‘Opening!’ shouted Rann and a second gap opened in front of the shield-wall. Sigismund saw Boreas again. He was on the deck, his armour and body a bloody ruin. Aximand stood above him in triumph, sword reversed and descending for the final blow.

Sigismund’s sword met the down-thrust. Light sheared from its edges. Aximand jerked back from the contact. Sigismund stood above Boreas, beyond the wall of shields.

‘Brace for teleport extraction!’ shouted Rann into the vox, but Sigismund was not listening. He was taking another step, his eyes reading the arc of Aximand’s rising sword, his own muscles and blade aligning. Nothing else was real. Nothing else mattered. His truth was and always had been an echo of this moment, the descent of the sword like breathing out, like life.

His first blow struck Aximand’s sword arm and took hand and blade off at the wrist. A second cut followed the first. No pause. No breath drawn. Blood falling as the tip and edge of Sigismund’s sword passed through chest-plate. Blood flared bright on green armour, the colour of a sea in storm.

Aximand staggering, bleeding.

The air around them screaming.

Light expanding to drown sight.

Sigismund raised his sword for the killing blow.

And the world vanished in blinding light.

The Imperial Fists left the Lachrymae to the blades of their enemies. The surviving ships dived for the void and the distant mote that was the sun. Most were wounded, many were burning, and some would die before they reached the battles that waited for them.

On the teleportation deck of the Persephone, Sigismund lowered the sword that he had raised on another ship. The dissipating thunder of teleport discharge faded from the air. Around him, streaked in blood and soot, stood the brothers that had come for him. Behind him, unmoving on the deck, lay Boreas. Blood was seeping from him, pooling on the floor.

‘Apothecaries!’ shouted Rann from nearby.

Sigismund did not speak. The numbness in his left arm had become fire in his flesh. He looked down at his sword, still chained to his other wrist, and then raised it and touched the flat of its blade to his forehead.

Sigismund honours the fallen.

Nine

Slayers of kings
Spear of many blades
The truth of knives

Battle-barge War Oath, Supra-Solar Gulf

The holo-images of Kibre and Sota-Nul collapsed into static and then darkness. The psychic projection of Ahriman lingered. The Chief Librarian of the Thousand Sons looked at Abaddon for a moment, then spoke in thought.

+Farewell,+ he said, and then his image was gone, leaving a ghost of psychic frost on the air. +May all be done as it is willed.+

Abaddon looked unblinking into the space vacated by the two sub-fleet commanders. Above and behind him the council chamber rose and spread out, the empty air silent to its shadow-draped walls.

‘May all be done,’ said Abaddon into the empty dark.