Hierax would leave nothing behind but ash. The Annunciation was a dead ship even if the Word Bearers aboard believed otherwise. ‘Signal Chapter Master Iasus,’ Guilliman said. ‘Captain Hierax is to take the Annunciation’s Navigators alive.’

‘Understood.’

Guilliman sheathed the athames in his belt. He felt their presence as a cold pressure. He would store them securely as soon as he could. He drew his own weapons again and made his way back down the splinter, towards the sound of battle. He stopped while he was still out of sight. He listened to his sons purge the traitors from the Samothrace. He was the light in the shadows, holding back though instinct urged him to join the fight. The correct practical was to wait for the right moment, and then he would bring his avenging light to bear on the traitors.

What choice, ever?

The wait was a short one.

‘The fleet is here, primarch,’ Altuzer voxed.

‘Begin,’ Guilliman ordered.

The Night Lords were the first to react. The World Eaters were too focused on the chance to destroy the Ultramarines ships before them, so consumed with frustrated anger that the athame mission was taking so long, they barely noticed the first contacts on the auspex array. The Word Bearers vessels, in the centre of the operation, realised what was coming sooner, but the concentration of the squadron around the Samothrace and the Cavascor slowed their manoeuvre to face the approaching threat. The Night Lords, already hanging back, took the first contact seriously. Their squadron turned away from the Samothrace immediately.

The next contacts showed how big the threat was. Now the World Eaters reacted too. New contacts appeared with every second.

Wise heads on each ship realised what was happening. They had known this was a possibility. They had trusted in the prophet and the captain of the De Profundis to make the kill before now.

The squadrons were stronger than the two ships they had trapped. But they were not a fleet, and it was a fleet that came for them.

The Night Lords accelerated quickly. The strike cruisers Vitam ­Mortem and Night Revelation, with the frigates Infinite Fall, ­Phosphene and Descent from Hope did not look for a fight they could not win. They raced to translate into the empyrean while there was still time. The Glorious Nova fell on them, and with it the strike cruisers High Ascent, Cornucopia and Triumph of Reason, and almost a dozen frigates. At the command of the Glorious Nova, Captain Lucretius Corvo muttered thanks to the fates when he saw the Legion markings of the ships he was about to destroy. The streaks of hundreds of torpedoes carved the void with light, and every strike was an act of justice for the dead of Sotha.