‘You seem unperturbed.’

‘The cult’s loyalty to the Emperor is fanatical. The force of these people’s belief has had some positive impact on the wider morale of the camp. Given the circumstances, Captain Khalybus decided it was impractical and counterproductive to suppress it.’

‘You agree?’

‘I do. Stamping it out would also have involved a waste of resources.’ Levannas paused for a moment. ‘But you see now, Lord Sanguinius, why your appearance is having a pronounced effect.’

‘I do. It is not what I would choose.’

‘I understand. Nothing on Thrinos is what any of us would choose.’

‘No, I don’t suppose it is.’

The Angel walked towards the kneeling mortals. He signalled Azkaellon to keep the Sanguinary Guard a few steps back. He did not want these people so overwhelmed they could not speak. ‘Stand,’ he said when he reached them. ‘I would speak to you.’

They stood. Like all the other refugees, they were ragged, malnourished, exhausted. Desperation and the terror of war had carved deep lines into their faces. There were weeping sores on their lips and on their arms. But when they looked at Sanguinius, there was more than fear in their eyes. There was hope. It was primal, almost feral. And it refused to be extinguished.

‘Tell me about the Pilgrim,’ Sanguinius said.

It took a moment before any of the mortals found their voices. ‘It is the destroyer, lord,’ said one man. Sanguinius thought he was young, but the war had added decades to his age.

‘It is the bringer of ruin,’ a woman said. She was old. Her back was hunched. Her gnarled fingers had never known juvenat treatments. ‘When it comes to a world, the world ends.’

‘It visited all of our worlds,’ said a second man. He was missing his right arm. ‘It travels, and where it passes, the end follows.’

‘It?’ Sanguinius asked. ‘The Pilgrim is not a warrior, then?’

‘No, lord,’ said the woman.

‘What is it, then?’

There was uncertainty again.

‘It is blackness in the sky,’ the one-armed man said. ‘It is made of night.’

Whatever the Pilgrim was, it had been transformed in their minds by superstitious awe. And yet… Sanguinius exchanged a look with Raldoron. The First Captain concealed his worry well, but Sanguinius could see it all the same. They shared the same thought. The descriptions of the Pilgrim were disturbingly familiar.

‘Is it a ship?’ Sanguinius asked.

The mortals didn’t seem to know. Instead of answering directly, they offered more myths. The Pilgrim was to them less a thing than an event. It was darkness, and it brought darkness. Finally, the younger man said, ‘It isn’t a ship, lord. It’s too big.’

‘Have you served on vessels?’ Sanguinius asked him.

‘I have. On mass conveyors.’

He spoke from experience, then. He was familiar with massive ships.