Bendikt turned slowly. From Clan Kharr a wild looking chieftain stepped forward. He had the appearance of an old wolf with his ceremonial headdress hanging down the side of his face. ‘I, Major-Chief Rittonic of Clan Kharr, say it is so. We have thrown ourselves time and again against the enemy rock, and we have gained less ground than this room contains. You, Cadian, do not know what we are against. Crannog Mons is impregnable. Every foot of mountain is a fortress – an endless barrow of murder holes, barracks and artillery. Curtains of withering defensive fire. The dead of my clan lie piled in heaps before our trenches. I say it is impossible.’

Bendikt was grateful to this man for speaking out. Fighting was what Bendikt had been bred for since he was a child. Since he had been lifted in his father’s arms, forced to stare into the Eye of Terror and swear his hatred for the Emperor’s enemies. He smiled. ‘You speak like a man who has not seen Cadians fight,’ Bendikt stated calmly. ‘And when you have done so, I promise you that you will change your mind.’

The Drookian sneered. ‘How can we have faith in those who lost their own planet?’

A sudden chill went through the room.

Bendikt paused before speaking. ‘My home withstood ten thousand years of trial and we remained resolute. When the Archenemy came, I was there. His fleet was so numerous that it turned the skies of Cadia black. Heretics rained upon our planet for months. Sorceries raised armies of the dead. Battalions of unspeakable horrors. Waves of the insane, harvested from a thousand worlds and spawned upon ours like cancerous spores.

‘I was there and I tell you this. Kasr by kasr, the forces of Cadia soaked up the enemy’s assault. And then, under Creed’s leadership, we counter-attacked and drove the enemy back in confusion. It was not Cadia that broke, but the blockade of the Imperial Navy who let the Planetkiller into our orbit. That is a fact. I was there. I saw this all happen.

‘But I am not here to squabble about such petty matters. There are many of us whose home worlds have been devoured by the enemy. They are lost battles, and those we cannot fight again. But there are many others that we can yet win. And there are some here, among you, whose worlds are now threatened not just by the enemy, but also by traitors from within our midst. The cowardly. The infirm of purpose. Those of little courage and little heart, who rather than coming together have chosen this moment of pause to put the knife into the back. These are the enemies we face here. Let us put down the line. Here and no further. No more worlds lost, no more armies orphaned, no more once-proud regiments dwindling to old men.’