They served a purpose though; they knew the art of mayhem as war. They had been held in the warp until Uranus was secured, wrapped in screams and nightmares, and now were loosed on the outer Solar System. They had no mission, only a direction. The rest was left to their nature. In days, they would fall on Neptune, and Jupiter. The slaughter and bloodshed would begin. Without a specific mission, the reaver forces would kill and die, and inflict pain. Blood and screams would follow fire. Confusion and fear would spread. Those mortals that could flee would do so, and their flight would carry the terror with them.

Behind him he heard the doors release, and felt the aching buzz of Perturabo’s armour as the primarch entered the viewing cupola. He turned to kneel, but a twitch of Perturabo’s hands held Forrix standing. The weapon pods and pistons of the primarch’s armour hissed and breathed cold gas as they cycled. Forrix watched his lord out of the corner of his eye. Perturabo had suddenly become utterly still. That stillness had seized the primarch more and more in the time since they had gone to fetch Angron back to the war from the borders of Ultramar. It was unsettling in a way that Forrix did not want to think about. Perturabo watched the tide of monsters breach into being.

The Daughter of Woe hung above the murk of the Elysian Gate. Iron Warriors ships clustered around the space hulk, suckling from her scarred skin. A blackened cleft a kilometre long and two hundred metres deep had been carved into her face by the plasma fusillade of the Monarch of Fire. Forrix had thought, for a moment during the engagement, that the Imperial Fists ship was going to ram the Daughter of Woe, or try to board her in force. It would have been suicide, but the defiance of the Imperial Fists over the last days of the assault had seemed to drift to recklessness.

The pride finally surfacing from beneath the stone, Forrix had thought at the time. The sons of Dorn had pulled back from the assault, though.

‘How long?’ asked Perturabo, only his lips moving in the mask of his face. The ammo feeds linked to his arms cycled again. It reminded Forrix of a muscle twitching.

‘Our ships are ready,’ said Forrix.

Perturabo looked at him then and gave a single nod at the data projections.

‘How much did we lose?’

Forrix licked his lips. The Lord of Iron knew the answer to the question already. No scrap or thread of data escaped him in the battle sphere.

‘Thirty-six hours, lord,’ replied Forrix.

‘By such things are our deeds now weighed,’ said Perturabo. ‘By the slow slice of time, and not the blood that turns its wheel…’

Forrix shifted uncomfortably.

‘It is likely that this is Dorn’s strategy. If he knows that Guilliman is coming…’