V3 Chapter 1: Hounds of the Lord of Pleasure
In the infinite void, a planet hung in the shadow of the Warp, close to the Eye of Terror.
A ragged, kaleidoscopic tear split the sky at its zenith, like a wound through which the Immaterium peered into the material world. Across the ground lay bodies in MkVII power armour, shattered pauldrons bearing Chapter markings scattered among scorched and blackened earth.
A Chaos traitor in vivid, twisted pink power armour walked unhurried toward the last Imperial Astartes still standing in the centre of the killing ground, dragging a blade through the dirt behind him.
The faces of anguish set into his armour were screaming. Their voices overlapped and tangled, like countless trapped souls howling in unison.
Lucius looked at the Chapter Champion before him and let a mocking smile settle on his face.
"Is this everything you have?"
He came forward slowly, the blade scoring a line through the earth.
"You hunted me for so long. Three full veteran squads dead, and in the end there is only you, kneeling here."
"Your swordsmanship, your oaths, your faith. None of it saved them."
The Chapter Champion pressed his power sword into the ground and forced himself upright.
His jump pack was completely destroyed. His armour was breached at multiple points. The breathing that came through his crimson lenses was heavy and uneven. Even so, he raised his blade and levelled it at Lucius.
"Traitor."
His voice came through the helmet.
"The Emperor will judge you."
The smile faded from Lucius's face.
"That line again."
A short, contemptuous laugh.
"Your wretched corpse-god will not save any of you."
The Chapter Champion did not answer. He simply took one step forward.
That single step cost Lucius what little interest remained.
His speed snapped upward without warning.
The blade opened the damaged power armour at the chest seam and tore through the joint at the arm. The Chapter Champion tried to swing his sword in answer, but the movement came too late.
Lucius struck again and again, dismantling every attempt at resistance into pieces.
He stayed away from anything vital. He let the suffering run longer.
The Chapter Champion went down on one knee, the power sword slipping from his grip and clattering to the ground. Blood ran from the breaches in his armour and spread across the earth in a dark pool.
Lucius stood over him.
"Where is the despair?"
"Where is the anguish?"
"Give me something worth remembering."
The Chapter Champion stared up through his crimson lenses.
His voice had grown very faint.
"You will die."
"You will die in the most dishonourable way imaginable."
The amusement finally drained from Lucius's expression entirely.
He raised his blade and removed the Chapter Champion's head with a single stroke.
The body fell.
The faces on his armour produced fresh laughter, as though the Champion's death had fed them. But Lucius felt only a hollow emptiness where satisfaction should have been.
The hunt had ended too quickly.
The so-called Chapter Champion's stubbornness had been tedious. His dying curse had been tedious. Loyal Astartes always met death with the same words, as if repeating them would somehow make the end more noble.
Lucius turned, looking for the next opponent worth his time.
He stopped.
His armour went silent for a single instant.
Then every face of anguish set into his armour began to laugh at once. The laughter grew sharper, more dense, as though something in the depths of the Warp had reached out and struck every nerve the faces possessed simultaneously.
Lucius raised his head.
He felt it.
The gaze of the great Prince of Pleasure had fallen upon him.
Images came, one after another.
A mortal.
Dark clothing, cold eyes, blood on his hands.
He had torn apart a trinket wearing the shape of a saint, and dragged an Imperial Warmaster free from the Prince of Pleasure's whispers.
Then another image surfaced.
The same mortal standing behind an old Warmaster, radiating something that made Lucius's jaw tighten.
A blankness that stripped sensation.
In Lucius's perception, it was a psychic void, swallowing whispers, swallowing pleasure, swallowing colour itself. Any devotee of She Who Thirsts caught inside that blankness would go mad from pure emptiness before long.
The disgust on Lucius's face curdled quickly into excitement.
"A mortal?"
He said it low.
The images kept coming.
The shadow of the Crone Sword.
An Aeldari woman.
Macragge.
And a sanctuary enclosed in stasis.
The echo of an old wound dealt by Fulgrim stirred somewhere in that same stretch of stars.
Lucius finally smiled.
The smile was warped. It carried hatred, and the particular pleasure of a predator that has identified its prey.
"Interesting."
"A mortal who has displeased the Prince of Pleasure."
He turned toward the Emperor's Children warband assembled in the distance.
The Noise Marines, blade champions, and warriors draped in the tattered remnants of their ancient crimson livery had already begun gathering. The warband's fighters waited for his word, and their vessel, the Crown, held its position in the orbital approach above.
Lucius raised his blade and pointed it toward the region of space that the vision had illuminated.
"Set course for Ultramar."
"I will make that foul mortal die in a state of perfect sensation."
"His soul will be offered to the great Prince of Pleasure."
Duvette was in his quarters aboard the Resolute.
The largest problem in front of him right now was finding a way to convince Calgar to allow Yvraine's involvement in Guilliman's revival.
He had the honour of having fought alongside the Ultramarines in the defence of Macragge. He had built relationships in Ultramar that carried genuine weight. But the nature of what he was asking went far beyond any ordinary request for assistance.
Allowing an alien and her weapon to come near the Ultramarines' gene-sire, strike him down, perform some kind of ritual over the body, and claim she could bring him back.
The last person to make that kind of argument had been Erebus.
Emperor's Throne.
Duvette sat at the table, fingers tapping against the surface, running through every possible reaction Calgar might have.
Calgar would almost certainly refuse.
The Ultramarines would probably level their weapons at Yvraine before she ever set foot inside the sanctuary. And if Sylandri stood nearby speaking in riddles about fate and hope, the situation would only deteriorate faster.
Unlike what had happened in the original canon, there was no Black Legion warband to play things crooked here.
No tide of black-armoured Chaos Astartes storming the temple to drag the Ultramarines' attention away and give them room to move. This time, they were on their own.
Duvette rubbed the bridge of his nose.
"Could Yvraine just kill someone at random and bring them back for Calgar to see?"
The thought surfaced and he dismissed it immediately.
Calgar would very likely move to end the demonstration before it had even begun.
Duvette exhaled.
"This is going to be a headache."
He shook his head.
In the end it would have to come down to his own way with words. When the moment came to stand before Calgar, saying "first we have to stab Guilliman" was not an option. That framing would end the conversation on the spot.
He would have to find another way to say it.
The fleet slid out of the Warp and came to rest once more at Menazoid Epsilon.
Duvette stood and walked to the viewport. The planet's surface was still marked by lockdown arrays and Mechanicus sigils, Cawl's mechanical forces still moving around the canyon area.
He was preparing to open a channel to Cawl, to tell the Archmagos to set aside the Men of Iron STC for now and begin preparing for the transit to Macragge.
The channel connected before he could place the call.
Cawl's mechanical voice came through, carrying a distinct urgency.
"Duvette Erdmann."
"I have found an ability the Men of Iron should not possess."
Duvette's brow came down.
"What ability?"
Cawl did not answer directly.
A rush of data-stream noise came through the channel, as though he was processing a large volume of observational logs simultaneously.
"I believe it may have something to do with you."
Duvette was quiet for a moment.
"You are certain?"
"I am certain."
Cawl's voice dropped lower.
"This phenomenon is most likely connected to the purification you performed."
"You should come down and see this yourself."
Duvette looked out at Menazoid through the viewport.
He had been about to say he had something more urgent to attend to first.
But any anomaly in the Men of Iron STC could not simply be set aside. Particularly not one that apparently traced back to him.
Duvette exhaled.
"Understood. I'm on my way."