Several days later, the bloody purge of the old nobility was largely complete. The gallows and rubble were gradually cleared away, and the pungent stench of blood was slowly giving way to dust and the scent of new building materials.
The city did not immediately enter an age of peace and prosperity, but a rough, genuine order was taking shape, founded on the sweat of equal labor and cautious mutual oversight.
Lorgar Aurelian had kept his promise.
Apart from helping uproot the last strongholds of resistance in the early stages, he no longer intervened in any of Nostramo's day-to-day affairs.
The warriors of the Word Bearers were stationed in planetary Orbit and at several designated outlying bases. Like silent sentinels, they left the stage entirely to Konrad Curze and his new people.
It was an act of respect, but also a test.
Lorgar was testing whether his brother had the ability to be not merely a destroyer, but a builder as well.
Curze displayed an almost ruthless efficiency, quite unlike his image as a hunter in the night.
His first priority was to forge his own blade. From among the millions of insurgents, the strongest, most resilient, and most deeply hostile to the rotten old order were selected through successive rounds of screening.
The initial selection numbered in the hundreds of thousands. This was not the intended size of the final Legion, however, but a vast pool of candidates for the first implantation of the Night Lords' gene-seed.
These seeds of future Astartes would remain temporarily in the Word Bearers' care until Curze's own Legion fleet arrived to collect them and begin that long process.
Meanwhile, Curze turned his attention to Nostramo's future.
This Planet could no longer be merely a capital of sin or a source of suffering.
He