Las-fire whipped down the corridor towards him. He could see a barricade slung across the passage, gun barrels jutting from above a slab of plasteel. A cluster of shots hit his left pauldron and forearm. Chunks of ceramite cracked and blew off. He heard shouts as his squad came through the breach behind him. Bolts flew past him and struck the barricade. Mangled Cthonian war cries rose above the sound of gunfire.

There was no point in pausing to fire back; that would get him killed. He needed to be close enough that they would not be able to bring their guns to bear, close enough that the barricade did not protect them. The spear-strike doctrine, many of the other newborn would have called it, perhaps with a touch of reverence and pride in their words. Saduran could see the similarity, but for him it was nothing to do with the old Legion or aping its traditions. It was simply the best way to win.

A las-bolt burned through exposed cable on his left thigh. A warning rune pinged in his sight. He felt the servos in his left leg stutter. He was ten paces from the barricade. There were more of his squad behind him. He exploded into the last few strides and leapt. He saw a trooper in a void-sealed dome helm jerk back, gun rising. The eyes behind the view slit were wide.

Saduran felt time fill the instant, become liquid, become a promise of what was to come. His mind reached back across the short years to running across the chem-crags on the world of his birth, the howls of hunters behind him, the hunger in his stomach and the fear in his chest. That was what the rest of his siblings did not understand. The gang crests and kill marks, the Cthonian war words and titles – all of it was just a false skin over the true gift they had been given.

He hit the top of the barrier and vaulted down into the space beyond. The nearest trooper turned to fire at him. Saduran fired first. The bolter kicked in his hand. The trooper exploded in a spray of blood and disintegrating armour. Saduran charged down the line of the barricade, bolt-rounds spearing ahead of him. A trooper, braver than the rest, stabbed at him with a chain bayonet. Saduran caught the rifle’s barrel behind the spinning blade and yanked it downwards. The trooper’s arms snapped, and his shriek rose and cut off as Saduran slammed the human into the barricade wall. Blood slicked the floor, gunfire pulsed in the smoke. Saduran felt his beating hearts and the roar of his blood in his ears, a roll of thunder rising from within.