Fear to Tread; pg. 219

It was enough; Ka’Bandha moved like lightning, the barbs of his whip coming from out of nowhere.
Striking like vipers, the lashes cracked against the primarch’s legs with monstrous force and crushed
them, knocking him to the ground. The Angel’s cry of agony echoed across the battlefield.
The daemon’s laughter smothered the sound. ‘You defied me, and now I will give you a wound that
will forever fester,’ he vowed. Bolter fire from squads of Blood Angels coming to their master’s aid
whined off his brass armour, but he paid no heed to them.

Sanguinius fought against titanic waves of agony, grasping for his fallen sword. The beast had
turned his kinship with Horus against him; his uncertainty forged the moment of doubt, the careless
instant that allowed Ka’Bandha to strike him down. ‘Try if you will!’ he spat.
The daemon’s face twisted in amusement. ‘You misunderstand,’ it told him, gathering up its fallen
axe. A baleful light, a glowing crimson mist, formed around the cutting edge. ‘I know how to cut you
deeper than any blow ever would.’

There were hundreds of legionaries storming across the mud, righteous anger propelling them
forward, burning with the need to avenge this attack against their master. Sanguinius felt the emotion
coming from them in waves. He saw their faces, heard their names ring in his ears. At the lead,
steadfast Nakir, his captain of the bold 24th Company; and with him Gravato and Madidus, Perada
and Ferveus and Eremin and Carrick and countless more, each of whom he knew like a son.

‘No!’ He tried to warn them off, his wounded legs resisting him as he attempted to stand, but
Ka’Bandha was already running into them, conjuring a red fire from the air, a haze that burned like
pure fury.

The daemon’s axe rose; and when it fell, a new crimson sun came to life in the middle of the
battleground. A ragefire broke, and in the halls of his mind, a father heard five hundred of his sons
perish at once.

Then darkness claimed the Angel, the backlash of psychic shock spiralling after him into the abyss
of his soul.