‘I don’t know, brother. Define “all right”.’ He looked at him, and knew it was the hollowness in his eyes that Exor reacted to.

‘It is not unusual to be shaken after so close a brush with death.’ But Exor knew that wasn’t it. His face gave the assumption away immediately. ‘Did something happen in the fire canyon?’ he asked.

Va’lin nodded slowly, remembering but not understanding. The silhouetted figure holding the firebrand, its body clad in power armour. The shrine and the mark emblazoned in the earth.

‘It was the place where he died, Exor.’

‘What?’

‘Where he sacrificed everything for us.’

‘I don’t understand, Va’lin. What exactly did you see?’

‘A miracle, I think. Come back from the dead.’

Emperor’s Deliverance

EMPEROR’S DELIVERANCE

Blood. There was too much blood.

Athena’s hands were slick with it, right up to the elbows. The crimson morass where she buried her fingers was a man’s chest, the ribs splintered and the organs exposed. She was searching for an artery. It was hard to find in all the viscera and vital fluid. Flickering lumen-strips overhead were weak and ineffective. Athena could barely see the novitiate beside her, handing over surgical tools. Betheniel was almost apologetic – the blades and saws were crude, woefully inadequate, but it was all they had at Emperor’s Deliverance. It was all anyone had in the shadow of Devil’s Ridge on the war-torn world of Armageddon.

Athena held out a steady, blood-soaked hand. She’d tried to wipe it on her smock but the nails were red-rimed, the gore so deeply ingrained it was like her skin was swathed in a patina of rust. With her other hand, she pinched the spewing artery.

‘Clamps, sister. Quickly now.’

An explosion overhead shook the roof of the infirmary, making the novitiate fumble. Some of the tools clattered noisily into the gloom, but she found the clamps.

Athena staunched the bleeding, muttering as she tied off the vein. ‘Fortunate that we don’t require the rib spreaders.’ Most of the man’s chest cavity was gone, torn out by a greenskin bomb. Part of his jaw was missing too.

She addressed Betheniel directly. ‘When a life is at stake we must show resolve, even in the face of danger. Those were Marauders overhead, our Imperial Navy bombers, heading for what’s left of Hades Hive.’

The novitiate nodded, contrite. She recoiled a moment later when Athena threw down a ragged piece of cloth she’d been using to clean her instruments.

‘Throne and Eye!’

‘What is it, sister? Have I done something wrong?’