He landed just ahead of Amit’s company. He stood between the closing doors; their edges, wide as mountain faces, rumbled in. The ground shook without cease. Around Sanguinius, daemons of wrath closed in, swords raised. Their numbers looked thin. Too many had rushed forwards to try to counter Fifth Company. Before Sanguinius were the mouths of thousands of tunnels, blurring in the great heights above. The daemons had stopped their advance. They were on the defensive, guarding the entrances. Some capered, eager for the Blood Angels to make their assaults. The creatures of disease rang bells, so many that the funereal clamour rivalled the grinding thunder of the doors.

Sanguinius attacked the abominations trying to encircle him. They stalked forwards on hoofed legs that angled backwards. With their long, curving horns and crimson skin, they truly were the daemons of ancient Terran myth. In the crimson of their hide, though, Sanguinius saw a dark mirror of his Legion’s colours. The daemons came to fight angels, but in their snarling rage, they were the image of the angels’ threatened fall. Sanguinius fought them in a sweeping run, hitting them like a scythe. He deflected swords and cut abominations in half. The Spear of Telesto flashed again, burning purity sending the rage that walked back into the abyss of the warp.

The deep thudding of bolters and the snarl of chainswords drew closer. The din of war echoed up the edges of the doors. Less than two hundred yards of space remained. Fifth Company broke through at the same time as the Sanguinary Guard. Amit and Azkaellon converged on Sanguinius. Amit’s armour dripped with ichor. His breathing rasped from his helm grille. It was almost a snarl.

‘Captain Amit,’ Sanguinius said. ‘Are you the master of your anger?’

‘I am, lord.’ The breathing became slightly more regular. ‘We all are.’

‘That is well. Then we go forwards.’

The main body of Blood Angels was between the doors now. The legionaries marched shoulder to shoulder, their boots tramping in unison. They were a single mass, indivisible, unstoppable. They left a stinking, dissolving wake of foulness behind them. The Stormbirds maintained their bombardment, concentrating their fire on a smaller area as the closing doors hampered the attempts of the daemon army to return to the manufactorum.

The IX Legion moved at a brutal run between the doors, racing to get through before they shut with crushing finality. There was a mile of open floor between the doors and the tunnel mouths. The surface was metal, though it looked like knotted flesh. With the Sanguinary Guard as point again, Sanguinius crossed the threshold in the manufactorum and directed the phalanxes to the left and right.

‘We take the widest halls,’ he ordered. ‘One company in each path. Captains, choose your terrain to fight upon.’

‘What are we looking for?’ Raldoron asked.