The Shattering, Chapter 66

“Threaten my children again and I will bathe the stars in your blood.” 

A war raged within him for a moment. The side of him that knew only war and death and service to the Viltrumite Empire wished to tear this mongrel alien apart to make an example of him. Another part, the stronger one, wished to honor his commitment to avoid the unnecessary taking of life. Both sides, however, agreed that a simple verbal threat was not enough. Thragg needed to make his point and capacity clear. 

Thragg reached down and closed his hand around Lorgar's armored ankle, fingers tightening like steel clamps. He straightened, lifting the massive figure from the deck in a single smooth motion. Lorgar's armored form rose upward, suspended in the stale air of the shattered bridge, dangling helplessly above the chaos-strewn deck. Thragg stood unmoving, arm outstretched, as though weighing the armored giant who struggled in his grip.

Lorgar twisted violently in midair, gauntleted fingers clawing downward at Thragg’s grip. He bucked and writhed, the servos of his armor whining as he thrashed and swung, desperate for purchase. His mace lay forgotten on the floor, sparking intermittently where it had fallen. The Primarch's mouth opened, teeth bared, lips slicked red with fresh blood. Yet Thragg held him effortlessly, impassive eyes fixed upon his captive, expression untouched by strain or exertion.

Then Thragg gave him a single harsh shake, a sharp snap of motion. Lorgar's body whipped and arced like a cracked bullwhip, limbs flailing uselessly in the sudden violence. Armor segments rattled together, plates grinding as joints hyperextended. The Primarch’s muscles flexed visibly beneath torn ceramite, tendons bulging and knotting under the strain. His eyes widened, veins pulsing in his brow, mouth forming a wordless cry lost beneath the clamor of buckling metal and snapping cables.

Thragg spun him then, as a man might whirl a sack weighted with stones, a fluid rotation that sent armored limbs stretching outward under centrifugal force. The remaining armored giants stood frozen, their rifles and blades lowered, helms fixed on their Primarch's body rotating above the deck in a grotesque arc. Lorgar's head lolled, eyes rolling back, the torn armor around his neck splitting wider to reveal bruised flesh beneath. His blood flecked across shattered consoles and blinking lights, droplets striking surfaces like scattered rain.

With a final pivot, Thragg released him. The armored giant rocketed through the air, body flying with blistering speed toward the reinforced bulkhead opposite. The collision shook the entire bridge, a deafening crash that echoed through corridors and ventilation ducts. Lorgar impacted the plating so forcefully the steel dented inward, spiderwebbing outward in fractures and cracks. Bolts sheared free, shooting across the bridge like stray bullets. Screens flickered and burst from the sudden force. Fragments of steel rained down, skittering across the floor like thrown dice.

Blood erupted from Lorgar's face, spraying out in a crimson burst as his breastplate crumpled inward. Dark rivulets ran from his eyes, his ears, poured freely from the corners of his gaping mouth. The Primarch slid downward from the point of impact, legs dragging limp behind him, joints twisted and broken beneath torn plating. He crashed to the deck, collapsing in a heap beneath the ruined bulkhead. The twisted form lay still for several moments, a broken shape bathed in flickering red emergency lights, framed by drifting motes of dust.

Thragg lowered his arm slowly, calmly, watching without expression. Around him, shattered consoles and ruptured cables sparked intermittently, casting stark shadows upon the walls and ceiling. A quiet settled across the command bridge, broken only by the low crackle of damaged machinery and the distant thrum of the wounded ship. Lorgar stirred weakly, one armored hand scraping against the deck in a feeble attempt to rise. Blood ran freely from beneath his armor, pooling darkly around him. And still, Lorgar was alive. True enough. If Thragg wanted him dead, then he would’ve ripped his head right off and thrown it out the ship.

“Consider that a threat.” 

Thragg turned slowly, his eyes moving across the other armored giants scattered along the bridge. The warriors stood frozen, bolters slackened in their hands. Their helmets watched him, battered armor gleaming dully beneath flickering lights. He tilted his head a fraction, meeting their blank visors, offering no word, no gesture. He hovered a moment, suspended and quiet, while their stares followed him in wary silence.

Then he rose swiftly through the stale air of the bridge, legs straightening, shoulders squaring in a graceful blur. He flew upward with calm certainty, impacting the heavy ceiling plates above. The thick metal parted and buckled, yielding as if it were parchment rather than forged steel. A fresh wound tore through the ship’s armored hull, peeled back in ragged edges. The chamber howled as atmosphere escaped, debris sucked outward into the void. Consoles and deck panels rattled and groaned beneath the sudden decompression.

Thragg passed easily into space, shards of twisted metal tumbling around him in soundless arcs. The star-strewn emptiness embraced him, black and silent and cold. He drifted a moment, watching as atmosphere vented in thin ribbons from the torn opening. He saw armored shapes clinging to consoles inside the bridge, silhouettes staggering and slipping under the force of decompression. Emergency bulkheads snapped shut across the breach moments later, sealing the battered warship in its wounds.

He did not leave the planetary system immediately. Instead, he turned, angling his path toward a small, pale moon that orbited quietly in the shadow of its larger planetary host. His speed carried him swiftly through the emptiness, starlight sliding over his features. Thragg landed softly, booted feet settling on the moon’s cracked and dusty surface. Gray stone and grit shifted beneath him. He stood still, watching the distant planetary battles continue, the faint orange glows of orbital bombardments flickering silently upon the planet’s horizon.

In the silent reaches of his mind, Nashara’s presence stirred. Images unfolded slowly, methodically—visions of vast ships that blotted out suns, of endless ranks of armored warriors marching beneath grim banners. He saw worlds razed to barren wastelands, entire civilizations extinguished beneath rolling tides of armored human flesh. Nashara painted vivid scenes, memories gleaned and extracted from the ruined ship’s databanks. Human cities burned, their spires crumbled, skies choked with smoke and ash. Men and women ran screaming through streets, chased by giants armored in steel, wielding weapons that spat fire and death.

He watched these images, impassive, eyes reflecting the distant stars. He saw the banners and sigils fluttering above legions whose footsteps shook the very ground, whose ships drifted silently through the void, devouring entire star systems. A ravenous beast made of countless lives—an empire that ground entire regions of space beneath its feet, leaving silence and ruin. He saw their endless ranks marching beneath grim-faced generals, fleets that stretched beyond sight, engines burning the dark of space. They called themselves the Imperium of Man, and they left behind nothing but dust and emptiness.

Yet, in the ruinous fury that Nashara showed him, Thragg saw something familiar. The unyielding faces of commanders, the grim lines of armored soldiers—he saw the echoes of his own people, memories from distant pasts. The Viltrumite Empire at its zenith had known something like this. They too had built their dominion across worlds, planted banners in blood-soaked soil, subjugated races beneath a rule of iron. Their methods had differed—the Viltrumites had never sought annihilation as an end, only submission, dominance, a strict ordering beneath their own might. Yet the core of it—the unquenchable drive to dominate, to hold the very stars in grasping hands—was the same. He knew that pulse, that hunger, had felt it burning in the marrow of his own bones long ago.

The good news was that it didn’t seem like this Imperium of Man had its sights set on Nareena’s World. The bad news was that he couldn’t rely on data from just one ship, because these people did not appear to possess networked data storage, which meant every vessel was a store of information onto itself, which meant he was back at square one. The silver lining, Thragg figured, was that it would be easier to assume that the Imperium of Man did have its sights on Nareena’s World–or they will soon. Additionally, they were clearly far less of a problem than the Rangdan were–at least, individually, because not even the Rangdan could compare to the sheer mass of the Imperium, but their individual warrior-drones were certainly far stronger than even the armored giants that attacked him. If he had to fight a war against these people–and it was looking as though that would be the case–then dealing with them would be far easier. He would prefer to not have to fight a war and, instead, turn his attention to finding his wife–whatever realm she might’ve gotten herself lost in. 

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Lorgar opened his eyes to the glow of lumen strips set in a low ceiling. The first thing he noticed was the hush in his ears, as though every noise were filtered through thick wool. His attempt to lift an arm ended in a faint tremor. He looked down and saw the battered ceramite plating replaced with bandages and clamps, arcane machinery feeding tubes into his flesh. A sharp scent of disinfectants clung in the air. He let out a shallow breath. His chest felt leaden, stiff with splints and cauterized scars.

A servo-skull drifted at the edge of his vision, half-wreathed in shadows. Thin cables ran from its underside to the medicae chamber’s flickering monitors. The place reminded him of a field-hospital pitched in haste. Loose wiring dripped from overhead panels, and the walls bore the marks of recent stress—fresh welds and rivets, plating hammered back into place. Each blink of the lumen strips revealed glinting shards of broken glass on the floor. The ship groaned every so often, a guttural note that set the overhead lamps rattling in their housings.

Lorgar tried again to move his arm. This time it rose a handspan. Pain splashed through his shoulder, radiating in bright pulses. He breathed through clenched teeth. A sour taste lingered on his tongue. The memory of that fight still lurked behind his eyelids: a silhouette that defied reason, a man who should not have existed, a brute strength that had torn Lorgar’s armor away plate by plate. An ache lanced through his ribs at the recollection. He let his eyes drift, searching the chamber.

A figure stepped into the uneven light. Erebus. The Chaplain’s shoulders were wrapped in half-torn ceramite, each piece re-fused with rivets and brackets. His left pauldron was missing entirely, and crude bandaging ran across the flesh beneath. A faint sheen of sweat traced his scalp, and a heavy bruise encircled his left eye. He walked with a measured limp, boots clanking on the grated floor.

Erebus paused near Lorgar’s cot. He placed a hand on the metal frame, fingers tapping out a restless pattern. No words came at first. The servo-skull hovered near them, silent except for the whirr of its small turbine. Lorgar took in the Chaplain’s battered form. New scarring lined Erebus’s cheek, a still-red seam where flesh and gene-tech had worked to mend the wound. One lens of his battered helm dangled from a strap at his belt, cracked beyond easy repair.

Lorgar shifted, forcing himself upright against the cot’s support bars. Each motion drew shards of pain through his spine and shoulder. The medicae machines beeped in protest. He exhaled, ignoring the rancid burn at the back of his throat. Erebus inclined his head slightly and laid a set of data-slates on a nearby tray. Their screens glowed with faint script.

“It has been a week.” Erebus spoke quietly, voice carrying the rough rasp of a man who had not rested well. “The conquest took more time than expected.”

Lorgar watched him, eyes half-lidded. He shifted again, tested the weight of the bandages binding his torso and arms. The chamber’s recycled air tasted stale, tinged with the medicinal tang of synth-narcotics. A drip line entered his arm near the elbow, pinned in place by a ring of staples. He glanced at Erebus once more. A bruise darkened the Chaplain’s jaw where ceramite once covered him.

Erebus set a hand on the data-slate. 

“The world has fallen. But the cost was high.” He drew a breath, coughed lightly. “Your sons fought on with wounds that would have left mortal men unable to stand. The defenders bled for every district. Our legion paid in kind. Many still require augmetic replacements. Some will not stand again. And we lacked your hand to guide us.” 

Lorgar closed his eyes for an instant, recalling the battered corridors, the twisted bulkheads. He recalled how quickly Thragg had broken them, how easily that man had cast aside warriors who should have been unstoppable. Now, with each breath, he felt the remnants of that battle in the dull ache of his bones. He opened his eyes, glancing at Erebus’s battered form, then at the door behind him where two legionnaires stood guard in chipped power armor.

Erebus tapped the slate again. “The mortal regiments were all but spent. Our Astartes carried most of the burden. The population resisted to the last. We crushed them, but it was a long business. They had local militias fortified in subterranean bunkers, lines of siege guns. It might have ended sooner, had we not been so… diminished.”

Lorgar flexed the fingers of his right hand. Metal pins glinted along the base of his wrist where the flesh had not fully regenerated just yet. The bionics beneath gave a dull ache. He shut his eyes again, letting the memory of Thragg flood back: those unyielding muscles, the casual manner in which he cast aside blade and bolter and laser. That calm stare, as though the Word Bearers’ might was less than the threat of a passing breeze.

A med-servitor rolled closer, vents exhaling a chemical odor. Its mechanical limbs hummed softly as it scanned Lorgar’s vitals, slender needles dancing across readouts. Erebus shifted aside, face tense. Lorgar turned his head, ignoring the servitor’s halting ministrations, and focused on Erebus.

“Leave me the reports,” Lorgar said quietly, voice harsh from disuse. “I will review them once I can stand.” 

He paused, gauging the movement of his jaw and the bruised cords of his neck. “Tell me if you have any new signs of him.”

Erebus’s lips tightened into a grim line. “Our augur scans showed a breach in the hull. Then he vanished. Our long-range sensors tracked a silhouette near the third moon, but that vanished too. We do not know where he has gone. The warship’s internal records remain incomplete, thanks to the damage.”

Erebus shifted, pressing a hand lightly to the fresh scarring on his own flank. 

Lorgar’s hand tensed on the cot’s steel bar. The faint squeal of bending metal followed. He stared at nothing in particular, the lumen strips throwing uneven light across the lines of his face. After a moment, he released the bar and let his hand rest upon the white sheets. 

“Set a course for the next world,” he said, voice low. “The Great Crusade does not wait.”