‘You wound me deeply,’ uttered the Raven Guard.

Numeon frowned. ‘Was that sarcasm, Hriak? You sounded almost as warm as Domadus.’

The Iron Hand laughed loudly and stepped aside.

Numeon nodded to them both, turned his back and left the room.

‘I felt safer when I was on my own,’ Grammaticus said with half-hearted humour, glancing from the stoic figure of the Iron Hand to the menacing spectre of the Raven Guard.

Hriak didn’t share Sebaton’s humour and glared back at him through the slits of his battle-helm.

‘You were,’ he rasped.

After a short walk through an access corridor and the old manufactorum bunk room, Numeon arrived at the printer’s abandoned refectorum. It was a largely barren space, tiled grey underfoot and with a few benches and tables upturned at the room’s edges. A short skirmish had unfolded here, the loyal citizens of Ranos ultimately on the losing side. Amidst the spilt food stains, there were also patches of blood.

In the middle of it all, waiting for the Salamander, stood Pergellen.

The Iron Hand was lean-faced, his eyes concealed behind a steel visor with a single retinal band across its surface. The lights were out in the refectorum, making the visor glow lambently in the darkness. Pergellen’s only other bionic was his left hand, which ground noisily as he used it to grip Numeon’s wrist. His hair was black like jet, and cut close to his scalp in the same manner as his deceased lord and father’s had been.

Over his shoulder on a strap Pergellen had a long-barrelled sniper rifle. It was his deadly aim that had killed the Word Bearer in the warehouse, although from such close range that wasn’t exactly a challenge. He’d wanted to use the warehouse as his nest from which to keep a lookout, but hopes for that were ruined as soon as the human had burst in.

‘You looked troubled, Artellus,’ he said to Numeon.

‘It’s nothing.’ Numeon smiled to cover the concern that had obviously crept over his face, and returned Pergellen’s grip in formal but comradely greeting. ‘I’m glad to see you back. Where’s Shen’ra?’

‘In the yard with the others,’ he said flatly.

Pergellen was a serious soul, rarely given to humour. But he had also saved Numeon’s and Leodrakk’s lives on the plains of Isstvan V. So few of the Morlocks had escaped, so very few of the Clan Avernii left to continue its great and noble legacy.

When the shells were falling and the full horror of the betrayal revealed, it was Pergellen who had fought his way back to the drop-ships when others were losing their minds at the death of Ferrus Manus. It was Pergellen who had dragged Domadus’s unconscious form across the black sand, and he who had kept open a path to the transport. Many didn’t make it.

He and Leodrakk would have died on that field were it not for Pergellen. Their brothers in the Pyre Guard might well all be dead, but Numeon clung to the hope that they were not, just as he believed that Vulkan, too, still lived.

If what the human had said was the truth, then perhaps… He dismissed the thought at once, knowing it was foolish to place his hope in such a man.

Instead he asked, ‘How many days were we on that drop-ship, Pergellen?’

It was often where their conversations went at some point.

‘Fifty-one days, eight hours and four minutes,’ the Iron Hand replied.

They had been a mess of disparate units and Legions back then. Not all had survived the escape. Some were simply too badly wounded or had been dead when they were dragged aboard. Of the forty-seven legionaries that took flight on that vessel, only twenty-six survived.

They lived long enough to be reunited with the Fire Ark, a strike cruiser that had escaped the carnage – one of the few. It had not done so unscathed. Many of the crew were killed during that desperate flight. Wounded, weary, they had levelled what guns they had on the drop-ship emerging from that self-same chaos, not realising they were friends, not foes.

There were no legionaries aboard, not one. Every single able-bodied warrior that could don war-plate had been sent to bring the disgraced Warmaster to heel. It was extravagant, Numeon realised in retrospect – a means of showing force to force and hoping the latter balked in the face of the former. How wrong they were. It didn’t seem like extravagance now; instead, it smacked of ignorant sacrifice. And how Horus had prepared his altar for their willing offering. The blades of his traitors were sharp indeed on that slab of Isstvan V.

Since finding the Fire Arkand the brave but depleted crew aboard, they had lost three more legionaries. Numeon had allied them together, given them back some semblance of purpose. But it did not come without risk, and a vein of fatalism was growing in this company. He had expected it of the Iron Hands, but they bore the loss of their primarch with a quiet and steely determination that did the Medusans much credit. No, it was the Nocturneans, the sons of Vulkan, that suffered most. Of all the Salamanders, only Numeon believed. In his heart, he knew that his father had survived. The rest, despite his impassioned arguments, were not so convinced, and fought for vengeance instead of hope and a desire to serve.

Numeon knew these men were broken. Bereft of leadership, they would have destroyed one another, and with no way to return to their Legions they were cut adrift and aimless.

Yes, Pergellen had saved his life, but Numeon had to believe he could save this shattered Legion too.

‘What did you learn?’ he asked the scout.

‘Nothing good. Shen’ra’s sensors were tripped by a small patrol. I shadowed it for a while before the sentries cut them all down. It will certainly alert the enemy to our presence here.’

‘We knew the Word Bearers would find us eventually. What else?’

‘In addition to their legionaries, which I believe are significant in number, they also have many cultists. Seeds were sown here long before we arrived on the Word Bearers’ heels. The cults control most of Ranos now, and more Stormbirds are coming in from other parts of the city to reinforce the legionaries already on the ground. They are mustering close to this district. Too many for us to engage.’

Numeon cursed under his breath, ‘ Vulkan’s merciful wrath…’ He did not want to abort the mission, but it wasn’t too late to signal to the Fire Arkwaiting in high orbit. If they moved now, they could reach the gunships and their cruiser, but what then?

‘There was something else, too,’ Pergellen said, arresting Numeon from his thoughts.

Numeon narrowed his eyes, ‘More good news?’

‘Someone was watching.’

‘They saw you?’

‘Not us. They were watching their allies get gunned down by the sentries.’

‘Friendlies?’

‘No, I don’t think so. They disabled the Tarantulas. Shen’ra and I left shortly after that. I think they may have caught our trail from the warehouse and followed us.’

‘So, in all likelihood, they are coming here.’

‘Yes.’

Numeon’s face darkened. They had spent some time choosing a secure location to act as a base of operations. This district was mostly deserted. The gunships were far away, well outside the habitable zone. It was believed that at the edge of the city they would remain largely unnoticed by the enemy until they chose to act. Much of their plan hinged upon this assumption.

‘Any sign of their cleric?’ Numeon asked.

Pergellen shook his head. ‘No.’

The Salamander grew stern. ‘We’ve seen this before, brother. We failed at Viralis…’ As he spoke the name of this world, an image of corpse-filled streets, bodies defiled and mutilated in service to dark powers, came back to him. The traitors had left something else behind, too. The few survivors had been greatly changed, human no longer. They had become… things.Monsters, sleeved in flesh, that had crawled into mortal vessels and hollowed them out from within. The people of Viralis, an entire colony, were people no longer. Something else had taken their place, wearing them as a man might wear a suit.