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It raised its arms as he slunk near and clenched iron fists, face contorting with a challenge-roar. Sahaal extended his claws and laughed, gratified at the prospect of a worthy opponent. He would enjoy killing this mutant, he decided, this ape-faced freak, and in so doing would secure the loyalty of his xenophobic little slaves forever. He imagined himself surging forwards, claws snickering, blood raining around him.

And then a head appeared at the hatch into the tank's interior: an unarmoured female, as lowly an opponent as he could imagine. She was beneath his attention — unworthy — and he returned his focus to the hulk, claws flexing.

'I know what you are,' the woman said, startling him. Her eyes were wide and her skin bleached with fear, but her voice sounded strong and certain, resonating somewhere deep, transcending his ears. 'Go back to the shadows,' she hissed, lips curling. 'Go back to the warp, Night Lord!'

And then a great dagger punctured his mind: an inelegant swipe of immaterial force that took him by surprise and detonated a bomb within his skull, and he slipped from the Salamander's back onto the floor.

Darkness swallowed him up like an old friend — like the mother whose face he could no longer recall — and it was only on the very edge of his consciousness that he could hear the sound of heavy tracks clawing at soft earth and an engine, dwindling away into the distance.

The witch and her pet giant were gone, and as unconsciousness clouded around him he recalled her words with a start.

Go back to the warp, Night Lord!

She knew what he was.

She had recognised his heraldry.

She had spoken his Legion's name.

In that instant, on the cusp of waking reality, galvanised by his own discovery, he reached a decision: secrecy was futile. He would summon his brethren. No matter what had happened to them, no matter what glories and solemnities ten thousand years had inflicted upon them, he would summon them to his side, and he would greet them with the Corona in his possession, so that they would know, without doubt — Zso Sahaal, Captain of the Night Lords Legion, chosen heir of the Primarch Konrad Curze, had returned from his slumber to claim his throne.

Ave Dominus Nox!



Mita Ashyn



He — the great, the holier-than-thou, the Scourge of Namiito Ophidius, Deliverer of the Claviculus Ultimatum, lord high-and-fragging-mighty Inquisitor Ipoqr Kaustus — was waiting.

Mita half expected a red carpet.

That he had deigned to leave the crystal towers of Steepletown and the comfortable decadence of the governor's palace, that he (and his retinue, of course) had swarmed to the unfashionable depths of Cuspseal, was an indication, she reflected, of just how much trouble she was in.

He received her in Commander Orodai's quarters, and where before she had faced him with the retinue circling behind, now they stood arranged around her, glaring as she entered.

It was a little like stepping onto a stage.

She noted without much surprise that Sergeant Varitens was standing to the left of Orodai's desk. Of the nineteen vindictors and two staff-drivers who had failed to return from the Steel Forest, she found it particularly galling that he hadn't been amongst them. Doubtiess he'd filled Orodai's head with tales of his own heroism and her — Mita's — mistakes, leading his men into a massacre. She could imagine the bureaucratic paper trail that followed: from here all the way up to the inquisitor himself—

Who, she had very little doubt, had lost his temper.

Mita had been back in Cuspseal for ten hours — much of which had been dedicated to a futile attempt to sleep — and with exhaustion clinging to every fibre she was in no mood for yet another dressing down.

'Get it over with,' she said, not waiting to be addressed.

Several of the retinue exchanged glances. She'd be damned if she'd treat them to another dewy-eyed performance of apology and supplication.

'I beg your pardon?' said Kaustus, fingers steepled. His features were once again concealed within his mask, its gloss accentuated by his exquisite gown of red webbing, and Mita met her own reflected gaze and held it, chin jutting proudly.

'The execution, inquisitor,' she said, refusing to be cowed. 'I've failed you twice. I went against your orders. I'm responsible for the deaths of twenty-one of the Emperor's loyal Preafects and I haven't any wish to be kept waiting for summary exe—'

'Sergeant Varitens tells me that you have identified the killer.'

The defiant bite-back she'd been preparing died in her mouth.

'W... what?'

Kaustus leaned forwards. 'He speaks of an armoured warrior, interrogator. He suggests there is a... how did he put it?... A living blasphemy at large.'

Something a little like triumph planted tenuous roots in her belly.

'I-is that so, my lord?'

'It is. What do you say to that, interrogator?'

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