The Lion Returns

"Kill me, Dorn."

"In the end, I lost our struggle."

Little Perturabo's childish voice rang beside Dorn's ear, stripped of all its former brutality and fury, leaving only a trace of sorrow.

This primarch had always seemed sullen, as though burdened by endless pain and torment. Only rarely had anyone seen him smile.

Now, even that anger had vanished, replaced by a death wish born of utter resignation.

To him, this outcome was even harder to accept than defeat, because he needed Dorn's rescue merely to avoid falling into the hands of the Prince of Pleasure.

His proud self-respect had been trampled beyond recognition.

He knew all too well what those disgusting, deranged Emperor's Children were capable of. He had experienced it firsthand on the Aeldari crone world.

Back then, the Stone of Magla, gifted to Fulgrim, had drained away his strength and left him paralyzed on the ground. Now, he had become a child, with not even the slightest power to protect himself.

The neural cables on his head remained, but with his current psychic strength, Perturabo could not command those Iron Circle robots at all.

The Iron Circle robots contained biological wetware partially cloned from Perturabo's own tissues. That allowed them to employ his extraordinary talent for multithreaded thought, but now that he could not command them, it had instead become a fatal weakness.

The Iron Circle robots he had considered absolutely reliable and absolutely obedient now seemed less dependable than the Iron Warriors he had always looked down upon.

"Your sons are trying to take you back," Dorn said as he withdrew toward the rear of the battlefield beneath the cover of the Imperial Fists.

"The Iron Warriors you ignored and cast aside like worn shoes have not abandoned you. So why have you abandoned yourself?"

"Do