(A little character building exercise I worked on as I seek to turn Cerck the Night Lord into a worthy antagonist for a novel or series of short stories.  This here is a straight quote, which is a little different to anything I have done before.)

“Ah yes, ‘honour’.  You thin-bloods rant on and on about your honour as though you invented the concept; as though none of us knew what the word meant as we slaved away creating this crumbling Imperium you serve.  But, tell me this, Brother Kruss of the Executioners Chapter of the Corpse-Emperor’s Adeptus Astartes: Have you not done distasteful things for the sake of your honour?  Have you not attacked those you thought innocent, killed those you thought did not deserve to die, simply because honour dictated you obey your orders?

Tell me, O Honourable One, did you not betray the very Imperium who names me heretic and traitor, all to honour an oath sworn to the Astral Claws by your ancestors?

What makes you so different to me, then?  Was it enthusiasm, perhaps?  Did you have to be dragged, kicking and screaming like a child, into doing that which your honour demanded?

I gladly betrayed the Imperium, as did the rest of my Legion and my Father, Konrad Curze himself. The Imperium was built upon the corpses of the Legions – our corpses – brave warriors fighting and dying for the lies of a man who would be a God.

I gladly betrayed a Grandfather who used us, who encouraged us to be the monsters he created and then discarding us as unclean when we were of no further use.

I was a murderer, you know, back on Nostramo.  I slit more throats before my tenth birthday than you have in whatever infinitesimal  period of time you have served your upstart Chapter.  I was a murderer, a rapist, a vicious, violent criminal, and yet I could not in good conscience stand by while the Emperor condemned the Night Lords for being what his Imperium needed us to be.  How could I, a noble warrior of the Legiones Astartes, swallow my pride – my honour – while my father and my brothers were so mistreated, ordered to be destroyed by the Emperor who created us?

Kill me if you must, for I have lived and fought and killed for ten thousand years; I have murdered whole worlds and I have eaten the geneseed of loyalist and traitor both.  Death holds no fear for one such as I.

You may claim my head and have vengeance on behalf of the mouldering corpse you so fervently serve,  but remember this, O Mighty Executioner: The only difference between you and I is that, when the stakes got too high, your Chapter crawled meekly back to the bosom of the Emperor you once betrayed.

We, at least, have the honour to stand by our convictions.”

-     Lonalios Cerck (aka ‘the Faceless’), Champion of the Night Lords Traitor Legion, during his interrogation by the Executioners Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes.