They were exemplary, their craft honed to a brilliant edge, and fast as quicksilver. Had they struck him in concert, the Incubi might have pushed Lucius to the brink of defeat, or at least driven him away from their charge. They were mercenaries, single fighters who relied on their skills with a blade and nothing - and no one - else. These were not wolves, pack animals that coordinated to dominate a larger prey. Not that he had sacrificed everything to make his Legion invincible, even suffering the ignominy of using Calas as his foil, even condemning himself to the permanent soul-anguish of daemonhood so that the change could never be undone by anyone, not even his father. Not that he had done what needed to be done. I… did not.' And then he grinned – his split lips, his flayed cheeks, his lone seeing eye, twisting into genuine, spiteful pleasure. 'I… know,' Jaghatai said, his voice a liquid slur. 'I… absorbed,' Jaghatai rasped, 'the… pain.'

Only slowly, as he trudged back, did Mortarion realise that the sound was bitter laughter. His shattered gauntlet still clutched the hilt of his blade, but the arm must have been broken in many places.

“Jaghatai started to cough, sending more bloody spurts out over the ripped-apart ground. Fabius ignored the newcomer, even as Igori stiffened. Behind them, the entrance to the laboratorium whined open, and someone entered. ‘There will be no place for me in the paradise to come.’ He laughed. ‘I imagine I will be first among the foundations, my dear.’ He smiled thinly. ‘And where will you be?’ she asked softly.įabius stepped back. You will hunt angels, in the days to come, and make a new kingdom from their bones'. And in that moment, you and yours shall assert yourselves, for the first time and the last. Those who remain, after that final hour, will fight one another for the right to rule the ashes. For my brothers will not surrender to fate with dignity. You and your kin are to be my hand on the throat of the future.

As mankind dies, so it nurtures its own replacement, all unknowing. Generation upon generation, their strength breeding true.

They, and their children, carry on my teachings into the dark. The rest are scattered across the galaxy, burrowed into the flesh of a dying empire, so that they might best guide it to its well-deserved and long overdue grave. Of them all, I kept only you and your closest siblings. In your generation, there were five hundred. But first, you - we - must teach them how to survive, until that moment. “The day will come, my dear, when your children's children stride the galactic rim as the kings and queens of all they survey.

Warhammer space marine all death quotes