‘Tsu’gan!’ he cried, gutting an insurgent with his chainsword and firing his bolter one-handed to explode the face of another, ‘Stop the renegade!’

The other Salamander nodded in a rare moment of empathy and sped off after Nihilan.

Dak’ir was battling through the frenzied mob when he saw the Speaker’s corpse rising and felt the touch of the warp prickle his skin…

Tsu’gan bolted across the nave, pummelling cultists with his fists, chewing up packed groups with explosive bursts of fire. Shen’kar was just visible in his peripheral vision, immolating swathes of the heretical vermin with bright streaks of flame.

Smashing through a wooden door at the back of the temple, Tsu’gan found a flight of stone steps leading up to the parapet. He took them three at a time with servo-assisted bounds of his power-armoured legs, until he emerged into a darkened anteroom.

Something was happening below. He heard Vek’shen bellow a call to arms and then nothing, as if all sound had fled in a sudden vacuum.

Burning red eyes regarded him coldly in the blackness.

‘Tsu’gan…’ said Nihilan, emerging from the dark.

‘Traitorous scum!’ the Salamander raged.

But Tsu’gan didn’t raise his bolter to fire, didn’t vanquish the renegade where he stood. He merely remained transfixed, muscles clenched as if held fast in amber.

‘Wha–’ he began, but found his tongue was leaden too.

‘Sorcery,’ Nihilan told him, the surface of his force staff alive with incandescent energy. It threw ephemeral flashes of light into the gloom, illuminating the sorcerer’s dread visage as he closed on the stricken Astartes.

‘I could kill you right now,’ he said levelly. ‘Snuff out the light in your eyes, and kill you, just like Kadai killed Ushorak.’

‘You were offered redemption.’ Tsu’gan struggled to fashion the retort, forcing his tongue into compliance through sheer willpower.

The sinister cast to Nihilan’s face bled away and was replaced by indignation.

‘Redemption was it? Spiritual castigation at the hands of Elysius, a few hours with his chirurgeon-interrogators, is that what was offered?’ He laughed mirthlessly. ‘That sadistic bastard would only have passed a guilty judgement.’

Stepping closer, Nihilan took on a sincere tone.

‘Ushorak offered life. Power,’ he breathed. ‘Freedom from the shackles forcing us to serve the cattle of men, when we should be ruling them.’

The Dragon Warrior clenched his fist as he said it, so close now that Tsu’gan could smell his copper breath.

‘You see, brother. We are not so dissimilar.’

‘We are nothing alike, traitor,’ snapped the Salamander, grimacing with the simple effort of speaking.

Nihilan stepped back, spreading his arms plaintively.

‘A bolter shot to the head to end my heresy then?’ His upturned lip showed his displeasure. ‘Or stripped of rank, a penitent brand in place of my service studs?’

He shook his head.

‘No… I think not. Perhaps I will brand you, though, brother.’ Nihilan showed the Salamander his palm and spread his fingers wide. ‘Would your resistance to corruption be stauncher than the human puppet, I wonder?’