22. Hunting Eagles (VIII, 75K, The Limits of Pain)

How many men would the Third Legion have ten thousand years from now?

Before today, Fulgrim could have given a precise answer.

Five hundred and twenty-nine.

But now, he no longer dared to be certain.

He had long anticipated that this disaster would inflict grievous losses upon the Legion. Every one of his sons was the kind of man who would step forward before catastrophe without regard for the consequences.

Perhaps they had simply been taught too well. Or perhaps they were bound by the tradition that they "must uphold the honor of the Third Legion."

Yet no matter what, the Phoenix understood that his Legion would suffer devastating losses in this war.

He did not wish to dwell on it, but he accepted it—being Astartes, being Emperor's Children, dying in such a war was their destiny, and what they had pursued all their lives.

To die fighting with all one's strength, to die protecting the unarmed—what end could be more fitting for a warrior?

Even if the Third Legion existed in name alone after today, he would accept it. For this was the choice of his sons themselves; through their own will, they had lived up to the name Emperor's Children.

But he would never accept what lay before him.

"How is it, my lord? Come now, step forward and end their suffering." Typhus leaned on his scythe, panting as he spoke in a slow murmur.

His voice echoed through the stone cavern. The thick fungal carpets and the moss that had run rampant after being infected by the rotten flesh and pus-blood of Great Unclean Ones softened and reflected it back, warping it, staining it with an unnatural dampness. It also made the low, muffled groans born of torment all the more distinct.

The sword in the Phoenix's