The gymnasia was a vast, stone columned chamber, fully ninety mettes from sanded floor to arched ceiling and at least a thousand wide. An entire regiment or more could comfortably train in shooting, close-quarter combat, infiltration, fighting in jungle terrain or the nightmare of city-fighting. These dedicated arenas were sectioned off throughout the gymnasia, fully realised environments where thousands of soldiers were receiving further training before reaching their intended warzone far in the galactic north-west. Row upon row of battle-flags hung from the ceiling, and huge anthracene statues of great heroes of Ultramar lined the walls. Stained-glass windows, lit from behind by flickering glow-globes, depicted the life of Roboute Guilliman as looped prayers in High Gothic echoed from flaring trumpets blown by alabaster angels mounted on every column.

'Good men and women,' noted Uriel as he watched a group of soldiers practising bayonet drills against one another.

Despite their discipline, Uriel could see many of the training soldiers casting confused glances their way. He knew that their armour, bereft of the insignia of the Ultramarines, would no doubt be causing endless speculation amongst the regiments billeted within the ship.

'Aye,' nodded Pasanius. 'The Macragge 808th. Most will have come from Agiselus.'

'Then they will fight well,' said Uriel. 'A shame we cannot train with them. There is much they could learn and it would have been an honour for us to pass on our experience.'

'Perhaps,' said Pasanius. 'Though I do not believe their officers would have counted it as such. I feel we may be a disappointment to many of them. A disgraced Space Marine is no hero: he is worthless, less than nothing.'

Uriel glanced round at Pasanius, surprised by the venom in his tone.

'Pasanius?' he said.

Pasanius shook his head, as though loosing a quiet unease, and smiled, though Uriel could see the falsity of it. 'I am sorry, Uriel, my sleep was troubled. I'm not used to having so much of it. I keep waiting for a bellowing Chaplain Clausel to sound reveille.'

'Aye,' agreed Uriel, forcing a smile. 'More than three hours of sleep a night is a luxury. Be careful you do not get too used to it, my friend.'

'Not likely,' said Pasanius, gloomily.

Uriel knelt before the dark marble statue of the Emperor, the flickering light from the hundreds of candles that filled the chapel reflecting a hundredfold on its smooth-finished surface. A fug of heavily scented smoke filled the upper reaches of the chapel from the many burners that lined the nave, smelling of nalwood and sandarac. Chanting priests, clutching prayer beads and burning tapers, paced the length of the chapel, muttering and raving silently to themselves while albino-skinned cherubs with flickering golden wings and cobalt-blue hair bobbed in the air above them, long lengths of prayer paper trailing from dispensers in their bellies.

Uriel ignored them, holding the wire-wound hilt of his power sword in a two-handed grip while resting his hands on the gold quillons. The sword was unsheathed, point down on the floor, and Uriel rested his forehead on the carven skull of its pommel as he prayed.

The sword was the last gift to him from Captain Idaeus, his former mentor, and though it had been broken on Pavonis - a lifetime ago it seemed now - Uriel had forged a new blade of his own before departing on the crusade to Tarsis Ultra and his eventual disgrace. He wondered what Idaeus would have made of his current situation and gave thanks that he was not here to see what had become of his protege.

Pasanius knelt beside him, eyes shut and lips moving in a silent benediction. Uriel found it hard to countenance the dark, brooding figure Pasanius had become since leaving the Fortress of Hera. True, they had been cast from the Chapter, their homeworld and battle-brothers, but they still had a duty to perform, an oath to fulfil, and a Space Marine never turned his back on such obligations, especially not an Ultramarine.

Uriel knew that Pasanius was a warrior of courage and honour and just hoped that he had the strength of character to lift himself from this ill disposition, remembering sitting in a chapel not dissimilar to this in one of the medicae buildings on Tarsis Ultta, vexed by torments of his own. He also recalled the beautiful face of the Sister of the Order Hospitaller he had met there. Sister Joaniel Ledoyen she had been called, and she had spoken to him with a wisdom and clarity that had cut through his pain.

Uriel had meant to return to the medicae building after the fighting, but had been too badly injured in the final assault on the hive ship to do anything other than rest as Apothecary Selenus struggled to remove the last traces of the tyranid phage-cell poisoning from his bloodstream.

When he had been well enough to move, it was already time to depart for Macragge, and he had not had the time to thank her for her simple kindness. He wondered what had become of her and how she had fared in the aftermath of the alien invasion. Wherever she was, Uriel wished her well.

He finished his prayers, standing and kissing the blade of his sword before sheathing it in one economical motion. He bowed to the statue of the Emperor and made the sign of the aquila across his chest, glancing down at Pasanius as he continued to pray.

He frowned as he noticed some odd marks protruding from the gorget of Pasanius's armour. Standing above him, Uriel could see that the marks began at the nape of Pasanius's neck before disappearing out of sight beneath his armour. The crusting of scar tissue told Uriel that they were wounds, recent wounds, instantly clotted by the Larraman cells within their bloodstream.

But how had he come by such marks?

Before Uriel could ask, he felt a presence behind him and turned to see one of the priests, a youngish man with haunted eyes, staring at him in rapt fascination.

'Preacher,' said Uriel, respectfully.

'No, not yet!' yelped the priest, twisting his prayer beads round and around his wrists in ever tighter loops. 'No, no preacher am I. A poor cenobite, only, my angel of death.'

Uriel could see the man's palms were slick with blood and wondered what manner of order he belonged to. There were thousands of recognised sects within the Imperium and this man could belong to any one of them. He scanned the man's robes for some clue, but his deep blue chasuble and scapular were unadorned save for their silver fastenings.

'Can I help you with something?' pressed Uriel as Pasanius rose to his feet and stood by his side.

The man shook his head. 'No,' he cackled with a lopsided grin. 'Already dead am I. The Omphalos Daemonium comes! I feel it pushing out from the inside of my skull. He will take me and everyone else for his infernal engine. Deadmorsels for his furnace, flesh for his table and blood for his chalice.'

Uriel shared a sidelong glance at Pasanius and rolled his eyes, realising that the cenobite was utterly insane, a common complaint amongst the more zealous of the Emperor's followers. Such unfortunates were deemed to exist on a level closer to the divine Emperor and allowed to roam free that their ravings might be grant some clue to the will of the Immortal Master of Mankind.

'I thank you for your words, preacher,' said Uriel, 'but we have completed our devotions and must take our leave.'

'No,' said the cenobite emphatically.

'No? What are you talking about?' asked Uriel, beginning to lose patience with the lunatic priest. Like most of the Adeptus Astartes, the Ultramarines had a strained relationship with the priests of the Ministorum: the Space Marines' belief that the Emperor was the mightiest mortal to bestride the galaxy, but a mortal nonetheless, diametrically opposed to the teachings of their Ecclesiarch.