blue they’d been. How wide.
The view from the summit of the Black Cuillin on her island home was breathtaking: misted glens, sprawling forests and deep oceans stretching in an endless blue expanse.
But most of all, she remembered a sky so wide it seemed it would never end.
Alivia had climbed all the mountains of Old Earth, even the towering white peaks now mantled in stone and steel.
But nothing could compare to this view over the cold ocean to the New World.
Alivia tasted the air: the cool aroma of pine, the wet warmth of wild animals and the thorny tangles of gorse.
She’d seen other worlds, other wonders, since then.
She’d scaled the colossal slopes of Olympus Mons, swum the world oceans of Talassar, even explored the ruins of Fringe Space.
Miracles and marvels all, but the glory of the Throneworld was too powerful, too connected to Alivia’s soul for anything to eclipse it.
Maybe that’s why Horus wants it so badly.
The sentiment was an intrusion. It wasn’t hers.
Her memory’s gaze shifted, down from the endless skies to the forests of highland fir. The trees grew close, only whispering shadows of sunset visible between their pollarded trunks.
Grazing at the edge of the treeline was a powerful stag.
The sheer magnificence of the animal took her breath away.
Its russet hide shone gold in the dying sun, and its antlers forked upwards like bone lightning. This was the master of the glen, and when the wild hunt thundered over the hills, he would lead it.
Alivia held her breath, lest even a whisper of movement break the spell.
The stag’s head came up, its nostrils twitching.
The animal met her gaze, and in its eyes, she saw an ageless soul. Tears pricked her eyes to see a kernel of doubt in its noble strength.
A chilling howl echoed from deep within the forest, the cry of a wolf. Others joined it – dozens, then hundreds. Maybe more.
The stag turned and bolted, its powerful legs carrying it farther up the mountain, leaping over rocks and scrambling along treacherous pathways.
A black-furred wolf raced from the trees, its eyes red and rabid. The pack followed it, red wolves, grey wolves and wolves with moulting fur. They raced after the stag, driving it towards the cliffs where others would be waiting.
She wanted to shout after the fleeing animal.
To warn it that it was heading into a trap.
I always loved that about you, Alivia; your metaphors were always so damn pretty.
Alivia woke with a cry on her lips.
She blinked, breathing hard, the vision of the stag fleeing into mountains fading. Darkness overhead. Dim glow of lumens from the creaking corridor beyond.
Night aboard Molech’s Enlightenment. Above her, the hard, oil-stained metal of the compartment’s ceiling. She rolled onto her side, looking over to where Vivyen and Miska lay. Her adopted daughters were asleep, curled together on their makeshift bunk.
Next to her, Jeph rubbed his eyes and yawned.
‘Did I wake you?’ she asked.
‘Yes, but it’s okay.’
She smiled. They’d all picked up some of the old slang.
‘Another bad dream?’ he asked.
She nodded. ‘Yeah.’
‘The one about the snakes?’
‘Thankfully not,’ she said, letting her breathing even out.
Jeph propped himself up on one elbow, running his fingertips across the sweep of her shoulder.
‘Who’s John?’ he asked.
John Grammaticus.
She hadn’t thought of her old lover in a long time.
He came to mind only infrequently – if she heard a specific inflexion of tone or caught a precise sardonic expression out of the corner of her eye. She’d spin around, expecting to see him standing there with a knowing grin, as if he’d only been gone for a few hours and not ages of the world.
When was the last time she’d seen John?
She rolled over in her bunk, knowing exactly when.
The Khyber.
A smoky bar in Kabul, back before the tanks of the Iron Czar reduced the entire city to rubble. Close to the Palace of Amanullah Khan, the Khyber was the preferred watering hole for a rogue’s gallery of strangers in a strange land, drifters thrown together by tides of crime, betrayal and loss.
John wasn’t with their circle of acquaintances that day. He’d been thrown out three days earlier for loudly berating the bar staff for serving watered-down liquor, and was still serving penance by being forced to drink in the factory bars down by the Janagalak.
She’d just laid down a winning hand of panjpar, to loud wails of protest from her opponents, when she felt his presence. Alivia looked over her shoulder and saw John at the louvred entrance, frantic and bathed in sweat like the time he’d run the first marathon.
He’d just started to shout her name when the Khyber exploded.
A single 152mm shell from an Akatsiya artillery piece deployed outside the city smashed down through the roof and detonated in the bar, killing everyone in the building in the fires of an earth-shaking blast.
Alivia remembered the flames and the thunder of collapsing masonry. The sensation was powerful, and she cut it off abruptly. Painful experience had taught her it was never a good idea to relive powerful emotions in the warp.
The breath caught in her chest, and she knew she wasn’t getting back to sleep again anytime soon. She swung out of bed and dressed in the dark with the efficiency of someone who knows the exact location of everything she needs.