‘Is that some crude Calibanite poetry? We had few poets on our home world, but their works would have made you weep. Our tongue lends itself to melodic prose very gracefully.’

‘Nath sihll shah, vor’vorran kalshiel,’Corswain said, in fluent Nostraman. Sheng and Sevatar shared another laugh.

‘Your accent is brutal,’ Sevatar admitted, ‘but that was nicely done. It will be a shame to kill you both when the time comes. You have my oath here, on VIII Legion soil, that we will make trophies from your helms. You deserve nothing less.’

‘How comforting,’ Corswain chuckled with them. ‘I have a question of my own.’

Sevatar performed a mocking little bow. ‘We are at your service, cousins.’

‘Your gauntlets,’ Corswain said, and left it at that.

Sevatar held up his free hand, as he continued to lean on the halberd with the other. The gauntlet was at odds with his midnight armour – where the war plate was deep, dark blue and marked by streaks of lightning, his gauntlets were painted arterial red.

‘A mark of shame in our Legion,’ the Night Lord’s voice still betrayed more amusement than regret. ‘A warrior’s gauntlets are marked this way when he has failed the primarch gravely enough to warrant death. He will wear the stain of failure on his hands until his execution, at the hour of the primarch’s choosing.’

Corswain watched the enemy captain through the filter of retinal target locks. ‘A curious custom.’

‘Perhaps. But so is hiding your armour beneath cloth robes.’

Corswain felt himself grinning again. ‘A knightly tradition from our home world.’

Sevatar nodded. ‘This is a gang tradition from ours. The hands of traitors and fools were tattooed red by their families to show them as deathmarked. A sign that no gang or family would tolerate grave failure, but that the condemned still had labours to perform before they were allowed to die.’

‘So which are you, a traitor or a fool?’

The Night Lord’s voice revealed his own smile, even if his soulless helm did not. ‘Both.’

Alajos was losing his patience. ‘Why do you revel with these wretches, brother? And what did you say in their snake-tongue?’

‘I told them that I knew they mated with pigs.’

‘Madness. Do they have no honour? Why would they laugh at such an insult?’

‘Because they are not knights. They possess honour of a kind, it is simply different to ours.’

‘Perhaps you should spend less time in the archives learning the tongues and traditions of murderers.’ Alajos’s tone carried more than a hint of reprimand. It was almost an accusation.

‘And what of “knowing one’s enemy”? Balance your humours, I am on your side, remember.’ Corswain turned to the west as the primarchs stalked back, moving slowly, still speaking in low voices. ‘The Lion returns. Be ready.’

Alajos grunted again, his mood too sour to bother with words.

IX

THE WARRIORS FELL silent as their lords returned – still distant, but close enough to be heard. The Lion acknowledged his warriors with a curt nod. They responded with salutes, forming the sign of the aquila over their tabards. Curze ignored his sons, still addressing his brother.

‘Horus himself charged me to speak those words to you,’ he said. If the Night Lord had seemed cadaverous before, now he was practically exhumed. The primarch’s eyes, with what little white actually showed around the black pupils, were inhumanly bloodshot. His gaunt features were dusted with a faint sheen of cold sweat, and a trickle of dark blood ran from his nose. He wiped it away on the back of his gauntlet. ‘Savage weapons, one and all, too dangerous to be wielded without cost. That is all history will see of us. Even you, Lion. Even you.’

The Lion shook his crowned head. ‘You underestimate our father’s empire.’

‘And you overestimate humanity. Look at us. See how we’ve duelled for the last two years out here in the void. A crusade between two Legions and countless worlds that is still only just beginning. You have chased me for two years, across a hundred battlefields, and why do we meet now? Because I allow it.’

The Lion conceded to that with a slight nod. ‘You hide, like vermin fleeing the coming of dawn.’

Curze shrugged, the barest rise of one shoulder guard. ‘You will never reach Terra in time to defend it, brother. The warp will not let you. This crusade will not let you. Iwill not let you. Do you think the archives of future generations will look upon you kindly for your absence?’

Curze paused in his diatribe, wiping away a fresh trickle of blood. ‘Or will the human descendants of this Imperium look to your legend and whisper of doubt? Will they ask why you were not present to defend the Throneworld, and speak likely lies that perhaps the Lion was not as loyal and true as the mighty, perfect Rogal Dorn? Perhaps the Lion and his Dark Angels waited in the deepest reaches of space, watching, listening, and deciding to join the fight only when an obvious victor emerged.’

The Night Lord’s eyes glinted again, with both amusement and sorrow. ‘That is your fate, Lion. That is your future.’

‘Forgive me, brother.’

Curze tilted his head. ‘For what?’

Corswain was watching both primarchs yet still never saw what happened, such was the speed of the Lion’s movements. One moment the two brothers were speaking – the Lion’s features cast down in contemplation, Curze’s eyes fever-bright as he promised an ignoble fate. The next, Curze’s features twisted into a taut rictus of pain, blood running between his clenched teeth. The Lion held tight to the grip of his blade, buried to the hilt in his brother’s stomach. More than a metre of shining, bloodstained steel thrust from the back of Curze’s armour.

‘For such a dishonourable blow,’ the Lion whispered into Curze’s pale, bleeding face. ‘I do not care who knows the truth now, tomorrow, or in ten thousand years. Loyalty is its own reward.’

The Lion pulled his sword free. The Night Lord fell back.

At the same moment, the chainblade atop Sevatar’s halberd snarled to life.

X

CORSWAIN VAULTED A low wall and crouched behind it, taking aim over the top. His visor display realigned, targeting reticule skipping left and right, locking onto nothing. Sevatar and Sheng had vanished as soon as the first blow fell. Alajos and Corswain had raised their weapons, issuing a challenge to empty air. The Lion was already following the retreating, limping Curze, leaving his two warriors behind.

Alajos pinned himself to a pillar now, his breathing coming over the vox. ‘I didn’t see where they went.’

‘Nor I,’ Corswain confessed. ‘This is Corswain of the Ninth, to the Vehemence.Respond, Vehemence.’

‘Vray of the Vehemence.’ How calm she sounded. Corswain almost laughed.

‘Ware treachery in the heavens,’ he said. ‘We’ve engaged the enemy.’ Corswain caught sight of the Lion through a small forest of pillars, advancing on the retreating Curze, their weapons crashing together several times a second.

‘Do you require a teleportation recall?’ the mortal captain’s reply came back.

Corswain risked another glance over the wall, but saw no sign of Sevatar or Sheng. They’d gone to ground in the foundations of the fortress, out of sight but not out of mind.

‘No. We need to move. You won’t be able to maintain a recall lock.’

Alajos stared around the stone column. ‘Let’s go.’

Corswain followed, keeping low, trusting the wind’s roar to mask the sounds of his boots on the ground.

XI

THE PRIMARCHS DUELLED, heedless of their sons’ hunt. The Lion’s blade wove an exquisite dance, while pain acted as Curze’s catalyst. The Night Lord ignored the bloody wound in his belly, letting his arcane genetics quickly seal the injury shut. He fought as he always fought – like a killer backed into a corner. Brutal scythes slashed from their housings on the back of the primarch’s oversized gauntlets, and the air rang with the clash of metal against metal, with the fizzing crack of opposing power fields.