The Red Tear came about through the ignited plasma fog that had been the Sable. The cruiser had died a second time, but not before inflicting fratricidal wounds on the battleship. The scars of the daemonic burn festered on the lengths of the hull. Carminus turned the Red Tear away from its run at the Veritas Ferrum. The huge abomination had recovered from the wound inflicted by the Samothrace. It was accelerating again. Its salvoes were frenzied, indiscriminate. It was a maddened predator, attacking as if it would destroy the entire fleet on its own. Carminus thought it might yet succeed. The combined fleets had lost a third of their ships. They had held the daemon fleet at a constant size, but that was not even stalemate. That was a slight delay to defeat. And the bones of the necrosphere smashed though the battle zone, breaching hulls, shearing off cannon batteries, ramming through sterns and destroying engines. When they hit the daemon ships, they stuck like tremors to the hulls, accumulating grotesquery and strength.

Carminus had brought the Red Tear parallel with the Veritas. He vowed to sell the life of the vessel and its crew with honour. They would hurt the monster again, even if they could not kill it. The Samothrace had set its pyre, and had died well. It was ash in the void now, and had not come back. The Red Tear was not alone in making a last, bloody stand. The formations had collapsed into disorder. The near space of Davin was a cloud of individual ­battles. The commanders of the three fleets saw the end coming, and the vessels that could do so converged on the Veritas Ferrum. It welcomed their sacrifice with jaws agape.

Then the call had come. Sanguinius had returned. The ground forces were withdrawing in haste. The order was given by all three primarchs. Return to Davin and destroy it.

The Red Tear changed heading. It turned away from the Veritas Ferrum. Carminus’ hope raced ahead of the gradual turn of the battle­ship’s prow. His hope ran before them, seeking time they did not have. The void shields flared again and again as bone clusters battered the hull.

‘The Veritas Ferrum is altering course,’ Mautus warned. ‘It is closing with us.’

‘The enemy senses its end,’ Carminus said. ‘It is desperate.’

Not as desperate as we are, he thought. He could feel the shadow of the daemon ship pressing down on his shoulders.

Not soon enough, Davin came into view. Not soon enough, he saw the transports and gunships rising from the atmosphere, heading for the vessels that had remained on reserve. The stream of the departing ground forces would not be done soon enough. Carminus’ will joined his hope in urging the gunships to greater speed.

‘The Encarnadine is gone,’ Mautus said.

The cruiser had been a short distance ahead of the Red Tear before the turn. The Veritas Ferrum bit it in half.