'And what was that supposed to prove?' asked Dorn, his features curled in distaste.

'That any chance mortals get they will choose the path of dissent. When he thought he would be punished, he dared not shoot, but the moment he believed himself free from consequence, he acted.'

'That was an unworthy deed,' said Dorn and Curze had turned away from him before he could elaborate, but the Imperial Fists' primarch caught his arm. 'Your warriors will stand down and withdraw, Curze. That is an order, not a request. Leave this planet. Now.'

Dorn's eyes were hard as granite and Curze knew enough of his brother's resolve to realise he had pushed him far enough. 'When this campaign is won, you and I will have words, Curze. You have crossed the line and I will no longer countenance your barbarous methods of war. Your way is not the way of the Imperium.'

'I think you might be right…' whispered Curze.

And he had led his warriors from the field of battle, their dark armour rendering them as shadows in the ruins.

He wondered what might have happened had he taken the debate to its logical conclusion.

Curze shied away from the violence inherent in such a line of reasoning and ran a hand through his dark hair, feeling like a caged animal as the door to his chamber - his prison - slid open and a warrior in gleaming, midnight-blue armour entered. Through the door, he could see the purple-armoured figures of Fulgrim's Phoenix Guard, their golden halberds and copper scale cloaks glittering in the wan light of the starfort.

Dorn and Fulgrim were taking no chances with his confinement.

The newcomer's head was shaven bald, pale and angular, with hooded eyes of jet beneath a prominent brown and pugnacious jawline.

Curze nodded in acknowledgement at the sight of his equerry, Captain Shang, and beckoned him in with an impatient wave of his hand.

'What news?' asked Curze as Shang bowed curtly before him.

Shang said, 'The Master of the Fists recovers, my lord. A lesser being than a primarch would be dead thrice over with the wounds you dealt him.'

Curze returned his gaze to the tracts of stars beyond the skin of the starfort, all too aware of the severity of Dorn's wounds, having clawed them with his bare hands and teeth.

'Then I must await the judgement of my peers, is that it?'

'With respect, my lord, you did draw the blood of a brother Primarch.'

'And for that they will demand blood in return, no doubt…'

He remembered Dorn coming to his chambers, enraged by the slaughters on Cheraut and incensed at what Fulgrim had told him - secrets Curze had told Fulgrim in confidence some days earlier. The fit had come upon Curze as the Phoenician had told him tales of Chemos, pitching him to the floor and wracking his mind with terrifying visions of a nightmare future of death and unremitting darkness.

Moved by Fulgrim's apparent concern, Curze had confided in his old tutor, telling him of the visions that had plagued him since his earliest days on Nostramo.

A galaxy at war.

Astartes turning on one another.

Death awaiting him at his father's hands…

Fulgrim's pale, aquiline features had remained stoic, but Curze had seen the unease that flickered in his eyes. He had hoped Fulgrim would keep his confession in confidence, but when Dorn had appeared at his door, he knew he was betrayed.

In truth he had little memory of what had occurred after Dorn's storming accusations of insult to the Emperor… the present had faded and the future had seized his mind with agonising visions of a galaxy locked in a cycle of unending war where the alien, the mutant and the rebel arose to feast on the rotting carcass of the Imperium.

This then was the future the Emperor was creating? This was the ultimate destiny of a galaxy where the fear of punishment was not the agent of control. This was the inevitable result of allowing weak men to craft the destiny of Mankind and Curze knew that, of all the primarchs, only one had the force of will required to mould the new Imperium from the soft clay of its present form.

'The time has come to forge our own path, Shang,' said Curze.

'Then this is the moment you foresaw?'

'Yes. My brothers will seize this opportunity to be rid of us.'

'I believe you are correct,' agreed Shang. 'My sources tell me there is talk, and not idle talk, of recalling the legion to Terra to account for our methods of war.'

'I knew it. Since they cannot kill me, the cowards choose to strike at me through my Legion. You see, Shang? They have been waiting for this opportunity for decades. They are weak fools who have not the stomach to do what must be done, but I do, oh yes, I do indeed.'

'Then what is our course, my lord?' asked Shang.

'Fulgrim and Dorn may have betrayed me, but we are not without friends amongst the other Legions,' said Curze. 'But first we must put our own house in order. Tell me, what news of Nostramo?'

'It is as we feared, my lord,' said Shang. 'The regime of Administrator-regent Balthius has failed. Corruption is rife, criminals govern from the ruined spires of Nostramo Quintus and lawlessness is endemic.'

'Then I have no time to waste while small minded fools decide my fate as though I am a lowly menial to be chastised.'

'What are your orders, my lord?' asked Shang.

'Ready our ships, captain,' said Curze. 'We return to Nostramo.'

'But you have been ordered to remain in seclusion, my lord,' pointed out Shang. 'Lord Fulgrim's praetorians and Dorn's Templars guard your chambers.'

Curze grinned crookedly and said, 'Leave them to me…'

Curze lifted the last piece of his armour from the shadowed alcove and raised it above his head. He turned towards the door of his chamber and lowered his helmet until the skull-faced visor connected to his gorget with a hiss of pressurisation. His vision shifted subtly and his perceptions broadened as he blended with the shadows of the dimly lit chamber.

He slowed his breathing and stretched out his senses, the darkness a second home to him after so many years spent in its embrace as a predator on the weak and guilty. He felt a moment's regret that it had come to this, but he quashed such notions viciously. Doubt, regret and hesitancy were weaknesses others might suffer from, but not Konrad Curze.

His breathing deepened and the tenebrous chamber came alive to him.

Curze felt power in the darkness; the cold intellect of hunters and creatures of the night that killed beneath its cloak. Lethal instincts honed on a thousand battlefields were now heightened to undreamed of levels and would now serve him equally well on this one.

He spread his arms wide and a ripple of psychic force pulsed like the blast wave of an explosion with Curze at its epicentre. The hanging glow strips filling the chamber exploded in quick succession, detonating one after another in showers of pellucid sparks. Broken glass tinkled musically to the steel deck in a glass rain.

Sputtering power cables swayed from the ceiling, hissing and fizzing like angry snakes as electric discharge strobed blue across the room.

Hostile red warning lights blinked. Cold light eased inside as the door opened and a handful of armoured warriors stood silhouetted.

Curze leapt straight up, gripping the open lattice structure of the nearest column and swinging himself up into the deeper darkness of the chamber before the light could reach him. His legs swung around the column and he climbed higher as the warriors spread out with their halberds extended before them.

He heard them call his name, their voices echoing in the darkness.

A twist of muscle and he was airborne, a glimmering shadow of dead stars and extinction. The warriors below would have the senses of their battle plate lo penetrate the darkness, but they paled in comparison to those of the Night Lords' primarch. Where others saw only light and dark, Curze saw all the myriad hues and shades that were invisible to those who had not become one with its fuliginous depths,