Slipping across the page like a snake, the nib of Ignace Karkasy's pen moved as though it had a mind of its own. For all the conscious thought he was putting into the words, it might as well have. The muse was well and truly upon him, his stream of consciousness flowing into a river of blood as he retold the diabolical events on the embarkation deck. The meter played in his head like a symphony, every stanza of every canto slipping into place as if there could be no other possible arrangement of verse.

Even in his heyday of Ocean Poems or Reflections and Odes he had not felt this inspired. In fact, now that he looked back on them, he hated them for their frippery, their unconscionable navel gazing and irrelevance to the galaxy at large. These words, these thoughts that now poured from him, this was what mattered, and he cursed that it had taken him this long to discover it.

The truth was what mattered. Captain Loken had told him as much, but he hadn't heard him, not really. The verses he'd written since Loken had begun his sponsorship of him were paltry things, unworthy of the man who had won the Ethiopic Laureate, but that was changing now.

After the bloodbath on the embarkation deck, he'd returned to his quarters, grabbed a bottle of Terran wine and made his way to the observation deck. Finding it thronged with wailing lunatics, he'd repaired to the Retreat, knowing that it would be empty.

The words had poured out of him in a flood of righteous indignation, his metaphors bold and his lyric unflinching from the awful brutality he'd witnessed. He'd already used up three pages of the Bondsman, his fingers blotted with ink and his poet's soul on fire.

'Everything I've done before this was prologue,' he whispered as he wrote.

Karkasy paused in his work as he pondered the dilemma: the truth was useless if no one could hear it. The facilities set aside for the remembrancers included a presswork where they could submit their work for large-scale circulation. It was common knowledge that much of what that passed through it was vetted and censored, and so few made use of it. Karkasy certainly couldn't, considering the content of his new poetry.

A slow smile spread across his jowly features and he reached into the pocket of his robes and pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper - one of Euphrati Keeler's Lectitio Divinitatus pamphlets - and spread it out flat on the table before him with the heel of his palm.

The ink was smeared and the paper reeked of ammonia, clearly the work of a cheap mechanical bulk-printer of some kind. If Euphrati could get the use of one, then so could he.

Loken permitted Tybalt Marr to torch the body of Eugan Temba before they left the bridge. His fellow captain, streaked with gore and filth, played the burning breath of a flame unit over the monstrous corpse until nothing but ashen bone remained. It was small satisfaction for the death of a brother, not nearly enough, but it would have to do. Leaving behind the smouldering remains, they retraced their footsteps back through the Glory of Terra.

The light was fading on Davin's moon by the time they reached the outside, the planet above a pale yellow orb hanging low in the dusky sky. Loken carried the anathame in its gleaming wooden casket, and his warriors followed him from the wreck without any words spoken.

A great rumbling vibration gripped the moon as a trio of towering columns of light and smoke climbed towards the heavens from the Imperial deployment zone where this whole misadventure had started. Loken watched the incredible spectacle of the war machines of the Legio Mortis returning to their armoured berths in orbit, and silently thanked their crews for their aid in the fight against the dead things.

Soon all that was visible of the Titans' carriers was a diffuse glow on the horizon, and only the lap of water and the low growling of the waiting Thunderhawk's engines disturbed the silence. The desolate mudflats were empty for kilometres around, and as Loken made his way down the slope of rubble, he felt like the loneliest man in the galaxy.

Some kilometres away, he could see specks of blue light following the Titan carriers as Army transports ferried the last remaining soldiers back to their bulk transporters.

'We'll soon be done here, eh?' said Torgaddon.

'I suppose,' agreed Loken. 'The sooner the better.'

'How do you suppose that thing got here?'

Loken didn't have to ask what his brother meant, and shook his head, unwilling to share his suspicions with Torgaddon yet. As much as he loved him, Tarik had a big mouth, and Loken didn't want to put his quarry to flight.

'I don't know, Tarik,' said Loken as they reached the ground and made their way towards the Thunderhawk's lowered assault ramp. 'I don't think we'll ever know.'

'Come on, Garvi, it's me!' laughed Torgaddon. 'You're so straight up and down, and that makes you a really terrible liar. I know you've got some idea of what happened. So come on, spill it.'

'I can't, Tarik, I'm sorry,' said Loken. 'Not yet anyway. Trust me. I know what I'm doing.'

'Do you really?'

'I'm not sure,' admitted Loken. 'I think so. Throne, I wish the Warmaster were here to ask.'

'Well he's not,' stated Torgaddon, 'so you're stuck with me.'

Loken stepped onto the ramp, grateful to be off the marshy surface of the moon, and turned to face Torgaddon. 'You're right, I should tell you, and I will, soon. I just need to figure some things out first.'

'Look, I'm not stupid, Garvi,' said Torgaddon, leaning in close so that none of the others could hear. 'I know the only way this thing could have got here is if someone in the expedition brought it. It had to have been here before we arrived. That means there was only one person who was with us on Xenobia and could have got here before we did. You know who I'm talking about.'

'I know who you're talking about,' agreed Loken, pulling Torgaddon aside as the rest of the warriors embarked upon the Thunderhawk. 'What I can't figure out is why? Why go to all the trouble of stealing this thing and then bringing it here?'

'I'm going to break that son of a bitch in two if he had something to do with what's happened to the Warmaster,' snarled Torgaddon.

'The Legion will have his hide.'

'No,' hissed Loken, 'not yet. Not until we find out what this is all about and if anyone else is involved. I just can't believe that someone would dare try and move against the Warmaster.'

'Is that what you think is happening, a coup? You think that one of the other primarchs is making a play for the role of Warmaster?'

'I don't know, it all sounds too far fetched. It sounds like something from one of Sindermann's books.'

Neither man said anything. The idea that one of the eternal brotherhood of primarchs might be attempting to usurp Horus was incredible, outrageous and unthinkable, wasn't it?

'Hey,' called Vipus from inside the Thunderhawk. 'What are you two conspirators plotting?'

'Nothing,' said Loken guiltily. 'We were just talking.'

'Well finish up. We need to go, now!'

'Why, what is it?' asked Loken as he climbed aboard.

'The Warmaster,' said Vipus. 'They're taking him to Davin.'

The Thunderhawk was in the air moments later, lifting off in a spray of muddy water and a flare of blue-hot jet fire. The gunship circled the massive wreck, gaining altitude and speed as it turned towards the sky.

The pilot firewalled the engines and the gunship roared up into the darkness.

The great red orb of the sun was dipping below the horizon and hot, dry winds rising from the plains below made it a bumpy ride as they re-entered Davin's atmosphere. The continental mass swelled through the armoured glass of the cockpit, dusty and brown and dry. Loken sat up front in the cockpit with the pilots and watched the avionics panel as the red blip that represented the location of the Warmaster's Stormbird drew ever closer.