"You really have changed, Corax."
Lorgar's voice drifted in through the breach in the star fortress. He did not venture any farther inside, merely standing at the edge of the void, one arm resting on the greatsword's hilt and his other hand hanging loosely at his side.
His deep, dark eyes pierced the drifting dust and settled on Corax's limp body.
"You can take more of a beating now."
As Lorgar finished speaking, Corax barely managed to lift his head from the crater in the deck.
His Adam's apple bobbed, and a faint rattling sound escaped from deep in his throat.
He did not argue.
He only felt as though every bone in his body had been taken apart and haphazardly pieced back together. Each breath sent waves of splintering pain through him.
He spat out a mouthful of blood. In the star fortress's low gravity, it scattered into crimson beads that floated in the air.
He lay prone in the depression, the wings on his back splayed helplessly. The edges of their armor plates had curled and split, and the cartilage beneath was twisted out of shape in several places.
He squeezed his eyes shut, then forced them open. His gaze passed through the floating dust and the debris drifting through the breach in the star fortress, out toward the distant, empty, star-studded void.
He suddenly remembered that Horus had said Mortarion would come to reinforce him too.
Horus had said that when he reunited with Lorgar, Mortarion would bring the Death Guard's army around the flank, so Corax would not have to face the brother who had once banished him alone.
Horus had promised him this arrangement. He had promised reinforcements.
But Corax stared into the void, where only silent stars remained, and saw nothing.
The Death Guard's