Passing the Trial

Rally Point

Tenerum's star hung high overhead, mercilessly pouring its scorching light onto the roughly leveled ground of the Rally Point.

Holy Word Overseer Lomanheim stood at the edge of the Rally Point like a gray steel statue, his battle-scarred Mark II Power Armour reflecting a dull sheen beneath the blazing sun.

He remained utterly still, save for the occasional flutter of his cloak in the hot, dry wind.

Through his helmet's advanced sensor array, he stared for a long time at the distant, heat-warped horizon leading into the Death Wasteland.

Time ticked away. The electronic timer showed less than an hour remaining before the final deadline.

Lomanheim wondered how many would make it here alive.

Suddenly, a tiny moving speck at the edge of his sensor feed caught his full attention.

Lomanheim's pupils flickered almost imperceptibly. He immediately adjusted the focus and magnified the distant image.

It was him.

The young man whom Primarch Lorgar Aurelian had personally singled out for attention—Hercules.

Even at such a distance, his tall, upright figure stood out among the scattered survivors like a beacon in the night.

Hercules was all but staggering forward, each step sinking deep into the loose sand and leaving a heavy footprint.

The armour and clothing he had worn over his upper body were long gone. His bronze torso lay fully exposed to the vicious sunlight, his powerful muscles sharply defined. Sweat streamed down the groove of his spine and the contours of his chest, glittering in the sun.

And across his broad shoulders, he carried two grievously wounded, unconscious companions, one on either side.

Lomanheim remembered the dark-haired one. His name was Frank, Hercules's closest comrade in the training camp.

Using a strip of cloth torn from somewhere, Hercules had secured Frank firmly to one shoulder. He carried