The northern wilderness was Caliban's oldest, bleakest, and most dangerous wild region.
Now, almost all the forests had vanished. Only in the planet's northeast, near Wolf-Head Mountain where the destroyed Order of Sirius had once stood, and in the surrounding areas, did stretches of forest remain.
Zahariel of the Dark Angels' Librarium walked out from the landing pad. The dark-gray pad was surrounded on three sides by huge, multi-story mineral refineries and storage tanks, which cast their shadows over the fields.
Zahariel quickly left the landing pad and looked around, seeing the tops of brown and black tree roots stubbornly pushing up through smooth cracks.
Caliban's forests had not yielded to the Imperium's ground-clearing machines. They were still resisting, still stubbornly growing.
The Imperium's planetary scholars classified Caliban as a Death World, meaning it was not merely dangerous, but a planet actively harmful to human life.
Zahariel had read many texts in the Librarium, and he had gradually come to understand that Death Worlds were almost impossible to tame.
Caliban seemed to have been completely transformed by the Imperium's engineers, but the Spirit Witch could feel that this was not so. Something was still resisting.
As Zahariel advanced, the trees breaking through the ground rose from calf-high shoots to trees as tall as six men.
Zahariel walked into Caliban's forest.
The Spirit Witch frowned as he looked at the deathly silence covering the green woods, a rustling filling his ears.
"Zahariel, you are a child of Caliban."
"You must stop them."
Following the trees' low, weeping boughs, the Spirit Witch gazed toward the depths of the forest. A glorious moment from many years ago leapt into his mind. He had been nearby when he killed the last Lion Beast.
More importantly, the feeling in his memory was the same as