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Since the Aeldari Webway couldn't reach Macragge directly, Cawl's party had no choice but to hitch a ride on transport vehicles from the Ultramarines stationed at Laphis.
The Imperial expeditionary force pushed along a mountain range and eventually found a fortified bunker on a ridge, its anti-aircraft arrays already blazing at the Heldrakes wheeling overhead.
The expeditionary force added their own fire to the mix. Once the skies cleared, Cawl and the others announced their nas and purpose. Three blue-armored figures erged from the fortification with careful, asured steps, not wary of Imperial allies, but of the two Aeldari standing among them.
Even so, both sides managed a civil exchange.
Cadia had fallen. Crasus was in flight. Cawl laid out everything that had happened along the way, then told the three Ultramarines that he had an important agreent with the Lord of Ultramar, and that today was the day to honor it.
The Living Saint added, quietly, that this was the will of the God-Emperor.
The three Ultramarines weren't convinced by the Archmagos's word alone. But then they noticed who else was standing in this strange party: the Living Saint Celestine, and Inquisitor Greyfax of the Ordo Hereticus.
With those two vouching for them, the matter of the Aeldari xenos was set aside. They contacted their company captain.
A strike cruiser nad the Sword of Honor would carry the expeditionary force to Macragge.
In return, the Living Saint handed command of her Battle Sisters and elite Kasrkin veterans to the local Ultramarines, leaving them to shore up Laphis's defenses alongside the garrison.
And so the full party boarded the strike cruiser: the Archmagos, the Aeldari delegation, the Black Templars, the Inquisitor, the Living Saint, and Kaelen with his two "Ogryns" in tow.
The composition of this group was, to put it mildly, explosive.
The captain of the Sword of Honor took one look and decided against assigning VIP quarters. Instead, he did the pragmatic thing and packed them all into a spacious holding room under heavy guard.
The thick adamantine door locked with a heavy clunk. The atmosphere inside dropped imdiately.
Factions sorted themselves without a word. The Aeldari drifted to a corner and closed their eyes. Cawl hunched over a data terminal, fingers tapping at the screen. The Black Templars clustered together, running oiled cloths along their chainswords.
Kaelen, along with his two "Ogryns" wrapped in oversized canvas cloaks, ended up in the sa section as Greyfax and Celestine. Unlucky draw.
Celestine folded her wings and leaned against the wall, resting quietly.
Greyfax couldn't sit still. The High Inquisitor's gaze kept moving between Kaelen and the two massive figures behind him, sweeping back and forth, back and forth.
She'd had her suspicions since the surface of Crasus.
Ordinary Ogryn sub-humans were a known quantity: barely functional intelligence, drooling or howling through most engagents, completely incapable of wearing cloaks and marching in silent formation. That wasn't what these two were doing. Their gait was too controlled. Every step landed at the exact sa interval, the kind of precision that only ca from the highest level of combat conditioning, muscle mory drilled in over years of elite training.
And one of them was wearing that cloak stretched very wide. The shoulder line underneath was too clean, too geotric. That was power armor.
The more she looked, the less it added up.
"Captain." Greyfax broke the quiet.
Kaelen looked up. "What can I do for you, Lord Inquisitor?"
Greyfax crossed the floor in long strides, her combat boots crunching against the tal deck, and stopped directly in front of him.
"I order you." She raised her right hand, leather glove tight across her knuckles, and pointed at the two cloaked giants behind Kaelen. "Remove their hoods. Now."
No preamble. No softening.
Kaelen cursed inwardly. Why was this woman so fixated on him?
His face stayed calm. He kept his voice level.
"I must respectfully decline, Lord Inquisitor. These two have short tempers, and severe genetic defects on their faces. They don't take well to being looked at. Force the hoods off and they'll go berserk."
"Berserk." Greyfax let out a cold snort. "Under the gaze of the Ordo Hereticus, nothing gets to stay hidden. Concealnt is where heresy begins. Concealnt is where corruption takes root."
She stepped half a pace closer. Her right hand dropped to the master-crafted bolt pistol at her hip, thumb flicking the safety off in one smooth motion.
"Captain Kaelen. Do you know what Imperial law calls it when soone defies a direct order from an Inquisitor?"
The tension hit the room like a pressure wave.
Celestine opened her eyes.
Behind Kaelen, Cullen's hand closed around the hilt of his power sword beneath the cloak. The mont this woman drew, he would take her wrist off before the bolt cleared the barrel.
Horus lowered his head slightly. Beneath his hood, the muscles in his jaw tightened. The Inquisitor was threatening his friend, and he felt the anger of it.
Kaelen didn't give either of them the chance to move.
He straightened up, t Greyfax's stare without flinching, and took one small step forward, close enough that the bolt pistol's barrel was almost touching him.
"I haven't read many books." His smile didn't reach his eyes. "So I genuinely don't know what cri it is."
He cleared his throat. His voice climbed.
"But I know one thing!"
"On Cadia, when the entire southern defense line collapsed, these two Ogryn attendants of mine held the front. They smashed the skulls of Chaos daemons and Chaos Astartes with their bare hands!"
Every word landed clean and hard.
"Three Imperial warriors who bled in the mud for Holy Terra and the Master of Mankind. Who barely made it out alive. And the end they get is a bolt through the skull — because they refused one Inquisitor's baseless suspicion and unreasonable demand?"
He paused for half a second.
Then he hit back.
"Tell — if the God-Emperor upon the Golden Throne were watching this right now, what kind of wrath do you think He would bring down?!"
Silence.
The entire holding room went still.
Under his cloak, Cullen was grinning. Kid, he thought, you really don't know when to stop swinging.
Standing there and going toe-to-toe with a High Inquisitor of the Imperium. Invoking the Emperor Himself as a shield, right to her face.
Kaelen pressed forward and gave her no room to recover.
"The God-Emperor is great because He shelters all living beings and upholds justice! But how many people in this Imperium today wear loyalty like a costu, take whatever scrap of authority they've been handed, and use it to dispense their own twisted, self-serving version of justice in His na?"
"Lord Inquisitor — are you one of them?! Are you actually rooting out heresy, or are you just feeding a need to control things that have nothing to do with you?"
A perfect counter. And a very heavy accusation dropped right on top of it.
You want to play the accusation ga? Kaelen thought, keeping his face straight. The rhetoric you picked up in the Inquisition doesn't hold a candle to what I learned running in certain circles for years.
Greyfax's mouth opened.
Nothing ca out.
Every word she'd ever used to break heretics, to pronounce sentences, to make grown n confess, all of it was jamd in her throat. She couldn't push out a single syllable.
A thousand years the Ordo Hereticus had been doing this work. And today, an Astra Militarum captain had just turned it back on her.
Greyfax ground her back teeth together.
She could blow his head off right now. She had every right. But she didn't dare.
Because Celestine was watching. The Living Saint's eyes hadn't left this corner of the room.
If she drew, Celestine would step in front of this captain without a mont's hesitation. She was certain of it.
"You..." Greyfax's face went red. Her chest heaved. The words wouldn't co.
"Enough, Lord Inquisitor." Celestine stepped forward. "I vouch for them in my own na. Captain Kaelen and his attendants are beyond suspicion of heresy."
"Enough! Witch!" Greyfax's voice cracked. "I don't even trust you, what exactly do you think your word is worth to ?!"
"When we reach Macragge, you can explain yourself to the Chapter Master. We'll see how that goes."
She dropped back into her seat, still fuming.
Kaelen let out a slow breath. Good. Horus and Cullen were still covered.
On the other side of the compartnt, Archmagos Cawl and the Emissary Yvraine were having a very different conversation.
Yvraine shared a portion of what she had seen in the flows of fate, explained her reasons for allying with the Imperium, and walked Cawl through the process for awakening Guilliman.
They had their disagreents. But on the broad direction, they found common ground, because this concerned the fate of two races, and the future of the galaxy.
Several days later, the Sword of Honor delivered them to Macragge.
The jewel of the Eastern Fringe was under attack. A mixed fleet of Night Lords, Death Guard, and Iron Warriors warbands had it in their grip.
Belisarius and the others fought through the Chaos blockade, broke the cordon, and landed on the surface. They pushed hard for the Fortress of Hera, which was already under siege.
Chapter Master Calgar was waiting for them.
➤ Next: Horus: Ah, Roboute
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