Eidolon: The Auric Hammer, page 16
‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ he snarled through gritted teeth.
‘Now that, you never fail at.’
‘I am made in your image,’ Eidolon said. ‘Shaped by your teachings and your failings.’
‘Ahh, of course you blame me for your mistakes.’ The others had risen and gathered around them as they spoke, keeping a respectful distance. Eidolon imagined there were few who would dare the primarch’s wrath as he was now. ‘I offered you a rare gift, Eidolon. An opportunity to be made whole and to seize greatness.’ The primarch hooked a taloned finger into the skin of Eidolon’s face and dragged it through his flesh.
Eidolon hissed at the sudden rush of pleasure and pain, the sensation of the blood dappling down his cheek and armoured shoulder. He leant into it. He would not be humbled. He forced his face against the bladed digit and let it bite. Eidolon could feel it pushing deeper, scraping against the bone.
Pain could be overcome in the pursuit of perfection. That was what he had always believed and followed.
‘I have greatness enough already,’ Eidolon said. The blade pressed in at his throat and he ignored it. He reached up and seized Fulgrim’s wrist. Eidolon felt the power within his flesh, the barely contained fury of the immaterium. It called to him with all the seductive promise that his broken soul had offered, whispering the same honeyed promises.
Fulgrim was no different to any other child of the warp. All their power was poisoned. There was strength in being mortal.
He pulled Fulgrim’s arm away and watched that perfect gaze widen. Shock and admiration flickered across the primarch’s flawless features before settling into a bemused sneer. ‘Perhaps you do, my son.’
Fulgrim spread his arms and a light mewling escaped his lips as he shook Eidolon’s grip free. He stretched and his flesh and armour began to run and shift like clay. That captive light bled out of him, weeping through his transforming skin. Fulgrim reared up as his abdomen distended and more arms forced their way through skin and ceramite, clawing at the air. His tail whipped about behind him before it coiled forwards, winding around Eidolon as the daemon primarch drew ever nearer.
His eyes were pools of black fire where dying stars wheeled and collided. Fulgrim’s beauty was an atrocity in itself. It was horror shaped into art. He was the most beautiful and terrible thing Eidolon had ever gazed upon. Even more so than upon Iydris, perhaps more than at the Dark Triumph at Ullanor, Fulgrim now truly inhabited his Apotheosis.
‘Strength is not enough, lord commander,’ Fulgrim whispered. He squeezed. The slightest flex or contraction and Eidolon knew his legs would break. ‘Not alone. We will not win the wars to come simply by being strongest. Our wars will be won because we are better. We shall make war in such glory and splendour that it shall burn simply to look upon us. Upon Terra’s soil we shall be reborn in truth. The Emperor’s Children shall come home at last, tear him from his tower, and break him underfoot.’
‘Yet we squander our resources–’
‘No, Eidolon. I spend the lives of my Legion as I see fit. What are a few more bodies in the ground when you are, as a whole, sharper now than you were before?’ Two of Fulgrim’s arms grasped Eidolon by the arms and another two braced against his breastplate. ‘You feel it, do you not? Rising from the ashes of your soul and taking wing. I have given that gift to you, my son. New strength and determination.’
‘You think this is a gift? You would have made me into a mere thing of the warp – your lesser and your shadow – had I not chosen another path.’
Fulgrim smirked. ‘Oh, I cared not which side triumphed. Be you bound by flesh or ascendant in spirit, it would have brought me much amusement.’
‘All the more reason for me to set my own fate. If our fathers are uncaring, all the better to spite them.’
‘You always were a contrary child,’ Fulgrim tutted. The daemon primarch shook his head and his black eyes flared suddenly with disappointed anger. ‘Have I cultivated too much wasted potential? Sons who never lived up to my expectations? Perhaps I should have tried harder to shepherd you all to your destinies. Or simply skinned more of you alive and made my throne from your bones. Hmm?’
Eidolon shook his head. ‘Your capriciousness did not leave you when you ascended, father. No. Far from it. Your mercurial paranoia and desperation for approval have only accelerated, fuelled and fattened by the warp. It has seeped into your heart and swelled the gardens of your own failings – crops of venal pettiness and fickle madness, filled to bursting by the sea of souls!’
The mania passed as readily as it had come. One of Fulgrim’s hands drifted up to stroke along Eidolon’s unmarred cheek. He wore no gauntlets, but the passage of the clawed fingers left lines of fire down Eidolon’s skin, as potent as a power-fielded claw. Rippling electrostatic aftershocks trickled through his flesh, setting the nerves ablaze and making his face twitch and tic.
‘Perhaps…’ Eidolon forced the words out. ‘We are all the products of fathers who cared too little until it was too late.’
Fulgrim’s hand snapped up and seized Eidolon’s hair, yanking his head back with such fury that vertebrae ground against one another. Eidolon hissed with pain. The primarch didn’t flinch, instead leaning closer to savour the discharge of power.
‘Impressive…’ he whispered, so close that only Eidolon could hear him. The Lord Commander Primus’ eyes snapped from side to side, trying to look anywhere but at the burning incarnation of the Dark Prince’s might. All around them the Third Millennial had closed in. None knew what to do. Weapons were held ready, but to what end? He could see the conflict warring within them. Slaves to two masters. Some of the warriors had their eyes locked on the floor. Unable or unwilling to regard Fulgrim in his true form.
‘Look at me. Look at me!’ the primarch snapped as he shook Eidolon. Eidolon’s eyes focused back upon him. A forked purple tongue slid from between Fulgrim’s lips. ‘Excellent. You are capable of listening, then. Yet so disobedient and wilful. You’ve never forgiven me, have you?’
‘I–’
‘Don’t deny it!’ Fulgrim snarled. ‘I have given you such gifts, Eidolon. Such opportunities. Why do you spurn me? You could not escape me. I bear a father’s love and a father’s failings. I do not deny this… But I will not suffer your mewling disdain. Not here. Not now. Terra is before us. Terra! There will be no greater conflict. No truer moment nor opportunity than when we have the Throneworld’s throat beneath our boot. My father’s precious Palace laid bare and broken. Imagine the opportunity there, to see him brought low and broken.’
‘I will be there,’ Eidolon panted as he kicked out. Fulgrim lifted him bodily and let the blows rain against his breastplate and undulating flesh. The coils tightened and Fulgrim grinned.
‘If I allow it,’ he sneered. ‘If you forgive me. I took your life and I had Fabius give it back. I was the lash and the rod at your back, and now look at you, my son. You held a third of the Legion to task. You ran down the Khan and his savages. You were the first to come to me at Ullanor when I called upon my sons. Now all I ask is that you forgive, and serve.’
‘You killed me!’ Eidolon snapped. His voice boomed off the unnaturally smooth walls and staggered the gathering knot of warriors. Fulgrim barely flinched. The primarch’s baleful radiance flared. The unclean light caught upon stray pools of blood, making the crimson fluid writhe with gaudy illumination. Shapes moved within them, faces pressing up as though against window glass. Impossible breath fogged the veil between worlds, taunted forth by their master, drawn so very close to be his handmaids or confidants.
Eidolon tasted the stink of the Phoenician. Drank it in, through his nose and mouth, every last pore opening to absorb the pheromone reek of the demigod. In their mortal existence even the least of the primarchs had possessed a power that could unman all but the strongest of warriors. Often strength of will had been all that saved a man from being reduced to a babbling imbecile.
Fulgrim was swollen with venomous charisma. It radiated from him in an almost physical wave. It would have driven Eidolon away had he not been held in place, pinned like a specimen, burning beneath the lamplight of his father’s attention and affection.
‘You killed me,’ Eidolon repeated, his voice low and quaking. ‘On a whim. For nothing.’
‘I had you brought back…’
‘As an afterthought! Yet more of your fickleness and vanity!’ Eidolon’s throat pulsed with sympathetic anger, and he reached up, seizing hold of Fulgrim’s grasping arms and forcing them back. He dropped, hitting the ground, almost going to his knees. Eidolon surged up as his throat aligned and dilated.
The scream erupted from him, forced out and hurled against his master. It was near volcanic in its fury, a pyroclastic body blow that drove the primarch back. Flesh struck stone with a wet, hissing slap. The daemon’s tail flailed through the air even as his torso slid back upright, leaving an acid smear like a slug’s trail behind him.
‘I am not your slave or your puppet,’ Eidolon snarled. His hand closed around the discarded haft of Glory Aeterna and swept the weapon up. It swung in a hissing arc of discharged lightning, trailing it like the tails of a comet. Fulgrim slithered out of the way, his body going flat against the ground as the hammer slammed into the stonework, gouging a fresh crater.
‘And look at you now. A man of your own will. A soldier of intent.’ Fulgrim ducked and dodged a second and a third attack, and then brought his hands up. Swords shimmered into being, their gilded edges catching the next strike, turning it aside. A storm of slashes rained down upon Eidolon, an intricate pattern of blows that each missed him, pinning him between a web of sword blades, trapping him against the wall and ground. The blades flexed barely a micron and Eidolon hissed. Pain saturated him till his nerves sang and blood ran from the barely perceptible wounds in his plate and flesh.
‘You cannot imagine,’ Fulgrim said, and drew himself closer still. Close enough that Eidolon could smell the sugar-and-cyanide odour of his breath. ‘I could be a beautiful death if you so desire. At my hand you could cross that veil once more and be mere prey for those who wait beyond. My beloved N’kari is there, and my master’s favoured handmaiden. All those who serve the will and want of the Dark Prince would have their turn with you, my sweet Eidolon. What will your answer be?’
One of the swords, a silver blade with its hilt entwined by carved writhing bodies, evaporated in a hiss of opiate smoke. Fulgrim’s clawed hand shot forward and seized Eidolon’s chin, forcing him to look directly into the piteous eyes. He could see the madness and desperation screaming there, flickering around the barest memory of the man Fulgrim had been, before the monstrosity of his vice and ego had subsumed him forever.
‘I will lead my men as I always have,’ Eidolon said at last. ‘I will lead them to Terra itself and I will do it for myself alone. For the glory that is due to me.’
‘Was that so difficult?’ Fulgrim laughed. He flung his many arms wide, each one poised at a different angle, an ancient avatar of divinity given new life and potency. ‘Once perhaps I might have kept you alive merely because it pleased me, Eidolon, but you have wrought a wonder here – that much is true.’ Fulgrim spun about and turned his attention outwards. Almost as one the gathered warriors sank to their knees. There was little other choice in the face of it, the storm of Fulgrim’s love, the air cut by the knives of his fickle affections. Only the Kakophoni remained standing, priming their weapons.
‘Sons of the Third Legion. Children of the Emperor. Hear me! Your master calls!
‘You have fought and bled for me, and I love each of you for your service. Just as I cherish the service of your Lord Commander Primus.’ He paused as though mulling over Eidolon’s full, and self-given, title, before continuing. ‘He has struggled on your behalf, led boldly and bravely. He pleases me, just as your service has pleased him!’ Mischief danced in Fulgrim’s dark eyes.
Somehow it did not matter that he was now a warp-swollen monster, a looming and many-armed serpent god; Fulgrim commanded their attention as readily as he had on the parade ground or as they were poised to swear an oath of moment.
‘My son,’ Fulgrim murmured as he slithered forwards, arms reaching out in one motion to seize Eidolon, as though in some conspiratorial embrace. His sharply angled face slid next to Eidolon’s, his lips at the Lord Commander Primus’ ear. ‘This is the last time you disobey me. You have grown strong and proud, but next to me you are still nothing.’ Fulgrim’s hands clenched and caressed, some drifting across the plates of Eidolon’s armour where others held him fiercely. With but a gesture he could rip Eidolon limb from limb. ‘Try my patience again and your great sacrifice will be in vain. Not even the Dark Prince will protect you from my wrath.’
Fulgrim pushed himself away and turned from Eidolon, arms upraised. Black lightning coursed along the vanes of his outstretched limbs as he lifted skyward, haloed by violet flame. The primarch’s physical shell broke apart, becoming a rain of gold, a flutter of rose petals, a sudden rush of perfumed air. All eyes followed his ascent and dissolution. A moment of silence passed, in wonderful fragility.
Eidolon allowed himself a moment of peace. He cast his eyes heavenward, through the pall of Fulgrim’s ascent. Far above, through the nest of tortured masonry and ruined catacombs, he could see the first hints of light.
‘He is not wrong,’ Eidolon said at last. The others looked at him, still shell-shocked from the passage of the primarch, trying in vain to tear their gaze from Fulgrim’s wake. ‘We have all suffered here, brothers. We have become the playthings of the warp, rather than its masters. The gods are fickle and so the primarch has grown yet more fickle.’ He laughed bitterly, walking across the centre of the chamber, surveying the warriors under his command.
His warriors. His Millennial. His Legion.
There was no shame now. The primarch could not humble him. Whatever pain he had felt had passed, washed away in the double-edged euphoria that came with Fulgrim’s presence. There would only be Terra, after this. No more distractions or games. Only the final test.
‘We have been tested, but we have not been found wanting,’ he went on, turning Glory Aeterna over and over again as he did so. ‘This wretched world burns. Our enemies are routed. Our superiority is undeniable. Others can claim their ascendancy, prostitute the name of their primarch, hold rank over us as though it matters. We have proved them wrong.’ He reached down and scooped up a handful of ashes.
‘There will come a time when we are free to indulge our desires, to carve our wants across a galaxy that belongs to the strong.’ He let the detritus of the world, of its people, of the Sons of Horus, drift through his fingers. ‘On that day, I shall lead us out, and not even the gods themselves shall cease our revels.’
Cheers greeted his pronouncements. Eidolon grinned his slack grin.
‘Hail the Lord Commander Primus!’ Vocipheron called. Others took up the cry. Malakris whooped and jeered, his vigour temporarily surging. Plegua and the other Kakophoni resumed their song once more.
‘Come,’ Eidolon said as the others gathered about him, at last looking heavenward with fresh eyes, their souls soaring like the phoenix itself reborn. ‘We have a long road ahead of us.’
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A character of this gravitas, a truly iconic villain of the Heresy, cannot be borne alone. Many pairs of hands contributed to this book being what it is.
I would like to thank Jacob Youngs for his constant support and advice, for making this book as good as it could possibly be. I’d also like to thank Chris Wraight for his advice on how to handle the character and what makes him tick. You were a lifesaver.
For my wife, Anne-Sophie, for all of her support during the struggles. For my hobby group – Gareth, Mark-Anthony, Chris, Daniel, James and Sean – for always pushing me to be a better writer. I’d like to thank Dylan and Sebastian for the inspiration that your opposing appreciations of the III Legion have always provided.
Finally, I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to the mythos of Eidolon and the Emperor’s Children: Graham McNeill, Josh Reynolds, Mike Haspil and Chris Wraight. You have made my research pile an absolutely exquisite pleasure to peruse.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marc Collins is a speculative fiction author living and working in Glasgow, Scotland. He is the writer of the Warhammer Crime novel Grim Repast, as well as the short story ‘Cold Cases’, which featured in the anthology No Good Men. For Warhammer 40,000 he has written the novels Void King, Helbrecht: Knight of the Throne and the Dawn of Fire novel The Martyr’s Tomb. When not dreaming of the far future he works in Pathology with the NHS.
An extract from Valdor: Birth of the Imperium.
Sevuu watched the flyer come in from the west, low across the ravines of eastern Anatolya, a deepening sky at its back. He shaded his eyes with a dry palm, squinting against the glare of the slowly sinking sun. Before him stretched the baking stonescape of rock and smoulder, still angry, still hot.
The flyer trailed two lines of dirty smoke. As it neared, dipping in the heat, Sevuu noticed its chipped red hull, its old-style turbine nacelles. It was big – a twenty-seater, maybe – but out of shape.
Sevuu smiled. Just like her to find a rust-hulk, the kind of thing any out-of-luck merchant prince would scrape up from a salvage yard. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her in a Palace vehicle. All that gold didn’t really suit her.
He waited, standing still as the dust billowed up around his robes. The flyer extended landing pads, and the turbines swivelled earthwards. In a whine-hail of engines, it came down, kicking up dry soil across the landing site.
