Perturabo raised his warhammer high and passed through the corridor.
His footsteps rang steadily against the metal floor.
The defensive lines of mortal rebels he had anticipated were nowhere to be seen.
The barricades built from sandbags and metal plates, the heavy weapons mounted at corners, the muzzle flashes flickering in the darkness, the terrified faces and trembling fingers.
He had expected the first thing he saw upon entering the fortress to be crowds of frightened mortals, or rebels stubbornly resisting.
But there were none.
Nothing at all.
There was nothing here but cold metal, dim lighting, and dark corners the light could not reach.
The interior of the fortress was far quieter than he had imagined, unnaturally so.
No footsteps, no conversation, no hum of machinery, no click of weapons being loaded...
Only his own breathing and heartbeat remained, exceptionally clear in the deathly silence.
The walls lining both sides of the corridors were assembled from black metal plates, their surfaces covered in rivets and weld seams that gleamed coldly beneath the dim lights.
Some of the ceiling lights were broken. Others still gave off a faint, flickering glow, casting patches of wavering light and shadow across the corridors.
The dark corners beyond the reach of the lights were like monsters lurking in the shadows, waiting for their prey to draw near.
Perturabo walked through the corridors, alert to everything around him.
His gaze swept every corner, behind every door, and through every shadow. His ears caught any trace of unusual sound in the air, and his nose searched for any suspicious scent.
As a Primarch, his genetically enhanced senses far surpassed anything ordinary people could imagine. He could hear a pin drop hundreds of meters away, see objects moving in complete darkness, and detect chemicals in the air