“The man beside the fire raises His head slowly. He looks old, His skin lined and folded with time, His hair white, but His eyes are black from edge to edge, like the holes left for eyes in the bronze statues of dead ages.

‘You are never alone now,’ He says, and turns His gaze to the shadows of the trees. ‘I see you,’ He says to the dark. For an instant the fire flares bright. Sparks fountain up, and the light is not dim but blinding. Brilliance pours into the spaces between the bare trunks and branches. Things of feather and fur and scale and bone shrink and snarl. But they do not retreat, and after the light fades, the shadows flow back to press close around the ember-glow.

‘Hypocrisy and hubris, father,’ says Horus.”

Now, it’s worth saying something about the Emperor in this picture. He is the defiance of humanity faced with its fear and the dark. But, and brace yourselves, that does not make him the ‘good guy’ – that just makes him a person. The words spoken by the Emperor to the Chaos gods and the words spoken by Horus to the Emperor have more than a kernel of truth to them. The Emperor is a despot and a tyrant, there is very little room to doubt that. He has done terrible things in pursuit of what he sees as ultimate victory – triumphing over the age old darkness that stalks humanity. And importantly, he is alone. Even in the scene where we see him meet psychically with Malcador, there is a sense of distance and isolation. Malcador does the talking and the Emperor says very little.

“The man in gold lifts his own bowl, and takes small mouthfuls, never taking his eyes from his companion.

‘I am sorry to call you here,’ says the man in gold when there are only crumbs in the old man’s bowl, ‘but we need to speak.’ The man in black wipes the back of his hand across his mouth. His eyes are black depths in the weathered skin of his face. ‘Things are pressing in and in,’ continues the young man. ‘So far the attack has been as we would expect. But there is something else, something that is outside of that…’”

He has taken his burden and does not include others in that circle of light. He is alone in the dark looking at the possibility that he has not saved humanity, but brought it to the brink of annihilation. He is flawed. He is human. His mistakes are the mistakes of a human, but with the power of a god.

Blood and sacrifice