Now Kantor had assigned him four new faces, new to Cortez anyway. He had seen them before, of course. They were not new in that sense. In a brotherhood of approximately one thousand warriors, there were few real strangers, and though the brothers of each company mostly kept to their own, a certain amount of cross-company interaction was inevitable and actively encouraged.

Two members of Cortez's new squad-Brothers Rapala and Benizar-had belonged to Caldimus Ortiz's 7th Company, though they had served in different squads. Cortez remembered both of them from a winter combat exercise he and Ortiz had run about twelve years ago in the mountains north of Arx Tyrannus. Rapala and Benizar had performed solidly. Their scores had been unremarkable, but they were reliable with good skills across the board.

The other two battle-brothers assigned to Cortez's command were less well known to him. One was Brother Fenestra, a quiet, thin-faced Blackwaterite from Selig Torres' 5th Company. He had cold, dark eyes that never seemed to blink. Cortez had the feeling Fenestra didn't like him much, though they had never really crossed paths before the cataclysm. It hardly mattered. He didn't need people to like him, just to do as he said when he said it, and to show the right initiative when forced to act alone.

The last of the four was also the youngest. Brother Delgahn had served with the Chapter just eighteen years, only graduating from 10th Company to 8th Company a decade ago. Like Fenestra, he seemed wary of Cortez, never speaking unless spoken to, holding back on the periphery unless called forward.

"Stay low," Cortez told them over the comm-link as he led them up the rise. He didn't need to whisper for the sake of stealth. His helmet's external vox-amp was switched off, and, without it, no sound leaked from beneath his ceramite faceplate, but his voice was clear and sharp on the link.

It was hard to stay low in full battle-plate, almost as hard as it was to stay quiet. Even in a well oiled and treated suit of armour, ceramite plates often rasped or clanged against each other. There was the constant low buzz of the atomic power-supply, too. After spending centuries in power armour, one tended to block it out, but it was always there, always present, and it could give you away if you forgot about it entirely.

Within seconds, Cortez and his squad made the top of the rise and peered over. The night-time landscape stretched out before them, a broad patchwork of fields and pastures. In daylight, each would have been a different shade of green or yellow depending on the crops and grasses that grew there. Right now, viewed through the Astartes' helmet visors, they were all varying shades of muddy green. Wire fences and stone walls separated each, and, from the west and the north-east, two wide dirt roads snaked towards a cluster of buildings some eight hundred metres away.

This was the Zar-Menenda farming commune and, in the middle of it, hidden from Cortez's direct view by a row of large metal grain silos, a huge fire burned, throwing its telltale orange glow on the shell-pocked walls.

There had been fighting here, or perhaps not fighting, but slaughter. What kind of resistance could the farmers and their families have offered the brutish bloodthirsty invaders who had massacred all their cattle?

The greenskin stink was sharper and stronger now. So was the scent of human blood. Listening hard, Cortez began to catch sounds of activity from the commune, too.

His primary heart quickened.

They're still here, he told himself with a grin. Automatically, his fingers tightened on the grip of his bolt pistol.

There were thirty of them, thick-set and green, none weighing less than two hundred kilogrammes. Cortez cursed under his helm. On one hand, he was glad they hadn't posted any sentries. It had made the final approach to the agri-commune all too easy. On the other hand, their arrogance rankled. Were they so complacent because they believed they had already won this war?

He would teach them the folly of that assumption soon enough.

His squad hung back, cloaked in the shadows between two vast octagonal grain silos. The light from the massive fire the orks had lit didn't reach all the way back here. It was as good an observation point as any.

Peering out from those shadows, Cortez scanned the scene in front of him. On the very far side of the flames, a row of ugly vehicles, barely recognisable as bikes and buggies, sat with their engines switched off. Each was painted red. He could see that by the light of the fire. Each was lightly armour-plated and fitted with forward-pointing heavy-stubbers. From the front armour, cruel metal spikes and blades protruded.

Cortez had seen such machines in action before, other conflicts, other worlds. He knew how much ork bikers revelled in running down their prey, shearing them to pieces by ramming them head on. Despite their appearance, the ork machines could move fast. Their hit-and-run tactics made them hard to counter with just infantry. It was imperative that these orks did not get back on their bikes before he had a chance to put them down.

Of the civilian workers who had occupied the farm, there was little sign. Cortez zoomed in on a black shape in the fire, and scowled. It was clearly a human foot. How many living souls had these orks already burned to death?

There was a scream, and Cortez turned his eyes left. It seemed the orks were not quite done with having fun yet.

The sound had come from the throat of a woman, perhaps thirty years old, lying in the dirt. She was surrounded by children, five of them, of varying ages, and she was hugging them to her hard. "Don't look, my babies! Don't look!" she cried at them.

Now Cortez saw why. From the other side of the fire, a man emerged into view, walking backwards towards the woman and her children, his arms shaking as he tried to wield an ork blade that was obviously far too heavy for him. Reflected firelight shone on the tear tracks that marked his cheeks.

He was obviously retreating from something, and that something now appeared.

It was the ork boss, a towering, yellow-tusked giant in a long sleeveless coat fashioned from some kind of thick, scaly reptoid skin. On the beast's head there was a helmet boasting two straight horns, each over a metre in length. From its nose hung a gold ring, and from the belt at its waist hung four human skulls, seemingly tiny in contrast to its tree-thick legs.

The ork boss moved slowly forward following the terrified man around the fire. It was unarmed, but that hardly mattered. Even though the farmer bore a blade, he was outmatched in every way. This was a game to the orks, a sickening cruel game with only one possible outcome.

The other orks sat in the dirt hooting and howling with bestial laughter, watching their boss torment the last of the humans. They, like their boss, had rings through their noses. Their waistcoats were made of the same kind of reptoid skin as their bosses. It hadn't come from any creature on Rynn's World. Cortez was sure of that.

The woman was screaming directly at the man now. "Just run, Aldren," she begged. "Just leave us and run!"

If the man, Aldren, heard her, he showed no sign of it. His wide, unblinking eyes were locked on those of the monster as it closed the gap with him. He lifted the blade as high as he could, grunting with the effort. The ork boss stopped for a second and watched him, red eyes gleaming with cold, cruel amusement. Then it stepped forward.

Aldren lunged and brought the ork blade down as hard and as fast as he could, but it was a pathetically inadequate stroke. The ork boss batted the blade aside, and it flew from Aldren's hands.

"We're going in," Cortez told his squad. "Weapons ready."

"I thought we were on reconnaissance protocols only, my lord," said Brother Fenestra uncertainly.

"We were. Now I'm putting you on combat protocols. Lock out all other comm channels except this one and encrypt it with an alpha-three key. The only voice you need to hear is mine until I tell you otherwise."

He sensed their hesitation. They knew what he was doing. By locking out communication from the Chapter Master, Cortez was denying Pedro Kantor the chance to issue orders, orders that would most certainly have him falling back without dispensing the kind of righteous vengeance his soul demanded. Unreachable over the link, Cortez could thus avoidance any charges of direct disobedience. It was a strategy he had used before, and not just a few times.

"Did you hear me?" he snapped at his squad. "I said alpha-three. Do it now."

His Astartes did as they were told. He had known they would. He was still Alessio Cortez after all. Despite everything that had happened, his legend still loomed large over the Chapter. Sometimes, his fame and reputation were useful after all.

When each of his Astartes confirmed the comms lock, he told them what he wanted them to do, and, in pairs, they moved off. Benizar and Delgahn went left. Rapala and Fenestra went right.

There was little Cortez could do until they were in position. It wouldn't take them long. The commune was small, and the deep shadows thrown out by the fire hitting the buildings and silos offered superb cover.

Cortez turned his attention back to the fate of Aldren, the woman and her children.

The ork boss had reached out its right hand, gripped Aldren by the head, and lifted him into the air. With the man dangling, his arms flailing uselessly at the ork's arm, his legs kicking and flailing, the ork boss turned towards the fire and began walking, a deep, throaty chuckle emerging from its throat as it did so.

The woman's screams took on fresh urgency now. "Throne, no!" she wailed. "Aldren!"

To her children, she yelled, "Close your eyes, my babies. Close your eyes and don't listen!"

Cortez tightened his grip on his boltpistol. The fingers of his power fist flexed and clenched hard. They could have crushed steel. "Damn it," he muttered. "Hurry up."

But he knew his Space Marines would not be in place in time to save Aldren, and, if he moved prematurely, he would jeopardise the first part of his plan. There was nothing he could do.

The ork boss reached the edge of the blaze now and bellowed something to its fellows. Cortez scowled at the sound of the ork language. It was as ugly as the beasts were themselves. Whatever the creature said, a fresh round of hooting and laughing began, which seemed to satisfy the ork boss. It stretched out its arm and held Aldren out over the fire.

Yellow flames licked his legs greedily.

The air filled with the skin-crawling sound of agonised, high-pitched screams.

"Where are you?" Cortez demanded of his Fists, speaking through gritted teeth. "Why aren't you in position?"

It was Brother Benizar that replied. "We're at the vehicles my lord. We're cutting their fuel lines now."

"Work faster," Cortez snapped back.

The flesh of Aldren's legs was blistering. He kicked and screamed for all he was worth, but he was helpless against the strength of the ork boss. Soon, the flesh had turned black, and the flames crept higher, moving towards his torso.

The orks were still enjoying the show. The woman had turned away. She was holding the heads of her children down so they couldn't watch the final, tortuous moments of their father's life.

"Done," reported Benizar over the link. "The bikes aren't going anywhere."

"Get into firing positions, now!" Cortez barked. "It's time."

So saying, he stepped out from the shadow of the silos and into full view of the enemy. He raised his bolt pistol, knocked the safety off, and braced it on the back of his power fist, almost as if he were about to take a competition shot in some tournament.

He lined his sights up on the ork boss, zeroing in on its oversized skull. The orks still hadn't noticed him. They were too wrapped up in the torment of the human.

Cortez took a deep breath. With a single thought, he activated the vox-amp set into his helmet. His voice boomed like thunder, drowning out the last of Aldren's screams.

"You! Xenos scum!"

There was a moment when none of the orks moved, then, as one, thirty hideous, red-eyed faces turned to regard him.

Cortez fired a single shot.

It caught the ork boss in the throat and exploded, popping his helmeted head clean off his shoulders with a spray of blood so thick it was almost black.

The creature dropped Aldren straight into the flames. It didn't matter. Aldren was already dead. The pain had killed him before the flames had climbed above his waist.

The headless body of the boss fell to the ground like a dead tree. The moment it crashed on the dirt, the other orks leapt to their feet and swept up their weapons. Cortez angled his pistol's muzzle left towards the orks closest to the woman and her children. He put three rounds in three more snarling xenos faces. More bodies crashed to the ground.

"Space Marines!" he roared. "Engage!"

Bolter-fire sounded from multiple directions at once. Brother Delgahn lit the river of fuel that leaked from the ork bikes and buggies, and a wall of fire leapt into the air, penning the orks in just where Cortez wanted them. He would not let a single one survive this night.

Kantor would have heard the gunfire the moment it begun. He would have seen the blaze. If he was trying to raise Cortez on the comm-link, then he already knew the captain had locked him out. There would be hell to pay later, but Cortez could live with that. Right now, all he cared about was blood and fury.

Ork dead carpeted the ground. Hate had been served.

"Take your helmet off, Alessio," said Kantor. His tone was as hard as iron and as cold as the polar seas.

He and Cortez stood off to the side, by the east wall of one of the agri-commune's raumas meat processing blocks. Dead xenos lay around them. The other Crimson Fists went among the bodies, attending to the grisly business of ensuring that none of their fallen foes were merely wounded. The quickest way to guarantee the xenos wouldn't rise to fight again was to crush their skulls under an armoured boot, but ork skulls were incredibly dense. Even for an Astartes in full plate, it often took a number of impacts to properly shatter the thick bone and pulp the pinkish grey tissue beneath.

Cortez lifted his right hand to the clasps and cables at his neck and did as his lord commanded. He pulled his helmet up over his head and placed it in the crook of his left arm.

Kantor's eyes burned into him.

"We spoke of this once," said Kantor. "After the judgement was passed on Janus Kennon, we spoke of this."

Cortez nodded. "And I was honest with you then. You know me better than anyone. Did you really expect me to quell my rage until we reached the capital?"

"I expected you to honour the ways of the Chapter, captain. I expected you to honour me. If not as your Chapter Master, then as your friend and brother."

"Of course I-"

"Quiet, damn you! You will hear me out. I cannot have you taking liberties like this. We both know how many battle-brothers look to you for their example. Would you have them disrespect my command as you have done tonight? I am your lord and leader. You think our losses at Arx Tyrannus change anything? They change nothing. The Chapter is mine to lead. You are mine to command. You, me, all of us... we will live or die by the decisions I make, and, in Dorn's name, you will abide by them, Alessio. Remember your place. Be the Space Marine I need you to be, or so help me, things will change forever between us."

Cortez did not want that. He had always thought their friendship a constant in an uncertain universe.

How many times had each saved the other's life? How many times during those first two centuries of service had they stood back-to-back, protecting each other as foes assailed them from all sides? Cortez missed those simpler days. Part of him envied his lower ranking battle-brothers. Command was a great honour, but it was a burden, too, and it had changed things between them. He and Kantor were no longer equals. In fact, they hadn't been equals for more than a century, but Cortez had never felt the gap as keenly as he did now. Naturally, he felt no remorse for the killing of the greenskins, but now he would pay the price for the satisfaction of cutting them down.

"Tonight, I put vengeance before my duty to you," he said. "I have angered you, and for that, I am sorry, brother. I will accept whatever punishment you deem fit. But I do not regret the killing of the xenos. I stand by my actions." He gestured at the nearest of the meaty green corpses. "This filth had to die. The souls of our fallen demanded it."

Kantor glared back in silence for a moment, then said, "The demands of the living outweigh the demands of the dead. You led four of my Crimson Fists into a battle we could have avoided. I'm initiating the Ceres Protocol. There are not enough of us left to risk losing any more in satisfying your damned rage. You will accept a penance from the Chaplains at the capital once all this is over. Perhaps they will help you understand your error, since it seems I cannot."

He turned away from Cortez.

The other Fists, having satisfied themselves that all the orks were dead, now began carrying the heavy alien bodies to the fire where they threw them into the crackling flames. It was standard practice to burn greenskin bodies after combat, and it had to be done quickly. Orks multiplied by shedding spores. Within hours, the air would be filled with them, tiny cellular capsules dispersing on the breeze. Most would not find suitable ground, but a percentage would land in dark, damp places and take root. Fungal protrusions would sprout from the ground, and below, a new life, born to hack a bloody path across the galaxy, would begin to take form.

Slumped against the white plaster wall of one of the farm's hab-blocks, the woman and her five children huddled together, still weeping, still unable to break free of the terror that had gripped them, unsure of what would happen next. They did not watch the burning of the foe. They had seen more than enough of burning bodies tonight.

"Daybreak is but three hours away," said Kantor. "I had hoped to be much closer to the Azcalan by now. Tell the others we leave as soon as the last of the bodies is on the fire."

With this, he left Cortez and strode towards the woman and her children.

Cortez watched him go.

With the ork dead now crisping on the blaze, there was only one more matter to attend.

"The woman's name," reported broad-faced Brother Galica as the Chapter Master stopped beside him, "is Jilenne."

"Jilenne," Kantor repeated with a nod. "Thank you, brother. Make ready to leave."

Galica saluted, turned and strode off towards his squad who were running quick armour and weapons checks in preparation for moving out. Kantor looked down at the cowering civilians. They were huddled together in a knot. Galica had given the woman a canteen of water and she was trying to coax her still-shaking children into taking small sips.

How wretched they looked. No child should see what they had seen. No Rynnite civilian was supposed to endure this. It was the responsibility of the Crimson Fists to protect mankind. How did this woman judge him? He had failed in that task. Her husband had been burned alive not more than five metres in front of her. The man's own children had heard his screams. It seemed impossible to Kantor that any of this, any of it at all, was really happening. War had come to his world despite everything, despite the fact that his very presence should have prevented it. How much had his own decisions precipitated this?

The woman looked so small and fragile, and yet she held her arms round her children as if she might somehow spare them further horrors by her own meagre power. She did not look up at him, but whether that was out of fear or respect, he could only guess. Was she as terrified of the Astartes as she was of the orks?

He had removed his battle helm before speaking with Cortez, and had left it off deliberately so as to make the woman feel more at ease while they spoke, but he wasn't sure now that it would make any difference. With a conscious effort to soften his voice, he said to her, "Have you or your children suffered any wounds?"

The question sounded foolish to him the moment he said it. Of course they were wounded, though perhaps not physically. In their eyes, the universe had changed forever. No night would ever again bring peaceful, restful sleep. Vision of green horrors would torment every last one of them until the day they died. The Imperial records spoke for themselves. Many who encountered alien races went mad, no longer able to believe there was any safe place in a galaxy that tolerated such abominations. Others committed suicide rather than face the grim truth.

"We will be leaving you soon," he told her. "My Astartes and I have far to go. Is there anything you need before we depart?"

The woman murmured to her children, and slowly, reluctantly, they untangled their arms from around her.

Kantor watched.

When her children had drawn back, the woman crawled forward on her knees and, sobbing quietly, pressed her forehead to Kantor's right boot.

"You saved us, lord. By the Golden Throne, by the God-Emperor's light, you saved us. I beg you, in the name of Holy Terra, don't abandon us now. The beasts will come back, won't they?"

I did not save you, thought Kantor. Alessio did.

She was right about the orks. More would come. Many more. It was as inevitable as the sunrise. The ork bikers often rode at the head of a much larger contingent. When that contingent arrived, there would be no saviours a second time. The woman and her little ones would provide a brief moment of entertainment before they were butchered like the livestock they had once depended on.

But if we take responsibility for these people, Kantor thought bitterly, where does it end? Are we to save every other man, woman and child we happen across? They will slow us down when our greatest need is to move quickly.