Angron Has Just Returned, I Already Have My First Batch of

Senior Commander of the Bulls

"Vampire" Galan Surak had not yet set foot on the steps of the Hall of Triumph when his nose twitched, and the smell of blood flooded in through his breathing grille.

He had just stepped onto the dais when he saw Sinnagen, the captain of the Second Company, charge through the great doors.

Galan saw veins bulging across Gradel's forehead and face. His taut shoulders only loosened through deep muscular control.

His skin gave off the scent of cleansing gel, beneath which lurked adrenaline and other secretions.

When an Astartes body sensed danger, it instinctively secreted such substances.

Gradel watched the steel-gray doors warily, as though some terrible daemon lay within, nightmares flashing through his mind.

The lord of the Legion, Gil, had been the first to enter. Kunna, champion of the First Company, heard the clamor behind the doors and burst in wrapped in a brocade robe, Chainaxe in hand.

Assault Captain Anciz followed close behind, with Hyacinth after him, while his two standard-bearers insisted on accompanying him inside.

For an hour inside that dim hall, they did everything they could, yet still failed to persuade their Primarch.

Galan silently stepped into the ranks, studying everyone amid the heavy reek of blood and the grim atmosphere.

The semicircular outer wall of the antechamber to the Hall of Triumph faced the barracks deck. Its broad colonnades had once been filled with noise, the War Hounds shouting and laughing at the top of their voices.

Now there was only an eerie silence, making the crashes and screams behind the iron-gray doors all the more piercing. Every War Hound's nerves and muscles were pulled taut.

Galan stood in silence for three hours, and in his eyes, the iron-gray doors became blood-red gates to hell.

He was utterly