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"Father...."
Horus closed his eyes. That chest — broader than any thunderclap — rose and fell.
CLANG!
A scrap of broken metal hit the ground and rang out a crisp echo.
When those eyes opened again, the ashen defeat was gone.
No trace of the old pride remained.
He spoke, hoarse and low.
"You are right, Kaelen."
"I, Lupercal, will not betray the hopes of the Master of Mankind. I will not... fail."
"I am his fierce and beloved son."
The Wolf Shepherd God raised his head and looked at the mortal before him.
This time he truly studied the person in front of him. In that instant, he thought Kaelen looked very much like his most beloved son.
Captain of the Luna Wolves Legion's 10th Company. Garviel Loken.
In his memory, Loken would step in when he made mistakes, stop him, and offer counsel in measured, fitting words.
"Kaelen, do you know what happened to Loken in the end? I know he's dead, but... I want to know."
"After you died fighting the Emperor, he stayed on the Vengeful Spirit with your body. Later, he tried to persuade Abaddon to surrender. Erebus ambushed him and killed him."
Kaelen's tone hardened on that name.
Of all the villains in the Warhammer universe, Erebus took the crown. That scumbag. Traitor to humanity.
"Erebus? That chaplain!"
Horus's voice rose.
"I should have killed him long ago! Ever since that wretch came to my Legion, he's been spreading his dog-shit doctrines!"
"Where is he now?"
"He and the rest of the traitors fled into the Eye of Terror. We don't even know what sector this planet is in."
Kaelen sighed and shrugged.
The fire in Horus's chest briefly went out.
Then,
A shrieking mechanical alarm tore through the ventilation ducts overhead. WOO — WOO,!
Red emergency lights strobed without pattern, painting the corridor the color of blood.
Boots hammered the floor in a rapid, disordered rhythm, closing fast. Between the footfalls came the throat-shredding howls of mechanical hounds.
"Iron Skull Gang reinforcements."
Kaelen snatched the wrench off the ground. His expression shifted.
A mechanical hound's nose was a hundred times sharper than a mutant rat's. The blood from that slaughter was practically a neon sign in this sealed underhive.
"We need to move." Kaelen scanned for an exit.
He glanced back.
Horus stood in the dark ruins in his signature moon-white Terminator Armor, conspicuous as a walking floodlight.
And that frame, there wasn't a ventilation duct in this place wide enough for him to squeeze through.
"That shell of yours is too conspicuous."
"I can take it off." Horus reached up and gripped the neural link node at his neck, ready to tear the air valve open with his bare hands.
"Wait! You want to fight cyborgs bare-skinned? Your wounds aren't fully healed!" Kaelen grabbed his arm.
He pulled up the system panel. His eyes swept over the 99,900 points sitting in his account.
He opened [Equipment & Items].
[Concealment Cloak]: Legacy technology from the Raven Guard Legion. Blocks thermal, sonic, and optical detection. Auto-adjusts to the wearer's size. Price: 5,000 points.
Buy.
Two wide, ash-gray cloaks dropped into his hands, drab things that looked no different from burlap sacks.
"Put it on!" Kaelen tossed one over.
Horus caught it one-handed.
The instant the cloak touched the Terminator Armor, nanofibers along its edges spread rapidly, wrapping the massive frame from head to toe.
Shadow swallowed the moon-white armor. The heavy breathing went quiet. The servo-motors fell silent.
His entire form dissolved into the darkness of the corridor.
"Go!" Kaelen threw on his own cloak and led the charge toward the safety door on the far side.
They pushed through several abandoned pipes choked with garbage and mutant fungi, and emerged into the true bottom of Reth Star's Hive City.
The air hit like a fist. Machine oil, sewage, rotting flesh, all of it layered into something that coated the back of the throat.
Filthy water dripped down rusted walls. The people huddled in corrugated iron shacks were less human than walking corpses barely holding their shape.
Kaelen led Horus through a maze of turns and dropped them into an abandoned underground water treatment station.
Once he was sure they'd lost the pursuit, Kaelen collapsed against a rusted turbine and gulped air.
Horus pulled back his hood and surveyed the ruins. A dog wouldn't live here.
"This is the underhive you spoke of?" The Wolf Shepherd God's voice was bitter. "The Great Crusade bled across the galaxy for this? So humanity could live like this?"
"Get used to it. The Imperium's High Lords and planetary governors don't have time to care whether the underhive lives or dies."
Kaelen dug out a compressed ration bar, the kind indistinguishable from a brick, and took a labored bite.
"This place buys us some time, but it's not safe. Genestealers are active in this area. Chaos cults run underground sermons every other day. We're basically starting on hell difficulty."
"Are the Imperial Guard blind?" Horus frowned. "And this Genestealer, what kind of new xenos is that?"
"The Imperial Guard can't even clean up after their own planetary governors. You're expecting them to handle this?" Kaelen snorted, then kept going.
"Genestealers are the Tyranid vanguard. Right now, those interstellar locusts are invading the galaxy."
"Here's the funny part. Ten thousand years ago, that good brother of yours, Guilliman, accidentally lit a beacon similar to the Astronomican and pulled every extragalactic bug straight toward us."
Horus listened in silence. His gaze settled on Kaelen.
"You are no ordinary scavenger, Kaelen."
A bottom-rung underhive scavenger who could casually produce medicine capable of healing a Primarch, who knew ten thousand years of hidden history, who conjured black-tech equipment out of nowhere, that didn't add up.
Kaelen's chewing slowed.
He met the Wolf Shepherd God's probing gaze and didn't answer directly.
"Everyone has secrets. I'll fill you in when we have more time."
"I used to be alone. But I'm not anymore." He paused. "I have a Primarch with me now."
"I'm honored, Wolf God."
He said it with a smile.
"You want to save humanity. Save the Imperium. Then I'll do everything I can to help you."
The two looked at each other.
The gears of fate ground together in that foul-smelling water treatment station, rough, and forceful, and real.
Warmth moved through Horus's chest.
Brother. Friend.
In the days of the Great Crusade, he had only felt this kind of bond with Sanguinius. But the Great Angel was too perfect, so perfect that being near him always carried an invisible weight.
Kaelen was different. He felt like a real friend.
"Thank you, Kaelen."
The Wolf Shepherd God smiled back. Pure. Unguarded.
He extended his hand, the one large enough to tear an armored vehicle apart bare-handed. In the era of the Great Crusade, even the highest-ranking Imperial generals would not have been worthy of this.
"From now on, we are friends."
"Hello, my friend."
Kaelen smiled and reached out, gripping a finger thicker than his own thigh, and gave it two firm shakes.
The ancient Terran handshake.
"So what do we do next?" Horus asked, his voice low and steady. He was clearly ready.
"Sleep. Stay alive."
Kaelen let out a massive yawn and found a relatively flat sheet of scrap metal to lie down on.
"I don't care if you're a Primarch with a super-brain. A wounded man acts like a wounded man. Tomorrow's problems are tomorrow's problem."
The night deepened. The circulation fans of Reth Star's Hive City ground out a low, dull roar.
Kaelen turned over, pulled his cloak tight, and muttered, "Someday when my points aren't so tight, I'm absolutely getting a super-invincible-deluxe mattress..."
Less than a minute later, soft snoring filled the dark.
Horus did not sleep.
He sat cross-legged on the oil-stained floor, still as a statue.
Standing watch over the mortal who had cursed him to his face, and then handed him his life anyway.
He looked down at the scabbed wound on his chest.
Then the Wolf Shepherd God slowly raised his head. Through the broken gap above the exhaust fan, he could see the pitch-black, murky sky beyond the Hive City.
The sea of stars was the same as he remembered.
But this time, he would not make the same mistakes.
➤ Next: What If Lorgar Had Just Endured It Back Then