Bjorn blinked away after-images. Alarms screamed from all over his battleplate. Uncanny energies burned around the two primarchs. They were heroes of myth, battling for the soul of mankind. In Bjorn's blurred vision their forms were uncertain, becoming something else - warriors in ancient armour, wielding bronze spears, or savage men from the dawn of time hefting giant stone axes, or two brothers grappling in the dirt of some forgotten village when men were few and the world vast. He blinked again, and the mirage was gone. Post-human deities duelled with weapons of unspeakable power.

A great saga was in the making or else a great silence. Should Horus win, there would be no more histories to be told of the Vlka Fenryka.

And then Bjorn was attacked by a gibbering inconstant thing only held in the shape of a man by its power armour, and he had his own battle to fight.

The power of Horus unleashed...

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Three

The Binary Of Loyalty

Cawl marched into the command centre right past Aspertia's guards. The domina was enmeshed in a cocoon of input feeds linking her directly to the cybernetic forces of Trisolian. Only half the subsidiary stations were occupied by adepts Cawl knew. The rest were attended to by members of the so-called true Mechanicum. A stink of spoiling meat came off them. He could see none of the newcomers' faces.

The room was totally silent. None of the holoscreens or pict displays were active. All of the occupants were connected to their commands by hardline manifold. The infosphere seethed with aggressive data cant. Strange sub code lurked beneath in hidden strata that made Cawl's implants prickle.

Fear roosted in Aspertia's domain. Cawl fought it back and walked in confidently, Friedisch following timidly.

A flexible arm bearing an electronic eye rose from Aspertia's robes to glare at Cawl.

'What are you doing here, Cawl? Why aren't you at your post?'

'I abandoned it,' said Cawl.

Immediately, the dormant skitarii guarding the door came online. 'There had better be a good reason,' said Aspertia. 'I have little patience to spare for you today.'

The skitarii raised their weapons at Cawl.

'There is,' said Cawl.

Cawl pulled an orbicular device from his belt: his masterwork. He flicked the sole switch at the top, and dropped it to the ground.

It landed with a metallic thunk. A burst of carefully crafted subversion codes blasted out from the cogitator inside. Immediately the adepts screamed and thrashed in their command chairs and fell limp. The skitarii lost their stiffness as Cawl's data-bursts brought their autonomous functions back online. Hesitantly, they lowered their guns.

'Query status,' asked one. 'Immediate input required.'

Cawl pointed at the domina.

'Domina Magos Hester Aspertia Sigma-Sigma is a traitor,' said Cawl.

Hissing pipes detached themselves from the domina's sockets as Aspertia shucked off her command harness.

'I should never have trusted you,' she said. 'Guards, kill him.'

The skitarii hesitated.