Chapter Summaries

Angron fought Guilliman, who had been trapped in a Chaos illusion and reduced to a battle-driven routine. Angron reached him by invoking Hades, and began pulling Guilliman away from the sea of blood.

• Angron ordered Rorke to lead everyone back while he faced Guilliman alone.
• Angron dodged Guilliman's attacks and tried to reach him by mentioning Mortarion and Hades.
• Guilliman recalled how he had fought through illusions by shutting out their voices and repeating his battle routine.
• Angron grabbed Guilliman and asked how Hades had taught him to recognize Chaos.
• Guilliman began searching his memories for Hades, and Angron used the opening to guide him away from the sea of blood.

Mortarion waited for news of Angron and Guilliman while investigating Yutton’s fate with Numerology. After his calculations revealed a threat, he canceled Yutton’s hospital visits and ordered Macragge sealed and placed under wartime restrictions.

• Mortarion learned that no support team had reported back and reasoned that Angron and Guilliman were probably still alive.
• Mortarion stationed most of the Death Guard and all of Zero Company at the ruined spaceport, with another contingent near Macragge’s palace.
• Mortarion studied star charts and tried to use Numerology to determine the fleet’s original position.
• Yutton told Mortarion she planned to visit hospitals and comfort children and veterans.
• Mortarion used Numerology to examine Yutton, then told her to cancel her trip and ordered Garo to protect her.
• Mortarion summoned Gage and ordered the Ultramarines to seal the city, keep residents indoors, and impose wartime rationing.

Malcador traveled toward Macragge and sensed that an unknown entity had locked onto Mortarion. On Macragge, Mortarion ordered emergency defenses against a looming plague as Seven heard the gods’ whispers and descended to meet the other survivors.

• Malcador reflected on the Emperor’s defense of the Webway and decided he should risk himself in the coming war.
• Malcador sensed an unsettling presence in the region that had locked onto Mortarion.
• Mortarion demanded supreme temporary security authority from Gage, who offered Ultramarines support if given a reasonable justification.
• Mortarion marked Aks as the first fallen world and ordered troops, Tech-priests, and Apothecaries to prepare Macragge for a plague outbreak and impose a curfew.
• Seven left his hospital bed, followed the gods’ whispers to the third underground level, and joined the remaining six individuals as Radon told him to relax.

Mortarion ordered the bombardment of Macragge First Hospital and its surrounding districts to destroy a spreading corruption, but traitors among the Ultramarines redirected phosphorus shells toward him. Mortarion realized the attack had come from within the Ultramarines as the blast hurled him into the hospital ruins.

• Mortarion judged the hospital and nearby districts to be infected, then ordered Gage to begin a saturation bombardment with radioactive phosphorus shells and incendiaries.
• Gage hesitated over the order to destroy a populated district, but Mortarion threatened to have the Death Guard attack Macragge if the Ultramarines refused.
• Gage authorized the bombardment, and Stormbirds began striking the hospital and surrounding buildings with phosphorus shells and smoke bombs.
• Mortarion watched the bombardment destroy the infected buildings and believed he had prevented the enemy from luring him into a trap.
• A fresh wave of phosphorus shells fell precisely on Mortarion, and he realized traitors among the Ultramarines had targeted him.

Malcador led Jin and a Silent Sister through the World Eaters' warship to rescue Angron and Roboute Guilliman from a blood-red illusion. After they reached safety with the Death Guard, Malcador revealed that he had originally come to support Mortarion because the Warp prophecy had pointed to him.

• Malcador, Jin, and a Silent Sister entered the World Eaters' warship and fought through the Blood Mist toward the trapped primarchs.
• Angron and Roboute Guilliman waited in an endless desert illusion with a dozen World Eaters in suspended animation, reflecting on their failures and hoping Mortarion would rescue them.
• Malcador called out to Angron and Guilliman, who carried the fallen World Eaters toward his voice and escaped the illusion into the warship.
• Malcador and Jin cleared a path through the daemons as they escorted Angron and Guilliman to the Death Guard rescue force.
• Malcador asked after Mortarion, and the Death Guard said there was no immediate problem but communications with the surface were delayed.
• Malcador told Angron and Guilliman that he had meant to support Mortarion because the Warp prophecy had pointed to him.

Mortarion awoke alone on a hostile planet after an enemy teleportation trap and confronted Rotigus, who urged him to return to Nurgle. As toxic rain and corrupted Space Marines closed in, Mortarion rejected despair and prepared to fight, though he feared the price of praying for strength.

• Mortarion woke inside a shattered altar, realized he had been teleported away from Macragge, and treated his wounds after his gas mask was destroyed.
• Rotigus Rainfather emerged from the forest, healed Mortarion’s shot, and urged him to return to Nurgle, claiming the Imperium and Hades were already lost.
• Mortarion invoked the Underking’s name and declared his loyalty to humanity, causing Rainfather to shriek and vanish into the earth.
• Corrupted Space Marines advanced through corrosive rain that ate through Mortarion’s armor and flesh, leaving him isolated and overwhelmed by despair.
• Mortarion refused to surrender or die, raised his scythe, and began praying as he prepared to fight the approaching Space Marines.

Mortarion endured a deadly transformation on Nurgle’s living planet, recovered the truth of his identity, and turned the world’s corruption against Nurgle’s Garden. He claimed a piece of the Garden but abandoned his physical body as dark clouds spread across the planet.

• Mortarion trudged through the infected forest alone as his armor and body deteriorated under the planet’s assault.
• Mortarion recalled his past and realized he had to accept himself, then remembered that Nurgle was the enemy and that Nurgle had prepared the planet for him.
• Mortarion reached into Nurgle’s Garden through his vision and discovered that part of it had withered while Nurgle gathered its lost fragments.
• Mortarion summoned a greedy dark monster and used his clouds to devour a small corner of the Garden, sacrificing part of what anchored him to the mortal world.
• Mortarion’s physical body collapsed as his gray clouds spread over the planet, silencing its living creatures.

Malcador tried to locate Mortarion through a ritual and summoned Calas Typhon, whose close connection to Mortarion might help. Calas arrived at the contaminated hospital expecting to find Mortarion, but found only Malcador, Vokes, and strangers.

• Malcador found a seven-pointed teleportation altar in the hospital ruins and used Vokes's blood in a ritual, but it did not reveal enough to find Mortarion.
• Malcador decided he needed someone more closely linked to Mortarion, and Vokes arranged for Calas Typhon to be brought to Macragge.
• Calas complained to Buster about being summoned and demanded that Vokes treat him politely, but Buster said the Legion Commander's order could not be disobeyed.
• Calas recognized Mortarion's corruption as the transport hatch opened and rushed outside, but he found no sign of Mortarion or Hades.
• Malcador greeted Calas as the Dreadnought stopped before him.

Malcador used Calas Typhon’s bond with Mortarion to reach him, but Calas was drawn into a silent, fog-shrouded world and confronted the guilt of his past. There he accepted a fruit from a tiny Death Guard and reclaimed the part of himself that had been taken, while Mortarion remained lost.

• Malcador told Calas Typhon that Mortarion was in danger of falling into the abyss and said Hades was dead, stirring Calas’s grief and fear.
• Malcador tried to use Calas’s memories to locate Mortarion, but strange gray-white flames overtook Calas and pulled him into another world.
• Calas ran through a foggy landscape and stopped before the corrupted forest he had created, then forced himself to enter it.
• At the forest’s center, Calas found a grave piled with empty armor and met a tiny Death Guard holding out a fruit.
• Calas ate the fruit and regained the part of himself that had been plundered away, then howled with regret over having hesitated.

Malcador restored Calas Typhon’s soul and learned that Mortarion had left behind an anchor in the physical world. The chapter ended with Malcador planning to search for Mortarion where the veil was thin and to stabilize Ultramar while waiting for the Warp turbulence to ease.

• Angron sensed the Death Guard’s grief over Hades but noticed that Malcador showed no sorrow, making him suspect the Regent’s account.
• Malcador dispersed the white flames and found Calas Typhon restored inside the Dreadnought, with Mortarion’s Blackstone scythe, Mistletoe, beside him.
• Vokes identified Mistletoe as Mortarion’s weapon, and Malcador realized Mortarion had left an anchor that had helped repair Calas’s soul.
• Calas asked whether Mortarion was dead, and Malcador told him Mortarion was alive and urged him to try using his Psychic Power.
• Malcador planned to search for Mortarion where the veil was thin, stabilize Ultramar, and wait for a brief lull in Warp turbulence so fleets could reach Cadia and the Dark Side of the Imperium.

Vokes confronted Karras, who admitted his guilt and accepted Mortarion’s demand that he work to repay his debts. As the Death Guard prepared Hades’s memorial, Angron attended while knowing Hades was still alive, after Malcador told him to let the Legion mourn.

• Vokes refused to trust Karras and asked what he had seen and what Mortarion had told him.
• Karras called himself a failure and traitor, then accepted working for Mortarion to repay his debts.
• Vokes allowed Karras to visit Hades’s grave under guard, and Karras asked for roasted horse meat.
• Angron joined Guilliman, Yutton, and Karn on their way to Hades’s memorial, troubled because he knew Hades was alive.
• Malcador told Angron not to reveal the truth, saying the Death Guard would be better off believing Hades was dead.

Hades watched a recording of his funeral and discovered how many people had come to mourn him, while Malcador revealed that Angron had been led to believe Hades was dead. The footage ended with Calas Typhon keeping vigil beside Hades’s grave without leaving an offering, and Hades resolved to take petty revenge when he visited Typhon’s grave.

• The Emperor showed Hades a recording of his funeral, where the Death Guard had given him a plain Barbarus-style tombstone praising him as a great Barbaran and a true man.
• Hades joked about possible epitaphs with the Emperor and Malcador, then learned Malcador had let Angron believe Hades was dead to make him cautious about testing his abilities.
• Guilliman and Angron paid their respects at the grave, and Hades recognized the white sugar Angron had left as a promise to share a meal later.
• After the formal service, members of the Forge Department, Zero Company, Death Guard political cadets, and many others visited the grave and left offerings.
• Calas Typhon kept vigil beside Hades’s grave through the night but left no offering, prompting Hades to plan to reduce Typhon’s offering count when he visited his grave.

Malcador prepared a ritual and a bombing operation to reach Mortarion in the Warp and rouse him from his slumber. As the countdown began, he ordered Grey Knights drawn from the Thousand Sons to teleport with him.

• Malcador approved the bombing of Aks and told Calas that their mission to reach Mortarion depended on him.
• Malcador reasoned that Mortarion's call for help had drawn Hades's Null Field away from Nurgle, and that waking Mortarion could keep Hades from being sacrificed.
• Malcador used Calas Typhon, mistletoe, and a thin place in the veil to calculate a way to summon the Pale Lord, while the fleet dropped phosphorus bombs and prepared drop pods.
• Malcador gathered Grey Knights from the Thousand Sons, whose instability he connected to something that had happened to Magnus during Hades's sealing and the Astronomican's darkness.
• The Grey Knights declared themselves ready, and Malcador ordered the teleportation to begin.

The Death Guard burned through Aks’s plague-ridden farmland and surrounded its largest fertilizer factory to summon Mortarion. Calas Typhon entered the silent factory alone, found a winged figure resembling Mortarion, and drew its attention.

• Vokes led the Death Guard through burning fields, destroying plague creatures with phosphor flames as all fourteen companies took their positions around the fertilizer factory.
• Malcador explained that the Death Guard’s formation was part of a summoning ritual, and Calas was transported into the factory alone.
• Calas ran through the factory, calling for Mortarion and urging him to wake because he was in danger.
• Calas entered a silent, mist-filled world and saw miniature Death Guard figures, including markings he recognized from dead warriors.
• Calas spotted a motionless, winged figure atop a furnace and called out to Mortarion.
• The figure turned toward Calas and charged, and Calas screamed.

Karras found Mortarion in the Warp and tried to persuade him to return to the Death Guard, but the Pale Lord remained distant and attempted to leave. Malcador and the Grey Knights used Mortarion’s true name to pull him through the veil, leaving him captured while Malcador paid a bloody price.

• Karras confronted Mortarion and asked him to return to lead the Death Guard, but Mortarion spoke cryptically about death and extinction.
• The Pale Lord judged Karras to be no intruder and tried to leave, prompting Karras to call for Plan B.
• Malcador appeared with the Grey Knights, seized Karras and a small Death Guard, and fled toward the stable veil as Mortarion pursued them.
• A Grey Knight supplied the text while Malcador chanted Mortarion’s true name, and the group crossed the veil amid a massive shockwave.
• Vokes saw the captured Mortarion in insectoid form, while Malcador vomited blood and the small Death Guard tried to wipe it away.

One month after Mortarion’s return, Guilliman and Angron went to see him aboard The Indomitable, having been warned that he had changed. They discovered that Mortarion had wings, though he looked nothing like Sanguinius.

• Guilliman investigated an outbreak on Macragge and found that eighty percent of those infected were Hydra, then contained them on Malcador’s advice.
• Malcador told Guilliman and Angron that Mortarion had lost some of his memory and changed his appearance, and joked privately about Mortarion’s new Psychic Power.
• Guilliman and Angron speculated nervously about how Mortarion might look as the Death Guard led them through The Indomitable.
• The primarchs reached Mortarion’s frost-covered Blackstone cell and discovered that his changed appearance included wings.

Guilliman and Angron visited Mortarion on The Indomitable and learned that he had gained wings and become a marked Warp being who could be attacked by the Null Field. Mortarion said they needed to return to the battlefield where the Emperor fell, and afterward he remained alone, wondering whether Malcador had concealed the truth about his transformation.

• Guilliman and Angron found Mortarion transformed, with a gaunt body and folded wings, and asked how he was doing.
• Mortarion spread his glowing wings, and Angron and Guilliman praised them before Guilliman apologized for having put him in danger.
• Mortarion explained that he had summoned Hades during his transformation, leaving him marked and vulnerable to the Underking and the Null Field.
• Mortarion told them the Emperor was not dead and said they needed to go to the battlefield where he had fallen, where other beings had helped preserve a chance of life.
• Mortarion said he was trying to regain his form and would leave once Malcador judged him safe, then sent Guilliman and Angron away.
• After the visitors left, Mortarion sat with the miniature Death Guard and wondered whether Malcador had withheld information about his wings and who Sanguinius was.

Malcador urged Mortarion to hold the Blackstone gate and stabilize a rear area, while Guilliman planned to make him Warmaster. Elsewhere, the Lion prepared to pursue the Night Lords, and Fulgrim demanded to see Konrad Curze despite Sevatar’s warning that Curze did not want him there.

• Malcador told Mortarion to use his new ability and help secure the unstable region, then said Guilliman intended to appoint him Warmaster; a small Death Guard refused the idea.
• Lion El'Jonson learned that the Night Lords had likely headed for Baal and ordered his fleet to prepare to follow them so he could judge Konrad Curze.
• Fulgrim demanded to see Curze, and Sevatar said Curze had refused him, explaining that the Night Lords needed a stable place to rest as Curze’s condition worsened.
• Fulgrim promised the Night Lords a place to rest and ordered Sevatar to lead him to Curze, despite Sevatar repeating that Curze did not want to see him.

Fulgrim went to the Night Lords' ship to find Konrad Curze and learn the truth about Ferrus Manus, only for Curze to reveal that Ferrus was dead and nearly kill him. Lion El'Jonson arrived in time to stop Curze and pursued him into the darkness.

• Fulgrim abandoned plans to rescue other star systems and sought allies to travel to Cygnus X-1, where he hoped to verify rumors about Ferrus Manus.
• Fulgrim met Sevatar aboard the Night Lords' ship and insisted on seeing Konrad Curze despite Sevatar's warning.
• Curze revealed that Ferrus Manus was dead, and Fulgrim froze in grief as Curze prepared to kill him.
• Lion El'Jonson shot Curze, then entered the darkness to hunt the Night Haunter.

Lion El'Jonson and Fulgrim fought Konrad Curze aboard Nightfall while Sevatar manipulated the ship's systems and confronted Corswain. Curze escaped into poison gas as Nightfall accelerated toward a Warp rift, leaving both battles unresolved.

• Lion El'Jonson wounded Curze, rejected his claims about loyalty, and pursued him with Fulgrim.
• Curze attacked Fulgrim and begged him to let Curze change fate, but broke away when Mortarion's name and Sevatar's survival were raised.
• Sevatar used poison gas and a Promethium dump to help Curze escape, while Corswain learned Sevatar was the Night Lords' true Legion Commander.
• Corswain demanded Sevatar surrender, but Sevatar secretly activated Nightfall's controls and accelerated the ship toward the Warp rift.
• Sevatar lunged at Corswain as Curze, wielding chains as whips, attacked Fulgrim and Lion El'Jonson pursued him.