Children of Sicarus
Anthony Reynolds

 	Beneath the malignant, writhing heavens of Sicarus, blood was spilled. The desolate plains were strewn with the dead and the dying. Some were human. Most were not.
 	Many were twisted amalgams of man and beast; others were beings of immaterial flesh and darkness. One was a hulking, red-armoured warrior of the XVII Legion – a holy son of Lorgar. He dropped to his knees, an immense, rune-etched axe embedded deep in his chest.
 	Before him loomed a bullish creature that stood half again as tall as a Space Marine, an immense brute with a scarred, sulphur-yellow hide. Three cold eyes blinked on either side of its wide head. The beast yanked its axe from the legionary’s body, and brought it round in a lethal arc.
 	The Word Bearer fell, his head struck from his shoulders.
 	Kor Phaeron – First Captain of the Legion, the Black Cardinal and Master of the Faith – saw him fall. Warp-light flashed within him, revealing his skull in sharp relief through emaciated, grey flesh.
 	‘The Primordial Annihilator take you all!’ he spat, thrusting out his hand, and coiling, dark energy crackled from his splayed fingertips. It struck two hunched abhumans clutching primitive autoguns, hurling their bodies backwards.
 	The effort took its toll. Kor Phaeron sagged, blood bubbling from his lips. He would have fallen had not another Word Bearer stepped in to catch him.
 	‘Master!’
 	‘Acolyte... Marduk...’
 	A third mutant charged in, swinging a heavy, spike-tipped cudgel. Marduk lifted his bolt pistol, but another warrior stepped between them, killing the creature with a single, devastating blow.
 	Nemkhar.
 	The warrior was part of the second generation of Gal Vorbak, legionaries whose souls were fused with the malignant entities of the immaterium – a horrifying fusion of Space Marine and daemon. With Nemkhar, it was impossible to tell where rigid armour ended and flesh began. The ceramite bled where blades and bullets had struck. Each of his arms ended in great cleaving spines, and a crown of horns protruded from his helm.
 	There was a sudden flash of un-light, and a daemonic beast manifested, flopping onto the ground from a tear in reality itself. Blue-fleshed and gangly-limbed, it wore a scowl upon its malformed face, and etheric energy crackled around its multi-jointed hands.
 	It detonated in a riot of colour as Marduk shot it between its eyes, only to see it replaced by four smaller, burning imps that wove into the air, trailing fire. ‘We are killing them in droves, master, but we cannot afford any further losses. We must end this skirmish quickly.’
 	Kor Phaeron was all but spent. His rage was becoming impotent and bitter. ‘These are... the lost and the damned...’ he managed. ‘They are nothing... to us...’
 	He saw the massive horned beast kill another of his retinue, one of the mortal servants from the Infidus Imperator.
 	‘That one... That one must die! Kill it, Nemkhar!’
 	‘By your will, lord,’ the Gal Vorbak warrior replied, and he thundered through the melee, smashing the enemy from his path, making for the great beast. It saw his approach, and turned to meet him, hefting its axe.
 	But the beast swung too wide, and Nemkhar sprang onto its broad back, talons digging into flesh. It dropped its weapon and grabbed him, but Nemkhar had a hold of his prey now. Its end was inevitable. He wrapped his bladed arms around the base of its skull and twisted. Its bull-like neck was as thick as a Contemptor’s torso, but Nemkhar’s strength was far beyond that of a mortal being. 
 	The beast fell, its vertebrae broken, and the enemy horde’s will to fight was gone. What had been a battle became a slaughter.
 	Moments later, it was over.
 	More than thirty of the foe were dead, yet three of the Word Bearers’ mortal slaves had also fallen, and the one noble warrior of the Legion. Kor Phaeron looked upon the survivors: Nemkhar, Marduk, Burias, Koshar, Dol Ashem.
 	So few.
 	The haggard-looking human attendants and serfs huddled together, the gaunt hierophant Gemiah Daemos and the wordsinger Aklion among them. He’d not bothered to learn the others’ names. They meant little to him.
 	Half a dozen Word Bearers, and twice that number of mortals, were all that remained. Their number was being whittled down by the daemon world that should have been their sanctuary.
 	Kor Phaeron scowled and shrugged Marduk away. The Master of the Faith should, by rights, be long dead. Too old for the extensive surgery and gene-manipulation required to make him a full-blooded Space Marine, Kor Phaeron had nonetheless undergone extensive and painful augmentation to allow him to serve as Lorgar’s First Captain.
 	His heavily modified suit of Terminator armour – the Terminus Consolaris – had helped extend his lifespan far beyond that of a normal man, before his mastery of the warp had rendered it unnecessary.
 	Even so, he should be dead.
 	His primary heart was gone, torn from his chest by Roboute Guilliman, the thrice-accursed primarch of the Ultramarines. Kor Phaeron clung to life now only through sheer bloody-minded determination and the stubborn, unshakeable strength of his faith. The power of the Primordial Annihilator infused him, worming through his veins and leaking from the corners of his eyes like black vapour.
 	After Calth, he had fled into the warp aboard his flagship. Escaping the vengeance of the XIII Legion and the eventual destruction of the Infidus Imperator, the gods had apparently delivered him here only to die a lingering, drawn-out death at the hands of Sicarus’ daemonic inhabitants.
 	Wheezing, he limped to Nemkhar’s side. The Gal Vorbak warrior rose to his feet, bone-blades withdrawing into his flesh.
 	The Master of the Faith’s gaze was drawn to the crumpled form of the monster at Nemkhar’s feet. Its neck was broken, its head twisted almost completely around, but it was not yet dead. Its gold-flecked eyes blinked in alarm, and pale blood leaked from slack lips.
 	Nemkhar gestured to the thing. ‘Its life is yours, my lord.’
 	‘A powerful sacrifice,’ he replied, lowering himself to one knee with some difficulty. He drew his unholy ritual blade and held it to the beast’s throat. ‘May the Octed receive this offering and hear my prayers. Grant me the strength I require.’
 	But before he could act, Kor Phaeron felt a surge of etheric power in the air, and the beast began to convulse. A face grew within the shuddering meat of its broad chest, pushing out with the dull crack of shifting bones.
 	The face was aristocratic, with high cheeks and thin lips. A third eye opened upon its forehead, and it turned to look up at Kor Phaeron.
 	‘I am Larazzar, the Voice of Change and Ruler of the Nine Clans. Already you have killed five of my champions, False Speaker – now my favoured and eldest son, Orox’i’nor, lies dying at your feet. This is a great insult.’
 	Kor Phaeron scoffed. ‘We are the true Bearers of the Word. We have nothing to fear from you.’
 	‘I will see you eat the words you bear, truly. Great shall be your suffering.’
 	The face sank back into broken flesh, and the beast finally lay still.
 	Skinless daemons, raw and bloody, descended on leathery wings to feed on the carcasses of the fallen. Marduk glanced around.
 	‘What now, my lord?’
 	In the distance, jagged red lightning split apart the sky, and Kor Phaeron narrowed his eyes.
 	‘We move,’ he hissed.
 	It was impossible to gauge the passage of time. No sun rose or fell on Sicarus – the world appeared to exist in a perpetual magenta glow, the sky burning in a hellish maelstrom. They might have been there for a matter of days. It might have been years. Every moment blurred together into an endless, waking nightmare. One moment, they spied a great tower of twisted rock in the distance, then it was already behind them.
 	What was certain, however, was that they were being hunted.
 	Marduk scanned the horizon. ‘I see them, master. They are closing fast.’
 	‘How many?’
 	‘I can’t be certain. Too many for us to face.’
 	Kor Phaeron trudged on. ‘Have faith, Marduk. The Octed will show us the way forward.’
 	Even as he spoke, a cliff face loomed out of the magenta haze ahead. With no frame of reference, neither its scale nor its distance could be discerned. He glanced back. Their pursuers hurtled across the hellish landscape at tremendous speed. None touched the ground, yet they kicked up great lines of dust and debris in their wake.
 	Some rode in gilded chariots that sliced through the air, pulled by sleek daemonic entities limned with blue fire. Others stood upon the back of blade-fringed discs, or were borne by nothing more substantial than roiling blue witch-fire.
 	Nemkhar sneered. ‘Let me face them, my lord.’
 	‘It would be your death, brother,’ Marduk warned him.
 	‘I am a soldier of faith. To die in service of the gods and the Legion would be a great honour.’
 	‘No,’ said Kor Phaeron, shaking his head. ‘You are the last of my chosen Gal Vorbak. Your place is by my side.’
 	Nemkhar bowed his head in deference to the Master of the Faith. ‘By your will, my lord.’
 	A haze the colour of haemorrhaging blood rolled across them, momentarily obscuring the looming cliffs. When it cleared, a single robed figure leaned upon a crooked staff less than twenty paces away.
 	The Word Bearers raised their weapons, though this apparition made no threatening move towards them.
 	‘Greetings, Bearers of the Word. I have been waiting for you.’
 	‘We don’t have time for this...’ Kor Phaeron muttered. He nodded to Marduk, and the acolyte squeezed the trigger of his bolt pistol.
 	The figure wavered like the image on a pict-viewer disrupted by static as the shot passed through him. He disappeared, then re-materialised several metres away, completely unharmed. 
 	He pushed back his deep hood with one gnarled hand to reveal an old, weather-beaten face framed by long, braided white hair. His forehead and cheeks bore ritual scars, and Kor Phaeron felt an itch in the back of his skull as he looked upon the symbols.
 	There was something familiar in their shape...
 	‘Who are you?’ Kor Phaeron demanded.
 	‘I am the eighty-seventh reincarnation of the prophet Jepeth. Your appearance was foretold.’
 	‘Foretold by whom?’
 	Jepeth seemed to ignore the question. ‘Come. The Kairic Adept Larazzar seeks your end, but not all the clans have yet been subjugated to her will.’
 	‘What do you gain by helping us?’
 	‘A future. We are all children of Sicarus, together.’
 	Marduk stepped forwards, impetuously. ‘Why should we trust you?’
 	‘Because I have foreseen your future,’ the prophet replied. ‘I have seen you reunited with your golden lord.’
 	There were gasps from the Word Bearers and their mortal followers. The dark-light within Kor Phaeron surged, like a flame before the bellows. ‘What know you of our primarch?’
 	Once again, Jepeth did not answer directly. ‘We must be swift. Will you follow?’
 	Hunger burned in Kor Phaeron’s empty chest. He nodded.
 	Jepeth smiled. ‘Good.’
 	The old prophet struck the ground with his staff, and they were suddenly standing at the base of the vast, towering cliffs, reaching many hundreds of metres into the sky. There appeared to be no way through, however. The rock before them formed a solid wall.
 	‘Not all is at it may first appear on Sicarus,’ Jepeth said, picking his way through the group. ‘Such has ever been its way...’
 	The prophet tapped the cliff face with his staff, and it rippled like the surface of a wind-blown lake. A narrow crack was revealed where none had existed before.
 	‘Come. My people await you.’
 	They delved deep into the darkening chasm, following behind the old prophet as he led them along its twisting route. Kor Phaeron looked back. The entrance was still there, in the distance, and at the same time it was not. The image of the crack was superimposed over solid rock, like two overlapping realities. 
 	The stone to either side of them was worked with inscriptions and pictograms showing warring nations, fire raining from the sky, and men with the heads of beasts.
 	‘Master...’ breathed Marduk. ‘Look.’
 	One wall was covered with images of warriors in heavy armour, standing taller than men. While they were crude and worn by the passage of time, the distinct shapes of the pauldrons and helmets were instantly recognisable. One of the giants bore a book from which flames sprang, and while much of the mural’s colour had long since faded, it was still possible to see that, once, they had been painted a deep blood-red.
 	Jepeth did not turn. ‘As I said, we have been waiting for you.’
 	‘For how long, old one?’ Kor Phaeron asked.
 	The prophet shrugged. ‘My first incarnation painted these prophecies.’
 	‘My brothers and I did not always wear red…’
 	The old man shrugged again.
 	‘In my waking dreams,’ he began, as though explaining something he did not even fully understand for himself, ‘I always saw you as you are now. You walk a preordained path to glory.’
 	Kor Phaeron scowled. The thought that every choice he had made over the centuries was predetermined was not one that sat well with his ego or his faith. Still, while prophecy was not something to be followed blindly, nor something that could be guaranteed, true prophecy was also not to be underestimated.
 	The trick was in knowing which prophecies to believe.
 	He loomed over Jepeth. He could smell the cancer in the old man’s bones, sense his flesh rotting slowly from the inside out. Aging was a vile, hateful thing. Kor Phaeron’s own imperfect body was a constant reminder of that.
 	The Black Cardinal took a wheezing breath, pushing his resentment deep within himself. He’d been doing it for so long, it came as easily as breathing.
 	‘Lead on,’ he growled.
 	It was an eerie sight that greeted the Word Bearers when they finally emerged from the rock. A series of chasms intersected in a steep gorge open to the sky. The sheer cliffs were carved with stairs and primitive dwellings. 
 	The inhabitants, the Children of Sicarus, crowded the gorge, standing in windows and doorways. Thousands of them watched in silence as the prophet Jepeth led the Word Bearers towards the middle of the settlement. The only sound was the echoing wind and the vaguely unsettling whisper of bone-chimes.
 	Most of the people were robed and daubed in umber, their faces and arms tattooed with cult symbols and patterns that Kor Phaeron knew well. The similarity to those of the True Faith of Colchis was undeniable.
 	Marduk looked to the sky. A burning chariot pulled by daemonic entities circled overhead, accompanied by a host of lesser daemons that left burning blue fire in their wake. 
 	‘How has this valley remained hidden?’ he wondered aloud.
 	In a flash of crimson lightning, Kor Phaeron saw an illusion of a cavern roof far overhead, at once there and not. He felt the touch of the warp upon this place. ‘Wards and magicks. Only a powerful seer could penetrate them.’
 	‘Could you?’
 	Kor Phaeron glared at his acolyte.
 	‘No,’ he snapped. ‘Nor could any within our Legion, save Lorgar Aurelian himself.’
 	Jepeth took them towards a rock spire in the centre of the gorge. It rose for a hundred metres, with carved stone stairs climbing to its peak.
 	‘The Fane of the Blessed,’ he announced reverentially. ‘This is where the prophecy is housed. Come.’
 	The crowds began to whisper as the Word Bearers approached the spire. They reached out for Kor Phaeron, straining to touch his massive, armoured form. Nemkhar growled, but the Master of the Faith waved him off.
 	‘Hold, Nemkhar. They will not harm me. Look at them. They revere us as gods...’
 	‘Not gods,’ Jepeth corrected him. ‘Saviours.’
 	The whispers grew into scattered cries. They openly praised Kor Phaeron, some falling to their knees and weeping with happiness.
 	‘Why do they thank me, prophet?’ he murmured.
 	‘It is in recognition of what you will do, my lord. The Children of Sicarus offer thanks for the salvation you bring.’
 	The six Word Bearers and Kor Phaeron’s human servants climbed the stone steps, leaving the crowds behind. The enemy chariot streaked once more across the sky, scouring the land below.
 	Jepeth pointed upwards. ‘The Kairic Adept Larazzar searches for you still, but she cannot breach our illusions. She knows of the destiny I have predicted, and seeks to prevent it from coming to pass.’
 	‘What does she care for your dreams and divinations?’
 	‘Your arrival signals her end, Bearer of the Word. She knows this, just as she knows the Children of Sicarus will play a part in her demise. Long has she sought the destruction of my people, in the hope of cutting the strands of fate that will lead to her fall.’
 	Kor Phaeron considered these words for a long moment. ‘Show me this prophecy.’
 	They continued until they came to a terraced platform. A smaller carved stairway rose up inside the fane. Jepeth stood aside, gesturing Kor Phaeron forwards.
 	He hesitated for only a moment. ‘Nemkhar, with me. The rest of you remain here.’
 	‘As you will it,’ the Gal Vorbak warrior replied.
 	Marduk stepped to his master’s side. ‘My lord, I will join you as well.’
 	‘No, Marduk. Stay here. Be watchful.’
 	Kor Phaeron climbed painfully after Jepeth, with Nemkhar at his back. The entrance to the fane was not meant for their armoured bulk, and both were forced to stoop.
 	Inside, all was darkness.
 	‘Khor-ignis,’ Jepeth whispered. At the prophet’s word, sconces burst into flame.
 	Kor Phaeron took in the details of his surroundings – it was a claustrophobic, circular room, lined with columns chiselled in the likeness of leering daemons. Every centimetre of the walls was engraved with writings and pictograms.
 	Jepeth gestured for them to proceed deeper into the shrine. Scowling, Kor Phaeron strode forwards, ducking his head beneath an archway of skulls and entering the inner sanctum. 
 	His attention was instantly drawn to a shallow iron plate standing atop a pedestal. A knife lay upon the plate, and the Black Cardinal felt a surge of etheric power within him as he looked upon it.
 	He gasped. ‘It cannot be...’
 	Jepeth laughed softly. ‘You know this weapon.’
 	Kor Phaeron lifted the dagger. It was a ritual knife, with a curved, tapering blade and a coiling, serpentine hilt. ‘This is the ritual athame I gave to my adopted son, back on Colchis. It belongs to the lord of the Seventeenth Legion – the Aurelian, Lorgar! How did it come to be here?’
 	‘It was left in preparation of this day.’
 	‘Left by whom?’
 	Jepeth gazed vacantly back at him.
 	Nemkhar was staring at the images to the rear of the shrine. ‘My lord…’ he called out.
 	Still holding the athame, Kor Phaeron joined him, squinting.
 	Pictograms recounting everything that he and his warriors had done since arriving on Sicarus covered the wall. The images were simple things, yet the likeness of Kor Phaeron and each member of his retinue was unmistakeable. There was Nemkhar, his body swollen with the daemon sharing his form, his arms ending in claws and bone-spines; and Marduk, his armour swathed in the robes of an acolyte; the novitiate Burias, and the others.
 	Kor Phaeron’s eyes flashed as he stared upon his own representation, with its age-lined face and sickly demeanour, and the heavy book chained at his waist.
 	He saw their battles with daemonic entities and warbands of Chaos. He saw the death of Orox’i’nor, and the enemy pursuing them across the surface of the daemon world. He saw Jepeth, the image of the prophet leaning on his staff, and their approach to the carved city where they now stood, all protected by a grand illusion from the Kairic Adept, Larazzar, whose minions had pursued them. She wore blue armour, and coiling flames held her aloft.
 	Kor Phaeron skipped ahead, moving to the final sequences. They showed Word Bearers leading the Children of Sicarus through a portal of fire, to be met on the other side by a golden-skinned giant bearing a spiked mace.
 	‘When will we rejoin the primarch?’ Kor Phaeron demanded.
 	Jepeth kept his distance. ‘For the final battle.’
 	Nemkhar clapped a gauntlet to his chest. ‘We will stand alongside him on Terra!’ he cried.
 	‘It has been foretold,’ said the prophet, simply.
 	But Kor Phaeron could not fully comprehend what he was seeing. ‘Tell me how this will come to be. Tell me!’
 	‘You already know. You hold the key to that future.’
 	Kor Phaeron looked back, searching for an answer. He came to one particular image, and his eyes narrowed.
 	It showed him plunging the ritual blade into his own throat, and blood fountaining out. In that release, the gateway to Lorgar was opened.
 	‘What madness is this...?’ he murmured.
 	He realised that he appeared nowhere else. Indeed, it seemed in the later images that it was his acolyte Marduk who was leading the Word Bearers through the portal. It was Marduk who had the holy book chained to his waist.
 	Jepeth spoke with certainty. ‘Through your blood shall your kin be reunited with your golden lord. So it has been ordained.’
 	Kor Phaeron stared at the images. Nemkhar looked at him, his eyes blazing with faith renewed. 
 	‘To die in service to the Primordial Truth and the Legion, my lord... It is a great honour...’
 	‘And your sacrifice brings hope to many,’ Jepeth agreed. ‘You are a glorious martyr, my lord.’
 	The Master of the Faith turned, slowly. Warp-light flickered in his hateful eyes.
 	‘My fate is my own. Nemkhar, kill him.’
 	The prophet was genuinely shocked. He took a step back. ‘What? You cannot defy the gods’ will!’
 	Even Nemkhar faltered. ‘My lord?’
 	Kor Phaeron took a deep breath, infusing his words with the power of darkest sorcery.
 	‘Kill him!’
 	Nemkhar’s daemonic taint rose in an instant, his physical form altering even as he leapt at Jepeth. The old man was thrown to the dusty floor, screaming in fear and pain, before the Word Bearer silenced him with a ragged slash of his claws.
 	The chamber was suddenly silent, except for Nemkhar’s bestial panting and the crackle of burning sconces. Kor Phaeron glared down at the bloody ruin that now lay between them.
 	‘Where does your loyalty lie, brother?’
 	‘In my faith.’
 	‘And in me?’
 	‘Of course. My lord.’
 	‘Good. Burn everything here, Gal Vorbak. And speak of this to no one.’
 	Kor Phaeron emerged back into the light, with Lorgar’s ritual blade concealed beneath his robe. His followers were looking up in alarm.
 	‘My lord!’ cried Marduk, racing to his side. ‘The wards!’
 	The illusions concealing the valley from above were fading, leaving it exposed. Already, daemons were circling overhead, filling the air with their screams. The acolyte took Kor Phaeron’s arm, to steady him.
 	‘Where is the prophet?’
 	‘Dead. His prophecies were naught but lies.’
 	As he spoke, the Black Cardinal glanced towards Nemkhar, who had appeared from within the burning shrine. The Gal Vorbak warrior said nothing.
 	Sorcerous fire began to fall like burning rain. It streaked down amongst the Children of Sicarus. All was panic below. The crowd scattered, trampling those unfortunate enough to fall in their haste to escape.
 	‘My lord. She is here.’
 	A shining figure was descending in the fire. The Kairic Adept, Larazzar, stood upon a spiked disc, surrounded by flames of an ever-changing hue.
 	Marduk was ready with his pistol. ‘Do we shoot?’ he whispered.
 	‘No, my young acolyte. Not yet.’
 	Daemons and other twisted minions in flying chariots descended with Larazzar, regarding the Word Bearers with disdain. Kor Phaeron stepped forwards to meet her nonetheless, his hands clenching to fists.
 	‘But be ready,’ he added quietly.
 	Larazzar turned in his direction. She was tall and powerful, encased in fluted, electric-blue armour of elegant design. She had three arms, and bore a tall spear, its tip burning silently with an azure flame. Her helm was featureless and blank, yet Kor Phaeron felt her gaze upon him.
 	His skin tingled as she drew closer. Once, she might have been human. Now she was something else entirely.
 	She stepped off her floating disc. Where she walked, life sprouted, grass and tiny flowers manifesting wherever her boots made contact with the stone.
 	With one of her three hands, she pulled her helmet free. Her face was as he remembered it, the high cheekbones tinged blue and dark teardrop tattoos under her eyes. In place of hair, she had feathers, glossy black with an iridescent sheen. The third eye, ice-blue and flecked with gold, rolled open upon her forehead.
 	‘This is an unexpected changing of the fates, False Speaker,’ she said, her voice rich and even. ‘My master is pleased. Countless futures are being re-woven even now.’
 	Kor Phaeron gritted his teeth. ‘I will forge my own future.’
 	The warlord laughed.
 	‘You are a selfish, singular creature. Your actions have unravelled countless destinies. And yet... I am intrigued.’ She looked around, as if seeing her surroundings for the first time. ‘I have long sought this place. You have my thanks for revealing it to me.’
 	The daemons and mortal servants of the Kairic Adept continued to circle, waiting upon the word of their mistress. Kor Phaeron held his ground.
 	‘What is it you hope to achieve?’ he asked.
 	‘Immortality, of course. Subjugating this world is the final step towards that goal. The prophet Jepeth blocked my ascendency. Now, this obstacle is removed.’
 	Kor Phaeron could feel the gifts of the Primordial Annihilator upon her. Its touch bled from the warlord in palpabable waves. She was close to daemonhood – perhaps closer than she realised.
 	She regarded him curiously. ‘There is something about you. Let me offer you a proposal.’
 	‘A pact?’
 	‘Yes. One that will benefit us both. You will help me take this world, and slay all who oppose me.’
 	‘And in return?’
 	Larazzar’s triple-gaze hardened. ‘Colchis is burning. Your beloved world of empty cathedrals and meaningless prayer.’
 	The Word Bearers bristled. ‘Colchis has been destroyed?’ Marduk asked, his eyes wide.
 	‘You lie!’ Kor Phaeron hissed at the warlord. ‘She lies, brothers!’
 	‘No,’ Larazzar replied, unmoved. ‘It is already aflame. Or it will be. Time is not the steady stream that mortal minds perceive. Either way, you will never return there. I offer you this promise – help me ascend, and I will let you remain upon this world as my subjects. You will have my leave to remain here even after I have departed.’
 	Kor Phaeron looked away, considering her offer. His gaze dropped to the cowering Children of Sicarus, peering up from below. Larazzar did not notice them, or did not care.
 	‘The Golden One will be pleased that you have prepared the way. Sicarus will never burn like Colchis. You will have provided a bare sanctuary for him and the Legion when he needs it.’ She leaned closer. ‘And he will need it.’
 	‘And the pathetic wretches that call this place home?’
 	‘I will claim their flesh for the Changer of the Ways. Their prophecies will never be spoken again. Is that enough for you? Will we swear our pact?’
 	‘We will,’ Kor Phaeron sighed. He stepped forwards, offering his hand to seal the alliance in the ancient manner.
 	Larazzar stared down at the open gauntlet. ‘Then let it be so.’
 	Her power was staggering. It surged from her like water from a burst dam. For a moment the Black Cardinal saw Larazzar as she might be – a figure of towering might, with great, blue-sheened wings and coiling horns. The mortal members of Kor Phaeron’s retinue dropped to their knees, blood running from their eyes, ears and noses. 
 	Upon the Children of Sicarus, the effect was far more devastating.
 	Men, women and children twitched and screamed as their bodies reformed with sudden and uncontrollable change. Bones broke as limbs bent and were remade, then remade again. Flesh and tendons tore as anatomy twisted and contorted, and spines rolled back upon themselves as new limbs and blindly groping protuberances. Gibbering mouths, cackling and whooping, split torsos. Taloned, multi-jointed hands tore bodies apart from within, birthing repulsive, pink-skinned daemons that giggled and leered.
 	Larazzar stood with her arms held wide. In the throes of her power, she did not sense Kor Phaeron looming behind her, the sacred dagger of Lorgar Aurelian clasped in his hand.
 	He reached out and opened her throat with a single, deep cut.
 	‘Did the gods not show you this future, witch?’ he spat, hauling Larazzar off her feet. ‘Perhaps you are not as adept as you thought...’
 	Kor Phaeron held the gasping warlord aloft as her lifeblood gushed from severed arteries. The etheric energy surging from her was redirected into the Black Cardinal, and he shuddered as it flowed up his arms.
 	The servants of the Kairic Adept, mortal and daemon alike, screamed. Some tried to close on Kor Phaeron, talons and blades reaching, but he hurled them back with crackling arcs of black lightning.
 	Dark-light blazed within him. Steam rose from his flesh, and his eyes flared with witch-fire.
 	Finally, he dropped the wasted corpse of Larazzar to the ground, and his exultant expression gave way to bitterness once more. As the last of her power bled from him, he became the same crippled, spiteful creature that he had always been.
 	‘The gods test me...’ he rumbled, ‘but I will not be broken. This world is mine.’
 	Kor Phaeron stood atop a rocky precipice, gazing upon the infinite vista of construction below.
 	Already the great cathedrals and spires of worship were climbing towards the burning heavens. Soaring scaffolds and plunging foundations divided the land, and endless columns of slaves, bound by chains and lashed by black-clad overseers, toiled in the depths. Monstrous beasts dragged great loads of stone and iron, while bound daemonhosts lifted arches and keystones into place with their potent magicks.
 	‘It is a grand vision, my master,’ said Marduk as he approached.
 	The Black Cardinal eyed him warily, even though he knew Jepeth’s false prophecies were no more. ‘It is indeed. Our lord Lorgar will be most pleased... Once we re-establish contact with the Legion.’
 	‘But if the Warmaster is victorious – or has already won – will any of it be needed? If he succeeds and throws down the false rule of the Emperor, the war will be over.’
 	Kor Phaeron looked again to the daemon world spread out before him. ‘Our part in Horus’ plan is done, for now, but the war will never be over. Such is the way of things. This world will be our refuge, our sanctuary. In the decades, the centuries and millennia to come, Sicarus will be the place where we can lick our wounds and gather our strength. It will be our staging ground, and the centre of our faith.’
 	He sneered inwardly at Marduk. The acolyte was hanging on his every word.
 	‘From here we will wage a war against the universe,’ he continued, grim certainty filling him for the first time that he could recall, ‘and enforce the will of the Primordial Annihilator. For we are the Bearers of the Word, and an eternity of blessed conflict awaits us.’