'A great age beckons our species,' Horus continued, and though Cawl was now intentionally deaf, he heard it still. 'To share in it I ask only that you pledge your service to me for the duration of this war. The forces of the Emperor are strong. The misguided stand before me. Every gun fired in my service no matter by which branch of humanity is a shot fired in the name of truth.' He lifted a massive claw and pointed at an adept upon Magos Visreen's grav-dais. 'Do you pledge allegiance to me?' the Warmaster said.

'Me?' The adept looked nervously to his fellows. They drew back from him.

'Answer the Warmaster!' shouted the warrior with the topknot. He plucked a mag-locked pistol from his thigh and aimed it at the hapless man.

The adept was too slow in kneeling. The bolt pistol boomed. The adept's body flowered redly, showering chunks of meat and shattered bionics over the side of the grav-dais. They fell into the null grav zone generated at the heart of the sphere, where they took up orbit, like an orrery made from a butcher's leavings. The echoes of the bolt's detonation rang from far-off surfaces.

'What about you?' said the warrior. He aimed his pistol at another adept.

'Ezekyle, put away your gun,' said Horus.

The warrior named Ezekyle made a dismissive noise, and locked his pistol back to his thigh.

The adept he had aimed at knelt. Then the rest followed suit, displaying their submission in a rustle of robes.

'I am with you,' one said. 'I pledge to serve the Warmaster, for the Greater Glory of the Martian Empire,' said another.

'For the Mechanician, I will follow you,' said a third.

So it went on. Wordlessly it was made perfectly clear that all were expected to voice their loyalty. Horus looked to each man and woman present as his lieutenants watched, the threat of death plain in their faces.

The litany of surrender proceeded. The ripples of abasement lapped out into the crowds below, and they proclaimed their loyalty. Cawl kept his head bowed the whole time, until the words stopped, and he looked up to find the would-be master of mankind staring directly at him.

An ancient Terran saying had it that the eyes were windows to the soul. In that moment, Cawl could believe it to be true. What he saw behind Horus' face was burned into his memory forever.

He could never serve what he saw behind those eyes.

'I am with you, my lord,' he said. 'I pledge my service to you and my life.' The oath was hollow. As he spoke, his interference cant shielding his mind, the thought of escape rose urgently in his thoughts.

When the giving of oaths was done, Horus looked over the leaders of the forge world, and into the crowds packing the skin of the sphere.