Free Horus Rising by Dan Abnett Page A

rock stuck up in miniature archipelagos.
    Some of the intact blocks, slabs two metres long and half a metre thick, had been rearranged, and not randomly by the blasts. They had been levered out to form a walkway into the pool area, a stone jetty sunk almost flush with the water’s surface.
    Loken stepped out onto the causeway and began to follow it. The air smelled damp, and he could hear the clack of amphibians and the hiss of evening flies. Water flowers, their fragile colours almost lost in the closing darkness, drifted on the still water either side of his path.
    Loken felt no fear. He was not built to feel it, but he registered a trepidation, an anticipation that made his hearts beat. He was, he knew, about to pass a threshold in his life, and he held faith that what lay beyond that threshold would be provident. It also felt right that he was about to take a profound step forward in his career. His world, his life, had changed greatly of late, with the rise of the Warmaster and the consequent alteration of the crusade, and it was only proper that he changed with it. A new phase. A new time.
    He paused and looked up at the stars that were beginning to light in the purpling sky. A new time, and a glorious new time at that. Like him, mankind was on a threshold, about to step forward into greatness.
    He had gone deep into the ragged sprawl of the water garden, far beyond the lamps of the landing zone behind the hedge, far beyond the lights of the city. The sun had vanished. Blue shadows surrounded him.
    The causeway path came to an end. Water gleamed beyond. Ahead, across thirty metres of still pond, a little bank of weeping trees rose up like an atoll, silhouetted against the sky.
    He wondered if he should wait. Then he saw a flicker of light amongst the trees across the water, a flutter of yellow flame that went as quickly as it came.
    Loken stepped off the causeway into the water. It was shin deep. Ripples, hard black circles, radiated out across the reflective pool. He began to wade out towards the islet, hoping that his feet wouldn’t suddenly encounter some unexpected depth of submerged crater and so lend comedy to this solemn moment.
    He reached the bank of trees and stood in the shallows, gazing up into the tangled blackness.
    ‘Give us your name,’ a voice called out of the darkness. It spoke the words in Chthonic, his home-tongue, the battle-argot of the Luna Wolves.
    ‘Garviel Loken is my name to give.’
    ‘And what is your honour?’
    ‘I am Captain of the Tenth Company of the Sixteenth Legio Astartes.’
    ‘And who is your sworn master?’
    ‘The Warmaster and the Emperor both.’
    Silence followed, interrupted only by the splash of frogs and the noise of insects in the waterlogged thickets.
    The voice spoke again. Two words. ‘Illuminate him.’
    There was a brief metallic scrape as the slot of a lantern was pulled open, and yellow flame-light shone out across him. Three figures stood on the tree-lined bank above him, one holding the lantern up.
    Aximand. Torgaddon, lifting the lantern. Abaddon.
    Like him, they wore their warrior armour, the dancing light catching bright off the curves of the plate. All were bareheaded, their crested helmets hung at their waists.
    ‘Do you vouch that this soul is all he claims to be?’ Abaddon asked. It seemed a strange question, as all three of them knew him well enough. Loken understood it was part of the ceremony.
    ‘I so vouch,’ Torgaddon said. ‘Increase the light.’
    Abaddon and Aximand stepped away, and began to open the slots of a dozen other lanterns hanging from the surrounding boughs. When they had finished, a golden light suffused them all. Torgaddon set his own lamp on the ground.
    The trio stepped forward into the water to face Loken. Tarik Torgaddon was the tallest of them, his trickster grin never leaving his face. ‘Loosen up, Garvi,’ he chuckled. ‘We don’t bite.’
    Loken flashed a smile back, but he felt unnerved. Partly, it was the