A Prisoner

After retaking the flagship, Gage immediately ordered the captain to reestablish contact with Calth's surface.

"Calling Calth. This is Macragge's Honour. Report your current situation."

After a burst of signal interference, Ventanus's voice rang out across the bridge.

"Chapter Master, this is the Calth Universal Museum. Are you ready to deploy onto the Orbital Platform?"

"We need more time. The flagship is being sabotaged by Word Bearers boarding parties. We must deal with these enemies first before we can spare any forces. My apologies."

Gage understood that the Orbital Platform was inflicting enormous damage on the Ultramarines' warships, but the threat of the Word Bearers was already at hand. They could not allow the flagship of the XIII Legion to fall.

He would rather see it sink than be captured by the Word Bearers. That was precisely why the enemy had not opened fire on Macragge's Honour—they wanted to capture it.

If Macragge's Honour were captured by the Word Bearers, it would deal a devastating blow to the morale of the Ultramarines throughout the Five Hundred Worlds and make the enemy even more arrogant.

"Understood. We will continue to hold." Ventanus said no more. He understood the flagship's situation well.

If he had to choose, he too would preserve the flagship.

"I have one more matter to report: we captured a Word Bearers prisoner alive—or rather, he willingly allowed himself to be captured." Ventanus added, and Gage's spirits lifted.

"Interrogate him. At any cost, we need more intelligence from within the Word Bearers Legion," Gage said decisively.

Ventanus left the communications room and came to an open space outside. A Word Bearer covered in blood and bullet craters had been waiting for him for some time.

The Word Bearer knelt on the ground. Power to his backpack had been cut off, and his hands were bound behind his back, leaving him unable to move.

"You finally came." The helmetless Word Bearer smiled. Blood and broken teeth spilled from his mouth, mingling with saliva as they ran down his power armor.

"Name."

"Mobokeshir," the Word Bearer answered.

An Ultramarines guard displayed the items seized from Keshir: a damaged bolter, an equally damaged power sword, and a dagger made of some kind of metal. It was a full half meter long—a shortsword for an ordinary human, but merely a dagger for a Space Marine.

Fine iron chains were wound around the dagger's hilt. Ventanus judged that they served no purpose in securing the grip, since they would snap easily in the midst of fierce combat.

He therefore concluded that it was not a weapon meant for battle, but a ritual dagger used for some ceremony.

"Your identity and rank?"

"I am a commander, cousin." Keshir showed no sign of being a prisoner. He was calm and at ease; if not for the bindings covering his body, he might have seemed like someone visiting the XIII Legion on business to see an old friend.

"Do you think surrendering will make us spare your life? That is laughable. We are enemies bound by a blood feud that can end only in death." Ventanus raised his bolter and aimed it at Keshir's head.

One shot was all it would take for his head to burst like fireworks, leaving him utterly dead.

"You Ultramarines are still so arrogant. You stubbornly believe in the Imperial Truth, in your honor and morality, in that false emperor upon the throne."

"It was you who abandoned everything. Your filthy gene-father betrayed the Emperor, and you raised your blades against your brothers." Ventanus's voice was icy as he ground out the words through clenched teeth.

"The galaxy has already fallen into war. Warmaster Horus leads awakened warriors in rebellion against the false Emperor's deception. Why not join us and complete this great undertaking together—" Keshir continued chanting his rhetoric, only to be cut off by Ventanus.

"If that is all the meaningless drivel you have to say, then you may die. We already know of the rebellion. We accept reality, and then the Ultramarines will set everything right."

Keshir chuckled. He was crying, blood streaming from his eye sockets. His pupils were pure scarlet, not even resembling human eyes.

"I want to see that man—the ordinary human who brought the news. He is the key. He is trying to change what was long predestined, but it is nothing but futile effort."

"Let me see him, and I will tell you what you wish to know. That is a fair trade, is it not?"

Ventanus paused, frowning as he struggled to discern the Word Bearer's intentions.

That ordinary human named Lox was extraordinarily mysterious. The company captain could not determine his true origins. Yet one thing was certain: Lox was more inclined toward the Ultramarines. His aid to Calth's defenders made that clear.

Whether it was the material support or the enemy Titan that had suddenly shut down on the battlefield, Lox's importance and value in Ventanus's eyes continued to rise.

Yet at the same time, suspicion spread beyond his control.

"Bring him here, but keep him at a distance," he told his adjutant.

There was an unfathomable mystery about Lox. His arrival had been too timely; at the very moment the news came, the Word Bearers had begun their betrayal.

He possessed technology the Imperium lacked, and neither his speech nor his conduct resembled that of any ordinary human Ventanus had ever met.

Ventanus's instincts told him that the man named Lox was anything but simple. Though he stood nearby, he always carried a faint sense of detachment, as though he observed the world's development objectively from a higher level.

That was not something identity, status, or power could change. Only the passage of years could forge such a person.

Without crossing the other man's bottom line, he wanted to probe Lox for information as much as possible and gain the fullest understanding of the effects this variable might bring.

"You wanted to see me? What is it?"

Lox soon arrived at the open space under the guidance of the adjutant, Suros.

He glanced at Ventanus, then at the Word Bearer kneeling on the ground in scarlet armor.

"You finally came." Keshir focused all his attention on Lox. His gaze burned as though he had seen some peerless treasure.

"It is you—the one absent from the prophecies of The Empyrean. You should not be here. You do not belong to this time—why? Why are you here?"

"You should have slept forever aboard that ship, until the end of the universe, when all things reached entropy and returned to chaos. Why did you awaken?"

Keshir suddenly became agitated. Something intangible had touched upon his taboo, driving him into a frenzy. The adjutant immediately drew his power sword, ready to behead him at any moment.

Lox also pondered the prisoner's ravings. What did he mean, that he should not be here and did not belong to this time?

How did he know that Lox had come from ten thousand years in the past, awakened to carry out that mission of preserving humanity's flame?

Something had been watching him all along. It was not mere malice; it also anticipated change.

Nothing more than Warp abominations.

He realized that with his arrival, certain things had changed. Though they were insignificant variables in the grand scheme, they had indeed changed things in essence.

A tiny change would be like a snowball rolling down a mountain, becoming a mighty avalanche by the time it reached the bottom.

"But it does not matter. The gods of the Warp have already noticed you. The Primordial Truth is issuing a new warning, and the changes you brought will be erased."

"The Lord of Change is very interested in you. If you are willing to become His servant, He will surely bestow His grace and blessings upon you."

The Word Bearer made his promise with apparent sincerity. Lox looked into his eyes and saw absolute earnestness coexisting with madness.

This madman was not lying.

Keshir turned to the Ultramarines preparing to execute him.

"You arrogant Ultramarines, how much longer can you hold out? The Word Bearers' forces outnumber yours by more than ten to one. We will crush you just as we crushed your weak gene-father. Guilliman is dead. His corpse has been sacrificed to the Primordial Truth, and he suffers eternal torment! Hahahahahaha..."

The Word Bearer's blasphemous words finally enraged the Ultramarines. Suros, standing beside Ventanus, drew his sword with lightning speed. The disruption field severed the prisoner's flesh from throat to left abdomen, nearly splitting the Word Bearers commander in half.

Ventanus had no time to stop his adjutant. He merely sighed. Interrogating a Space Marine was a task almost impossible to accomplish.

Still, their gene-detection nerves might yield some of the enemy's memories.

Though nearly cleaved in half, the Word Bearer's formidable vitality still held death at bay. Keshir mumbled something as he collapsed fully to his knees. Vast amounts of blood poured out and spread across the parched earth, forming a mirror of blood.

He laughed, laughing with utter abandon. The violent shaking split him completely in two, and chunks of flesh and organs fell to the ground, yet his body seemed to bloom like a crimson flower.