A hissing Laer warrior hacked its weapon into the shoulder guard of his armour, the blade sliding clear and its tip scoring a line across his golden helm. Fulgrim cried out, more in surprise than pain, and thrust his sword through the alien's jaws.

He forced himself to concentrate on the fighting and not the glories the future held, seeing that yet more of his warriors were pushing into the valley through burrow holes in the coral. He frowned at their lateness, for his plan had called for an overwhelming strike delivered to this temple in perfect concert. Somewhere things had gone awry and many of his warriors had been delayed. The sudden thought troubled him greatly and his mood darkened.

As more and more Emperor's Children poured into the valley, Fulgrim and the Legion banner pushed deeper into the frenzied ranks of the Laer, the temple now tantalisingly close. A flaring sheet of green fire shot out and Fulgrim threw himself to the side. He felt the heat of the alien weapon, but shrugged off the pain where it had caught him, and turned to face the threat. The Phoenix Guard had already slaughtered his attacker.

'The banner falls!' shouted a voice, and Fulgrim saw Brother Thestis on his knees, his body a flaming statue as the deadly alien fire consumed him. The Legion standard slipped from Thestis's dead hand and toppled towards the ground, the cloth of the banner blazing where it had caught light.

Fulgrim leapt towards Thestis and snatched up the banner before it landed, raising it high with one hand so that all the Legion might see that it still flew. Fire rippled across the fabric, destroying what a hundred weeping women had created for the beautiful Primarch of the III Legion, in its unthinking hunger. The eagle's claw heraldry emblazoned upon the banner vanished in the flames, and Fulgrim felt his fury rise at this fresh insult to his honour. Burning scraps of cloth fluttered around him, but he saw that the eagle atop the banner pole remained untouched by the fire, as though some greater power protected it from harm.

'The eagle still flies!' he shouted. 'The eagle will never fall!'

Fulgrim's warriors roared in anger at this violation done to their banner and redoubled their efforts to destroy their enemies. Hard bangs of bolter fire sounded beside Fulgrim, and he turned to see Julius Kaesoron gunning down a pair of winged Laer warriors that swooped towards the blackened banner. The Phoenix Guard formed a protective cordon around him as Fulgrim marched over to the Terminator captain, the glittering eagle still held high.

'Captain Kaesoron!' cried Fulgrim. 'You are late.'

'I apologise, my lord,' said Kaesoron contritely. 'Finding a path through the coral proved to be more difficult than we imagined.'

'Difficulty is no excuse,' warned Fulgrim. 'Perfection must overcome difficulty.'

'It must, my lord,' agreed Kaesoron. 'It will never happen again.'

Fulgrim nodded and said, 'Where are Captain Demeter's Second?'

'I do not know, my lord. He has not answered any of my vox hails.'

Fulgrim turned from Kaesoron and returned his attention to the battle. 'I shall need you and your warriors to break open that temple. Follow me in.'

Without waiting for acknowledgement, Fulgrim set off at a brisk jog through his Phoenix Guard, who formed up around him as he took the eagle once more into the fight. Missiles and shells slammed into the temple and massive chunks of coral smashed down into the valley, crushing the Laer that gathered around its base.

With Fulgrim at their head, the Emperor's Children formed a fighting wedge that speared through the Laer. Closer to the temple, the aliens fought with a violence that bordered on the insane, the pink musk wreathing their bodies in a filmy gauze, and their screeching cries like those of the banshees of ancient myth. They attacked with no thought to their own defence, and Fulgrim swore that some were simply hurling themselves onto his blade. Dark blood and howls of what he would later swear were pleasure ripped from their bodies with every stroke.

The gnarled spires of the screaming temple towered above him, the wide arched entrance like the mouth of an undersea cave. Huge chunks of blasted coral lay scattered around, and scores of snaking Laer bodies slithered around them, their multiple arms bearing curved blades, which crackled with blue flames that shone brightly in the mist that poured from the shattered temple.

The Emperor's Children hammered into them, and the battle was as bloody as it was brief, the Laer fighting with inhumanly quick strikes of their lethal blades. Even the armour of the Terminators was not proof against such weapons, and more than one of Kaesoron's First lost a limb or his life to their unnatural energies.

With more and more Emperor's Children pushing into the valley, there could be no stopping their advance, and they slashed through the alien warriors that stood between them and the yawning cave mouth of the temple.

'We have them now, my children!' shouted Fulgrim.

Holding the shining eagle banner in one hand and his golden sword in the other, Fulgrim fought his way into the temple of the Laer.

Julius Kaesoron had killed with the fury of one of Angron's warriors, the shame of the primarch's rebuke driving him to undreamt of heights of reckless courage to once again prove his mettle. He had lost count of the Laer he had killed, and now the darkness of the temple enfolded him as he followed the golden eagle borne by his primarch into the heart of the black coral structure.

The darkness was like a living thing, swallowing light and sound as though jealously guarding it. Beyond the temple, Julius could still hear the cramp of explosions, the rattle of gunfire, the clash of blades and the nerve shredding screams of the towers, but with each step he took, the sounds diminished as though he were descending into an infinitely deep pit.

Ahead of him, Fulgrim strode onwards, unaware or uncaring of the effect the darkness of the temple was having on his warriors. Julius could see that even the normally implacable Phoenix Guard were uneasy in this place, and no wonder, for the primarch himself had declared that it was a place of worship.

The idea of such things was as repugnant to Julius as the idea of failure, and the thought that he stood in a fane where loathsome aliens had offered praise to false gods stoked the fires of his hatred. The warriors who had fought their way into the temple spread out as they followed their leader, swords raised or bolters at the ready in case some new threat lay within the place that the Laer had fought so hard to defend.

'There is power here,' said Fulgrim, his voice sounding impossibly distant. 'I can feel it.'

The Phoenix Guard closed ranks around the primarch, but he waved them away, sheathing Fireblade and reaching up to remove his eagle-winged helmet before handing it to the closest of his bodyguards. Though the Phoenix Guard retained their helmets, a great many other warriors reached up and followed their primarch's example.

Julius did likewise and released the catches at his gorget, lifting the close-fitting helmet clear of his head. His skin was clammy with sweat, and he took a deep breath of air to clear his lungs of the stale, recycled oxygen of his armour. The air was hot and scented, a cloying musk drifting from holes in the walls, and he was surprised to feel a little lightheaded.

The darkness of the temple began to lift as they penetrated deeper, and Julius could hear what sounded like frantic music from up ahead, as though a million demented orchestras were playing a million different tunes at once. A flickering, multi-coloured glow pierced the gloom where Julius believed the source of the discordant music to lie. Even at this distance, Julius could feel the cold breath of air that spoke of a much larger space ahead, and he picked up his pace, marching in heavy, ponderous strides to draw level with his primarch.