"Have you made up your mind about what I told you the other day?"

The Phoenician asked softly, glancing at the Wolf God beside him.

Horus folded his arms and was quiet for a moment.

"We can't be certain the news is even true. Our twentieth brother, Alpharius, has always been an existence wrapped in mystery."

"And during the Horus Heresy, they sided with the traitors."

"That said, if he was able to appear before you and bring word of Lorgar's coming, that makes it a warning worth heeding regardless. Even if the message turns out to be false, it's still worth taking seriously."

"I believe what he said is true."

Fulgrim said.

"Why?"

Horus pressed.

"My memories hold an impression of them from the Heresy. The Hydra. The Alpha Legion. They were known for their adaptability, neither fully loyal nor fully treacherous."

"They acted on orders. Aiding the traitors, aiding the Imperium, or helping neither side and turning their blades on Chaos instead."

Fulgrim rubbed his temple with a tired hand.

"They always seemed to be pursuing some larger objective. Much like our father."

Horus didn't respond to the Phoenician's mild jab at their creator. But something in the remark caught, and turned.

"Kaelen mentioned a few things about this brother of ours, in one of our conversations."

"If the title First-Returned Son is taken at its literal meaning, it isn't mine. It should belong to Alpharius."

"Him?" Fulgrim turned his head in disbelief.

The First-Returned Son was an honor recognized by both the Imperium and the Emperor himself. A title practically branded into Horus's bones. Once, it had been a household name across the entire Imperium.

"The Warp storm that scattered us across the stars never took Alpharius." Horus drew a slow breath. "According to Kaelen, he was right there on Terra. Father found him without any difficulty."

Fulgrim's brow furrowed. He gestured for him to continue.

"I know what you're thinking. If Alpharius truly was the first child Father found, why did no one know he existed?"

Horus paused. "The answer is simple. His function was infiltration and espionage. Alpharius was trained by the Sigillite."

"You mean he was raised by the Sigillite, the way Leman Russ was, rather than by Father directly?"

"That's right."

Horus touched his chin without thinking, and Malcador's face surfaced in his mind. That expression the man always wore. Unreadable, deep as still water.

"Even though I despised the Sigillite back then — despised that uncle of ours — I cannot deny that his loyalty to Father never wavered by a single degree. If Alpharius was shaped by his hand, then where Alpharius's loyalty points becomes very clear."

He paused, then laid out the conclusion that mattered most.

"So in my view, Alpharius has always been loyal to Father. This is only speculation, of course. Perhaps Father gave him a secret mission that could only be carried out through means like these, means that could never be brought into the light."

Fulgrim turned the reasoning over in his mind several times.

He had to admit the logic held together.

"You're right. Whatever side he actually stands on, the warning he brought — that Lorgar is returning, has value on its own. We need to prepare. If it comes to it, I will act."

The words had barely left his mouth when Fulgrim raised one hand. A faint psychic radiance seeped from his fingertips, pale violet bleeding through the air.

After Iax, he had reclaimed his true primarch nature. His power was no longer shackled by the limitations of that cloned shell.

If he truly had to face the Daemon Primarch Lorgar, he had the standing to do it now.

Horus gave a single nod.

"Whatever it takes, we will defeat our fallen brother again."

Steady. Certain. Less a declaration than a statement of fact.

In the distance, the Ork WAAAGH cries surged in wave after wave, green energy rolling across the battlefield in pulses almost visible to the naked eye, some primal rhythm hammering between earth and sky.

The greenskins were fighting with wild abandon. The higher their frenzy climbed, the more the WAAAGH field swelled.

Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka was no simple opponent. A warlord who had carved himself free from the ork masses through sheer slaughter since the Beast War, his hands stained with Imperial blood no less than any other xenos.

"For now, though, the Ork warlord's psychic power is what demands our attention."

Horus turned and lifted the brand-new Worldbreaker from the weapon rack.

"Let's go, brother." A faint smile touched the corner of his mouth. "We'll take the heads of their commanders and their warlord ourselves."

Fulgrim's violet-gold eyes caught the distant firelight and burned bright with it. He smiled.

"With pleasure."

---

At the forward positions of the armored column, Cullen had half his body leaning out of the hatch. The old knight's gaze moved through the observation scope, hunting targets through smoke and fire.

His voice came over the comm channel, clipped, clean, stripped of every shade of unnecessary emotion.

"Twelve o'clock, greenskin Gargant. Fire."

The guns answered almost before his words had finished.

The shell tore a scorching line through the air and struck the Gargant square on its front armor. The explosion flipped the Orks' iron beast half onto its side.

"Two o'clock, greenskin wartrack. Fire."

Another precise hit.

The vehicle beneath him was an exceedingly rare heavy machine, a Falchion super-heavy tank destroyer. During the Great Crusade 10,000 years ago, this instrument of destruction had been the armored spearhead of the Legions.

Cullen was no stranger to it. Back when he had served in the Dreadwing of the First Legion, he had driven the same class of vehicle across the hulls of countless xenos heavy units.

But in this age, the Falchion was practically a sacred relic. The kind every Chapter kept locked away and never touched.

When Horus had handed him this tank, the Ultramarines' tech-sergeants standing nearby had looked as though someone had reached into their pockets and stolen a holy ancestral heirloom.

Cullen said nothing. He only murmured inwardly: My thanks for the gift, Lord Guilliman.

He patted the hull and pulled his attention back to the battlefield.

His armored company had already punched through three successive waves of Ork armor, frontal engagements, flanking thrusts, the greenskins' scrap-iron wrecks shattering through his carefully laid fire networks like clay pots under a hammer.

Combined with the coordinated defense of the Astartes from the other Chapters, the line had not moved an inch.

The harder the Orks' armored forces charged, the more cleanly they died.