Fulgrim (The Horus Heresy Book 5) by Graham McNeill

Author:Graham McNeill [McNeill, Graham]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2013-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

To Tarsus/The Nature of Genius/Warning

Solomon kept a close eye on the assault warriors of the eldar delegation, their movements fluidly lethal in a way his could never be. A curving sword was sheathed across each of their backs, and they all carried delicate pistols holstered at their waists. Pale helmets of fearsome warrior aspects and scarlet plumes obscured their faces, and their smooth, segmented armour was formed of the same substance as the ruin they had seen on Twenty-Eight Four.

‘They don’t look much,’ whispered Marius. ‘A strong wind would break them in two.’

‘Don’t underestimate them,’ warned Solomon. ‘They are deadly warriors and their weapons are lethal.’

Marius looked unconvinced, but nodded in response to his fellow captain’s wisdom for Solomon had faced the warriors of the eldar before.

He remembered fighting through the wind-lashed forests of Tza-Chao, where the Luna Wolves and the Emperor’s Children had battled side by side against a piratical force of eldar reavers. What had started as a fairly straight up-and-down fight had degenerated into a bloody brawl in the depths of a storm, with weapons useless and brute strength and ferocity the only tools of destruction. He remembered the shrieking horror of blades that had charged from the trees with howls that chilled the blood, and he remembered watching as one Luna Wolf had garrotted a nameless eldar champion with a length of dirty, rusted wire in the rain.

Solomon remembered the walking monstrosities, taller than a Dreadnought, which had stalked the dark forest, like giants of legend, crushing Astartes in their mighty fists and destroying armoured vehicles with shoulder-mounted cannons of unimaginable power.

No, thought Solomon, the eldar were not to be underestimated.

The encounter with the craftworld had come as a great surprise to the 28th Expedition, and had been greeted with guarded hostility until it became clear that the eldar had no apparent aggressive intent. Fulgrim himself had spoken to this Eldrad Ulthran, an individual who claimed to guide the craftworld, though he had fallen short of claiming to be its leader.

Thus began an elaborate ballet of proposal and counterproposal, with neither side willing to allow the other upon its ships. The calls for war were strident, with Solomon’s loudest of all as he, Julius, Marius, Vespasian and Eidolon gathered in the primarch’s staterooms to hear why they had not yet attacked the eldar, as their mandate of conquest demanded.

Fulgrim’s quarters were a riot of paintings and sculpture, and Solomon had been quietly disconcerted to see a statue bearing his own features at the far end of the stateroom, standing next to ones of Julius and Marius.

‘They are aliens!’ he had said. ‘What more reason do we need to make war upon them?’

‘You heard what Lord Fulgrim said, Solomon,’ said Julius. ‘There is much we can learn from the eldar.’

‘I know you don’t believe that, Julius. I fought alongside you on Tza-Chao and you know exactly what they’re capable of.’

‘Enough!’ Fulgrim had shouted. ‘I have made my decision. I do not believe the eldar come with hostile intent, for they are but one vessel and we are many.

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