The choler beating in Abaddon’s blood lit to rage.

‘I am–’

‘On Isstvan, were the warriors that you slew not of your blood? Had they not bled with you? Had they not shared bread and oaths and deeds at your side, and you at theirs?’

Abaddon saw the ruins again, the smoke coiling into the sky, the ash blowing on the dead wind.

‘Betrayer,’ Loken had said. Abaddon tasted the words of his reply, still bitter even in memory.

‘There was nothing to betray.’

Layak inclined his head towards the blade slaves. ‘I put swords into my brothers’ hands. You sheathed your sword in the hearts of those who had trusted you and thought the bonds between you unbreakable.’

Abaddon could not move. In his mind the images of the past rolled over and over. The things done, the wars fought. Murder, slaughter and deception.

‘There was nothing to betray,’ he said. ‘They were not my brothers.’

‘Because they made a different choice?’

‘Because loyalty is everything,’ and as he spoke the words, he heard the old truth that he had carried in him since he had been a boy standing in a cave looking at a knife that would kill his companions and make him a king. ‘We were brothers and sons.’

‘And that mattered more than oaths to an Imperium, more than duty, or truth?’

‘You can’t be loyal to an idea, priest, as your kind learned in the ashes of your first belief.’

A strange, dry rattle came from behind the teeth of Layak’s mask. After a second, Abaddon realised that the priest was laughing.

‘Belief is all that I have left, and loyalty to an idea is why I am here.’

‘Chaos,’ said Abaddon, his lips peeling back from his teeth.

‘No…’ said Layak with a shake of his head, ‘the truth.’

Abaddon felt another question form in his mind, but cut it away and turned back to the bridge displays.

The ships of the Word Bearers and Thousand Sons within the fleet were already aligning, forming their own formation within the greater mass of Abaddon’s armada, a subtle blade hidden amongst many. The vessels of this third force were few in number, a dozen only, but that was as it needed to be; their part in the greater plan required them to go unseen, while the eyes of the defenders of Sol were elsewhere. Within an hour, the bulk of Abaddon’s armada would turn and begin the next stage of their descent towards the inner system. The Thousand Sons and the Word Bearers would carry on, though, cutting their engines so that they fell away silent and dark, down and down into the gulf between the turning planets. Only once they were closer to their goal would they relight their engines. Sorcery would wrap them, pulling eyes and minds away from them until their task was done.