We have lingered in Colonid for too long, and must immediately achieve a decisive victory.

The Vengeful Spirit, Wolf-God Council Chamber.

Horus Lupercal sat high upon The Throne. "We must make progress at once."

The war in Colonid had already been going on for four months, but its progress lagged far behind his plans.

The main strength of two Legions had been stalled on the southeastern edge of the Colonid Sector.

Legio Tempestus had suffered even heavier losses and had been forced to retreat.

He had been forced to send a formation from the Death Skull Titan Legion and one hundred companies to Mill World to attack the loyalists led by the Storm Lords and the Shadow of Order.

A Sons of Horus squad ranged from ten to twenty men, while company sizes varied even more widely.

The smallest company at present had only thirty-six men, while the largest had nine hundred and seventy-two.

There were thirty-eight thousand Sons of Horus on the Rock of Ghana and sixty-nine thousand on Mill World.

An army of one hundred thousand should have been enough to pacify the entire star sector, yet even now they had not fully occupied any one of the Rock of Ghana, Mill World, or Gatherman.

Their overwhelming armies held every stronghold, but those Shadow of Order forces and mortal Auxilia were like weeds, impossible to root out, constantly launching raids.

Angron's nearly fifty thousand missing sons had appeared on Gatherman as well, blocking the Emperor's Children led by Fulgrim.

They were still far from occupying more than a hundred worlds in the Cyclops Cluster, let alone seizing the entire star sector, including Manache.

What pained Horus most was that Ezekyle had still not been found.

Of the former members of the Council of Four Kings, only one was present in the chamber—Horus Aximand.

He did not believe Ezekyle was dead, but nine companies