Carminus cursed the treachery of time. ‘Target cyclonic torpedoes on the temple valley,’ he said. Then he waited for his primarch’s signal, or for the death ship to devour the Red Tear.

The Vyssini was among the last of the ships to leave the corrupted world. Sanguinius ordered it to fly a holding pattern over the Delphos until the evacuation was complete. The outer walls of the structure fell at last, exposing the portal. Sanguinius stared at the raging wound in reality, and knew that the herald still held Madail in place. Had the herald fallen, the daemon would have commanded the hordes of lesser abominations in the land beyond.

Caught between Davin and the Veritas Ferrum, Madail formed a link between the ship and the planet. Davin had been inert when the primarchs had come to the temple. Now it was violently alive in the place where the fate of the galaxy had been altered once before. Now there was an unstable fusion of the materium and the warp, and fate hung in the balance once more.

At last the Talon rose from the crater blackened by tens of thousands of rampaging abominations. The Vyssini turned away from Davin. Ahead, the Veritas Ferrum loomed behind the Red Tear. The ship was so vast, it seemed much closer than it was. There were other vessels between it and the Angel’s flagship. They were insignificant prey before it. Sanguinius had seen the interior of the monster. The exterior was a new form of horror. The malevolence of the vessel surpassed the will of Madail. It did not need its master. It would ravage the galaxy forever. It was coming now to destroy the Imperial vessels before they could destroy Davin. It would finish what its master could not. It would swallow whole the remaining hope of the Imperium.

‘Brothers,’ he voxed Guilliman and the Lion. ‘It must be now.’ They were on gunships that had started their climbs at the same time as the Talon.

Azkaellon, a few paces away, said, ‘My lord, we are barely free of Davin’s gravity well.’

‘We must run the risk.’

‘I concur,’ said Guilliman. ‘The moment is about to pass.’

Sanguinius saw the moments to come. He saw the Red Tear murdered and transformed. He saw the turning point join them, and the fleet falling quickly to the plague of revenants.

Is this what it is like for you, Konrad? he thought. Always to see, always to know, what will and what must be?

Everything was too close to Davin now. The density of conflict turned the vicinity of the world into a charnel house. The immense guns of the Veritas Ferrum unleashed a continuous barrage. Vessels died off its port, starboard and bow. The first of the bone clusters were falling on Davin, taking out transports and gunships in fiery collisions.

‘Launch the torpedoes now, Carminus,’ Sanguinius shouted. ‘Do it now!’