Henricos recognised his sudden fatalism.

'You gave us back our dignity and honour,' said the colonel, 'and I thank you for that, my lord.'

A high-pitched whine. Rapid air displacement and the splash of hot fluid against his face told Henricos the old man was dead before he saw the gaping hole in the veteran's chest.

Salazarian fell, dead-eyed and still, into the arms of the Iron Hand who cradled him to the ground.

The storm was ebbing but the darkness of it was slow to disperse. His brothers would not reach him in time. Men were dying in droves as the eldar gave their last. They were dying too, but were not content to do so alone. They wanted the Space Marine's head. They wanted Bion Henricos.

'For the Gorgon!' he cried, leaving his Medusan steel-edge impaled in the earth so he could draw his bolt pistol. Shells sprayed in an arc of muzzle flare that left a tongue of fire in the air. Alien bodies were struck and died in explosive agony. A head shot through the darkness took out a warleader whose falchion had looked as keen as its wielder.

'For the Gor'

Something hit Henricos in the neck, possibly a shuriken from an eldar bow-caster. He grunted, felt it burn. A las-beam pierced his thigh a half-second later. He staggered, slid the combat shield off his butchered forearm, and tried to clutch the graze across his throat with the stump of his wrist but found it wanting. A further beam lanced his torso, somewhere between chest and shoulder. Falling to one knee, Henricos fired off a desultory burst.

Warning icons flashed loudly and insistently on his retinal display. He ripped off his helm to silence them.

Closing his eyes, Henricos prepared for the end when a hand touched his shoulder and he opened them again.

'The war's not done with you yet, Iron Hand,' said a voice of ice and fire.

The giant before Bion Henricos was clad in armour of coal-black. His powerful arms shimmered with lustrous silver that flowed like mercury. Eyes of knapped flint regarded him sternly, and the hammer in his hand could sunder mountains.

Ferrus Manus had returned, and the eldar were fleeing.

'The storm has ended, brother,' said the primarch, and held out his hand. 'Now, stand with me to see it finished.'

Henricos heard the rest of the Legion approaching through the fire and smoke of the battle.

Santar and the Morlocks were first to the primarch's side. Joy at the sight of the Father was hard for them to contain. Their bolters and blades sang.

The node fell quickly, though much of what followed was a blur for Henricos. He carried Salazarian back to friendly lines. Barely three hundred of the veterans returned alive with him.

They would later be honoured for their part and recognised as adopted sons of Medusa. They were the first of the Chainveil, destined to be its captains, and living proof of the concession that, from that day, not all flesh was weak.

Santar found him at the edge of the battlefield, standing vigil over Bion Henricos.

After he'd returned the body of Colonel Salazarian, the sergeant had fallen unconscious from his injuries.

'He will live,' said the Gorgon, 'but he will need further augmentation.'

'As is his right. The Iron Fathers can tend to him,' Santar replied. 'I had thought to punish him for turning on the Iron Creed.'

'You still should.'

Santar considered that, but other thoughts were dominant in his mind and rose to the surface.

'What happened?'

'It doesn't matter,' said Ferrus in a quiet voice. His mood hardened abruptly and he met the first captain's questioning gaze. 'It changes nothing.'

The primarch beckoned to one of his legionaries, who set up a hololithic projector in the earth. Word had reached the Iron Hands that the Salamanders had discovered a second 'prime' node in the jungle. With victory in the desert, Ferrus was determined to meet his brother.

'Are we leaving?' asked Santar as the hololith came to life in a grainy cone of grey light.

'We are. Gather the Morlocks and tell them we're headed to the jungle.' A thin smile betrayed the primarch's pleasure. 'My brother has need of us.'

As Ferrus began his communication with Vulkan, Santar did as he was ordered, but despite his lord's return he couldn't shake the feeling that all was not well. Whatever had occurred during the Gorgon's absence had left an indelible mark, one that would resonate into the future. Perhaps all their futures.

The ossified highways that led from their cocooned sanctuary were perilous, but there was little choice but to brave them. The scrap of malfeasant sentience that had found its way into Lathsarial's pseudo-world was dead, slain by the Gorgon.

It would be millennia before it could return.

Lathsarial staggered and the Diviner helped him walk. The ignorant creature he was trying to save had wounded him. Despair and anguish bled out of him in a psychic wake that would attract other predators. They needed to find safe haven quickly.

'I have failed,' he moaned, utterly desolated. 'I have allowed a war to come to pass that will decimate our race when we are already so few.'

The Diviner's attention was on the webway around them. He kept his senses alert to any crack, any seemingly insignificant fissure. Many sub-realms had already been devoured and more would follow as the conflict Lathsarial had fought so hard to prevent came to pass.

Such things were inevitable, and so the Diviner's mood was sanguine.

'It was not your war to avert,' he said, opening up a fresh channel in the bone road that was seldom trodden and therefore safer. 'A healing place is close.'

Lathsarial did not answer. The farseer was inconsolable.

'Humans are closed-minded,' said the Diviner. 'Even those that consider themselves greater, like the Gorgon. He has feet of iron, fixed to his fate and his doom.'

'But he does not condemn himself alone, but a galaxy. One that is destined to be engulfed in flames.'

Cool light bathed them as they found the healing place at last. The Diviner set Lathsarial down upon a slab of bone and bade him rest.

As the other farseer faded from consciousness, the Diviner revisited his vision of prescience. Three times he had seen the exact same eventuality unfold. That, in itself, was remarkable.

'There is hope,' he muttered. 'In the empire of the Battle-King, he who would install an heir. Even if the Gorgon falls and fails to heed our warning, there is another who will listen, one who was lost.'

The Lion

Gav Thorpe

~ DRAMATIS PERSONAE ~.

The I Legion 'Dark Angels'

Lion El'jonson, Primarch Corswain, Primarch's Seneschal Stenius, Captain of the Invincible Reason Tragan, Captain of the Ninth Order Nemiel, Brother-Redemptor Asmodeus, Battle-brother The X Legion 'Iron Hands'

Lasko Midoa, Iron Father Casalir Lorramech, Captain of the 98th Company The XIV Legion 'Death Guard'

Calas Typhon, First Captain Vioss, Captain Imperial Personae Theralyn Fiana, Navigator of House Ne'iocene Khir Doth Iaxis, High Magos of the Mechanicum Non-Imperial Personae Tuchulcha 'There is but one reason and one reason alone in the exercise of power: to further one's agenda. Be it selfish or altruistic, such agenda should be the whole of one's concern without distraction if power is to be expended to its benefit. One need only look to the example of the Emperor's Great Crusade for proof of this eternal truth; when distraction came it was to the ruin of all.'

Lyaedes, Intermissions, M31

I.

The lord of the First Legion sat as he so often sat these nights, leaning back in his ornate throne of ivory and obsidian. His elbows rested upon the throne's sculpted arms, while his fingers were steepled before his face, just barely touching his lips. Unblinking eyes, the brutal green of Caliban's forests, stared dead ahead, watching the flickering hololith of embattled stars.

Aboard the Invincible Reason, flagship of the Dark Angels, Lion El'Jonson thought long and hard. There were many things for him to reason out, yet no matter how hard he tried to stay focused on the military effort to bring the Night Lords to battle, his mind was drawn back to an imponderable dilemma.

Eighty-two days had passed since his confrontation with Konrad Curze on the desolate world of Tsagualsa. Eighty-two days had been enough for his body to heal, for the most part, the grievous wounds the Night Haunter's claws had inflicted upon the Lion's superhuman flesh. The armour he wore had been repaired and refurbished and repainted, so that not a mark of Curze's violence showed upon its ebon surface.

On the outside, the Lion was fully recovered, but within lay the most hideous injuries, inflicted not by the Night Haunter's weapons but by his words.

No risk of the fair Angels falling? When did you last walk upon the soil of Caliban, oh proud one?

The tides of the warp influenced communication as much as they did travel, and no sure word had been heard from Caliban for two years. In times past, the hateful words of Curze would have been easy to dismiss. The loyalty of the Dark Angels had been beyond question. They were the First Legion, ever the noblest in the eyes of all; even when the Luna Wolves earned great praise and Horus was raised to Warmaster, no others could claim the title of First Legion.

Yet such times seemed a lifetime ago now; civil war and schism tore apart the Imperium, and the surety of the past was no guarantee of the present, or the future. Could the Lion trust that his Legion remained loyal to him? Trust was not a natural state for the primarch. Was there some deeper purpose to the Night Lords' endless war in the Thramas system? Did Curze speak the truth and keep the Lion occupied here while agents of Horus swayed the loyalty of the Dark Angels to another cause?

Trust had been a scarce commodity for the Lion before Horus's betrayal, and even then he had been taken for a fool. Perturabo had used his status as a brother to trick the Lion, taking control of the devastating war engines of Diamat under the guise of alliance, only to turn those weapons against the servants of the Emperor. The shame of being so manipulated gnawed at the Lion's conscience, and he would never again accept the simple word of his brothers.

It was an impossible question and an impossible predicament. The Lion had pondered the meaning of the Night Haunter's words every night, even as he analysed the movements and strategy of his foe, trying to get one step ahead of his elusive enemy. The Night Haunter had had no reason to lie; Curze had been trying to kill his brother as he spoke. Yet they might just be random spite, as had so often spilled from the lips of Konrad Curze, who had used falsehood as a weapon long before he had turned from the grace of the Emperor; lies were second nature to the primarch and came to him as easily as breaths.

The Lion despised himself for giving credence to the lie, creating the poison that ate away at his resolve. It was simple enough to vow that Thramas would not be surrendered to the Night Lords; it was another matter entirely to prosecute a war against an enemy determined not to fight. With every night that passed, the prospect of decisive battle lessened and the desire to return to Caliban and ensure everything was in order strengthened. Yet the Lion could not abandon the war, if only because it might be a return to Caliban that the Night Haunter desired.

While these thoughts vexed the primarch, at the appointed hour three of his little brothers arrived to brief him on the current situation.

The first to enter was Corswain, former Champion of the Ninth Order, recently appointed as the Primarch's Seneschal. Across the back of his armour he wore the white pelt of a fanged Calibanite beast, and beneath that hung a white robe split at the back, its breast adorned with an embroidered wing sword. His helm hung on his belt, revealing a broad face and close-cropped blond hair.

Just behind Corswain came Captain Stenius, commander of the Invincible Reason. His face was a literal mask of flesh, almost immobile due to nerve damage suffered during the Great Crusade. His eyes had been replaced with smoky silver lenses that glittered in the lights of the chamber, as inscrutable as the rest of his expression.

The last of the trio was Captain Tragan of the Ninth Order, who had been raised to the position by the primarch following the debacle at Tsagualsa. The captain's soft brown eyes were at odds with his stern demeanour, his curls of dark brown hair cut to shoulder-length and kept from his aquiline face with a band of black-enamelled metal. It was Tragan that spoke first.

'The Night Lords refused engagement at Parthac, my liege, but we arrived too late to stop the destruction of the primary orbital station there. The remaining docking facilities cannot cope with anything larger than a frigate, as I suspect was the enemy's intent.'

'That's three major docks they have taken out in the past six months,' said Stenius. 'It is clear that they are denying us refitting and resupply stations.'

'The question is why,' said the Lion, stroking his chin. 'The Night Lords cruisers and battle-barges require such stations as much as ours. I am forced to conclude that they have abandoned any ambition of claiming Parthac, Questios and Biamere and seek to hamper our fleet movements for some manoeuvre in the future.'

'I would say that it has the hint of desperation, a stellar scorched earth policy,' said Stenius.

'We cannot rule out Curze commanding such attacks simply out of spite,' added Corswain. 'Perhaps there is no deeper meaning behind these recent attacks, except to exasperate and confuse us.'

'Yet that will still be a part of a bigger plan,' said the Lion. 'For more than two years we have duelled across the stars, and throughout that war the Night Haunter has always been moving towards some endgame I have not yet fathomed. I will think on this latest development. What else have you to report?'

'The normal fleet movements and scouting reports are in my latest briefing, my liege,' said Tragan. 'Nothing out of the ordinary, if there is such a thing.'

'There was one report that I found odd, my liege,' said Corswain. 'A broken astropathic message, barely discernable from the background traffic. It would be unremarkable except that it contains mention of the Death Guard Legion.'

'Mortarion's Legion is in Thramas?' The Lion growled and glared at his subordinates. 'You think this is not a matter to bring to me immediately?'

'Not the Legion, my liege,' said Tragan. 'A handful of ships, a few thousand warriors at most. The transmission does not seem to originate from the Thramas theatre, my liege, but from a system several hundred light years from Balaam.'

'The message fragments also mention a task force from the Iron Hands in the same vicinity,' said Corswain. 'Some skirmish I think, unlikely to impact on our conflict here.'

'The system, what was it called?' said the Lion. The primarch's eyes narrowed with suspicion as he asked the question.

Tragan consulted the data-slate he held in his hand.

'Perditus, my liege,' said the Ninth Order captain.

'It's barely inhabited, my liege,' added Stenius. 'A small Mechanicum research facility, nothing of import.'

'You are wrong,' said the Lion, standing up. 'I know Perditus. I claimed the system for the Emperor, alongside warriors of the Death Guard. What your records do not show, Captain Stenius, is the nature of the research undertaken by the Mechanicum there. Perditus was meant to be kept secret, off-limits to every Legion, but it seems that the Death Guard have other plans.'

'Off-limits, my liege?' Tragan was taken aback by the notion. 'What could be so dangerous?'

'Knowledge, my little brother,' replied the Lion. 'Knowledge of a technology that cannot be allowed to fall into the hands of the traitors. We must assemble a task force at Balaam. A force that can overwhelm anything the Death Guard or Iron Hands have in the area.'

'What of the Night Lords, my liege?' asked Corswain. 'If we relent in our hunt across this sector, or weaken our forces here too much, Curze will make fine sport of the systems we cannot protect.'

'That is a risk I must take,' replied the primarch. 'Perditus is a prize that we must seize from the traitors. I had almost forgotten about it, but now it is brought to mind, I think that perhaps Perditus may hold the key to victory in Thramas too. I shall lead the task force personally. The Invincible Reason will be my flagship, Captain Stenius. The Fourth, Sixth, Ninth, Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Thirtieth Orders are to muster at Balaam.'

'More than thirty thousand warriors!' said Tragan, forgetting himself. He bowed his head in apology when the Lion directed a sharp glare at him.

'When, my liege?' asked Corswain.