The first gift Corax ever brought to Ephrenia on his arrival was ripping off an overseer's head and presenting it to his big sister. Far from being frightened, the thirteen-year-old girl accepted the grisly present with delight.
Mortarion had just lopped off his xenos foster-father's head, intending to offer it in memory of the little girl who once wiped sweat from his brow—surely she, too, would be overjoyed.
"People in this universe are seriously twisted," Swain mused.
"Barbarus is one hell of a lousy rock," he muttered, scratching the back of his head.
For days he had ridden in a Custodes Stormbird with the Emperor, touring a planet smothered in toxic miasma—world on its deathbed.
Who knew what catastrophes had befallen this blighted sphere to warrant such relentless biochemical bombardment? Adeptus Mechanicus probe-borings found lethal toxins even in the deepest strata of soil.
In short, every grain of Barbaran dirt was poisonous. Even if the Adeptus Mechanicus purified the air, the soil would keep bleeding contaminants; a century later the world would relapse unless Mortarion paid the ruinous cost of running planetary purifiers day and night.
Alternatives either carried unacceptable collateral or awaited the master's word, or else proved ruinously expensive. The Adeptus Mechanicus tabled three options.
One: strip off every last topsoil layer and ship in replacement earth.
Two: install planet-wide atmospheric scrubbers and run them nonstop.
Three: till the deep soil, then scorch the entire biosphere with atmospheric-ignition torpedoes—in other words, Exterminatus Mortarion's cradle.
Swain figured salvaging Barbarus would demand as much time, toil, and coin as rescuing Kiavahr had.
"Morty, how did you land yourself on this god-forsaken dump?" he sighed.
"The Adeptus Mechanicus's measures treat symptoms, not the disease. Even an Exterminatus buys only a century; the world will relapse," said the Emperor, letting his psychic sight sink into the planet's core. "It lies too close."
Unless the root was severed, Barbarus's poison was incurable. The Iron Men revolt, the Age of Strife—successive cataclysms had drenched the planet in bioweapons, forging a faint tether to Garden of Nurgle.
"No wonder Typhon embraced Nurgle. Fancy a bit of grave-robbing?" Swain suggested.
Necron Blackstone.
Blackstone was a unique Necron construct, a mineral able either to amplify or to completely wall off Warp energy.
No Imperial expedition had yet unearthed the ore—fortunately, or the tombs would already have awakened.
"Barbarus is Mortarion's birth-world. Present him the data and let him decide whether to dig," the Emperor ruled.
The Master of Mankind had a galaxy to govern; he could hardly mine for a Primarch.
"Speaking of mining—wasn't that your specialty? Why not grab a pick yourself?" He glanced at the man who had spent a decade digging on Lycaeus.
"Sure. Let Mortarion pulp every Necron first and I'll gladly dig, but hunting the other Primarchs will have to wait," Swain shrugged; mining was old hat to him.
"Finding my sons outweighs ore," the Emperor instantly back-pedalled.
The golden Stormbird thundered across the sky, arrowing toward the Death Guard stronghold.
Through the viewport Swain spotted Barbaran peasants labouring in the fields; ever since Mortarion slew the mightiest alien warlord, the planet had begun to breathe again.
He even saw Corax and Mortarion crouched between rows of crops, inspecting the sickly seedlings.
Oddly, Adeptus Mechanicus seed-stock refused to sprout here; shoots rotted in the ground and transplants withered by dusk, roots burned black.
A Biologis Savants took personal interest, joining the study of Barbarus's native flora.
Life, however, endures: even in this venomous atmosphere local flora and fauna had evolved to thrive.
"Hey, Morty—join us! Corax was raised by miners, you're the old farmer; let's forge a Worker-Peasant Alliance and butcher the hated xenos together!" Leaping from the hovering Stormbird, Swain renewed his pitch.
The Emperor departed in the gunship, returning to his flagship and the endless paperwork of empire.
A week had passed since Mortarion's awakening. Corax had briefed him thoroughly on their father, the Imperium, and humanity's plight across the galaxy. Mortarion pledged himself to the Imperium without hesitation and met the future second-in-command of the Raven Guard.
Mortarion felt no aversion—rather, a flicker of kinship—toward the officer who, like Typhon, would stand second in the Raven Guard, though he wished the man would stop babbling about Worker-Peasant Alliances and joint-legion glory.
Yet, oddly, the Emperor not only failed to curb the rhetoric but tacitly encouraged such ambitious schemes.
Only later did Mortarion learn that the Emperor had summoned Swain more often than Corax himself, whereupon he ceased to question the matter.
The galaxy was vast; there was room enough for all to carve their domains—provided they fought for them.
"Very well, I'll join your Saviors. What are the perks?" Mortarion asked, extending a gauntleted hand.
"The Imperium gifts me men and ships—what does your outfit offer?"
"Ah, your uncle doesn't have anything good to give you. Take this for now—when your dad beats you, I'll tell your future dad to beat him up!" Swain produced a black card from nowhere and pressed it into Mortarion's hand, laughing.
Worst case, the old geezer and the middle-aged geezer can duke it out in another no-holds-barred street fight; whether Mortarion believes it is his problem.
"Thanks." Mortarion slipped the black card into a pocket.
"By the way, your dad asked how you plan to reshape Barbarus." Swain called after him.
"It doesn't need reshaping. The people of Barbarus are free from the xenos threat, but they must never lose their sense of danger—the resilience of the Death Guard must be theirs to inherit!" Without looking back, Mortarion answered and kept tending his crops.
"Figured as much." Swain shrugged; if Mortarion liked it that way, so be it.
Teaching a son to be smarter is a father's job, and Swain wasn't Mortarion's dad.
These self-willed Primarchs, growing like weeds, all had their stubborn streaks. After returning to the Imperium, many left their homeworlds untouched; some even bled theirs dry, sparking uprisings.
As Mortarion said, Barbarus was free of xenos; its people still needed to respect their past.
He even planned a decree: Barbarans might fashion only their own rebreathers—without the planet's toxins, what difference would remain once tech purified the air?
"Give me a vial of your blood; Typhon will use it for the gene-upgrade surgery. His gene-seed needs special cultivation." Swain produced a syringe.
Hearing it was for Typhon's bespoke organs, Mortarion jabbed the needle into his arm, filled the syringe, and handed it over. A Primarch's flesh sealed the puncture the instant the needle withdrew—no drop spilled.
"See you around." Swain jogged back toward the returning Stormbird.
"Neos, why grow a whole new set of organs for Typhon? Won't standard ones do?" Swain asked, puzzled.
"I'm giving him a buff; when he falls into Nurgle's arms, it'll give us an early warning." The Emperor accepted Mortarion's blood and began personally culturing the custom implants—even re-engineering the gene-seed.
The Emperor's method was simple: splice in fragments of his own genes to boost Typhon's power. When Typhon succumbed to Nurgle, the genetic link would let the Emperor sense Typhus's corruption—then he could either let his genes lie dormant or turn Typhus into a living torch.
The Emperor's gifts are never free; everything carries a hidden price.
"I've made my move—what about you?" The Emperor turned his gaze toward Garden of Nurgle.
"Who will you visit next?" the Emperor asked Swain as he prepared to depart.
"Lion El'Jonson!" Swain answered, surprising the Emperor—he'd expected the angel, Guilliman, or someone whose tragic fate might be averted.
"Why Lion? I thought you loved your second spiritual home, Macragge." The Emperor smiled; those memories had come bundled when the God-Emperor, no longer human, dumped all of Swain's memories during their brawl. "Ran-Dan!" Swain spat the icy word.
At that, the smile vanished from the Emperor's lips.
"You intend to move ahead of schedule?" Unconsciously, he treated Swain as a partner.
The Randan were the single greatest rival the Imperium of Man ever faced for control of the Galaxy.
In the Rangdan Xenocides the Imperium committed over three hundred thousand Space Marines, untold auxilia and Mechanicus fleets, and three Primarchs took direct command; two Primarchs and their Legions were afterward expunged from every record.
The three Primarchs who fought voluntarily submitted to Malcador's memory wipe, and everything about the Randan sank into eternal mystery.
"Not ahead of schedule—the First Legion needs strengthening. The Lion needs more experience before commanding the Randan campaign, not a baptism-by-fire the moment he returns. At the very least, no random flying-head punches." Swain stated his view.
The young Lion's first battle after returning to the Imperium was a hellish opener.
In the fourth year after Lion's return, the Imperium met the Randan at Mordia-Angles. Five thousand veteran Dark Angels, after horrific losses and the sacrifice of the flagship Exemplar of Hate, finally defeated the xenos.
Then came the Second and Third Randan Wars; together the three conflicts lasted more than half a century.
When the fighting ended, the Dark Angels had fallen from over two hundred thousand to fewer than one hundred thousand, dropping from the premier Legion as the Luna Wolves and Ultramarines surpassed them in numbers.
Was the Lion strong? Undoubtedly—he beat the Randan. But Swain believed that strength rested on the Legion's power; during the Heresy many of the Lion's baffling moves looked like senility compared with his Randan tactics.
What did the Lion do during the Heresy? When Terra most needed aid, he split his forces—sent Corswain with twenty thousand to relieve Terra while he bombarded rebel homeworlds with Exterminatus.
Swain could only shake his head in disbelief.
He wasn't the only loyal Primarch whose actions made no sense.
Look at the others:
Guilliman built his Second Imperium; Russ boarded the Vengeful Spirit and, at the last moment, spared Horus, dooming most of the Space Wolves; Khan ignored Dorn's orders and led the White Scars in guerrilla raids around Terra.
The Iron Hands, Salamanders, and Raven Guard were crippled at the Drop Site Massacre and could no longer support Terra. (No criticizing those three.)
Only Dorn held the Terra Imperial Palace with the few forces he had, bitterly resisting the traitors.
So Swain felt the Lion needed more seasoning—more great battles to master the sharpest blade in the Emperor's hand.