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The news of Horus's return swept through the Sea of Souls faster than any Warp storm.
There was no cheering.
Only silence. Dead and absolute.
From the Four Gods of Chaos down to the lowest daemon in their service, the first reaction to the intelligence was the sa: complete and utter disbelief.
The fallen Daemon Primarchs collectively crashed.
Fulgrim, drowning in his pleasures. Lorgar, muttering over his scriptures. Angron, who only cared about killing. Magnus, shut away with his books. Mortarion, spreading his plagues through the dark.
Every last one of them had a giant question mark hanging over his head.
Abaddon went to Cadia, picked a fight, and got beaten by Horus?
Was the grand-nephew blind? Did he mistake Leman Russ for Horus?!
That Warmaster — the great traitor whose very soul the Emperor of Mankind had personally torn apart, by what right was he standing whole and breathing in the mud of Cadia?!
The sound of sharp, involuntary breaths echoed across every domain of the Warp.
But the shock didn't last. What followed it, swift and savage, was ecstasy.
If that vessel with a pure soul had truly returned, all they had to do was offer him to their dark masters again. The favor they'd receive would be beyond asure.
Only Perturabo was different.
The mont he heard the news, sothing stirred in the cold chanical depths of his mind. Sothing he couldn't na. A faint, unwilling flicker of anticipation at the return of the one who had once been called the Wolf Shepherd.
--------
[Ti until Eternal Will impacts Cadia: 10 minutes]
Cadia. Main landing zone.
Evacuation alarms scread over the grinding roar of exhaust fans.
Astra Militarum troopers, Cadian Shock Troops, Astartes, servitors, and Battle Sisters surged like a tide toward the massive transport ship hatches.
A countdown to death hung over every single head.
Archmagos Cawl's Skitarii had already finished boarding. He'd gone ahead with the decrypted Blackstone data.
Saint Celestine moved through the wounded barracks on dimd wings, guiding the last of the injured toward the ships.
At the edge of the embarkation platform, Creed called out to the three of them just as they were heading for the assault boat.
Cadia's supre commander looked like he'd been through a shredder. His greatcoat had been torn to rags. His left arm was wrapped in several tight loops of bandage, the dark brown blood scabs reeking of gunpowder. He stood like he hadn't noticed any of it.
"Lord Primarch."
Creed walked up to Horus, who stood draped in a wide canvas cloak, brought his feet together, and rendered an Imperial Aquila salute with absolute solemnity.
Horus stopped. He turned.
"This war." Creed's voice was hoarse, but it carried. "Thank you for your participation."
"Don't you hate ?" Horus replied, his voice low and heavy. "I am an unforgivable sinner. If I hadn't made the ss I made ten thousand years ago, you Cadians might never have needed to stand watch over this damned Eye of Terror. Generation after generation, suffering for sins that weren't yours."
Creed bared his teeth and grinned.
Bloody teeth, glaring in the dim light.
"Honestly?" The iron-blooded commander shook his head. "Your rebellion was too long ago. So long ago that we frontline soldiers have lost any real sense of what you actually did back then. I don't know what kind of grudge you and Abaddon had in that tunnel. I don't know why you, the great traitor of ten thousand years past, are standing here alive." He raised his uninjured right hand and gestured at the soldiers around them, broken n and won, missing limbs, leaning on each other as they retreated. "But I only need to know one thing."
Creed straightened his back. The sll of smoke and fire clung to him like a second skin.
"You fought in the defense of Cadia. You helped us block the traitor's blade. For us Cadians, anyone who kills Chaos is a comrade. Anyone who kills Chaos is a hero."
Hero.
The word hit Horus harder than any of Abaddon's curses. It made him want to look away.
"I am no hero, Castellan." The Wolf Shepherd let out a slow breath. "I am a bastard with blood on both hands. Everything I've done is just patching a few holes in a sinking ship. Paying down a debt I can never fully clear."
"Atonent is proven through action, my lord," Creed said. "I can feel it. You are fighting for human civilization with everything you have. That is enough."
He turned then, looking at Kaelen and Cullen.
Two steps forward. His right hand ca up in an impeccable military salute.
"I must also thank you two."
"The Castellan is too kind. We only did what needed doing." Cullen slamd his fist against his chest plate and returned an ancient knight's salute.
"No." Creed's voice was flat and certain. "Without you dealing with the Voskarni Ironclad regint's mutiny ahead of ti, the casualties would have been far worse. Without you holding that position, the enemy would have broken through Kraft Redoubt in the first wave."
Then his attention settled on Kaelen.
He reached out and clapped a heavy hand on Kaelen's shoulder.
"Especially you, Captain Kaelen. You are a natural at frontline morale. If you hadn't been shouting yourself hoarse out there, the soldiers' will would have broken long before the line did. I was actually considering pulling you in to replace the Sisters and the Ecclesiarchy priests for propaganda duties."
Creed cracked a rare smile.
"That line of yours was perfect. 'When we die and our souls return to Terra, stand tall and tell the Emperor of Mankind — I fought in the defense of Cadia! And the Emperor of Mankind will put a hand on our shoulders and say...'"
"'What a warrior.'" Kaelen finished it quietly.
He looked at this man who was burning through his life with every breath. Sothing tightened in his chest, a faint sting behind his nose.
In this godforsaken Warhamr universe, there was never any shortage of superhumans who looked down on mortals as expendable. But the ones who actually held humanity's spine together were always people like this. Ordinary n and won who knew exactly what they were walking into and walked in anyway.
"You are a warrior too, Castellan Creed," Kaelen said, and ant it.
"All of us are. Humanity's warriors. The Emperor of Mankind's warriors."
Creed let the smile go. He looked down and worked his calloused fingers into the inner pocket of his uniform.
He tore out a bronze dal. The edges were worn black with age.
His first honor. Earned from surviving a at-grinder position back when he was still a recruit.
That honor ant more to him than his life.
He slapped it onto Kaelen's chest and fastened it roughly to the flak armor.
"Take it. Rember, Captain. Cadia stands."
Kaelen pulled in a long breath of sulfur-tinged air, stood straight, and yelled it back.
"Cadia stands!"
Creed looked at the three of them one last ti. Then he turned and walked away, clean and unhesitating.
Not toward the transport ships. The other direction.
The few hundred surviving veterans of the 8th Regint would hold the landing zone to the last. Soone had to stay behind and slow down the Daemon Engines long enough for the main force to lift off.
The lift engaged with a harsh hydraulic groan, carrying Cadia's supre commander slowly upward until the darkness of the passageway swallowed him whole.
"Will Creed die, Kaelen?" Horus stared at the place where the man had been and asked the question without preamble.
"He'll fight to the last second. Fire the last las-round in his gun." Kaelen touched the cold bronze dal on his chest. "But he won't die. That Necron hoarder Trazyn — the one who loves stealing everything that isn't nailed down — he's had his eye on Creed."
"Trazyn?" Cullen's brow furrowed.
"Right. That old bag of bones collects rare monts from history. A perfect hero like Creed?" Kaelen said. "Trazyn will absolutely scoop him up and stick him in a stasis field. Pri exhibit in that damned museum of his."
Cullen and Horus went quiet at the sa ti.
Being snatched by xenos and turned into a living display piece. That was a hell of a way to survive. But with Cadia counting down to total collapse, it might be the only way Creed escaped Chaos's reach at all.
BOOM!
The sky shook like a thunderclap had gone off inside it. Everyone looked up. The wreckage of the Blackstone Fortress, the Eternal Will, was visible to the naked eye now, falling, falling, falling toward the Blackstone Spire.
Archmagos Cawl's synthesized voice detonated across every channel at once:
"Impact countdown ending! Blackstone Fortress wreckage has broken through the stratosphere. All surviving ships, disengage from docking clamps imdiately! Ignite engines! Take off now!"
"Stop staring! Move!" Kaelen was already running for the transport ship. Cullen was right behind him.
Horus looked back one last ti at the planet that was about to die. He pulled his hood low and stepped into the hold.
The engines scread. The transport ship tore free of the ground.
The wreckage hit.
It punched straight through Cadia's crust.
The collision between the Blackstone Fortress and the Blackstone Spire detonated sothing fundantal. A blinding white light annihilated everyone's vision in an instant. Then the shockwave arrived, slamming into the assault boat's rear armor like a fist from a god.
Red warning lights strobed wildly through the cabin.
[WARNING! Hull subjected to extre gravitational forces! Cadia's planetary core has disintegrated!]
The shockwave threw Kaelen into the tal cabin wall hard enough to rearrange his organs.
He pressed his face to the cracked interior porthole and looked down.
Cadia, which had borne the glory of the Imperium for ten thousand years, shattered before his eyes.
Like glass struck by a hamr.
Splitting apart. Falling away. Gone.
➤ Next: Has the Era of the Primarchs Ended?
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