As Sigismund secured vast quantities of munitions for transport back to Terra, nearly two thousand aircraft - Stormbirds, Thunderhawks and Army drop-ships - swooped on Mondus Gamma under the cover of an ash storm blowing in from the Solis Planum. In the wake of a furious volley of missiles and cannon fire, the assaulters blasted their way into the production facilities of southern sub-hive factorum.

Surprise was total, and led by hundreds of warriors in golden battle plate, over fifteen thousand Imperial soldiers stormed the forge's defences, rapidly seizing the armaments temples before spreading out to secure the armouries in a textbook example of multiple take and hold assaults. With the dropsite secure, wide-bellied supply carriers dropped into the forge, and an army of loader servitors, overseers and quartermasters began the liberation of the vast quantities of armour and weapons.

As sudden and shocking as the Astartes assault had been, the unknown quantity of the defences was quickly and horribly revealed. Within moments of the carriers landing, the monstrosities of Lukas Chrom's forge rose to its defence.

A host of screeching battle robots, their weapons limned with unholy light, attacked and burned and crushed scores of desperate men with blazing fire lances and power maces. Alongside the robots came a tide of blank-faced automatons, each one fighting with deadly ferocity and unbreakable resolve. These monstrous machines slowed, and finally held the merciless advance of the Astartes, giving the forge's mortal defenders the opportunity to launch a ferocious counterattack.

An endless tide of screaming tech-guard, thousands of hideously altered weaponised servitors and yet more battle robots converged on the Astartes and Army units from multiple directions in perfectly coordinated phalanxes. Only the superhuman resolve and tenacity of the Imperial Fists prevented their position from being overrun in the first moments of the counterattack.

Desperate soldiers fought and died as loaders and riggers rushed to evacuate as many suits of armour and crates of weapons as possible from the blazing forge, onto the waiting carriers.

With every second, men were dying, but Camba-Diaz knew that it was a small price to pay in order to secure as many weapons and suits of armour as possible.

Terra would stand or fall depending on what they could achieve here.

Dalia smelled the hot, dry air of another world, the spiced fragrances drifting from lands far away and countries as yet undiscovered. The cavern beneath the Noctis Labyrinthus faded from view, the silver lines that defied rational perception easing into obscurity and replaced with the soft curves of desert dunes and the vast expanse of a breathtakingly beautiful azure sky.

A ferocious heat enveloped her and she gasped as it hit her like an opened blast furnace. The vista was at once strange and familiar to her, and her fear faded as she suddenly understood where and when she was.

She stood on the baking sands of a high dune, looking over a wide river valley where a great city of sun-bleached stone reared up on a plateau of dark rock. From the gates of the city marched a solemn procession of women in white, bearing a silk-veiled litter of gold and jade.

'You know where you are?' said a voice behind her and she turned to see Adept Semyon.

'I think so,' said Dalia. 'This is Old Earth. Before Unification.'

Semyon nodded. 'Long before Unification. The tribes of men are still divided and know nothing of the glories and perils beyond their world.'

'And what is that city over there?' asked Dalia.

'Still thinking in such literal terms, girl,' chuckled Semyon. 'We are still in the cave of the Dragon. All this is a manipulation of your mind's perception centres by the book to show you what needs to be shown. But in answer to your question, the city is called Cyrene and this is a representation of a land once known as Libya. It is an ancient land, though the people you see before you are far from the first to settle here. The Phoenicians came here first, men the Grekans, then the Romans, and finally the Arabii. Well, not finally, but that's who rules now.'

'And when are we?'

'Ah, well, the text isn't clear, though I believe this happened some time in either the eleventh or twelfth century.'

'So long ago.'

'A long time by anyone's reckoning,' agreed Semyon. 'Save perhaps his.'

'I don't understand,' said Dalia. 'Who are you talking about?'

'Never mind. You'll understand soon enough.'

Dalia fought down her annoyance at Semyon's cryptic answers and said, 'So we're not really here and this is just what's in the book?'

'Now you begin to understand.'

'So who are those women?' asked Dalia, pointing towards the procession as it made its way down a road of hard-packed earth towards a long scar in the ground from which drifted a mephitic fog.

'They are the handmaidens of the King of Cyrene's daughter, Cleodolinda, and they are taking her to her death. Within that wound in the earth dwells the Dragon, a fearsome creature recently awoken after a great war with its kin, which seeks refuge on this world to feed and regain its strength.'

'The Dragon.'

'Yes, the Dragon,' agreed Semyon. 'It has slain all the knights of the city and demands the sacrifice of a beautiful maiden every day. It feasts on their terror, growing stronger with each feeding, but all the young girls of Cyrene are dead. The king's daughter alone remains, and now she goes to her death.'

'Can't we do anything?'

Semyon sighed. 'Can you not grasp that this has already happened, girl? This is ancient history we are watching, the birth of a legend that will echo down through the ages in one form or another for all time. Look!'

Dalia followed Semyon's pointing digit and saw a lone warrior knight in golden armour and a scarlet-plumed helmet riding towards the procession of women on a mighty charger of midnight black. He carried a tall lance of purest silver, from which flew a long red and white banner depicting a soaring eagle grasping a bolt of lightning.

'Who is that?' asked Dalia, though she already knew.

'At this point in time, he is known as a soldier of the Emperor Diocletian, one who has risen to high honour in the army and who is passing through Libya to join his men.'

Dalia almost wept at the sight of the knight, a being of a fairer presence than any she had seen and one whose wondrous power was undimmed by the passage of years.

The knight spurred his horse and swiftly overtook the procession, riding towards the dark scar in the earth. No sooner had he halted his mount and set his shield upon his arm than the Dragon surged from its lair, roaring with a sound louder than thunder.

Dalia's hands flew to her mouth and she cried out as she saw the Dragon's monstrous form. In shape it was half crawling beast, half loathsome bird, its scaled head immense and its tail twenty metres long. Its terrible winged body was covered with scales, so strong and bright and smooth that they were like a knight's armour.

The light of devoured stars shone at its breast and malignant fire burned in its eyes.

The warrior knight leapt to meet the Dragon, striking the monster with his lance, but its scales were so hard that the weapon broke into a thousand pieces. From the back of his rearing horse, the warrior smote the dragon with his sword, but the beast struck at him with talons like scythe blades. The warrior's armour split open and Dalia saw blood pouring down his leg in a bright stream.

The Dragon towered over its foe, dealing him fearful blows, but the knight caught them upon his shield and thrust his sword against the Dragon's belly. The scales of the beast were like steel plates, rippling like liquid mercury as they withstood the knight's every attack. Then the Dragon, infuriated by the thrust, lashed itself against the knight and his horse, and cast lightning upon him from its eyes. The knight's helmet was torn from him and Dalia saw his face shine out from the battle, pale, lit by some radiance that shone from within. As he thrust at the Dragon, that radiance grew in power, so that at last it was like the light of a newborn sun.