Corax picked up the trident.

‘I am sorry, Vulkan.’

I could give him no answer.

Curze retreated into the shadows again.

‘ Remember what I said, brother,’ he whispered to me.

I had barely wrapped my hand around the sword’s hilt when Corax lunged. His feet left the ground, his leap taking him halfway across the small arena. Dragging the blade free, I rolled and felt the trident punch the earth where I had been standing. A second blow darted past my cheek, tearing it open and flecking the sand with blood. I parried, smashing a third trident thrust aside and landing a heavy punch to Corax’s midriff, staggering him back. I had a second’s rest but he came at me again, crafting a series of small but piercing jabs against my improvised defence.

I had never fought Corax before, but had seen him in battle often enough. His fighting style was not unlike the avian creature from which he took his honorific. Deft, probing attacks like the snapping of a beak assailed me. He was swift, with an ever-shifting combat posture, attacking my blind side and often moving into peripheral assault patterns.

I turned and blocked, took small cuts on my arms, torso and legs. He was relentless, and had not spent the last few months or years of his life trapped in a cell. Furthermore, he was willing to kill me. There was a fury to his attacks, something I had not yet embraced for the duel. Since picking up his trident, a change had come over my brother – one that I was unprepared for.

The abyss returned in my mind, beckoning as the hot nails pushed deeper into my skull, stimulating my anger and need for violence.

Was I the monster that Curze had described all those years ago on Kharaatan? When I had burned that eldar child to ash for her part in killing Seriph, was it retribution or had I just used that to justify an act of sadistic self-satisfaction?

I reeled, feeling my sanity unpicking at its already frayed seams.

Corax landed a telling blow, the trident lodged in my left pectoral, digging into muscle and below. I would have screamed were it not for the wedge in my mouth gagging me.

Rage.

I cut a savage wound across Corax’s torso as he found his guard compromised with the trident still impaled in my body.

Rage.

I snapped the trident’s haft in two, leaving the fork still embedded in my flesh.

Rage.

I threw down my sword and hurled myself at Corax.

I am strong, perhaps the physically strongest of all my father’s sons. Corax had claimed as much once. Now he felt it first-hand. With a single blow of my clenched fist I smashed apart his helmet’s grille, revealing his anguished mouth beneath, spitting blood. I landed a second punch around his left ear, snapping his head to the side and denting the helm inwards. Corax shrieked like a bird. I wanted to break his wings, fracture that weakling skull. Despite his attempts to fend me off – a knee into my chest, a heavy jab to my exposed kidneys, a throat strike – I overwhelmed him. With sheer bulk, I bore him down to the earth. He grunted as his back hit the ground hard, and I punched the air from his lungs. Like a vice, my hands were around his throat. Straddling him, Corax’s arms pinned by my knees, he couldn’t move. All he could do now was die.

During the savage assault, his helmet had come apart. I saw his dark eyes staring at me, that quiet wisdom turned to terror.

I squeezed harder, feeling his toughened larynx giving way to my fury as I slowly crushed it. His eyes bulged in their sockets and through blood-rimed teeth he choked two words.

‘ Do it…’

At my side, I felt the presence of Ferrus, his skeletal form hovering in my peripheral vision.

‘ Do it…’ he rasped.

Above me in the amphitheatre, held fast but still struggling, I heard Nemetor whisper.

‘ Do it…’

It would be so easy. I had but to tighten my grip a fraction and…

I stopped. Fingertips still clinging to the edge of the abyss, I hauled myself up and rolled away from its burning depths. In that moment, I knew that I would not be granted my freedom. I wantedto kill Corax to sate my rage.

‘Kill him, Vulkan!’ Curze snarled, rushing up to the rail. ‘He’s finished. Claim your freedom.’

‘Return to your Legion,’ urged Ferrus. ‘It is the only way…’

I released my grip around Corax’s throat and let him go. Exhausted, physically and mentally, I rolled off my brother and onto my back.

‘No. I won’t do it,’ I gasped, breathing hard. ‘Not like this.’

‘Then you have damned yourself,’ hissed Ferrus.

Not knowing what had happened, Corax got to his feet, picked up my fallen sword and stabbed me through the heart.

I came round screaming. I had returned to my cell, but still lay on my back. The door was intact and there was no evidence of my recent escape. I was strapped down to a metal slab, arms, legs and neck. I couldn’t move and there was a metal wedge in my mouth, gagging me. Surrounding me was a coven of human psykers, feral-looking with strange sigils daubed on their bodies and robes.

‘Davinites,’ Curze explained as he walked into my eye line, before killing every one of the witches in a sudden and violent blur. ‘They have served and failed their purpose,’ he said when he was done butchering them.

It was all a lie – visions implanted in my mind.

Curze removed the wedge from my mouth.

‘Did you expect me to kill him?’ I snarled.

My brother looked profoundly unhappy.

‘You are not noble. You are no better than me,’ he muttered, before killing me again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Sacrifices

‘You have suffered. I know this. You have come to the abyss, and almost surrendered yourselves to it. That changes now. I am father, general, lord and mentor. I shall teach you if I can, and pass on the knowledge I have gained. Honour, self-sacrifice, self-reliance, brotherhood. It is our Promethean creed and all must adhere to it if we are to prosper. Let this be the first lesson…’

– Primarch Vulkan in his inaugural address

on Terra to the survivors of the XVIII Legion

Numeon didn’t know who had survived the battle. He was lying face down, his armour’s sensors screaming in a rash of red warning icons. Undoubtably, the fall had saved his life. He hoped it had taken others with him. Groaning, he rolled onto his back and fought to bring the physical trauma under control. Pulse was returning to normal. Breathing also. He waited, in silence and in darkness, for his body to repair and his armour systems to reboot and stabilise.

Someone stirred in the darkness next to him.

Shen’ra’s battle-plate was split, gored by blades and shell holes. His cybernetic eye flickered and went dead.

‘Lost the half-track…’ he croaked.

Numeon managed to nod.

‘Lit those traitors up well though, didn’t it?’ said the old Techmarine, smiling as he passed out. His vital signs were holding; Shen’ra yet lived.

There were others too, some less fortunate than Shen’ra. After Leodrakk and Hriak had escaped with the human, Numeon had returned to the manufactorum. Avus was dead, giving up his life so that his kinsmen could get away. He had saved Numeon in the process, then killed the other Word Bearers into the sacrificial bargain. A melta bomb at close range.

The third legionary, another sniper and probably one of those responsible for the shooting of Helon, Uzak and Shaka, had fallen back before the Raptor’s impassioned onslaught. Avus was another kill-notch on his rifle now, the Word Bearer’s disengagement from the fight leaving Numeon impotent to enact vengeance or make his own sacrifice.

By the time he got to the others, the fight had spilled out onto the streets. Domadus was down, Pergellen nowhere to be seen. K’gosi and Shen’ra remained, surrounded by the dead and dying. In desperation, the Techmarine set off a seismic charge, hoping to take their enclosing enemies with them. He succeeded in part, but collapsed the manufactorum’s already weak foundations.