Indeed, it felt like the Laer resistance was melting away a little too easily the closer they came to the centre of the atoll. The ground had become rockier and steeper, the perfect terrain to defend against an attacker, so why weren't the Laer making use of it?

'Lycaon, what does this feel like to you?' asked Julius, pausing as he clambered over the steep coral and tried to discern a way onwards. The slopes of coral reared above him in an impenetrable barrier, but the Laer ahead of them had somehow retreated, so there must be a way through.

'It feels like they aren't trying very hard to stop us,' answered Lycaon. 'I haven't fired my weapon in minutes.'

'Exactly.'

'Not that I'm complaining, though.'

'There's something not right about this,' said Julius. 'It feels wrong.'

'Then what are your orders, sir?'

The sound of the screaming towers had grown louder the closer they came to the centre of the atoll, and Julius could see that the curving passages that wound their way upwards through the coral to their objective were growing narrower and narrower.

More suited to a being with a serpentine body, he realised.

The sounds of hissing, screaming and battle were close, and melded into such a cacophony that he wondered that the Laer were not driven mad by them.

'The Firebird has to be around here somewhere,' said Julius. 'Spread out and find a way through the coral. Our primarch needs us!'

The sounds of battle were like those described in the old poems of ancient Terra: hyperbolic works filled with florid descriptions of combat that were obviously penned by someone who had never seen a war.

Even amid the chaos of a battle, Julius was thinking of poetry and works of literature, and he resolved to keep a tighter rein on his thoughts. Perhaps Solomon was right and he was spending too much time with the remembrancers.

'Captain!' shouted Lycaon. 'Over here!'

Julius turned his attention to his equerry, seeing he had found a previously concealed burrow hole that appeared to lead through the porous mass of coral. The passageway beyond was wide, though it would still be cramped for a warrior clad in Terminator armour, and Julius hoped that it led to their objective.

'Let's go, First,' ordered Julius, setting off at the fastest pace his armour would allow.

Keeping his bolter raised, Julius led his men along the darkened pathway through the coral. Echoes of battle distorted weirdly through the passageway and there was a glistening moistness to the tunnel that made Julius think that they were crawling through the innards of some vast beast.

The unbidden thought suddenly worried him. Were the atolls of the Laer alive? Had anyone thought to check?

He pushed the thought from his mind as he realised it was too late to do anything about it anyway, and he pressed onwards, guided by the sounds of fighting and the light of flames.

Eventually, he saw a dark patch ahead that was crisscrossed by tracer fire and knew they had found the exit. He just hoped it was where they were meant to be. The tunnel narrowed and Julius was forced to use the bulk of his armour and the energy of his power fist to break through into the interior of the atoll.

Julius emerged into the end of a wide valley of pink coral with a monstrous, twin-spired temple that penetrated the clouds at its furthest end. The valley's edge was fringed with hundreds of screaming, jagged spires that curved inwards so that the valley resembled a toothed wound in the coral.

Clouds of flying Laer warriors flocked around the temple's upper reaches, and in the centre of the valley Julius could see the heroic form of the primarch battling his way forwards with great sweeps of the golden sword, Fireblade. Fulgrim's eagle-winged helmet shone in the darkness, and Julius felt enormous pride at the sight of his lord.

The crackling blades of the Phoenix Guard surrounded Fulgrim, their long halberds keeping the Laer at bay as they forged their way towards the temple at the far end of the valley. He could see the massive form of Brother Thestis at the primarch's side, holding the great Legion standard of the Emperor's Children high. The eagle atop the pole blazed with a white gold light in the glow of the moon, and the purple cloth of the banner rippled like silk in the wind.

Julius saw at once that his primarch was surrounded and shouted, 'Warriors of the First, to the Phoenician!'

The lord of the Emperor's Children struck out at his foes with mighty strokes of his sword, each terrible blow slaying one of the Laer. None could stand against him and live, so when the traitorous thought arose that this fight was not going according to plan, it came like an assassin in the night.

His Phoenix Guard fought like the heroes they were, golden blades killing anything that dared come within range of their deadly halberds, and brave Thestis valiantly held the Legion standard high, chopping apart any enemies that came near him with his long blade. All around them, Laer were dying, cut down by deadly sword strikes or gunned down by disciplined, precisely aimed bolter fire. A strange pink musk drifted across the battlefield and clung to his ankles, its scent fragrant and not at all unpleasant. The screams of the towers drowned out the screeches of the Laer, and Fulgrim could not remember a more frenetic battlefield.

He had never before experienced such a riot of colour and noise, and what purpose it served, he could not fathom. The rearing temple appeared to be the centre of the cacophony. Tears in its fabric, like windows, were the source of the loudest screaming, and from them more of the pink musk seeped into the air. The structure was perhaps three hundred metres in front of him, but without more of his warriors, he saw that it might as well have been three hundred light years.

Another treacherous thought came to him as his sword clove a Laer warrior from head to tail, that perhaps they had been drawn into this hellish valley deliberately. The pink coral of its walls and the jagged spires that lined the ridges of its summit reminded him of a plant he had seen in the humid swamps of Twenty-Eight Two that feasted on the great buzzing insects of the jungles by luring them into its leafy jaws before snapping shut and digesting them.

Only the warriors who had accompanied him on the Firebird fought with him, and though they fought bravely, they were being dragged down one by one, and such a rate of attrition could have only one outcome. He scanned the slopes of the valley for any sign of his battle companies. He punched the air as he saw Julius Kaesoron and the warriors of the First fighting their way through the press of slithering, screeching Laer warriors towards him.

Terminator armour gave each warrior the strength and power of a tank, and though Fulgrim had loathed these inelegant suits of armour at first sight, his heart leapt to see them now.

'See now the mighty First!' shouted Fulgrim. 'Push on my brothers, push on!'

Brother Thestis surged forward, holding the Legion standard with one hand and cutting his way through the Laer with his sword. Fulgrim leapt to join him, protecting his faithful standard bearer's flank as the Phoenix Guard rallied to the banner.

'Follow the Phoenician!' Julius Kaesoron shouted, behind him, and Fulgrim laughed with the sheer joy and artistry of the fighting as the warriors of the First smashed into the Laer. Apothecary Fabius had said that the Laer were chemically modified to move towards perfection, but they were a poor shadow of the perfection embodied by his Legion.

As he punched his fist through a Laer warrior's skull, Fulgrim tried to imagine what heights he and his warriors could scale were they to embark on a similar path, and how proud his father would be when he saw what wonders and marvels they had wrought.