‘You will come to like it, huntsman. You will embraceit, as we all will. For it is the desire of Lorgar and the Pantheon that we do so. Now,’ he added, growing bored of his sermon. ‘Where is the man, where is John Grammaticus?’

‘He is almost certainly still with the broken Legion survivors. Their trail won’t be hard to track.’

Elias dismissed the idea with a desultory wave of his hand.

‘It’s of no consequence. I can find him through different means.’ He eyed one of the legionary prisoners, one yet to be given a clean death, and pulled out his ritual knife.

Domadus was alive, but somehow pinned. Since the battle had ended, they had been raking through the casualties, looking for survivors. He dimly recalled being dragged, and half-heard guttural laughter from one of his captors. Part of his spinal column had been severed. He was paralysed from the waist down. He also had several potentially fatal internal injuries, and was too weak to fight back.

His bionic eye no longer functioned, so he was left blinded in it. His organic one opened, and the view this received was of the ground. At the edge of his reduced vision he thought he saw the open hand of a legionary lying on his back. The gauntlet was emerald-green, the fingers unmoving. A bolter lay a few centimetres away from it grip.

‘This one,’ he heard a voice say. He sounded cultured, almost urbane.

Firm, armoured fingers seized the Iron Hand’s chin and lifted it up so that Domadus could see his oppressors.

Word Bearers. One, standing behind the other, had scripture painting his cheekbones in gold. His black hair was short with a sharp widow’s peak. One of his arms was badly burned, and he held it protectively to his body. This was the cleric, it had to be. The other one who was holding Domadus’s chin was a veteran, definitely a soldier in the most pugnacious sense of the word. He was flat-nosed, but thin of face, and carried a slight limp.

Through dulled senses, Domadus became aware that his wrists were bound with razor-wire and he was attached to the side of a Word Bearers gunship. His breastplate had been removed, as well as his mesh under-armour, exposing the skin beneath.

‘There is no other way?’ asked the soldier.

The cleric drew forth a jagged ritual knife and Domadus steeled himself for what he knew was coming next.

‘None,’ answered the cleric, who traced a long nailed gauntlet across the flesh of the Iron Hand’s cheek, before taking up a chant.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Enter the labyrinth

‘Go forwards, ever forwards and always down. Never left. Never right.’

– from the dramatic play, Thesion and the Minatar

Ferrus was already watching me when I rose again from death. I think he was smirking, though he always smirked now with that permanent rictus grin of his.

I clenched my fists and fought down the urge to strike the apparition.

‘Amuses you, does it, brother?’ I spat. ‘To see me like this? Am I weak then? Not as weak as you. Idiot! Fulgrim played you like a twisted harp.’

I paused, and heard my own heavy breathing, the anger growing within. The abyss, red and black, throbbing with hate, pulsed at the edge of my sight.

‘No answer?’ I challenged. ‘Hard to chide without a tongue, brother!’

I stood up, unshackled for once, and advanced on the wordless spectre. If I could have, I believe that I would have wrapped my hands around his throat and choked him as I had almost done to Corax in my mind.

I sagged, gasping, fighting down the thunderous beating of my heart. Feverish sweat lathered my skin, which glistened in the flickering torchlight. Another dank chamber, another black-walled cell. Curze had many of them aboard his ship, it seemed.

‘Throne of Terra…’ I gasped, collapsing to one knee, my head bowed so I could breathe. ‘Father…’

I remembered the words, such a distant memory now. Hehad spoken them to me on Ibsen. After my Legion and I had destroyed the world, turned it into a place of death, I renamed it Caldera. It was to be another adopted world, like Nocturne, and with it the Salamanders would be reforged. That dream ended with the end of the Great Crusade and the beginning of the war.

It pains me, but I will have to leave you all when you need me the most. I’ll try to watch over you when I can.

‘I need you now, father,’ I said to the dark. ‘More than ever.’

Ferrus clicking his skeletal jaw made me look up. His hollow gaze met my own and he nodded to the shadows ahead of us where a vast, ornate gateway had begun to appear.

It was taller than the bastion leg of an Imperator Titan and twice as wide. I could not fathom why I hadn’t noticed it before.

‘Another illusion?’ I asked, calling out to the shadows I knew were listening.

The immense gate appeared to be fashioned of bronze, though I could tell by looking at it that the metal was an alloy. I saw the vague blueish tint of osmium, traces of silvery-white palladium and iridium. It was dense, and incredibly strong. The bronze was merely an aesthetic veneer, designed to make it look archaic. A blend of intricate intaglio and detailed embossing wrought upon the gate described a raft of imagery. It was a battle scene, which appeared to represent a conflict of some elder age. Warriors wielded swords and were clad in hauberks of chain, and leather jerkins. Catapults and ballistae flung crude missiles into the air. Fires raged.

But as I looked closer, I began to see the familiar, and realised what my Iron brother had done.

Three armies fought desperately in a narrow gorge, their enemies arrayed on either side, loosing arrows and charging down at them with swords and spears. On a spur of rock, a warlord carrying a serpent banner held the head of a defeated enemy aloft in triumph.

‘It’s Isstvan V, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ said Curze, suddenly standing alongside me, where I realised he had been all along. ‘And it is not an illusion, Vulkan. Our brother laboured long over this piece. I think it would offend him to know you thought you had conjured it in your mind.’ He almost sounded defeated.

‘What’s wrong, Konrad? You sound tired.’

He sighed, full of regret.

‘We near the end,’ he said, and gestured to the gate. ‘This is the entrance to the Iron Labyrinth. I had Perturabo make it for me. At its heart, a prize.’

Curze opened his hand and within it was projected a rotating hololith of my hammer, Dawnbringer. Surrounding it and hanging from chains were my sons. The projection was weak and grainy, but I managed to recognise Nemetor from earlier. I was ashamed to admit that the other I couldn’t identify, but I could see that both were severely injured.

Curze closed his fist, crushing the image of my stricken sons.

‘I’ve bled them thoroughly, brother. They have only days left to live.’

I saw the blackness crowding at the edge of my vision again, and heard the throbbing of my heart in my skull. I felt the heat of the abyss on my face, saw it bathe my skin in visceral red.

With sheer effort of will, I relaxed my gritted teeth.

Curze was watching me.

‘What do you see, Vulkan?’ he asked. ‘What do you see when you stray into the darkness? I would have you tell me.’ He almost sounded desperate, pleading.

‘Nothing,’ I lied. ‘There is nothing. You were gone for a while this time, weren’t you?’

Curze didn’t answer, but his eyes were penetrating.

‘I remember some of it. I remember what you tried to get me to do,’ I told him. ‘Did I disappoint you, brother, by rising above your petty game? Is it lonely in the shadows? Are you in need of some company?’

‘Shut up,’ he muttered.

‘It must burn you to know I beat your moral test, I resisted the urge to kill Corvus. I don’t claim to be noble, but I know I am every-thing you are not.’