V3 Chapter 33: We Have Come to Take You Home, Lady Euten
The Macragge's Honour was burning.
Traitors had struck the flagship of the Thirteenth Legion's glory. Their objectives were clear: damage the morale of the Ultramarines on one side, and seize a specific high-value target on the other. Tarasha Euten.
They intended to take her alive, break her, and kill her, and let her screams and cries destroy the will of Roboute Guilliman, Lord of the Thirteenth Legion, so that he would understand precisely how wrong his choice to resist the Warmaster had been.
Deep within the ship, in a storage compartment, smoke was beginning to push through the seams of the hatch.
The sounds of fighting outside had not stopped. The roar of boltguns, the crash of metal, and the dying fury of warriors going down were all compressed by the heavy hatch into dull, muffled echoes.
Sergeant Amon stood at the hatch, the boltgun in his hands empty.
He had assessed the compartment. There was no second exit, no maintenance shaft he could open from inside, and only one hatch being steadily enclosed by smoke and enemies.
They had nowhere to go.
That was Amon's first assessment.
He looked down at Tarasha Euten sitting beside him. Even in these circumstances, the elderly Mistress of the Macragge Household sat there with her hands on her knees and her eyes lightly closed.
She had a white cashmere shawl around her shoulders.
Her grey-white hair was pinned at the back of her head. The court dress she wore had picked up dust and blood during the flight through the ship. Her breathing had become somewhat laboured; the smoke was not kind to a mortal's body. But her face showed little fear.
As though sensing Amon's gaze, Tarasha slowly opened her eyes.
Her gaze was still clear, and when those blue eyes turned to Amon, they carried something that was almost reassuring. Then she gave a small, quiet smile.
"I am fine, Amon," she said. "There is no need to be so tense."
"I understand, my lady," Amon answered immediately. "We will be saved. The Primarch will send someone."
He kept his voice as steady as he could.
But he knew it sounded more like reassurance aimed at Tarasha. The footsteps outside were getting closer and the smoke was getting thicker. His power armour's filtration systems could handle the toxins; Tarasha's body could not.
Tarasha gave a quiet cough.
She looked down at her chest and withdrew something she had kept against her body throughout. It was a collar of ancient design, its surface marked with the early craftsmanship of Macragge, its edges worn smooth by time.
"If I die here," Tarasha said, "give it to Roboute."
Amon's fingers tightened.
"No, Lady Euten. You will be fine. I promise you that."
Tarasha looked up at him for a moment.
She did not argue the point and did not explain further. She only rested the collar in her palm. The quality of that stillness, like calm settling before the end of all sound, made Amon uneasy.
He needed to keep her talking.
As long as she was talking, she had not given up. Amon was not skilled at reassuring mortals, particularly one as significant as a woman who had raised a Primarch. But he understood that he had to do something.
"My lady," Amon said, looking at the collar. "What is it?"
Tarasha looked down at the old piece in her palm.
She was quiet for a few seconds, and something like memory crossed her face.
"The Ardanine Collar," she said. "Something many people believe belongs only to old history."
Amon looked at it.
He knew the name, but only from the Legion archives. The Illyrian Revolt, the northern bandit kingdoms, the young Roboute Guilliman, and the conquest that brought Macragge its final unity.
Tarasha appeared to read his thinking.
"The story you know is most likely the version the Legion was willing to let you know."
Amon did not reply immediately.
Tarasha gave a quiet sound that was almost a laugh, then coughed several times. Amon moved to check on her; she stopped him with a look.
"When Roboute was young, Konor and I had our doubts about him," Tarasha said. "He was too calm. Too rational. Too much like a tool that had been polished to perfection."
Amon's brow came together. He found it difficult to connect that description to the Primarch.
Tarasha continued. "Konor wanted to know whether he was only a conqueror, or whether he was someone who could rule and understand people. I wanted to know the same thing."
The smoke continued pressing through the hatch seams.
A heavy impact sounded from outside, as though someone had been driven hard against a bulkhead. Amon listened for a moment, then looked back at Tarasha.
"Then Illyria came."
Tarasha's voice remained steady.
Illyria was the most intractable part of Macragge. The northern highlands had their own clans, their own oaths, their own sacred sites, and a stubbornness that had proven sufficient to outlast many things.
The young Roboute did not immediately send his forces through.
He studied the Illyrian people first: their history, their beliefs, the reasons their chieftains could keep warriors fighting in cold mountain terrain. He located the thing they valued most, a sacred site near the Fortress of Casius.
Then he struck it.
Amon gave a small nod at that. It was consistent with the Primarch's approach to war: precise, decisive, without unnecessary hesitation.
Tarasha looked at him and said slowly, "At that moment, I almost believed Konor's fears were correct."
The young Guilliman's precisely targeted strike had forced the Illyrian warriors off their defensive lines.
They could not accept their sacred site being attacked, and they could not accept their honour being trampled. The warriors who should have continued holding the mountain ground came down from it and met Guilliman in the location he had chosen for them.
Amon kept most of his attention on the sounds outside the hatch as he asked: "And then?"
"Then Roboute walked out himself," Tarasha said. "He did not continue letting his forces destroy them. He challenged the Illyrian chieftain."
The duel was brief.
The young Guilliman held an absolute advantage. Everyone watching could see that the Illyrian chieftain would die at his hand the moment he chose it.
But he stopped.
He spared the man's life.
Then he returned the Ardanine Collar to the person he had just defeated. It was a symbol the Illyrian people had lost long ago, and the proof they still held that they could call themselves a people.
"He defeated them," Tarasha said. "And then he gave them a reason they could accept to bow."
Amon was quiet.
This version was not what he knew.
In the Legion records, the pacification of Illyria was a standard entry. The young Guilliman had conquered the bandit kingdoms and brought unity to Macragge. The records noted force strengths, lines of advance, and the outcome of the campaign.
What Tarasha had described contained something else entirely.
Understanding. Testing. Restraint. And the choice to stop after the victory had been won.
Tarasha looked at Amon, and her expression became very gentle.
"That day, I understood something," she said. "Our child was not a cold and unfeeling instrument. He had his own feelings. He had his own sense of order."
"My lady..."
Amon did not know how to respond.
He had never heard anyone speak of Guilliman this way. Not the Primarch. Not the Lord of the Thirteenth Legion. Not the ruler of Ultramar.
She was speaking of Roboute.
The child she and Konor had raised.
Tarasha held the Ardanine Collar out toward Amon.
"If I die," she said, "give it to him. He will understand."
This time Amon did not answer immediately.
Because the footsteps outside had stopped at the hatch to the compartment.
Something was on the other side of the door. Heavy breathing, the scrape of armoured plate, and a low, unstable laughter came through from outside.
Amon put down the empty boltgun.
He drew his chainsword. The teeth began to turn, producing a low roar. He moved to stand in front of Tarasha, ready for whatever came through.
The door was not blown open.
It was pushed open gently.
Amon raised his blade half an inch.
But it was not traitor warriors who appeared in the doorway, and it was not the corridor of the Macragge's Honour. The thick smoke that had been pressing into the compartment vanished the instant the door opened, and the sounds of gunfire, shouting, and fire went with it.
Beyond the door was a dark space scattered with green light.
There was no ceiling visible, and no far wall. The floor appeared to be composed of an unidentifiable metal. At a distance, the dismembered remains of silver-white humanoid figures lay in pieces, scorch marks still visible around them.
A group of elite mortal soldiers in black carapace armour walked into the compartment.
Amon had not seen equipment of that pattern before. They entered with weapons raised and movements coordinated, but they did not fire.
"Who are you?" Amon demanded, his voice sharp. "What is happening? Where is the Primarch?"
The soldiers did not answer.
They simply moved aside in silence, forming a clear passage.
Tarasha Euten looked up and watched the space beyond the doorway without a sound. She did not cry out. She did not move back. She only held the Ardanine Collar in her hand.
Then a man in a black greatcoat walked through.
He wore a peaked cap bearing the Aquila. A power sword sat sheathed at his hip. The unfamiliar soldiers lowered their weapons as he passed them, clearly recognising his authority.
The man stopped at the doorway. His gaze moved from Amon's chainsword to Tarasha.
He did not approach too close.
He simply stood at the entrance to the compartment and gave the elderly woman from Macragge a slight bow.
"We have come to take you home, Lady Euten."
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