‘Good.’ Alajos narrowed his eyes – practically the only unflawed feature on his face. ‘I owe him for this.’

IV

THE STRIKE CRUISER Vehemencetranslated in-system alone. It burst into the silence of realspace on grinding, protesting engines, braking as it slowed from the warp rupture in its wake. Momentum desistors fired along the ship’s prow and central spine, lesser brake-engines howling to slow the warship’s forward flight.

In space, it came to a slow crawl in noiseless elegance. On board, the shaking hull coupled with the screaming engines made for a scene altogether less graceful. Hundreds of sweating crew members in the enginarium chambers worked to maintain the immense plasma furnaces, while uniformed officers on the command deck called and demanded status reports from every section of the ship. The Lion’s throne on board the Invincible Reasonwas a grander affair than anything on the bridge of the Vehemence,and rather than take the captain’s position, the Lion allowed Captain Kellendra Vray to ostensibly remain in command of her vessel. While she sat in her smaller throne, her greying hair bound in a severe ponytail, the Lion stood to the side with his arms crossed over his breastplate as he stared at the oculus screen.

Tsagualsa turned in the void before them: grey, bare, granted only the thinnest cloud cover over its visible hemisphere.

Corswain and Alajos stood away from their lord, watching the world themselves. ‘Permission to speak freely, my liege.’

The Lion nodded, not taking his eyes from the oculus. ‘Granted, Cor.’

‘The enemy has summoned us to a purgatorial shithole.’

The Lion’s lips curled. To the humans nearby, it was a cold sneer. To his warriors, it was the ghost of amusement. ‘I will be sure to include that in the rolls of honour for this campaign. Auspex?’

An officer by the auspex station conferred with the three robed servitors hardwired to the console. He called over to the Lion a moment later. ‘The planet reads as lifeless, my lord – a thin atmosphere, tolerable but devoid of any mass life trace. The soil appears to be faintly irradiated, a natural phenomenon. A fleet with Legiones Astartes code returns is stationed in high geocentric orbit on the planet’s sunless side.’

‘Such literal creatures,’ the Lion growled. ‘Fleet size? Disposition?’

‘Counting for long-range auspex unreliability and warp echoes, it looks like seven vessels. One cruiser and six support ships, all in abeyance of standard formation protocols.’

The Lion rested his hand on the pommel of his sheathed blade. ‘When our support translates in-system, hold a loose formation on approach. Master of vox-officers, when we are in range, hail the enemy cruiser.’

The Angel fleet, modest as it was, arrived piecemeal over the course of the next three hours. When the final destroyer, Seventh Son, drifted into formation with the gathered ships, the Vehemencepowered up its engines and guided the flotilla closer to the dead world.

‘We’re already being hailed,’ the master of vox-operators called out. ‘Audio only.’

The Lion inclined his head at the man. A moment later, a soft voice breathed over the bridge speakers, flawed by vox-crackle.

‘Well, well, well. Look what stumbled into our system.’

‘I know that voice.’ The Lion’s tone was ice itself. ‘Cease your barking, dog, and tell me where I will find the master that holds your leash.’

‘Is that any way to greet a beloved nephew?’ The soft voice broke away into short chuckle. ‘My master makes ready to walk the surface of the world below, for he expects you to meet with him. To prove our good intentions, our fleet will move out of orbit, beyond the range necessary to fire on the surface. Meanwhile, scan the world yourself. In the northern reaches of the largest western continental plate, you will find the foundations of a fortress. My primarch will meet you there.’

‘This still reeks of an ambush,’ Alajos warned.

The Lion didn’t reply. Instead, he answered the vox-voice. ‘What is to stop me firing on those coordinates from orbit?’

‘By all means, do just that. Commit to whatever course of action it takes to ease your suspicions. When you have ceased panicking and firing into the shadows, please inform me. I will ask my lord to wait until then.’

‘Sevatar.’Corswain had never heard the Lion pour so much threat into a single name.

‘Yes, uncle?’ the soft voice chuckled again.

‘Tell your master that I will meet him where he wishes. Inform him to limit his honour guard to two warriors, for I will be doing the same.’

The Lion drew a thumb across his throat, signalling the vox-channel’s termination. Those cold eyes turned upon his closest two sons, and he reached for his helm. ‘Alajos. Corswain. Come with me.’

V

HE HATED DOING this.

‘Permission to speak freely, my liege.’

The Lion stood in full armour now, his features masked by the snarling helm with its angular crest of splayed angel wings. The helm’s slanted red eyes emanated disapproval even before the Lion’s rumbling baritone left the speaker-grille.

‘Not this time, Cor. Focus yourself.’ The sword at the Lion’s hip was as tall as a Legiones Astartes warrior in full war plate. The primarch’s left hand rested on its hilt, his posture somewhere between the piratical grace of a gunslinger and the cautious reverence of a knight preparing to pull steel.

Corswain kept his silence, bolter loosely clutched in his hands. The chamber around them was almost devoid of Gothic ornamentation, its ceiling and walls instead given over to the cabled, thudding engineering of Mechanicum teleportation generators. Several of the rattling engine pods vented near-continuous gushes of steam for no reason Corswain could comprehend.

‘Begin,’ the Lion ordered. At the chamber’s edges, cowled tech-menials cranked levers and manned great bronze wheels, turning them on squealing mechanisms. As they worked, each one chanted a different numerical line of a binary cant, like some bizarre mathematical sea shanty.

The engines started to judder, whining as they cycled up to engage. On a raised platform above the flat chamber deck, a choir of nine robed astropaths sang with closed eyes. Their Gregorian chants were at eerie odds with the blurted coding issued forth from the menials.

Corswain truly loathed travelling like this. Seat him down in the deployment bay of a Stormbird gunship screaming through low atmosphere and into the face of enemy fire rising up from the ground, and he wouldn’t think twice. Buckle him into a drop-pod and spit him from the bowels of an orbiting ship to plough into the soil several kilometres below, and he’d do his duty without a whisper of complaint.

But telepor–

VI

–TATION WAS something else.

Even before the flash of white-gold faded, he felt the world’s wind pushing against his armour with weak breaths, strong enough to do no more than tear at his surplice and the oath scroll bound to his shoulder guard. His bolter was up and ready in the seconds it took for his vision to clear of the chemical-scented mist from their teleportation. Artificial thunder from displaced air echoed in his ears, filtered to tolerable levels by his helm’s autosenses.

The aura of coiling mist would’ve lingered longer but for the breeze. Corswain took a moment to feel the hard earth beneath his boots, to assure himself that he was whole and complete. With teeth gritted and skin crawling, he panned his bolter across the vista before him.

Dusty wind gritted against his visor as his gunsight followed the horizon. They’d materialised in the heart of a crater, spanning at least a kilometre across in all directions. Black stone foundations jutted from the ground – too new to be ruins, they were low walls and pillars that would form the basis of a huge building above. The Night Lords were building something here. A fortress… but the work crews had evidently been withdrawn to make way for this meeting.