"Let's talk about Lorgar."

The temporary garrison command post. They had just finalized the Imperial defense line map for Armageddon.

The holographic star chart rotated overhead, marking the likely advance routes of the greenskin warlord Ghazghkull Thraka.

Horus stood at the table, one hand curled around the slender stem of a tall wine glass. A last swallow of red remained at the bottom.

He tilted his head back and drained it, letting the wine settle in his throat before he opened the subject.

"Lorgar Aurelian. Our brother. A pitiful creature."

"Though not one worth pitying."

"Before his return to the Imperium, the Seventeenth Legion was the largest in existence — and the most devoted to the Imperial Truth. I heard more than a few stories about them back on Terra."

"What stories?"

Cawl and Fulgrim asked in the same breath.

"It may surprise you, my brothers. The Word Bearers — whom you picture as religious fanatics — were staunch opponents of gods during the Unification Wars. They were celebrated as our father's heralds, the Emperor of Mankind's messengers, iconoclasts to the last."

"Any idol, any utterance of faith, they destroyed on sight. The Imperial Truth was their supreme doctrine."

The Wolf God had barely finished when the Lord of the Night cut in, his tone somewhere between teasing and contempt.

"Priests of power. The Emperor is power. No different from worshipping a god."

"Originally from 1984." Kaelen added at the right moment. "Your reading has come a long way, Lord Cawl."

Cawl raised his chin and accepted the compliment as though it were simply his due.

"I don't just read books. I write them too."

"Written what?"

"A great many words directed against our father."

"An entire book's worth. The page count is nearly catching up to the Lectitio Divinitatus that Lorgar once wrote. Find a printing press, release it to the public, and people will finish reading it very quickly convinced that the figure on the throne is an absolute bastard and tyrant."

An awkward silence settled over the room.

Kaelen let out a short, quiet laugh. Horus feigned irritation and shot Cawl a look.

The Lord of the Night gave a slight shrug, unbothered. The Phoenician smiled and ruffled his brother's hair with easy affection.

"I'll admit father made many mistakes. But his intentions were always for humanity's sake."

"Let's get back to Lorgar."

"Setting aside what came later, among all our brothers, he was once quite a decent man. Humble, courteous, patient with everyone he ever met."

Cawl cut in.

"As long as you could find a way to wash the scripture off his face, he was actually fairly easy to get along with."

Then again:

"Don't blame him for that. It was the local culture of his homeworld Colchis." Fulgrim said, with a conciliatory wave. "Forgive a man shaped by his local faith."

Horus nodded.

"That said, conquest was genuinely not his strength. After the Emperor found him and handed him the Word Bearers, the Seventeenth Legion's reclamation speed and advance efficiency in the Great Crusade fell off a cliff. I recall their rate dropped below even yours, Fulgrim, back when you had only just returned to your legion?"

Fulgrim's voice carried a note of disbelief.

"When I returned to my legion there were only two hundred men. It's difficult to imagine, that Lorgar, with all those Word Bearers under his command, was reclaiming worlds at a rate comparable to mine."

"That is the nature of religious faith, especially when it comes to winning hearts and minds. In a Great Crusade built on speed and efficiency, Lorgar made a serious mistake."

"But it wasn't enough for the Emperor to punish him outright. The worlds the Word Bearers reclaimed tended to show higher loyalty to Terra and the Emperor than average. A trade-off. Am I right?"

Kaelen said, glancing toward Horus.

The Primarch nodded.

"Well said, my friend. On that point alone, it wasn't yet enough for our father to move against him."

"The real reason was the Perfect City."

At that name, all three Primarchs shifted their expressions.

It was one of the most inglorious pages in the history of the Great Crusade.

The Ultramarines had destroyed the Word Bearers' life's work.

"By then, the Emperor's dissatisfaction with Lorgar had reached its breaking point. The Perfect City had become a religious holy site raised in his honor, and that cut directly against his lifelong goal of spreading the Truth across every world."

Horus let out a sigh.

"The old man handled himself badly on this one. I'd wager even if Leman Russ had been the one sent to do the dirty work, he still would have owed Lorgar an apology after."

Cawl gave a cold scoff.

"But who knows what was going through Guilliman's head. The man is normally sharp enough politically, and yet he offered no apology, made no statement of any kind. Was it because father forbade him, or something else?"

Fulgrim pressed his lips together and shook his head.

Horus thought of something and looked toward Kaelen.

"My friend, you mentioned once that if Lorgar had simply endured, he could have become Ecclesiarch of the Imperium. You must have a different understanding of the Perfect City incident."

A traveler who knew both past and future. Horus suspected Kaelen knew far more of the inside story than any of them.

Kaelen picked up his wine glass, turned to glance at the nearby statue of the Emperor, then looked back at the Primarchs.

"If Lorgar truly believed the Emperor was a god, then failing to endure the god's trial means he simply wasn't capable of it. His faith was a sham."

"A god's blessing and a god's punishment are the same thing at root. A true believer accepts both with an open heart."

"His homeworld Colchis was soaked through with old power. The deities worshipped there were nothing but masks worn by the Chaos Gods."

"When Lorgar, on a world drenched in the culture of the old gods, built the Perfect City in the image of his own understanding, who could guarantee that the vast tide of faith rising within that city was flowing purely toward the Emperor?"

"My lords, in an age now governed by religion, we have all seen what belief can do. Consider this: if that faith became fuel to nourish the Chaos Gods, what would the Emperor have thought?"

The three Primarchs looked at one another. The same expression moved across all three faces at once.

Realization.

Fulgrim's brow creased. He glanced over at Horus.

The Wolf God's expression had gone completely still.

For ten thousand years, they had all believed the Emperor had acted with excessive obsession over the Perfect City.

Broken down along Kaelen's line of reasoning, burning the city wasn't merely justified. It was the fastest, most direct way to cut the losses.

Every second of delay would have made the Chaos Gods stronger.

Horus exhaled, long and slow. That last remnant of sympathy he'd held for Lorgar, and all the regrets wound up in their brotherhood with it, was carried away on that single breath.

"Good thing it burned." Cawl nodded, and meant it.

"Though part of the fault still lies with the Emperor."

Kaelen continued.

"If the deed had to be done cleanly, he should have sent Leman Russ or Lion El'Jonson to carry it out. Not Guilliman."

"And after destroying the Perfect City, he should have rebuked Lorgar as a god would, not gone silent. When you say nothing, people will always imagine the worst. As I said before: if the Emperor had spoken a few more words, and Lorgar had thought it through, the seat of Ecclesiarch might well have been his."

"But there is no such 'if.' And even if there were, it wouldn't be on our timeline."

➤ Next: Lorgar Emerges