‘I do not want to be here,’ Sanguinius told them. ‘I do not want this present, and I want the future that follows even less. We stand against our own brothers and sisters, with our backs to the Eternity Gate, and this is not a battle we can win. If you have ever wondered how you will die, now you know. If you have ever wondered where your body will lie, now you know. You will be killed on the last wall between hope and horror. Your body will lie here, unburied, staring up at a poisoned sky.

‘Once the Sanctum falls, Terra falls with it. And I tell you – we cannot hold this wall. You can see it yourselves – they are too many, we are too few. We may last a week, if we do the impossible. More likely we will all be dead in three days. Perhaps my words surprise you. Or frighten you. But I will not lie. Not to you, not to you who have come through two hundred days of dread only to find yourselves here.

‘I have looked into your faces and seen what this war has cost all of you. I have followed the flow of battles that each of you have survived, to stand here on the final battlement. I see everything you have endured, those stories written in the light of your eyes. Now the Warmaster offers you the lie of life, promising a mercy his forces are incapable of showing, if we will abandon this last wall. And it falls to me, here and now, to tell you to stand against him one more time. To give everything you have, even your lives, if it will hold this rampart for another day, another hour, another second. That is what the moment demands of me, is it not? That I beg you to make one last sacrifice?’

Sanguinius swooped closer to the battlement, casting his sword to the stone. It clattered there, in a loose cluster of Blood Angels, none of whom made any attempt to pick it up. Land stared at it for a long moment, then watched as the primarch whirled in the sky to face the wall once more, showing his bare hands to the gathered thousands.

‘No.’ Sanguinius fairly breathed the word.

His wings beat hard, holding him aloft. He stared into the silence that met his disavowal, and he shook his head to punctuate the syllable with adamance.

‘No. I will not ask it of you. You have already given everything. You have already done everything asked of you a hundred times and more. You have suffered through a war of unimaginable darkness, one that has demanded more from you than any soldier in the history of our species has been forced to give. The fact you still live, that you still fight… I cannot conceive of the courage and resilience it requires for you to face this dawn and look to the horizon with a rifle in your hands.’

Land could hear Army soldiers shuffling; he saw them glancing at each other. None of them spoke. All of them held rapt to the primarch’s words.

‘Where Horus has offered only lies, I will offer you truth. Those of you that wish to run… Run. Leave this place. Not in shame at a duty undone, not in surrender to the traitor’s forces, but with honour. Go with my gratitude, for you have already given everything asked of you. What right do I – does anyone – have to demand more? From you, who have endured harrowing beyond account, horror beyond measure?

‘If you wish to fall back into the Sanctum Imperialis and spend the last hours of life with your children, then do so. Know that you go not only with my blessing, but with my envy.

‘If you wish to leave the wall and take your chances in the wasteland before the battle begins, then – in the Emperor’s name – you have earned the right to try. Go swiftly, and carry with you the pride that you have already given a hero’s share in a war that none of us wanted but were forced to fight.

‘And if you wish for the truth, I will give it to you gladly, for you have earned that, too. It shames me to admit, but I would abandon this wall if I could. The primarch in me, the supposed demigod half of my heart, craves life with a ferocity that shames me. If I bowed to that instinct, I would take to the sky and never look back. But I cannot. I am half-human. And the human in me demands that I stay.’

Sanguinius turned, looking over his shoulder at the retreating emissary. Daughter of Torment was a quarter of the way to her lines now. When he looked at the wall once again, all could see the resolve in his eyes.

‘There are legends about me, I hear them whispered among you every day, that I know the moment of my own death. The stories say this gives me courage, that I feel no fear because I know I cannot yet be slain. Here is the truth of that tale.

‘That prophesied death is coming. Today. Tonight. Tomorrow. I know not the When or the How, only that I feel fate’s breath on the back of my neck. I do not remain here out of immortality’s courage. I remain here because, if I am to die, I choose this death. I choose to die with my back to the last door. I choose to give my life to buy another hour, or a minute, or even a single second of grace to those who cannot be here fighting with me. I choose to die here because I do not believe I have yet given all I can.

‘Someone must stand and fight, and if I have but one choice left, I will make it now. I will stand. I will fight. I will hold this wall, knowing that the Thirteenth Legion makes for Terra with all speed, and if they cannot bring salvation, they will bring retribution. Whether I am alone or whether a hundred thousand of you are by my side, when the Warmaster’s horde descends upon this wall, they will find me waiting for them with a blade in hand. Not because I can win, but because it is right. I do not know what delusion grips those out there, who were once our brothers and sisters. But I know it is right to oppose them.’

Silence drifted over the Delphic Battlement, but only for a moment. Sanguinius swept his arm across the wall, taking in the defenders. Thousands of holo-ghosts of his image did the very same thing.

‘I have spoken enough. You need hear no more of my fears and confessions. All that remains is for me to ask… Will you run?’