The grey did not go on forever. It was, in the end, what it had appeared to be, a shell. It was a few million miles thick, a hair’s breadth in comparison to its diameter. The fleets emerged into the encircled void of the Davin System. For the first time since it had begun to rage, the Ruinstorm was invisible, hidden behind the necrosphere.

We’re in the eye of the storm, Guilliman thought. The calm here was a lie.

Ahead, centred in the oculus, glinting in the grey darkness, was Davin. The shine of its reflected light was the cold of the most profound death.

Thirteen

Thirteen

Scorched Earth

The primarchs gathered in one of the smaller strategiums aboard the Invincible Reason. The chamber was dark, and despite its narrow dimensions, it seemed to Sanguinius that the walls withdrew from the tacticarium table, draping themselves in secrets and shadows.

The table’s hololithic display was of a massive crater on Davin’s surface. It was surrounded by a jagged mountain chain. In its centre stood a temple. The fane was the largest construct the scans had detected, and its position within one of the most distinct geographic features of the planet signalled its importance. The reports sent from Davin by the XVI Legion, the sanitised, misleading records, called the structure the Delphos.

A narrow gorge ran from the crater, cutting through the mountains. The scans had picked up other human artefacts along its length. Statuary, Sanguinius deduced. The gorge looked like a processional avenue to the Delphos.

At the edge of the mapped region, a lone, conical mountain rose from a plain, like an inverted image of the crater’s formation. It had a building of some kind on its peak. The construction was smaller, though, making it a secondary target. Pict screens on the periphery of the table summarised the auspex readings of the rest of the planet.

‘There is nothing down there,’ the Lion said.

Sanguinius pointed to the temple. ‘I hardly call that nothing,’ he said. ‘We know the Davinites were primitive – the ships you found were proof of that. They had to rely on poor salvage. This temple is a work of monumental construction.’

‘Granted,’ said the Lion. ‘But there is nothing unnatural about it. After what we’ve encountered, how much weight are we going to place on something built of stone, by human hands?’

‘Are we going to ignore it?’

‘No. My point is the absence of any activity. The planet is deserted. All evidence points to a total exodus.’

‘To Pandorax,’ said Guilliman.

‘At least in part. Perhaps elsewhere too. But there is no one here. That makes our course of action clear.’

‘Does it?’ Guilliman asked.

‘I’m surprised you haven’t already proposed it, Roboute. We should launch cyclonic torpedoes without delay. If we destroy Davin, we open the way to Terra.’

Sanguinius shook his head. ‘It cannot be that simple.’

‘It was in the Episimos System.’