The great machines were an inspiration to all within the Chapter and the dreaded bane of their enemies. To face one of these ancient, black-hulled colossi was to stare the vengeful wrath of the Emperor in the face.

The next clan-leader Gdolkin did not recognise. He was still helmeted but what marked him out from the other council members was the fact that from the waist down his body was entirely cybernetic, his legs formed like piston-powered pile-drivers. However, he, like Gdolkin, had an additional, robotic arm arching over his back, such as the Techmarines of other Chapters bore. The stylised wrench that formed part of the design on his right shoulder plate marked him out as being from the Sorrgol clan. Gdolkin had not met this Iron Hand before but he had heard of Iron-Father Bartolk's demise on Malbolge IV and that his replacement was one Orban Lomax.

Then there was a brother in full Terminator armour, although he too was unhelmeted, his dark hair cropped short, a skull-drone sporting an array of augury and auspex scanners hovering in the air at his shoulder, the units of its grav-assembly humming softly. One knee was entirely artificial, as was the entirety of his right arm. Gdolkin recognised who he was by reputation alone. This man surely could only be Brother Avidan. Gdolkin had never fought alongside him personally, even in over two hundred years of campaigning, from the far reaches of the Segmentum Tempestus to the burning shores of Armageddon, as a fully invested Space Marine.

The sixth of the gathered clan chiefs was bald, like Gdolkin. His nose, mouth and chin were covered by a rebreather unit built into the chest plate of his power armour. The Iron-Father's enhanced senses picked up the regular wheezing groan of lung pumps coming from the rebreather, as spent air was exhaled through the venting grilles.

Next to him, rigid and unmoving like one of the statues Gdolkin had passed in the Gallery of Heroes on his way to the council chamber, leg units braced, standing like a guardian sentinel, was the second dreadnought, Warleader Bannus. Here, truly, was one of the ancient warriors of legend. The renowned pre-eminent Iron-Father of his age, Paullian Blantar, inspiration to the Kaargul clan company for many centuries, had performed the tech-surgery that bound Bannus to this dreadnought body, in the aftermath of the dark eldar attack on the industrial world of Kaladrone. He had been an integral member of the great clan council for longer than Gdolkin had been an Iron Hand, and his great wisdom and valuable experience continued to benefit the Chapter as a whole.

Bannus's left arm sported a chainfist with incorporated storm bolter; his right was a huge assault cannon attachment. On a banner pole rising from the back of his hulking adamantium body Bannus bore his personal clan heraldry.

Standing between the hulking war machine and another on the other side was a Space Marine in adapted Terminator armour, lightning sparking in the shadows cast by the two dreadnoughts. As Gdolkin looked he thought he saw the Librarian's eyes flash and a nimbus of crackling eldritch energy play about the circuit-inlaid hood surrounding his head.