‘For Calth!’ went the cry. The Ultramarines fleet had been reduced by that betrayal, yet it was still the largest of any Legion. Many of the ships that had survived that day were present now. Their legionaries, hungry for victories and for justice, took their measure of revenge, and rejoiced.

‘For Calth! For Calth! For Calth!’

Guilliman oversaw the extermination of the squadron from the bridge of the Samothrace. He stayed focused. He monitored every action, and approved of the decisions of his sons. But the athames pulled at him. When the last of the enemy ships were guttering torches, he returned to his quarters alone. He sealed the door. A twenty-foot vault dominated the starboard wall. He opened it, revealing compartmentalised stasis chambers. He placed the athames in an empty one, engaged the field and stepped back. The air between him and the blades shimmered slightly. The vault door boomed when he shut it. Hexagrammic circuits locked the vault down tight. It would open to him and no one else. The athames were secured now. They were beyond doing harm.

His hand rested on the wheel of the door.

They can be studied now, he thought. Maybe they can be used.

In the lower levels of the Samothrace, cells held the Navigators captured from the Annunciation and transported by Thunderhawk from the Cavascor. They, too, might be used.

Theoretical. The tools of the enemy subverted from their purpose can be among the most effective weapons against the foe.

Theoretical. These tools may be dangerous in their own right. Any attempted use may invite disaster.

His analysis was incomplete. He couldn’t tell which theoretical was the most valid.

What choice, ever?

He thought he heard the voice in the flame laugh.

He doesn’t know he’s already lost.

Sanguinius beholds a vision of Horus aboard the Vengeful Spirit

Five

Five

Chorale

The Lion’s Stormbird approached the rent in the hull of a mass conveyer. The ship was one of the largest in the graveyard. Apart from the breach, which extended almost a third of its length, it was intact. Pict and vid screens displayed shifting views of the freighter. The Lion sat on an elevated throne, eyeing the images, trying to pierce the ship’s secret. The gunship’s lights picked out its name above the breach, a quarter of the way back from the prow. It was the Chorale. The marlins were faded, almost invisible. The ship had been in a poor state of repair long before its end.

The Lion frowned. He turned to Khalybus. ‘You said the ships were not warp-capable. A conveyor of this size would be.’