Two primarchs faced one, and Guilliman was cunning enough to back away and take whatever

ground he could.
‘You two.’ He looked at them with eyes heavy with judgement. ‘My brothers, my brothers, what a
sorry sight you’ve become. Traitors. Heretics. No better than the treasonous cultures we’ve quashed
for the last two hundred years. Did you learn nothing? Either of you?’
‘Always the teacher,’ said Lorgar, and there was admiration in his smile. ‘It grieves me this was
necessary, Roboute.’
Guilliman ignored him, aiming a gauntlet at Angron. ‘I’ve heard Lorgar’s puling heresies already.
What brought you so low, brother? Did the machine in your skull finally refashion your loyalty into
madness?’
‘Hnnngh. They let me dream. They give me peace. What would you know of struggle, Perfect Son?
Hnh? When have you fought against the mutilation of your mind? When have you had to do anything
more than tally compliances and polish your armour?’
‘Childish,’ Guilliman sighed, gesturing to the burning, dying city. ‘Does it really come down to this?
So pitiably childish.’
‘Childish? The people of your world named you Great One. The people of mine called me Slave.’
Angron stepped closer, chainswords revving harder. ‘Which one of us landed on a paradise of
civilisation to be raised by a foster father, Roboute? Which one was given armies to lead after
training in the halls of the Macraggian high-riders? Which one of us inherited a strong, cultured
kingdom?’
Angron sprayed bloody spit as he frothed the words. ‘And which one of us had to rise up against a
kingdom with nothing but a horde of starving slaves? Which one of us was a child enslaved on a
world of monsters, with his brain cut up by carving knives?’
The two primarchs met again. Guilliman’s powered gauntlets should have easily deflected Angron’s
chainswords, but the World Eater’s strength drove his brother back step by step. Chain-teeth
sprayed from the weapons as eagerly as the saliva from Angron’s lipless slit of a mouth.
‘Listen to your blue-clad wretches yelling of courage and honour, courage and honour, courage and
honour. Do you even know the meaning of those words? Courage is fighting the kingdom that
enslaves you, no matter that their armies overshadow yours by ten thousand to one. You know
nothing of courage. Honour is resisting a tyrant when all others suckle and grow fat on the hypocrisy
he feeds them. You know nothing of honour.’
Guilliman parried, forced back further by the storm of Angron’s blows. He finally landed a glancing
blow, his fist pounding across Angron’s breastplate. The chain of Desh’elika skulls shattered, bone
shards scattering across the dirt.
‘You’re still a slave, Angron. Enslaved by your past, blind to the future. Too hateful to learn. Too
spiteful to prosper.’