Sanguinius held up a hand before Levannas answered. ‘I want to hear them first-hand,’ he told the Raven Guard. ‘Take us below.’

The primarch’s party walked away from the wall, down a relatively wide and straight avenue, one of a dozen radiating out from the fortress and dividing the camp into sectors. The Sanguinary Guard tried to form a cordon around Sanguinius, but he shook his head and walked on. The people lined the sides of the avenue, weeping at the sight of the Angel. They held their arms out in entreaty. Sanguinius swallowed his distaste in the worship he saw in their eyes and moved back and forth, touching the tips of fingers with his gauntlets. The hope he saw spread through the crowd had value, even if he did not like its source. It was what the refugees called to him that he wanted to hear, though.

‘You will save us!’ they cried.

‘The Emperor has heard us!’

‘The Pilgrim will not find us here!’

‘Shield us from the Pilgrim!’

The pleas were consistent, and Sanguinius saw the truth of what Levannas had said. The people before him were from a multitude of civilisations. No matter the skin tones and cultural encoding of their ragged clothes, they were unified in their desperate gratitude towards him and their terror of the Pilgrim.

Sanguinius rejoined Levannas in the centre of the dusty avenue. ‘The Pilgrim,’ he said. ‘What do they mean?’

‘That hardly sounds like a name for Horus,’ Raldoron said.

‘Perhaps one of Lorgar’s zealots,’ Azkaellon suggested.

‘We have refugees from traitor-occupied worlds,’ Levannas said. ‘They don’t talk about the Pilgrim.’

Sanguinius narrowed his eyes. ‘So many of these people come from worlds that have not fallen to Horus’ forces?’

‘Most have not,’ said Levannas. ‘The majority of the recent arrivals have been fleeing something else.’

‘Fleeing what?’

‘I’m not sure. The stories are vague on that point. I’m not sure the people know themselves. Events have surpassed their ability to understand.’ He scanned the crowd, then pointed to a cluster of figures a few hundred yards ahead and to the right. ‘I suggest you speak with them, Lord Sanguinius.’

A score of men and women stood beneath the overhang of a broken girder. The metal fragment was the smallest part of a ship’s framework, but it towered over this sector of the camp. It had been painted by what appeared to be hundreds of hands, endlessly reproducing the aquila. The symbols overlapped and spread up the girder’s height. The group beneath were all robed. They had shaved their heads and marked their scalps with the aquila again, some with crude tattoos, others by having the symbol carved into their flesh. They knelt and bowed their heads as the Angel and his party drew near. The people around them followed their example.

Sanguinius frowned. He paused before approaching the group. ‘This is a cult,’ he said to Levannas.

‘It is.’