[The psychic storm that had driven Fulgrim back into the Warp settled into the surrounding air and then dissipated, the displaced energy bleeding away into the ash-grey sky until the palace road was simply quiet again, littered with purple blood and the debris of the fight and the continuous slow fall of ash from everything outside the void shields that had burned.]
[Rogal Dorn's adamantium storm shield came down on the ground.]
[The impact cracked the stone around the shield's base in a neat radius. He held it there, one hand on the grip, white hair still, and looked at you with the expression of a man who had been managing impossible situations for long enough that impossible situations had started to feel like a personal failing.]
["Look at yourself. You are barely recognizable as human. You should not have been deployed on the walls. Do you understand the effect on the loyalists of the Imperium? This casts a shadow over the Emperor's own authority."]
[Your eyes were still red. The bone-shell armor was receding across your frame, pulling back in degrees, the transformation reversing at the pace the body had decided on rather than the pace you would have chosen. You looked down at him.]
["If infighting were not inadvisable at this precise moment, I would very much like to hit you." You kept your voice even. "Rogal Dorn. I just drove Fulgrim off your walls. For Terra. For the Emperor. And your first words to me are a reprimand."]
["The Emperor's psychic barrier drove Fulgrim back. Your contribution was a component of that outcome."]
[Dorn returned your gaze without blinking.]
[You closed your fist and held it.]
["I am not going to argue this with you right now. Get me flesh and nutrient solution. Substantial quantities. This body is approaching the threshold of going out of control, and I will not have it start consuming loyal combatants to stabilize itself. Move."]
[Dorn looked at you for a long moment.]
[Then he raised the storm shield from the ground and turned toward the hidden passage beneath the wall.]
["I told you you should not have gone to the front lines." He was already walking. "Come with me, stranger. Brother."]
[You exhaled through your nose and followed.]
[---]
[The interior of Bhab Bastion was not built for occupants of your current dimensions, but it accommodated you without requiring structural modification, which you took as an indication of how the building had been designed. The Imperial Fists and the warriors of the other loyal Legions stationed there tracked your progress through the corridors with the controlled attention of soldiers who had learned not to react visibly to things they did not yet understand.]
[One group did not maintain that control.]
[A detachment of Rogal Dorn's personal Huscarls recognized something in you that the ordinary Astartes had not. The recognition produced an immediate movement toward weapons, the instinct of bodyguards responding to a potential threat to the person they had spent decades protecting. Dorn said one word to them and they stopped. The word was not long. They listened to it.]
[Your eyes had found each of the Huscarls in the room before the standoff had resolved, and somewhere below conscious thought the body you were inhabiting had made a brief calculation that you chose not to complete. You shook your head hard, dispersing the line of reasoning before it went further, and kept your attention on the far wall until the delivery arrived.]
[The grox meat came in quantities that suggested someone had made a reasonable assessment of what your current frame required. The nutrient solutions followed. You moved away from the Huscarls and the tactical displays and the other occupants of the room and put yourself in a corner, and then you ate with the unselfconscious urgency of a body that had been running on deficit for the last several hours and had strong opinions about resolving that situation.]
[The bone-shell was pulling back steadily as the caloric and biological intake processed through your system. The deep, structural hunger that had been making its suggestions about the battlefield outside quieted by degrees and then stopped making suggestions entirely.]
[Half an hour.]
[You sat on the floor of Bhab Bastion and felt your frame settle back to something closer to its baseline, still massive, still mutated in ways that were not going to fully reverse, but stable. Present. Yours.]
[Rogal Dorn had been standing at his strategic map for most of that time, not speaking, the habits of a siege commander maintaining their own priority. He turned now.]
["Sigismund told me what you said to him. That you are the Twenty-Second Primarch of the future Imperium of Man." He paused. "Does that mean the Emperor wins this siege?"]
[You opened your eyes.]
[You rose from the floor, the movement slow and deliberate, your frame settling at approximately four meters as the last of the bone-shell receded. You looked at Dorn across the room.]
["If what follows can be called winning, then yes."]
[You walked toward him, stopping at the edge of the strategic map.]
["For the mortal warriors and the Astartes who die on these walls, this is Horus's rebellion. That is the frame they have for it. For the Primarchs and for the Emperor, what is actually happening is larger than a rebellion. Those Daemons you see outside the walls in numbers that have no ceiling are the agents of the four Chaos Gods of the Warp. They planned this. They cultivated it. Horus was the instrument. The Siege was always theirs to arrange."]
[You let that land before continuing.]
["You are waiting for Guilliman's fleet. I will tell you plainly: from the moment the Warp storm closed over Terra, Guilliman has been nine hours away from reaching us. He will remain nine hours away. The storm does not have an end you can calculate, because it is not a weather event."]
[Dorn's expression did not change. His jaw moved very slightly.]
["You. Me. Every loyal Primarch who is still standing in this system. We are not the pivot point of this battle. We are the margin."]
["The Emperor is the pivot. Only He can break what the Chaos Gods have built here. Everything we do, everything I was sent here to do, is to reduce the weight of the situation on His shoulders. Buy Him time. Keep the losses within bounds that the Imperium can survive. Make the choices smaller rather than larger."]
[You exhaled.]
["That is what this is."]
[The room was quiet around you. The distant sound of the siege continued through the walls, the artillery, the void shield impacts, the sounds of individual combat at the wall tops carried by the structure of the building itself.]
[Dorn processed what you had said with the focused efficiency of a man who had spent his entire life translating overwhelming situations into actionable decisions. After a long moment, he looked at you directly.]
["Then tell me, brother. What do we do now?"]
[You considered the question.]
["You continue commanding this defense. The siege plan, the wall assignments, the strategic coordination: that is yours and it should stay yours. What I intend to do is use this body and whatever my presence here can do to take the traitor Primarchs out of the engagement one by one."]
[You straightened.]
["One for one. My soul against theirs. Starting with the one who presents the greatest immediate threat to Terra's walls."]
["Perturabo. The Iron Lord. He is the one we address first."]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Writing takes time, coffee, and a lot of love.If you'd like to support my work, join me at [email protected]/GoldenGaruda
You'll get early access to over 50 chapters, selection on new series, and the satisfaction of knowing your support directly fuels more stories.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~