The further the enemy were driven back, the more the visibility improved. The shattered remains of trees emerged from the departing vapours. Soon Felix could see all the way to the main highway where Astra Militarum Chimera tanks, caked in mud from their amphibious crossing of the river, cut their way across the wasteland, heading with all speed to Espandoria Tertio. Other Space Marines were landing ahead, deployed from their gunships by the score. Felix urged his men on, eager to re-engage the enemy before they were all dead.

After twenty minutes of marching, they were three quarters of the way to Espandoria Tertio’s compact centre. The group reached a mound of shattered rockcrete on the edge of a ruined habitation district with clear views out back over the river.

‘Wait here,’ he commanded his followers. He invited the group’s lieutenant and sergeants to accompany him, and together they set off up the hill.

At the summit, they surveyed the landscape. The roads out of the city were whole, and attracting a growing amount of traffic. On the other side of the sea of mud, teams of Astra Militarum combat engineers had worked with tech-adepts to raise a causeway on the site of the Oderia’s principal bridge, linking the severed halves of the main highway back together. It had recently opened, and battle tanks were coming over the river in a long column. From their vantage point, the course of the Oderia was apparent as a darker patch in the sea of mud. Heavy earth-moving machines were at work in the distance, clawing at the ground with buckets and shovel hands to clear the obstructions that had blocked it. Felix imagined that revolting mess suddenly slipping free from the poisoned land, rushing onwards and tainting the sea.

‘Wholesomeness returns,’ said Macullus Fides, one of the sergeants. He pointed at the sky. The mud on his armour was drying in the rising breeze, flaking off to reveal his cobalt-blue livery beneath.

Felix followed Fides’ finger. A solitary bird winged its way over a ruined exurb. It pumped its wings for ten beats, powering itself forwards, then dropped a little before repeating the exercise.

‘This world will be healed,’ said Felix. ‘The primarch will make it so.’ He believed that wholeheartedly.

The group left the rise and pressed on. Shortly afterwards, they gained the main highway that fed from the outlying districts into the city proper. The columns of Imperial armour ran nose to tail. Felix had his men form into two files and they broke into a rapid jog, outpacing the gridlocked tanks, Malcades’ massive clawed feet making the ground shake.

Soon the centre of Espandoria Tertio was before them.

Espandor was a cardinal world, and therefore its cities were crammed with churches and temples. Felix had still not accepted the way the Emperor was worshipped in this era. It troubled him, though there was no denying the beauty of the buildings raised in His name.