The Ghost of Barbarus
Nathaniel Garro's question about "freedom" did not fade with his voice; instead, it echoed endlessly in Mortarian's mind.
Freedom?
Mortarian's fingers, gripping the great scythe, began to spasm, his gauntlets creaking.
He looked at Garro—the company commander who had once knelt before him, swearing an oath to give his life for the Fourteenth Legion.
Now, the commander stood with his back straighter than ever. His eyes, burning with white soulfire, held no reverence for his Primarch.
Only piercing pity.
"Don't look at me like that..."
A low rumble escaped Mortarian's throat, like a rusty engine grinding to life.
"You're just a soldier, Garro. A blind soldier who only obeys orders—a soldier who'd help the seller count the money even after being sold."
"The blind one is you, Mortarian."
Garro did not back down. Leaning on his greatsword, his voice remained calm to the point of coldness.
"Do you remember Barbarus? The poisonous fog?"
Garro raised a hand and pointed around. Though the area had been purified, remnants of Nurgle's clouds still lingered on the distant horizon.
"Back then, your people struggled in the swamps of that world. Coughing blood in the toxic air, watching those around them die one by one. You swore an oath."
His voice rose, taking on a metallic edge.
"You swore to eradicate those high and mighty alien overlords. You swore to break their tyranny.
After returning to the Legion, you swore to your sons that humanity would never again live in fear and poison gas."
"And now?"
Garro stepped forward.
"Look at yourself, Mortarian. Look at this planet."
"You turned its people into walking corpses. Its fertile land into a wasteland choked with poison.
You are more brutal, more repulsive than those alien tyrants of Barbarus."
"In rebelling against a so-called tyrant, you became the most pathetic slave master."
"Is this your oath? Is this the future you desired?"
"Bang!"
Mortarian swung his arm violently. The massive scythe haft smashed into the ground, carving a deep crater in the white sand.
"Shut up!!!"
The roar exploded outward, no longer restrained.
Like a ruptured boiler, resentment, fury, and festering inferiority burst forth all at once.
Mortarian's pallid face twitched. His glowing eyes burned with sickly green fire.
"What do you know?! You know nothing!!"
He gasped like a wounded beast, yellow vapors hissing from beneath his rebreather.
"Oaths? Glory? All lies spun by that glittering liar!"
He spun, pointing at Eileen—
—or rather, at the will she represented.
"It was him! He destroyed everything!"
His voice trembled, not with fear, but with agitation so violent it stripped him of control.
"On Barbarus… that day…"
He began pacing like a man consumed by madness, words tumbling faster and faster.
"I prepared my entire life! I endured endless torment! I led my people step by step up that mountain of death!"
"That alien tyrant—Nakare! The monster who claimed to be my adoptive father! He was my nightmare! The chain I swore to break with my own hands!"
Mortarian stopped abruptly, clutching his breastplate as if to tear into his own flesh.
"I was so close… so close to killing him! So close to washing away my shame! So close to proving I needed no one's charity!"
"But then he came! That damned radiant being descending from the sky!"
Mortarian gave a bitter laugh.
"He waved a hand—a casual gesture—and slew the monster I could not defeat despite everything!"
"He stole my prey. Erased my struggle. Made me kneel in the mud like refuse—and I had to thank him!"
"He wasn't saving me. He was humiliating me! Telling me: 'Look, Mortarian. You are nothing without me.'"
Silence fell over the battlefield.
Guilliman frowned. He knew the history—but he had never grasped how deeply the wound festered.
"But that wasn't enough…"
Mortarian's voice turned venomous.
"He called me son. Called us brothers. Lies! All lies!"
He pointed at Guilliman.
"He 'favored' you, Robert—because you could govern, because you could polish his shining empire."
He gestured toward the void.
"He favored Horus, his perfect, brilliant Warmaster."
"And me?"
Mortarian struck his corroded armor with a hollow clang.
"I was a rusted blade. An outcast.
He remembered me only when filth needed scraping—when worlds of radiation and gas required cleansing."
"'Send the Fourteenth. They're resilient. They don't mind dying.'"
"He never treated me as a son. Only as a tool—one he wouldn't mourn if broken."
Garro tried to interject, but Mortarian's emotions had fully overrun him.
"And sorcery!"
The green flames in his eyes flared brighter.
"What I have always despised is witchcraft! That foul distortion of reality!"
"What did he declare at Nicaea? 'No psykers. It is too dangerous.'"
Mortarian laughed sharply, wings thrashing.
"What hypocrisy!"
"He forbade us—while he sat upon that golden throne wielding the greatest sorcery in existence!"
He pointed at the blazing Imperial Sword, at the summoned Heroic Spirit.
"What is this if not sorcery? What is this if not warp power?!"
"He deceived us all! The greatest sorcerer! The greatest tyrant! The greatest hypocrite!"
"I only wanted to live truthfully! What crime is that?!"
He spread his arms wide, as if embracing the rotting world.
"Only here—only in Father Nurgle's embrace—did I find an answer."
His voice sank into warped devotion.
"In Nurgle's Garden there are no gilded lies. No empty promises."
"Only decay. Equal and eternal."
"Pain is real. Blessings are real. Primarch or mortal—before the plague, all flesh is equal."
"Here, I am no longer weak. No longer a tool."
He clenched his fist, reveling in the nauseating strength coursing through him.
"Even corruption is more honest than false golden light!"
"This is freedom, Garro! True freedom without lies!"
"Could that Corpse King give me that? No! Only chains—and an eternal debt of 'salvation'!"
The roar drained him.
His chest heaved like broken bellows. Blackened blood seeped from his mouth, hissing as it struck the sand.
The battlefield remained utterly silent.
Only the faint whistle of wind passing the burning Imperial Sword.
Ultramarines, Heroic Spirits—even Eileen—stood stunned by the venomous confession.
It was a tragedy.
A soul born desperate to prove itself, twisted between inferiority and pride until nothing remained but ruin.
Guilliman looked at his fallen brother. There was no anger in his gaze—only deep sorrow.
He could not deny that they had been used as tools.
But he believed it had been necessary for humanity's survival.
Mortarian, in rejecting that burden, had chosen instead to become the blade raised against humanity.
"Huff… huff…"
Mortarian's bloodshot gaze swept across the silent crowd.
A bitter laugh escaped him—void of triumph, filled only with desperation.
"Speak…"
His voice was hoarse, almost pleading.
"Refute me. Tell me I am wrong."
He stepped forward, his immense shadow swallowing Eileen and Garro.
"Tell me… that the man who enslaved his sons, who burned worlds without hesitation…"
"That man who would not even share his true name…"
"Is he… truly worthy of my loyalty?"
Only silence answered him.
And the ragged echo of his own breathing across the desolate battlefield.
"Huff… huff…"