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Imperfect – Nick Kyme

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Imperfect

Nick Kyme

Two embattled armies, their forces scattered, glared unblinking at one another across a white and ebon field. They had begun arrayed in perfect formation, their ranks orderly, their pennants standing stiff against a shallow breeze and the faces of their front rank fighters as hard as rock. Raised up on their circular plinths, their lords and spiritual leaders had looked on imperiously – Emperor and Empress standing side by side, displaying to all the strength of their rule and commitment to victory.

But as was so often the case in war, even with the loftiest of strategic minds, order broke down and chaos took the reins. For if one thing was certain about conflict, it was that it always ended in the reign of chaos.

War now blighted this hard, unyielding plain. It could only end in defeat for one side or the other. With the clarions of battle not yet faded on the air, much blood was spilled before one of their generals spoke.

‘Do you imagine yourself as the Emperor or the Tetrarch, brother?’ asked Fulgrim.

The Phoenician was leaning back and staring at Ferrus across the finely carved game pieces. He narrowed his keen eyes, easing himself forward so that he was level with his brother, who had sunk down amongst the pieces to contemplate his next move.

Unlike his more serious sibling, Fulgrim wore loose-fitting robes of pearlescent violet and his silver hair hung loose about his neck and shoulders. An ivory goblet inscribed with curious sigils sat near the tapered fingers of his right hand, adjacent to the gaming table. Fulgrim took a sip of the draught within – it seemed to invigorate him – before saying, ‘I think you see yourself as the Tetrarch. Am I right?’

He toyed with the piece that represented the Divinitarch. She was a robed and blind seer clutching her staff of office, an iconic depiction of an iris within the letter ‘I’. Or, in ancient Grekan, the iota.

Intent on his playing pieces, Ferrus did not look up. ‘Are you trying to distract me, brother?’ he asked, good-naturedly.

His tone didn’t match his appearance. Ferrus was clad in his Medusan war-plate. Black as a funerary shroud, it looked thick and unyielding. His hair was shorn close to the scalp and his face might as well have been hewn from stone for all the emotion it betrayed.

Fulgrim leaned back, the light from the single phosphor globe above catching the porcelain cast to the skin of his face and neck. His long, lustrous hair flashed brightly in the lambent glow.

Beyond the light, there was only darkness. It made discerning the exact size of the chamber that they were playing in difficult. A low hiss did resonate on the cool air, though, suggesting at least a sizeable hall or gallery.

‘Not at all,’ he said, the slightest curl of his lip betraying both a nascent smile and the lie in his words. ‘I merely pose the question – Emperor or Tetrarch?’

‘Why not Primarch?’ Ferrus answered, looking up from his deliberations at last to fix Fulgrim with hard eyes reminiscent of knapped flint or obsidian fire-ice. ‘For that is what we are, is it not?’

Ferrus made his move, a cunning outflank with his last remaining Ecclesiarch. He sat back, arms folded, looking pleased with himself.

Fulgrim laughed, a genuine expression of warm bonhomie that he seldom felt except for when he was with his brother.

‘You should really mask your intentions better, Ferrus.’

‘Should I?’ The flicker of a smile manifested but was buried quickly under the crags of Ferrus’s stern features. ‘Who has a better mask than the Gorgon, brother?’ he asked. ‘Tell me that.’

‘Now who’s using distraction?’

Ferrus didn’t answer, but merely gestured to the board with a gauntleted hand.

Fulgrim’s face darkened a little as he noticed the armoured glove, but he recovered quickly. Who wears armour to a gentle game of strategy, he thought, though the shadows around them seemed to shift uncomfortably at the ire implicit in Fulgrim’s unspoken tone. And the gauntlets? Amateurish.

‘Does it bother you,’ he said aloud, addressing Ferrus, ‘being called that? Gorgon. An ugly creature, a monster of Grekan myth, so loathsome it could petrify a man by merely looking at him.’

Ferrus gave a short laugh.

‘I see it as a compliment. Besides, I am ugly.’

They laughed together at Ferrus’s mild self-deprecation. He only did it in Fulgrim’s presence, the closeness of their fraternal bond evident in his apparent ease.

Even so, Ferrus still had to rationalise comment. It was his nature.

‘My enemies held rigid with fear just at the sight of my stern countenance,’ he said, sighing. ‘Would that all battles were fought and won so easily.’

‘Yes...’ Fulgrim replied wistfully, his attention only half upon the board. ‘Would that they were.’

He leaned forwards again, going to take a sip from his goblet but finding to his dissatisfaction that he had already drained it.

‘We are friends, you and I?’ he asked.

Ferrus frowned, slightly incredulous at Fulgrim’s remark. ‘Did I not forge your sword for you, brother?’

‘Is that what friendship is, the forging of swords?’

‘I can think of no more tangible a bond of trust than that,’ Ferrus answered, his raw honesty difficult for Fulgrim to see. ‘As warriors, we need to be sure of our weapons in battle. I would not let just anyone forge something I rely upon so keenly.’

‘And so does that mean you trusted me then?’

Ferrus’s brow furrowed in confusion. ‘Trusted?’

‘Trust. That you trust me.’

‘You are my brother, Fulgrim. Of course I trust you.’

‘And do you trust all of your brothers?’

Now the Gorgon showed his true face, a stern slab of rock that seemed to darken the light with the sudden severity of its expression. ‘You know I don’t.’

Fulgrim recalled the names. Curze, Magnus, Jaghatai...

‘Then ours is a deeper bond,’ he said, relaxing.

‘Rare as the ore of Medusa.’

Fulgrim smiled warmly, forgetting for a moment where he was.

‘How do you think two men like us became such firm friends when our humours are so very different?’

‘We are far from mortal men, Fulgrim.’

Ferrus had always revelled in that. The idea that he was greater, more than just ordinary. Perhaps my own demeanour is not so different?

‘Well, you know what I mean.’

Ferrus bowed his head apologetically. ‘Are our humours so dissimilar?’

You’re right, they’re not. I am the master of mine and you... well...

‘And does similarity really promote such a strong bond? Both Vulkan and I are blacksmiths of one creed or another. I respect his craft, but I do not wish he was sitting here in your place.’

Fulgrim leaned back again, seemingly satisfied. ‘You are noble, Ferrus. I want you to know that.’

Ferrus smiled, his dark mood lifting.

‘And you are still procrastinating, brother.’

‘Just playing up to your pride.’

Fulgrim made his next move, opting to place one of his Citizens in a vulnerable position. It was an obvious strategy, and one Ferrus should see coming. But it veiled a second threat, concealed by the hooded board.

Their battlefield was circular – not an uncommon configuration – and divided into segments, each of which were made up of nexuses conjoined by the curved lines that gave the board its shape. Six spokes jutted from the main nexus, the core. Both primarch’s pieces were currently arrayed around it, though not all were visible. The ‘hooded’ board meant that several of their pieces, predetermined before the commencement of the game, were held in reserve. When deployed, such pieces would remain hidden, represented as lowly Citizens, until such time as they turned or killed another piece.

The only other way to reveal the identity of hooded pieces was to use a Divinitarch. Ferrus had sacrificed his early on, deeming it tactically more valuable to manoeuvre his Tetrarch into a favourable position.

The armoured warrior piece, its sword held up in salute against its visored faceplate, had much in kind with its wielder’s demeanour.

As Fulgrim released the Citizen, Ferrus gave a snort of admonition.

‘I won’t be goaded so easily.’

His thin, serpentine lips pursed. Fulgrim considered his brother’s words but left the obvious rejoinder unspoken. Instead, he returned to the question. ‘You still haven’t answered. Emperor or Tetrarch?’

Ferrus smiled, engrossed in the board and the game.

It is good to see him at such ease.

Fulgrim studied him.

The angular cheekbones. The sweep of his heavy brow, each line above it like a fissure in the sharp crags of his face. The muscular jawline, peppered with dark stubble. The trunk-like neck. A pugilist’s ears – ugly, small and misshapen. The mild discolouration of his skin from hours spent toiling in the forge. His piercing eyes, ever judging. Every hair, every stalwart tooth, every crease and scar...

‘Blind Man’s Fate is a strategy to use against novices, brother,’ said Ferrus in his familiar rumbling baritone. Again, he moved his Tetrarch.

‘Novices, or the arrogant pedagogue...’ Fulgrim murmured.

‘And which am I?’

Both. Neither.

‘Let us see, shall we?’

Fulgrim brought his Divinitarch into contact with a hooded Citizen, and Ferrus was forced to reveal its true identity.

‘A Fortress, brother? How intriguing.’

‘Is it?’

‘Only that, whenever we have played this game, you always favour an attacking strategy.’

Paying no heed and absorbed in the game, Ferrus took his Fortress down the board towards the core nexus.

‘Aggressive...’ Fulgrim nodded approvingly, then made his own move.

Taking less and less time to deliberate each move, Ferrus swept aside the Ecclesiarch that Fulgrim had just offered him in a killing move that sent a flash of anticipatory triumph across the Gorgon’s face.

Fulgrim tapped the edge of the table with his thin, sinuous fingers. His fallen Ecclesiarch had apparently dented his preferred strategy. The seconds lapsed, and he did nothing.

‘Do you know why they call this game “Regicide”?’ he asked, caressing the ivory stem of his white Empress, she with all the potency but none of the actual power.

‘I care not,’ snapped Ferrus. ‘Cease this pathetic stalling and make your move.’

‘Patience, brother,’ Fulgrim chided him. ‘Was Narodnya really so long ago that you’ve forgotten how to be patient?’

Ferrus looked about to snap again when he relaxed, plaintively holding up both gauntleted hands. Again, Fulgrim noticed them and had to stifle a tremor of rage beneath his right eye. A sibilant undertone cut the frigid air.

‘What was that?’ Ferrus asked, reacting to the sound.

‘Nothing. Just atmospheric recirculation protocols.’

For the first time since the game began, Fulgrim looked up from the table and into the darkness beyond. He preferred it this way, especially when playing, as it tended to focus the mind. A hazy spotlight flushed the table and its players in sickly yellow. Just beyond this faint corona of illumination, penumbral figures could been seen in silhouette watching the contest unfold. They were still, rapt with attention as the test reached its most crucial phase.

‘Death of a monarch,’ answered Ferrus, his voice drawing Fulgrim’s attention back to him. ‘That’s what it means.’

‘It also refers to the death of an emperor,’ the Phoenician countered, finding his confidence again as he marshalled his Empress into position. ‘Not only that, brother, but the just and lawful execution of said monarch or emperor, following trial.’ He licked his lips and the susurration from the atmospheric recirculation briefly intensified. ‘I find it an intriguing notion.’

‘Indeed,’ said Ferrus, his attention back again on the board.

A trap was forming, his awareness of it evident in his tense facial expression. It also revealed that he could not discern the nature of the trap – only that one existed.

Still so blind...

By moving his Empress, Fulgrim had left his Emperor open to attack.

‘Yes,’ he continued. ‘Intriguing that an emperor can be considered subject to the same laws and strictures that bind ordinary men. That any act of harm put to such a being can be considered lawful and just.’

‘You believe it should not be so?’

‘I believe it suggests that a leader, or even a father, can be flawed.’

‘All men have flaws, it’s what makes them men. The ability to see and mitigate one’s own flaws is a measure of a man’s greatness. Only good leaders possess such self-awareness.’

How ironic, Fulgrim wanted to say, but instead he said, ‘Now who’s stalling, brother?’ deliberately turning Ferrus’s earlier words against him in the hope of gaining a psychological advantage.

‘I am not stalling.’ Some of the anger returned, visible in the Gorgon’s clenching and unclenching of his fists.

‘Then act.’

‘You are trying to hurry me into a mistake.’

No goading is required, dear brother.

Ferrus’s gauntleted hand poised over the Tetrarch. One angular move, and he could kill the identical piece in Fulgrim’s army. It was a move called ‘the Swordbreaker’ and in this version of Regicide it would turn Ferrus’s conquering Tetrarch into a Primarch, a piece of much greater manoeuvrability and, therefore, power.

‘You’re hiding something,’ he said, still wavering.

‘And you’re behaving distinctly out of character, brother.’ Fulgrim snarled, baring his teeth.

Ferrus seemed not to notice. Instead, he stared at the board, wracked by indecision.

‘Do I kill him?’

How many times did I ask myself that very question?

After making his move, Ferrus would have to withstand whatever attack Fulgrim crafted next, but with another Primarch at his side. He scrutinised the board, but saw no potential danger.

‘You have nothing...’ he muttered, smiling. ‘As ever, you opt for obfuscation instead of a solid strategy.’

‘Then show me yours,’ invited Fulgrim. ‘But before you do, answer my question. Are you the Tetrarch or the Emperor?’

Ferrus looked up, his face a mask of defiant belligerence.

‘No one can be Emperor, save the Emperor himself,’ he declared and thrust his Tetrarch forwards, killing the opposing piece and substituting for his new Primarch. ‘As I play, I imagine myself as the Tetrarch.’

And there’s the brother I know.

‘Without pretension to rule, only to serve,’ said Fulgrim.

‘Just so.’

‘And now Primarch.’

‘Again, yes. It’s your move, brother.’

‘Becoming what you appear to be.’

‘Is there not honour in that?’ asked Ferrus, but his pride bled through in the words.

‘Much. Dissembling is for less obvious minds than yours, dear brother.’

That was a mistake. Fulgrim hadn’t meant to say that out loud. Perhaps he was not as in control of the situation – and himself – as he thought?

Ferrus scowled, annoyed. ‘What is that supposed to mean?’

Words could not be unsaid, so Fulgrim went with them. With an open hand, he gestured to the board and the game in progress. There was a faint undercurrent of sadness to the Phoenician’s tone as he made his final move.

‘That you fail to see what is in front of you.’

The Citizen he had positioned earlier came adjacent to Ferrus’s new Primarch and revealed itself to be an Ecclesiarch. Both of Fulgrim’s Divinitarchs and his second Ecclesiarch were also adjacent. None could take the Primarch, for their specific permitted moves across the board combined with their relative positions did not afford this opportunity. They did, however, allow for something else.

Ferrus’s eyes widened as he finally saw the trap. ‘Too late,’ he murmured, ‘too late...’

You were, both of you. And too weak...

Fulgrim started for a moment, unsure as to where the thought had come from, but quickly recovered.

‘This,’ he said, tapping the place over his chest beneath which his heart was beating fast, ‘was your downfall. Too rash, too eager. Undone by your anger, your arrogance. Are you so impatient, Ferrus? You speak of flaws, of the traits of great men. Are we not great men? So then, are we so aware of our own inherent flaws? Are you?’

Ferrus had no answer. He could only stare mutely, grasping for comprehension.

That was the second fault.

Fulgrim simmered with displeasure, but had to play this out.

‘Why did you not heed me, brother?’ he asked. ‘We were bonded you and I, beneath the slopes of Mount Narodnya. You with Fireblade and I with Forgebreaker. Now, what has become of those noble weapons and the ideals we craved as we forged them?’

Ferrus looked up from the table, a frozen fist around his heart.

‘The Traitor’s Gambit?’ he asked, not because he didn’t recognise the strategy but more out of disbelief that Fulgrim had used it against him.

Anger. This was something that the Ferrus before Fulgrim could understand.

‘You sound annoyed, brother,’ the Phoenician hissed.

‘Because you try to turn me!’

‘I have turned you, Ferrus. You have fought and bled, wrought a piece with significant power for your efforts, and now I have taken it for my own.’

Ferrus shoved the table back so it jabbed Fulgrim in the stomach, and rose to his feet.

‘Brother!’ Fulgrim shifted backwards himself and tried to look shocked.

He is unravelling again, just like before.

‘You dare...’ accused Ferrus. He slammed his fist down on the board, scattering the pieces.

‘I dare what? We are merely playing a friendly game.’

‘You dare this?’ Ferrus clenched his jaw. Fulgrim could hear his brother’s teeth grinding hatefully, but he stayed where he was for now.

‘How have I insulted you? Please sit down.’ He gestured to Ferrus’s stool, but it was upended and rolling away from the board now. ‘Return to the game.’

‘Your game,’ Ferrus snarled. ‘One in which you try to turn my hand. I am a loyal son of the Emperor. As were you.’

He reached for a weapon, but there was no scabbard at his hip and no hammer at his back.

‘Perturabo has Forgebreaker now,’ Fulgrim said with resignation. ‘His anger towards me eclipses your own, brother, as hard as I’m sure that is for you to believe.’

Seismic cracks appeared in the Gorgon’s stolid countenance as he struggled to comprehend everything that Fulgrim was saying.

‘Where is Perturabo?’ Ferrus demanded. ‘Where is my hammer? Tell me!’

The ruse is over, said the voice in Fulgrim’s head that had hijacked his most recent thoughts. ‘I agree...’ Fulgrim muttered sadly.

‘With what?’ snapped Ferrus.

‘That this is done.’ Fulgrim glanced to the shadows and the silhouette standing there. ‘I am very disappointed in you,’ he murmured, then turned his ophidian gaze back to Ferrus, ‘And as for you...’

Ferrus seemed not to understand. ‘Explain yourself.’

Fulgrim did as Ferrus requested, five words that drained away the Gorgon’s wrath and left him stunned.

‘You are not my brother.’

Savagely, Fulgrim gripped the Regicide table in both hands and threw it aside. The pieces clattered noisily to the floor, Emperors and Citizens alike toppled and slain in seconds. The game was over, and Fulgrim was revealed in all of his infernal beauty.

Ferrus backed away as the other primarch rose to his full height, dwarfing him.

He gasped, ‘Monster...’

Fulgrim’s reply was sibilant and insidious. ‘I prefer exalted.’

Where Ferrus had known him as a being of immortal perfection, a handsome warrior-king of Chemos, the creature that Fulgrim had become scarcely echoed that former ideal.

A purplish hue affected the pallor of his skin now, and there were ridges of scale in kind with Fulgrim’s serpentine body. His upper torso and face still remained much as it once had been, though the eyes looked distinctly reptilian and sharp, needle-like fangs filled a mouth that seemed, at times, oddly distended. His legs were no more, his dancing swordman’s gait surrendered in preference to the coiled agility of a viper’s tail, the two limbs conjoined by some terrible alchemy.

Fulgrim knew his appearance well. He had often studied it narcissistically in one of his many mirrors. He had beheld it in the shimmering blood of his enemies. Seen it reflected in the eyes of those he was about to kill.

It was murderous. It was beautiful.

It was perfection.

Unlike this wretched specimen.

Ferrus was overcoming his revulsion, and bunched his fists.

‘That won’t be necessary...’ uttered Fulgrim flatly, and sprang at him.

Ferrus roared as Fulgrim clamped his maw around the Gorgon’s neck and bit deep. In a panic, those strong, gauntleted hands wrapped around his upper and lower jaws and tried to pull them open.

Fulgrim was spitting blood as Ferrus’s carotid artery gushed even more vigorously. The Gorgon’s grip was firm, his face a mask of pained hatred. Fulgrim raked him with his talons, tearing deep rents in his armour, but Ferrus clung on desperately.

Like a beast tamer wrestling his charge, Ferrus used the power in his hips to fling Fulgrim onto his back where the monster writhed and hissed.

‘I remember now...’ he snarled, blazing Medusan anger to meet his cold, iron hatred. ‘Your betrayal.’

He slowly prised open Fulgrim’s jaws like they were a vice.

‘You coward!’

Fulgrim thrashed, unable to speak, seized by the very real possibility that significant harm might yet come to him. He twisted, trying to free himself, but Ferrus would not let him go.

‘I should have killed you at Isstvan,’ Ferrus said, ‘I should have–’

He does remember. Everything, just as Fabius had promised he would.

‘I...’ Ferrus stumbled, losing his grip as he stared down dumbly at the thing that his brother had willingly become.

He remembered too much.

‘You tried,’ said Fulgrim, grief-stricken and slurring the words.

With a ferocious twist of his serpentine body, Fulgrim threw Ferrus off. He staggered, going down on one knee, but didn’t move far. His trailing hand, supporting his body, scraped against an armoured boot. In confusion, Ferrus looked down behind him into the shadows.

He saw a figure there. Recognising its physiognomy, he looked back to his brother.

‘What is this?’ he asked, struggling with his ambivalent emotions.

Fulgrim righted himself and stabbed his dumbstruck brother through the heart with his barbed tail, piercing the weak spot he had raked earlier with his talons.

‘I think it’s closure,’ Fulgrim answered with quiet resignation. ‘Or sometimes torture.’

And so Ferrus Manus, the Gorgon and Primarch of the Iron Hands, died.

Again.

Fulgrim glared at the corpse, unable to hide his disgust.

‘He was imperfect. How many times now is it that you have failed me, Fabius?’

The silhouette watching from the shadows shifted uncomfortably.

‘My lord,’ began a rasping, obsequious voice.

‘Don’t answer, I can see for myself.’

Lumen globes fixed in alcoves and the domed ceiling above flared into life in perfect unison. Revealed starkly in their glow were bodies. Huge, armoured, primarch bodies. Corpses. The coppery stench of their spilled and cooling blood was almost overwhelming. Fulgrim had ordered nullifying agents pumped into the chamber to mask the smell, but seeing it seemed to bring it back.

Ferrus Manus lay dead. His imperfect clones littered the chamber floor in their dozens, a silent and broken audience. Fulgrim regarded them disappointedly.

Apothecary Fabius’s hololithic image flickered nearby, but cast no light that he might observe without disturbing his primarch. Even with practised indifference disguising much of the emotion of his wizened face, Fabius looked relieved that he was not actually in Fulgrim’s presence.

The flesh-maker was in his usual garb. A shawl of rough, leathern skin draped purple and gold armour and a necrotic-looking armature sprouted from his back. The chirurgeon’s limbs were folded, though the many surgical instruments, diffusers and injection-philtres were still visible.

‘It is not easy, my lord,’ he tried again, peering through tangles of dirty white hair, taking advantage of the primarch’s distraction. ‘And corrupt samples yield imperfect results.’ He paused to lick those dry, cadaverous lips. ‘As you can see, cloning a being like a primarch – well, it is a process that borders on requiring the Emperor’s own scientific genius to perfect.’

A marble table, with a Regicide board carefully arranged upon it, stood alone and unmolested some metres away. The last one. Fulgrim eased his immense serpent body down next to it, taking his position as he had many times before.

Repetition was important, Fabius had informed him. It was the only way to control the many variables. Subtle changes would garner more conclusive results.

‘I can hear your pride from several systems away, Fabius.’

Fabius bowed. ‘It is complex, but not impossible.’

‘Then what about his hands?’ Fulgrim snapped. ‘They were like flowing mercury, not gauntleted. He must be perfect! I need this Fabius. I need it. When Ferrus died I was a prisoner in my own flesh. I have to speak to him. I have to tell him...’ he trailed off.

‘Replication is not easy,’ said the Apothecary, filling the brief silence with his squirming excuses. ‘As I said, a corrupt sample–’

‘The blood from my blade shall have to suffice!’

‘Yes, my lord, but the problem I am trying to–’

‘Shut up. I’m bored.’ Fulgrim sneered at the hololith. ‘You are an unpleasant creature, Fabius. So full of bile.’

‘As you wish, my lord. Are you ready to try again?’

Fulgrim nodded curtly and the lights dimmed once more, a single globe staying lit over the Regicide table as the rest of the chamber was drowned in darkness. From below there came the sound of gears and servos, a great mechanism at work. A hatch slid open, large enough to admit a hulking figure in black war-plate sitting upon a simple stool.

As the clone reached the chamber, the platform filled the hatchway and Ferrus opened his eyes.

‘Brother,’ it said warmly, awareness lighting up its face. ‘Are you ready to play?’

I am ready... hissed the voice in Fulgrim’s head.

Have I not silenced you?

You can no more silence me than you can silence yourself, dear host.

You are subservient to me.

For now...

Fulgrim clenched a fist, but the daemon would have to wait. He wasn’t surprised that it had resurfaced. This had as much to do with it as it did Fulgrim and his brother.

Ferrus seemed not to notice the delay, his awareness held in mental stasis until Fulgrim gestured to the board. The Phoenician smiled as Ferrus looked down to consider his move.

‘Do you consider yourself the Tetrarch or the Emperor?’ asked Fulgrim, and the game began.

Again.

Unlike most of his brethren, Fabius preferred isolation to the company of others. He had always regarded his pathology as unique amongst the Emperor’s Children – whenever he flayed a subject or pinned back its flesh to reveal the complex anatomy of its internal organs, there was an end in mind. Knowledge, reason. It separated him from his more... self-indulgent siblings.

Fabius desired sensation. He wanted to experience all of it, but he wanted to do that forever. He also knew that his great work would take time. Millennia, perhaps, despite the fact he had already made significant progress.

By returning to the Pride of the Emperor, he had to sacrifice certain ‘freedoms’ to experiment, proscriptions he had not been bound by on the Andronius, but it was a large ship and Fulgrim had much to occupy him already. If this latest fascination with the Gorgon was anything to gauge by, Fabius could operate more or less with impunity.

If he was careful.

In the antechamber where he currently toiled, secrecy was of prime importance. A gene-coded key was required to access it, something Fabius altered every few cycles. It was also hidden deep in the bowels of the ship and would not appear on any schematics or auspex scans. It was, for all intents and purposes, a dead zone.

The irony of that particular nomenclature amused the Apothecary. He smiled, seeing himself reflected grimly in the outer glass on the caskets he had under observation.

In one, a mutated freak with tiny winged appendages of gristle and wasted flesh. It mewled in the briny solution of the casket, blind and forever drowning. Another bore its organs on the outside, a ruddy scum collecting at the bottom of its casket as it raged impotently with its shrivelled fists against the glass. The samples numbered in the dozens, each in varying stages of evolution and genetic success.

Ferrus had not been the first, though he was advanced. Nor would he be the last.

Strolling the length of the laboratorium, the caskets reminded Fabius of some insidious processional. He paused at the last in the line.

Within was an infant child, curled up, sleeping warm and safe within its amniotic stew. A Cthonian birthmark was visible on the small of the child’s tiny back.

‘Sleep,’ hissed Fabius, a grim nursemaid to the slumbering infant, ‘for when you wake, the galaxy shall be a very different place.’

About the Author

Nick Kyme is the author of the Horus Heresy novel Vulkan Lives, the novellas Promethean Sun and Scorched Earth, and the audio drama Censure. His novella ‘Feat of Iron’ was a New York Times bestseller in the Horus Heresy collection, The Primarchs. For the Warhammer 40,000 universe, Nick is well known for his popular Salamanders novels, including Rebirth, the Space Marine Battles novel Damnos, and numerous short stories. He has also written fiction set in the world of Warhammer, most notably the Time of Legends novel The Great Betrayal for the War of Vengeance series. He lives and works in Nottingham, and has a rabbit.

Primarch Fulgrim of the Emperor’s Children leads his brother Perturabo and the Iron Warriors in an attack upon a mysterious eldar world, in search of ancient xenos weaponry.

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First published in Death and Defiance in 2014.
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o 1.1 to store the e-book on any number of electronic devices and/or storage media (including, by way of example only, personal computers, e-book readers, mobile phones, portable hard drives, USB flash drives, CDs or DVDs) which are personally owned by you;

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* 2. For the avoidance of doubt, you are ONLY licensed to use the e-book as described in paragraph 1 above. You may NOT use or store the e-book in any other way. If you do, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license.

* 3. Further to the general restriction at paragraph 2, Black Library shall be entitled to terminate this license in the event that you use or store the e-book (or any part of it) in any way not expressly licensed. This includes (but is by no means limited to) the following circumstances:

o 3.1 you provide the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.2 you make the e-book available on bit-torrent sites, or are otherwise complicit in ‘seeding’ or sharing the e-book with any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.3 you print and distribute hard copies of the e-book to any company, individual or other legal person who does not possess a license to use or store it;

o 3.4 You attempt to reverse engineer, bypass, alter, amend, remove or otherwise make any change to any copy protection technology which may be applied to the e-book.

* 4. By purchasing an e-book, you agree for the purposes of the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 that Black Library may commence the service (of provision of the e-book to you) prior to your ordinary cancellation period coming to an end, and that by purchasing an e-book, your cancellation rights shall end immediately upon receipt of the e-book.

* 5. You acknowledge that all copyright, trademark and other intellectual property rights in the e-book are, shall remain, the sole property of Black Library.

* 6. On termination of this license, howsoever effected, you shall immediately and permanently delete all copies of the e-book from your computers and storage media, and shall destroy all hard copies of the e-book which you have derived from the e-book.

* 7. Black Library shall be entitled to amend these terms and conditions from time to time by written notice to you.

* 8. These terms and conditions shall be governed by English law, and shall be subject only to the jurisdiction of the Courts in England and Wales.

* 9. If any part of this license is illegal, or becomes illegal as a result of any change in the law, then that part shall be deleted, and replaced with wording that is as close to the original meaning as possible without being illegal.

* 10. Any failure by Black Library to exercise its rights under this license for whatever reason shall not be in any way deemed to be a waiver of its rights, and in particular, Black Library reserves the right at all times to terminate this license in the event that you breach clause 2 or clause 3.