The breach came in the bridge’s vault. It snaked in sharp angles down the height of the wall. It vibrated with the hum of a million flies. It began to peel back, metal framework and marble cladding turning flesh-red, flesh-supple, flesh-weak. The buzzing of the flies filled the command deck. The taste of the sound was foul on Sanguinius’ tongue. He felt the crawl of legs and the flutter of wings.

A bell tolled, and with the chanting of a thousand festering tongues, the tear split wide.

Two

Two

Divisions

His name had been Toc Derenoth. He still accepted the syllables as a designation of his physical presence, but they were no longer the sum of his being. He had once marched in the Third Hand of the Word Bearers, but he had transcended that role. He had once served the Chaplain Kurtha Sedd. He had transcended that role, too. He had become the greater truth of the Word. He was two and he was one. He had cast away limits of flesh and the lies of old existence.

He was Unburdened.

He had resisted the coming of his transformation. In the profound depths of Calth, Kurtha Sedd had brought the gift upon him, and he had struggled to hold on to his trivial humanity. He had sinned against the Word. He had spurned the will of the gods. And so, there had been penance.

He was Unburdened, yet he was imprisoned. He sat in the command throne of the battle-barge De Profundis. Psychic and physical chains bound him there. His nerves and the power conduits of the ship were one. Throughout the halls and chambers of the vessel, a ritual was proceeding, binding his being and the ship’s more and more tightly.

He welcomed the duty of his chains because they presaged his bloody redemption. They were an agony as sublime as his transformation. Arrogance and selfish designs had, in the end, doomed Kurtha Sedd, who had sought his own transformation too late. Toc Derenoth had learned obedience. He had learned to submit to goals greater than his own, and he had been rewarded. A being had come to him on Calth. It called itself a celebrant of undivision. It took him from Calth. It brought him to the De Profundis to take part in a great hunt.

When the ritual was complete, he would be unleashed upon the prey.

Not long. Not long.

His jaws parted in the long, slavering smile of truth.

‘We’re losing formation coherence,’ said Verus Caspean, Chapter Master of the First.

So soon. Guilliman kept the frustration from his face. This jump was even shorter than the last, and the storm was about to force his squadron back into real space.