His sons tossed their lives away to spare a few drops of his blood.

Names and faces flashed through his mind, so many bold and honourable men cast down by betrayal. His brothers unwittingly corrupted or undone by personal failing. Others slain. His sons, dying in battle. So many of his sons…

A roaring blackness encroached. He fell, but he hit nothing. It felt like floating. A perfumed ocean lapped at him. Joy rode upon its waves.

Lies, he thought. Lies! I cannot die!

Guilliman forced open his eyes. He was on his back, looking up at the ceiling, his limbs deliciously numb. A treacherous pleasure thrilled his mind as the poison worked on him.

Captain Andros was at his side. A wall of blue ceramite surrounded him.

‘Now, damn you all! Now! Emergency teleport! Emergency teleport!’ shouted Andros, his bolter barking.

He is panicking, Guilliman thought. Andros is panicking.

The howling thrum of sonic weaponry tore away the last of Andros’ words, and his head vanished in a mist of red. Chained explosions boomed around Guilliman. Part of the wall of men guarding him was knocked down. A body sailed through the air, the Ultramarines blue of its power armour cracked open and stained red. Battle roared. A dozen bolters fired near his feet as desperate hands dragged and pulled, hauling him up the steps towards the ruined Phoenix Gate. His armour caught on the corpses of his sons, each knock a spike of agony in his ruined neck. Blood poured down his windpipe into his lungs, making him splutter feebly. He was going to drown in his own blood.

‘Retreat! Retreat!’ called a voice. ‘The day is lost!’

Thiel? thought Guilliman. Is that you?

He could hear Fulgrim’s silken, daemonic laughter drawing nearer.

How many Ultramarines have died to save me?

An instrument chimed, louder than the bleating alarms of Guilliman’s battered armour.

‘They have locus lock, my lord,’ someone else said, close enough that Guilliman felt their breath on his ear, though he could not turn his head to see him. ‘We will have you safe soon.’

Guilliman tried to place a face to the voice. He knew many of his sons, but this one eluded him. His mind was filling with black fog.

‘We’re losing him!’ said the voice, rising in panic. ‘Where’s the tele­port? Get us out of here. Get us–’

Thiel, thought Guilliman. Definitely Thiel.

A flash of blinding light and the bang of air displacement stole Roboute Guilliman away from the blades of his brother.

Time hung, caught between an instant and an eternity. Guilliman ceased to be. For a moment, there was peace.

‘–out of here!’

Another roar, and the needling discomfort of rematerialisation. Guilliman was thrust back through the veil into the world of men, and he fell to the teleport deck with a resounding clang, jarring his wound. Fiery poison sketched out his circulatory system, thrusting the realisation of his own mortality upon him.