Sanguinius looked at the Khan thoughtfully.
'I thought you, of all of us, would feel joy for Horus.'
The Khan shrugged. 'He is the best of us; I begrudge him nothing, and I have told him so. But it should never have happened.'
`So should it have been you?' asked Fulgrim acerbically. Mortarion snorted again, but Sanguinius said nothing.
`I wouldn't have taken it,' said the Khan.
`Of course you would have,' said Fulgrim. The Khan shook his head.
'I have no use for another title. My people give me enough.'
Sanguinius smiled. 'My brother, I think you are the most inscrutable of us all. I know what Rogal wants, and I know what Roboute wants, but even after so long I have no idea what you want.'
`He wants to be left alone,' said Fulgrim. To shoot off into the stars and hunt down xenos on those delightful jetbikes. They're devilishly fast. I heard from a contact on Mars, Jaghatai, that you do strange things to your ships.'
The Khan shot him a heavy-lidded stare. 'I heard you do strange things to your warriors.'
Fulgrim's slender face briefly flared with anger, but Sanguinius laughed.
`I wonder which one of you would win in a duel,' the Angel mused. 'I would like to see that. You both handle a blade like gods.'
'Name the place, brother,' Fulgrim said to the Khan. `I'd even travel to Chogoris, if you built a palace to keep the dust from my armour.'
The Khan felt the insult. It stabbed at him, deeply, but his expression never changed. They could never know, none of them, how much their closed fraternity rankled him.
`You would lose,' said the Khan. Fulgrim grinned, but there was something fragile in it.
`Oh?'
`You would lose because you would treat it like a game, like you treat everything, and I would not. You would lose because you know nothing of me, and I know everything of you because you shout it from the turrets of your battle cruisers. My prowess remains unknown. You have some reputation as a swordsman, brother, but I make no boast when I tell you I would leave you choking on it.'