'I know you were,' nodded Malcador, lacing his hands behind his back as they passed beneath the arch. 'So how long would it take?'

'If my Fists did the work, perhaps two days,' said Dorn. 'But let's hope it doesn't come to that. If the traitor's forces reach this far then we have already lost.'

'The Emperor trusts you not to let that happen.'

'I will not,' agreed Dorn.

They walked in silence for some time, content to enjoy the view of the mountains against the rare sight of a blue sky and the many wonders contained within the Himadri Precinct: the Throne Globe of Mad King Peshkein of Tali, the Colonnade of Heroes, the last flying machine of the Roma, preserved in a shimmering stasis field and a hundred other wonders and trophies taken in the Wars of Unity.

'The Emperor still does not join us?' asked Dorn as they passed the bloodstained Armour of Pearl that had been torn from the body of the warlord Kalagann.

Malcador sighed. He had been waiting for this question. 'No, my friend, he does not.'

'Tell me why, Sigillite,' demanded Dorn. 'His empire is crumbling and his brightest bastard son is dragging half the galaxy into war. What could possibly be more important?'

'I have no answer for you,' said Malcador. 'Save the Emperor's word that nothing is more important than his labours in the palace vaults, not Horus, not you and certainly not I.'

'Then we are alone.'

'No,' said Malcador. 'Not alone. Never alone. The Emperor may not stand beside us, but he has given us the means to fight this war and win it. Horus has three of his brother legions with him, you have your Fists and thirteen others.'

'Would that it were fifteen,' mused Dorn.

'Do not even think it, my friend,' warned Malcador. 'They are lost to us forever.'

'I know,' said Dorn, 'and you are right. By any simple reckoning of numbers, the traitor stands little chance of victory, but he was always the most cunning, the one most likely to find a way where no others could.'

'Is that what you're really afraid of?'

'Perhaps,' whispered Dorn. 'I do not yet know what I am afraid of. And that worries me.'

Malcador waved a hand along the length of the Himadri Precinct towards the grim, black portal at its end, their ultimate destination. 'Mayhap the Master of the Astrotelepathica will have more news of the Legions.'

'He'd better,' said Dorn. 'After the sacrifices we've made to pierce the storms in the warp, there had better be some news of Sanguinius and the Lion.'

'And Guilliman and Russ,' added Malcador.

'I'm not worried about them. They can look after themselves,' said Dorn. 'But the others were heading into danger when last I knew of their plans, and it grieves me that I cannot reach them. I need to gather the Legions to strike at the heart of the traitor.'

'You still plan to take the fight to Horus Lupercal?'

'After what he did to Istvaan III it is the only way,' said Dorn, almost flinching at the sound of his former brother's name. 'Kill the head and the body will die.'

'Maybe so, but we have problems closer to home to deal with first.'

'You speak of the uprisings on Mars?'

'I do,' confirmed Malcador. 'High Adept Ipluvien Maximal contacts me daily with word of further atrocities and loss of knowledge. War has come to the red planet.'

'There is no word from the Fabricator General?'

'None that makes any kind of sense. I fear he is against us now.'

'This Maximal, how reliable is he?'

Malcador shrugged. 'How reliable is anything these days? I know Maximal of old, and though he is prone to exaggeration, he is a staunch Emperor's man and I believe he speaks the truth. Mars burns with rebellion.'

'Then we need to secure the solar system before looking to make war in a far off system.'

'What do you propose?' asked Malcador.

'I shall send Sigismund and my four companies of Imperial Fists to secure the forges of Mars. Mondus Occulum and Mondus Gamma produce the bulk of the armour and weapons of the Astartes. We will strike there to capture those forges and when they are ours, we will push outwards and secure the others.'

'Sigismund? A trifle volatile is he not?' asked Malcador. 'Might not a mission to Mars benefit from a cooler head than his?'

Dorn smiled, a rare sight in these bleak times. 'My first captain is prone to bellicose talk, aye, but I will send Camba-Diaz with him. He will provide a steadying influence on Sigismund. Will that suffice to allay your concerns?'

Malcador nodded. 'Of course. You are the commander of the Imperium's armed forces and you have my full confidence, but even a humble administrator such as I knows that you will need more warriors than four companies of Imperial Fists to pacify Mars.'

'We can bulk out the force with regiments of Imperial Army and Auxiliary units stationed on Terra and the moons of Saturn and Jupiter.'

'And perhaps Sor Talgron's Word Bearers?'

'No,' said Dorn. 'I need his warriors for the assault on Istvaan V.'

Malcador paused and looked through one of the soaring windows as the sun began to set behind the tallest peak of the world.

'Who could have believed it would come to this?' he asked.

'No one could have foreseen this,' said Dorn. 'Not even the Emperor.'

'If we cannot stop the Warmaster then everything we have built over the last three centuries will be lost, my friend. All our grand achievements and the great dream of unity will turn to ash if we fail. We will perish by our own hands or else be devoured by a tide of alien insurgents, unable to mount more than a token resistance against the ghoulish hordes.'

'Then we cannot afford to fail,' said Dorn.

Malcador turned to face Dorn and looked up into his handsome, weathered features. 'Send your warriors to Mars, Rogal Dorn. Secure the Martian forges and then crush the life from Horus Lupercal on Istvaan V.'

Dorn bowed towards him. 'It shall be done,' he promised.

3.02

As Adept Zeth had predicted, the forces of the Fabricator General did indeed return to the Magma City. The sun rose above the calderas of the Tharsis Montes on yet another day of bloodshed and chaos, and auspex lookouts raised the alarm that the inhabitants of her forge had feared.

Legio Mortis was on the march.

Southwards from Pavonis Mons, the engines of Mortis came around the western flanks of Arsia Mons, easily demolishing the high walls surrounding the container yards and runways that fed on the materiel produced by the Magma City. Led by the towering Imperator, Aaqila Ignis, a total of thirteen war engines strode through the great breach torn by the guns of the Imperator.

The Imperator's pack moved slowly and ponderously, a mix of Warlords and Reavers, with four Warhounds leading the way like snarling wolves to flush out their prey. Armour of red and silver and black gleamed in the growing light, their hulls freshly daubed with the Eye of Horus. Thundering warhorns blared their warlike intentions and hideous blurts of scrapcode screamed their corrupted names across the airwaves.

From a distance they looked like hunched old men, moving with wheezing, stiff-legged gaits, but there was nothing infirm about these terrible war engines. These machines had been designed with the express purpose of destroying the enemies of humanity, but were now perverted to serve a darker purpose and far darker masters.

They paid the vast stacks of containers no mind, intent on pressing onwards to their goal of destruction. The container port was huge, but looming in the distance was the industrial sprawl of the Arsia Mons sub-hives, worker habs and outlying production hubs.

It was to this tangled mass of structures that Mortis walked, the only route, other than the heavily defended Typhon Causeway, by which their engines could cross the vast magma lagoon upon which Adept Zeth's city stood.