Temptation could not touch him, for there was no glory he desired. He fought for Terra and for Baal. He fought for the Emperor and the Imperium.

Death could not touch him, for he was the lord of the Blood Angels, and in this heart of the enemy’s domain, it was he who had come as death.

The Angel launched himself into the air. With sword and spear, he fell on Madail. The daemon snarled and raised its bladed staff to counter.

The weapons clashed with the flash of suns.

Seventeen

Seventeen

The Reaping

The Sthenelus came in from below towards the Veritas Ferrum. Helmsman Kiriktas guided the frigate towards the belly of the monster. On Khalybus’ orders, he had taken the Sthenelus far beneath the plane of the ecliptic even as he had begun to turn the ship for the attack run. The Sthenelus rose now in a steep diagonal with respect to the Veritas. A cloud of daemonic ships was approaching, some of them in line with the Sthenelus. Beyond them was another cloud, the billowing thunderhead of the contracting necrosphere.

The Veritas’ escort was almost in range. ‘We have time for one attack before we are destroyed,’ Khalybus said. ‘Let it be our most ferocious. For Ferrus Manus and the Tenth Legion, for Durun Atticus and One Hundred and Eleventh Clan-Company, we will strike against the corruption of the machine.’ He paused, watching the Veritas Ferrum grow larger in the oculus. Already it was so huge, the bottom of the hull covered the stars. The Sthenelus was rushing towards a ceiling in the void. The ceiling had eyes and mouths. It slavered with hunger.

At least it had no guns.

‘Helmsman,’ Khalybus said. ‘We fire, and then we withdraw.’ The command left a foul taste in his mouth. It was contrary to the design and the spirit of the Sthenelus; it was not made for a darting attack. He had no choice. The scale of war had changed. In head-on confrontation with the colossus the Veritas Ferrum had become, the Sthenelus would not last long.

The machine is adaptable, Khalybus thought. The tool is shaped for the task, or else it fails. He had adapted since Isstvan V. He had sacrificed his strike cruiser Bane of Asirnoth in a run that had only appeared to be a retreat, but had been a trap to destroy an entire fleet of the Emperor’s Children. This time, the flight would be genuine.

One strike. I will gut you if I can, he thought.

The Sthenelus rose higher. The Veritas Ferrum filled the oculus. The auspex screens in the strategium flashed red as the first of the escorts came in range.

‘Fire,’ Khalybus said. Fire everything, he thought. And burn, you foul thing. Burn, for defiling your name and the memory of the heroes you have betrayed.