The Primarch of the Emperor's Children admired the sword blade, a spectral glow thrown across his pale features by the dancing lights that filled the chamber. The Laer still writhed on the ground, their bodies undulating obscenely as the primarch raised the burned banner pole high and drove it into the stone he had just drawn the sword from.

The eagle caught the light and threw off hundreds of fractured reflections from its wings, and to Julius the sight was hideous, the light making the eagle appear to twist and writhe in pain.

Fulgrim spun the sword in his grip, testing it for balance, and he smiled as he cast his gaze out over the hundreds of Laer sprawled around him.

*Destroy them all,' he said. *Leave none alive.'

PART TWO.

THE PHOENIX & THE GORGON.

SIX.

Diasporex.

The Molten Heart.

Young Gods.

AS MUCH AS he hated what they had become, Captain Balhaan of the Iron Hands couldn't help but admire the skill of the fleet masters of the Diasporex. For nearly five months they had managed to evade the ships of the X Legion around the Carollis system of the Lesser Bifold Cluster with an efficacy that was beyond even the longest serving captains of the Iron Hands.

That was set to change now that the Ferrum and her small company of escort ships had managed to calve a pair of vessels from the larger mass of the enemy fleet and drive them towards the gaseous rings of the Carollis Star from whence this endeavour had begun.

Ferrus Manus, Primarch of the Iron Hands, had noted bitterly that it was a tragedy of their own making that would see the Diasporex destroyed. They had come to the attention of the 52nd Expedition quite by accident when forward reconnaissance vessels had traversed the western reaches of the cluster and detected some unusual vox transmissions.

This region of space comprised three systems, two of which contained a number of habitable worlds that had been brought back into the Imperial fold with a minimum of resistance. Remote probe ships had revealed the existence of other systems deeper in the cluster with the potential to support life and, at first, it had been surmised that the signals had come from this unconquered region of space. Prior to the order for the mass advance, the unusual transmissions had once again been detected, this time in Imperial space around the Carollis Star.

The Primarch of the Iron Hands had immediately ordered the expedition's surveyor officers to locate the source of the transmissions, whereupon it was quickly deduced that an unknown fleet of some magnitude was at large in Imperial space. No other expeditions were authorised to be operating close by, and none of the newly compliant worlds had fleets of any significance, thus Ferrus Manus had declared that these interlopers must be found and eliminated before any advance could begin.

And so the hunt had begun.

Balhaan stood behind the iron lectern that served as his command post on the Ferrum, a mid-size strike cruiser that had served faithfully in the 52nd Expedition's forces for almost a century and a half. For sixty of those years it had been under Balhaan's command and he prided himself that it was the best ship and crew in the fleet, for anything less than the best was weakness that he would not tolerate.

Named for the X Legion's primarch, Ferrus Manus, the bridge of the Ferrum was stark and spartan, its every surface gleaming and pristine. Though there was ornamentation, it was kept to a bare minimum, and the ship looked much as it had when it first launched from its moorings in the Martian shipyards. She was fast, deadly and the perfect ship to serve as a hunter of this unknown fleet.

The hunt had proven to be problematic, for the fleet clearly did not want to be found. Eventually, however, the origin of the mysterious fleet was revealed when the battle-barge Iron Will had chanced upon an unidentified cluster of vessels and intercepted them before they could flee.

To the surprise and delight of the expedition's sizeable Mechanicum contingent, the vessels had turned out to be of human origin, and interrogation of the surviving crew had been undertaken immediately. This revealed that the ships were part of a larger conglomeration of vessels the captured crewmen had called the Diasporex, and belonged to an age of Terra long since passed.

Balhaan was a keen student of the history of ancient Earth, and had read extensively of the golden age of exploration, thousands of years before the darkness of Old Night had descended upon the galaxy, when humanity had travelled from Earth in vast colonisation fleets. The very purpose of the Great Crusade was to reclaim what had been won by the early pioneers and then lost in the anarchy of the Age of Strife. Such ancient fleets were the stuff of legend, for the ships of the earliest starfarers had taken the children of Terra to the furthest corners of the galaxy.

To stumble upon their descendants was declared providential by Ferrus Manus himself.

With information gleaned from the captured crew, contact was established with these brothers of antiquity, but much to the 52nd Expedition's disgust, the Diasporex had incorporated many incongruent elements in its makeup over the long millennia. Ancient human vessels flew alongside starships belonging to a wide variety of alien races, and instead of rejecting such contamination, as the Emperor had dictated, the fleet masters of the Diasporex had welcomed them into their ranks, forming a co-operative armada that plied the darkness of space together.

In the spirit of forgiving brotherhood, Ferrus Manus had generously offered to repatriate the thousands of humans that made up the Diasporex to compliant worlds, if they would submit to the rule of the Emperor of Mankind.

The primarch's offer had been rejected out of hand and all communication broken off.

Faced with such an insult to the Emperor's will, Ferrus Manus had no choice but to lead the 52nd Expedition into a legitimate war against the Diasporex.

BALHAAN AND THE Ferrum were the forward vanguard of the primarch's war, and now he had the honour of striking back at the humans who dared turn their back on the Emperor and the emergent Imperium. Like the vessel he commanded, Balhaan was stark and unforgiving, as befitted a warrior of the Kaargul Clan. He had commanded a fleet of ships on the icy seas of Medusa by his fifteenth winter and knew the shifting temperaments of the sea better than any man. No man who served under him had ever dared question his orders and no man had ever failed him. His Mark IV armour was polished a lustrous black, and a white, wool cloak embroidered with silver thread hung to his knees. A greenskin cleaver had taken his left arm three decades ago and a Deuthrite flenser his right barely a year later. Now both his arms were heavy augmetics of burnished iron, but Balhaan welcomed his new mechanised limbs, for flesh, even Astartes flesh, was weak and would eventually fail.

To receive the Blessing of Iron was a boon, not a curse.

An industrious hubbub filled the bridge with an excited hum, and Balhaan permitted the crew their excitement, for the Ferrum was to have the honour of the first kill. The main viewing bay was filled with the dark void of space, lit up by the brilliant yellow glow of the Carollis Star. A multitude of flickering lines looped across the display: flight trajectories, torpedo tracks, ranges and intercept vectors, each one designed to bring an end to the two vessels that lay a few thousand kilometres off his prow.

The irony of this hunt was not lost on Balhaan, for despite his rank as captain of a ship of war, he was not a man without sensibilities beyond his duties. These were human vessels and to attack them was to destroy a piece of history that fascinated him.

*Come about to new heading, zero two three,' he ordered, gripping the lectern tightly with his iron fingers. He did not dare betray any emotion as they closed on the two wallowing cruisers they had managed to shear from the Diasporex fleet, but he could not help a small smile of triumph as he watched his gunnery officer come towards him with a data-slate clutched in his eager hands.

*You have a solution for the forward batteries, Axarden?' demanded Balhaan.

*I do, sir.'

*Inform the ordnance decks,' said Balhaan, *but close to optimum range before unmasking the guns.'

*Aye, sir,' replied Axarden, *and the containers they ejected?'

Balhaan pulled up the feed from the starboard picters, watching as the enormous cargo containers that the cruisers had abandoned drifted away. In an attempt to gain more speed, the enemy cruisers had ditched whatever cargo they were hauling, but it hadn't been enough to prevent the Imperial ships from catching them.

*Ignore them,' ordered Balhaan. *Concentrate on the cruisers. We will return for them later and examine what they were carrying.'

*Very good, sir.'

Balhaan watched the range to the two cruisers close with a practiced eye. They were following a curving trajectory around the star's corona, hoping to lose themselves in the electromagnetic clutter that spurted and foamed around its edges, but the Ferrum was too close to be thrown off by such a clumsy subterfuge.

Clumsy...

Balhaan frowned as he wondered at his prey's apparent foolishness. Everything he had learned of the Diasporex suggested that its captains were highly skilled, and for them to believe that such an obvious stratagem would throw him from their scent was inherently suspicious.

*Ordnance decks report all guns ready to fire,' reported Axarden.

*Very good,' nodded Balhaan, worried that there was something he wasn't seeing.

The two ships followed a divergent course, peeling away from one another, and Balhaan knew he should order his ship to all ahead full to pull into the gap and give both of them a good broadside, but he kept his counsel, knowing there was something wrong.

His worst fears were suddenly realised when his surveyor officer shouted, *New contacts! Multiple signals!'

*Where in the name of Medusa did they come from?' shouted Balhaan, swinging his heavy body around to face the wide, waterfall displays of surveyor command. Red lights were winking into life on the display, and without asking Balhaan knew that they were behind his ships.

*I'm not sure,' said the surveyor officer, but even as he spoke, Balhaan knew where they had come from, and returned his gaze to the command lectern. He called up the external picters and watched in horror as the vast cargo containers abandoned by their quarry split open and disgorged scores of gleaming darts; bombers and fighters no doubt.

*All ahead full!' ordered Balhaan, though he knew it was already too late. *Come to new heading, nine seven zero and launch interceptors. Activate close-in defence turrets. All escorts to perimeter protection duties.'

*What about the cruisers?' asked Axarden.

*Damn the cruisers!' shouted Balhaan, watching as they ceased their flight and began turning to face the Ferrum. *They were nothing more than decoys, and like a fool I fell for it.'

He could hear the groaning metal of the deck shifting beneath his feet as the Ferrum desperately sought to turn to face this new foe.

*Torpedoes launched!' warned the defence officer. *Impact in thirty seconds!'

Balhaan shouted, *Countermeasures!' though he knew that any torpedo launched from such close range was practically guaranteed to hit. The Ferrum continued to turn, and Balhaan could feel the juddering fire of the defence turrets as they opened fire on the incoming ordnance. Some of the enemy torpedoes would be shot down, exploding soundlessly in the void, but not all of them.

*Twenty seconds to impact!'

*All stop,' ordered Balhaan. *Reverse turn, that might throw some of them off.' It was a vain hope, but right now he would take a vain hope over no hope.

His interceptors would be leaping from their launch rails by now, and they would bring a few more torpedoes down before engaging the enemy forces. His vessel heeled hard to the side as the strike cruiser twisted her bulk faster than she was ever designed to and the creaks and groans of the vessel were painful to Balhaan's ears.

*Ironheart reports that it has engaged the enemy cruisers. Heavy damage.'

Balhaan returned his attention to the main view screen, watching the smaller Ironheart wreathed in flickering detonations. Pinpricks of light flickered between the vessel and its attackers, the silence and distance diminishing the ferocity of the conflict.

*We have our own problems,' said Balhaan. *The Ironheart is on her own.' Then he gripped the lectern as he heard his defence officer shout once more.

*Impact in four, three, two, one...'

The Ferrum rocked hard to port, the deck lurching underfoot as the torpedoes impacted on her rear starboard quarter. Warning bells began chiming, and the display on the view screen faded briefly before vanishing completely. Fire burst from ruptured conduits, and hissing steam vented into the bridge.

*Damage control!' shouted Balhaan, cracking the command lectern with the force of his grip. Servitors and deck ratings straggled to contain the blaze, and Balhaan watched as burnt crewmen were dragged from shattered control stations, their flesh and uniforms blackened by fire. He leaned over to gunnery control and shouted, *All guns open fire, full defensive spread!'

*Sir!' cried Axarden. *Some of our own craft will be in the engagement zone.'

*Do it!' ordered Balhaan. *Or there will be no ship for them to return to and they will die anyway. Open fire!'

Axarden nodded and staggered across the ruptured deck to carry out his captain's orders.

The enemy fighters would soon find that the Ferrum still had teeth.

THE PRIMARCH'S CHAMBERS aboard the battle-barge, Fist of Iron, were constructed of stone and glass, as cold and austere as the frozen tundra of Medusa, and First Captain Santor could almost feel the chill of his icy home world in the design. Blocks of shimmering obsidian carved from the sides of undersea volcanoes kept the chamber dark, and glass cabinets of war trophies and weapons stood as silent sentinels over the primarch's most private moments.

Santor watched as Ferrus Manus stood nearly naked before him, his servants washing his iron hard flesh and applying oils before scraping him clean with razor edged knives. As each gleaming, oiled limb was finished, his armourers would apply the layers of his battle armour, gleaming black plates of polished ceramite that had been crafted by Master Adept Malevolus of Mars.

*Tell me again, equerry Santor,' began the primarch, his voice gruff and full of the molten fury of a Medusan volcano. *How is it that an experienced captain like Balhaan was able to lose three vessels and not manage to bring down one of our enemy's?'

*It appears he was lured into an ambush,' said Santor, straightening his back as he spoke. To serve as First Captain of the Iron Hands and equerry to the Primarch of the Iron Hands was the greatest honour of his life, and while he relished every moment spent with his beloved leader, there were moments when the potential of his anger was like the volatile core of their home, unpredictable and terrifying.

*An ambush?' snarled Ferrus Manus. *Damn it, Santor, we are becoming sloppy! Months of chasing shadows have made us foolhardy and reckless. It will not stand.'

Ferrus Manus towered above his servants, his knotted flesh pale as though carved from the heart of a glacier. Scars crossed his skin from the wounds he had taken in battle, for the Primarch of the Iron Hands was never one to shirk from leading his warriors by example. His close cropped hair was jet black, his eyes like glittering silver coins, and his features were battered by centuries of war. Other primarchs might be considered beautiful creations, handsome men made godlike by their ascension to the ranks of the Astartes, but Ferrus Manus did not count himself amongst them.

Santor's eyes were drawn, as they always were, to the gleaming silver forearms of his primarch. The flesh of his arms and hands shimmered and rippled as though formed from liquid mercury that had flowed into the shape of mighty hands and somehow been trapped in that form forever. Santor had seen wondrous things fashioned by these hands, machines and weapons that never dulled or failed, all beaten into shape or crafted by the primarch's hands without need of forge or hammer.

*Captain Balhaan is already aboard to personally apologise for his failure, and he has offered to resign command of the Ferrum.'

*Apologise?' snapped the primarch. *I should have his head just to make an example.'

*With respect, my lord,' said Santor, *Balhaan is an experienced captain and perhaps something less severe might be in order. Perhaps you might simply remove his arms?'

*His arms? What use is he to me then?' demanded Ferrus Manus, causing the servant with his breastplate to flinch.

*Very little,' agreed Santor, *though probably more than if you remove his head.'

Ferrus Manus smiled, his anger vanishing as swiftly as it had arisen. *You have a rare gift, my dear Santor. The molten heart of Medusa burns in my breast and sometimes it rises in my gullet before I can think.'

*I am your humble servant,' said Santor.

Ferrus Manus waved away his armourers and moved to stand before Santor. Though Santor was tall for an Astartes and was clad in his full armour, the primarch still towered over him, his silver eyes shining and without pupils. Santor suppressed a shiver, for those eyes were like chips of napped flint, hard, unforgiving and sharp. The scent of lapping powder and oil was strong on his flesh, and Santor felt his soul open up beneath that gaze, his every weakness and imperfection laid bare.

Santor was like unto Medusa himself, his craggy features like a cliff face shorn from the flanks of a mountain, his grey eyes like the great storms that tore the skies of his home world. Upon his induction into the Legion, many decades ago, his left hand had been removed and a bionic replacement grafted in its place. Since then, both his legs had been replaced, as had the remainder of his left arm.

*You are much more than that to me, Santor,' said Ferrus Manus, placing his hands on his equerry's shoulder guards. *You are the ice that quenches my fire when it threatens to overwhelm the good sense the Emperor gave me. Very well, if you won't let me take his head, what punishment would you suggest?'

Santor took a deep breath as Ferrus Manus turned away from him and returned to his armourers, the dreadful respect the primarch instilled leaving his mouth dry.

Angrily, he pushed aside his momentary weakness and said, *Captain Balhaan will have learned from this debacle, but I agree his weakness must be punished. To remove him as captain of the Ferrum would damage the morale of the crew, and if they are to restore their honour, they will need Balhaan's leadership.'

*So what do you suggest?' asked Ferrus.

*Something to make it clear that he has earned your ire, but which shows that you are merciful and willing to allow him and his crew the chance to earn back your trust.'

Ferrus Manus nodded as the armourers fitted his breastplate to his backplate, his silver arms extended either side of him as they dipped linen cloths into iron bowls of scented oils and applied them to his hands.

*Then I will appoint one of the Iron Fathers to joint command of the Ferrum,' said Ferrus Manus.

*He won't like that,' warned Santor.

*I'm not giving him a choice,' said the primarch.

THE ANVILARIUM OF the Fist of Iron resembled a mighty forge, huge, hissing pistons rising and falling at the edges of the audience chamber, and the distant clang of hammers echoing through the sheet metal of the floor. It was a cavernous space, with the pungent aromas of oil and hot metal heavy in the air, the space redolent of industry and machines.

Santor relished the chance to come to the Anvilarium, for mighty deeds were planned and unbreakable bonds of brotherhood were forged here. To be part of such a fraternity was an honour few would ever dream of, let alone achieve.

It had been two months since Captain Balhaan's disastrous encounter with the Diasporex ships, and the 52nd Expedition was no nearer to achieving the destruction of the enemy fleet. The new caution engendered by Balhaan's punishment ensured that no other vessels had been lost, but also meant that there had been few opportunities to engage in a decisive battle.

Santor and the rest of his warriors of the Avernii Clan stood at parade rest flanking the great gate that led into the Iron Forge, the primarch's most secret reclusiam. The Morlocks gathered at the far end of the Anvilarium, the glimmering steel of their Terminator armour reflecting the red flames of the torches that hung in iron sconces on the walls. Soldiers and senior officers of the Imperial Army stood together with the robed adepts of the Mechanicum, and Santor nodded respectfully as he caught the glowing eye of their senior representative, Adept Xanthus.