*This is still our fight, Mersadie,' said Euphrati, turning from the viewshield. *Sometimes that fight must be open warfare, sometimes it must be fought with words and ideas. We all have our parts to play.'

Mersadie let out a breath, unable and unwilling to believe that there were allies in the cruiser looming in front of them. *We are not alone,' smiled Euphrati. *But this fight... it feels a lot bigger than me.'

*You are wrong. Each of us has as much right to have their say in the fate of the galaxy as the Warmaster. Believing that is how we will defeat him.'

Mersadie nodded and watched the cruiser above them drawing ever nearer, its long, dark shape edged in starlight and its engines wreathed in clouds of crystalline ga.s.ses.

*Thunderhawk gunship, identify yourself,' said a gruff, gravel-laden voice crackling from the vox-caster.

*Be truthful,' warned Euphrati. *All depends on it.'

Qruze nodded and said, *My name is Iacton Qruze, formerly of the Sons of Horus.'

*Formerly?' came the reply.

*Yes, formerly,' said Qruze.

*Explain yourself.'

*I am no longer part of the Legion,' said Qruze, and Mersadie could hear the pain it caused him to give voice to these words. *I can no longer be party to what the Warmaster is doing.'

After a long pause, the voice returned. *Then you are welcome on my ship, Iacton Qruze.'

*And who are you?' asked Qruze. *I am Captain Nathaniel Garro of the Eisenstein.'

PART THREE.

BROTHERS.

FOURTEEN.

Until it's over Charmoisan Betrayal *I'VE LOST COUNT of the days,' said Loken, crouching by one of the makeshift battlements that looked over the smouldering ruins of the Choral City.

*I don't think Isstvan III has days and nights any more,' replied Saul Tarvitz.

Loken looked into the steel grey sky, a mantle of cloud kicked up by the catastrophic climate change forced on Isstvan III by the sudden extinction of almost all life on its surface. A thin drizzle of ash rained, the remains of the firestorm swept up by dry, dead winds a continent away.

*They're ma.s.sing for another attack,' said Tarvitz, indicating the tangle of twisted, ash-wreathed rubble that had once been a vast ma.s.s of tenement blocks to the east of the palace.

Loken followed his gaze. He could just glimpse a flash of dirty white armour.

*World Eaters.'

*Who else?'

*I don't know if Angron even knows another way to fight.'

Tarvitz shrugged. *He probably does. He just likes his way better.'

Tarvitz and Loken had first met on Murder, where the Sons of Horus had fought alongside the Emperor's Children against hideous megarachnid aliens. Tarvitz had been a fine warrior, devoid of the grandstanding of his Legion that had so antagonised Torgaddon.

Loken barely remembered the journey back through the Sirenhold, scrambling through shattered tombs and burning ruins. He remembered fighting through men he had once called brother towards the great gates of the Sirenhold, and he had not stopped until he had his first proper sight of the Precentor's Palace and its magnificent rose-granite petals.

*They'll hit within the hour,' said Tarvitz. *I'll move men over to the defences.'

*It could be a feint,' said Loken, vividly remembering the first days of the battle for the palace. *Angron hits one side, Eidolon counter-attacks.'

His first sight of Tarvitz's warriors in battle had resembled a great game with the Emperor's Children as pieces masterfully arranged in feints and counter-charges. A lesser man than Saul Tarvitz would have allowed his force to be picked apart by them, but the captain of the Emperor's Children had somehow managed to weather three days of non-stop attacks.

*We'll be ready for it,' said Tarvitz, looking down into the depths of the palace.

Loken and Tarvitz had climbed into the structure of a partially collapsed dome, one of the many sections of the Precentor's Palace that had been ruined during the firestorm and fighting.

Sheared sections of granite petals formed the cover behind which Loken and Tarvitz were sheltering, while in the rubble-choked dome below, hundreds of the survivors were manning the defences. Luna Wolves and Emperor's Children manned barricades made of priceless sculptures and other artworks that had filled the chambers beneath the dome.

Now these monumental sculptures of past rulers lay on their sides with Astartes crouched behind them.

*How much longer do you think we can hold?' asked Loken.

*We'll stay until it's over,' said Tarvitz. *You said so yourself, every second we survive, the chance grows that the Emperor hears of this and sends the other Legions to bring Horus to justice.'

*If Garro makes it,' said Loken. *He could be dead already, or lost in the warp.'

*Perhaps, but I have to hope that Nathaniel made it out,' said Tarvitz. *Our job is to hold them off for as long as we can.'

*That's what worries me. This probably all started when Angron slipped the leash, but the Warmaster could have just pulled his Legions out and bombed this city into dust. He would have lost some of them, but even so... this planet should have been dead a long time ago.'

Tarvitz smiled. *Four primarchs, Garviel. That's your answer. Four warriors not given to backing down. Who would be the first to leave? Angron? Mortarion? If Eidolon's leading the Emperor's Children then he's got a lot to prove alongside the primarchs, and I have never known Horus show weakness, not when his brother primarchs might see it.'

*No,' agreed Loken. *The Warmaster does not back down from a battle once he's committed.'

*Then they'll have to kill us all,' said Tarvitz.

*Yes, they will,' said Loken grimly.

The vox-beads in both their helmets chimed and Torgaddon's voice sounded.

*Garvi, Saul!' said Torgaddon. *I've got reports that the World Eaters are ma.s.sing. We can hear them chanting, so they'll be coming soon. I've reinforced the eastern barricades, but we need every man down here.'

*I'll pull my men back from the gallery dome,' voxed Tarvitz. *I'll send Garviel to join you.'

*Where are you going?' asked Loken.

*I'm going to make sure the west and north are still covered and to get some guns on the chapel too,' said Tarvitz, pointing through the ruins of the dome to the strange organic shape of the Warsingers' Chapel adjoining the palace complex.

The survivors had instinctively avoided the chapel and few of them had even seen inside it. Its very walls were redolent of the corruption that had consumed the soul of the Choral City.

*I'll take the chapel and Lucius can take the ground level,' continued Tarvitz, turning back to Loken. *I swear that sometimes I think Lucius is actually enjoying this.'

*A little too much, if you ask me,' replied Loken. *You need to keep an eye on him.'

A familiar dull explosion sounded and a tower of rubble and smoke burst from the Choral City's tortured cityscape to the north of the palace.

*Amazing,' said Tarvitz, *that there are any Death Guard left alive over there.'

*Death Guard are tough to kill,' replied Loken, heading for the makeshift ladder that led down to the remains of the gallery dome.

Despite his words, he knew that it really was amazing. Mortarion, never one to do things with finesse, had simply landed one of his fleet's largest orbital landers on the edge of the western trenches and saturated the defences with turret fire while his Death Guard deployed.

That had been the last anyone had heard of the Death Guard in the Choral City.

Though from the haphazardly aimed artillery sh.e.l.ls that landed daily in the traitors' camps, it was clear that some loyal Death Guard still resisted Mortarion's efforts to exterminate them.

*I only hope we live as long,' said Tarvitz. *We're running low on supplies and ammunition. Soon we'll start running low on Astartes.'

*As long as one is alive, captain, we'll fight,' promised Loken. *Horus picked some unfortunate enemies in you and me. We'll make him regret ever taking us on.'

*Then we'll speak again after Angron's been sent scurrying,' said Tarvitz.

*Until then.'

Loken dropped down into the dome, leaving Tarvitz alone for a moment to look across the blasted city. How long had it been since he had been surrounded by anything other than the nightmarish place the Choral City had become? Two months? Three?

Ashen skies and smoldering ruins surrounded the palace for as far as the eye could see in all directions, the city resembling the kind of h.e.l.l the Isstvanians themselves might once have believed in.

Tarvitz shook the thought from his mind.

*There are no h.e.l.ls, no G.o.ds, no eternal rewards or punishments,' he told himself.

LUCIUS COULD HEAR the killing. He could read the sound of it as though it were written down before him like sheet music. He knew the difference between the war-cries of a World Eater and those of a Son of Horus, and the variance between the tonal quality of a volley of bolter fire launched to support an attack or to defend an obstacle.

The chapel Saul had tasked him with defending was a strange place to be the site of the Great Crusade's last stand. Not so long ago it had been the nerve centre of an enemy regime, but now its makeshift defences were the only thing holding off the far superior traitor forces.

*Sounds like a nasty one,' said Brother Solathen of Squad Nasicae, hunched down by the sill of the chapel window. *They might break through.'

*Our friend Loken can handle them,' sneered Lucius. *Angron wants to get some more kills. That's all he wants. Listen? Can you hear that?'

Solathen c.o.c.ked his head as he listened. Astartes hearing, like most of their senses, was finely honed, but Solathen didn't seem to recognize Lucius's point. *Hear what, captain?'

*Chainaxes. But they're not cutting into ceramite or other chainblades; they're cutting into stone and steel. The World Eaters can't get to grips with the Sons of Horus over there, so they're trying to hack through the barricades.'

Solathen nodded and said, *Captain Tarvitz knows what he's doing. The World Eaters only know one way to fight. We can use that to our advantage.'

Lucius frowned at Solathen's praise of Saul Tarvitz, aggrieved that his own contributions to the defences appeared to have been overlooked. Hadn't he killed Vardus Praal? Hadn't he managed to get his men to safety when the virus bombs and the firestorm had hit?

He turned his bitter expression away and stared through the chapel window across the plaza still stained dark with charred ruins. Amazingly the chapel window was still intact, although its panes had been distorted by the heat of the firestorm, bulging and discoloured with vein-like streaks that reminded Lucius of an enormous insectoid eye.

The chapel itself was more bizarre inside than out, constructed from curved blocks of green stone in looming biological shapes that looked as though a cloud of noxious-looking fumes had suddenly petrified as it billowed upwards. The altar was a great spreading membrane of paler purple stone, like a complex internal organ opened up and pinned for study against the far wall.

*The World Eaters aren't the ones you should be worried about, brother,' continued Lucius idly. *It's us.'

*Us, captain?'

*The Emperor's Children,' said Lucius. *You know how our Legion fights. They're the dangerous ones out there.'

Most of the surviving loyalist Emperor's Children were holding the chapel. Tarvitz had taken a force to cover the nearest gate, but several squads were arrayed among the odd organ-like protrusions on the floor below. Squad Nasicae had only four members left, including Lucius himself, and they headed the a.s.sault element of the survivors' force alone with Squads Quemondil and Raetherin.

Tarvitz had deployed Sergeant Kaitheron on the roof of the chapel with his support squad as well as the majority of the Emperor's Children's remaining heavy weapons. Astartes from the tactical squads were at the chapel windows or in cover further inside. The rest of Lucius's troops were stationed in cover outside the chapel, among the barricades of fallen stone slabs they had set up in the early days of the siege.

Two thousand s.p.a.ce Marines, enough for an entire battle zone of the Great Crusade, were defending a single approach to the palace with the Warsingers' Chapel as the lynchpin of their line.

Movement caught Lucius's eye and he peered through the distorted window into the blackened buildings across from him. There! A glimpse of gold.

He smiled, knowing full well how the Emperor's Children fought.

*Contact!' he announced to the rest of his force. *Third block west, second floor.'

*On it,' replied Sergeant Kaitheron, a no-nonsense weapons officer who treated war as a mathematical problem to be solved with angles and weight of fire. Lucius heard the squads moving on the roof, training weapons on the area he had indicated.

*West front, make ready!' ordered Lucius. Several of the tactical squads hurried into firing positions along Lucius's side of the chapel.

The tension was delicious, and Lucius felt a surge of ecstatic sensation crawling along his veins as he heard the song of death building in his blood. A raw, toe-to-toe conflict meant opportunities to exercise perfection in war, but to make it truly memorable it needed these moments of feverish antic.i.p.ation when the full weight of potential death and glory surged around his body.

*Got them,' called Kaitheron from the chapel roof. *Emperor's Children. Major force over several floors. Armour too. Land Raiders and Predators. Lascannon, to the fore! Heavy bolters, cover the open ground mid-range and overlap!'

*Eidolon,' said Lucius.

Lucius could see them now, hundreds of Astartes in the purple and gold of the Legion he idolised, gathering in the dead eyes of ruined structures.

*They'll get the support into position first,' said Lucius. *Then they'll use the Land Raiders to bring the troops in. Mid- to close-range the infantry will move in. Hold your fire until then.'

Tracks rumbled as the Land Raiders, resplendent with gilded eagle's wings and frescoes of war on their armour-plated sides, ground through the shattered ruins of the Choral City. Each was full of Emperor's Children, the galaxy's elite, primed by Eidolon and Fulgrim to treat the men they had once called brothers as foes worthy only of extermination.