'Some day, huh?' she said.

'Some day,' agreed Snowdog. 'Where's Tigerlily?'

'She went off to a pound club with Trask,' answered Silver sleepily. 'Kominsky's, I think.'

'Maybe I'm getting old, but this pound music is something I just don't understand. Loud music I get, but it's like a sonic assault on the senses.'

'A lot of people like it,' pointed out Silver. 'Hell, even I don't mind it.'

'So why didn't you go with her?'

'I couldn't be bothered with Trask. You know what he's like with stimms.'

'Tigerlily obviously doesn't mind.'

'That's cause she's too young and dumb to realise what a loser he is.'

'You're cynical tonight.'

Silver smiled and Snowdog felt himself loosen up as she bent down to kiss him.

'I'm tired,' she said. 'And besides, what can Trask do for me that I can't get better from you?'

Snowdog chuckled, remembering the last time Trask had gotten overly amorous towards Silver after a heavy night on the stimms. The poor bastard hadn't walked straight for a week afterwards. He decided to change the subject. 'How're the rest of the troops?'

Silver shrugged, 'Okay, I guess. Lex is getting antsy and Jonny wants to head out to bust some heads. He keeps talking about taking on the High Hive gangs.'

Snowdog chuckled. They're gonna find Jonny face down in the sump if he thinks he can take on the High Hive gangs. 'Tell him he'd better stick to busting up Jackboy parties if he knows what's good for him. We ain't ready for that kind of action yet.'

Silver yawned and slid off her long coat, pulling her albino-white hair free of its ponytail and allowing it to spill around her shoulders. She climbed over Snowdog to lie with her back to the wall, laying her arm across his waist and resting her head on his chest. Snowdog kissed her forehead and put his arm around her shoulders.

'Did you notice that there weren't any citizens' militia units around the Flesh Bar?' asked Silver, pushing her hand beneath his t-shirt and running her fingers through the hair on his stomach.

'Yeah, I did. That was kinda weird, wasn't it?'

'I wonder where they were? Normally you can't move in the upper valley without seeing at least a few of them.'

Snowdog nodded slowly. 'I don't know, but now you mention it, the whole city has been pretty wired recently, on edge. I seen a lot of Bronzes, but it's been pretty quiet in the way of soldiers. I wonder why? And those Wylderns. Normally they'd never dare hit a bar that close to the High Hive.'

'What do you think is going on?'

'Damned if I know, hon, but if it keeps the militia and the Bronzes off our backs, then I'm all for it.'

Snowdog could not have been more wrong.

THREE

Uriel watched the landscape speed past the Thunderhawk, circling round white-capped mountains of soaring majesty. A hard winter was coming to this part of the world and the beauty below was breathtaking. Frozen mountaintop lakes glittered in the thin light and the rugged splendour reminded him wistfully of the landscape surrounding the Fortress of Hera.

The Thunderhawk banked, following the line of the mountains, and Uriel caught a glimpse of the black gunships of the Mortifactors as they turned in formation with those of the Ultramarines. His expression turned sour as the memory and taste of Lord Magyar's blood surged strong and vivid through his senses.

The Chapter Master of the Mortifactors had laughed, calling him brother, and slapped his palms on Uriel's shoulder guards, leaving bloody handprints. How any Chapter descended from the blessed Roboute Guilliman could have fallen so far from his vision of a sacred band of warriors was utterly beyond him. He also had the feeling that it had been his drinking of Magyar's blood that had convinced the Chapter Master to send his warriors rather than any bond of shared brotherhood. How could such a Chapter operate, let alone thrive, without recourse to the Codex Astartes?

Upon returning to the Vae Victus, Uriel had immersed himself in prayer and rituals of cleansing, but the lingering vision that ripped through his mind could not be purged. He could not deny the feeling of power he had experienced drinking the blood and he knew that part of him, Emperor forgive him, longed for that power again.

In the month it had taken them to return to the Tarsis Ultra system, there had been precious little contact with the Mortifactors, a situation the Ultramarines were more than happy with. It had been a shock to everyone to know that a Chapter founded from their honourable legacy had changed so much.

They would fight alongside the Mortifactors, but Uriel knew there would be no renewal of brotherhood and no pledges of loyalty sworn anew between the Chapters.

They would face the common threat and that would be the end of it.

He realised he was clenching his fists and slowly released a deep breath.

The Thunderhawk began descending as they cleared the mountains and Uriel tried to shake his angry thoughts, returning his gaze to the world below.

They flew over ordered farming collectives, their sprawling fields a striking green amid the patchy white frosts of oncoming winter. Gleaming train tracks and hydroways snaked across the landscape, efficiently connecting the scattered communities and, every now and then, Uriel caught a glimpse of a silvered land train speeding between them.

The view was eerily reminiscent of the surface of lax, sometimes called the Garden of Ultramar, one of the most productive worlds of the Imperium. Uriel briefly wondered if the inhabitants had also built their own version of Iax's fortress city of First Landing.

So far as he could tell from the air, Tarsis Ultra looked to be a model world that would not have been out of place in Ultramar itself. But Uriel knew it had not always been this way.

Ten thousand years ago, it had been enslaved by the lies of heretics for decades, before its liberation by Roboute Guilliman and the Ultramarines during the Great Crusade. Its grateful populace had incorporated their liberators into their world's name, that they might always remember and honour them. When the Ultramarines Legion moved on to fresh campaigns, Roboute Guilliman left the foundations of an ordered world, established on ideals of justice, honour and discipline, instead of the blasted wastelands many of his brother primarchs' victories left. Guilliman left teachers, artisans and people skilled in the ways of engineering and architecture to help with the rebuilding of Tarsis Ultra.

Its civilization was remade in the image of Ultramar, its society ordered and just, its people content and productive. Once more, Tarsis Ultra became a functioning world of the Emperor. Its output was prodigious, but unlike many other industrial worlds, whose unthinking plundering of their natural resources led to them becoming polluted, toxic deserts, sustainability and a careful husbanding of resources assured that Tarsis Ultra remained a verdant and pleasant world.

After the grim revelations regarding the Mortifactors, Uriel was looking forward to setting foot on a world touched by the primarch. What he had seen on the Basilica Mortis had shaken him to the core, and it would do him good to see a physical reminder of Roboute Guilliman's legacy.

And what he had seen thus far of Tarsis Ultra and its defences had impressed him greatly. Hulking star forts hung in geo-stationary orbit above the primary continental mass and already a sizeable fleet had been assembled in the months since their warning of the approaching tyranids had been given.

The Argus, a Victory class battlecruiser, and veteran of the First Tyrannic War, headed a detachment of fearsome vessels of war, including the Sword of Retribution, an Overlord battleship, three Dauntless cruisers and a host of escort ships. Flotillas of planetary skiffs, laden with the men and women of the Imperial Guard, were constantly shuttling back and forth from the planet's surface and four vast transport ships hanging in orbit. Within days, the entirety of two vast regiments, the 10th Logres and the 933rd Death Korp of Krieg, would be deployed to Tarsis Ultra.