The frigate’s shape was battered. It looked like an ancient iron ingot, eroded and gnawed by rust and time. The hull was scarred by las-burns and patched repairs over torpedo hits. Some of its cannon batteries were gone, leaving behind wounds like broken teeth. The architecture of the upper hull was not much more than a functional ruin, yet the ship still conveyed the strength of a clenched fist. It was bloodied, but had not fallen.

The Lion thought of the Iron Hands he had encountered on Macragge. They bore the loss of Ferrus Manus and the shattering of their Legion with a mix of stoicism and brooding, vengeful silence. And those were the fortunate ones. They had reached Ultramar. They could become part of a multi-Legion alliance against Horus. This ship was alone. Its warriors must have been fighting a war of skirmishes since Isstvan V. The Lion doubted they had had any chance of resupply. Their survival was impressive.

‘Captain Khalybus has asked to be received,’ Stenius went on.

‘We will welcome him and his escort aboard,’ the Lion said. ‘With all due ceremony.’ Meaning all due caution.

‘Understood,’ said Holguin.

An honour guard would receive the Iron Hands captain in the landing bay, and in the hall leading from there. There would be full respect and full security. The Lion accepted that the ship was the Sthenelus. After this long in these storm-wracked regions, so close to the Maelstrom, there was no assurance that what walked the frigate was what it claimed to be.

He waited until a Thunderhawk pulled away from the Sthenelus. Then he withdrew to the ship’s council chamber to wait.

The hall was a large, solemn space, dimly lit as if jealous of its secrets. Six iron chairs were placed in an arc around the Lion’s throne, three on each side, one for each voted lieutenant of the Hexagrammaton. The circle took up the centre of the chamber, and left a vast expanse of shadows between it and the walls. The banners of the Six Wings hung from the high dome. They were barely visible in the gloom, whispers of strength. They swayed with slow, deliberate movements in the ventilation currents.

The Lion took his throne, flanked today only by Holguin and Farith Redloss, voted lieutenant of Dreadwing. The chamber was a long march from the landing bay. By the time Khalybus arrived, the primarch had received a full security evaluation of the captain. He was who he said, and there was no taint of the warp around him.