‘One of the Emperor’s pretty new sons!’ the traitor gurgled. The words were only just comprehensible. He cast down his broken weapon and pulled out a filthy knife. ‘Oh, what rewards would be mine if I could turn you to the primordial truth!’

Felix attacked immediately, swinging his power sword down in a thrumming arc. He pivoted as he did so, putting all his considerable weight and the power of his armour into the attack.

The Plague Marine laughed. The heretic’s size belied his speed, and he deflected Felix’s sword with his blade. The shock to Felix’s arm was immense. The weapon was small, a combat knife of a type carried by Space Marines since the day the Emperor first set them loose on the galaxy. It was corroded, rusted right through near the hilt. It should have shattered. The power of the impact alone should have sent the Plague Marine staggering back. That was Felix’s intention: to come in close, to unbalance and finish the traitor. Somehow, his enemy remained upright, his weapon whole. Unclean power was in the knife and its wielder. Felix’s power sword was flung back, a fresh nick in its blade. From this mar, a tracery of rust and blackness spidered across the metal. The Plague Marine stood firm as old rock.

‘I have been fighting the long war for ten thousand years and more, little soldier,’ said the Plague Marine. ‘It will take more than a reckless blow like that to fell me.’

The traitor struck. Felix raised his gauntlet, pumping shots into the Plague Marine’s torso. Several of the bolts penetrated the crumbling battle­plate and exploded in the traitor’s swollen chest, but though he coughed and gurgled he did not fall.

The Plague Marine slammed into Felix, and both of them fell backwards. A rusty hand closed about the tetrarch’s throat. The plague knife descended, the dark power infused in it tingling Felix’s skin as it pierced the energy field of his iron halo and rushed at his face. With his forearm, Felix smashed the blade aside, and drove the quillion of his power sword through the Plague Marine’s left eye-lens. The traitor reared back. Felix followed up with a blow from his fist. The disruption field shattered the traitor’s chest-plate, and Felix’s hand punched deep into his chest. Stinking matter spattered all over him. The traitor hung dead on his gauntlet, but Felix let fire with the built-in bolter to be sure, blasting out the traitor’s back and causing his smoking power unit to explode with a crackle of green electricity.

For a second, Felix’s eyes and auto-senses were blinded by the insects as they attacked him, seemingly raised to a fury by the Plague Marines’ deaths, but they fell twitching shortly after, suddenly expiring en masse.