‘And now that ends,’ said Khalybus. ‘The flesh is weak, and that is also the truth. These people must find their strength or die.’ He paused. ‘But if, with the force of three Legions, we encounter the Pilgrim, that would be a battle worth fighting.’

‘Salvation for Thrinos after all?’ Levannas asked. The hope felt like a grim one.

With a visible effort, Khalybus faced the camp one last time. ‘It is the only salvation we can offer.’

‘There is one other matter we need to address,’ said Levannas.

‘Of course,’ said Khalybus. ‘You and your battle-brothers will be rejoining your Legion.’

‘I have spoken with the Lion. If you agree, we shall serve out his mission aboard the Sthenelus.’

Khalybus was silent for a moment save for the faint hum of servomotors. Then he said, ‘You honour me, brother.’

‘The honour is mine, brother.’

‘Then we shall finish the long journey from Isstvan together.’

The shadow came for Thrinos with nightfall, spreading with the name Davin. It covered the land, seeping into the camps and into the tortured sleep of the refugees. It clasped the fleets at low anchor. It travelled the halls of battleships and strike cruisers. The mortal crewmembers who were off shift slept as badly as the civilians on Thrinos. The dreams were not uniform. The shadow took whatever shapes twisted through the unconscious of its victims, and turned them to its ends. Dreams of loss or hope or anger, of grief or home or victory, of desperation or of faith, all were tainted by Davin, Davin, Davin. Premonitions descended on psykers, opening vistas of terror to them that were unformed, but threatened to acquire monstrous definition. The Dark Angels lost more astropaths, and the Ultramarines more Navigators, as the more psychically damaged of their numbers fell to the new onslaught.

But there was nothing to fight against. No enemy declared itself. There was only the sense of coming immensity, and that was enough, more than enough. The horrors in time yet to come, in distances yet to be travelled, were that strong.

The Ultramarines and the Dark Angels experienced the shadow as a tensing towards the future, of an unseen enemy probing resolution before the encounter. Guilliman kept his vault sealed, but his thoughts went to the athames, and he raged silently against the sense that every decision was foretold, every choice an illusion, even as the choice about whether to use the enemy’s tools hovered before him.

The Lion sequestered himself in the chamber of Tuchulcha. He spoke to the meat puppet. He tried, and he failed, to summon answers that would satisfy him.

‘Where are the barriers between here and Davin?’ he asked.

‘Before us,’ said the servitor.

‘I warn you not to trifle with me.’

‘I do not,’ said Tuchulcha. ‘That truths displease you is no fault of mine.’

‘Then give me the truths I seek. How far can you take us in a single leap?’