‘The enemy wants him,’ the Lion said. He hit the portal again, and cut an even deeper wound. Psychic fire burned the length of the sword and up his arms. The pain was ferocious. His fury was greater. He ripped the chainblade savagely from the portal and Guilliman’s power gauntlet hit again. The flare became a fountain of violet flame that washed over them. It burned, and it was proof they were striking home. ‘This trap was for Sanguinius.’

‘We were secondary targets,’ Guilliman agreed. ‘Why?’ And he struck again.

The Lion thought about the height of the fall, greater still than Horus’. He thought about the power of symbols and of meaning. ‘Because he is the Angel,’ he said.

They struck again, and again. Their attack turned the chamber into a furnace. The walls began to glow. The heat was monstrous. Ethereal flame surrounded the Lion. It wreathed his armour. It seared his flesh and it cut like knives. Blood coursed down his face. Guilliman was as badly off. His lips were pulled back in a determined, wrathful grin. The Lion saw his emotions reflected in his brother’s face. Each blow was retaliation for the way they had been manoeuvred. The raging bursts from the portal were the wounds of the enemy. They were finally making it pay. The action was so small compared to the destruction of the fortress gate of Pyrrhan, yet it felt more real. On Pyrrhan and in the Episimos System, their actions had been planned by the enemy. Sanguinius’ triumph in the manufactorum was a lie. Now they could see the trap. Now they were fighting back in earnest. Now the battle was finally joined.

The Lion cut through the portal from left to right, its light bleeding over the blade’s hilt. The scream from the portal was sound as well as light. The wall behind tore like flesh. The flash from the other side bathed the entire chamber in a sheet of coruscating red and searing white. Guilliman was a barely discernible outline beside the Lion. He slammed the Hand of Dominion into the explosion.

The second blast was larger yet. Violet flames roiled within. It hit the Lion and Guilliman with the force of a hurricane. The portal howled. It roared. It was a dragon of myth, breathing fire against its tormentors. They leaned into the fury, and the Lion saw the portal open once more. It was the jaws of a wounded beast. The light of uncreation and madness shrieked in torrents through the chamber. The far wall cracked. Its stones turned molten. The Lion’s skin blistered in the volcanic heat.