[Horus Heresy Novella] Cybernetica by Rob Sanders

Author:Rob Sanders
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2015-08-11T02:33:25+00:00

TERRA

<THE FIRST LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS. A BEACON OF FAITH AND FORTITUDE IN AN

IMPERIUM BESMIRCHED. THE ONLY TRUTH SHINING ACROSS A GALAXY SHROUDED IN

LIES. A CANDLE BURNING IN THE EMPTY BLACKNESS OF THE VOID.

FLAMES FALTER. HOPES ARE LOST. BUT ON THE CANDLE BURNS.>

END OF LINE

THE SUN DRIFTED down behind the monstrous fortifications of the Imperial Palace, its bleak radiance casting the crenellations and emplacements of its towering walls in silhouette. With them the hulking, armoured shape of the primarch Rogal Dorn became one with the battlements, one with the craftsmanship and the darkness.

'Anything?' he asked, his voice echoing through the wards and elevated courtyards. He had heard the whisper of trailing robes on the smooth stonework of the ramparts from half a league away. The swollen knuckles of Malcador's hand creaked about his staff.

Zagreus Kane's workings marked the passing seconds like an ancient timepiece.

'My sources inform me of a good deal of vox-chatter and troop movements across the southern polar ice cap,' Malcador replied.

'So your Knight Errant made it to the forge temple.'

'Yes.'

'But,' the Fabricator General said, 'the Vertex remains intact. The planetary spindle turns and the magnetospheric shield protects Mars still.'

'So the son of Corax failed,' Dorn said. It was a statement, not a question, but the Sigillite felt compelled to answer.

'Yes. It's been too long - the Carrion is either captured or dead. I hope for his sake the latter.'

'And for ours,' Dorn said, his words harsher than he intended. 'The abominable intelligence failed, as they are destined to do,'

Kane said, 'and Malcador's man failed with it.'

'It was always a gamble,' the Sigillite said. 'It is the nature of gambles that they succeed only some of the time. It was still worth the risk - balancing the loss of one life against many.'

'A life that could have been better risked defending these walls,' Dorn told him.

'And I'm sure that your brother Corax would have felt the same way,' Malcador agreed, 'but we are game players not rule makers, my lord. Pieces are risked and victories lost and won. For if the game is not played…'

Rogal Dorn turned. His eyes were the darkness of bolt holes in stone, his unyielding features cracking about them.

'Do not lecture me on the realities of war, regent.'

'But this is not war,' Malcador said, the last light of day probing his hood and revealing thin, drawn lips and perfect teeth. 'Here we live the calm before the storm, the luxury of catastrophe before the fact. Meanwhile, this war is being won or lost beyond these walls, beyond these skies, by your brothers and their sons.'

Dorn's face darkened with a primarch's wrath.

Malcador smiled. 'And I would not presume to lecture you on the realities of war, my friend. I would have you become part of them. War will come to the Solar System. Some might say it has already arrived. There is a traitor stronghold on our very doorstep - a stronghold destined to fall, should Rogal Dorn and his Imperial Fists set foot on the Red Planet.

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