Fulgrim

TWENTY-ONE Vengeance The Price of Isolation The Prodigal Death-Marked Love

The Iron Forge had become Ferrus Manus's refuge since the monstrous betrayal visited upon him by his once-brother. Its gleaming walls were cracked, the primarch's hurt reaching out to destroy the things he held dear in fury at the treachery given voice here. Gabriel Santar stepped over weapons and armour strewn acrosss the floor, many pieces twisted as though melted in the heart of a fire. He carried with him a data-slate with fresh news from Terra. He hoped that it would lift his primarch out of the anger fuelled depression that had settled upon him like a shroud in the wake of the traitor's scheme to sway the Iron Hands to the cause of treachery.

Every artificer, forgemaster, Techmarine and labourer had worked unceasingly to repair the damage done to their ships by the surprise attack of the Emperor's Children fleet, and, in an unbelievable time, the ships of the 52nd Expedition had been ready to make for Terra and bring warning of the Warmaster's perfidy.

In this, however, they had been stymied as the ships' Navigators and astropaths had been unable to penetrate the warp, monstrous storms of terrifying force erupting through the depths of the immaterium, preventing any contact with or from Terra. To venture into the warp while it raged and seethed with unnatural vigour was tantamount to suicide, but it had taken all of Gabriel Santar's calming words to break through Ferrus Manus's towering fury and persuade him to await the end of the storms.

A hundred astropaths had died in attempts to penetrate the roiling miasma of churning warp storms, but though their heroic sacrifice was commemorated on the Iron Column, their efforts were in vain, and the Iron Hands remained incommunicado.

For weeks, the ships of the 52nd Expedition travelled by conventional plasma engines, hoping to locate a break in the warp storms, but it seemed as though the Realm Beyond was at odds with them, for the Navigators could see no way to break through and live.

Ferrus Manus had raged the length and breadth of the Fist of Iron at the injustice of surviving such treachery only to be prevented from bringing word of it to the Emperor by something as mundane as a warp storm.

When Astropath Cistor had brought word that his surviving choristers were at last receiving faint messages hurled out across the stars, the news had been greeted with great joy, until they had been deciphered and transferred to the command logic engines.

All across the Imperium, war was raging. On countless worlds, traitorous curs were revolting against their loyal leaders. Many Imperial commanders had declared for Horus and were denouncing the rule of the Emperor. Many of these traitors had launched attacks against neighbouring systems still loyal to the Imperium, and the rise of war was threatening to engulf the entire galaxy. Horus had spread his net of corruption wide, and it would take heroics the likes of which had forged the Imperium in the first place to save the Emperor's dream of a united galaxy.

Even the Mechanicum had been drawn into rebellion as warring factions fought for control of the great forges of Mars. The Astartes armour manufacturing facilities were coming under particularly heavy attack, and the Emperor's loyal servants cried out for reinforcements as their enemies deployed ancient weapons technologies that had long been forbidden.

Worse still, reports of alien attacks on human-held worlds were increasing with an alarming rapidity. The greenskins rampaged through the southern galactic rim, the savage hordes of Kalardun laid waste to newly compliant worlds in the Region of Storms, and the foul Carrion-eaters of Carnus V laid bloody claim to the Nine Vectors. As humanity was ripping itself apart with internecine warfare, countless xeno breeds were rising to feed on the carcass.

The Primarch of the Iron Hands hunched over the anvil in the centre of the forge, flickering blue fire blazing around his glowing silver hands as he worked a long length of gleaming metal upon it. The primarch's wounds had healed swiftly, but his jaw still jutted pugnaciously where his treacherous brother had smashed the stolen Forgebreaker against his skull. Even the mention of the traitor's name was forbidden, and Santar had never seen his primarch so wrathful.

Santar knew he himself was lucky to be alive, the grievous wound inflicted by the First Captain of the Emperor's Children having torn through his heart, lungs and stomach. Only the timely ministrations of the Legion's Apothecaries, and a determination to wreak bloody vengeance upon Julius Kaesoron, had kept him alive long enough for him to have his ruined flesh replaced with bionic components.

The grim figure of Astropath Cistor followed behind him, robed in cream and black, and clutching his copper staff in a white knuckled grip. The telepath's gaunt features were unreadable in the flickering firelight of the forge, but even one as dulled to psychic vibrations as Santar was, could sense his concern.

Ferrus Manus looked up as they approached, his grim, battered face a mask of cold iron anger. The restriction on entry to the Iron Forge had been forgotten, such petty rules and regulations deemed nonsensical in the face of the crisis facing the Imperium.

'Well?' demanded Ferrus. 'Why do you disturb me?'

Santar allowed himself a tight smile and said, 'I bring word from Rogal Dorn.'

'From Dorn?' cried Ferrus, the fire of his hands diminishing and his face alight with sudden, savage interest. He placed the glowing metal upon the anvil and said, 'I thought the astropathic choirs could not yet reach Terra?'

'Until a few hours ago, we could not,' agreed Cistor, stepping forward to stand next to Santar. 'The warp storms that frustrated our every effort at communication over the previous weeks have dissipated utterly, and my choristers are receiving the most urgent communiques from Lord Dorn.'

'This is great news indeed, Cistor!' exclaimed Ferrus. 'My compliments to your staff! Now speak, Gabriel, speak! What does Dorn say?'

'My lord, if I may?' said Cistor before Santar could answer. 'This sudden calming of the warp disturbs me.'

'Disturbs you, Cistor?' asked Ferrus. 'Why? Surely it is a good thing?'

'That remains to be seen, my lord. It is my belief that some external force has acted upon the warp, aiding our efforts to navigate through it and to send messages across the void of space.'

'Why would you think this is a bad thing, Cistor?' asked Santar. 'Might not the Emperor have worked to achieve this?'

'That is certainly a possibility,' conceded Cistor, 'but it is only one of many. I would be remiss in my duties if I did not voice my concern that some other agent, perhaps one of our enemy's, is calming the Sea of Souls.'

'Your concerns are noted, astropath,' snapped Ferrus. 'Now, will one of you tell me what you have received from Dorn before I have to beat it out of you?'

Santar quickly held out the data-slate and said, 'The Emperor's Champion sends word of his plans to destroy Horus.'

Ferrus snatched the slate from him as Santar continued. 'It appears as though the Warmaster's treachery is confined to those Legions that fought with him at Isstvan III. As Cistor here says, the adepts of the Astropathic Corps have finally managed to establish contact with a great many of your brother primarchs, and even now they are mobilising against Horus.'

'At last,' snarled Ferrus, his silver eyes quickly scanning the data-slate. A grim smile of measured triumph spread slowly across his face. 'Salamanders, Alpha Legion, Iron Warriors, Word Bearers, Raven Guard and Night Lords… including the Iron Hands, that's seven entire Legions. Horus doesn't stand a chance.'

'No, he doesn't,' agreed Santar. 'Dorn is being thorough.'

'Indeed he is,' said Ferrus. 'Isstvan V…'

'My lord?'

'It seems Horus has established his headquarters on Isstvan V, and it is there we are to crush his rebellion once and for all.'

Ferrus handed back the data-slate and said, 'Send word to Captain Balhaan on the Ferrum that I shall be transferring my flag to his ship. Tell him to ready his vessel for immediate transit to the Isstvan system. Deploy as many of the Morlocks as are fit to fight into its barracks. The rest of the Legion will have to make best speed and join us as soon as they are able.'

Santar frowned, as Ferrus returned to the glowing metal on the anvil, and glanced down at the data-slate to ensure he had not misread the orders it contained, orders that came directly from the Emperor's Champion. He hesitated just long enough for Ferrus to catch his delay and said, 'My lord, our orders are to rendezvous with the full force of our Legion.'

Ferrus shook his head. 'No, Gabriel, I won't be denied my vengeance on… him by arriving late and allowing others to destroy him first. The Ferrum suffered the least amount of damage in the betrayal of the Emperor's Children and it's the fastest ship in the fleet. I… I need to face him and destroy him to restore my honour and prove my loyalty Gabriel.'

'Honour? Loyalty?' said Santar. 'None could doubt your loyalty or honour, my lord. The traitor came to you with falsehoods and you hurled them back in his face. If anything, you stand as an example to us all, a faithful and dutiful son of the Emperor. How could you even think such a thing?'

'Because others will,' said Ferrus, picking up the long, flat metal on the anvil, an angry, fiery glow building in the silver depths of his hands. 'Fulgrim would not have risked attempting to turn me to the Warmaster's cause unless he truly believed I would join him. He must have seen weakness in me that made him think he would be successful. That is what I must purge in the heat of his blood. Though they might not voice such things openly, others will soon come to the same conclusion, you mark my words.'

'They would not dare!'

'They will, my friend,' nodded Ferrus. 'They will wonder what made Fulgrim risk such a dangerous gambit. Soon they will come to believe that perhaps he had reason to think I would follow him into treachery. No, we will make all speed for the Isstvan system to wash away the stain of this dishonour in the blood of traitors!'

It took an effort of will not to approach the statue, and Ostian had to deliberately place the file on the battered metal stool next to him. Part of what made an artist great was knowing when something was finished, when it was time to put down the pen, the chisel or the brush and step away from it. The work belonged to the ages now, and as he looked up into the helmeted eyes of the Master of Mankind, he knew that it was finished.

Towering above him, the pale marble was flawless, every curve of the Emperor's armour rendered with loving care to exactly replicate his majesty. Great shoulder guards with eagles rampant framed a tall helmet of ancient design, topped with a long horsehair crest of such fine carving that even Ostian expected it to ruffle in the cool air fluttering the papers and dust around him.

The great eagle on the Emperor's breastplate seemed as though it might burst from his chest, and the lightning bolts on his greaves and bracers exuded a raw power that energised the statue with a fierce anima. A long, curving cloak of white marble spilled down the back of the statue like a cascade of milk, and the Emperor's stature was such that he felt sure the Master of the Imperium might deign to look upon it with a moment of pleasure to see his image rendered so.

A wreath of gold set off the paleness of the marble, and Ostian felt his breath catch as something amazing took flight within him at the statue's perfection.

Ostian had been called many things in his career: a perfectionist, an obsessive, but to his way of thinking, it took obsession and a quest for the truth of the details for an artist to be worthy of the name.

Since receiving the block, the carving had taken him the best part of two years, his every waking moment spent working on the marble or thinking about the marble. Quick work by any method of measurement, but when placed against the final outcome, it was miraculous. Ordinarily, such a masterpiece would have taken much longer, but the changing character of the 28th Expedition had troubled Ostian greatly, and he had not ventured beyond his studio for many months.

He realised that he needed to reacquaint himself with events in the Great Crusade.

What new cultures had been met? What great deeds had recently been accomplished?

The thought of leaving his studio filled him with trepidation and excitement, for with the unveiling of his statue, he would be able to once again bask in the adulation of admirers, something he normally detested, but which, at moments like these, he craved.

No false modesty blinded Ostian to his talents, nay, his genius, in the moment following the completion of a piece of work. It would be in the days, weeks and months to come that flaws only he could see would become apparent, and he would curse his useless hands and begin thinking of how to improve on his next work.

If an artist should ever feel that he could no longer better himself then what was the point of being an artist? Each work should be like unto a stepping-stone that led to greater and greater heights of artistry, where a man could look back at his life's works and be satisfied that he had made the most of his allotted span.

Ostian removed his smock and neatly folded it before placing it upon the stool, taking exaggerated care to flatten the dulled fabric before stepping back. To admire his own work so avidly, now that it was finished, was unseemly, but when it was made public it would no longer be his and his alone. It would belong to everyone who saw it, and a million critical eyes would judge its worth or lack thereof. At moments like this he could begin to understand the self-destructive kernel of doubt that lurked in Serena d'Angelus's heart, or indeed any artist's, be they painter, sculptor, writer or composer. Within the artist's work was a portion of his soul, and the fear of rejection or ridicule was potent indeed.

A cold gust made him shiver and a lilting voice said, 'You have certainly captured him.'

Ostian jumped and spun around to see the terrifying, beautiful form of the Primarch of the Emperor's Children standing before him. Unusually, the Phoenix Guard was absent, and Ostian found himself beginning to sweat despite the coolness of his studio.

'My lord,' he said, dropping to one knee. 'Forgive me, I did not hear you enter.'

Fulgrim nodded and swept past him, swathed in a long purple toga embroidered with dazzling silver wrapped around his powerful physique. The golden hilt of a sword protruded from beneath the toga and a crown of barbed laurels sat upon his noble brow. The primarch's face was rendered doll-like by the application of thick, white greasepaint and brightly coloured, overpoweringly scented inks around his eyes and lips.

What the primarch hoped to achieve with his facial embellishments, Ostian did not know, but unless it was to appear vulgar and grotesque, it had failed completely. Like one of the theatrical performers of Old Earth, Fulgrim carried himself with regal authority. He waved Ostian to his feet as he stopped before the statue, his expression unreadable beneath the layers of paint.

'I remember him like this,' said Fulgrim. Ostian heard a note of sadness in the primarch's voice. 'That was many years ago, of course. He looked like this at Ullanor, but that's not how I remember him on that day. He was cold then, aloof even.'

Ostian rose to his feet, but kept his eyes averted from the primarch, lest he see his disquiet at his appearance. His earlier pride in the statue vanished the instant Fulgrim looked upon it and he held his breath as he awaited the primarch's critical opinion.

Fulgrim turned to face him, his grotesque mask of greasepaint and oil cracking in a smile. Ostian relaxed a fraction, and even though the flat, gemlike eyes of utter darkness remained unmoved, he saw a hostility there that terrified him.

The smile fell from the primarch's face and he said, 'That you carve a statue of the Emperor at a time like this shows either willful stupidity on your part or reprehensible ignorance, Ostian.'

Ostian felt his composure crack at Fulgrim's pronouncement and he tried in vain to think of something to say in response.

Fulgrim walked towards him, and a suffocating fear rose in Ostian's fragile body, his terror at the primarch's displeasure rooting him to the spot. The commander of the Emperor's Children circled him, the towering presence of the primarch threatening to overwhelm what remained of Ostian's resolve.

'My lord…' he whispered.

'You spoke,' snapped Fulgrim, reaching down to turn him around so that his back was to the statue. 'A worm like you does not deserve to speak to me! You, who told me that my work was too perfect creates a work such as this, perfect in every detail. Perfect in every detail but one…'

Ostian looked up into the black pools of the primarch's eyes, but even through his terror, he saw a tortured anguish that transcended his own fear, a conflicted soul at war with itself. Fie saw the lust to do him harm and the desire to beg his forgiveness in the depths of the primarch's eyes.

'My lord, Fulgrim,' said Ostian through tears that spilled freely down his cheeks, 'I do not understand.'

'No,' said Fulgrim, advancing towards him and forcing him, step by step, towards the statue. 'You don't do you? Like the Emperor, you have been too enraptured by your own selfish desires to pay any mind to that which goes on around you: remembrancers vanished and friends betrayed. When all you once held dear is crumbling around you, what do you do? You abandon those closest to you and forsake them in the quest for something of supposedly higher purpose.'

Ostian's terror reached new heights as he bumped into the marble of the statue, and Fulgrim leaned down so that his painted face was level with his own. Yet even amid the flood of horror at what had become of the primarch, Ostian pitied him too, for there was great pain in his every tortured word.

'If you had bothered to take note of your surroundings and the great events in motion, you would have dashed this sculpture to ruins and begged me to become the subject of your latest work. A new order is rising in the galaxy and the Emperor is no longer its master.'

'What?' gasped Ostian in surprise. Fulgrim laughed, the sound bitter and desperate.

'Horus will be the new master of the Imperium,' cried Fulgrim, drawing the sword from beneath his toga with a flourish. The golden hilt shimmered in the brightness of the studio, and Ostian felt warm wetness run down his thighs at the loathsome sight of the soulless blade.

Fulgrim drew himself up to his full height, and Ostian sobbed in relief as the primarch's haunted eyes broke contact with his own.

'Yes, Ostian,' said Fulgrim, matter-of-factly. 'For the past week, the Pride of the Emperor has been in orbit over Isstvan V, a bleak and blackened world of no particular note, but one which will go down in history as a place of glorious legend.'

Ostian fought to control his breathing as Fulgrim circled behind the statue, and he sagged against the cool marble.

'For on this dusty, unremarkable world, the Warmaster will utterly destroy the might of the Emperor's most loyal Legions in preparation for our march to Terra,' continued Fulgrim. 'You see, Ostian, Horus is the rightful master of mankind. He is the one who has led us to triumphs undreamt of. He is the one who has conquered ten thousand worlds, and he is the one who will lead us in conquest of ten thousand more. Together we will cast down the false Emperor!'

Ostian's thoughts tumbled over one another as he struggled to come to grips with the enormity of what Fulgrim was suggesting. Betrayal dripped from every word, and Ostian was suddenly and horribly confronted with the fact that he was paying the price for his isolation. Shutting himself off from events simply because he did not care for them had led to this, and he wished he had taken the time to…

'Your work is not yet perfect, Ostian,' said Fulgrim from behind the statue.

Ostian tried to frame a reply when he heard a horrific scraping sound of metal on stone, and the tip of the primarch's alien sword burst through the marble plinth to spear between his shoulder blades.

The glittering grey blade emerged from his chest with a crack of bone. Ostian tried to scream in pain, but his mouth filled with blood as the blade pierced his heart. The primarch's strength drove the blade deeper into the statue, until the gold quillons clanged against the marble and the tip of the sword projected a full foot from Ostian's chest.

Blood flowed from his mouth in thick red runnels of saliva and his eyes dimmed. Ostian's life flowed from his body as though clawed out by some voracious predator.

Ostian looked up with the last of his strength as he dimly perceived Fulgrim standing before him once more.

The primarch looked at him with a mixture of contempt and regret, pointing at the blood-spattered statue he hung from.

'Now it's perfect,' said Fulgrim.

The Gallery of Swords on the Andronius had changed a great deal since Lucius had last walked its length. Where once an avenue of monolithic statues of great heroes had stared down and judged the worth of a warrior as he walked between them, now those same statues had been crudely altered with hammers and chisels to resemble strange, bull-headed monsters with gem studded armour and curling horns of bone. Brightly coloured paints had been daubed over the statues, and the overall effect was like that of some garish carnival parade.

Eidolon marched ahead of him, and Lucius could feel the lord commander's dislike of him as an almost physical resentment. His killing of Chaplain Char-mosian still sat ill with Eidolon, and he had called him a traitor twice over, but that seemed an age ago, when the loyalist fools on Isstvan HI had still resisted the inevitable.

Lucius had given the lord commander the opportunity to win a great victory on a silver platter and, like the fool he was, Eidolon had squandered his chance for glory. When Lucius had slaughtered his warriors, the eastern approaches to the palace were wide open and Eidolon had led the Emperor's Children into the palace to outflank the defenders and roll up their pathetic defiance in a tide of fire and blood. But he had overreached himself and left his forces exposed to a counter-attack. It was an unforgivable oversight, and one that Saul Tarvitz had punished him for, flanking the flankers.

Lucius still smarted at his last confrontation with Tarvitz, remembering the duel they had fought in the ruined dome where he had killed Solomon Demeter. Like Loken before him, Tarvitz had not fought honourably, and Lucius had been lucky to escape with his life.

Still, it didn't matter anymore. After he had rejoined his Legion, the Warmaster's forces had withdrawn from Isstvan III, and commenced an orbital bombardment that had pulverised the surface of the planet until not a single structure remained standing. The Precentor's Palace was a rain of vitrified stone, and the force of the bombardment had levelled even the might of the Sirenhold. Nothing lived on Isstvan III, and Lucius felt a thrill of delicious excitement as he considered the future the fates had opened up to him.

He paused to savour the heights of glory he would rise to, and the new sensations awaiting him as he marched at the side of his primarch once more. The statue before him had once been Lord Commander Teliosa, hero of the Madrivane campaign, and Lucius remembered Tarvitz telling him that he had especially honoured it.

He chuckled as he imagined what Saul Tarvitz would make of the carved horns and exposed breast that had been added to it by enthusiastic, if questionably skilled, sculptors.

'Apothecary Fabius is waiting,' snapped Eidolon from up ahead, his impatience obvious.

Lucius grinned and spun on his heel to join Eidolon at his leisure. 'I know, but he can wait a little longer. I was admiring the changes you've made to the ship.'

Eidolon scowled and said, 'If it were up to me, I'd have left you to die down there.'

'Then I'm grateful it wasn't up to you,' smirked Lucius. 'Still, after your defeat at Saul's hands, I'm surprised you retained your command.'

'Tarvitz…' growled Eidolon. 'A thorn in my side from the day he made captain.'

'Well, he's a thorn no longer, lord commander,' said Lucius, thinking back to his last sight of Isstvan III, the swirling, cloud streaked glow of its atmosphere flickering with the mushroom clouds of high yield atomics and incendiaries.

'You saw him die?' asked Eidolon.

Lucius shook his head. 'No, but I saw what was left of the palace. Nothing could have lived through that. Tarvitz is dead and so are Loken and that smug bastard, Torgaddon.'

Eidolon at least had the good grace to smile at the news of Torgaddon's death and he nodded reluctantly. 'That at least is good news. What of the others? Solomon Demeter, Ancient Rylanor?'

Lucius laughed as he remembered Solomon Demeter's death. 'Demeter is dead, of that I am certain.'

'How can you be so sure?'

'Because I killed him,' said Lucius. 'He happened upon me when I was despatching the warriors assigned to defend the eastern ruins of the palace and happily joined in when I shouted to him that I was under attack.'

Eidolon smirked as he understood. 'You mean Demeter killed his own men?'

'Indeed he did,' said Lucius, 'with great gusto.'

Eidolon let out a burst of laughter, and Lucius could feel the lord commander's attitude thaw a fraction at the irony of Solomon Demeter's final moments.

'And Ancient Rylanor?' asked Eidolon, leading him further along the Gallery of Swords to the entrance to the apothecarion.

'I don't know for sure about that,' said Lucius. 'After the bombing, he took himself off into the depths of the Precentor's Palace. I never saw him again.'

'Not like Rylanor to run from a fight,' noted Eidolon, turning a corner and marching down a parchment lined corridor that led to the grand staircase of the ship's central apothecarion.

'No,' agreed Lucius, 'though Tarvitz did say something about him guarding something.'

'Guarding what?'

'He didn't say. Rumour was he'd found some kind of underground hangar, but if that were the case, then why didn't Praal use it to escape when the Legions arrived?'

'True,' agreed Eidolon. 'It is the nature of the coward to flee rather than fight. Well, no matter, whatever Rylanor's purpose, it is irrelevant, for he is buried beneath thousands of tonnes of radioactive slag.'

Lucius nodded and gestured down the stairs. 'Apothecary Fabius… what exactly is he going to do to me?'

'Is that fear I hear in your voice, Lucius?' asked Eidolon.

'No,' said Lucius, 'I just want to know what I am letting myself in for'

'Perfection,' promised Eidolon.

The corridors of the Pride of the Emperor were never quiet now, hastily rigged mesh speakers blaring a constant cacophony of sound from La Venice. After hearing a taster of the Maraviglia's overture, Fulgrim had commanded that his vessels be filled with music, and the weirdly distorted recordings of Bequa Kyn-ska's symphonies echoed along every hallway, day and night.

Serena d'Angelus made her way along the dazzlingly bright corridors of Fulgrim's flagship, lurching from side to side like a drunk, her clothes stained with blood and ordure. The remains of her long hair were greasy, and matted clumps of it had been torn out in her ravings.

With the completion of the paintings of Lucius and Fulgrim, she had found herself without inspiration, as though the fire that had driven her to undreamt of highs and lows had burnt itself out. Days passed without her moving from her studio, and the months since the expedition had arrived in the Isstvan system had passed in a blur of catatonia and horrified introspection.

Dreams and nightmares had played out in her head like badly cut pict-reels, images of horrors and degradation she hadn't known she was capable of visualising, tormenting her with their intensity and hideousness. Scenes of murders, violations, desecrations and things so vile that surely a human being was incapable of indulging in them without losing their sanity, played out before her like some madman's fever dreams laid out for her unwilling scrutiny.

Occasionally she remembered to eat, not recognising the wild, feral woman she saw in the mirror or the scarred flesh that greeted her every morning when she awoke, naked in the ruin of her studio. Over the weeks the suspicion grew in her mind that the repeated visions that plagued her in the night were not simply delusions… They were memories.

She remembered weeping bitter tears as her suspicions were terrifyingly confirmed the day she had opened the stinking barrel in the corner of the studio.

A reek of decomposing human meat and acidic chemicals hit her like a blow, and the lid clattered to the floor as she saw the gooey, partially dissolved remains of at least six corpses. Smashed skulls, sawn bones and a thick soup of liquefying flesh sloshed around the barrel, and Serena vomited uncontrollably for several minutes at the horror of the sight.

She dragged herself away from the barrel and wept piteously as the full abhorrence of what she had done threatened to overwhelm her already fraying sanity.

Her mind had teetered on the brink of madness until a name had surfaced in the miasma of her consciousness, a name that gave her an anchor to cling to: Ostian… Ostian… Ostian…

Like a drowning woman clutching at a branch, she had pulled herself to her feet, cleaned herself up as best she could and stumbled, weeping and bloody, towards Ostian's studio. He had tried to help her and she had rejected him, seeing now the love that had motivated his altruism and cursing herself for not realising it sooner.

Ostian could save her. As she reached the shutter to his studio, she only hoped he had not forsaken her. The shutter was partially open and she slammed her palm against the corrugated metal.

'Ostian!' she cried. 'It's me, Serena… please… let me in!'

Ostian did not reply, and she beat her hands bloody on the shutter, screaming his name and sobbing as she cried and begged for his forgiveness. Still there was no reply, and in desperation she reached down and lifted the shutter.

Serena stumbled into the dimly lit studio, detecting a dreadful, familiar smell even before her exhausted eyes made out the loathsome sight before her.

'Oh, no,' she whispered as she saw the grisly sight of Ostian's body impaled upon a glittering sword blade protruding from a wondrous sculpture of the Emperor.

She dropped to her knees before him and screamed, 'Forgive me! I didn't know what I was doing! Oh, please forgive me, Ostian!'

What remained of Serena's mind finally buckled and collapsed inwards at this latest atrocity. She pushed herself to her feet and placed her hands on Ostian's shoulders.

'You loved me,' she whispered, 'and I never saw it.'

Serena closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around Ostian's corpse, feeling the sharp tip of the sword between her breasts.

'But I loved you too,' she said, and pulled herself hard onto the sword blade.

TWENTY-TWO World of Death The Trap is Set Maraviglia

Isstvan V had been, so the exterminated Isstvanian myth-makers believed, a place of exile. Stories told that, in a time consigned to legend, Father Isstvan himself had sung the world into being with music for his Warsingers to hear and interpret. Father Isstvan was, it seemed, a fertile god and had spread his seed far and wide across the stars, nameless mothers bearing him countless children with which he had populated the first ages of the world.

Such allegorical concepts became night and day, the seas and the land, and countless other aspects of the world in which the Isstvanians lived. Within the Sirenhold, great towers and enormous murals had told these legends in great detail: intricate dramas of love, betrayal, death and blood, but these were gone forever, burned and pounded to oblivion by the Warmaster's bombardment.

Such wrath was no stranger to the myths of Isstvan, which told of the children of Father Isstvan who turned from his light and led their hosts against their benevolent sire. A terrible war followed. The Lost Children, as they came to be known, were finally defeated in a great battle and their armies destroyed. Instead of slaying his wayward children, Father Isstvan banished them to Isstvan V, a desolate place of black deserts and ashen wastelands.

Upon this nightmarish place of darkness, the Lost Children were said to brood upon their expulsion from paradise, bitterness twisting their beautiful countenances until no man could look upon them without revulsion. These monstrosities were said to dwell in cyclopean fortresses of black stone where they dreamed of returning to wreak vengeance on their enemies.

Such were the myths of Isstvan as preached by the Warsingers, cautionary tales that warned their people to follow the true path, lest the Lost Children return and finally take their long awaited vengeance.

Whether these myths were allegorical parables or were in fact history was irrelevant, for, in the shape of the Warmaster's Legions, the Lost Children had indeed returned.

The skies of Isstvan V were grey and ashen, dark clouds gathering in rumbling thunderheads to the south of where the first battle for the Imperium would be fought. As places of legend went, it was not particularly impressive, thought fulius Kae-soron. The air tasted of long vanished industry, and the ground underfoot was a dusty black powder, fine and granular like sand, but hard and crunching like glass.

When Julius had first set foot on the black deserts of Isstvan V, a howling wind had been whipping across the black dunes, echoing mournfully through the towers and weathered battlements of an ancient fortress, which stood atop a gently sloping ridge at the northern edge of a vast emptiness. Known as the Urgall Depression, it was the planet's largest desert, a featureless plain of bare rock and scattered scrub that rose gently to low hills upon which was built the fortress. Who had raised it was unknown, though the Mechanicum adepts postulated that it belonged to a civilisation that predated humanity by millions of years.

Its walls were formed of enormous blocks of a hard vitreous stone, each one the size of a Land Raider, and carved with such precision that there was no evidence of any bonding agent between them. Its builders were long dead, but their architectural legacy had endured the passage of aeons, though long stretches of the wall had collapsed over the millions of years. Such ruin rendered it untenable as a fortress, but ideal as a bulwark against which to mount a defence. The wall stretched for nearly twenty kilometres and rose to heights of thirty metres in places, with slopes of gritty sand banked against it and filling the hallways of its mighty, turreted keep.

Fulgrim had set up his command within the remains of the keep and begun the work of ensuring that it would be a bastion worthy of the Warmaster.

Together with Marius, Julius followed the Primarch of the Emperor's Children as he toured the mighty works of fortification being undertaken here. Vast teams of Mechanicum earthmovers were shifting the sand from before the walls of the fortress and using it to form a vast network of earthworks, trenches, bunkers and redoubts that stretched along the ridge before the fortress. Laagers of anti-aircraft batteries were set up in the shadow of the walls, and mighty orbital torpedoes on mobile launch vehicles hid in the warrens of the fortress. If the Emperor's Legions wanted to destroy them, they were going to have to come down to the surface to do so.

The Primarch of the Emperor's Children was arrayed in his plate armour, the gleaming ceramite burnished to a brilliant purple, though Julius's newly enhanced vision detected hundreds of subtle variations of hue within each plate. Legion artificers had added many layers to the armour, its sweeping curves accentuated in new and wondrous ways, the Imperial Eagle removed from his breastplate and replaced with gracefully carved bands of lacquered ceramite.

Silver and gold edged every plate and scenes representing the Legion's new loyalties were carved onto every surface, lending the armour the appearance of something purely ceremonial, though such an impression could not be further from the truth.

'A fine sight is it not, my friends?' asked Fulgrim as he watched a gigantic bulldozer the size of a Titan lander scooping hundreds of tonnes of sand and rubble into a similarly gigantic hopper.

'Majestic,' said Julius without enthusiasm. 'The Warmaster will be pleased, I'm sure.'

'He will indeed,' replied Fulgrim, oblivious to the irony in his tone.

'Do we know yet when Horus will grace us with his presence?' he asked.

Fulgrim turned, finally hearing Julius's ennui. He smiled, sweeping a hand through his unbound white hair, and Julius felt his spirits aroused by the sight of the beautiful primarch. In deference to the Warmaster, Fulgrim had dispensed with the powder and paints on his face and more resembled his old self, a glorious warrior of utmost perfection.

'The Warmaster will join us soon, Julius,' said Fulgrim, 'and so too will the Legions of the Emperor! I know this work seems tedious to you, but it is necessary if we are to achieve the great victory Horus requires.'

Julius shrugged, his senses crying out for stimulation. 'It is humiliating. The Warmaster could have thought of no greater punishment than denying us a place in the battle for Isstvan III and consigning us to become ditch diggers and grubby labourers on this desolate rock.'

'We all have our part to play,' said Marius, ever the sycophant, but Julius could see that he too did not relish this work and smarted at missing the glory of expunging the imperfect from their Legion. The battles on Isstvan III had been glorious, and Eidolon had sent word of the perfection of the Legion's conduct as well as the fact of Solomon Demeter's death.

Unlike when Lycaon had died fighting the Diasporex, Julius hadn't known what to feel upon hearing of his former battle-brother's end. His senses were heightened to the point that only the most shocking things could evoke more than a glimmer of passing interest. He felt no sadness, only a mild regret that a warrior as fine as Solomon had proved to be imperfect, and thus deserving of his fate.

'That we do, Marius,' agreed Fulgrim. 'The work we do is vital, Julius, that is why Horus has entrusted it to us. Only the Emperor's Children bring the perfection required to ensure that this phase of the Warmaster's plan plays out as ordained.'

'This work is fit only for the workers of the Mechanicum and perhaps the dour Iron Warriors of Perturabo's Legion. For it to be foisted upon the Emperor's Children is demeaning,' said Julius, unrepentant in his defiance. 'We are being punished for our failure.'

Though Fulgrim had been devastated at his exclusion from the battles raging on Isstvan III following the disastrous mission to bring over Ferrus Manus, he had nevertheless thrown himself into the preparations for Horus's triumphant arrival like a man possessed.

The Legions of the Emperor were massing to destroy them and soon the battle that might very well determine the fate of the Imperium would be fought on this desolate plain.

'Maybe so,' growled Fulgrim, 'but it will be done.'

With the destruction of the last surviving warriors on Isstvan III, the Legions of Horus made their way to Isstvan V, a flotilla of powerful warships and carriers bearing the martial pride of four Legions, their ranks fully comprised of those whose loyalty was to Horus and Horus alone.

Mass conveyers of Lord Commander Fayle's Army units brought millions of armed men and their tanks and artillery pieces. Bloated Mechanicum transports bore the Legio Mortis to Isstvan V, dark priests of the Machine ministering to the Dies Irae and its sister Titans as they prepared to unleash the unimaginable power of these land battleships once more.

Final victory on Isstvan III had been bought with many lives, but in its wake the Legions were tempered in the crucible of combat to do what must be done to save the Imperium. The process had been long and bloody, but the Warmaster's army was ready and eager to fight its brothers, where the lackeys of the Emperor would find their readiness to strike down their kith and kin untested.

Such mercy would be their undoing, promised Horus.

The atmosphere in La Venice was tense and ripe with potential. Thousands packed its stalls and boxes, the vividness of the art, sculpture and colours overwhelming the senses with their extravagance. Nearly three thousand Astartes warriors had returned to the Pride of the Emperor from the surface of Isstvan V, and some six thousand remembrancers and ship's crew jammed themselves between the warriors wherever a space could be found. The excited hubbub of conversation filled the theatre.

For tonight would see the unveiling of Bequa Kynska's long-awaited Maraviglia.

The auditorium was painted in a riot of colours with gold trim throughout, and ornamental plaster-work and mouldings divided the wall areas into large, well-proportioned panels decorated with all manner of splendidly overwrought artworks. In magnitude, La Venice had few superiors, even in the largest and most urbane of the Terran hives, and was finished in a style that had clearly involved the most lavish expenditure of resources.

Parquet spread from the front of the stage in wide, concentric arcs, the mosaic floor invisible beneath the sandals of the thousands who had come to see this most magnificent spectacle. Semi-circular niches to the side of the parquet accommodated busts of renowned impresarios of Terra and other, more exotic, statues of hedonistic libertines. Amongst these sculptures were other, less recognisable statues of mightily muscled androgynous figures with bulls' heads and bejewelled horns.

To the rear of this area, six mighty columns of solid marble supported the dress circle, and the front of the balcony was decorated with exquisite plaster applique.

Brass cages containing brightly coloured songbirds were suspended from the base of the balcony and their frantic music added to the din of the orchestra and audience. A sweet scented musk drifted from hanging incense burners and the air was almost unbearably humid. The sense of fevered anticipation was palpable as scores of musicians tuned their instruments in the bow shaped orchestra pit before the stage. Each instrument was a monstrous contraption of pipes, bellows and crackling electrical generators, which in turn were hooked to towering stacks of mighty amplifiers, created specifically for this performance, and designed to replicate the magical music of the Laer temple.

Coloured lights and strategically placed prisms filled La Venice with blinding rainbows and cast beams of a million different hues to every corner of the theatre. An army of seamstresses had worked tirelessly to create the stage curtain, and the glaring footlights illuminated the vividness of the red velvet and the wondrously embroidered images of decadent legends, cavorting nudes, animals and scenes of battle.

On the vast pediment above the stage, illuminated by a single spotlight, was the late Serena d'Angelus's painting of the Emperor's Children's primarch. Its terrible aspect, unendurable finish, and the passion of its outlandish colours rendered those who saw it dumb, and robbed them of coherent thought.

More of Serena's work could be seen on the vaulted ceiling of the theatre, a colossal, multi-coloured mural of serpents and ancient beasts of legend, which sported with naked humans and beasts of all description.

The sheer bulk of the Astartes filled much of the enormous theatre, even though they were stripped of their armour and wore only simple training robes. Those remembrancers that found themselves behind one of the giant warriors danced from foot to foot as they sought to obtain a better view of the stage.

The captains of the Legion sat in the comfort of the boxes, arranged in two tiers on either side of the stage. The boxes overlooked the proscenium with an unobstructed view, and their facades were of a classical design with fluted pilasters to either side.

The box with the most perfect viewpoint was known as the Phoenician's Nest, its interior painted with frescoes of gold and silver, and decorated with yellow satin draperies that overhung lace curtains. Over it all, a valance of gold silk shimmered in the light of hundreds of candles fixed upon a great chandelier above the centre of the stage.

A movement in the Phoenician's Nest drew the gaze of the gathered audience and soon every eye was fixed upon the magnificent warrior standing there. Dressed in his finest toga of regal purple, Fulgrim raised his hand to the crowd and basked in the adoration displayed by his Legion as thunderous applause built and shook the rafters with its volume.

His senior commanders accompanied the primarch, and as he took his seat the lights began to dim. A brilliant spotlight shone on the stage as the great velvet curtain parted and Bequa Kynska made her entrance.

Julius watched with barely contained excitement as the blue haired composer crossed the stage and descended into the orchestra pit to take her place on her conductor's podium. Dressed in a scandalously translucent dress of gold and crimson, the gossamer thin material hung with precious stones that glittered like stars. The cut of her dress plunged from her shoulders to her pelvis, the swell of her breasts and the hairlessness of her flesh clearly visible beneath.

'Magnificent!' cried Fulgrim, clapping furiously with the audience at Bequa's appearance, and Julius was amazed to see tears in his eyes.

Julius nodded, and though he had no real memory of feminine splendour or any frame of reference against which to compare her, the composer's curves and obvious womanhood stole away his breath. Julius had felt such stirrings of emotion when he gazed upon his primarch, heard a particularly inspiring piece of music or went into battle, but to feel his senses aroused by a mortal woman was a new experience for him.

Thick silence enveloped the audience as they waited for the magic to happen, the collective breath of nearly ten thousand throats held fast as the moment of anticipation stretched to breaking point. Bequa selected a mnemo-baton and tapped it on the libretto stand before launching into the opening bars of the Maraviglia's overture.

Tremendous noise erupted from the orchestra pit as the first notes blared from the newly conceived musical devices, the sound reaching to every corner of La Venice with its wonderful instrumentation, romantic beauty and hints of themes yet to come. Julius felt himself carried on a journey of the senses as the music rose and fell, emotions he had never experienced plucked from the depths of his soul and brought joyously to the fore as the crashing beats and wild, skirling tunes wound their way through the audience.

He wanted to laugh and then cry, and then he felt a terrible anger build, before it bled away and a great melancholy settled upon him. Within moments the music had torn that loose, and a soaring elation asserted itself with the utmost lucidity and force, as though all that had gone before was merely the prelude to some grand design yet to be unveiled.

Bequa Kynska thrashed like a lunatic atop her conductor's podium, jabbing and slashing the air with her baton, her hair a wild comet of blue as it whipped around her head. Julius tore his eyes from the magnificent sight of her and looked out over the audience to witness its reaction to this sublime, raucous music.

He saw faces rapt in stunned disbelief, eyes wide as the power and majesty of the dissonant sounds penetrated every skull and spoke to every soul of the sensations evoked. But not every member of the audience appeared to appreciate the wonder of what they were privileged to witness, and Julius saw many with their hands clamped over their ears in the throes of agony as the music swelled once more. Julius caught sight of the slender figure of Evander Tobias in the audience, and his anger grew as he watched the ungrateful wretch lead a group of his fellow scriveners through the crowd towards the exit.

Scuffles broke out and the recalcitrant archivist and his fellows were attacked, fists pummelling them to the ground where they were kicked and beaten. Without pause, the audience returned its attention to the stage, and Julius felt a fierce pride swell in his breast as he watched a heavy boot crunch down on Tobias's skull. None remarked upon the sudden, bloody violence, as if it had been the most natural reaction, but Julius could see the bloodlust spread throughout the audience like a virus or the Shockwave of a detonation.

The music swept onwards, rising and sweeping around La Fenice like a whirlwind, until at last it reached the thunderous crescendo of its climax, whereupon the curtain rose in a flurry of dramatic and spectacular sensations.

Julius rose to his feet as the peals of music drove ever onward, the overture continuing in an unbroken melody of sounds, and the sheer visceral emotions that filled him on seeing what lay beyond was like a punch to the guts.

The interior of the Laer temple had been recreated in painstaking detail, its eye-watering colours and dimensions faithfully recreated by the artists and sculptors who had walked within its magnificence.

Vivid lights flashed around the theatre, and Julius felt a momentary disorientation as more music blasted from the orchestra, a new piece with darker overtones and an aching sense of imminent tragedy. The waves of sound and harmony flowed outwards from the stage and over the audience, immersing them in the power and sensations he had first felt when he had followed Fulgrim into the temple.

The effect was immediately obvious, and a shudder of pleasure rippled through the audience as the powerful notes flowed into and through them. Dizzying colours flashed through the air, and as the music built to yet another high, a second spotlight stabbed onto the stage. The slender form of Coraline Aseneca, the prima donna of the Maraviglia, appeared.

Julius had never heard Coraline's voice before and was unprepared for the sheer virtuosity and power of her singing. Her tone was in perfect, discordant harmony with Bequa's music, reaching heights no human voice could possibly attain. Yet attain them she did, the energy of her soprano's voice reaching beyond the realms of the five senses, all of which were being stimulated it seemed to Julius.

He leaned forwards, laughing uncontrollably as an intoxicating rush of emotions seized him, and he clasped his hands to his head at such overstimulation. A chorus joined Coraline Aseneca on stage, though Julius hardly noticed them, their intermingled voices allowing the soprano's voice to swoop through even more unfeasible notes, which reached into the very hindbrain to pluck at sensory apparatus Julius was not even aware he possessed.

Julius forced himself to look away from the stage, enthralled and terrified by what he was seeing and hearing. What manner of being could hear music of such terrible power and retain his sanity? Man was not meant to listen to this, the birthing cry of a beautiful and terrible god as it forced its way into existence.

Eidolon and Marius were as ensnared by the spectacle of the Maraviglia as he was, pinned to their seats in rapture. The jaws of both warriors were locked open as though they entertained the idea of joining with Coraline Aseneca in song, but there was panic in their eyes as their mouths stretched wide in silent screams, bones cracking as they distended like a snake about to devour its prey. Hideous, soundless shrieks issued from their throats, and Julius forced himself to look at Fulgrim for fear that he might strike down his friends in his fugue state.

Fulgrim gripped the edge of the Phoenician's Nest, leaning forward as though forcing passage through a powerful wind. His hair writhed around his head and his dark eyes burned with a violet fire as he revelled in the cacophony.

'What is happening?' cried Julius, his voice swept up and becoming part of the music. Fulgrim turned his dark eyes upon him, and Julius cried out as he saw an age of darkness within them, galaxies and stars wheeling in their depths as unknown power flowed through him.

'It's beautiful,' said Fulgrim, his voice barely above a whisper, but sounding deafening to Julius as he propelled himself from his seat and fell to his knees at the edge of the box. 'Horus spoke of power, but I never imagined…'

Julius watched in wonder, realising the he could actually see the soprano's music as it reached out into the audience and slithered amongst them like a living thing. Their shrieks and cries penetrated the fog of music that writhed in his brain, and he saw all manner of horrors enacted throughout the audience, as friends turned and fought each other with fists and teeth. Some audience members fell upon one another with carnal lust, and the heaving crowd soon resembled a great wounded beast, convulsing in agonised throes of death and desire.

Nor was it simply mortals who were affected. The Astartes too were swept up in the surging power generated by the Maraviglia. Blood was spilled as the emotions of the Astartes were overloaded with sensational excess, and were vented in the only way men bred as warriors knew how. An orgy of killing spread from the stage, blood running in rivers as the power of the music thundered through La Venice.

Julius heard a great buzzing, creaking sound, like a great sheet of sailcloth being ripped to shreds, and he turned to see the mighty portrait of Fulgrim writhing and stretching at the canvas as though its painted subject fought to be free of the constraints of the frame. Fires blazed in its eyes and a howling shriek that sounded as though it echoed down an impossibly long tunnel filled his skull with a monstrous thirst and the promise of horrific splendours.

Lights blazed around the theatre, flowing from the orchestra pit like liquid, the greasy, electrical fire lifting from the bizarre instruments and achieving physicality as they became liquid serpents of myriad colours. Madness and excess followed the light, and all those it touched gave themselves over to the wildest, darkest delights of their inner psyches.

The orchestra played as though their limbs were not their own, their faces twisted in horrified rictus masks and their hands frenziedly dancing across their instruments with violent life. The music held them in its grip and was not about to let any weakness on the part of its creators deny its existence.

Julius heard notes of agony enter Coraline Aseneca's voice, and managed to lift his eyes to the stage, where the prima donna danced in a wild, exuberant ballet as the choristers screamed in unnatural counterpoint. Her limbs snapped and twisted in a manner no human limb was designed to, and he could hear the cracking of her bones as it became part of the million melodies filling the theatre. He could see that she was dead, her eyes lifeless. Every bone in her body turned to powder, and yet the song poured from her still.

The madness and frenzy engulfing La Venice soared to new heights of excess as all flesh was infected with the maelstrom of sights and sounds coming from the stage. Julius watched as Astartes clubbed mortals to death with their fists and drank their blood or ate their flesh, scarring their skin with the broken bones and draping the torn skin of their victims about them like grisly shawls.

Vast orgies of mortals shuddered on the blood slick parquet as the living and the dead became vessels for the dark energies pouring into the world, every violation imaginable willingly inflicted.

At the centre of the madness, Bequa Kynska conducted the chaos with a delirious smile of triumph plastered across her face. Julius saw the knowledge that this was her greatest work in the light of her eyes as she stared in rapt adoration at Fulgrim.

Then, without warning, a terrifying scream cut through the crescendo of noise, and Julius saw the abused form of Coraline Aseneca twist into the air, her limbs spread-eagled as some unknown power seized the broken meat and gristle of her body and warped it into some new, hideous form. Her shattered limbs straightened, becoming lithe and graceful once again, the flesh taking on a pale lilac hue. Where before Coraline had been clad in a shimmering dress of blue silk, the fabric transformed into a harness of gleaming black leather that revealed the supple beauty of the soft flesh formed from the ruin of her corpse.

A horrific wet sucking noise engulfed the prima donna and whatever force had previously held her aloft released her. The thing Coraline Aseneca had become landed with supple grace in the centre of the stage.

Julius had never seen anything so simultaneously beautiful and repellent, a naked female creature that evoked both a potent loathing, and a perverse sensuality that gnawed at the pit of his stomach. Hair like needle horns swept back from her oval face, with its green, saucer-like eyes, fanged mouth and luscious lips. Her body was sculpted perfection, lithe and sensuous, but with only a single breast, and her skin was loathsomely tattooed and pierced. Each of her arms terminated in a long crab-like claw of glistening red chitin and moist flesh. Despite the lethal claws, the creature was disturbingly seductive, and Julius felt moved in a way he had not been since he had been elevated to the ranks of the Astartes.

She moved with languid, cat-like grace, her every movement redolent with sexuality and the promise of dark pleasures and excesses unknown to the minds of mortal men. Julius ached to taste them. The she-creature turned her ancient eyes upon the choristers behind her and threw her head back to emit a siren song of such longing and heartbreaking beauty that Julius wanted to climb from the box to join her.

Even before the note of summoning had dissipated, it was taken up by the frenzied orchestra, and grew louder and louder. Julius saw the members of the chorus spasm and twist as Coraline Aseneca had, the same bone-cracking harmonies transforming five of them into more of the hauntingly alluring creatures. The remaining choristers fell to the stage as dried husks of flesh, drained of their life, as though merely fuel to power the transformation of the cavorting creatures that leapt from the stage in a flurry of slicing claws and bestial shrieks.

The six creatures moved with sinewy, supple grace, the caress of their razor sharp claws opening arteries and severing limbs with every lissom movement.

Bequa Kynska was the first to die, a monstrous claw impaling her from behind and ripping from her chest in a fountain of blood. Even as she died, she smiled in delight at the wondrous things she had done. The rest of the orchestra was torn to pieces as the beautiful monsters ripped through them with a speed and sensual malice that Julius could barely imagine.

At last, the music of the Maraviglia fell silent as the musicians were slaughtered in the caress of razor claws, their lives torn from their quivering flesh. Julius cried out in the sudden void, the absence of the music like a physical pain in his bones. Though the music had fallen silent, La Venice was still a deafening arena. The killing and copulation continued unabated, though the shrieks of agony and ecstasy turned to wails of anguish as the music's demise was mourned in renewed bouts of bloody madness.

Julius heard Marius give a howling cry of loss and turned to see his battle-brother leap from the Phoenician's Nest to the stage. Fulgrim watched him go, his body quivering with emotion and pleasure, and Julius pushed himself unsteadily to his feet. He watched as Marius dropped into the bloody ruin of the orchestra pit and lifted one of Bequa Kynska's bizarre instruments.

Marius hefted the long, tubular device and hooked it into the crook of his arm like a boltgun, running his hands along the length of the shaft until it produced a monstrous vibration like the roar of a chainsword. Even as Julius watched Marius's futile attempts to recreate the music, more of the Emperor's Children rushed to join him, each picking up one of the orchestral instruments and attempting to conjure the magic of the music once again.

Julius felt the breath heave in his lungs and gripped the edge of the balcony for fear that his legs would not support him.

'I… what…?' was all he could manage as Fulgrim moved to stand next to him.

'Wondrous was it not?' asked Fulgrim, his skin glowing with renewed vigour and his eyes alight with fresh purpose. 'Mistress Kynska was a fiery comet. Everyone stopped to look at her and now she is gone. We will never see anything like her again, and none of us will be able to forget her.'

Julius tried to reply, but a vast explosion of noise erupted from behind him and he turned to see a portion of the stage wreathed in smoke and collapsing rubble. Marius stood in the centre of the orchestra pit, electrical fire dancing across his flesh as he strummed his hands across the screaming instrument. A howling, pyrotechnic blast of sonic energy shot from it and ripped one of the balconies from the wall in a devastating explosion. Chunks of marble and plaster flew through the air and the sound of the instrument drew howls of pleasure from Marius's fellow Astartes.

Within moments, each had mastered his device and a renewed crescendo of howling, shrieking blasts of energy began ripping the theatre apart. The monstrously beguiling she-monsters gathered around Marius, adding their own unnatural shrieks of pleasure to the delirious music he was making.

Marius turned his instrument into the crowd and unleashed a thrumming bass note that built to an explosive climax. Clashing chords like howls of ecstasy tore through a dozen mortals with an ear-splitting concussion, and each of Marius's victims thrashed helplessly as their bones snapped and heads exploded beneath the barrage of noise.

'My Emperor's Children,' said Fulgrim, 'what sweet music they make.'

Explosions of flesh and stone bloomed throughout La Fenice as Marius and the rest of the Astartes filled it with the music of the apocalypse.

TWENTY-THREE The Battle of Isstvan V

Captain Balhaan stood immobile at his command lectern, and tried to control his breathing as he watched the three majestic figures gathered on the bridge of the Ferrum. Iron Father Diederik stood by helm control, similarly awed by the towering figures of the three primarchs as they discussed how best to destroy the enemy forces on Isstvan V. His readings of history had spoken of the charisma of ancient heroes of legend, the mighty Hektor, brave Alexandyr and the sublime Torquil.

Tales spoke of how men had been struck dumb by their sheer majesty, and thus these heroes had been described in terms of wondrous hyperbole that were clearly exaggerated and designed to inflate their reputations. Balhaan had discounted most such stories as overblown fabrications, until he had first laid eyes upon a primarch and knew them to be true, but to see three of them gathered together was like nothing he could describe. No mere words could hope to convey the fearful awe he felt at beholding such perfect visions of warriors as stood on the bridge of his ship.

Ferrus Manus, clad in his shimmering fuliginous armour, stood a head taller than his brothers, pacing like a caged Medusan snow lion as he awaited news of the rest of his Legion. He punched one silver fist into his palm as he paced, and Balhaan could see the urgent need to take the fight to the traitors in his every movement.

Next to the broad, mightily muscled Primarch of the Iron Hands, Corax of the Raven Guard was tall and slender. His armour was also black, but it seemed to be utterly non-reflective, as though it swallowed any light that dared to fall upon it. The white trim of his shoulder guards was fashioned from pale ivory, and great wings of dark feathers swept upwards to either side of his pallid, aquiline features. His eyes were murderously dark coals, and long, gleaming talons of silver were unsheathed over his gauntlets. So far, the Primarch of the Raven Guard had said nothing, but Balhaan had heard this of Corax, that he was a taciturn warrior who kept his counsel until he had something of worth to impart.

The third of the primarchs was Vulkan of the Salamanders, a brother with whom Ferrus Manus had a great friendship, for both were craftsmen as well as warriors. Vulkan's skin was dark and swarthy, and his eyes carried a depth of wisdom that had humbled the greatest scholars of the Imperium. His armour was a shimmering sea green, though each gleaming ceramite plate was embellished with images of flame picked out in a profusion of coloured chips of quartz. One shoulder guard was fashioned from the skull of a great firedrake, said to have been the beast Vulkan had hunted in his contest with the Emperor hundreds of years ago, while over the other was draped a long mantle of iron-hard scales taken from the hide of another mighty drake of Nocturne.

Vulkan bore a wondrously crafted weapon with a top-loading magazine and perforated barrel formed in the shape of a snarling dragon. Balhaan had heard of the gun, its brass and silver body having been crafted by Ferrus Manus many years ago for his brother primarch. Balhaan had watched as his primarch had presented it once again to Vulkan, and felt great pride swell within him as the dark-skinned warrior had graciously accepted the legendary weapon and sworn to bear it in the coming battle.

To stand in close proximity to such mighty warriors was an honour Balhaan knew would never be equalled. He resolved to remember every detail of this moment and record it as best he could, so that future captains of the Ferrum would know the honour accorded their vessel in times past.

Balhaan had pushed the crew of his ship to its very limit to reach the Isstvan system with such speed, and now that they had arrived, it was to find that they had come alongside the fleets of the Raven Guard and Salamanders. Discreet reconnaissance had identified enemy positions, and the primarchs had mapped out landing zones as well as optimal attack patterns, but without the other Legions tasked with destroying Horus's rebellion, nothing could be done.

To have reached their destination and be unable to enact the Emperor's will was a supreme frustration, but even Ferrus Manus's rage had recognised that they could not overwhelm the Warmaster's forces without support.

Ten companies of the Morlocks were berthed throughout the Ferrum, the deadliest and most experienced warriors of the Legion, and Balhaan knew that whatever force was arrayed against the Terminators, it could not survive their wrath. The Iron Hands would undertake the initial assaults with the veterans of their Legion, and Balhaan felt that it was appropriate that the Legion's best warriors should be first into battle. Led by Gabriel Santar, the Morlocks hungered to confront the Emperor's Children and make them pay for the dishonourable murders done to their number in the Anvilarium of the Fist of Iron.

The rest of the 52nd Expedition was following behind the Ferrum, but when they might arrive in-system was unknown, and every second their assault was delayed gave the Uaitors more time to fortify their positions.

The Legions of Corax and Vulkan were in position to commence their attack runs on Issrvan V, but Astropath Cistor had received no word from Ferrus Manus's brother primarchs of the Word Bearers, Night Lords, Iron Warriors or Alpha Legion.

'Are all units ready and in position?' asked Ferrus Manus without turning from the viewing screen.

Balhaan nodded and said, 'They are, my lord.'

'Still no word from the rest of the Legions?'

'None, my lord,' said Balhaan, checking the link to the choral chambers of the Legion's few surviving astropaths. The same ritual had been repeated every few minutes as Ferrus Manus chafed at the delay in ordering the attack, the waiting interminable for warriors who lusted to strike back at those who tarnished the honour of their brothers with their treachery.

The hatch to the bridge slid open and a pair of the Terminator armoured Morlocks entered, followed by the gaunt figure of Astropath Cistor.

Barely had he stepped within the bridge than Ferrus Manus was at his side, his gleaming hands taking the astropath by the shoulders in a crushing grip—

'What news of the other Legions?' demanded Ferrus, his craggy features and blazing silver eyes centimetres from Cistor's.

'My lord, I have personally received word from your brother primarchs,' said Cistor, squirming in the primarch's grip.

'And? Tell me, are they en route? Can we commence the attack?'

'Ferrus,' said Corax, his voice soft, yet laden with quiet authority, 'you will crush him to death before he tells you. Release him.'

Ferrus let out a shuddering breath and stepped back from the quivering astropath as Vulkan stepped forward and said, 'Tell us what you have heard.'

'The Legions of the Word Bearers, Alpha Legion, Iron Warriors and Night Lords are mere hours behind us, my lord Vulkan,' said Cistor calmly. 'They will break warp close to the fifth planet.'

'Yes!' shouted Ferrus, punching the air and turning to his brother primarchs. 'The honour of drawing first blood in this battle falls to us, my brothers. We go for full planetary assault.'

Ferrus's enthusiasm was infections, and Balhaan felt his blood fire with the knowledge that they were soon to take the wrath of the Emperor's judgement to the traitors. His primarch resumed his pacing of the bridge as he threw out orders to his brothers.

'The Morlocks and I will take the vanguard,' said Ferrus. 'Corax, your Legion is to secure the right flank of the Urgall Depression and then push into the centre. Vulkan, you have the left wing.'

The primarchs nodded at Ferrus's words, and Balhaan could see that even the normally stoic Corax relished the prospect of destroying the enemy below.

'The other Legions will make planetfall as soon as they break warp. They will secure the dropsite and reinforce our assault,' cried Ferrus, his eyes ablaze with magnesium fire.

He shook his brothers' hands and turned to address the crew of the Ferrum. 'The traitors are not expecting us to assault so soon, and we have the advantage of surprise. The Emperor damn us if we waste it!'

The delays enforced upon Ferrus Manus had not been wasted by the Warmaster's forces. Since their arrival at Isstvan V, eight days ago, the warriors of the World Eaters, Death Guard, Sons of Horus and Emperor's Children had deployed throughout the defences constructed along the ridge of the Urgall Depression, making ready for the howling storm of battle that was soon to descend upon them. Behind them, long range, support squads manned the walls of the fortress, and Army artillery pieces waited to shower any attacker with high explosive death.

The Dies Irae stood before the wall, its colossal guns primed and ready to visit destruction on the enemies of the Warmaster, Princeps Turnet personally swearing to atone for the treachery that had engulfed his command during the Battle of Isstvan III.

Nearly thirty thousand Astartes hunkered down on the northern edge of the Urgall, their guns ready and their hearts steeled to the necessity of what must be done.

The skies remained an unbroken canopy of slate grey clouds, and the only sound to break the ghostly howl of the wind was the scrape of metal on metal. A sense of historic solemnity hung over the black desert, as though all gathered knew that these were the last moments of quiet in what was soon to be a bloody battlefield.

The first warning came when a dull, red orange glow built behind the clouds, bathing the Urgall in a fiery light. Then came the sound: a low roar that built from a deep, thrumming bass to a shrieking whine.

Alarms sounded and the clouds split apart as individual streaks of light burned through and fell in a cascading torrent of fire. Thunderous explosions ripped along the edge of the Urgall, and the entire length of the Warmaster's forces was engulfed in a searing, roaring bombardment.

For long minutes, the forces of the Emperor pounded the Urgall from orbit, a firestorm of unimaginable ferocity hammering the surface of Isstvan V with the power of the world's end. Eventually, the horrific bombardment ceased and the drifting echoes of its power faded, along with the acrid smoke of explosions, but the Emperor's Children had performed perfectly in creating a network of defences from which to face their former brothers, and the forces of the Warmaster had been well protected.

From his vantage point in the alien keep, the Warmaster smiled, and he watched the sky darken once again as thousands upon thousands of drop-pods streaked through the atmosphere towards the planet's surface.

He turned to the bellicose, armoured figure of Angron and the gloriously presented Fulgrim and said, 'Mark this day well, my friends. The Emperor's loyalists are heading to their doom!'

The noise was horrendous, a never-ending howl of fire that turned the interior of the drop-pod into a blister-ingly hot oven. Only the ceramite plates of their armour allowed the Astartes to launch an attack in this manner, and Santar knew that their lightning assault would Catch the traitors at their most vulnerable while they reeled from the power of the orbital barrage.

Ferrus Manus sat opposite Santar, an unfamiliar sword across his lap, and the fire of their descent reflected in the silver of his eyes. Another three of the Morlocks filled the drop-pod, the greatest warriors of the Legion, and the bloody tip of the spear that would drive hard in the foe's vitals.

The skies above the Urgall Depression would be thick with drop-pods, the combined might of three Legions slashing through the air to exact a blood vengeance upon their erstwhile brothers, and Santar could feel the powerful desire to destroy the Warmaster s traitors in every breath he took through the new metallic chassis of his body.

'Ten seconds to impact!' screamed the automated vox-unit.

Santar tensed and pressed himself hard against the central core of the drop-pod, the servos of his Terminator armour locking in place in preparation for the colossal force of impact. He could hear thunderous, booming explosions from beyond the armoured petals of the drop-pod, recognising them as enemy battery fire. It seemed inconceivable that any enemy had survived the bombardment.

The jerk of retro-burners, followed by the crushing hammer blow of the landing, tore at his grav-harness, but Santar was a veteran of such assaults, and was well used to the violence of such screaming deceleration. No sooner had the drop-pod hit than explosive bolts blew out the hatches and the scorched panels fell outwards. The grav-harness released and Santar charged out onto the surface of Isstvan V.

His first sight was of mountainous flames as the fire of thousands of drop-pods turned the grey skies into a weave of light and smoke. Explosions marched across the ground as artillery shells smashed into the earth, and armoured bodies were pulped by the monstrous Shockwaves. The ridge before him was awash with gunfire, streams of it flickering back and forth as thousands of Astartes engaged in a furious firefight.

'Onwards!' shouted Ferrus Manus, setting off towards the ridge. Santar and the Morlocks followed him into the crazed maelstrom of the battle, seeing that the bulk of the Iron Hands had impacted in the very heart of the enemy's defences. The black desert burned in the aftermath of the bombardment, and the twisted remains of shattered bunkers, redoubts and collapsed trenches were a grisly testament to its power.

Nearly forty thousand loyal Astartes fought along the length of a ridge before the towering walls of an ancient fortress, the speed and ferocity of their assault catching the traitors completely off guard. Even with the filtering of his armour's senses, the noise of battle was appalling: gunfire, explosions and screaming cries of hatred.

The flames of war lit up the clouds above, and streaks of fire whipped across the battlefield in deadly arcs of bullets and high-energy lasers. The ground rumbled with the footfalls of an angry leviathan as the Dies Irae strode through the flurries of missiles and gunfire, its mighty weaponry blazing and gouging huge tears through the loyalist ranks. Miniature suns exploded in the desert as the Titan's plasma weaponry blasted craters hundreds of metres in diameter, obliterating hundreds of Astartes at a stroke and turning the sand to shimmering dark glass.

Ferrus Manus was a god of war, smashing traitors to the ground with blows from his shimmering fists or blasting them apart with an ornately crafted pistol of enormous calibre. The sword he had brought was belted at his side, and Santar wondered what it was and why he had bothered to bring it.

A hundred traitors emerged from a ruined trench complex before them, a mix of Death Guard and Sons of Horus, and Santar slid the lightning-sheathed blades from his gauntlets. Amid the riotous confusion of the battle, Santar relished this chance for simple bloodletting. The traitors stood their ground, firing their guns from their hips as the Iron Hands smashed into them. Santar disembowelled his first opponent, and waded into the rest with a speed that would have done any warrior in Mark IV plate proud. Bolts and the roaring blades of chainswords struck him, but his armour was proof against such things.

Ferrus Manus slaughtered enemy warriors by the dozen, their traitorous nerve failing in the face of such a majestic avatar of battle.

The trenches and bunkers were a mass of thousands of struggling warriors, against a backdrop of explosions and the tremendous noise of slaughter. Orders, and cries of victory or despair flashed through his helmet vox, but Santar ignored them, too caught up in the cathartic release of killing to pay them any mind.

Even amid the chaos of fighting, Santar could see that the battle for the Urgall Depression was going well. Hundreds, perhaps even thousands of traitors had been slaughtered in the opening moments of the assault. Entire Chapters of the Salamanders pressed home the shock of their attack with flame units cleansing the trenches and dugouts of enemies in stinking promethium tongues of fire. Streaks of sun-fire stabbed through the smoke-wreathed darkness, and Santar recognised the light as fire from the weapon his primarch had gifted to Vulkan.

Sure enough, the mighty figure of Vulkan strode through the torrents of bolts, killing with every sweep of his sword and shot of the weapon his brother had forged in his name. A colossal explosion erupted at the primarch's feet, wreathing him in killing fire, and dozens of his Firedrakes were hurled through the air, their armour molten and the flesh seared from their bones. Vulkan marched through the fire unscathed, continuing to kill traitors without missing a beat.

Ferrus Manus pushed deeper into the ranks of the traitors. Their training had never prepared them to face the wrath of a primarch. The Morlocks followed behind their lord and master, a fighting wedge forging a bloody path through the filthy traitors with every shot and blow.

Behind the tremendous thunder strike of the assault, the heavy landers of the loyalist fleets braved the storm of anti-aircraft fire ripping upwards from inside the ancient fortress. Burning craft spiralled to the ground, ripped apart in streams of tracer fire, or blown apart by mass-reactive torpedoes. Hundreds of aircraft jostled for position as they descended to the dropsite, bringing heavy equipment, artillery, tanks and war machines to the surface of Isstvan V.

Billowing clouds of granular dust obscured much of the landing zones as cavernous holds disgorged scores of Land Raiders and Predator battle tanks. Entire companies of armoured vehicles roared onto the surface of the planet, churning the sand beneath their tracks as they raced to join the battle on the ridge.

Whirlwinds and Army artillery units deployed on the desert flats, spreading out and zeroing in on enemy emplacements, added their own thunder to the constant crack and rumble of battle. Even heavier craft descended on burning columns of fire, and the super heavy tanks of the Army rambled out, the barrels of their massive guns hurling huge shells against the glassy walls of the fortress.

What had begun as a massed strike against the traitors' position was rapidly turning into one of the largest engagements of the entire Great Crusade. All told, over sixty thousand Astartes warriors clashed on the dusky plains of Isstvan V, and for all the wrong reasons, this battle was soon to go down in the annals of Imperial history as one of the most epic confrontations ever fought.

The loyalist attack was bending the line of the traitors back, a curving arc of battle with Ferrus Manus at its centre. The screaming raptors of Corax's Raven Guard cut a swathe through the enemy's right flank, his fearsome assault wings dropping from above on the fire of jump packs, and slaughtering their foes with shrieking sweeps of curved blades. Corax darted like a dark bird of prey, leaping through the air with his winged jump pack and killing with every stroke of his mighty talons. Vulkan's Salamanders burned the traitors' left flank, plumes of fire marking the extent of their advance.

But for every success, the traitors thus far had an answer. The terrifying form of the World Eaters primarch cut through hundreds of loyal Astartes as they tried to force a crossing through a killing zone of World Eater support squads. Angron bellowed like a primordial god of battle, his twin swords carving bloody rain through any who dared stand before them. As easily as the traitors died at the blades of Corax, Ferrus Manus and Vulkan, so too did the loyalists die at those of the Red Angel.

In contrast to the brute savagery of Angron, Mortarion, the Death Lord, killed with a grim efficiency, harvesting scores of loyalist lives with every sweep of his terrifying war-scythe. This Death Guard fought with grim tenacity. Where the traitor primarchs stood, none could live, the loyalist assault breaking against them like the tide on immovable cliffs.

Throughout the traitor lines, the Sons of Horus fought with bitter hatred in their hearts, First Captain Abaddon leading the Warmaster's finest in battle, his wrath terrible to behold. He killed with unremitting savagery, while Horus Aximand fought beside him, his blows mechanical and forlorn as his haunted eyes took in the scale of the slaughter.

In the centre of the traitor line, the Emperor's Children fought with unremitting cruelty, its warriors howling with savage glee as they killed their former brothers. Unnatural horrors of mutilation and degradation were visited upon the living and the dead as Fulgrim's Legion repulsed every attack, though their primarch was yet to be seen.

Bizarrely clad warriors in Mark IV plate draped in stretched skin cavorted in the midst of the deadliest combats, fighting without helmets, their jaws wired open as they unleashed a hideous screaming. They bore unknown weaponry and fired echoing blasts of atonal harmonics that ripped bloody canyons in the massed ranks of the Iron Hands. Great pipes and loudspeakers fixed to their armour amplified the screaming vibrations of their killing music, and deafening sound waves tore apart warriors and armoured vehicles.

As the bulk of the heavier equipment was landed behind the ferocious battle, more and more explosions erupted in the traitors' lines, and even Angron and Mortarion were forced to pull back out of range of the loyalist artillery. In the centre of the battle, Ferrus Manus pushed ever onwards, his Iron Hands pushing deeper and deeper into the heart of the enemy defences as they sought to punish the traitors and unleash their wrath on the Emperor's Children.

Thousands were dying every minute, the slaughter terrible to behold. Blood ran in rivers down the slopes of the Urgall Depression, carving thick, sticky runnels in the dark sand. Such destruction had never yet been concentrated in such a horrifically confined space, enough martial power to conquer an entire planetary system having been unleashed in a line less than twenty kilometres wide.

Entire squadrons of armoured vehicles fought to reach the front lines, but the press of armoured bodies was so thick that their commanders were frustrated in their desire to crush the traitors beneath their armoured bulk. Firing lines of Land Raiders formed and collimated lines of ruby laser fire stabbed towards the fortress and the leviathan-like form of the Dies Irae.

Void shields flickered and, realising the danger, the monstrous Titan switched its fire from the infantry to the armour. Rippling blasts of plasma energy sawed along the line of tanks, and a dozen exploded as the white heat of fire torched their energy magazines.

The slaughter continued unabated, on a scale never before seen, with neither side able to press home their advantages. The traitors were well dug in and had defensible positions, but the loyalists had landed virtually directly on top of them with vast numerical superiority.

The bloodletting was a truly horrific sight as warriors who had once sworn great oaths of loyalty to one another fought their brothers with nothing but hatred in their hearts. No Legion fared well in the slaughter, the scale of the fighting rendering tactics meaningless as the two armies battered each other bloody in a remorseless conflict that threatened to destroy them all.

Julius danced through the combat, the sights and sounds of the killing causing rushes of physical pleasure to spasm through his body as he fought with savage joy. His armour was dented and gashed in a dozen places, but the wounds he had suffered only spurred his frenetic killing dance to greater heights. In preparation for the fighting, he had repainted its every surface in a riot of colours that stimulated his freshly reborn vision.

He had similarly enhanced his weapons, and the looks of horror and disgust that accompanied his every killing blow fired his senses.

'Look upon me and realise the greyness of your lives!' he screamed as he fought, delirious with slaughter. He had long since discarded his helmet to better experience the chaos of the battle, the roar of guns, the buzz of swords through flesh, the explosions and the vividness of shell traceries across the heavens.

He ached to have Fulgrim next to him in this most exquisite of battles, but the Warmaster had plans enough for the Primarch of the Emperor's Children. A petulant frown creased Julius's ecstatic features, and he spun to deliver a perfectly aimed decapitating strike at a dark armoured Iron Hands warrior. Horus and his plans! Where amongst these plans was the time to enjoy the spoils of victory? The powers and desires awakened within him by the Maraviglia were for the using. To deny them was to deny one's own nature.

Julius swept up the helmet he had just cut from his enemy and plucked the head from within, taking a moment to savour the stink of the blood and scorched flesh where his blade had cauterised it.

'We were brothers once!' he cried with mock gravitas. 'But now you are dead!'

He leaned in and kissed the cold lips of the Iron Hand, laughing as he hurled it high into the air, where it was ripped apart in the near constant hail of bolts. Whooping howls of manic laughter and thrumming bass explosions swept towards him, and he threw himself flat as a killing wave of sound roared overhead. The musical wave was excruciatingly loud, but Julius screamed in pleasure as the noise sluiced through his flesh.

Julius rolled to his feet in time to see a burnished group of Terminators lumbering towards him, and he grinned in feral glee as he saw they were led by Gabriel Santar, the first captain's markings on his armour standing out like a beacon in the darkness.

A whooshing roar of clashing noise tore a great furrow in the ground beside him and blasted upwards from the black sand like a volcanic eruption. Behind him, Julius saw the flesh-wrapped form of Marius, and roared with the pleasure of seeing his fellow captain alive and fighting.

Marius Vairosean had embellished his armour with jagged iron spikes, and had torn the skin from the dead of La Venice to decorate its blood-slathered plates. Like Julius, he had not walked away from the Maraviglia without alteration, the monstrous distension of his jaws locking his mouth open in a constant, howling scream. Where his ears had once been were two great gashes carved in his flesh, and his eyes were stitched open, forever prevented from closing.

He still carried the great musical instrument he had taken from Bequa Kynska's orchestra, modified to bear spiked handles and grips to render it into a terrifying sonic weapon. Together, he and his fellows unleashed a barrage of discordant scales that sent a dozen of the Morlocks into convulsions, and Julius screamed his appreciation as he leapt to meet Gabriel Santar with his sword aimed at his throat.

The horror of what he was seeing almost cost Gabriel Santar his life. The Emperor's Children before him were like nothing he could ever have imagined in his worst nightmares. Though the enemies he had fought before had been honourless traitors, at least they had still been recognisable as Astartes. These were degenerate perversions of that perfect ideal: warped and twisted freaks who openly displayed their perversions.

A mutilated monster in power armour draped with bloody flaps of skin shrieked as he swept some bizarre weapon back and forth, its deadly sonic energies tearing warriors apart in explosions of ruptured armour and liquefied flesh.

Even as Santar raised his energised fist to block a sword cut aimed at his head, he recognised the twisted features of Julius Kaesoron. The warrior was a thrashing dervish, laughing and howling as he spun like a lunatic around Santar, slashing wildly as he attacked. Kaesoron's weapon was a fearsome, energised glaive that was easily capable of carving through his armour, and Santar turned as fast as he was able to block each ferocious stroke of the blade, but even one as fast as he could not hope to match his opponent's serpent-like speed.

He caught the descending blade of his opponent's weapon between the digits of his energy wreathed fist and a fiery explosion burst between them. He twisted his wrist, and Julius's blade snapped, leaving only the length of a forearm above the quillons.

Santar grunted in pain as he felt the skin of his fist fuse with the melted plates around his hand. He saw Julius sprawled on his back, the ceramite armour of his breastplate bubbling with the residue of the explosion, his face a screaming, burnt horror of seared flesh and exposed bone.

Despite the pain of his burned claw of a hand, Santar grinned beneath his helmet and stomped forwards to deliver the avenging deathblow to his hated enemy. He raised his foot to stamp down on Julius's chest, the power of his Terminator armour easily able to crush Astartes plate.

Then he saw that Julius wasn't screaming in pain, but in orgasmic pleasure.

He paused in revulsion for the briefest second, but that second was all that Julius needed. Sweeping up the broken edge of his glaive, the blade alive with flaring energies, he rammed it into Santar's groin.

The pain was unimaginable, surging agonisingly around his body. Julius Kaesoron tore the remains of the weapon upward, molten gobbets of armour dropping to the dark sand in the midst of a spraying rain of Santar's blood. The blade tore through his pubis and ripped into his breastplate as Julius rose to his feet with the motion of his sawing weapon.

Santar's entire body convulsed in agony, not even the frantically pumping pain balms able to mask the horrifying agony of having his torso carved open. He tried to move, but his armour was locked in place as Julius looked directly at him. His face was horrifically illuminated in the firelight of the battle, the skin peeled away from the musculature beneath, and the while gleam of bone jutting through his cheeks.

Even amid the thunder of battle and with his lips burned away, Julius's next words were horribly clear to Santar as his life slipped away.

'Thank you,' gurgled Julius. 'That was exquisite.'

The battlefield of Isstvan V was a slaughterhouse of epic proportions. Treacherous warriors twisted by hatred fought their once-brothers in a conflict unparalleled in its bitterness. Mighty gods walked the planet's surface and death followed in their wake. The blood of heroes and traitors flowed in rivers, and hooded adepts of the Dark Mechanicum unleashed perversions of ancient technology stolen from the Auretian Technocracy to wreak bloody havoc amongst the loyalists.

All across the Urgall Depression, hundreds were dying with every passing second, the promise of inevitable death a pall of darkness that hung over every warrior. The traitor forces were holding, but their line was bending beneath the fury of the loyalist assault. It would take only the smallest twists of fate for it to break.

And then they came.

Like fiery comets from the heavens, the thrasters of countless drop-ships, landers and assault craft broke through the fire-shot clouds of smoke and descended to the loyalist landing zone on the northern edge of the Urgall Depression. Hundreds of Stormbirds and Thunderhawks roared towards the surface, their armoured hulls gleaming as the power of another four Legions came to Isstvan, their heroic names legendary, their mighty deeds known the length and breadth of the galaxy: Alpha Legion, Word Bearers, Night Lords, Iron Warriors.

TWENTY-FOUR Brothers with Bloody Hands

Ferrus Manus smote all around with his fists, twin balls of silver steel that crushed bone and clove armour wherever they struck. His gun was discarded, his load of ammunition long since expended, but he needed no mere weapon to be a lethal killing machine. No blade could wound him and no shot could penetrate his armour, his every movement a fluid economy of motion as he killed with every stride, pushing the fighting wedge of the Morlocks deeper into the traitor lines.

The sword at his waist hung like a lead weight of cosmic justice at his side, but he would not draw it, not until he faced his traitorous brother and revealed its terrible purpose before taking his revenge.

He longed to push ahead of his warriors, to carve a bloody path through the traitors in search of Fulgrim, but while the battle still hung in the balance he could not set aside his duty of command, and seek a duel with the viperous primarch to settle once and for all the enmity between them.

The fire and clamour of war surrounded him. Smoke boiled from wrecked tanks and shattered defences, and explosions of gunfire filled the air with bullets, bolts and lasers. Screams and blood filled his senses, the chaotic nature of the battlefield a morass of thousands upon thousands of warring Astartes. Even through his fury, Ferrus saw the horrific tragedy being played out upon the stage of Isstvan V. Nothing would ever be the same again after this battle, even in their final victory.

This betrayal would stain forever the honour of the Astartes, no matter the outcome.

Men will fear us from this day onwards, and they will be right to, thought Ferrus.

He heard the cries of jubilation behind him, but it was some moments before their substance penetrated his killing rage. He crashed the skull of a warrior of the Sons of Horus in his mighty fist and turned to see the welcome sight of an aerial armada of gunships dropping from orbit.

'My brothers!' he yelled triumphantly as he recognised the familiar iconography of his fellow loyalists. Alpha Legion Thunderhawks screamed over the battlefield, and the midnight-skinned vessels of the Night Lords swooped in to take position on the flanks to envelop the Warmaster's forces. Word Bearer Stormbirds howled in on screaming jets, the gold wings on the glacis of their craft shimmering as though afire in the glow of battle. Heavy transports of the Iron Warriors slammed into the Urgall Depression and disgorged thousands of warriors, who immediately began fortifying the landing zones with armoured barricades and looping coils of razor wire.

Tens of thousands of his fellow Astartes poured onto the surface of Isstvan V, and in a single stroke, the loyalist force was more than doubled in size. Ferrus punched the air in righteous vindication as he watched the power and might of his brothers' Legions fill the black desert behind him, their warriors, fresh meat for the battle.

His vox-unit chimed urgently as a ripple of fear visibly passed along the traitor lines at the sight of such a terrifying display of martial power. His practiced eye could see that the traitor forces had lost their stomach for the slaughter, entire cohorts pulling back from their prepared positions in dismay. Even the Dies Irae was retreating, the mighty Titan cowed in the face of such overwhelming force.

Ferrus saw the distant form of Mortarion ushering his warriors back towards the rained fortress, and even Angron was retreating, his bloodstained World Eaters like some monstrous, bloody tribe of head-hunters. But the Emperor's Children…

The smoke parted before him, and Ferrus saw what he had been looking for ever since he had set foot on this damned planet.

Clad in shimmering armour of purple and gold, he saw Fulgrim.

His former brother drew his most debased followers to him, waving them back to the black walls with long sweeps of a glittering silver blade. A long haft of ebony, worked with silver and gold extended behind his shoulder, and Ferrus smiled grimly as he realised that his brother had also understood that the fates had ordained this duel must take place upon the blasted plain of Isstvan V.

Twisted freaks in flesh-covered armour surrounded the Primarch of the Emperor's Children, and a monster with red, seared flesh attended at his right hand. Only now, at the end, did Fulgrim dare to reveal himself.

Even as Ferrus finally saw Fulgrim, he knew that his brother too was aware of him. He felt hate and betrayal rise in him like a suffocating wave.

The traitors were falling back from the loyalists with increasing speed, leaving thousands of corpses behind them, both friend and foe. The scale of the slaughter was not lost on Ferrus, and though his blood sang with this victory and his imminent confrontation with Fulgrim, he was not blind to the fact that the loyalist Legions had suffered appalling casualties to win it.

He watched the enemy line melt before him, the loyalist warriors exhausted by the furious battle, stumbling as their enemy fled before them. He called his Morlocks to him before opening a channel to Corax and Vulkan.

'The enemy is beaten!' he shouted. 'See how they run from us! Now we push on, let none escape our vengeance!'

Grainy static washed through the reply, Corax's words almost lost amid the rambling thunder of explosions and the descent of yet more allied drop-ships.

'Hold, Ferrus! The victory may yet be ours, but let our allies earn their share of honour in this battle. We have achieved a great victory, but not without cost. My Legion is bloodied and torn, as is Vulkan's. I cannot imagine yours has not shed a great deal of blood to carry us this far.'

'We are bloodied, but unbowed,' snarled Ferrus, watching as the distant figure of the fabulously bedecked Fulgrim climbed to the top of a jagged spur of black rock and spread his arms in blatant challenge. Even from hundreds of metres away, the mocking smile twisting his features was clearly visible.

'As are we all,' put in Vulkan. 'We should take a moment to catch our breath and bind our wounds before again diving headlong into such a terrible battle. We must consolidate what we have won and let our newly arrived brothers continue the fight while we regroup.'

'No!' shouted Ferrus. 'The traitors are beaten and all it will take is one final push to destroy them utterly!'

'Ferrus,' warned Corax, 'do not do anything foolish! We have already won!'

Ferrus snapped off the vox-channel and turned to face the surviving Morlocks of his bodyguard. A half century of Terminators surrounded him, their clawed gauntlets crackling with blue arcs of energy and their proud stances telling him they would follow whatever order he gave, whether it be to retreat or to march into the hell of battle once more.

'Let our brothers rest and lick their wounds!' he yelled. 'The Iron Hands will let no others have the satisfaction of settling our affairs with the Emperor's Children!'

Fulgrim smiled as Ferrus Manus renewed his attack into the heart of the defensive lines atop the Urgall Depression. Backlit by the flaring strobe of battle, his brother was a magnificent figure of vengeance, his silver hands and eyes reflecting the fires of slaughter with a brilliant gleam. For the briefest second, Fulgrim had been sure that Ferrus would pause to muster with the Raven Guard and Salamanders, but after his daring challenge atop the rock, there would be no restraining his brother.

Around him, the last of the Phoenix Guard awaited the blunt wedge of the Iron Hands, their golden halberds held low and aimed towards their foes. Marius and his wailing sonic weapon howled in anticipation of the combat, and Julius, almost unrecognisable with his skin burnt from his bones, ran a blistered tongue around the lipless ruin of his mouth.

Ferrus Manus and his Morlocks charged through the shattered ruin of the defences, his black armour and their burnished plates scarred and stained with the blood of enemies. Fulgrim's fixed smile faltered as he truly appreciated the depths of hatred his brother held for him and wondered again how they had come to this point, knowing that any chance for brotherhood was lost.

Only in death could this end.

The retreat of the Warmaster's forces appeared ragged and faltering, exactly as Horus had planned it. Warriors streamed back from the front lines of battle in determined groups, their spirits apparently broken, but gathering in knots of resistance behind shelled ruins and fire-blackened craters.

The Iron Hands pushed through the defences, the bulky Terminators unstoppable in their relentless advance. Lightning crackled from the claws of their gauntlets and their red eyes shone with anger. The Phoenix Guard braced themselves to meet the charge, fully aware of the power of such mighty suits of armour.

Marius released a howl of ecstatic joy, and his bizarre weapon amplified it into a screeching wail of deadly harmonics that ripped through the ground in a roaring sonic wave to explode amongst the front ranks of the Morlocks.

The giant warriors were torn apart in a clashing shriek of aural power as the apocalyptic noise made play of their armour and butter of their flesh. The Emperor's Children screamed in pleasure at the sound, their enhanced senses and augmented brain paths rendering the discordant sounds into the most vivid sensations imaginable.

'When they come,' shouted Fulgrim, 'leave Ferrus Manus to me!'

The Phoenix Guard answered with a terrible war cry and leapt to meet the Morlocks in a searing clash of blades. Electric fire leapt from the golden edges of the halberds and claws of the warriors, and a storm of light and sound flared from each life and death struggle. The battle engulfed the Primarch of the Emperor's Children, but he stood above it, awaiting the dark armoured giant who strode inviolate through the lightning shot carnage as brothers hacked at one another in hatred.

Fulgrim nodded in greeting as Ferrus reached towards a sword belted at his waist, and he smiled as he recognised Fireblade's hilt.

'You remade my sword,' said Fulgrim, his voice cutting through the atrocious din of fighting. Though the ferocious battle between the Morlocks and the Phoenix Guard surrounded them, neither primarch's praetorians dared approach them, as though aware that to transgress this fateful confrontation would be a heinous crime.

'Only to see you dead by a weapon forged by my own hand,' spat Ferrus.

In response, Fulgrim sheathed his silver sword and reached behind him to unlimber the great warhammer held at his back. 'Then I shall do likewise.'

The great weight of Forgebreaker, the weapon his own skill and energies had crafted beneath the peaks of Mount Narodnya, felt good in his hands as he descended the rock to face his erstwhile brother.

'It is fitting we face one another with the weapons we forged long ago,' said Fulgrim.

'I have long waited for this moment, Fulgrim,' replied Ferrus, 'ever since you came to me with betrayal in your heart. For months I have dreamt of this reckoning. Only one of us will walk away from this, you know that.'

'I know that,' agreed Fulgrim.

'You betrayed the Emperor and you betrayed me,' said Ferrus, and Fulgrim was surprised to hear genuine emotion in his brother's voice.

'I came to you because of our friendship, not despite it,' answered Fulgrim. 'The universe is changing, the old order upset and a new dawn approaching. I offered you the chance to be part of the new order, but you threw it back at me.'

'You sought to make me a traitor!' snarled Ferrus. 'Horus is mad. Look at all this death! How can this be right? You will hang from Traitor's Gibbet for this sedition, for I am the Emperor's loyal servant and through me his will and vengeance will be done.'

'The Emperor is a spent force,' snapped Fulgrim. 'Even now he whittles away on some trivia in the dungeons of Terra while his realm is in flames. Are those the actions of a being fit to rule the galaxy?'

'Do not think you can win me to your cause, Fulgrim. You failed once and you will not get a second chance.'

Fulgrim shook his head. 'I am not offering you a second chance, Ferrus. It is already too late for you and your warriors.'

Ferrus laughed at him, but he could sense the despair in it. 'Are you mad, Fulgrim? It's over. You and the Warmaster are defeated. Your forces are routed and the power of another four Legions will soon crush your attempt at rebellion utterly.'

Fulgrim was unable to keep the sensations seething in his head contained any longer and he shook his head as he savoured his next words. 'My brother, how naive you are. Do you really think Horus would be foolish enough to trap himself like this? Look to the north and you will see that it is you who are undone.'

The forces of the Raven Guard and Salamanders fell back in good order to the drop zone, where their reinforcements were deploying to join the fight. The drop-ships of the Iron Warriors, armoured bastions connected by high walls of spiked barricades, formed an unbroken line of grim fortifications on the northern slopes of the Urgall Depression.

A force larger than that which had first begun the assault on Isstvan mustered in the landing zone, armed and ready for battle, unbloodied and fresh.

Corax and Vulkan led their forces back to regroup and to allow the warriors of their brother primarchs a measure of the glory in defeating Horus, dragging their wounded and dead with them. The victory had been won, but the cost had been steep indeed, with thousands of all three Legions lost to the betrayal of the Warmaster. Horus's forces were in retreat, but there would be no celebration of the slaughter, no joyous victory feasts or glorious days of remembrance, only another sad scroll added to a banner that would never again see the light of day.

Scorched tanks rumbled alongside the Astartes, their ammunition expended and their hulls battered by the impact of shot and shell.

Unanswered vox hails requested medical aid and supply, but the line of Astartes at the top of the north ridge was grimly silent as the exhausted warriors of the Raven Guard and Salamanders came to within a hundred metres of their allies.

A lone flare shot skyward from inside the black fortress where Horus had made his lair, exploding in a hellish red glow that lit the battlefield below like a madman's vision of the end of the world.

And the fire of betrayal roared from the barrels of a thousand guns.

Fulgrim laughed at the stunned look on Ferrus's face as the forces of his ''allies'' opened fire upon the Salamanders and Raven Guard. Hundreds died in the fury of the first moments, hundreds more in the seconds following, as volley after volley of bolter fire and missiles scythed through their unsuspecting ranks. Explosions flashed to life in their midst, vaporising warriors and tearing through tanks as the force of four Legions ripped the beating heart from the first wave of loyalists.

Ferrus Manus watched in mute horror as he saw a storm of fire engulf Corax, and a titanic explosion mushroom skyward from where Vulkan stood in astonished outrage at what was happening.

Even as terrifying carnage was being wreaked upon the loyalists below, the retreating forces of the Warmaster turned and brought their weapons to bear on the enemy warriors within their midst. Hundreds of World Eaters, Sons of Horus and the Death Guard fell upon the veteran companies of the Iron Hands, and though the warriors of the X Legion continued to fight gallantly, they were hopelessly outnumbered and would soon be hacked to pieces.

Ferrus Manus turned to face Fulgrim, and the Primarch of the Emperor's Children could see the despair etched into his brother's features, his silver eyes dull and lifeless. To have so great a victory snatched away in an instant must be the most sublime sensation. Fulgrim almost wished to switch places with his brother just to taste that feeling for himself.

'Only dismal defeat and death await you, Ferrus,' said Fulgrim. 'Horus has commanded your death, but for the sake of our past friendship I shall plead your case to him if you throw down your arms. You have to surrender, Ferrus. There is no escape.'

Ferrus Manus tore his eyes from the slaughter of the loyalist forces, his teeth bared with the volcanic fury of his home world.

'Maybe not, traitor, but only dishonour holds any terror for me,' spat Ferrus. 'The Emperor's loyal warriors will not surrender to you, not now, not ever. You will have to kill every last one of us!'

'So be it,' said Fulgrim, launching himself towards Ferrus Manus, swinging his mighty warhammer. The primarchs' weapons, forged in brotherhood, but wielded in vengeance, met in a blazing plume of energy, and the battlefield was illuminated for hundreds of metres by their ferocious energies.

The two primarchs traded blows with their monstrously powerful weapons, the strength to defeat armies and topple mountains unleashed as they fought like gods forced to end their dispute in the realm of mortals. Ferrus Manus wielded his flaming blade in fiery slashes, his every blow defeated by the ebony hafted hammer he had borne in countless campaigns.

Fulgrim swung his hammer in great, looping arcs, its heavy head powerful enough to crush the armour of a Titan to paste. Both warriors fought with the hatred only brothers divided can muster, their armour dented, torn and blackened by the fury of their conflict.

To fight an opponent of such magnificence was a privilege, and Fulgrim savoured every clash of hammer and sword, every fiery line cut across his flesh and every grunt of pain torn from his brother's mouth as Forgebreaker glanced his armour. They circled in the midst of cries of pain and roaring savage glee, the Morlocks of Ferrus Manus slain, but for a last few desperate heroes.

Ferrus cut the shoulder guard from Fulgrim's armour and spun inside his guard to deliver a lethal thrust towards his groin. Fulgrim stepped to meet the blow, batting aside the tip of the fiery sword with the haft of Forgebreaker, and hammering the warham-mer's head towards Ferrus's skull.

The Primarch of the Iron Hands took the blow, dropping to one knee and lashing out with his blade as blood streamed from the terrible wound in his temple. The sword's fiery tip cut across Fulgrim's stomach, opening his armour and tearing through his flesh. The pain was indescribable, and Fulgrim fell back, dropping his hammer as his hands sought to stem the blood pouring from his body.

Both primarchs faced each other on their knees through a haze of pain and blood, and Fulgrim once again felt an ache of sadness well within him. The pain of his wounds, and the sight of his brother's broken skull coated in blood, tore a window into his mind. The sensation was like a powerful gust of fresh mountain air, clearing away the fog that had wrapped him in a suffocating embrace for so long that he no longer noticed it until it was gone.

'My brother,' he whispered, 'my friend.'

'You have long since lost the right to call me friend,' snarled Ferrus, pushing himself to his feet and staggering towards Fulgrim with Fireblade raised to smite him.

Fulgrim cried out, and his hand leapt unbidden to his waist as the flaming blade carved a burning path towards his neck. Silver steel flashed as he drew the sword he had taken from the Laer temple and blocked the descending weapon. Ferrus's sword hissed and spat as it bit into the silver blade, the Primarch of the Iron Hands' strength forcing the blazing metal, centimetre by centimetre, towards Fulgrim's face.

'No!' cried Fulgrim. 'This is not right!'

The amethyst stone at the hilt of Fulgrim's sword pulsed with an evil light, bathing Ferrus Manus's face in a leering purple glare. Energy streamed from the blade, and musky smoke billowed around them, deadening sounds and obscuring sight. Fulgrim felt a monstrous presence swell around him, its power and nameless essence more intoxicating and dreadful than anything he could ever have imagined.

Diabolical strength flooded his limbs and he pushed against the power of Ferrus Manus, feeling his brother's surprise at his resistance. With a cry of animal rage, he surged to his feet and hurled Ferrus Manus back, spinning and lashing out with his sword.

The silver edge bit deep into the breastplate of his brother's armour, and the Primarch of the Iron Hands cried out, falling to his knees once again as the blade's flaring energies parted his dark armour like a fingernail through cold grease. Hot blood sprayed from the wound and Fireblade slid from Ferrus's hand as he gasped in fierce agony.

Finish him! Kill him! the voice screamed, and to Fulgrim it seemed as though it echoed across time and space as well as within his skull. He staggered with the blunt force of its imperative, lurching as though his limbs were not his to control.

His normal grace and elan were forsaken as he falteringly raised the silver sword in preparation of delivering the deathblow to Ferrus Manus. Unknown energies coruscated along the notched blade and down the length of his arms into the meat and bone of his wounded body.

Fulgrim was wreathed in purple fire. Crackling arcs of lightning caressed him with a lover's tenderness, seeking out his open wounds and licking them with balefire as they sought entry to his flesh.

Fulgrim stood above Ferrus Manus, his chest heaving convulsively as his entire body shook with the violence of the power that sought to claim him.

He must die! Otherwise he will kill you!

Fulgrim looked down at his defeated opponent and saw his own reflection in the mirrors of Ferrus's eyes.

In an instant that stretched for an eternity, he saw what he had become and what monstrous betrayal he had allowed himself to be party to. He knew in that eternal moment that he had made a terrible mistake in drawing the sword from the Laer temple, and he fought to release the damnable blade that had brought him so low.

His grip was locked onto the weapon and even as he recognised how far he had fallen, he knew that he had come too far to stop, the realisation coupled with the knowledge that everything he had striven for had been a lie.

As though moving in slow motion, Fulgrim saw Ferrus Manus reaching for his fallen sword, his fingers closing around the wire-wound grip, the flames leaping once more to the blade at its creator's touch.

Kill him before he kills you! NOW!

Fulgrim's blade seemed to move with a life of its own, but it had no need of such impellents, for he swung the blade of his own volition.

The silver blade clove the air as it swept towards Ferrus Manus, and Fulgrim felt the ancient triumph of the presence that he now knew had dwelt within it all this time. He tried desperately to pull the blow, but his muscles were no longer his own to control.

Unnatural warp-forged steel met the iron flesh of a primarch, its aberrant edge cutting through Ferrus's skin, muscle and bone with a shrieking howl that echoed in realms beyond those knowable to mortals.

Blood and the monumental energies bound within the meat and gristle of one of the Emperor's sons erupted from the wound, and Fulgrim fell back as the searing powers blinded him, dropping the silver sword at his side. He heard a shrieking wail, as of a choir of banshees, whip around him as phantom, skeletal hands clawed at him, and a thousand voices tore at his mind.

Ghostly whirlwinds seized him and spun him around, twisting him like a limp rag in their grip, and threatening to tear him limb from limb in retribution. Even as he welcomed such oblivion, he felt another presence move to protect him, the same presence that had guided his sword arm, the same presence that had been his constant companion since Laeran, though he had not known it.

Fulgrim fell to the ground as the winds released him, and faded with a shrieking howl of anguished frustration. He landed heavily and rolled onto his side, heaving great gulps of cold air into his lungs as the sound of battle returned to him. He heard cries of pain, gunfire, explosions and the rhythmic crack of bolters as they fired relentless volley after volley. It was the sound of death.

It was the sound of a massacre.

His entire body aching with pain and loss, Fulgrim pushed himself upright. Blood and the detritus of battle surrounded him, the stoic figures of armoured warriors staring in wonder at the headless body that lay-on the black ground before him.

Fulgrim took a shuddering breath and raised his hands to the heavens, screaming his loss at the sight of his brother so cruelly murdered.

'What have I done?' he howled. 'Throne save me, what have I done?'

What needed to be done.

Fulgrim heard the voice as a sibilant whisper in his ear, the breath of the speaker hot on his neck. He twisted his neck, but there was nothing to be seen, no unseen speaker or mysterious presence.

'He's dead,' whispered Fulgrim, the aching loss and guilt of his crime too monstrous to believe. 'I killed him.'

Yes, you did. With your own hands, you struck down your brother, he who had only thought well of you and fought faithfully with you through all the long years.

'He… he was my brother.'

He was, and all he ever did was honour you. The looming presence that surrounded him and spoke to him seemed to claw at his eyes with insubstantial fingers, and Fulgrim felt his mind wrenched into the realm of memory, seeing once again the battle against the Diasporex and the Fist of Iron coming to the rescue of the Firebird. He saw the resentment he had picked at for months, only now understanding the altruism of Ferrus Manus's deed and the loss of life his selfless act had incurred. Where before he had seen only self-aggrandisement in his brother's action, he now saw it for the heroic deed it had truly been.

His brother's critical comments, the wounding darts meant to undermine him, he now saw had been jests designed to puncture his self-importance and restore his humility. What he had perceived as Ferrus's prideful boasts and rash actions had been deeds of courage that he had spitefully dismissed.

Ferms's rejection of his attempt to betray him was the act of a true friend, but only now did he see how his brother had, even then, tried to save him.

'No, no, no,' wept Fulgrim as the true horror of what he had done struck him with the force of a thunderbolt. He looked around through tear-filled eyes and saw the horrific changes wrought upon his beloved Legion, the perversions that masqueraded as epicurean pleasure.

'Everything I have done is ashes,' he whispered and swept up the golden Fireblade, so recently wielded by his brother in an attempt to undo the evil Fulgrim had embraced.

Fulgrim reversed the blade and held its fiery tip against his body, the edge blackening his hands and burning the skin through the rents torn in his armour.

To end things now would be the easiest thing in trie world, to take away the guilt and wash the pain away in a sharp trirust of steel into his vitals. Fulgrim gripped the sword tightly, drawing blood from his palms where the blade's edge sliced his skin.

No, noble suicide is not for the likes of you, Fulgrim.

'Then what?' howled Fulgrim, hurling away the sword his brother had forged.

Oblivion: the sweet emptiness of eternal peace. I can grant you what you crave… an end to guilt and pain.

Fulgrim rose to his feet and stood tall beneath the storm wracked clouds of Isstvan V, his once beautiful face streaked with tears, and his pristine armour stained with the blood of his beloved brother.

Fulgrim lifted his hands and looked at the blood there.

'Oblivion,' he said, his voice hoarse. 'Yes, I crave the boon of nothingness.'

Then leave yourself open to me and I will put an end to it all.

Fulgrim took a last look around. The grim-faced warriors who had foolishly thrown in their lot with the Warmaster: Marius, Julius and thousands more were damned, and they could not see it.

All around him, he could hear the sounds of the future, of warfare and death. The thought that he shared the guilt of the destruction of the Emperor's dream was the greatest shame and sorrow he had ever known.

An end to it all would be a blessed relief.

'Oblivion,' he whispered as he dosed his eyes. 'Do it. End me.'

The barriers in Fulgrim's mind dropped and he felt the elation of a creature older than time as it poured into the void in his soul. No sooner had its touch claimed his flesh for its own than he knew he had made the worst mistake of his life.

Fulgrim screamed as he fought to keep it out, but it was already too late.

His consciousness was crushed into the dark, unused corners of his mind, forever to be a mute witness to the havoc wrought by his body's new master.

One moment Fulgrim was a primarch, one of the Emperor's Children, the next he was a thing of Chaos.

TWENTY-FIVE Massacre Daemon The Last Phoenix

Lesser troops would have given up and accepted their fate in the face of such overwhelming opposition, but the warriors of the Salamanders and Raven Guard were Astartes. So they fought like never before, knowing their doom was at hand, and desiring to make the traitors pay in blood for every one of their number that fell.

Caught between two armies, the first wave of the loyalist forces was being systematically massacred. Unrelenting gunfire from the Iron Warriors at the drop-site, and the resurgent forces along the Urgall Depression crushed the Salamanders and Raven Guard in a terrifying vice, and cut them to pieces in a murderous storm of fire and blood.

Warriors of the Alpha Legion and Word Bearers followed their leaders onto the black plains of Isstvan V, their guns blazing and their chainswords bright as they cast off the last remnants of their loyalty to the Emperor and turned their weapons on their brothers.

The Dies Irae killed scores with every shot of its mighty weaponry, striding like a giant daemon of legend through the benighted slaughter. White-hot fire blossomed amongst the loyalists and killing flames sawed across the black desert, vaporising men and turning sand to glass. Traitor tanks roared from the Urgall Hills, weapons blazing and crashing the wounded beneath their tracks. The Iron Hands were lost, the fate of their primarch a mystery as his last known position was overrun by hordes of screaming enemy warriors.

Let slip from his false retreat, Angron carved a bloody path through the loyalists, his swords reaping a bloody tally through the ranks of his enemies. The Red Angel fought in a barbaric frenzy, his mind lost to all but the killing rage that drove his blades. His warriors hacked and chopped their foes like butchers, in a killing frenzy of berserk rages, slathering their armour in the blood of the fallen.

If the noise of battle had been incredible before, it was deafening now, no voices heard that were not screams of pain or hate. Individual sounds were lost amid the constant roar of gunfire and rambling explosions, melding into one long immense howl of murder. What had begun as a battle had become a massacre, each pocket of loyalist resistance gunned down with overwhelming superiority of fire, before the shredded survivors were hacked apart with bloody chainswords.

Mortarion harvested loyalists with great sweeps of his scythe, his ragged cloak billowing in the hot winds of the battlefield's fires, as the Death Guard crashed their foes beneath the relentless pounding of marching feet and the disciplined volleys of gunfire.

At the forefront of the Emperor's Children, Lord Commander Eidolon and the swordsman Lucius led a contingent of their warriors into the heart of the enemy, killing with wondrous displays of bladework and howling shrieks of raw sonic power. The swordsman danced through the battle, his Terran blade carving a screaming, bloody path as he laughed in time with music only he could hear.

Marius Vairosean and his orchestra of damnation ploughed the bloody sand with their terrifying harmonics, ripping open flesh and metal with shrieking chords and howling scales. In contrast, Julius Kaesoron took little part in the fighting, expending his energies in the mutilation and defilement of the corpses left in his brother's wake. Trophies of flesh hung from his armour, each violation he wreaked on the flesh of the enemy more extreme than the last.

Apothecary Fabius picked his way through the carnage like a vulture, pausing here and there at fallen Astartes to perform some gruesome extraction. A coterie of warriors protected him and hideous homunculi assisted him in his loathsome labours, the fruits of which were borne behind them in a vile procession of bloodstained organ bearers.

Fulgrim was nowhere to be seen, the magnificent primarch lost amid the destruction of the Iron Hands' Morlocks, but even without him, his warriors fought with savage and exquisite glee.

With victory in his grasp, the Warmaster took to the field of battle, surrounded by Falkus Kibre and his Justaerin Terminators. The remnants of Horus's Mournival fought alongside him, the Warmaster's magnificent black armour and amber chest adornment gleaming bloody in the firelight.

The killing fields of Isstvan V ran red with the blood of the loyalists, their brave attempt to halt the rebellion of Horus little more than ragged flesh and blood that fought for the last shreds of honour left to them.

Here and there, fierce resistance overcame the traitorous forces and desperate bands of heroes fought their way clear of the trap, dragging their wounded with them towards the few surviving drop-ships.

A band of Raven Guard smashed through a cordon of Emperor's Children who shrieked in orgasmic pleasure as they were cut down, too immersed in the sensations of their own pain and death to fight back. A black-armoured captain led the breakout, fighting his way towards a miraculously undamaged Thunderhawk as his warriors bore the grievously wounded body of their primarch towards escape.

Of Vulkan there was no sign, his warriors cut off and surrounded by the Night Lords and Alpha Legion. Gales of bolter fire hammered the brave warriors of Nocturne and obliterated them. Not all the Salamanders were so cruelly slaughtered, others following the Raven Guard's example and battling their way to their aircraft and the hope of escape.

The few remaining Iron Hands, bereft of their primarch's leadership, banded together with the Salamanders and a brave few managed to break out of the hideous massacre, but such successes were the merest fraction of the battle.

Within hours the slaughter was complete and almost the entire strength of three complete Legions lay silent and dead on the tortured sands of Isstvan V.

The once-grey skies of the planet burned orange with the reflected glow of a thousand pyres. The firelight bathed the rippling, glassy sands in a warm radiance, and towering pillars of black smoke from the burning corpses filled the air. Lucius watched the blizzard of ash fall like snow from the skies and stuck out his tongue to taste the greasy, ashen tang of the dead.

Beside him, Lord Commander Eidolon, the skin of his face stretched and waxen over his bones, watched the cremation of the dead with dull, glassy eyes.

'We need to be moving again soon,' said Eidolon. 'We have no time to waste with pointless ritual.'

Privately, Lucius agreed, but he kept his counsel as the thousands of Astartes loyal to Horus filled the broken desert of the Urgall Depression. They gathered before a great reviewing stand, constructed by the dark priests of the Mechanicum with astonishing speed. As the sun began to sink beyond the horizon, the smooth black planes of the stand shone with a blood red glow.

The stand was erected as a series of cylinders of ever decreasing diameter, one standing atop another. The base was perhaps a thousand metres in width, constructed as a great grandstand upon which the Sons of Horus stood, their pre-eminent position as the elite of the Warmaster in no doubt after this great victory. Each warrior bore a flaming brand, and the firelight cast brilliant reflections from their armour.

Atop this pedestal of flame was another platform, occupied by the senior officers of the Legion. Lucius could see the familiar, hulking form of Abaddon together with Horus Aximand. The others he didn't recognise, but his attention was drawn higher before he could linger on their identities.

Above the senior officers of the Sons of Horus stood the primarchs.

Even rendered miniscule by distance, the sheer magnificence of such a gathering of might was breathtaking. Seven beings of monumental power stood on the penultimate tier of the reviewing stand, their armour still stained with the blood of their foes, their cloaks billowing in the winds that swept the Urgall Depression.

He had known Angron and Mortarion since the bloody days of Isstvan III. Their might had been demonstrated to him time and time again during that campaign. His own primarch had been a source of inspiration to Lucius for decades, though Fulgrim stood curiously apart from his brothers on the podium, as though disdainful of them.

But the others… the others had been unknown to him until now, their power and presence filling the plain before the stand with a hushed awe.

Lorgar of the Word Bearers, who had only recently arrived, stood proud and tall with his red cloak wrapped around his granite grey armour like a shroud. Alpharius, resplendent in purple and green held himself erect, as though attempting to match the beings around him in stature. Grim-faced Perturabo stood apart from his brothers, the firelight reflecting red from the burnished plates of his armour and mighty hammer. The lightning-streaked armour of Night Haunter seemed darker even than the black podium, his skull-faced helmet a spot of white amid the shadows that wreathed him.

Finally, the uppermost tier of the reviewing stand was a tall cylinder of crimson that stood a hundred metres above the primarchs. The Warmaster stood on top of it, his clawed gauntlets raised in salute. A furred cloak of some great beast hung from his shoulders, and the light of the pyres reflected from the amber eye upon his breastplate.

The Warmaster was illuminated from below by a hidden light source, bathing him in a red glow that gave him the appearance of the statue of a legendary hero, as he stood looking down on the endless sea of his followers from the towering platform.

As the sun finally dipped below the horizon, a flight of assault craft roared over the Urgall Hills, their wings dipping in salute to the mighty warrior below. Solid waves of cheering crashed against the reviewing stand, howls of adulation torn from tens of thousands of throats.

Lucius found himself swept up in the glory and added his voice to the din, his enhanced senses screaming in pleasure at the sheer, deafening volume of the cries. High, screaming voices from the Emperor's Children echoed weirdly over the plain, ecstatic shrieks of pleasure and debasement like nothing that should ever have been given voice by a mortal throat.

No sooner had the aircraft passed overhead than the massed Astartes began to march around the reviewing stand, their arms snapping out and hammering their breastplates in salute of the Warmaster. At some unseen signal a flame ignited on the northern slopes of the Urgall Depression and a blazing line of phosphor leapt across the ground in a snaking arc that described the outline of an enormous blazing eye upon the hillside.

The adulation soared to new heights as the Eye of Horus seared itself into the sands of Isstvan V, the Warmaster's forces roaring themselves hoarse in his praise. Super-heavy tanks fired in salute of Horus, and the towering immensity of the Dies Irae inclined its massive head in a gesture of respect.

The ashes of the dead fell like confetti over the Warmaster's mighty army. Lucius felt a huge surge of purpose fill his heart and made a vow to never once rest in the service of the power Horus represented. Not even death would contain his might. He gripped the hilt of his sword tightly as loudspeakers placed around the desert erupted with sound, the booming, stentorian voice of the Warmaster sweeping over the Astartes.

'My brave warriors!' began Horus. 'We have achieved much, but there is still more for us to do. With courage, vision and power we have defeated those who sought to prevent us from realising my great dream, but our victory here will count for little if we do not press onwards.'

Horus punched his clawed gauntlet into the air and shouted, 'The road to Terra is open. The time has come for us to take the war to the Emperor in his most impregnable fastness! We will make immediate preparation for the invasion of Terra and an assault on the Imperial Palace. Make no mistake, and it will be ours, my brothers! This will be no easy task, for the Emperor and his deluded followers will fight hard to prevent us from interfering with his plans for godhood. Doubtless much blood has yet to be spilled, theirs and our own, but the prize is the galaxy itself Horus paused as he let the weight of the stakes sink in before bellowing across the fields of Isstvan V, 'Are you with me?'

Lucius joined the cheering as it reached into the fire-lit skies, and cries of ''Hail Horus! Hail Horus!'' resounded long into the darkness.

Within the ruined keep of Isstvan V, shadows cast by the funeral pyres were thrown out on the smooth, basalt flagstones. Dust motes shaken from the ceiling and walls by the rumble of thrusters hung heavily in the air as the Warmaster's army took its leave of the fifth planet. Horus watched as yet another squadron of Stormbirds lifted off in clouds of dust lit by blue fire, satisfied that all was proceeding as he desired.

His brother primarchs were mustering their forces for the invasion of Imperial space, and he was certain that each and every one understood the need for unquestioning obedience to his orders. As Warmaster, the armies of the Imperium had been his to control, from the mightiest fleet of battleships to the lowliest Army soldier, but to see such martial power gathered in one place was truly inspiring.

Not since Ullanor had he witnessed such a gathering of heroes, and his mood soured as he thought once again of the devastated greenskin world and the last time he had seen his father. Time had moved on and revealed much that had been hidden, but still the unease that events were moving too fast for him to control gnawed at the furthest corners of his mind.

He turned from the window and poured himself a cup of wine from a brass pitcher he lifted from a nearby table. He drained the wine in a single swallow and poured another as a rapid knocking sounded at the chamber's entrance.

Horus looked up, his mood souring further as he saw Fulgrim standing in the doorway, a gilt inlaid box held before him.

Once they had shared a brotherhood as close as any, but in the years since they had fought together, something had changed within Fulgrim. His brother had been a warrior of perfection, but now he simply revelled in the sensations of battle and the adrenaline high of ferocious combat instead of the precise application of force.

His brother wore his battle armour, the plates gleaming and new once again, as though he had never set foot upon a battlefield. He wore a long cape of fiery golden scales at his shoulders, and a mail shirt of glittering silver hung beneath his breastplate. What had once been a magnificent, all-enclosing suit of armour now resembled a theatrical costume. 'Warmaster,' said Fulgrim.

Horus detected a subtle difference in his brother's tone, something so slight that it would have escaped anyone else's notice but his. He lifted his cup and drank a mouthful of wine, beckoning Fulgrim into his chambers.

'You requested a private audience with me, Fulgrim,' he said. 'What is so important that you could not tell me in front of our brothers?'

His brother smiled and bowed before opening the box he carried. 'My esteemed lord and master of Isstvan, I have brought you a trophy.'

Fulgrim reached into the box and withdrew a grisly prize lifted from the field of battle. Horus felt a momentary shiver of horror as he saw the severed head of Ferrus Manus.

The flesh was grey and dead, his erstwhile brother's silver eyes plucked from his head, and the sockets raw and bloody. His jaw hung open and a splintered nub of bone projected from where his skull had been caved in on one side.

Ferrus had become an enemy, but to see his flesh violated so brutally was repugnant to Horus, though he was careful to keep his feelings veiled.

With a casual flick of the wrist, Fulgrim tossed the bloodied object at Horus's feet. Ferrus Manus's head rolled across the black floor and came to rest with the ravaged eye sockets staring up at Horus in blind accusation.

Horus looked up from the head and turned his gaze on Fulgrim, seeing again the insouciance that had infuriated him so when his brother had returned in failure from his attempt to win over the Primarch of the Iron Hands.

As distasteful as it was, he knew he would have to offer congratulations. 'Well done, Fulgrim. You have slain one of our greatest foes as you said you would, but I fail to see why you make this presentation in so private an audience. Surely you would wish our brothers to revel in your triumph?'

Fulgrim laughed, but there was a timbre to his brother's amusement that sent a chill down Horus's spine as he recalled where he had heard such ancient malice before… in the voice of Sarr'Kell, the entity Erebus had summoned in the heart of the Vengeful Spirit.

'Fulgrim?' asked the Warmaster. 'Explain yourself.'

The Primarch of the Emperor's Children shook his head and wagged his finger at Horus. 'With the greatest respect, mighty Horus, you do not address Fulgrim any more.'

Horus looked into his brother's dark eyes, seeing beyond the arrogance and superiority to what lay within. Darkness filled his brother's core, an ancient darkness that had torn itself from the womb of a dying race with a bloody birth scream.

Its existence was as old as the heavens and as fresh as the dawn. Its life was immortal and its capacity for malice infinite.

'You are not Fulgrim,' he breathed, suddenly wary of this intruder in his midst.

'No,' agreed the thing with his brother's face.

'Then who are you?' demanded Horus. 'A spy? An assassin? If you are here to kill me then I warn you I am no weakling like Fulgrim. I will break you before you can lay a hand upon me!'

Fulgrim shrugged and tossed the box he carried onto the floor with a clatter. It landed next to Ferrus's severed head. Horus let the energised claws of his gauntlets slide out in warning.

'Perhaps you can defeat me,' said Fulgrim, crossing the room to pour himself a cup of wine, 'but I have no wish to test either of us in such a fruitless and wasteful trial of combat. On the contrary, I am here to pledge myself to your cause.'

Horus glanced towards Fulgrim's waist, and relaxed as he saw that this thing masquerading as his brother had come before him unarmed. Whatever its purpose in unveiling itself, it had not come with violence on its mind.

'You still have not answered my question,' said Horus. 'Who or what are you?'

Fulgrim smiled and licked his lips with a long sweep of his tongue. 'Who am I? I should have thought that would be obvious to one who has had dealings with other creatures of my ilk.'

Once again, Horus felt the chill that he had experienced when the Lord of the Shadows had manifested in the stone-walled lodge, raised in the heart of his flagship.

'You are a creature of the warp?' he asked.

'I am indeed. What your insufficient language might call a "daemon". A poor word, but it will have to suffice. I am a humble servant of the Dark Prince, an emissary come to aid you in your little war.'

Horus felt his anger towards this impudent creature grow with every patronising syllable that dripped from its lips. It had usurped the body of one of his underlings, the fate of the galaxy was at stake, and it dared to call such a conflict ''little''!

The Fulgrim thing turned away from him and paced the length of his chambers, as though it had never seen a room quite like it. 'I have claimed this mortal shell as my own, and I must admit that it is most pleasing to me. The sensations one experiences when clothed in flesh are quite unique, though I daresay I shall have to make some alterations to its form in time.'

Horus felt his skin crawl at the idea of such a hideous violation. 'What of Fulgrim? Where is he?'

'Fear not,' laughed the warp creature. 'We have a long and… involved history, Fulgrim and I, and I certainly do not wish him any lasting ill. For some time I have been his conscience, quietly advising him in the lonely watches of the night, advising him, cajoling him, comforting him and steering his course of action.'

Horus watched as the daemon ran its hands along the sand-blown walls of the chamber, its eyes closing as it enjoyed the rough texture of the stone surface.

'Steering his course of action?' prompted Horus.

'Oh, yes!' exclaimed the warp creature. 'I made him believe that he should not doubt your course of action. Of course, he resisted, but I can be very persuasive.'

'You made Fulgrim join with me?'

'Of course! Did you really think you were that good an orator?' chuckled the daemon. 'You have me to thank for clouding his perceptions and adding his strength to yours. But for me, he would have run to his Emperor screaming of your imminent betrayal.'

'And you think I owe you something, is that it?' asked Horus.

'Not at all, for in the end, Fulgrim was weak, too weak to finish what his own desire had begun,' explained the creature. 'His obsession led him to launch the deathblow at his brother, but his weakness would not allow him to land it without my help. I merely gave him the strength to do what he wanted to do.'

'But where is he now?'

'I have already told you, Horus,' cautioned the daemon. 'Fulgrim's anguish at what he had done proved too great for him to bear. He begged me to help him extinguish his life, but I could not destroy him, that would have been far too prosaic. Instead, I gave him eternal peace, though not, I think, in the way he actually desired it.'

'Is Fulgrim dead?' asked Horus. 'Answer me, damn you!'

'Oh no,' smiled the daemon, tapping an elongated finger with a sharpened nail against his temple. 'He is here inside me, utterly aware of all that transpires, though I do not suppose that he is happy pressed into the furthest reaches of his soul.'

'You have already claimed his flesh,' snarled Horus, taking a thunderous step towards the daemon-Fulgrim. 'If he is of no more use to you then let him die.'

The daemon shook his head with an amused sneer. 'No, Horus, I shan't be doing that, for his cries of horror are a great comfort to me. I am unwilling to let him fade away, since our discussions offer me much amusement and I do not suppose I shall ever tire of them.'

Horus felt nothing but revulsion at the fate his brother suffered, but forced his disgust to one side. After all, had not the daemon already pledged its allegiance to him? It was patently a creature of great power, and to allow the knowledge that their primarch was as good as dead, would certainly cost him the loyalty of Emperor's Children Legion.

'You may have Fulgrim for now,' said Horus, 'but keep your identity a secret from all others, or I swear I will see you destroyed.'

'As you wish, mighty Warmaster,' said the daemon-Fulgrim, nodding and giving an unnecessarily ostentatious bow. 'I have no particular desire to reveal myself to others anyway. It will be our secret.'

Horus nodded, though he made a silent vow to free his brother as soon as he was able, for no one deserved to endure such a terrible fate.

But what power could unmake a daemon?

Orbital space around Isstvan V was as busy as any fleet docking facility around the lunar bases, with the vessels of eight Legions assuming formation prior to transit to the system jump point. Over three thousand vessels jostled for position above the darkened fifth planet, their holds bursting with warriors sworn to the Warmaster.

Tanks and monstrous war machines had been lifted from the planet with incredible efficiency and an armada greater than any in the history of the Great Crusade assembled to take the fire of war into the very heart of the Imperium.

The fleets of Angron, Fulgrim, Mortarion, Lorgar and the Warmaster's own Legion would rendezvous at Mars, now that word had come from Regulus of the planet's fall to Horus's supporters within the Mechanicum. With the manufacturing facilities of Mondus Gamma and Mondus Occullum wrested from the control of the Emperor's forces, the forges of Mars were free to supply the Warmaster's army.

The eager warriors of the Alpha Legion were singled out by Horus for a vital mission, one upon which the success of the entire venture could depend. Following the Warmaster's misdirection of Leman Russ, the Space Wolves were known to be operating in the region of Prospero after their attack on Magnus's Thousand Sons. In the nearby system of Chondax, the White Scars of Jaghatai Khan were sure to have received word of Horus's rebellion and would no doubt attempt to link with the Space Wolves. Horus could not allow such a grave threat to appear, and so the warriors of Alpharius were to seek out and attack these Legions before they could join forces.

Night Haunter's fleet had already departed, bound for the planet of Tsagualsa, a remote world in the Eastern Fringes that lay shrouded in the shadow of a great asteroid belt. From here, the Night Lords' terror troops would begin a campaign of genocide against the Imperial strongholds of Heroldar and Thramas, systems that, if not taken, would leave the flanks of the Warmaster's strike on Terra vulnerable to attack. The Thramas system was of particular importance, as it comprised a number of Mechanicum forge worlds whose loyalty was still to the Emperor.

The ships of the Iron Warriors prepared to make the journey to the Phall system where a large fleet of Imperial Fists vessels were known to be regrouping after a failed attempt to reach Isstvan V. Though Rogal Dorn's warriors had played no part in the massacre, the Warmaster could not allow such a powerful force to remain unmolested. The enmity between bitter Perturabo and proud Dorn was well known, and it was with great relish that the Iron Warriors set off to do battle.

With his flanks covered and the forces that could potentially reinforce the heart of the Imperium soon to be embroiled in war, the gates of Terra were wide open.

One by one, the fleets of the Warmaster's rebellion began the long journey to the planet from which they had begun the Great Crusade, each Legion's ships diminishing to silver specks in the darkness before vanishing utterly.

Soon, only the Sons of Horus remained in orbit over Isstvan V.

From the strategium of the Vengeful Spirit, the Warmaster looked down upon the dark orb through the circular viewing bay above his throne, his expression unreadable as he watched the elliptical curve of the fifth planet recede.

He turned as he heard the sound of footfalls behind him and saw Maloghurst limping towards him with a data-slate in his hand.

'What do you bring me, Mai?' asked Horus.

'A communication, my lord,' replied his equerry.

'From whom?'

Maloghurst smiled. 'It's from Magnus the Red.'

La Venice was a ruin. The daemon that had claimed Fulgrim's body strode through the wreckage of Bequa Kynska's last and greatest performance, smiling as it remembered the scenes of destruction and wanton lust enacted here. The glow of a handful of dim footlights flickered in the gloom. The air stank of blood and lust, and the parquet was sticky with fluid and strewn with bone.

The power of its dark prince had poured through the mighty theatre and entered every living thing within it, breaking down the barriers of inhibition between desire and action.

Truly it had been a great performance, and the lesser avatars of its master had feasted well on the excess of sensation unleashed, before discarding their borrowed flesh and returning to the warp.

All around it were the signs that its master's power had been unleashed: the remains of a defiled carcass, a gaudy masterpiece of blood and ordure daubed on the wall or a sculpture of flesh formed from a multitude of body parts.

Outwardly, the daemon still resembled the body it had stolen, but already there were hints that the flesh was soon to be reshaped in an image more pleasing to it. An aura of power vibrated the air around it and its skin held a soft shimmer of inner luminosity.

The daemon hummed the opening bars of the Maraviglia's overture and drew the sword sheathed at its waist, the golden hilt shimmering in the fading glow of the wavering footlights. It had retrieved the anathame from Ostian Delafour's studio, surprised and amused to find another body impaled on its lethal point. The shrivelled husk of flesh was barely recognisable as Serena d'Angelus, but the daemon had honoured her corpse with the most sublime rain before making its way to La Venice.

It held the sword up to its face and laughed as it saw the tortured soul of Fulgrim behind its eyes reflected in the shimmering depths of the blade. The daemon could hear his pitiful cries echoing within his skull, the torment in every desperate shriek the sweetest music.

Such things pleased the daemon, and it stood for a moment to savour the fruits of its influence on Fulgrim. The fools who served in the III Legion had no idea that their beloved leader was clawing ineffectually at the bondage in which he was held.

Only the swordsman, Lucius, had appeared to realise that something was amiss, but even he had said nothing. The daemon had sensed the burgeoning warp touch upon the warrior and had presented him with the silver blade within which the Laer had bound a fragment of its essence. Though the weapon was now bereft of its spirit, there was still power within the blade, power that would empower Lucius in the years of death to come.

The thought of the coming slaughters made the daemon smile as it imagined what it might accomplish with this stolen flesh. Sensations that could only be imagined in the warp would be made real in this mortal realm, and a galaxy's worth of blood, lust, anger, fear, rapture and despair awaited it on the march to Terra. A billion souls were at the mercy of the Warmaster, and with the power of a Legion at its command, what heights of sensation might it experience?

The daemon made its way to the front of the stage and looked up towards the great portrait that hung above the smashed wreckage of the proscenium. Even in the dying light, the portrait's magnificence was palpable.

A glorious golden frame held the canvas trapped within its embrace, and the daemon smiled as it took in the wondrous perfection of the painting. Where before the image had been a garish riot of colours with a terrible aspect that horrified those mortals who dared to look upon it, it was now a thing of beauty.

Clad in his wondrous armour of purple and gold, Fulgrim was portrayed before the great gates of the Heliopolis, the flaming wings of a great phoenix sweeping up behind him. The firelight of the legendary bird shone upon his armour, each polished plate seeming to shimmer with the heat of the fire, his hair a cascade of gold.

The Primarch of the Emperor's Children was lovingly portrayed in perfect detail, every nuance of his grandeur and the life that made Fulgrim such a vision of beauty captured in the exquisite brushwork. The daemon knew that no finer figure of a warrior had ever existed or ever would again, and to even glimpse such a flawless example of the painter's art was to know that wonder still existed in the galaxy.

The painted Fulgrim stared down upon the ruin of the theatre and the monster that had claimed his mortal shell. The daemon smiled as it saw the horror within his eyes, a horror that had not been rendered by any skill of the painter. Perfect, exquisite agony burned in the portrait's gaze, and as the daemon sheathed the anathame and bowed to the silent stage, the dark pools of its painted eyes seemed to follow its every movement.

The daemon turned from the portrait and made its way from the theatre as the last of the footlights guttered and died, leaving the last phoenix forever shrouded in darkness.