More Warhammer 40,000 fiction from Black Library

• WATCHERS OF THE THRONE •
by Chris Wraight
Book One: THE EMPEROR’S LEGION
Book Two: THE REGENT’S SHADOW

KNIGHTS OF MACRAGGE
A Sicarius novel by Nick Kyme

CELESTINE: THE LIVING SAINT
A Sisters of Battle novel by Andy Clark

MERCY
A Sisters of Battle short story by Danie Ware

OF HONOUR AND IRON
An Ultramarines novel by Ian St. Martin

HONOURBOUND
A Severina Raine novel by Rachel Harrison

CADIAN HONOUR
An Imperial Guard novel by Justin D Hill

SHIELD OF THE EMPEROR
An Imperial Guard omnibus containing the novels Fifteen Hours, Death World and Rebel Winter by various authors.

LORDS & TYRANTS
A Warhammer 40,000 anthology by various authors

• DARK IMPERIUM •
by Guy Haley
Book One: DARK IMPERIUM
Book Two: PLAGUE WAR

• VAULTS OF TERRA •
by Chris Wraight
Book One: THE CARRION THRONE
Book Two: THE HOLLOW MOUNTAIN

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Contents

Cover

Backlist

Title Page

Warhammer 40,000

AURIC GODS

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Epilogue

THE BLOODIED ROSE

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

STEEL DAEMON

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

About the Authors

An Extract from ‘Dawn of Fire: Avenging Son’

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the Master of Mankind. By the might of His inexhaustible armies a million worlds stand against the dark.

Yet, He is a rotting carcass, the Carrion Lord of the Imperium held in life by marvels from the Dark Age of Technology and the thousand souls sacrificed each day so that His may continue to burn.

To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruellest and most bloody regime imaginable. It is to suffer an eternity of carnage and slaughter. It is to have cries of anguish and sorrow drowned by the thirsting laughter of dark gods.

This is a dark and terrible era where you will find little comfort or hope. Forget the power of technology and science. Forget the promise of progress and advancement. Forget any notion of common humanity or compassion.

There is no peace amongst the stars, for in the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.

AURIC GODS

NICK KYME

‘Gilded tombs do worms enfold.’

– The dramaturge Shakespire

PROLOGUE

The city glowered. Gaudy lights leered from its ugly silhouette. It seethed. He could feel its jagged countenance boring into his back.

Ezrik was going to die. He had known it ever since he and his sister had boarded the skimmer-craft bound for the ocean rigs.

He and Mythla were twins. Though not identical they did share certain traits, both in kin and kind. Their bond went beyond mere patrimony. So when Ezrik shivered, his thin, pale fingers clutching at his heavy robe, Mythla trembled too. Dark hair rippled beneath her hood. Her grip was firm. She had always been the stronger of the two, her gifts more profound.

‘Hold on, brother,’ she whispered, her words carried away by the wind.

Mythla tugged up the collar of her cloak, trying to ward off the scything cold. Gusts cut across the disused rigging platform like knives of ice, deep enough to find bone. Frost sheathed the mainland, and the banks of looming cloud overhead presaged a heavy snow. Ezrik loved the snow. It had a slow sort of melancholy that appealed to him. But it wasn’t the cold that chilled his sister, or set his teeth to chattering. Ezrik knew their fear came from another place.

From the deep.

Black and fathomless, made darker by the lack of a moon, the sea churned that night. Grey light shone onto the water from humming lumen arrays set around the edge of the rigging platform. It was shaped like a letter ‘C’ with the lamps aimed into the space, which was partially delineated by the sturdy metal decking. Each lamp was directed downwards, their grainy beams converging to a point where four lengths of chain hauled on something concealed beneath the ocean. It was rising steadily.

Four cranes, industrial-grade, heaved at their drowned burden. Ezrik winced as each ugly link of iron fed through the crane pulleys. Hot pins pierced his brain meat, sending small convulsions through his thin frame. Mythla tensed, her skeleton suddenly taut and rigid. A tiny yelp of pain escaped her lips.

Ezrik had never known Mythla to betray weakness before.

‘Sister…’ he tried to say, but she wasn’t listening. She couldn’t.

Fire raced through Ezrik’s marrow. He no longer felt the cold. He could barely hear the sea. A darkening intruded at the edge of his vision that put him in mind of the black water, as if it had somehow spilled onto his eyes and was slowly swallowing his sight.

It took considerable effort but he glanced at their minders, standing either side of them. He wanted to see if they felt it too. Ever since he was a boy, Ezrik had been good with details. Enhanced perception was a part of his gift. He turned that gift on the man and the woman standing close enough for him to touch. Tough, athletic, they had long storm coats that failed to hide the bonded carapace they wore beneath. Nor did their attire smother the side holsters belted at their hips and the heavy-gauge pistols sat snugly within. Both had Militarum haircuts, close-shaved, and a faded Guard tattoo on the left temple. A much newer mark was etched below the right eye – a solitary candle with a lit flame.

Most interesting of all were their collars. Though ostensibly of dull, grey plasteel, a closer examination revealed circuitry and a tiny diode, almost invisible in the foul conditions, winking… Green-green-green.

An activation rune, Ezrik realised.

He considered trying to reach into the machine, extinguish the rune and see what happened next. He wondered about escape. But then his attention went back to his sister and he knew it was impossible.

Mythla stood less than a foot away. She might as well have been on another continent. Her eyes had turned completely white. Her splayed fingers quivered, as if touched by an electrical current. She shook, slightly at first but with increasing violence.

Mythla took the strain for him. His older sister was trying to bear the pain alone.

They had been careful. They had hidden for years, successfully, swallowed amongst the masses. Hidden from the witch-takers and the Black Ships. But he had found them. The wanderer. He said it was providence. He said it was His will. Ezrik believed that ‘His will’ had nothing to do with it, that instead the slumlord to whom they owed their rent and for whom he and his sister had performed certain ‘favours’ over the years had betrayed them.

Ezrik reflected on this poor turn of circumstances as Mythla’s skin shrivelled and started to flake, the very essence of her degrading before his eyes. A sudden desire overcame him to tell her what she meant to him, that he loved her, although they had never been close by any conventional assessment. They had bickered, the presence of one an irritant to the other. A side effect of the gift. But they had stayed together, driven by the fear that gripped all outcasts, of being alone with no one to externalise their inner misery upon.

Such was their antipathy that it had been several years since Ezrik and Mythla had touched. To touch meant to share thoughts, to share pain, but as the chain links clacked upwards Ezrik reached out and held Mythla’s hand.

White heat flowed, her thoughts subsumed by it. Nothing else remained but the fire. Mythla had been cored out so that the only thing left in her skull was a piece of slowly burning meat. Ezrik smelled it. His sister. Burning.

The chain clacked again, thunderous inside the tortured confines of Ezrik’s head.

He looked down, drawn by the sound, a presaging death knell. Fear rushed up in an icy flood as the edge of a dark metal casket breached the surface of the waves. Old, old laughter echoed in his mind. Inhuman, bestial. Ezrik cried out at a sudden hammer blow, though no one had touched him. One of his ribs broke. Then another. Spikes of agony pierced his hand, the one clinging to Mythla’s. An immolating statue stood in her place, a ferocious human candle with flesh for wax. Ezrik held on as her fingers broke apart in the heat until, at last, unsupported by his sister, his knees buckled and he fell. Mythla fell too, what was left of her, collapsing into a pillar of ash.

The chains clacked on, the metal casket dangling heavily in mid-air, turning slightly in the wind.

Ezrik lay on his side, the taste of his own blood heady on his tongue, in his nose. His inner ear felt wet and he knew he bled from there too.

Now he was really shaking, and though terror resonated through his body like a shock wave, he couldn’t tear his sight away from that casket. Every detail spoke to him. The heavily aged metal, the warding sigils carved into its sides worn almost to nothing, the faint Inquisitorial seal…

Through his final agonies, Ezrik became aware of a figure that had crouched down next to him.

‘Well done… well done,’ said a voice.

Calm, cultured, foreign.

Ezrik hadn’t realised he was here. The wanderer.

The chain clacked.

Smooth, faintly perfumed fingers cradled Ezrik’s chin. His eyes bulged. His teeth clenched. The carotid artery in his neck stuck out, as taut and thick as a hawser. Ezrik trembled, rage boiling inside as he breathed in his sister’s ash.

A tanned face looked down at him.

Every detail rushed by in a blur of fading cognition.

Strong cheekbones; straight, unblemished teeth; skin tightened by repeated rejuvenat treatments.

Fair hair, cut short.

A muscled neck met broad shoulders under robes, under flak armour.

Rings on every finger, shaped like little golden candles with frozen flames.

A tattoo inscribed above the bridge of the nose, the letter ‘I’ within an eye.

Such belief Ezrik saw in those silver-grey eyes. Such conviction!

The collar around the wanderer’s neck winked… Green-green-green.

Ezrik wanted to touch it, to snuff out that light and let whatever lurked in the metal casket have its way. But all he could do was die and he quailed in that moment of revelation, realising why they had been brought here.

His captors needed proof.

‘Do not yield to despair,’ said the wanderer as Ezrik’s mind slowly boiled away to smoke. The burning he smelled was his own, but the wanderer smiled in spite of the horror of human immolation. ‘Your suffering serves a great purpose.’ He wiped away a trickle of blood from his nose as the snow began to fall.

CHAPTER ONE

City of Vorganthian, Kobor, within Terra’s light

Pain was an old friend. Meroved kept this in mind as he worked through the last of the sword and spear disciplines. Thrust, turn, parry, thrust, turn, parry. The regimen was necessarily rigorous, the pace increasing with each rotation, and it showed in the finest sheen of sweat across his body. His muscles burned as he completed the final kata, his spear-tip blurring with sheer ferocity.

Meroved held his stance for several minutes at the end, his skin trembling with the effort, his breath even and controlled to siphon the pain.

He looked into the eyes of the man in the mirror before him. They were weary and the colour of creamy jade. It was not for vanity that the entire north wall of the training arena had been replaced with this silver reflective pane. He studied with it. Form mattered, so did speed and precision.

An old man, at least to Meroved’s eyes, looked back. Barefoot, naked but for the short-legged training fatigues he wore. Sweating and weary from exertion. More grey than black in his beard. The skin looser than it had been before, the ink proclaiming his many deeds and many names faded, scars that had soured with age. Even the bionics, the metal that had replaced shattered bone and destroyed tissue, appeared to have lost some of their Martian solidity. Centuries take a toll. He had lessened. To mortal eyes he would appear quite different. But their senses were not so attuned, and more awestruck.

‘End session,’ he said with barely a discernible hint of fatigue, but Meroved heard it. He knew.

The chrono confirmed it. Three-tenths of a second slower.

‘I am dying…’ he said to himself, and set down the spear. It touched the ground with heavy metallic resonance. ‘As all things must. As all things should.’

He turned from his reflection, tired of seeing it and being reminded of everything he was not, and everything he used to be in his mind’s eye, and padded out of the room.

‘Zatu…’ he said, pulling a black robe from the rack in the arming chamber.

‘My lord.’ Relayed through a vox-speaker built into the wall, the voice of his major-domo sounded cold and metallic.

Meroved cast his eye across the many weapons shackled behind stasis fields.

‘I am resuming vigil,’ he said.

‘As you wish, my lord.’

The various armaments took up most of the south wall in a vaulted room that stretched fifty feet above where he was standing. It had taken several centuries to curate those weapons and the other pieces of armour and battle ephemera that he stored alongside them. Many remained unused, for he had his favourites, though they all paled in comparison to the trappings of his former calling.

Except for one. The misericordia was a knife of rare provenance and still rarer craftsmanship. Its beauty and significance eclipsed everything else in Meroved’s vast arsenal and yet he had not drawn it from its scabbard in many centuries. Before he had exiled himself.

In any case, in this place he was no longer a spear-bearer. He had left behind the life of auric gods. He had embraced shadows and alchemy.

‘I am His eyes,’ he reminded himself, and tried very hard to believe that was still enough.

He walked out onto a metal promontory that resembled a gangplank. Below his feet, the chamber plummeted into a deep shaft not unlike a large well. At the end of the gangplank an iron cage hung from a cable bolted to the ceiling, turning slightly with the movement of the air.

Meroved crossed the rest of the promontory and entered the cage.

‘Ascend,’ he uttered, and the cage began to rise. ‘Any items of import, Zatu?’ he asked during the ascent.

‘The Vexen Cage has been found, my lord. Awaiting confirmation.’

A tremor of unease and excitement warred ambivalently within Meroved at this news. His tone betrayed none of this inner conflict, however.

‘Where?’

‘Within the city districts.’

‘Active?’

‘Unknown.’

‘Exact location?’

‘Unknown.’

The cage finished its ascent and came to a halt. The soft glow of another room beckoned through an archway. Meroved heard the low susurrus of the machine within. Its activity hum had become like music.

‘Then let’s rectify that, Zatu.’

‘As you wish, my lord,’ the major-domo replied, welcoming Meroved to the nexus chamber, the dwelling place of the machine.

Zatu bowed as Meroved entered beneath the archway, retreating on the wheeled trackbed he possessed in place of legs. His arm ports were currently vacant, having been slaved to the machine. The light in the vision slit of his helm turned from red to green as he surrendered operation to Meroved.

‘And the other matter, my lord?’

‘Make contact,’ Meroved answered, taking up position in the command throne of the machine and allowing the mechadendrite frame to attach to his back. A twitch of pain recognition registered in his cheek as synaptic pins entered his flesh. ‘Bring her here to me. Events are transpiring more quickly than I anticipated, Zatu. We must be swift to ascertain the nature of the threat.’

‘I can reach the Unsighted for you, my lord, and petition the Aegis.’

Meroved considered it. Much was still unknown.

‘That won’t be necessary. Not yet.’

CHAPTER TWO

The Imperial Palace, Tower of Hegemon, Terra

Few ever ventured this deep. Even amongst the Ten Thousand, those who had done what Syr Cartovandis was about to do could be counted on the fingers of two hands. That would change, of course. Ever since the Rift, everything had changed. The Neverborn had come to Terra. In over ten millennia that had only happened twice. Twice.

It was a staggering statistic. And it had meant those who felt it necessary to do so were taking certain measures in the Tower of Hegemon.

Cartovandis counted himself amongst this number.

Of all the enemies that mankind faced, the daemonic, the Neverborn children of the warp itself, were the vilest. In them mankind saw reflected his own selfish desires, his lusts and mortal weakness. He could no more banish them than excise his own moral turpitude. The battle, then, was an endless one, and Cartovandis had made his peace with that long ago.

So as he stood, head bowed, sentinel blade held in an easy grip, and faced what had been brought to join him in the Oblivion Vault, he felt neither fear nor trepidation, nor even anger. He merely desired to improve.

‘Nullify defences,’ he muttered, and heard the numerous cannons with their thrice-blessed ammunition whirr and power down.

A chuckle echoed from across the darkness.

‘Are we to play now?’ it said, two voices laid one upon the other.

Cartovandis did not acknowledge the figure, though he heard the scrape of its binding chains as it fidgeted in a manner not uncommon for its kind. Much like the cannons, these chains were a precaution. To fight and train against the Neverborn was no small matter. The fact that such creatures were kept on Terra at all spoke to the severity of the Oblivion Vault’s purpose.

We must never be found wanting again.

These had been Cartovandis’ thoughts as he had entered the chamber.

‘Hexagrammic warding… twenty feet,’ he said, and heard the entity in the chamber with him hiss in pain as the sigil rings etched into the floor became active and forced it inwards.

A solitary lumen burned overhead and cast the entity in a pale yellow light.

It had a human form, male, wiry and emaciated. Sores and black lesions marked its greying skin, which was waxy and translucent. A few hairs still clutched at a bony scalp. The eyes had become little more than bloody sockets, the mouth reduced to a few rotten stumps of teeth.

Flesh had such impermanence when invested with the daemonic.

Even twenty feet away, Cartovandis could feel its hunger like a pricking at his bare skin. He wore training armour, a light flak chest-piece with metal greaves on his shins and forearms. No auramite, not here. Not for this.

‘You’re a bold one,’ it said. ‘Have you come to cut me… Thronesworn?’ It spat a rangy gobbet of phlegm as it uttered the final word. ‘Does it thrill you to do it, neutered as I am? Do you like it? Feeling my pain? Does it make you feel strong?’

Cartovandis moved forwards, so fast he appeared at first to be in one place and then another a second later, almost twenty feet away. The sentinel blade lashed out like a tongue of darting silver, flaring bright azure as it struck its target.

The binding chains sloughed loose, clinking loudly as they hit the ground.

Cartovandis slowly backed away, his eyes never leaving the entity, which smiled at him sickle-wide.

‘Oh… Sweet thing… You have unfettered me. I should very much like to taste you now.’

Cartovandis held his sword in front of him at the height of his eyes. The grip, the weight, the thickness of the blade – he knew it as well as he knew his own name. It was a good weapon, a worthy weapon. He wondered if he was still fit to bear it.

‘Let us see,’ he said.

The daemon came for him fast. A second mouth disgorged from the gaping cavity of the first, drooling saliva and ringed with remora teeth. Cartovandis turned on his heel, and the ugly mouth clapped down on air instead of flesh. He swung wide with the turn, the daemon now behind him, and felt the sentinel blade bite. Hot ichor hissed as it splashed the floor of the Oblivion Vault.

Emperor… I am Your blade.

These words were his mantra.

Cartovandis turned to attack but leapt back before a snapping claw could rip off his face.

Without its chains, the daemon could reshape its form at will. It was not supposed to be free of them.

It made a bone spear out of its hand and thrust for Cartovandis’ chest, but the Custodian was faster. He weaved aside, lashing out. The sentinel blade hummed as it cut the air. The arm with the bone spear separated from the daemon’s body, dissolving into foul-smelling smoke as it hit the ground.

Guide my hand, oh Master of Mankind…

A thrust brought Cartovandis in close, rancid innards spilling from the daemon’s sliced torso. It laughed as the sinewy ropes of its intestines coiled around Cartovandis’ sword arm and held it fast.

Bestow unto me Your will and see it enacted…

Undaunted, Cartovandis threw the sentinel blade and caught it in his other hand, hacking down and parting rubbery organs. He sprang aside as flagstones cracked underfoot, the flesh mace the daemon had made of its other hand shattering them as it struck.

Forsake me not, oh Emperor…

Turning, Cartovandis had been about to change to his favoured hand when a lashing tentacle took him off his feet. The sentinel blade spun from his grasp and skittered across the floor out of reach.

‘Delicious…’

Remora teeth bared in anticipation, the daemon lunged for Cartovandis.

For I am Your willing servant…

He closed his eyes, his hand finding the long knife secreted behind his back, before the daemon came apart in a flurry of percussive explosions.

As the sentry guns cycled back down, Cartovandis got to his feet and saw Adio waiting for him at the threshold of the chamber. He was in shadow, but visible enough. His green eyes stood out like emeralds. The dark pallor of his skin took on the reflected glow of the lumen, his bald scalp shining like a halo, his features edged in pale light. It only served to enhance his noble visage. A crusader was Adio, like a knight of Terran myth. He had rejoiced when the captain-general had exercised the right of magisterium and sent the Ten Thousand out amongst the stars.

Unlike Cartovandis, Adio was clad in gold auramite battleplate. His fluted helm was tucked under one arm, the red horsehair plume draped over it. His castellan axe, Puritus, and storm shield, Bulwark, were strapped to his back.

‘You look as if you’ve been on campaign, brother,’ said Cartovandis by way of greeting, and walked right past him through a hexagonal doorway and out of the chamber.

Banks of lumens flared brightly inside the Oblivion Vault, revealing a hexagrammic dome made up of six-sided armourglass facets, like a diamond spanning six hundred and sixty-six feet. In essence, the vault was a glass cage, a warded and psychically impenetrable one. The door shut behind Cartovandis and an alarum sounded, prompting the sentry guns to fold up into niches set into the ceiling. In their place came an array of incinerators, which slowly panned across the entire chamber, cleansing it with blessed promethium.

Ichor burned, all remaining trace of the unclean with it.

‘I have not long returned to the Throneworld,’ Adio replied, turning his back on the firestorm to follow Cartovandis with his eyes. ‘It’s good to see you too, Syr.’

‘Out protecting priests and politicians, eh?’

‘The Aquilan Shield goes where it is directed,’ Adio replied with good humour. ‘But you already knew that.’

Cartovandis grunted in response. He stopped when he reached one of the ablutionals in a separate antechamber appended to the vault but separate from it.

‘Those chains and sentry guns are active for a reason,’ said Adio, a hint of mild accusation in his voice.

‘And they neuter the foe.’

‘You feel the need to test yourself.’

Cartovandis paused.

‘Don’t you?’ he asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I did not require or ask for your intervention, Adio,’ he continued, reverently laying down his weapons on the rack provided. He quickly stripped off his armour and other trappings, leaving them for the serf who scurried to attend him, and stepped naked into a metal cubicle. ‘I had the better of it.’

‘Feigning weakness so it lowered its guard. Dangerous.’

‘It’s a dangerous galaxy. Much more so of late.’

A scalding blast of water from a spout above struck Cartovandis across the back of the neck and shoulders, so violent and raucous that he bowed his head.

‘You don’t need to prove anything to me,’ said Adio, once the purification ritual had ended. ‘I apologise if I acted pre-emptively, old friend.’

Cartovandis took a deep breath, inhaling the steam billowing off his body. His skin had reddened. The horrific scar that ran from his left shoulder almost to his groin looked more pronounced.

‘Meroved saved your life that day at the Gate,’ Adio uttered softly. He, like the rest of the Ten Thousand who fought in that battle, still held the horror of it in his eyes.

‘He did,’ Cartovandis replied, turning to the serf and taking a proffered robe, which he pulled over his body. ‘Hykanatoi, Kataphraktoi and Tharanatoi all fighting together. Quite the sight, with Valoris at our head. Do you remember it?’

Adio’s face darkened.

‘Do not ask me that.’

‘How many perished?’

‘Too many.’

‘Half. Almost two thousand of us.’

‘Then it is by the Emperor’s will that you and I lived, and serve still.’

‘Meroved should have let me die.’

‘Perhaps.’

Cartovandis turned to the serf once more. Her head had been shaved, an aquila fashioned into the left temple. She bowed before the Custodian, out of respect and awe.

‘Siris, you need not attend me further today,’ said Cartovandis, not unkindly. ‘You may leave.’

Siris bowed again and scurried quietly away. Cartovandis waited until she was gone.

‘I have not heard His voice since my wounding, Adio.’

‘I know, brother.’

‘It leads me to questions that I am loathe to learn the answers to.’

‘You assume there are answers. If it is His will, you shall hear Him again – but let us speak of this away from this wretched place. I would hear of events in the Palace since I left. In the cerebratory?’

‘I’ll meet you there.’

Cartovandis called out as Adio was leaving.

‘Old friend,’ he said. ‘It is good to see you too.’

Adio nodded, and continued on his way.

CHAPTER THREE

The Imperial Palace, Tower of Hegemon, Terra

The dominion of the Adeptus Custodes on Terra was absolute, yet if there was one place in the populous districts of the Imperial Palace that could be considered the beating heart of their order, then that place was the Tower of Hegemon.

The Throneworld faced many threats, both within and without, and so vast was the urban sprawl that it rivalled many continents in terms of its sheer size and scale. This, together with its pre-eminent status as the founding seat of all mankind, necessitated unique measures of protection. The tower saw all. It knew all. Through a complex array of data-engines and monitoring systems, the Custodians maintained supreme vigilance over the Palace and its confines. All of its security augurs and scrying devices fed into this one nexus, and from here potential threats were analysed and, if necessary, acted against. Defences were tested and retested. Crisis scenarios were devised and implemented. Blood Games were fought.

Pilgrims flocked to Terra in their billions, every man, woman and child desperate for a glimpse – just a glimpse – of the Immortal Emperor, or at least the fabled Eternity Gate behind which He resided. Few accomplished this holy quest: most perished before they even set foot on Terra’s sacred soil; others died when they encountered the cruel realities of the gangs, the hidden cults and the massive overcrowding. But every day more ships arrived, and every day the population edged closer to a critical mass. Any one of those vessels might harbour a danger to the Golden Throne and so the tower and its incumbents maintained their vigilance.

Yet, although the main function of the tower was to act as the watch station of the Emperor’s Custodians, it had other purposes.

Cartovandis had donned his armour to meet Adio in the cerebratory. Though its halls were not given over to violence and battle training, there was a certain ceremony that required observation in the quietude of this place. It had a peaceful air about it. Relics of Terra’s lost culture could be found in the art and architecture on display. A forum in many respects, its walls and chambers were adorned with tapestries and portraiture; sculpture and the fossilised remains of ancient beasts inhabited its alcoves. Here a Custodian could seek counsel with his fellows, or debate, if he so chose. Others came for solitude or reflection, for war had never been the principal role of the Ten Thousand.

Of his brotherhood, Cartovandis found few. A warrior of the Solar Watch conversed in hushed tones as the grim spectre of a Custodian of the Dread Host listened intently. The Solar Watch were one of the Hykanatoi’s shield hosts, the warrior bands that defined the Adeptus Custodes. They garrisoned the fastness of Sol’s borders at Luna, Jupiter and beyond. They had much in kind with the old VII Legion, praetorians and wall watchers in the mould of Dorn’s own. To have come from the outer strongholds meant tidings of import. Cartovandis assumed those tidings pertained to a matter necessitating the attention of a ready sword, if the presence of the Dread Host was any barometer. The helmed warrior looked up as Cartovandis passed, his regard forbidding. Judgement burned in the eyes behind those retinal lenses.

Cartovandis had no desire to know their business, but knew it must be serious to provoke such a meeting. He pressed on, and overheard the muttered conversation of a cohort of Emissaries Imperatus debating insights derived through mediation, both pertaining to what was known as the speculum certus and the speculum obscurus: the first concerning the Emperor’s words and His meaning, the second concerning His will.

These too Cartovandis avoided, for they reminded him of the silence he now endured. He had almost died at the Lion’s Gate. It was the second time such a desperate battle had been fought in its shadow. The first was over ten thousand years ago; the second, the one at which Cartovandis had stared death in the face, had taken place scarcely more than a century past. Daemons had come to Terra and he, like so many of the Ten Thousand, had taken up arms against them. A Legion still in mourning had mustered for the first time in millennia and cast back the hellspawn of Old Night. It had left Cartovandis with grievous hurts, and so close to death that he felt it still, some one hundred years or so later. Meroved had intervened and turned the hand of fate aside, sparing Cartovandis from his doom but condemning him to this misery instead. The silence had followed not long after. He had feared it meant the Emperor’s death but the Sanctum Imperialis had not been breached. The Master of Mankind endured, enthroned everlasting, His voice denied to Cartovandis.

Despite the pain of his exile, he knew he owed Meroved a debt. Though as the venerable shield-captain had left the Throneworld soon after, together with his rank, his armour and all the trappings that made him a Custodian, Cartovandis doubted it would ever be repaid. Meroved had slipped into obscurity, his watch ended as his body surrendered to the rigours of duty at last.

‘Syr…’

A voice that was not the Emperor’s drew Cartovandis from the bleak reverie. Adio smiled warmly across the softly lit expanse of a statue-lined gallery rendered in umber stone.

‘I had thought you might not come,’ Adio said as he approached, and gestured to a semicircle of stone benches.

‘I almost didn’t,’ said Cartovandis, following Adio to where they both sat down.

‘You prefer the violent solitude of the lower depths then?’

‘There is no shame in preparation.’

‘True, and yet you refuse to leave Terra and join your brothers out amongst the stars. What is it, I wonder, that you are preparing for then, Syr?’

It was asked honestly, without agenda, though Cartovandis felt the bite of the question like it was an accusation.

‘Our place is here, Adio, by the Throne, by His side.’

‘And can we not serve Him still by venturing beyond our own borders?’ Adio countered. ‘Should we let His enemies come here, to our sovereign earth, or would you seek them out and kill them before they have even glimpsed at Terra’s light? The galaxy has changed, Syr. Nothing is as it once was.’

‘We remain as we were, as we are. Our role unchanged.’

Adio gave a short, sad laugh. ‘Would that it were true. We can no longer linger here in His gilded tomb, no more than worms creeping through darkened hollows.’

‘It is no tomb!’

‘It is decay and it is decrepitude. I know your belief, Syr Cartovandis. It is not as unpopular amongst our order as you might think.’

‘Are the tongues of the Ten Thousand made bolder the farther they venture from the Throneworld?’

‘Listen, Syr. You can hear it in these very halls. If Lord Guilliman can return from the brink of dissolution… then why not Him? I know you think it.

‘You say nothing has changed. All of it has changed. Long past are the days when we were His confidants, His counsellors, when we shared His wisdom and offered our own meagre insights in return. We were an ideal before He made His lesser creations. Instead we are forced to derive scraps of meaning from the Emissaries Imperatus. I say we are deaf, Syr. I would not also be blind. Unlike you, however, I believe this is the state of things and this will not change. So, we must.’

Cartovandis shook his head, unconvinced.

‘Soldiers over companions, over protectors, is that it? We renege on one oath to embrace another? His blood is our blood. You forget, Adio, I served at His side, amongst the Companions. I felt it, His will, His desire to rise up from the Throne and command the stars anew.

‘The son is reborn, why not the father? Blood will out, blood will bring Him back to us and lift Him from out of this torpor.’

‘You speak of resurrection, of a second coming, Syr.’

‘I speak of revival, of waking from a deathly slumber. The Emperor is Terra, and Terra is the Emperor. The blood-red tear that glows above our heads, Adio, it represents a wound. The Neverborn trod here… here, brother, on this very soil. Their taint extends beyond the physical. It is a malaise of the spirit. Ever since the Lion’s Gate I have not heard His voice. Only silence remains.’

Adio’s expression darkened. ‘I cannot subscribe to this, Syr. The Emperor is absolute. He is all. He is eternal. He is wounded, yes, but it is from a blow struck ten thousand years ago. Few remember it as we do, but it is still the truth. No divine vessel will see this undone. No blood of His can heal it.’ He frowned, suddenly pained. ‘The silence is torturing you, Syr. It is merely His will, and you must accept it.’

‘I cannot,’ said Cartovandis.

Adio sighed, and put a hand on Cartovandis’ shoulder.

‘Then I am sorry, old friend. It is a heavy burden. But do not seek His voice in that place, in the Oblivion Vault. You will not find it in shadow or the gibbering of daemons.’

‘I will not find it beyond the Throneworld either.’

‘Do not be so sure.’

Cartovandis smiled, shrugging off his melancholy like an ill-fitting cloak. ‘Have no concern for me, Adio. I do not seek destructive ends. I am merely a sword unsheathed that wishes to remain sharp.’

‘Those depths have a way of holding on to a man, and dragging upon him. Do not leave a piece of yourself in that cage, Syr, that’s all I’m asking. By severing their chains you unknowingly forge your own. Do not underestimate the Neverborn.’

Cartovandis raised a placatory hand. ‘I heed you, Adio. I acknowledge I was reckless, and vow to be more mindful. There. Does that set your mind at ease?’

Adio raised an eyebrow, suggesting it did not.

Cartovandis gave a dark laugh, full of grim humour. ‘It could be worse. There are direr hollows beneath the Palace than the Oblivion Vault. And terrors more fell than daemons. You know of what I speak, and the one who keeps them. How long has it been, Adio?’

Adio fell silent, his expression one of inner turmoil.

‘How long since you last spoke to your brother?’

CHAPTER FOUR

The Imperial Palace, The Dark Cells, Terra

Even the echo of his steps felt wrong. At first they would reverberate in a seemingly endless refrain, only to cease abruptly and fall still and heavy like footfalls in a sound-deadened room.

Varogalant ignored it. Clasping Vigilance to his chest, like a standard-bearer drawing strength from the colours of his regiment, he maintained his watch. He passed another of his order, the warrior lost momentarily to the creeping shadows, his sable-black armour blending with the dark.

Varogalant nodded once, solemn, and saw the gesture returned. No words were exchanged. Few words were ever spoken in this place. But listen. Oh, yes, they would all listen. Silence prevailed at first, but only at first. Then the half-heard voices would drift through the iron-grey corridors in languages older than mankind itself. Try to attend, to fathom the nature of the imparted message, and the silence would fall again like a dolorous veil. Deafening, absolute… until the voices returned, at the barest edge of hearing. Lesser men would have been driven to madness.

The voices belonged to the eldritch creatures, to the horrors and grotesques, to the macabre and the profane. Not all had flesh, not all were truly alive, but every wretched thing incarcerated behind the wards and santic circles, the rune-locked gates, the binding chains, the null cages and obviation charms possessed anima.

Varogalant could feel it trying to worm in, to unpick the mental fastness he had raised around his mind. Every cell and oubliette held an abomination, a thing so terrible that it could not be killed or destroyed – either because no known method of annihilation had been found or because it was unknown if the very act of dissolution would unleash a greater calamity.

Remnants of Old Night, when the galaxy was swallowed by darkness and humanity stood alone, ignorant and afraid, these things went beyond evil and only the Dark Cells could keep them. Here, where menace as thick as blood lay on the air, even the warders, the grim-faced Shadowkeepers, felt unease.

Varogalant strode on, ignoring the wailing, the whispered promises and sanity-eroding imprecations. The light maintained a constant struggle against the dark down here, the sodium braziers flickering weakly and barely holding back the encroaching shadow. Mechanicus adepts, the greatest Martian minds, had tried to engineer lumens capable of cutting through the darkness but no power augment or fuel source could touch it. Even arcane methods of illumination had been found wanting, though they fared better than any technological solution. The darkness reigned, its dominion almost absolute.

Varogalant kept his eyes open, disavowing the half-glimpsed phantasms at the edge of sight. His nerves felt exposed, raw, as if the slightest touch would send them into spasm. Here, even the Custodians gave pause.

Marshalling his resolve, Varogalant came upon the chamber he sought. Much like the others, the chamber had a marking on the wall next to it, a simple numeric code that belied the nature of what it harboured. Its door stood open, a reminder of his failure. The gloom inside beckoned but he refused it. Even in absence, the thing that had once been held here had a presence. Like an unquiet spirit, it seemed to haunt the room, which was scarcely ten feet across and the same deep. The ceiling was high enough to admit the Custodian should he choose to enter. He did not. A void held him back, a space both unoccupied and occupied at the same time.

Poised at the threshold, Varogalant lowered Vigilance and pointed the guardian spear’s scythe-like blade towards the dingy cell, as if he could impale the memory of what it had contained. He closed his eyes… and was assailed by visions.

A great leviathan, slowly uncoiling from a heady brume, its malice suffocating…

A skeletal effigy, its horns reaching into the night and the screams of sacrifices heavy on blood-misted air…

A cage of lightning, a cruciform figure silhouetted within, the forks tearing slits in reality…

When he opened his eyes again, he had fallen to one knee. His heart pounded, breath sawed through his mouth. Varogalant gripped the haft of Vigilance and used it to push himself back up. It anchored him for long enough that he threw off the insidious darkness.

Then he turned, his back to the opening, and slammed the spear’s ferule against the floor. It made no sound beyond a deadened thud.

The shame weighed heavy, but he bore the burden, as they all did.

The open door behind him served as a reminder of their collective failing. It was not the only one.

Other Shadowkeepers stood before similar doorways.

For thousands of years, the Dark Cells had remained inviolate until the Maledictum, the Rift.

The black iron halls ran deep, bored into Terra’s bedrock, and sealed during the time of Unity. There they remained, the vigil of the Shadowkeepers undisturbed until the day the Neverborn returned to the Throneworld. Such was the unfolding crisis that every shield host was mustered and the black-armoured sentinels were sent above ground with only the barest handful of warriors left behind.

It was desperate, a panic not seen since the Siege.

By the time they realised what had happened it was far too late.

Borsa Thursk gave the order to retreat, leaving the survival of other shield hosts in serious doubt as they faced the daemonic hordes alone. He had erred, in the order to fall back and the one that preceded it, which had seen the Shadowkeepers take to the field. Upon their return, they found two things: those they had left behind dead, slain in ways too horrible to utter, and several of the cells empty, the method of their contents’ escape or theft impossible to fathom.

In seeking to avert one calamity, the Shadowkeepers believed they had turned a blind eye to another that had then come to pass.

A great and exhaustive search followed as the Shadowkeepers hurled themselves into the void, chasing every scrap of rumour and evidence that would see these terrors placed back under lock and key.

Some had been recovered, but not all. The diaspora went far, had no discernible pattern and presented a nigh-on impossible task.

It was the single bleakest moment in all of Varogalant’s long memory.

But he did remember.

He remembered the Lion’s Gate. He remembered Borsa Thursk bellowing for the shield host to return and the harrowing that followed when the Shadowkeepers realised they had been undone.

And he remembered Adio, and how he had left his brother to die. In the end, it had been for nothing. The old relics, the creatures that once haunted Old Night, they were loose and they could be anywhere.

CHAPTER FIVE

City of Vorganthian, Kobor, within Terra’s light

Though the shadows hid the blood, they could not disguise the smell. It lay thick and metallic on heavily recycled air. Above, the lazy sweeps of a ceiling fan pushed the stench around the room, making sure it got into every crevice and cranny.

Ursula Gedd felt it adhering to her skin. She’d need a full hour’s steam-scour in the precinct ablutional just to get the stink out. The scene laid out in front of her in the shabby tenement room would linger on well after that.

She frowned, and looked over to her fellow peacekeeper.

‘Can we get any more light? Saint’s piss, but it’s dark in here. How do you even see in this shit, Klein?’

Arpa Klein looked up from a crouched position. He had standard-issue, dark green peacekeeper flak armour. Yellow chevrons marked the chest-plate and shoulder guards. Just like Gedd, except she wore a long dark green slicker over hers. Klein also wore gloves and a helm-lumen. A piece of pinkish bone chip shone in the dim light of his portable array.

‘Skull’s utterly fragged.’

‘Your detective skills continue to amaze, Klein. Now, what about that light?’

Klein tapped the helm-lumen, causing it to flicker. He tapped it again, harder, and the beam stabilised.

‘Best we’ve got,’ he said, reaching for another bone chip. ‘The blood makes the room darker,’ he explained. ‘This back wall used to be grey. All the habs are grey in this district. No one bothers to paint them.’

‘Until now,’ Gedd remarked drily.

Klein pointed upwards with a metal stylus, and the hovering servo-skull slaved to his neuro-quill followed suit.

‘Ceiling used to be grey too.’

Gedd didn’t look up. Something dripped down onto her shoulder, though.

‘Saint’s piss…’ she muttered, and cast about for clues.

She found a weapon, lying side down on a table. Blood spatter flecked the barrel and stock. A pump-gun. Low-grade, but then the human skull wasn’t particularly resilient when it came to firearms. Using her boot knife, she hooked the gun by the trigger guard and brought it in for a closer look. She sniffed the muzzle, though it was tough to discern anything other than blood on account of the victim’s being… well, everywhere.

‘Male?’ she guessed, turning her attention to the body.

Klein nodded, the light beam bobbing up and down and throwing frantic flashes against a dark red wall.

He was seated, whoever he was. His ankles had been shackled to the chair legs, the shackles then bolted. One wrist was free, the hand nearest the table and the gun; the other was bound, same as the legs.

He looked ordinary enough, possibly a hive worker, one of billions inside Vorganthian. The fact his neck ended in a ragged stump stood out though.

‘You ever see a pump-gun do something like this?’

Klein looked up at Gedd holding the weapon to his meagre light.

‘Jam it in deep enough, then angle it just right… How should I know? Maybe.’

‘Blast out the back of the skull, perhaps… Deconstruct and violently explode the entire head?’ Gedd frowned again. ‘And this much blood?’

She swore under her breath, setting the weapon back down. It had a full load, even the breech. And where was the shell casing? No reek of cordite either. Retrograde weapons like the pump-gun had a smell after discharge.

‘How many is this?’ she asked, surveying the small room.

Klein paused, thinking. ‘Twelve suicides.’

‘Is that what your report will say?’

Klein deactivated his stylus and the servo-skull went into dormant mode.

‘Same as all the rest,’ he said, grunting, his legs stiff as he got to his feet. ‘You think it’s something else?’

Gedd tugged a data-slate from out of one of the slicker’s pockets and brought up a map. She’d flagged all the recent ‘violent cranial explosion deaths’ and added the one from the tenement they were standing in. She mentally drew a line connecting the site of each death until it formed an arc in her mind’s eye.

‘You seeing something I’m not, Gedd?’ asked Klein, securing the bone chip evidence in a small plastek sheath.

Gedd turned and headed for the door.

‘Let me know when you’re done.’

‘Where are you going?’ he called after her.

‘Out of this shithole.’

CHAPTER SIX

City of Vorganthian, Kobor, within Terra’s light

Gedd exchanged the heady aroma of human vitae for the sweaty bustle of the Vorganth down-trans, the main thoroughfare through the city that led to low-hive.

The moment she left the hab, a swarm of slow but determined bodies swallowed her up as she joined the mass of Imperial citizens going about their dreary business.

Gedd slipped on a rebreather, grateful for the advanced filtration unit built into the cup. Petro-chem and other pollutants gave the air of low-hive an ugly jaundiced tinge. Gedd heard coughing in the morass, the telltale sign of lung-rot. Most in low-hive, the ones who had no creds for a decent filter, died of lung-rot. Gedd had no time to pity them. In the Imperium, life was cheap if you were a bullet farmer or a wrench-hand… or a peacekeeper. She knew her place.

With a judicious amount of elbow jabbing, scowling and the occasional flash of her precinct-ident sigil, Gedd steadily fought through the crowds.

Above, the towering hive spires loomed like bulky minarets. The spires were well armoured with slabs of ferromite and gunned up to their crenellated teeth. She sometimes wondered if the auto-slaved cannons were for foreign invaders or to keep the burgeoning populace quiescent. Upper transit-ways threaded a false sky overhead, connecting the many districts. Mag-lifts rose and fell with agonising slowness, thronged with hundreds of bodies. The harsh sodium flares of solar traders competed with the furnace fires of the manufactora. A background hum, the heavy, brain-aching heartbeat of industry worried at the raw edges of Gedd’s nerves. For a moment the accreted misery of Vorganthian’s citizens threatened to crush her. This city hated humanity. Its contempt was palpable.

She took a breath, a heavily filtered and twice-cleansed breath, and carried on.

Taking a side street, one of several lesser arteries bleeding off the down-trans, Gedd found some relative peace. She activated the hidden vox-bead in her ear. She listened to three seconds of static, keeping watch on the alley mouth through which she had left the down-trans, and was rewarded for her patience by a man’s voice on the other end of the feed.

‘Utterance,’ he said plainly.

‘Throne ascendant,’ Gedd replied.

There was another short pause as her code was verified.

‘He wants to see you.’

‘Good,’ Gedd answered, though she stifled a tremor of unease. ‘Wait… what did you just say?’ He had never requested her presence before. ‘I have information.’

A further pause as this was relayed.

‘The lamplighter on Elserow.’

‘I know it.’

‘You have nine minutes.’

‘What? Damn it!’

The feed went dead, and Gedd killed the static as she broke into a run.

Elserow lay at the other end of the down-trans. On foot, even at a decent pace, it was probably a twelve-minute journey. Through the worker crowds… Add at least another fifteen.

As Gedd raced out of the alley, she drew her sidearm. A Verifier VII ‘auto-load’, it shone like a matt-black finger of judgement in her fist. Verifiers were known for accuracy. They also had a wide chamber for heavy ammunition. The trade-off was a low-load in the mag, hence the auto function. Upside, it made a hell of a mess and a damn fine noise.

Gedd fired two rounds into the rockcrete, bellowing.

‘Move! Peacekeeper!’

Her rebreather had a vox-amp function and she engaged it to boost her voice.

The crowd fled, dozens barrelling into the sprawl. There would be injuries.

Gedd had no time for guilt or regret. She’d deal with that later. So she ran.

‘Make way! Peacekeeper! Make way!’

A thin-faced man, tall with a studious expression, wandered into her path. Gedd knocked him aside, making the best use of her bulky armour and forward momentum. The man, who wore the long tan robes and carried the lectorum-bible of an uphive census-taker, was about to hurl some abuse Gedd’s way when he saw the gun and decided to keep his mouth shut.

Gedd barely spared him a glance.

A chrono-chime in her ear signalled a minute had lapsed. Panting hard, she accelerated, cursing the weight of her armour and the hefty Verifier, which pulled at her left arm like an anchor.

After another five minutes she left the down-trans and hit Elserow. A narrow concourse stretched before her, less densely populated than the down-trans but harder to navigate.

Elserow was a labyrinth. A part of down-hive, its streets overlapped and intersected, as if caught in the fever dream of some deranged hive-planner. There were switchbacks, bottlenecks, doglegs and dead ends aplenty. It had no scheme, no reason, having developed organically over many centuries. It was also extremely old. Here, ferrocrete gave way to actual stone mined from the planet’s core when there were still quarries. Buildings of brick and even wood lurched out of smoke-choked alleyways. They ran on for storey after storey, stacked one atop the other until the sheer mass of the buildings above began to displace and flatten the ones below. They leaned, lecherous and ugly, and the district reeked of dank and mildew.

But Gedd knew this place. She had mapped its bewildering expanse before, and so reached the Avenue of Lights where the lamplighters roamed with a few seconds to spare.

+Cutting it a little close, peacekeeper,+ said a voice in Gedd’s head. +I was about to take my leave.+

CHAPTER SEVEN

City of Vorganthian, Kobor, within Terra’s light

Gedd started at the sudden voice in her head, turning around, half-blinded by the oil lamps hovering in their stations. She had her gun out again, the instinct to draw it natural and defensive.

+No need for that.+

Gedd lowered then holstered her weapon. She raised a hand to ward her eyes. Breathing hard, she felt like puking but kept it down.

‘It’s rather bloody bright,’ she complained at length.

The Avenue of Light was just that, a part of Elserow that consisted of a long paved street illuminated by a hundred oil-fuelled globes, each one held aloft by an anti-gravitic plate. It was a metaphor for the Imperium’s adherence to archaism and the stagnation of technological endeavour, though few appreciated the contradiction.

Few ever ventured here too. No one in Vorganthian really wanted to see themselves in the light. The blood, the grime, the misery, it all seemed starker in the pitiless luminescence of those globes.

Gedd saw the lamplighter. A short, unassuming man in a brown leather storm coat and a wide-brimmed fedora, he stood at the end of the Avenue of Light. He had a walking stick in his right hand, the tech in the haft visible even from distance. Armour beneath the coat bulked him out a little. Gedd reckoned he was at least a hundred feet away, which either meant he had abilities or she did.

The lamps in Gedd’s sector dimmed as the man approached.

+Is that better?+

She lowered her hand. ‘Better, but if you try to speak into my mind again I am going to have to shoot you. I haven’t decided where yet either.’

The lamplighter held up his hand by way of apology.

‘Old habits,’ he said, when Gedd was close enough to hear him normally. ‘I don’t see many of his agents around these parts. Haven’t seen a peacekeeper in some time.’ He nodded. ‘My name is Xeus, but I am generally known as the Lamplighter.’

Gedd frowned. ‘By whom? I thought you said you hardly saw anyone down here.’

‘By those to whom I am known,’ answered Xeus with no suggestion of offering any further explanation.

‘You’re a wyrd, aren’t you?’

‘A psyker, yes. I am a theta-level telepath, though I also possess some minor kinetic abilities.’ He gestured to one of the globes, which intensified and dimmed again to illustrate the point.

Gedd sniffed her amusement. ‘Clever trick. Didn’t know he was using wyrds.’

‘Our employer uses every tool at his disposal, though I would ask you to refrain from using that term.’

‘Wyrd?’

‘If you wouldn’t mind.’

‘Sorry, I meant no offence.’

‘None taken,’ Xeus said. ‘You wish to see him.’ It wasn’t phrased as a question.

‘I was told he wished to see me,’ Gedd replied, stupidly feeling she needed to justify her presence.

‘He does,’ said Xeus, and Gedd thought perhaps he had taken offence after all. ‘Stand under the eighth globe along on the left if you wouldn’t mind.’

‘What?’ asked Gedd, but Xeus merely stepped out of her path and indicated the appropriate globe.

Gedd did as asked, standing under the eighth globe on the left side of the street. She frowned, the hint of irritation in her voice. ‘I’m here. What now?’

‘Well…’ said Xeus, turning away as one by one the globes were extinguished, leaving only the eighth still lit, +I would shut your eyes.+

The eighth globe burned into brilliance, as bright as magnesium, and Gedd clamped her eyes shut before it blinded her.

‘Son of a bi–’

Darkness fell a moment later, the background roar of the overtaxed light globe fading as she tried to open her eyes again. A harsh after-flare muddied her vision but when she was at last able to see, Gedd was standing at the bottom of a narrow stone stairway with a barred iron gate in front of her. She glanced over her shoulder and saw the stairway went up into darkness. Then a vision slit in the gate quickly slid aside, revealing a pair of augmetic eyes, flashing red in the shadows.

‘Ursula Gedd?’ an automated voice asked.

‘Who else would it be?’

‘Utterance,’ the voice replied. The augmetics blinked once, calibrating targeting arrays. Only then did Gedd notice the weapon slits in the walls. She heard the chug-clank of heavy cannons cycling to readiness.

‘Throne ascendant,’ she said quickly, taking care to keep her hands well away from her sidearm.

After a few seconds the augmetics blinked again and the vision slit slid shut. A heavy boom sounded from the other side of the door, then came the metallic scrape of several bolts disengaging automatically. At last the gate ground open on automated hinges.

Gedd didn’t linger. She had only just got inside when the gate slammed shut behind her. There was no sign of the servitor on the other side of the door. A thin metal track ran underfoot. She felt it against her boot. It still retained a faint charge and led into the wall.

Fifty feet ahead, a vague glow beckoned.

Despite her earlier desire to appear unthreatening, Gedd kept her hand on the grip of the Verifier as she made for the opening.

As she reached the glow, the corridor opened out into a much larger chamber, though it was hard to tell exactly how large on account of the sheer amount of surveillance engines in situ.

Banks of cogitators spewing reams of hard data-screed stood alongside innumerable pict-feeds, each displaying a subtly different view of the city. It was like staring into the many-faceted compound eyes of a fly. Vox- and data-gathering engines kept up a steady hubbub that instantly irritated with their half-heard susurrations. Physical maps, architectural sketches, schematics and diagrammatic calculations papered every available surface. Some appeared to be highly technical, others arcane. Gedd found them all unfathomable.

And at the heart of this machine, this web of information hoarding, sat its spider. Huge and many-limbed, its form swathed in darkness, it looked up as Gedd entered.

‘You’re late,’ growled Meroved.

CHAPTER EIGHT

City of Vorganthian, Kobor, within Terra’s light

He could sense her fear of him, though she hid it well. Micro-tremors in her cheek, neck and fingers, the slight dilation of the pupils, a scarcely detectable rise in heart rate and perspiration told Meroved all he needed to know.

‘I said, you’re late,’ he rumbled, still engaging with the data-feed as he addressed her. Six servo-arms, attached to a frame on his back and partially concealed by black robes, interfaced with the network of machinery delivering every scrap of information to Meroved for his analysis.

‘By whose definition?’ asked Gedd.

Meroved’s smile stayed hidden behind his vox-mask and the shadows of his hood.

‘I do believe you may have offended Xeus,’ he said.

‘That imp? The lamplighter? I can’t say I have a fond opinion of him, either.’ Gedd looked around, her keen grey eyes analysing everything. ‘What is this place? We’ve never met here before.’

‘Very old and well hidden,’ answered Meroved. ‘And we’ve never met anywhere before, Gedd.’

‘And yet I feel I know you.’

Meroved laughed, thunderous and resounding.

‘I’m glad you still find me amusing, but I have to know,’ said Gedd, ‘why did you bring me here? Two years, Meroved. Two years. And in all that time, never a face-to-face and never in your…’ She looked around, trying to find the word. ‘Lair. Either you’ve suddenly developed an inexplicable desire to trust or something is happening. It’s the suicides, isn’t it?’ She smiled ruefully. ‘I knew there was more to it.’

Meroved nodded.

‘Yes. You have found something, Gedd, and it relates to the deaths you describe.’

He took in the peacekeeper, her officer’s garb, her slightly drawn but not unattractive face, the black hair that had been cut short to be less of a hindrance in the field. She had a heavy build, broad-shouldered, muscular yet still athletic. Strong fingers, calloused from regularly loading and stripping her sidearm, betrayed her nervousness. Her work had aged her prematurely but only slightly, a litany of long, demanding shifts and a less than ideal diet. No evidence of rejuve, either. She favoured a heavy-gauge pistol, hip holstered; the blade strapped to her boot looked clean and sharp. All of this Meroved processed in less than a millisecond.

‘Though your colleague Arpa Klein is wrong about the cause.’

‘You’ve been watching me.’

‘Of course I have. That is my purpose. To watch,’ said Meroved. ‘What did you see?’

‘Ask your lamplighter. He was rudely poking around in my head.’

‘Xeus is a gatekeeper – he doesn’t gather information. We all have our roles, Gedd. We must merely play them the best way we can.’

Gedd did not appear mollified, but described what she and Klein had found in the tenement – the man shackled to the chair, his skull conspicuously distributed around the room; the volume of blood; the unspent pump-gun on the table; the fact there had been at least eleven other similar incidents in the last few weeks alone.

Meroved listened intently, absorbing every detail and filing it away alongside the constant data-stream spewing from his array of surveillance engines.

‘What else?’

‘Isn’t that enough?’

‘I want to know what you think. You have a theory.’

‘There are trends,’ Gedd went on. She made a face, attempting to summarise, and gesturing with her hands as if weighing the information and its value. ‘Disappearances, mysterious deaths, spontaneous combustion.’ She sniffed, trying to feign her insouciance, but Meroved could detect her unease. ‘Now we can add violent inter-cranial detonations to the list. I have a ream of reports and unsolved cases. Mostly low-hive. I think there’s one underlying cause and I think whoever is behind it is trying to stay out of sight by operating in places that will draw the least attention. And I think whatever they’re doing is increasing. Frequency, intensity, it’s going somewhere.’

Meroved listened intently, and when Gedd had finished he allowed the churn of the machines to fill the silence for a moment before deciding to speak.

‘Every city, every world has a pattern. Did you know that, Gedd?’

‘I’ve seen a pattern, and I’m fairly sure I know the origin point for this madness, but I don’t think you’re talking about just that, are you?’

‘We are not so far from Terra,’ said Meroved. ‘On this world, we live within His light, albeit at the very edge. But darkness encroaches, even here. Even now. Ever since the Rift… everything has changed.’

‘Including the pattern of this city.’

‘I am talking about the rhythms that define life in its usual state, its mundane comings and goings,’ said Meroved. ‘Anything is possible. The galaxy is vast, the Imperium’s worlds many, and there are old, old secrets that would threaten your grip on sanity were I to divulge them to you. Much therefore can be explained. Much therefore can be tolerated if a part of a small enough ratio. These quirks are simply that, inconsequential and innocuous. But, yes, in Vorganthian the pattern has changed. Even now, as you and I speak, it is moving.’ Meroved turned his hand for emphasis, his fingers half-clenched as if gripping an invisible object. ‘It is being reshaped.’ He nodded to Gedd. ‘I think you know this already, albeit on a crude, instinctive level.’

‘I’ll try not to take offence at that.’

‘Escalation, Gedd…’ Meroved narrowed his eyes, ‘and the slightest fraying of the edges.’ He illustrated the point by holding his thumb and forefinger a hair’s breadth apart. ‘Infinitesimal and almost unnoticed.’

‘Fraying?’ asked Gedd, her unease suddenly more apparent.

Meroved’s mouth curled into a humourless smile.

‘Reality, Gedd.’

Gedd paled but maintained her composure. ‘If I pretend to understand what you’re talking about, will you kill me? Is that why I’m here, because I know too much?’

Meroved gave a cold laugh. ‘That is precisely why you are here, Gedd. But I won’t kill you. I need your help.’

‘Why does this not feel like a promotion?’

Meroved engaged a hololithic projector built into his machine. It displayed a grainy image of a part of the city, rendered in three-dimensional green light. A red rune flickered over a small section of it. A warehouse.

‘Is this the same origin point you mentioned?’

Gedd took a closer look. ‘More precise than I had it, but…’ She nodded. She had brought up a similar schematic on her data-slate back in the bloody tenement room.

‘That’s the Hoard. It’s an abandoned commercia district in low-hive. Some habs, mainly warehouses. I need you to find out what’s there and report back. Observation only. You must go alone. The circle stays small. No one else must know, not until I am certain what it is we are dealing with.’

‘While you watch?’

Meroved suddenly rose from amongst the machines, the servo-frame detaching with a hiss of pneumatic pressure release. He had seen something on his myriad of screens and vox-feeds. He shrugged off his robes and padded over in bare feet and loose-fitting breeches towards an archway leading off from the chamber.

‘I have another matter to attend to.’

Ever since she had come into his service, Gedd had maintained theories about Meroved’s origins. At first she considered the Adeptus Arbites. His voice, his obvious authority, what he knew, his words and how he said them all pointed towards the Lex Imperialis. She had also considered the Inquisition, a theory that had fallen apart as soon as he had risen from the machine.

Meroved’s immensely muscled body shimmered in the light. His sheer size suggested transhuman, and his mental acuity went beyond exceptional into another spectrum entirely.

Gedd had thought some of his size could have been armour, but the sheer bulk and brawn hinted at beneath the now shed robes was all flesh and blood. He appeared almost sculpted, more a work of art than a man, though she also saw scars and the surgical evidence of augmentation. Part of the right leg, a section of shoulder, the right wrist – all shone metallically in the light.

Letters had been etched into his flesh using dark ink, long snaking syllables that coiled around his arms, his neck, across his back, his sides. Names, she realised, or parts of names. She noticed ‘Mero’ and ‘Ved’ amongst them.

Gedd could not help but stare.

‘The ink,’ she ventured. ‘It is military?’

‘Of a kind.’ He paused, seemingly unprepared for the question. ‘Though we were never supposed to be soldiers. That happened later.’

‘“We”?’

Meroved stopped to regard her, and Gedd saw his face properly.

‘A brotherhood of sorts.’

Without the vox-mask and hood, he had a noble face – old but with wisdom rather than age, though she saw signs of that too. A dark-haired beard, flecked with iron-grey, framed a sturdy chin. The head was closely shorn, barring a shaven strip of hair with blunt, brush-like ends that streaked back from just above the forehead and neatly divided the scalp into two equal hemispheres. A scar below the right eye suggested a serious wound, sustained a long time ago.

‘You are quite the sight,’ uttered Gedd. ‘I’m still staring, aren’t I?’

Meroved turned away again, indicating an end to the conversation. ‘Xeus will be waiting for you outside the gate. He will escort you back to Elserow.’

‘I think I can find my own way.’

‘No, you won’t,’ said Meroved, stepping through the archway and becoming lost to the shadows beyond.

CHAPTER NINE

City of Vorganthian, Kobor, within Terra’s light

Hezme had led what she regarded as an ordinary life. She had worked hard, toiling in the data-stacks of the western district’s scriptorium primus, compiling census records, mercantile quotas and military tithing rates. It was dusty work and although she had never done a shift bending metal fuselage plates in a factorum or counting furnace-hot casings in a bullet farm, she did still bear some scars. Her fingers were regularly shredded by the ancient leaves of vellum spewed from the mouths of calculation-servitors. It had got so bad, in fact, that she had resorted to bandaging her hands in the manner of a leper. And her bones ached so regularly from hauling massive quantities of hard-data records around the stacks that she sometimes felt true manual labour might be easier on her body.

She had never married, nor did she have children. She lived alone and had a modest income that came with modest expectations. Hezme had believed she would die in the stacks or the clean but tired confines of her tenement hab. She was pious. Her fear of all things aberrant, the alien, the witch and the heretic, had her cleave to the Imperial Creed as an infant would its mother’s teat. An aquila shrine to the Emperor Ascendant was one of the few adornments she allowed herself to possess, and she knelt before its glory at the start and end of every day.

But deep down, she wanted more. Piety should be rewarded. Xenophobia and intolerance required recognition. It took effort to hate, to fear what was other. Wasn’t Hezme deserving of something for her efforts?

She had heard about the preacher through clandestine channels, through whispers and rumours. A missionary some said, he who had come to speak of the Emperor’s will and usher the faithless back to His light. He had been hard to find. In the end, he had found her. Trudging through the Vorganth down-trans heading for the western maglev transit station, she had been confronted by a figure in dark red robes with a learned disposition.

His charisma, his absolute faith and belief in the Emperor of Mankind beguiled her. After that first meeting she had not returned to the scriptorium primus. The wanderer, as he was known, had changed all that. She felt warmer in his presence, and a sense of fulfilment she had not realised she was lacking until the moment she met him.

He had other followers, of course, and it was impressed upon her the need for complete and utter secrecy. At first, she had questioned why such steps needed to be taken. After all, worship of the Emperor was no crime and in the dark times that had fallen upon the city, an outpouring of faith could shore up the ailing populace.

It was only when Hezme became privy to the purpose – to the Awakening as the preacher had described it – that she understood. It thrilled her to think of it, to know that she would be a part of this great undertaking. So devout was Hezme, so utterly committed to the cause, that after many weeks there came the day she had long been waiting for.

‘You are to be illuminated, Hezme,’ the preacher had told her.

And in that moment, she realised all her piety and faith had been rewarded.

Illumination.

So she did not question when they took her to a forgotten place at the edge of the western district, to a derelict factorum whose machines had long since turned cold, where the silky webs of orb-spiders hung in gossamer strands between the bullet-cutters and metal-shapers.

She felt the accumulated dirt and grime between the toes of bare feet and the warm air catch around her thin shift as she was led into a large ablutions chamber.

The old, grimy tiles chilled her skin as she followed the steps into a deep basin rimmed with scum around its edges. The lights were no longer working, so oil drums had been stacked with combustibles and set aflame. The flickering light cast across a circle drawn inside the basin. In the dingy confines of the room, it looked dark red.

She entered the circle along with seven others, each ushered to their place where a rune had been marked in the floor. These runes were strange to Hezme and it hurt her eyes to look upon them. She shivered, not out of fear but anticipation.

Only when they clamped the heavy chains around her wrists, neck and ankles did she begin to quail. The chains were marked too, just like the circle. There were stains on the metal and a smell like warm copper.

Then he entered the room and Hezme’s concerns lessened. She tried to catch his gaze but he seemed to look through her, focused on his purpose.

‘Through His will are we judged,’ he said, ‘and through suffering will He judge you worthy of salvation. Gaze upon the abyss. See into the mind of that which lurks beyond the veil for only then shall you be illuminated, only then shall you be inured to the terror and take your place in the Awakening.’

A sudden chanting began from figures hidden in the darkness at the edges, and a strange sensation overcame Hezme. The chains began to burn her skin. She wanted to scream but an invisible force held her tongue and so she writhed instead as a foreign and intrusive presence wormed its way inside her body. Like a dirty splinter, it festered, growing more virulent with every passing second. She heard voices, but they spoke in a language Hezme did not understand and in a way that turned her blood to ice.

She wanted to escape. This was wrong. She had changed her mind, but she knew with gut-churning clarity that it was too late to back out.

Her sense of time fell away, and the tatters of herself fell with it, carried off on a foul-smelling breeze.

It could have been days she spent in this place, the voices growing ever louder in her head, her will dissolving like ice before a cruel sun. Distantly, she felt changes to her body, to her bones, even her mind. There were strange growths that hadn’t been there before, and unclean marks had spread across her skin like mould over a canvas.

And for the briefest moment before her will surrendered to the thing that had taken root within her and made of her flesh its host, Hezme saw the other supplicants and the cult spreading across the city, as rampant as a holy wildfire.

The wanderer was with her at the end, but his words provided no comfort.

‘Do not despair,’ he said. ‘Your suffering serves a great purpose.’

Hezme laughed, though the voice was not her own, and as she threw back her head, laughing, crying and shouting, she let the darkness swallow her.

CHAPTER TEN

City of Vorganthian, Kobor, within Terra’s light

The mag-trans was poorly lit and smelled of dank. The shadows served Meroved, who went swiftly through the transit tunnels beneath Vorganthian’s eastern district. No one bothered him. Few of the ragged-looking patrons even glanced in his direction. This part of the automated transit hub did not attract crowds. It was the oldest section of the network, in one of the oldest city districts and close to disuse.

Parts of the roof had begun to sag in places, the sheer weight of the agglomerated levels above taking a toll on the aging granite brick and iron rebar. Streams of effluence trailed through gaps in the rockcrete, dark and dirty little stains that put Meroved in mind of blood.

He had left the observatory with all haste, dressing quickly in a lightweight but durable flak-weave bodysuit with a plasteel-plate layer over the torso. He had selected a broad-bladed vibro-sword, which now sat in a scabbard slung across his back, and a heavy-gauge bolt rifle called a Shieldbreaker, which hung on a strap next to it. A hip holster contained an archeotech fusion pistol, Firebrand. From an old wooden casket, he had taken several pieces of arcana.

A black storm cloak finished off the ensemble, both large and thick enough to hide the munitions belt he wore around his waist and the fact he was well armed. A deep hood concealed a vox-bead.

It had not taken long to reach the mag-trans tunnels via grav-speeder and follow them on foot to the main transit hub. His observatory lay at a nexus point underneath the city and all roads fed to it, which made reaching the edges of the city easier. Meroved had left the transport behind in a disused service dock, where it would remain hidden and undisturbed until he returned for it.

The tunnel he had entered the transit hub by eventually opened out into a large and dilapidated atrium. It ran upwards for several floors, terminating in a vaulted ceiling where cracks in the decaying plaster had spread like veins. A single mag-carriage hovered at the edge of the tiled space in a poorly maintained grav-harness, its repulsor plates sparking. It carried a handful of passengers: a few lowly scribes and some Munitorum labourers who huddled close together and exchanged words in a stooped, conspiratorial fashion. One of the labourers, a woman with grimy hair and soot stains on her face, looked up at Meroved as he passed. Upon seeing him she quickly looked down again.

The atrium itself had a few loiterers. Dirty bullet-farmers and plate-cutters gathered in begrimed and beaten-down groups. A dishevelled old man in dirty rags played a tuneless ditty on a pump-organ but had failed to attract a crowd. A Ministorum priest in long puce robes read aloud from a battered copy of the Sermons of Sebastian Thor and was similarly ignored.

A trader in a dishevelled brocade jacket with a discoloured neck ruff had more admirers. He cleaved to his servitor bodyguard, clutching a lockbox close to his chest as he gave a look of undisguised contempt to a pair of shaven-headed juves with ganger tattoos. And then there were the hooded and the cloaked figures, the ones who kept to the shadows and the edges, the mutants and low-level wyrds. These poor wretches posed no threat to Meroved or the Throne. They hid down here away from the witchfinders and bounty hunters who plied their trade in the scalps of the undesirable and the shunned. Fear and suspicion were valuable commodities in the Imperium and the hunters traded on them.

Meroved scowled beneath his hood.

Lassitude and despair clung to this place like an invisible fog. This part of the transit hub should have been torn down years ago, though perhaps the labour-barons who ran it were simply waiting for it to be crushed by the layers pressing down from above.

Off-world smugglers tended to use the rundown parts of the city to conduct their illegal activities. Much like the dregs trying to hide away behind rags and anonymity, such activities seldom piqued Meroved’s interest. He wasn’t on Vorganthian to enforce law and order; his remit was much larger and more far-reaching. The cargo rumoured to be in the smugglers’ possession had changed the normal run of things. The pattern had shifted, just as he had told Gedd.

The Vexen Cage. A relic, a very old and dangerous relic that had no place being at large in the galaxy. The description he had received matched what he knew of it, but until he was certain he would not act beyond observing. What he did, what he was oath-sworn to do, only worked because no one knew he was doing it. His decision to leave the observatory had not been taken lightly.

Meroved needed proof, one way or the other.

He surreptitiously opened the vox-bead.

‘Zatu,’ he whispered, crossing the atrium floor.

A click in his ear indicated Zatu was receiving.

‘I have reached the atrium.’

‘East tunnel, my lord,’ Zatu replied.

Meroved found it immediately. It was approximately seventy feet ahead of him, a wide arch of grey stone that led into further shadows. A chain hung across the opening with a metal sign that read CONDEMNED in stencilled letters. He saw something else too, a small mark on one of the bricks that made up the arch. It was too deliberate to have been created by accident, so Meroved had to assume the graffiti was meant as a message or marker. However, it looked incomplete, like an arrowhead without a shaft with a thin vertical line drawn at the broad end.

A man standing near the tunnel, leaning against a decrepit column, looked up. He wore a long grey storm coat and had the look of the Astra Militarum about him with a close-shaved head and a regimental tattoo. A second mark under his right eye was definitely not military. It was of a lit candle depicted in dark red ink. Unlike the other civilians, the man did not look away when Meroved met his gaze.

‘Something here, Zatu,’

‘Do you have the relic in sight, my lord?’

‘Not yet. It may be close. Stand by.’

Slipping the catch from his hip holster, Meroved made for the ex-Guardsman. He had gone less than a few feet when the glow-globes that were affixed to posts around the atrium floor flickered and went out. A heavy darkness fell, like a blindfold drawn across the eyes. The last carriage noisily slipped its harness, drawing Meroved’s eye for a second. The resulting charge had overloaded the lights. It sped off, trailing a chain of angry sparks. After a few seconds the momentary blackout lifted.

The ex-Guardsman had gone, but the chain roping off the east tunnel still swung slightly in his wake.

Meroved accelerated into a run, his cloak parting to reveal Firebrand. He shot through the chain, the two severed ends sweeping apart like a drawn curtain. Panicked shouts came from some quarters.

He reached the tunnel entrance in seconds, the meagre crowds parting instinctively, and rushed inside.

Only then did Meroved slow to a walk. More darkness pervaded here, and even greater disrepair. The sign had been accurate, but someone was using this part of the transit hub. He discerned footprints and the signs of occupation, a few lho-stick stubs and a doused sodium lamp. The tunnel went on for at least a hundred feet before it turned a corner. Meroved followed it.

He had only gone a few paces when the low hum-buzz of an anti-gravitic engine made Meroved turn to his left. Alcoves punctuated the tunnel walls at evenly spaced intervals on both sides and from one burst the man he had seen outside the entrance, riding a Harrower jetbike. It was vintage and large, a low-rider with the driver leaning back as he pushed out the throttle and dug in his heels. A long grey-and-black chassis cut through the air like a prow, its front-mounted heavy stubber no use against a pursuing target.

A lookout, Meroved realised. He had to stop him.

He triggered Firebrand and the muzzle flared, emitting a low activation whine. The fusion beam glanced the front deflector of the jetbike’s chassis, kicking up a riot of hot and angry sparks that sent the driver off course and his ride digging into the ground like a ploughshare. It cut a furrow about twelve feet long before it went too deep and stuck hard, flinging the driver over the chassis and another twelve feet farther up the tunnel. He came to rest in a heap, his limbs bent awkwardly around his body.

Meroved quickly covered the distance to the crash site in long, powerful strides. Crouching down, he hauled the driver up onto his backside, eliciting howls of pain, and propped him against the wall.

‘Talk,’ he demanded. ‘Now.’

The ex-Guardsman grimaced, his teeth pink with blood. A surge of it came up out of his throat and he choked for a few seconds before managing to spit it out over his chin.

‘You’re dying,’ Meroved told him. ‘Your ribs are shattered, and at least one of them has pierced a lung. Your left arm is broken and both legs. Death will be very painful. I can make it less so and end it quickly.’

‘Holy… Terra… you’re…’ the ex-Guardsman began, wheezing and gurgling between words, ‘one of them…’

Something like awe or fear flashed in his eyes. Even so close to death, a mortal could not deny the existential dread of being faced with one of the Emperor’s chosen.

Meroved scowled. He needed him to talk.

‘And you knew that before you ran. How? Who are your allies? Are they down here too?’

The man laughed, though it looked painful for him and sounded more like choking.

‘It will be like drowning,’ said Meroved, losing patience, ‘except you’ll be on land and it will be in your own blood. What is your name? What does that mark underneath your eye mean?’

A few moments remained. Meroved could hear it in the man’s breathing.

‘Speak to me. You have nothing to gain now by obfuscation. Serve the Throne and in that find some redemption.’

The ex-Guardsman smiled, and looked strangely beatific before spitting up another dark gobbet of blood.

‘I am already a servant… but shall not yield…’ he rasped, every breath a supreme effort, ‘to despair… My suffering… serves… a great purp–’

He slumped back, chalk-pale, eyes sunken into hollows.

Meroved stood and cursed beneath his breath. He had found nothing, and was about to raise Zatu on the vox when he saw the parchment edge that had slipped out of one of the dead man’s pockets. Crouching back down, Meroved pulled out a map. It depicted the disused tunnels, describing a route from the eastern entrance to some kind of rendezvous point or hideout. Further inspection of the body revealed a null-collar around the man’s neck. It had been deactivated but appeared functional. Meroved unclasped it, folded it along the three hinges set around its circumference and tucked the collar into one of the large pouches on his munitions belt.

Then he looked back the way he had come to the jetbike, its anti-gravitic engines gently pushing it against the dirt, like an arrow slowly quivering in a target ring. Both the stirrups and the seat could be heavily adjusted. He reckoned it was approximately the same size as a Dawneagle, though bulkier and less refined than the jetbikes ridden by his old comrades in the Kataphraktoi.

Meroved raised an eyebrow.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

City of Vorganthian, Kobor, within Terra’s light

The air scythed past, tugging against his hood and pulling it away from his face. Meroved could not suppress a grin as he revelled in the sheer speed of the Harrower.

The tunnel sped by in a blur, lit by sweeping shafts of light from the Harrower’s forward-mounted lamps. Meroved’s mnemic abilities kept him on the route described on the map, though the deep and disused conduits through Vorganthian’s forgotten underbelly were labyrinthine. After a few miles, the turns came quickly and sharply. He could appreciate why the dead ex-Guardsman he had left back in the tunnel had needed a map, though Meroved needed only to glance at it once. What he could not fathom was why the dead man had been wearing a null-collar. As he piled on more speed, he considered the collar might relate to the supposed suicides Gedd had stumbled upon and wondered where all this might lead.

Eventually, Meroved came almost to the terminus of his journey as the tunnel network ended in a large subterranean excavation. Ditching the jetbike at the edge of a massive pit and killing its noisy engine, Meroved began to climb down a shallow slope that led into further darkness.

After about sixty feet, the slope started to level out and Meroved saw the watery light of sodium lamps strung up via cabling bolted to a low, natural ceiling. He found several large packing crates and empty promethium drums. Whoever had been down here had been in the process of moving location. Excavation tools lay abandoned, propped up against stacks of pallets. The place looked deserted. Even if the ex-Guardsman had not intended to return, he had probably been here at some point.

‘Why did you need to keep a watch?’ Meroved murmured. ‘What are your cohorts so wary of?’

The answers were not forthcoming.

Delving further Meroved found solid-slug casings, and the air still carried the faintest smell of cordite. A Custodian’s senses were greatly attuned, even more so than the Adeptus Astartes’.

His eyes narrowed. ‘You were interrupted.’

A fight had taken place here, a fierce one judging by the damage to the walls. Some of the crates had been used as cover. A few had been split in half. Others were shattered into pieces. It would take immense strength to strike such a blow. Drag marks and old bloodstains suggested that the casualties had been removed, and that the fight had taken place some time ago, possibly as long as several days.

As he went deeper the tunnels grew older, much older than the disused transit hub. Natural caverns replaced the man-made chambers, jutting with stalactites and strange bioluminescent fungus. Meroved doubted this place existed on any map. It was ancient. The sodium lamps had long since gone and Meroved pressed on into half-darkness until he caught the faintest glow of grey light. He followed it, moving slowly and cautiously, unsheathing the vibro-sword with Firebrand in his other hand, until the ceiling gave way to a grey gloaming sky.

Snow swept in from above through a natural cleft in the rock that led back to the outside world. It occurred to Meroved he must be nearing the northern district of the city, only a few miles from where he had sent Gedd.

The light was weak but limned a large cavern in an eerie pearlescent glow, sparkling where it touched cataracts trickling through fissures in the rock. The light also marked a body lying on its back in the middle of the cavern, its armour edged in silver. Spilled blood shimmered, glittering with frost. The sight of it caused Meroved’s breath to catch in his throat.

He rushed to the body and upon reaching it sank to his knees, his head heavy with grief. A light dusting of snow had fallen like a funeral veil. The thin white patina could not obscure the lustre of the armour. It shone gold. The specific manner of death was unclear, but the armour had been rent in several places. A slash carved open one side of the helm, revealing part of the face.

‘Kazamende…’ The name came out in a ghostly pall of expelled breath.

A guardian spear had fallen from the dead warrior’s grasp, and as Meroved reached for it he paused, remembering his oath. His outstretched fingers coiled into a fist.

‘How did I not see this?’

Kazamende had died here, presumably from his wounds. He may have died days ago. He wore the royal purple panoply of the Aquilan Shields.

‘What were you doing here, Kazamende?’ Meroved’s voice came out in a breath-starved rasp. ‘Who were you sent to protect?’

Deciding he could learn nothing more from the body, Meroved got to his feet. Taking off his cloak, he gently laid it across Kazamende.

‘Blood of the Throne…’ he whispered, unwilling to accept the truth of his eyes.

One of the Ten Thousand had been killed. No easy feat, and the Aquilan Shields were known for their skill in combat. They were also sworn to lay down their lives to protect an individual identified by the Emperor’s will. Meroved saw no other bodies. Either the man or woman Kazamende had been sent to protect had escaped or they had been taken. Alive or dead, it was impossible to determine.

A flicker of light caught Meroved’s attention and he looked up to see a hololithic figure resolve into being. It was a man, old but with the false appearance of youth. He looked strong and there was a slight militaristic air about his appearance, though the fatigues he wore were beneath the dark red robes of a missionary preacher. Flak armour bulked out his body. As he drew back his hood, he revealed rings on every finger, each shaped like the mark under the eye of the ex-Guardsman Meroved had left back in the tunnels – a candle with a solitary flame.

His hair was cut in the style of the Astra Militarum, shorn close though without a regimental insignia. He did have a tattoo just above the bridge of his nose, of a letter ‘I’ within an eye.

‘Who are you?’ demanded Meroved. He gestured to Kazamende’s body. ‘Did you have a part in this?’

‘I’ll presume you are pointing to your dead comrade,’ said the man. ‘Through the hololith I can only see you. The narrow beam focus, you understand.’ His voice was cultured, urbane and bereft of the usual condescension typical of his calling. ‘He is your comrade, yes?’

‘Answer me now,’ said Meroved, in no mood for games. ‘There is no place you can hide from me. Nowhere that will be safe for you or those responsible.’

The man nodded. ‘I thought so,’ he said, as if he hadn’t heard Meroved’s threat. ‘I am Ylax Orn, not that my name will mean anything to you. I regret what happened to your comrade. I am the Emperor’s servant in this but he was unwilling to let me conduct my work.’

Meroved scowled in disbelief. ‘You slay one of the Ten Thousand and claim you serve the Throne?’

‘I did and I do. You do not understand yet. You will. But I wanted to be sure, to see you with my own eyes…’ He shrugged, and his casual manner turned Meroved’s hands to fists, though he knew his rage was impotent against a hololithic projection. ‘Well… You can appreciate what I mean.’

‘You will die by my hand, heretic,’ Meroved promised.

‘Not until my work is done, and then I would gladly surrender my neck to your sword.’

‘What work? Does it involve the Vexen Cage? Do not use it. I warn you now.’

‘I fear if I told you, you would try to find a way to stop me and I cannot have that. I have the relic, that much at least I am willing to divulge. I am its guardian. It is His will that I have it. I will be completely honest – I hope that by telling you this you will let me continue without unnecessary impediment. It is essential to the Awakening, but you will see.’ He frowned then, seeing the look on Meroved’s face. ‘Although… perhaps you won’t.’

Meroved tensed, his eyes narrowing as he searched the cavern for any threat, but he could find no sign.

‘I needed to know if there were more of you,’ said Orn. ‘So I left Reinhar as bait. I assume he is dead.’

‘What are you talking about?’ demanded Meroved.

‘Do not despair,’ said Orn as the very air seemed to thicken and sound became muted. ‘Your suffering serves a great purpose.’

It was as if Meroved had crossed an invisible boundary line into a different realm of existence. He knew this feeling. It had happened to him before, during the battle at the Lion’s Gate. He could detect the pulling of the veil, like overstretched rubber brought to breaking point before slowly returning to its resting elasticity. Something had crossed over.

The hololith faded. Behind it stood another figure, and this one was very real.

CHAPTER TWELVE

City of Vorganthian, Kobor, within Terra’s light

Gedd had returned to the precinct as soon as she was back on Elserow. Xeus had met her outside the observatory, just as Meroved had said. He had been right about her not being able to find her way to the street too. Unlike when she had been here before, there was no stairway that led out of the alley. There was just a lamp, like that on the Avenue of Light. It had flared brightly, as before, and Gedd had shut her eyes to avoid being blinded. When she opened them again she was back on Elserow. Xeus had gone.

She met Klein on her way out of the precinct, shouldering his way through the burly peacekeepers, who were strapping on armour and preparing for an underhive sortie.

‘Low-hive cleansing?’ she asked, sparing Klein a glance as she headed to the precinct’s landing strip.

‘What? Oh yes, whatever, Gedd,’ he said, doing his best to follow. He had shed most of his kit and was wearing simple grey fatigues. ‘Our twelfth suicide…’ he ventured.

Gedd stopped and turned, swearing colourfully at the other peacekeepers trying to bustle past her. They all saw sense and took a wider berth.

‘Not a hive-worker,’ said Klein.

Gedd scowled. She didn’t have time for this.

‘And?’

‘Salvage yard dredged up a ship from over by the northern rigs.’

Gedd’s jaw tightened at the mention of the rigs.

‘I’m still not hearing the punchline, Klein.’

‘The pump-gun suicide, he was crew on that ship.’ He checked a data-slate that Gedd had once surmised was surgically attached to his hand. ‘The Voidstrafer.’

‘Ridiculous name for a ship.’

‘It’s a rogue trader,’ said Klein.

Gedd shrugged. ‘That explains it. Was it carrying anything?’

‘No cargo. Salvager said it was empty–’

Gedd snorted. ‘Of course he did.’

Klein went on, ‘–but that the hold had been blown open with charges.’

‘Interesting,’ said Gedd, and it was, but she didn’t know what to do with the information at that point. ‘I’m heading north anyway. I’ll take the cutter for a flyover. See what I can see.’

‘You need company?’ Klein asked.

Gedd had already turned on her heel and was walking away. ‘I do not. Just need transit. I’ll let you know if anything comes up.’

Gedd left Klein and the bustle of the precinct house behind.

Now, she was in a gun-cutter heading for the Hoard, her pilot having been given strict instructions to depart as soon as she was on the ground and be ready for her signal for pickup.

A strange day all round, really.

The Hoard lay at the northern edge of the city, deep into low-hive. It was a collection of vast warehouses and silos, bordered by hab-blocks. Trade had come this way once via the mag-shuttles and the arc-trans, but a catastrophic generator failure had turned the district’s fortunes. Without the Vorganthian main-grid, power became limited. The mag-shuttles no longer ran and the arc-trans froze as the northern winds began to bite. Half of the district lay clad in ice, the other half populated by the desperate dregs too weak or too stubborn to move on.

A heavy snowdrift, grey with ash from the uphive factorums, blighted the commercia-scape as the boxy gun-cutter touched down. Down-thrust from its turbines warmed the ice, and Gedd splashed onto greasy black melt-water as she leapt the short distance from the ship’s exit ramp to the ground.

She held her slicker tight around her body as she moved across a square of piston-hammered asphalt. Behind her, the cutter went airborne again, the din of its engines lessening as it pulled away into the storm.

The place looked deserted, though she thought she saw a few hooded figures huddled in doorways.

‘Bloody twists and wyrds…’ she muttered under her breath. ‘What’s here, Meroved? Other than imminent death due to hypothermia.’

Gedd looked out to the ocean and the distant rigging platforms. Her eyes narrowed and she paused for a moment before moving on. Her father had been a rigger and had found some strange things in the deep ocean trenches. He never brought them back with him, he never mentioned them in detail at all, but she had heard him murmur in his sleep about the deeps and their secrets.

She turned away, the momentary nostalgia freezing on the wind.

Ahead of her was an old and disused warehouse, its battered plasteel door bent and gaping. ‘There. That’s it,’ she hissed, her breath coming out in spectral plumes. ‘Saint’s piss, I hope it’s warmer on the inside.’

As Gedd reached the warehouse, the wind rattled hard against the windows, and a metal sign outside hinged on a bracket swung dementedly. A thick patina of rust obscured the name on it. A ramp of snow had accumulated out front. Driven by the wind, the door pushed hard against it but could not dislodge the snow. It did yawn wide enough for Gedd to enter without needing to move it.

She was about to go in when she paused at the threshold.

A marking, something recent, had been etched into the frame. She turned and looked over her shoulder but all she saw was snow. Even the wretches in the doorway had gone. A child could have made the mark, an idle act of petty vandalism. She filed the thought away for later use.

The storm lessened the moment Gedd went inside, reducing to a howl that shook roof tiles and plate sidings. Metal pillars supporting the warehouse’s frame creaked ominously but held.

‘Better…’ said Gedd, blowing onto gloved hands.

It was dark within. Shafts of light from outside peeked through cracks in the roof but did little to lift the dinginess of the interior. No power meant no illumination.

She called out. ‘Hello… Peacekeepers. If someone is in here, make yourself known.’

No answer came, but for a slight echo.

‘Because I’ll bloody well shoot you,’ she said in a quieter voice. ‘Creepy as…’

Gedd threw two flares out into the shadowy expanse of the warehouse like a fisherman would cast a hook into the sea. The stench of sulphur and polymeric resin touched the still air.

Crates and other containers, and the strangely anthropomorphic shapes of long-dead machines caught the edge of the light.

She snapped the head off a third flare, using it as a torch, and delved into the darkness.

It wasn’t long before she found the first bodies.

A maintenance pit had been put to use as something arcane and ritualistic. Standing at the edge, Gedd crouched down and touched her fingers to a smear of solid candle wax. She counted seven other such sites, all arranged around the circular pit. It was large, at least thirty feet across, and accessed via a wide slope that led from the upper part of the warehouse floor.

‘What in the name of the saints…’

The machinery, the tools and other trappings one might expect to find had been pushed aside. In their place she saw heavy-looking chains, half buried in snow, and six partially frozen corpses attached to them. Two sets of chains were empty, either unused or their captives had escaped. Or been set free.

‘Oh, now I am actively disliking this place.’

She thought about contacting Klein and getting him to bring the troops, but remembered what Meroved had said. She would not disobey him.

Instead, she listened, trying to discern if she was truly alone. Gedd only heard the wind, wailing a lament and pulling at the roof tiles as it tried to get in.

An ill feeling wormed into her gut, a sense of unease she found hard to dislodge. Meroved had told her to observe and investigate. She had to press on. The Verifier felt heavy and reassuring, holstered to her hip. She had come this far.

‘Saint’s piss…’

Exhaling a held breath, Gedd took the slope.

Once inside the pit, Gedd approached one of the bodies, a woman. She had suffered some physical deterioration from the adverse conditions, but the wounds to her face, arms and chest looked like they were made prior to death. Sigils Gedd didn’t recognise had been cut into the flesh and showed some evidence of healing. Clothes, little more than ragged, gossamer robes, had darkened with the blood. The chains had similar configurations carved into each link. Some of the links had been broken.

‘What is this all about?’

Closer examination of the bodies revealed something that Gedd did not expect. Her skin crawled at the sight of it and she wondered if this was what Meroved had meant when he referred to an encroaching darkness.

Each of the corpses had some minor transfiguration. Tiny bone nubs protruding from the forehead; black lesions across the back, face and neck; a tongue split into a ragged fork; needle-like teeth; a partly distended jaw, now broken; lengthening of the limbs, toes and fingers; loss of hair and the extension of the spinal column. She catalogued all of it, writing down her findings on a data-slate that she tucked back into her slicker when she was finished.

The changes could be birth defects – Gedd had seen wyrds with similar afflictions – but she suspected and feared they were not.

She was sweating in her gear, despite the fact it was colder than a Valhallan winter. Gedd wanted to turn around and get the hell out, but something kept her rooted. She hoped it was a sense of duty. There was something else in here, beyond the pit. Gedd kept moving.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

City of Vorganthian, Kobor, within Terra’s light

There was something wrong about the figure standing twenty feet in front of Meroved. It was a man, that much he had managed to interpret from its shape and build, but his head was bowed and he wore the anonymous overalls of a hive labourer. He had yet to step into the light after the hololith of Ylax Orn had faded, and stood remarkably still. It was almost as if he wasn’t breathing.

‘I am Meroved, once of the Ten Thousand, servant of the Emperor’s Light. Come forward and make yourself known.’

‘I know who you are.’

The voice definitely belonged to the man, but it was inhuman and entirely too deep and too resonant, as if more than one person were speaking at once.

‘Do you know who I am?’

‘No…’ said Meroved, stepping back as he moved into a fighting stance, ‘but I know what you are.’

‘So confident, so sure of yourself… Do you think he was the same? Would you like me to tell you how he died?’

‘Why don’t you shut your mouth and try to kill me instead?’ Meroved holstered the pistol. He wanted to do this hand-to-hand.

‘Oh,’ said the daemonhost, lifting its night-black gaze from the floor and revealing all the horror of its unholy countenance. ‘I would be delighted to.’

Two shiny horns protruded from its forehead, framing a face elongated by the rigours of the warp. Its mouth was a pallid scythe-slit, filled with needle-sharp teeth. Its nose was long and edged like a dagger. Patches of dark discolouration covered its skin like a colonisation of plague.

As it advanced on Meroved, it seemed to stretch. The skin tautened, then ripped, revealing gleaming bone beneath. It teetered on spindly legs. Its overlong arms swept down from its body like an ape’s. The ribcage bulged then broke apart, the jagged edges of bone becoming gnashing teeth and the red place within, a maw. Its neck distended, uncoiling in peristaltic fashion until the now diminutive head wobbled on a grotesque tentacle of flesh.

The clothes it had once worn sloughed away, caught by some unseen fire and turned into burning scraps that fled on a stinking breeze, until it stood naked and foul as the night it was spawned. Spoiled meat and rancid milk tainted the air.

Meroved roared, never taking his eyes off the stalk-like daemon as it bore down on him with unnatural vigour.

He missed the first blow struck at him, his own cut with the vibro-sword glancing off rubberised flesh. Meroved lost his feet, a whipping arm taking his legs and dumping him hard on the ground.

Tasting blood, he realised he had bitten his tongue.

Shoving his body up with a grunt of effort, Meroved hacked at the daemon’s ankle and was rewarded with a discordant shriek of pain.

He smiled grimly. ‘Old weapons… They leave a mark.’

He jerked, a bone spar suddenly jutting from his chest where the daemon had impaled him.

Slow, Meroved. Too slow.

Cutting down with the vibro-blade, he severed the wretched limb and left the end of it sticking in his body like a piece of shrapnel.

Rusty too…

A savage kick sent Meroved sprawling, pain lancing up his back as he struck the wall.

‘I remember this being easier with the gilded arsenal,’ he said through gritted teeth, hauling himself to his feet as the daemon paraded in front of him.

‘We have fought before, you and I,’ it said, and Meroved was all too willing to let it talk. Daemons liked to talk. It was one of the attributes of mankind that they adopted with some relish. To taunt, to beguile, to mock and to promise… These were the daemon’s tools as much as any bony blade or sharpened tooth.

Grimacing, Meroved wrenched out the bone spur sticking in his chest. The end of it was thick with dark blood and he realised it had gone in deep.

‘Possibly… I don’t remember.’ He took a shuddering breath. Any one of the blows he had sustained would have killed a lesser being. ‘My mind isn’t what it used to be. Either that or you’re just not very memorable.’

It smiled, revealing crocodilian teeth.

‘Trying to wound me with words. There’s only one word that can hurt me, and you don’t know what it is.’

Meroved sneered. ‘I don’t need your true name to kill you.’

The daemon struck with viperous quickness, and Meroved cried out as it lacerated his chest and left a ragged gouge in his flesh. He only just clung on to the vial of silver liquid he had taken from a pouch on his belt.

‘As I was saying…’ he rasped, shaking the vial hard before tossing it at the daemon. It hissed as the vial shattered, bathing it in some kind of holy acid that burned at its emaciated flesh and sent it reeling.

‘Sanctus lamenta,’ snarled Meroved, feeling the pain of his injuries. ‘It means “saint’s tears”, you ignorant piece of filth.’

Foul-smelling smoke coiled off the daemon’s body and left it raw and bleeding.

Meroved charged, swinging his sword two-handed. He closed fast before the daemon could recover, stepping between its gangling limbs and hacking up into its groin.

It writhed and staggered with every blow, emitting a porcine squeal from its overlarge mouth. Stabbing down with its arms, it tried to pierce Meroved’s shoulders and back, but he weaved and turned and stayed out of harm’s way. As long as he stayed beneath it, it could not bring its superior reach to bear.

But Meroved was tiring. The wound to his chest had taken more out of him than he had at first realised. Blood flowed freely over his armour, pooling at his feet. He almost slipped in it, and as he hastily regained his footing the daemon arced its neck and spat a fusillade of sharpened teeth, as though it were blowing Meroved a kiss.

He recoiled, but dared not release his hand from his weapon to clutch at the wound to his face. If he dropped his sword, it was over. Blood now streaming down his face as well, Meroved swept out the vibro-blade in a wide arc. He cut through the daemon’s legs at the knee and it collapsed, a spider flailing without its limbs.

Meroved cut a second fusillade of teeth out of the air with the flat of his blade and advanced. With the daemon screaming curses, he severed one arm then the other, and then began hacking at its neck. It took several blows, each one releasing a welter of stinking ichor that gummed up his armour and burned his scalp and exposed skin. Meroved did not relent. The only way to vanquish a daemon was to disassemble it. The screams of its death throes reverberated around the cavern, but Meroved was resolute. Limbs burning, dizzy from the blood loss, his attack became urgent and frenzied. His grief found expression in a final roar of triumph and retribution. When he was done, he sagged and almost fell. He dug the sword into the ground, using it as a crutch.

Nothing remained of the daemonhost but a rancid puddle of bubbling ichor that was evaporating into even fouler smoke. Meroved took care not to breathe it in. He blacked out for a few seconds, dark flashes invading his vision, and realised he was blind in one eye. He reached up with trembling fingers to find the wound and felt a ragged eye socket instead. Spitting a gobbet of blood he found the stimm-injector amongst his trappings and did not stint on the dosage. Bright fire lit up his nerve endings. He knew the effects would be short-lived and that medical attention would be needed, so he used the time he had to raise Zatu on the vox.

The servitor’s response was swift.

‘Have you found the relic, my lord?’

‘No, but I am convinced it’s here, Zatu. I have found something much, much worse.’

‘You sound injured. Should I–’

‘I am and yes, despatch the gun-cutter. Make sure there’s a full medical array. I am sending you my location. The Throne must be made aware, Zatu. A threat is here in Vorganthian. It is real and it is dire beyond imagining. The cult of the Illuminated lives. I must contact the captain-general immediately.’

He gasped for breath, clutching the wound at his side. Then he glanced at the foetid remains of the daemon, almost incorporeal to the point of absolute dissolution.

‘And try to reach Gedd. She has no idea what she’s walking into.’

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

City of Vorganthian, Kobor, within Terra’s light

The warehouse was large and as black as an ocean without moonlight. Gedd’s last flare had faded, fizzling to smoke, but the roof was more dilapidated here and enough ambient light came in from above that she could see fairly well without it.

She had yet to draw her sidearm, but felt the urge to now.

It was ahead. Something framed by the light. It reminded Gedd of a roadside shrine, an effigy mounted on a crude frame.

As she drew closer, she felt an instinctive urge to turn around. To not look at the shrine. Nothing good could come of knowing what the shapes were, silhouetted in the light, or why it smelled like it did. She brandished the smoking flare like a warding charm, despite how ridiculous she knew that was.

She was only a few feet away when the wind ripped loose a roof tile and the grey light fell upon the thing in front of her.

Gedd’s knees buckled and she fell hard. She was vomiting violently, the urge to do so almost subconscious. She stayed like that, on all fours, head down with one hand still on the flare and wanting the other to draw her gun but unable to.

‘Holy Throne,’ she murmured, surprised at her sudden piety. ‘Emperor… gird my soul against all evil.’

She tried to rise but couldn’t. It was as if a heavy weight had been looped around her neck. It pressed against her and made it hard to breathe. Gedd’s heart was pounding much too fast. A cardiac arrest felt imminent.

‘Breathe…’ she told herself, and in her head her voice sounded small and insignificant, like it had been when she was a child and her father had gone off to ply the deeps. A memory imposed itself in her mind, of a cold hab, of a weeping mother, of a drowned father…

‘Breathe…’ she snarled, and her voice sounded older, and the memory faded, consigned to the mental compartment where Gedd locked away all of her fears and doubts.

‘Now, get the hell up,’ she said through gritted teeth, anger lending her much-needed strength. ‘Get up!’

She lifted her head, still trembling, and then managed to get to her knees. She wiped the sick from her mouth, the flare wafting madly in her shaking grip. She held it as steady as she could, pointing it at the abomination and looking at it even though she knew the nightmare would forever haunt her afterwards.

The man hung upside down, attached to a thick iron ‘X’ like a tank trap that kept him in a cruciform position. Wire bound his ankles, wrists and neck. Someone had taken a blade to his eyelids, and his dead gaze bored into her. The flesh around his chest and abdomen had been neatly cut, and the skin flayed and pulled away from his body. He glistened, the frost upon his exposed bones turned red and shiny. The ragged flesh had been stitched to his hands and the two translucent flaps reminded Gedd of wings.

A sacrifice. An offering.

It resembled a perverse homage to the aquila, only in reverse. Purity seals nailed to his ribcage gently fluttered in the air like rotting feathers. The man had been a priest, one of the Ecclesiarchy.

Out of the corner of her eye, Gedd saw the silhouette of a second figure. It turned slowly on a length of chain, its limbs wrapped in razor wire. Beaten, battered, adorned with savage cuts, the eyes had been–

‘Holy Emperor…’ Gedd sobbed.

Then a third figure, vast and distended, writhing with parasites and a fourth bound with studded leather, its skin peeled away to reveal–

Tears blurring her vision, she looked away.

Gedd cast aside the dead flare as she began to weaken, the terror pushing her down. Bile rose up in her throat, hot and acerbic. She vomited again and saw something black and vaguely resembling a feather amongst her leavings. She had to get away, to get out. She would die if she stayed. Gedd crawled. Indistinct chattering worried at the edge of her hearing like the rapid snapping of many beaks or the clack-clack of bird talons.

She found the strength to rise, pushing up onto her heels and staggering at first before she ran, teeth gritted, into the snow and the night.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

City of Vorganthian, Kobor, within Terra’s light

He turned off the hololith, plunging the room into a penumbral twilight. Shrouded by shadows, he shut his eyes and asked for the strength to continue.

Ylax Orn sighed, weary. His bones ached, his skin felt as thin as parchment.

‘Have you ever served a cause?’ he asked. ‘I have. I still do. It was not always so. I used to be envious of the other priests of my order, the ones who had found purpose. For the longest time I looked for my own. I gave up my vestments and became a missionary, hoping I would find my path that way. Spread the creed, I thought – bring the faithless back to His light. I thought this was my purpose, my cause.’

Orn gave a sad shake of the head.

‘I searched, across worlds, across the void. I travelled on freighters and with rogue traders. I even fought at the side of the Astra Militarum. But I remained unfulfilled. I cannot describe to you how utterly demoralising that is, to seek and seek, and to not know why.

‘I actually don’t know how old I am. After the first century I stopped counting. It didn’t seem meaningful to weigh the significance of my life in years. Then I found illumination and everything I knew and understood, everything I believed was possible… It all changed.’

‘Why are you telling me this?’ rasped a frightened voice from behind him.

‘Because I want you to understand why this matters.’

Orn leaned forwards and there was a sharp but diminutive flare of light. A candle flame flickered into life, easing back the darkness. Its light fell across the spines of books, and scrolls bound with leather twine.

‘History, ancestry, origins,’ he said. ‘These volumes, every scrap of parchment in this library was compiled over many years. Some are extremely old.’ Orn stepped around the pedestal where he had lit the candle and gently traced his fingers down the spine of one of the books.

‘What does any of this have to do with me?’

‘It’s blood,’ answered Orn. ‘His blood. I needed a means of reaching Him. That is my cause, my purpose. It has been difficult, I won’t lie.’ He looked up as if an answer would present itself in the grimy vaults above, but all he saw was dirty glass and shadows. ‘I have done regrettable things. I had begun to doubt.’

‘Please… let me go,’ rasped the voice.

‘I wandered, alone and in search of death,’ said Orn, as if he hadn’t heard. ‘I left behind a battlefield of the dead as the very night seemed to split open and a ragged wound tore across the black. As the burning rain began, I sought refuge in an old, abandoned chapel. I intended to die there but His will demanded a different fate for me. I found the Cage. It was just lying there, as if waiting to be discovered. And though back then I had no idea of what it actually was, I knew it was significant. And so it proved. It became my salvation.’

‘I don’t understand any of this.’

‘You will.’

‘What you do want of me? I have archival duties that must be attended to. I have scrolls that–’

Orn turned to regard a man stooped behind him. He was thin-faced and pale, studious-looking, and wore long tan robes. The two guards from the rigging platform stood in the shadows close by.

‘I need your blood, or specifically, your bloodline. You have been exceptionally difficult to find. So many records, so many falsehoods and dead ends.’ Orn smiled. ‘Psychic resonance,’ he said.

‘W-what?’

‘It leaves a mark in the ether, the little candle flames of our souls, the anima that the ravenous beyond do so hunger for. It’s unique, like a fingerprint. Yours is particularly old and rarefied.’

The man protested. ‘I am not a wyrd.’

‘Would you even know if you were? Your ancestry is deeply buried. I needed a…’ He paused, seeking the word. ‘A trigger, a way to tease it out. I narrowed it down to this city, but finding one amongst billions? I discovered a better way than dusty ancient records and enlisted a dubious ally to obtain what I needed. The trigger.’

‘Please…’ said the man, wincing. ‘Something is wrong. My heads hurts.’

‘Pain is necessary, I’m afraid.’

The man’s eyes widened, his pupils dilating. ‘I can feel it… in my mind.’

‘Yes, it’s brutish.’

‘What is it? Am I insane? Is all of this–’

‘You are awake, you are sane and the voice you can hear, that bestial voice, it is very, very old and it is stirring your psychic resonance.’

If the man thought anything about that he kept it hidden behind a mask of abject terror.

Orn seemed not to notice. He gestured to the man’s belongings sitting on a table beside him, a lectorum-bible and the tools of a scribe.

‘A census-taker,’ he murmured, turning a few of the pages and glancing absently over the names carefully inscribed within. ‘How the ordinary and the mundane can give root to the exceptional and the unique.’

‘Please…’ said the man, his voice a reedy croak, ‘let me go. I have broken no laws, I am a loyal servant of Terra.’

‘Yes,’ said Orn, his attention back on the man, ‘yes, you are. And you will serve. Rejoice, I have given you purpose. Fitting that you will give your life for Him as He once did for you. Tell me,’ Orn continued as the man was led out of the library by his minders, ‘have you ever heard of the Sigillites?’

Only when the man turned and saw the cage of black iron beyond, did he begin to scream.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

City of Vorganthian, Kobor, within Terra’s light

Gedd bent double, her hands on her knees as she tried to breathe. She barely felt the cold. The image of the butchered priest returned when she closed her eyes, so she stared into the distance and tried not to let the darkness in. She had felt something inside the warehouse, a presence both simultaneously there and not there. It lingered, like smoke on cloth after a fire or the taste of spoiled meat. It had seen her.

Gedd wanted to scream, to tear at her eyes as if it might rid her of the memory. She half imagined that terrible effigy lurching into motion, tearing free of its crucifixion and taking flight on its tattered, flesh wings, a hellish shriek resounding as she–

Gedd bit her lip and the pain brought her back.

She saw a figure moving unsteadily through the snow, which seemed only to have worsened since she had been inside the warehouse. Gedd drew the Verifier. Her aim wobbled but she managed to hold it firmly enough to draw a bead on the figure’s chest.

‘Halt,’ she said, trying to put some confidence back into her voice. ‘Peacekeeper. I am armed. Come no closer.’

The figure kept coming, swaying drunkenly and mumbling. Something wasn’t right about its uneven gait, and a long uninterrupted strand of drool hung from the figure’s mouth.

‘I am warning you.’

It looked like one of the dregs she had seen skulking in a doorway earlier.

It kept coming as if it hadn’t heard her. She fired once into the ground, hoping the shot would snap the figure out of its strange torpor but it didn’t even react. Gedd reckoned it was about twenty feet away, the snow plastered to its face and clothes. An odd ache began to build at the back of Gedd’s teeth. She winced. Then it got worse. It seemed to coincide with the proximity of the figure. Her vision began to blur. The figure started to moan and then scream, throwing its head back to clutch at its skull, tiny lightning arcs cascading from its mouth and eyes. Gedd fired, and grimaced as her head felt like it was cracking apart. The bullet tore open the figure’s shoulder, releasing a puff of blood and a ragged bloom of cloth. It staggered but didn’t stop. The lightning arcs grew worse. She felt their heat. Her own pain intensified. Is this what happened to the poor bastard her and Klein had found just off the down-trans?

‘I said… stop!’ she yelled, and fired three times.

Gedd could scarcely see, but she knew at least one of her bullets had found its mark when the figure slumped and fell. Dark red spilled across the snow.

‘I’m sorry…’ she whispered, breathless and afraid, driven to her knees. The pounding in her head became a roar of nerve-shredding tinnitus, failing to abate even though the figure she had thought was causing it was dead. She dropped the gun to press at her ears, her mouth wide in a wordless scream for help. Her entire world was pulsing, and it hurt just to open her eyes. From her knees she slumped onto her back, willing the throbbing agony to stop but knowing she was powerless against it. She curled into a foetal ball. Her teeth clenched and her fists tightened as she was wracked by spasms.

I’m going to die here, she thought, alone, in the snow, next to some bloody cultist’s den.

Something warm touched her neck. She heard a faint click and then the whirr of mechanical activation. The pain lessened almost instantly. It diminished so much that Gedd could open her eyes. She could function. She saw Meroved crouching beside her, a gun-cutter in the distance, sat up on its landing stanchions at the edge of the asphalt with engines humming.

‘Gedd…’ he was saying. His voice sounded muffled at first, as though they were conversing under water.

She nodded to show that she was rational.

‘What happened? Everything sounds muted.’

‘It’s the dampener,’ he told her, and she felt the collar he had placed around her neck. ‘You’ll adjust.’

Her eyes widened when she at last managed to focus.

‘Saint’s piss, what happened to you?’ She reached up to touch his ragged eye socket, but Meroved leaned back and Gedd withdrew her hand.

‘The fraying at the edges… It has begun.’

‘What the hell does that mean, Meroved?’ She winced as a fresh spike of pain hit her. ‘What’s happening?’

‘The veil is thinning. We have to leave here now.’

‘Not until I get answers. I felt something in the warehouse… A presence. Is this the thinning veil? Is that what we’re fighting?’ She took a deep breath. ‘I saw something too…’

‘Four crosses.’

‘You knew?’

‘I guessed. You’re not the only one who had an encounter. Each sacrifice is devoted to one of the cardinal aspects of Ruin. The effigies represent the four temptations, the four great sins. There is the changed and the agonised, and the bloated and the flayed,’ said Meroved. ‘These are old names, but there are many others. Each is a benediction to a presence beyond the veil.’

‘Again with the veil. Throne… What I felt, what did it–’

Meroved took a small, stoppered bottle from a wooden casket hooked to his belt.

‘Drink this,’ he said. ‘You will feel better.’

Gedd took the bottle and pulled out its stopper. She sniffed at the contents.

‘It stinks… What is this?’

‘Potent. It will help. You’re not the first in my employ to have had this reaction.’

‘How am I faring?’

‘Better than most.’

Gedd swigged it in one. It went down hard and lit up her nerve endings like wildfire. Her senses heightened briefly, painfully, but it was warming, like the sudden relief of a balm applied to an enflamed tooth. ‘Saint’s piss! It burns! Do you drink this?’

‘My constitution has a greater tolerance for alcohol.’

‘Are you sure it’s not fuel for that gun-cutter?’

Meroved did not answer. He merely watched.

Gedd nodded. ‘That does help. Thank you.’ She glanced at the warehouse. It loomed with an animus she hadn’t felt before, but her terror of it had lessened since taking Meroved’s draught.

‘What’s happening, Meroved? Why are you unaffected by whatever this is?’

‘I am not like you.’

‘That is something of an understatement.’

‘We have to leave.’

He got to his feet and made for the idling gun-cutter. Through the drifts, Gedd saw a servitor at the pilot’s controls.

Meroved kept walking. Gedd noticed a limp.

‘You’re really hurt.’

‘Yes.’

‘Saint’s piss… You can be hurt.’

‘Yes.’

Gedd saw more figures emerging, staggering into the storm. She gestured.

‘Ignore them,’ said Meroved. ‘They won’t reach us.’

Meroved had made it to the ramp and waited there for Gedd to catch up.

‘Shouldn’t we try to help them?’ she asked, calling after him.

He stared back at her, impassive.

‘They are beyond that now. Get aboard. This is just the beginning.’

Gedd took the ramp, which slowly closed behind her. The gun-cutter rose on its wing turbines, its thrusters building to a scream before levelling off again as it soared away, leaving the Hoard behind.

Gedd sat down, strapped in and hung her head by her knees.

‘What was that out there? It felt like my skull was about to split open.’

‘That would be accurate,’ Meroved replied. He had also taken a seat and was starting to shed his cloak and armour.

Gedd gave him a scathing look to suggest she did not appreciate his candour.

‘What causes it? Is it a weapon of some kind? How does it work?’

‘Those you know as wyrds are more severely affected. Their connection to the warp and their powers are greatly amplified. Too much and–’

‘Violent cranial explosion death, like my fake suicide on the down-trans.’

‘Precisely.’

‘But I’m not a wyrd… Am I?’

‘No, you’d be dead if you were.’

‘I’d be dead if I were still out there too.’

‘Possibly.’

Gedd tapped the null-collar. ‘So I assume I shouldn’t take this off any time soon.’

‘That would be a very bad idea.’

‘You still haven’t told me what it is. I assume this is the other business you referred to earlier?’

‘You are very astute.’

‘I agree, but that’s not an answer.’

‘A relic, something very old, something mankind should not meddle with, was stolen. It has since reappeared here in Vorganthian. It’s an amplifier of sorts, a piece of arcana from a dark time in mankind’s past. Whatever is fuelling it must be potent.’

‘I don’t feel any better or wiser for knowing any of that.’

Meroved shrugged. He had stripped off his torso layer to reveal an ugly gash across his chest and even uglier goring in his flesh.

Gedd swore under her breath.

‘That wound… You should be dead. What happened to you?’

‘One of my brothers was murdered. The same thing that killed him tried to kill me. I survived.’

Gedd’s eyes narrowed. ‘When you say “brother” you mean brotherhood, don’t you, as in a fellow warrior?’

‘His name was Kazamende. He was regarded as a protector amongst my former order, one sent to watch over someone of importance.’

‘A duty he failed if he’s dead?’

Meroved nodded. ‘Yes, one he failed.’

‘And this person of importance… Where are they right now?’

‘I do not know.’

‘Could they still be alive?’

‘It’s possible.’

A brief silence fell as the events of the last few hours began to sink in. Gedd found the engine noise soothing and realised how close to exhaustion she was. If not for Meroved’s fortifying tonic, she would probably have collapsed by now. Instead, she watched in silence as he first washed then dressed his wound. It looked savage, like the kind of damage that never really heals.

After fifteen minutes of silence, Gedd decided she had to know.

‘Who are you, Meroved, or should I ask, who were you?’

‘I am my Emperor’s loyal servant, even in exile,’ he replied.

‘A Space Marine?’

‘No…’ said Meroved at length, looping the bindings tightly and methodically around his chest. ‘I am no wolf. I was a lion once.’

‘I don’t know what any of that means.’

‘It doesn’t matter, Gedd.’

‘Call me Sula.’

Meroved smiled, despite the obvious pain he was in.

‘Sula,’ he repeated.

‘It’s short for Ursula.’

He laughed. ‘I know.’

‘So, what do we do now?’

‘We wait. Word has been sent. Terra has heeded us. They are coming.’

Gedd frowned. ‘Who is coming?’

‘My former brothers in arms, the Adeptus Custodes.’

‘Former? But that would mean…’

Meroved nodded. ‘Now you have your answer.’

Gedd leaned back in her seat.

‘Saint’s piss…’

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The Imperial Palace, Tower of Hegemon, Terra

Trajann Valoris was already waiting for them as Adio and Cartovandis entered the triumph hall. He sat at the end of a long wooden table, remarkable for the fact that it was hewn from actual oak and preserved by the arcane science of Adeptus Mechanicus magi. A host of rigid banners flanked the captain-general on either side. Mosaics caught the lambent light of lume-sconces. Both described past victories, and hung heavy with dust or were faded with age.

He reclined in the easy manner of a king comfortable before his court, his left leg outstretched and the other tucked in, a gold-armoured knee protruding. A red cloak lay across one shoulder, partially hooding the sculpted eagle of his guard. His lion mantle sat at his feet, a predator at rest. His helm, a fearsome mask of auramite crested with a blood-red plume, sat on one arm of his throne; the other supported Valoris’ elbow, and his hardy chin was leant upon a clenched and gauntleted fist. He had the manner of a philosopher, an appearance which held some truth, though his musings tended inevitably to the bellicose, to war.

He appeared not to have seen the two Custodians as they passed through the soaring arch, also decorated with the now lustreless glory of old crusades, the dusty bricks of a fallen empire. And then he spoke.

‘Take a seat,’ he said without turning, his voice low and deep, his attention on the darkness that only partly occluded craggy features riddled with the fissures of scars. Even in this rare, pensive state he radiated aggression. Not towards his comrades – his ire did not extend to the Ten Thousand but rather was a form of restiveness, a palpable energy too volatile to shackle. Sinews in his neck stood out, thick as rope, his jaw tensed, a possible prelude to wrath.

Cartovandis glanced at Adio; they had just been about to leave the cerebratory when they had received the summons. Adio gave the slightest inclination of his head. Like Valoris they went unhelmed out of respect for their kind, and they sat at opposite sides of the table.

It was only at this point that Cartovandis realised Valoris had not been not alone before they had entered. His companion stood cloaked by shadows, his hands clasped in front of him as if resting them on the pommel of an unseen weapon, though he was not ostensibly armed. Unlike the other Custodians in the room, he wore his helm, his shield host easy enough to determine even in the gloom: red shoulder guard and grey-white robes, one of the Emissaries Imperatus. Cartovandis stifled a momentary pang of envy, deeming his thoughts unworthy. At least he knew why they had been summoned here – the Emperor had willed it through His gilded proxy.

Neither Cartovandis nor Adio spoke. They settled into their seats and did not stir. They trusted they waited for good reason and saw no need to breach the silence with idle and pointless words. Both had set their helms down upon the table, and done so reverently, the mask of each as impassive as the face of its owner.

Valoris would address them when he was ready. Cartovandis realised the captain-general was still waiting for someone.

Before long, footsteps echoed down the gallery that led to the triumph hall. A single set, clipped, precise and metronomic.

Adio turned, and his posture stiffened as he recognised the newcomer.

So did Cartovandis.

‘Syr…’ the newcomer said.

‘Varo.’

Then he turned his head to address Adio. ‘Brother.’

Adio did not move, not even to acknowledge Varogalant at first. At last, he gave a curt nod.

Varogalant bowed. ‘Captain-general.’

Valoris gestured for him to sit, which Varogalant did, removing his helm as the others had and revealing the same swarthy complexion as his brother, only the Shadowkeeper looked gaunter around the eyes, which were brown like his skin. He had close-shaven white hair and a seemingly perpetual frown furrowed his brow. The burdens of his calling were obvious to all.

‘Tell them why they are here, Zayadian,’ said Valoris to the emissary, his mind seemingly still on the dark and the enemies he imagined there.

The Emissary Imperatus stepped forwards into the light.

‘I have heard the voice of the Emperor. He speaks each of your names,’ uttered Zayadian with heavy solemnity, ‘and bids you away from Terra.’

Cartovandis shifted in his seat, his reaction visceral and subconscious. The noisy scrape of chair legs drew all eyes to him.

‘This cannot be…’ he whispered, fighting down a growl of disbelief.

‘It is,’ Zayadian replied. ‘It is the speculum obscurus. Our conclave has determined it.’

Cartovandis was about to object more strenuously and even Varogalant had a query forming in his expression, before Valoris finally turned to regard them.

His bloodshot eyes spoke of anger, but his voice was calm, his tone measured.

‘Word has reached me from an old ally, one of the Eyes,’ he explained. ‘A threat to the Throneworld,’ he looked pointedly at Varogalant, ‘and the discovery of a relic of Old Night, stolen from the Dark Cells.’

Cartovandis noticed the slightest clenching of Varogalant’s fists and knew that the Shadowkeeper would voice no concern at leaving Terra now. In his mind, he was already on the hunt.

‘It is the Emperor’s will that you three meet this threat,’ said Zayadian.

Valoris turned his gaze on Cartovandis and Adio. If possible, he looked sterner than before.

‘Kazamende is dead.’

‘Mercy of the Throne,’ Adio hissed, leaning forwards in his seat. ‘How?’

‘It doesn’t matter how,’ snarled Valoris. ‘All that matters is what happens now. He was of your host, Adio. He must be avenged. The protection of the Aquilan Shields must be absolute.’

‘And what of me, captain-general?’ asked Cartovandis.

Valoris raised an eyebrow and it pulled at his scar tissue, rendering it even uglier and more savage. ‘I assume you do not question the Emperor’s will.’

‘I only wish to know. I have never ventured beyond the Throneworld. My place is by His side. What has changed?’

‘A great deal, I think you know.’

A great deal, echoed Cartovandis in his mind, choking back the grief of his isolation from the Emperor’s voice. A single word tore him from reverie. A name.

‘Meroved,’ said Valoris.

Cartovandis’ eyes widened a fraction. His jaw stiffened.

‘Yes…’ added Valoris. ‘I thought that might get your attention.’

Cartovandis’ gaze hardened. Even if he could, he would not refuse to come to the aid of his old comrade. He owed Meroved his life, but also his pain.

‘When do we leave?’

‘Immediately. A ship is being prepared for departure as we speak,’ said Valoris.

‘Then we should make ready,’ Adio cut in, eager to be under way. He spared a glance for his brother but then looked away.

‘And where are we bound, captain-general?’ asked Varogalant, showing none of his brother’s unease.

‘Kobor, at the edge of the Sol System. Meroved’s report will be made known to you on the way.’

Cartovandis was the first to rise.

‘If there’s nothing further…’

Valoris nodded, bidding them on their way.

Adio and Varogalant followed, the latter waiting for the former and last to leave as they exited the triumph hall headed for the transport bay and the Coronus grav-carrier that would ferry them to their voidship.

Trajann Valoris watched them go.

‘A long time since they fought together, captain-general,’ remarked Zayadian.

‘The Emperor’s will is not without its quirks.’

Zayadian gave a mirthless laugh.

‘It was at the Lion’s Gate,’ said Valoris.

‘I remember it.’

‘As do I, Zayadian,’ Valoris replied, his words thickening with anger and grief. ‘As do I.’

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The Lion’s Gate, Terra

Evil had taken on corporeality in the army of screaming Neverborn awaiting the Custodians.

Meroved could hear them, despite the thickness of the gate in front of him.

Every one of the Ten Thousand waiting in the grand entrance hall could hear them. Whispers of damnation, curses and promises – all fell on deaf ears.

Four shield hosts stood together, a mustering not seen since the War of Shame, almost four thousand Custodians in full battle panoply. A gilded sea of Hykanatoi with spears, blades and shields looked to their general.

Blood-red light coursed through openings in the wall where gun emplacements had begun to engage, and it bathed Trajann Valoris in a murderous aura, as if he could appear any more belligerent.

He uttered no war cry, standing atop an ornate dais for all his warriors to see. Instead, he cast his gimlet gaze across the pristine banners, the war engines and the Revered Fallen, and as if satisfied with what he saw, he raised his guardian spear aloft. At his signal, the Lion’s Gate began to open. Mechanisms unused for millennia churned with metallic agony, shrieking loud enough to eclipse the hellspawn beyond for a short while.

As the shield host began a slow march, Meroved felt a hand upon his right shoulder. He turned to Syr Cartovandis.

‘We must annihilate them, shield-captain.’

Meroved nodded. ‘Aye, and we will.’

‘Terra must be rid of this filth.’

The gate’s aperture widened; more light and air fed in, thick with blood and brimstone. The wailing of the lost and damned became so loud it was difficult to hear.

In the end Meroved did not answer with words, but slammed his spear haft against his shield and saw it echoed amongst his gilded brothers as hundreds of struck shields stirred up a strident chorus. The daemons began to wail.

Let them suffer.

Favouring a glance to his left, Meroved saw Adio at his other shoulder, the banner clenched tightly in the Vexilus Praetor’s fist. The effigy of the Eagle Resplendent shone golden despite the bloody light.

Hold it high, brother, Meroved willed, the furore beyond the slowly opening gate almost overwhelming now.

Adio spared a glance to the only patch of darkness amongst the gold, the grim ranks of the Shadowkeepers, clad in black and summoned from the Dark Cells to stand and fight on Terra’s soil for the first time in millennia. The distraction was fleeting; Adio turned away as if he’d found what he sought and returned his attention to what lay ahead.

The slow march became a steady run, the tracked Land Raiders and hovering Vertus Praetors astride Dawneagles keeping pace. Contemptors amongst the throng, side by side with warriors in Allarus Terminator plate, sped up into a lumbering gait.

With every step, the light grew brighter and more visceral. A sense of moment fell upon Meroved, his storm shield thrust to the fore and his spear at shoulder height, poised to strike. The steady run became a sprint, the gate yawned wide unleashing the Emperor’s Legion in full fury. Hundreds of guardian spears drew level, ready for the initial thrust.

The Ten Thousand passed through the towering arch above the Lion’s Gate and into a cacophony.

Hellspawn in their multitudes surged against them like an unclean sea. The entire processional that led to the Lion’s Gate was choked with red-skinned daemons capering on reverse-jointed legs, with brutish flesh hounds swathed in brimstone scales and hulking mechanical beasts that bellowed metallically, spewing smoke and ash.

For Meroved, the conflict came in violent flashes, his vision shrinking to myopic focus but his awareness of the greater battle acute on account of his Emperor-given gifts.

Above, a flock of winged creatures duelled with golden gunships. Leathery bodies fell like burning rain. One of the craft exploded, violent and terrible, as it was overwhelmed. It took the harpies with it, and crashed beyond sight of the walls.

On one flank, Venerable Uriaxes wrestled a beast to the ground, hurling it onto its side before he tore open its chest and ripped out the foul organs within.

A sweeping run by a squadron of Kataphraktoi saw a pack of flesh hounds skewered on crackling lances, a salvo of flakburst missiles launched from jetbikes finishing the task.

These were but skirmishes, preludes to the greater struggle.

A massive host of red-skinned foot-soldiers dominated the processional and threw their bodies onto the spears of the Hykanatoi with reckless abandon.

Meroved saw dozens raised up, impaled and then decapitated by a sentinel blade a moment later. Hundreds leapt at the Custodians, cackling, only to land again in severed pieces. A shield wall formed, bearing the brunt of the daemons’ fearless charge. Limbs shattered. Skulls cracked. The Custodians pressed forwards into the mass, grinding bodies underfoot into slowly disintegrating ichor. A spear-tip of gold and black drove into the sea of red, parting it like the prow of an inexorable ship.

Having weathered the onslaught, Valoris led the counter-attack.

Meroved saw only glimpses, but he felt the shape and rhythm of the battle changing as the Custodians battled their way free of the gate and began to fight as they were always meant to, as individuals but acutely in synch.

The attack was devastating, a thresher of golden blades hacking apart the daemon-kin with deadly precision.

This was their war, the war against the one true enemy. It lent the Custodians fury, not the unshackled wrath of their crimson-fleshed counterparts but the pure, focused anger of a surgical laser cutting out the foe’s heart.

As the battle wore on, it expanded. Meroved found himself fighting alongside Cartovandis and Adio, each warrior complementing the other though acting entirely alone. It was a curiosity of the Custodians to fight in such a way; it had been thus since they were a Legio, before the adepts they had become. No other warrior of the Imperium could do the same – even the much vaunted and tragically flawed Adeptus Astartes needed the strength of the pack. The Ten Thousand felt no such dependency and yet they were in tune.

In a rare moment of respite, Meroved took stock.

Fires burned in the Terran night, reaching up in swirling conflagrations to touch the sky and set it aflame. Ash choked the air, thick with blood and black dust. Everything burned. A diabolic lens had imposed itself over the Throneworld and here at the Lion’s Gate that reality would fade or be made permanent.

Meroved would die before letting that come to pass, and his brotherhood was not alone in that conviction. Silver-armoured Grey Knights fought beside the Ten Thousand, daemon-killers by trade if not by right, and the Neverborn army faltered. The defenders of Terra pressed their advantage, slaughtering without restraint, constantly moving to the next battle, to the next enemy.

Terra must be rid of this filth.

Meroved intended to see that come to pass.

A hefty gouge had been carved in the ranks of the bloodletters, which bayed and fought and snarled at their gradual but certain dissolution.

Meroved had barely been struck, and his armour had weathered with ease what few blows had breached his defence. Cartovandis and Adio were similarly unscathed, advancing alongside him out of instinct. As they were pressing forwards, a horn sounded, a deep discordant note that echoed across the entire processional.

Adio paused, looking to his shield-captain. The din that had initially assailed them had lessened since the battle had worn on and it was possible to speak and be heard again as the horn’s reverberations faded.

‘Hold here…’ Meroved warned. The air changed, thickening with humidity. His voice and all ambient noise became muted.

Cartovandis hacked apart the last of the bloodletters they had been fighting and looked up, his blade and the mask of his armour flecked with sizzling ichor.

‘I feel the approach of something, brothers,’ he said, his gaze drawn skywards to the boiling red and black.

Nearby Grey Knights struck up a chant, joining in a psychic mantra as they took on a pearlescent aura. The Paladin who led them unclasped a book from his vestments and began to read in an ancient tongue, his words sharp and acerbic.

A warrior clad in the armature of a Nemesis Dreadknight stepped over the steaming corpse of a hell beast, his eyes on the churning sky. Locked in the arcane exo-frame, the pilot towered above both the other Grey Knights and the Custodians. Pistons growled in the Dreadknight’s legs and the rotator cannon on its left arm cycled in fresh daemon-killing rounds. The pilot raised the sword in the Dreadknight’s right arm to the dark heavens and spat out a curse. ‘Kharneth exilium!’

And the dark heavens answered.

On black and smoking wings, a beast plunged out of darkness and fire.

The flagstones of the processional shattered beneath its hooved tread as it sat hunched, exuding palpable menace, its wings furled around it like some leathery cocoon. As it rose from a crouching stance, a brutish head crowned by two horns and sat upon a brawny neck slowly acknowledged those who challenged it.

A bellow ripped from its canine snout, wings thrust to the extent of their massive span and a whip uncoiled from around its wrist, as thick as the haft of a guardian spear blade. A breastplate of blackened iron wrapped its torso, still steaming as if fresh forged on some black anvil. Tufts of stiff crimson fur jutted from beneath the metal.

It had many names – Eater of Gore and Flesh, Lord of Skulls, High-handed Slayer; each honorific was as gruesome and forbidding as the last.

But the Ten Thousand knew it by a different appellation.

Cartovandis’ lip curled. ‘Bloodthirster.’

The Dreadknight rushed to meet it, but with a savage beat of its wings the Bloodthirster smashed into the war engine and bore it down. Hunching over its stricken form, the daemon tore the pilot from his exo-frame. With the sound of hard rain splashing against metal, silver turned to red as the Bloodthirster bit deep, hurling the sparking exo-frame into the other Grey Knights, scattering them as it gorged on their dead comrade’s corpse.

Snorting, a half-chewed, silver arm still hanging from its mouth, the Bloodthirster unhitched a black-bladed axe from its back and turned towards the Custodians.

Meroved felt the weight of its hatred and raised his spear.

He charged, Cartovandis and Adio on his heels.

It was like running headlong into a furnace, the air choked with ash and shimmering with heat.

The whip snapped at him, almost sentient, but Meroved eluded it and found a gap in the Bloodthirster’s breastplate. It roared, half in pain, half in fury, spitting up partially dissolved bones and pieces of armour. Spattered in acid-eaten gore, Meroved thrust his spear deeper in the hope of reaching something vital.

A desultory swipe of the Bloodthirster’s wing sent him sprawling, his guardian spear still embedded in its form. His shield clanged loudly, lost somewhere beyond his sight. Caroming over the broken processional like a stone skipping over water, Meroved reached out and grabbed a jutting rock to arrest his violent tumble.

Adio had closed on the daemon, castellan axe swinging for its arm. He jerked, suddenly pulled to the side as the whip snared him, and he came up short. Dark leather tightened around his waist as Adio was wrenched off his feet and hurled into the air. He flailed into the distance, crashing down as he was lost to the sprawl of the battle.

Meroved was back on his feet. He stooped, retrieving his shield at a run, as Cartovandis turned an axe blow on his shield and stabbed hard into the Bloodthirster’s hide before falling back. Meroved made the most of the distraction to get close enough to yank out his spear.

The whip arced around, the barbs along its length cutting air but forcing both Custodians back.

A rope of thick, phlegmy blood jetted from the Bloodthirster’s flared nostrils as it snorted its contempt. It bled from dozens of minor wounds, leaking sizzling ichor like oil. Its massive shoulders heaved with its heavy exhalations. It even breathed angrily.

Meroved heard Cartovandis murmuring.

‘Emperor… I am Your blade. Guide my hand, oh Master of Mankind…’

Out of the corner of his eye he saw one of the Grey Knights stirring…

‘Bestow unto me Your will and see it enacted.’

Bloodied, crawling on his hands and knees, the Paladin reached for the book that had spilled from his grasp. His fingers trembled…

‘Forsake me not, oh Emperor… For I am Your willing servant…’

The Bloodthirster roared, a prelude to violence. It hacked at Cartovandis, a flurry of life-ending blows, but exposed its flank as the Custodian withdrew. Meroved lunged, but the Bloodthirster turned and his guardian spear only raked the black iron breastplate, spitting sparks as it skidded off hell-forged metal. The axe’s backswing took him by surprise, a glancing hit that sheared Meroved’s hastily proffered shield in half and punched him off his feet. He spun, pain coursing through his chest and arm. Bones broke, auramite cracked and he blacked out before he hit the ground.

He came around a few seconds later, groaning in pain as he heaved himself onto his hands and knees. Seizing the haft of his spear, he eviscerated a bloodletter seeking to take advantage, before lurching to one knee and beheading two more as he swept his weapon in a wide arc. The daemons’ headless bodies had yet to fall as Meroved’s eyes alighted on his brothers.

Cartovandis fought alone. He had lost his shield and wielded a sentinel blade two-handed, turning and cutting and stabbing. Adio was some distance away. He had lost his weapon and wrestled a massive flesh hound with his gauntleted hands. A clutch of Shadowkeepers had seen his plight but had been waylaid by bloodletters and fought to make a path.

Meroved could only reach one and he chose Cartovandis. His fellow Custodian was a consummate swordsman, but a Bloodthirster was a lord of battle incarnate. Alone, he would not survive.

Spitting out a gobbet of blood, Meroved staggered uncertainly to his feet.

Wounds gaped in the Bloodthirster’s flesh and its breastplate had a ragged crack across it, but the daemon had lost none of its fury. After each thrust or cut, Cartovandis faced a frenzied counter-attack. Every blow he parried raked a cascade of black sparks from the edge of his sword, his body trembling with the impacts, and he moved with desperate haste.

Seeing an opening, Cartovandis hacked down onto the Bloodthirster’s wrist. The hand clutching the whip separated from the arm, but the spurting wound splattered Cartovandis in boiling, viscous ichor. He gagged as his armour was bathed in the filth then staggered, barely turning the next blow. A second attack opened up his defence, putting him on the back foot as his sword spun wide, and he only just held on to it with one hand. The axe swept down, blistering the air… A spear embedded in the Bloodthirster’s hand pushed the blow wide. The axe sheared into the ground instead, missing Cartovandis by a hair’s breadth. He had yet to fully recover when the Bloodthirster thrust with its snout and gored Cartovandis on its horns, razor-sharp bone tearing through auramite and splitting it apart. He cried out, the agony catching in his throat as he hacked off the horn. The daemon roared and smashed Cartovandis aside, having raked his body from shoulder to groin.

He fell, his sword slipping from loose fingers, and did not rise again.

Meroved only had his knife but drew it anyway as the daemon bore down on Cartovandis’ prone form. A rare battle cry escaped his lips, intended to draw the daemon to him and purchase a few vital seconds. He was only moments away from death when he heard chanting.

‘Khak’akaoz’…’

The Bloodthirster faltered as if struck. It visibly shrank, the skin flaking off its body like ash.

The chanting came from the Paladin. He leaned against the bodies of his fellow Grey Knights, the book of true names he was reading from aglow with psychic potency.

‘…khyshk,akami…’

Every syllable brought the daemon fresh pain. It sank to one knee as its indomitable will began to fail. A guardian spear pierced its side. It howled, flailing ineffectually as another blade found its mark. And then another. A host of Custodians jabbed at the Bloodthirster from every quarter, thrusting and stabbing with spear and sword as the Paladin’s chanting grew fiercer and more determined.

‘Khak’akaoz’…’

The daemon fought on but diminished with the Paladin’s every utterance.

‘…khyshk,akami…’

Its limbs already withering, the daemon’s stiff fur grew grey and piebald. Its wings sagged, torn ragged and moth-eaten.

Satisfied, Meroved left the daemon to its fate and made for Cartovandis.

He was dying, ripped open with his entrails spewed like so much offal.

A horn sounded, this time a clarion he knew. The Shadowkeepers had signalled a retreat in the face of the daemonic onslaught, their dark-hulled gunships strafing the enemy but descending to extract them from the field.

Meroved spared a glance for Adio, the flesh hound’s jaws clamped around his wrist and more of the Neverborn bearing down on him.

‘Hold on, brother…’ he murmured, but knew he had to deal with Cartovandis first. Meroved pushed his guts back into his body and told him to hold them there as he grabbed hold of the stricken Custodian’s gorget and began to drag him towards Adio. Pain burned white-hot as his own wounds tore open and widened, but Meroved kept going.

Adio had snapped the flesh hound’s neck. He had also drawn his misericordia and used it to cut apart the bloodletters that had flocked like carrion birds eager for his skin. The banner lay broken at his feet but he was unbowed as he regarded the departing gunships. He found his castellan axe and cut down another swathe of daemons before the three Custodians were reunited.

Meroved limped with every step, and Adio quickly took the burden he carried in his stead.

‘It’s a miracle he’s alive.’

‘How much longer he stays that way depends on whether we can get him to a chirurgeon,’ Meroved replied.

In the distance, the Grey Knights and Custodians were finishing off the Bloodthirster. Almost nothing remained, just a shrunken and flaking husk until even that was gone, broken apart and turned into smoke on the wind.

‘I thought you were dead…’ admitted Meroved, wincing as he clutched his side.

Adio looked skywards. His fist clenched.

‘And yet still you came.’

‘They must have had good reason…’

Adio lingered on the gunships until they had turned into little more than specks on the blood-red horizon, but said nothing.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

City of Vorganthian, Kobor, within Terra’s light

A teardrop of light fell through the darkness, trailing fire. At first it looked like a candle flame flickering against a night without stars, but as the drop-ship drew closer to the tower it was clear a figure writhed in those flames. Flailing limbs became visible until the drop-ship swept by so close that those aboard could see burning hair and a mouth stretched in the agony of a soundless scream.

An astropath plummeted from the Tower of Sight, but he was not alone. A second light followed the first – another astropath, awash with shattered glass from the window she had just broken through. A third followed the second and then a fourth, dying fireflies spiralling to their doom. After almost half a minute, the first astropath reached the smog layer and his light dimmed, glowing for a few more seconds until it was gone. Until they were all gone, lost to the dark.

The entirety of the city had darkened with their passing, the only illumination now coming from the guttering fires of crashed ships that lay broken apart in the middle of transit-ways or smashed against the sides of buildings. Destruction ran rampant but Vorganthian was still, like a wounded prey animal waiting to die.

‘There…’ Standing on the ramp of the open rear hatch, Cartovandis gestured to a landing apron spared the worst of the carnage.

Adio looked up from the grav-bench, a small flashing device shaped like a bullet casing in his hand. ‘He’s close to this location.’

Cartovandis nodded and opened the vox to the cockpit.

‘Set us down. South-east, six hundred and fifty feet.’

The drop-ship began to bank and turn. Spires and watchtowers loomed across the viewports, as black and devoid of life as the rest of the city. Communication across the sector appeared to be dead too.

Cartovandis closed the vox. ‘We go the rest of the way on foot.’

‘Can we assume he’s even alive?’ asked Adio.

‘We must,’ Cartovandis replied, walking back into the troop hold.

It had taken several weeks to reach Kobor. It was a minor world, all but forgotten by most galactic cartographers and sitting at the very edge of the Sol System, but it had taken on significance beyond its meagre station and drawn the eye of the Aegis. Whatever was happening here, it had neutralised an entire hive city and apparently threatened the Throneworld.

‘Even if Meroved has perished, the Vexen Cage remains,’ said Varogalant, his tone as grim as his armour. ‘We have a duty to reclaim it.’ He lurked in the shadows, facing the rear ramp but at the back of the hold, slightly apart from the others.

‘And I owe a debt,’ Cartovandis replied, ‘and would see it repaid.’

Adio looked down, as if to his own thoughts. ‘And there is the matter of Kazamende.’

Cartovandis sat down heavily, facing Adio, who wore a stern expression, one that did not suit his countenance but that had not leavened since they had left the Throneworld. He appeared ill at ease. It was not difficult to understand why.

‘You both speak of ends that serve your own desires,’ said Varogalant.

Adio turned. ‘Whereas yours are selfless, brother.’

‘Honour and brotherhood are far from selfish,’ Cartovandis reminded them both.

‘I know what is at stake if we fail here,’ said Varogalant.

Adio looked about to say something. Instead, he took his helmet, which had been clamped to the grav-bench where he was sitting, and walked from the troop hold into the cockpit.

As the door slid shut behind him there were a brief few moments of silence.

Varogalant scowled. ‘I know you would prefer it otherwise,’ he said.

‘Speak plainly, Varo.’

The engines throbbed noisily with descent thrust, the inner hull reverberating with the stress.

‘You and my brother…’ said Varogalant. ‘You would rather I were not here.’

‘I will take every ready sword of the Ten Thousand into a fight in which I do not know the odds.’

Varogalant chuckled. It was humourless and did not suit him. ‘I always thought of Adio as the diplomat.’

Cartovandis smiled, his eyes cold. ‘I do believe you bled that out of him.’

Varogalant’s expression darkened.

‘Is that regret I see?’ asked Cartovandis.

A whisper answered. ‘Yes…’

‘I will say this, Varo – you are here. All of us are. It is the Emperor’s will, such as we can know it. Trust in that. Perhaps there is meaning to this beyond what we can perceive.’

‘Is that why you left the Throneworld?’

‘I left because I was ordered to.’

‘You could have refused. No, I think you left because you are hoping there is meaning. Tell me, how long has it been since you heard the Emperor’s voice?’

Cartovandis jerked as if stung. He opened his mouth, but could not find an answer.

‘To have felt His grace only for it to be taken,’ said Varogalant. ‘It is a heavy burden, I imagine. Did you think He was dead?’

Cartovandis’ gaze hardened.

‘Did you think your brother was dead?’

Varogalant smiled grimly. ‘Don’t try to deflect. You’re better than that, Syr.’

‘I thought He was dead,’ Cartovandis admitted.

‘If it is any salve at all, I do not think you were alone in that assumption.’

‘And then I saw one of His reckless sons brought back to life. A miracle.’

‘And you hoped.’

‘I hoped.’

‘Be mindful of what you seek here, Syr… Lest you become lost to it.’

‘Your brother once said something similar to me.’

‘Then perhaps you would be wise to listen. The Vexen Cage is all that matters. That and nothing more.’

‘Varo, old friend,’ Cartovandis replied, smiling sadly, ‘there is much more at stake than that.’

Varogalant leaned back in his seat, letting the shadows claim him, and said nothing further. Cartovandis turned his attention to the device that Adio had left behind on the grav-bench. It winked intermittently, a tracking beacon leading them to Meroved. What would happen after they reached him, he could not say.

CHAPTER TWENTY

City of Vorganthian, Kobor, within Terra’s light

The drop-ship touched down amidst the roar of turbines and a whirlwind of displaced dust and other detritus. No landing markers met its descent, so the Orion strafed the ground with flaring lumens, and no crews came to meet it. The city, by all available evidence, was deserted.

The ramp eased open as the ship’s extended landing stanchions touched the ferrocrete apron and it at last came to rest.

Adio had joined the others in the troop hold and the three Adeptus Custodes disembarked together. They each went unhelmed and wore black cloaks over their armour. The area of the hive city in which they had landed was apparently abandoned or had simply fallen into disuse, an industrial zone, mainly automated machines and cargo. It was quiet; the machines had ceased operation and cargo lay untouched.

Adio winced. ‘Do you feel that?’ he asked as the drop-ship took to the sky, its passengers now clear of the landing apron.

Cartovandis watched the vessel depart, communicating instructions to the pilot to return at his request.

‘Yes,’ answered Varogalant. ‘I feel it, brother. A throbbing pain against the skull.’

‘It is a psychic emanation,’ uttered a voice.

Cartovandis turned and saw a lone figure standing where there had not been one before. He too wore a black cloak, the hood drawn up to hide his features, though there could be no mistaking who it was.

‘Meroved,’ he said, lowering his sentinel blade.

Meroved pulled back the hood and smiled bitterly. ‘Welcome to Vorganthian.’

‘A psychic attack?’ asked Varogalant. ‘Then the Vexen Cage is here.’

‘It is,’ Meroved replied. ‘Be grateful for your gene-wrought psychology. A terrible malaise has stricken the city, and threatens to spread. Your appearance is timely.’

Adio was the first to come forward. He clasped Meroved’s arm. ‘Well met, Meroved,’ he said warmly. ‘It has been a long time. More than a century.’

Meroved clapped him on the shoulder.

‘Another life, it feels like,’ he said, releasing his grip from Adio’s arm. He cast a glance in Cartovandis’ direction. ‘You look better than when we last met, Syr.’

‘And you look old, Mero.’

Meroved laughed, and the mood lightened. ‘I am.’ His gaze lingered on Cartovandis a little longer, as if seeing something not readily apparent to the others, before he gestured to the city behind him. ‘I have a gun-cutter waiting. It’s smaller than that Orion you came in – better for getting around the city.’ As he turned, indicating for them to follow, he said, ‘I have found the threat to the Throne. We need only deal with it.’

‘You make it sound simple,’ said Cartovandis.

‘It is far from it. Come.’

They followed. Cartovandis took up the rear, eyeing the shadows as they passed through the industrial district. He remembered Meroved as a fine warrior and an excellent tactician, and yet by his own admission he had uncovered the threat but failed to act. He had slowed with age, that much was obvious, but this sort of caution was unlike him. Cartovandis wondered what that meant.

‘What happened here, Meroved?’ he asked. ‘Where are the populace?’

‘They are here, though most fled the outskirts of the city to seek safety within.’

‘Safety from what?’ asked Adio.

‘It will be easier to show you.’

Around the next bend, Meroved’s gun-cutter was waiting, a boxy craft in gunmetal grey, its wings angled up like a predator-bird diving for prey. The turbines in its wings were already cycling, throwing intermittent slashes of light over a pair of stub-barrelled lascannons attached to the fuselage. A side hatch slid open. In the cockpit, Cartovandis saw a servitor making pre-flight checks.

He shared a look with Varogalant, who had dropped back, presumably so that he did not have to talk to either Meroved or his brother. Neither spoke, but the meaning in that look telegraphed itself. The old shield-captain was hiding something.

The gun-cutter swept in low over the Vorganth down-trans, kicking up grit and squalls of litter.

‘The worst of it happened a few days ago,’ said Meroved, and shuffled over to wrench open the gun-cutter’s side hatch.

He noticed Adio peering through the viewslits on the opposite side of the hull.

‘Are those… people?’

Even in the darkness, the Custodian could see as well as if it were day and with a sniper-sight’s focus.

‘Take a closer look…’ invited Meroved, clinging one-handed to the guiderail as the passage of air buffeted his cloak and revealed the flak-weave body armour underneath.

Cartovandis was closest and leaned over to look outside. His eyes widened.

‘How many?’ he asked as he met Meroved’s gaze.

‘Hundreds of thousands.’

Adio had joined them by the hatch, crouched down to get a better view.

The gun-cutter flew over a vast sea of humanity, seemingly frozen still, their clothes and hair stirred by the backwash coming off the engines. In the streets, hanging out of grav-cars, huddled in the lee of buildings. Everywhere.

‘What is wrong with them?’

Meroved opened the vox to the pilot.

‘Zatu. Reduce to three-quarters velocity.’

The gun-cutter slowed, the engine noise diminishing to a low burr.

‘Throne of Terra…’ Adio murmured.

Meroved followed his eye to the stricken masses hunched and prostrate on the ground. Labourers, scribes, functionaries, overseers, law-keepers or merchants – it did not matter who they were or what they did. A great leveller had made a mockery of station and influence. They each suffered the same and as one, everything that had preceded this moment was superficial and ultimately insignificant. Paralysed, emaciated, choking on their own drool, both living and dead had fallen where they had stood, some atop one another, others seized by palsy with fingers half clenched into claws and limbs trembling. Teeth chattered in some, the sound so loud it could actually be heard over the gun-cutter’s engines. Others had bitten out their tongues. Fire-blackened patches seared voids in the otherwise densely packed morass, the silhouette of a human form just visible at the heart of each.

A low hum emanated from the mass and as Adio’s eyes narrowed, Meroved knew the Custodian had realised why.

‘They are aware, and in agony.’

‘Pain beyond reason, all motor function interrupted, nerve endings stripped raw and exposed, synapses in spasm,’ said Meroved.

‘Has anyone been spared these effects?’

‘I have a few operatives still at large in the city, well hidden and protected by null-collars. For now.’ He pointed to a large scorched area of the down-trans. Several bodies, torn apart and festering, lay around it. ‘Psykers had it worst and were the first to feel its effects.’

‘We saw the Tower of Sight upon our arrival,’ said Cartovandis. ‘Astropaths on fire, leaping to their deaths.’

‘Preferable to being burned alive by warp flame,’ said Meroved. ‘The entire world has gone dark, not just this city. In the first few days, people tried to flee, those with means and those without, but the fear of contagion galvanised the other cities to defend their borders with tanks and troops. That smoke and fire on the horizon… They burned the bodies. They are still burning the bodies.’

‘It is the Cage.’

They were Varogalant’s first words since he had boarded the gun-cutter. He remained sat in his seat, uninterested in the crisis below.

‘It is a psychic amplifier, a relic of Old Night. Despots and tyrants used it to subdue populations and bend them to their will, to keep the people quiescent to work until death, to fight their wars without question – but in their hundreds, possibly even thousands and certainly not an entire world. This is beyond that, beyond what I know of the Cage, and I know everything that has been uncovered.’

‘There is something else,’ said Meroved as he shut the side hatch again and took his seat. ‘It is enhancing the strength of the Vexen Cage, making its effects much more wide-ranging and potent.’

‘In order to subdue a world?’ asked Cartovandis. ‘What use is a population unable to function?’

‘None, but I do not believe that is his goal.’

Adio raised an eyebrow. ‘His goal?’

Meroved then told them of everything he knew, of the man called Ylax Orn and the Cult of the Illuminated.

‘Heretics?’ said Cartovandis.

‘He claimed he was a servant of the Emperor and spoke of “the Awakening”.’

‘Well, that’s a little ominous,’ Adio cut in.

Cartovandis frowned. ‘And could mean anything. How many men who believed they were devout committed atrocity in the name of worship? The archives of ten thousand years of history are littered with them.’

‘He wants to give praise, a demonstration of his faith,’ said Adio, ‘here, on Kobor. How does any of this fit with what we know of the Vexen Cage and what it’s doing to the people?’

‘It doesn’t,’ said Meroved, ‘so it must be something else. The effect on the population is incidental, as appalling as I know that must sound.’

‘None of this matters if we do not find and secure the Cage,’ said Varogalant. ‘Tell us that you have at least found it.’

Meroved nodded.

‘An old library. It once held the city’s archives but has been condemned for decades. We are closing on its location as we speak.’ He got up and opened the gun-cutter’s weapons locker. The vibro-sword, bolt rifle and fusion pistol were within. He took all three, arming up as he spoke.

‘The Illuminated are more widespread than I first realised. Several of their nests had been put to the torch, but a few yet remain.’ He sighed, betraying a little of his weariness. ‘I have been blind…’ he said, and saw Cartovandis watching him intently.

You know, don’t you? You can see it.

Meroved recovered quickly, strapping Firebrand into its holster with a decisive snap.

‘They have boltholes throughout the city, and their influence runs deep, even though I believe they only have a few members.’

The engine noise changed, indicating that they were coming in to land.

‘What of Kazamende?’ Adio asked quietly. ‘Did he die fighting this cult?’

Meroved nodded, his expression sober. ‘They are radicals, and use the diabolic as weapons to further their cause,’ he said. ‘Kazamende died at the hands of a daemonhost, the same one that tried to kill me. It did not succeed.’

‘At least he is avenged,’ said Cartovandis.

‘Not until this cult is cleansed utterly will I consider it vengeance,’ Adio replied, his darker mien refusing to lift. ‘He was sent here for a reason, to protect someone.’

‘I have yet to find them,’ said Meroved.

‘It cannot be coincidence. Kazamende’s mission, the rise of this cult and the appearance of the relic Varo is hunting,’ said Cartovandis. ‘Find one and we find them all.’

‘Agreed,’ said Adio.

The gun-cutter touched down, preventing further discussion.

Varogalant clasped the haft of Vigilance and slammed the ferrule against the deck, raising a loud clang.

‘Enough talk. We end this.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

City of Vorganthian, Kobor, within Terra’s light

A cracked, mosaic concourse led to the entrance of the library. Tufts of wiry, grey vegetation clung to its fissures, steadily prising them apart. Statues of politicians, warriors and priests stood in dilapidated ranks, worn by age or vandalism and served to emphasise the faded grandeur of the place.

The door to the library was tall, almost twice the height of the Custodians, and lay partly open, letting in the dirt and the vermin and anything else that chose to make this ruin its lair. A stone portico, its columns rendered into the likeness of saints and theologians, framed a grand entrance but had also succumbed to disrepair.

Cartovandis paused at the threshold as the three Custodians took in the monolithic structure.

Standing behind the others, Meroved regarded it too. ‘Magnificent, or at least it was once. A forgotten world…’ he murmured.

‘Then let us bring it back into the Throne’s light,’ said Cartovandis, and gestured to Adio. The two of them then heaved against the door, pushing it open. A chasm of darkness yawned beyond and there was the suggestion of a wide and sweeping stairway that led below.

Without further hesitation, Cartovandis led them inside.

Even with only ambient light coming through the dirt encrusting its glass ceiling, the devastation was obvious. A fire had ravaged the library, turning its tomes and scrolls to ash, blackening its halls and stacks. Part of the stairway had given way to the blaze, a ragged edge leading to further darkness and the collapsed remains of the steps below. Rot and disuse had sundered the rest, the air thick with spores and coiling with dust motes disturbed by the Custodians. As deserted as it first appeared, a light flickered below, distant but apparent.

Once again, Cartovandis asked himself why Meroved had waited for their arrival to act.

Upon reaching the base of the stairs they passed through the broken and sorry stacks to the edge of a large lectorium pit.

A dais sat in the middle of the pit, sparking with obscure technologies. Hoar frost crept over it. Wires and cables fed to it and the device that lay atop. It was a spherical cage, forged of black metal. Inside it sat two further spherical cages, one slightly smaller than the other. Each of these inner compartments turned slowly, in opposing directions, on the axis of the largest sphere. Thick spikes jutted both outwards and inwards. Carved sigils adorned the metal, deep enough that the half-light caught in their recesses. And within this tri-part prison, a man was turning along with the spheres, chained so that his arms and legs were splayed in a cross. Lightning arcs obscured further details, crackling across the surface of the metal.

As the Custodians reached the edge of the lectorium pit, a different man, in dark red robes and flak armour reminiscent of that worn by the Astra Militarum, turned to greet them.

‘I thought you might have survived,’ he said to Meroved, his voice urbane and with wisdom that belied his apparent youth. ‘I hoped you had survived to live to see the purpose of what I am trying to achieve.’

He cast his eye across the Custodians.

‘Behold…’ he uttered with almost breathless awe. ‘Auric gods.’ Orn shook his head. ‘You would not seek to stop me if you knew what I intended.’

‘Enslavement and death,’ Cartovandis replied. ‘We have witnessed your intent and are here to end it. Though I would know your plan before we kill you.’

‘Awakening,’ said Ylax Orn, and his next words made Cartovandis pause. ‘His awakening. Resurrection.’

The shadows moved at the edge of the light.

‘Blasphemy! You’ll die by my hand!’ Varogalant leapt into the pit and made for the Vexen Cage just as Orn’s minions surged out of the darkness. The crack of lascarbines heralded their arrival, men and women in heavy grey carapace armour. Dozens and dozens of them. They advanced along the balcony that delineated the edge of the pit, sharp red flashes denoting their positions. In a few seconds, the air was filled with heat and las.

Adio took the brunt of the blasts against Bulwark, sweeping his cloak aside to reveal gilded auramite to the cultists, inspiring awe in some before he advanced down the left side.

‘To the other side!’ snapped Meroved, gesturing to Cartovandis as he went after Varogalant.

Mirroring Adio, Cartovandis went right. His sentinel blade, Arcana, roared in his grasp, its attached bolt casters breaking apart the frail mortal bodies sent against him. They held their ground despite the onslaught, finding cover behind upheaved benches and debris. As soon he got close enough to wield Arcana as a broadsword it would be over.

Adio barrelled a cultist over the edge of the balcony with his shield as the mortal’s ill-considered charge went awry. Then he let loose with Puritas and the fight was all but done.

Down in the pit, Orn had retreated onto the dais as more of his cohorts rushed to defend him from inside.

Varogalant cut them apart, barely slowing down.

A few with breacher shields and power mauls braved hand-to-hand, but lasted only a few seconds longer. At last, they brought up a heavier gun and from his vantage above the pit, Cartovandis saw the first ranks for what they really were – a distraction.

It came out on tracks, a Rapier mount designed to take on armour. A flare-nosed graviton cannon rumbled as it emitted a heavy particle burst that struck Varogalant in the chest and crushed him into the ground. Stone slabs split and the floor cracked beneath him. He did not rise.

Then the track-mount turned, angling its cannon and aiming for Meroved as it started to power back up. A low energy hum rippled the air, the invisible presaging of a second grav-burst. The sound built, rising to a fever pitch whine, nanoseconds from activation.

Cartovandis redirected his fire against the Rapier and destroyed it, releasing a dense grav-implosion that gave off a migraine-inducing bass note and pulped its crew to shattered bone and jelly.

Adio hurled his shield to kill the last of the cultists, bulwark embedding in the far wall and quivering like an arrow as he leapt the balcony.

As the grav-cannon exploded, Meroved saw a way through to Orn. He touched a hand to his chest and it came back bloody. No matter. He had to end this. Gritting his teeth against the pain, knowing he should probably be dead already, he ran.

He got off a few shots with Firebrand before he realised Orn was protected by a refractor field, the beams hitting an invisible wall and dissipating in a flash of light. He discarded the archeotech pistol and focused on his blade. The vibro-sword hummed in his grasp. It would cut through almost any defence with ease.

Orn was close. He backed up a few more steps, the Vexen Cage circling faster and faster.

You’re mine now…

Corposant crackled over the dais, drawing Meroved’s eye. Too late, he realised what was happening and urged his wounded body to move faster.

‘Not this time!’ he roared, just as Adio came into his peripheral vision.

‘Do not despair…’ Orn began.

Meroved threw the vibro-sword. It disappeared in a flash of blinding light and spatial displacement. Meroved felt a surge of pressure hammer into him.

The dais and everything on it disappeared. A storm blew about the pit, throwing around scraps of old parchment and other refuse. Lightning crawled across the ground, across the stacks, ephemeral and beautiful.

Meroved’s blade clattered down in two neatly shorn pieces.

The dais was a teleportation plate. Orn had prepared well.

He had also sent something the other way – not just matter translation but also a concomitant matter transfer.

The incendiary device blinked once then went off.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

City of Vorganthian, Kobor, within Terra’s light

The explosion tore through the library, billowing up out of the pit and swallowing the ringed balcony in fire and clouds of shrapnel. The bodies of the cultists were blown back, paper marionettes tossed about by a hurricane.

Cartovandis stood firm and weathered the blast, letting the fire and the sheer force of it wash over him. He lost sight of the others down in the pit and had to wait for the chaos to clear.

Smoke and heat bled off Adio’s armour but he was moving, clambering to his knees and closest to the blast. He must have thrown Meroved clear when the bomb went off, an Aquilan Shield to the last, his instinct to protect his old mentor as ingrained as the names etched on the inside of his armour.

Varogalant staggered over to him, his own armour cracked in places from the effects of the grav-cannon but otherwise unharmed. Both had lost their helms or removed them and as Varogalant clasped the back of his brother’s neck, Adio did the same, their heads touching briefly in celebration of their survival.

Both had cuts to their faces, no more than flesh wounds.

No words passed between them, their bond of fraternity obvious. More than a century of long-held enmity dissipated in that moment, and Cartovandis found himself suddenly envious.

They broke apart, exchanging curt nods.

Though it had momentarily lifted, Varogalant’s expression darkened again when he saw the empty teleportation dais. Much of it had been destroyed in the blast and it was a mess of sparking wires and bent conductor plates.

Scraps of books, their torn and half-singed pages scattered about, gently floated to earth. The rest of the library had been utterly denuded by the fire or possibly some prior calamity; these were the only tomes left. But Varogalant’s attention was elsewhere. He had noticed one of the cultists had survived. The man’s uniform was torn up, the bones in his legs shattered, and as he crawled on his belly he left a dark blood trail like a slug. Varogalant seized upon him.

‘Unburden your soul and tell us where he took it,’ he said, his voice low and sinister. Unsheathing his misericordia, he pressed it to the man’s throat.

‘I fear… no… p-pain…’ said the man, choking out the words just before he went limp. ‘The… Emperor… protect–’

Snarling, Varogalant released the dead cultist.

‘They fight us and yet invoke His name,’ he muttered, arcing back his neck as he briefly closed his eyes.

‘We will find it, brother,’ Adio said, the burden on Varogalant never more apparent than in that moment.

His answer was simple. ‘We must.’

It was then that Meroved lurched to his feet and promptly collapsed.

Cartovandis saw him first and leapt into the pit, coming to the side of his stricken mentor, who lay prone and barely breathing.

‘A blast like that should not have injured him this grievously,’ said Adio.

‘Without the auramite–’ Varogalant began.

Adio cut in. ‘He is still Adeptus Custodes.’

Cartovandis pulled open Meroved’s ravaged armour to reveal a black wound that had festered around his heart. ‘He was dying before he even entered the library.’

‘It looks like a piece of bone,’ said Varogalant, standing over the other two as they crouched next to Meroved.

Adio inspected the bloody wrappings around the wound, which had rotted through. ‘An attempt has been made to clean and bind it…’

They had all seen wounds like that before, over a century ago at the Lion’s Gate.

Meroved coughed hard as Adio examined him, and Cartovandis held his head to prevent further injury.

‘You are dying, old friend,’ he uttered.

Meroved looked at him from the side of his eye and gave a blood-toothed grin.

‘I am sorry, Syr…’ His voice was weak, a scratch of a quill against parchment.

‘For what, shield-captain?’

Meroved’s grin turned into a rueful smile.

‘I have not been that for some time.’

‘You have ever been my shield-captain.’

Meroved reached up, hand trembling, to clasp Cartovandis’ shoulder.

‘I know you wanted to repay me. To balance the debt.’

Cartovandis said nothing. No one spoke. Adio held his head low in reverence, muttering an oath. Varogalant detached himself, uncomfortable with the intimacy.

‘You coming here…’ Meroved continued. ‘It is already repaid. Know that I never regretted my decision to leave. I have found purpose here at the end of my duty…’

He held out a device, showing it to Cartovandis, a small black box forged from metal in the likeness of an eagle’s head. It was the motif of their order.

‘Her name is Gedd,’ Meroved told him. ‘She is watching. She will know.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘She will know.’

Cartovandis frowned, exchanging a confused glance with Adio.

Meroved’s clenched teeth were pink with blood and tight with pain. He rasped, ‘No more. I have served. Let that be enough.’

His breathing grew sporadic, coming in sharp, punctuated bursts. His eyes widened.

‘Let it be en–’

He stopped and fell still.

‘And so tolls the Bell of Lost Souls…’ said Adio.

They each bowed their heads, observing a moment of quiet contemplation.

Cartovandis looked on grimly. ‘Our task remains unfinished.’ He glanced at the vox-device Meroved had given him and was about to activate it when Varogalant spoke up.

‘There is something here, Syr. Something you need to see.’

He was standing amidst the fallen scraps of books and scrolls, a clutch of burnt paper in his hand.

‘Here,’ he said, handing Cartovandis a few pieces as he joined him.

They were torn-up fragments of various genealogy charts, ancient judging by the brittle nature of the vellum, and some scraps of Terran censuses dating back millennia.

As a member of the Ecclesiarchy, Orn would have been privy to records that ordinary citizens of the Imperium would not, but these were colonial records cataloguing the diaspora of mankind following the War of Shame. They had been unearthed, removed from shrines and archives. The names of families and clans had been compiled in exacting, if incomplete, detail. Each account shed more light on the one that preceded it. Bloodlines that stretched back to Terran prehistory, to the violent days of Old Earth and pre-Unification. To collate it was the labour of several lifetimes.

Cartovandis cogitated all of this in a few seconds, one name resounding in his consciousness above all others, the end of the string that Ylax Orn had pulled.

‘The Sigillites.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

City of Vorganthian, Kobor, within Terra’s light

They were close. Orn knew this as he shrugged off the vague feeling of nausea and the lingering existential dread of matter translocation. Strands of warp residue clung to the edge of his robes, dissipating rapidly with the reassertion of the real over the incorporeal realm of dreams.

He had nowhere else to fall back, no more boltholes. This was the last one, a place in the depths of Vorganthian that would be hard to find. Orn was forced to admit he had reached the point of desperation. Meroved had seen to that, and they would be coming. His kind. Very soon. It saddened Orn to think of how blind they were. Revelation would come. Illumination would come. Then it would not matter. He would have fulfilled his purpose.

‘Make ready,’ he said to one of his men, a believer. The light of illumination burned in the soldier’s eyes. He nodded at his master’s commandment, and issued gruff orders to a handful of others.

They would perish. No mortal army could withstand the Ten Thousand. He doubted few foes that lived in the galaxy could. So he had been forced to look beyond the veil of the void.

‘It won’t be long now…’ Orn said to himself, only now aware of the Vexen Cage and its infernal revolutions. ‘Turn, turn, turn…’ he said as the hosts grew restless in their chains below.

And the Cage did turn, and the heir of the Sigillite screamed with it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

City of Vorganthian, Kobor, within Terra’s light

Zatu was waiting for them in the gun-cutter when they emerged from the library with Meroved’s body. Cartovandis carried him and he almost appeared smaller in the Custodian’s arms, as if the piece of his soul that had sustained him and fortified him had fled with his passing. Adio and Varogalant formed an honour guard, and they walked up the hold’s ramp in solemn silence. From there, they flew to the observatory, where a woman called Ursula Gedd waited for them.

‘So he’s dead then,’ she said, regarding Meroved’s inert form. ‘I actually didn’t think your kind could die.’

Gedd had met them in the observatory’s arming chamber. She had resisted the urge to kneel, though she had felt a profound desire to do so. Her heart hammered to be so close to such beings, but her sadness at Meroved’s death had tempered that too. Grieving, even for so short an alliance, would have to wait. The Aegis had been summoned and Vorganthian might yet be saved.

It struck her that an onlooker might find the scene in the arming chamber mildly preposterous. A woman in the battered uniform and armour of a peacekeeper, standing before the body of a dead giant with his three solemn companions who looked like statues wrenched from some mythic age, hanging on her words.

‘Saint’s piss…’ she muttered, and instantly regretted the choice.

The leader, or at least she assumed he was in charge, frowned.

‘My apologies…’

‘Syr Cartovandis,’ he supplied. ‘We can die, Ursula Gedd. We are flesh and blood just the same as you.’

Gedd took them in with a glance, frowning. ‘I can hardly tell the difference.’

Gedd knew she should have more respect, but she had spent the last few weeks trying to survive with a sanity-eroding throbbing forever at the edge of her conscious mind. Dark grey rings had formed around her eyes, which had sunken a little in her skull on account of lack of rest and ready nourishment. She scratched at the rash on her neck, her nails digging under the metal clasp that encircled it. Her teeth itched. Her bones ached, but she was alive and that counted for something. She had also been given a purpose, and this is what her newfound allies waited on.

Another of the three, one with dark skin and an almost youthful appearance, if such beings could ever be considered as that, turned to Cartovandis.

‘This is Meroved’s companion?’

‘I am standing just here,’ she said.

The last of the three, and the only one in black armour but dark-skinned like the second, glared. She half imagined him taking up his massive spear and ending her for her impudence. She told herself it was fatigue, but it was more than that.

‘I only meant,’ said Gedd, heart thumping again as she fought down her rising dread, ‘that he put me here knowing you would come. He had hoped to be here himself, but I saw his wound. If anything could kill one of you, it would be a wound like that, I suppose.’

‘And what do you know of it?’ asked the one in black armour, his voice fierce.

Gedd gestured to Meroved’s body. ‘Only what he taught me.’

Cartovandis regarded her. ‘You are a curious mortal, Gedd.’

She laughed, despite herself. ‘It’s almost like he’s still here. I am barely holding myself together,’ she admitted.

Cartovandis continued as if Gedd had not spoken. That too felt familiar. ‘Meroved said you were watching, that you would know.’

She nodded. ‘Follow me…’

The one in black armour muttered something to the youthful one and they remained in the arming chamber.

‘There are tools here?’ the youthful one asked. ‘For us to prepare our weapons.’

From what she saw of them, Gedd thought their weapons looked pristine and indomitable but she replied that there were such tools and indicated where Meroved kept them.

‘Very well.’ The youthful one exchanged a furtive glance with Cartovandis and gave an almost imperceptible nod before he signalled for Gedd to carry on.

‘Is it possible?’ asked Varogalant once he was certain the female could no longer hear them. ‘The bloodline of the Sigillite… Is it possible?’

Adio considered it. He considered what it meant alongside everything else that Ylax Orn had spoken of.

‘He is a zealot.’

‘A devout adherent of the Emperor.’

‘One who has succumbed to madness,’ said Adio. ‘No psychic cry can reach Terra through blood and the warp. And yet?’

Varogalant understood at once. ‘There is little enough known about the Vexen Cage.’

Adio nodded. ‘He said “resurrection”.’

‘And how many cults who bear that name have been put to sword and flame, some of them by our order?’ Varogalant countered.

Adio considered that too.

‘Whatever is the truth,’ Varogalant continued, ‘it must not be allowed to come to pass. He must be stopped along with his depraved experiment. It’s madness. All of it.’

His expression darkened, as it often did when he thought of his duty.

Adio drew closer. ‘Do not bear the burden alone.’

‘To be a Shadowkeeper is to be alone,’ Varogalant replied. He met his brother’s gaze. ‘It was not my will to leave you on the field. It tortured me not knowing. And after what happened in the Dark Cells… I could not leave. I can never leave. It haunts me even here in this moment.’

‘It was a day of hard lessons,’ Adio replied, ‘but we are far from that day now.’

Varogalant nodded, and they clasped arms in the way of warriors and of brothers.

In the heart of the observatory, in Meroved’s lair as Gedd had often thought of it, the many pict screens and data-feeds still chattered even without a master to engage with them.

‘I do not think your comrades trust me,’ she said.

‘Some knowledge is best left unknown, especially for mortals.’ As Cartovandis settled in to the seat at the core of the machine, he gave Gedd a glance. ‘What did Meroved tell you of our enemy?’

‘Not much,’ Gedd admitted. ‘He said they called themselves the Cult of the Illuminated and that their beliefs are aberrant to the Imperial Creed.’

Cartovandis nodded, as if deciding that was an acceptable amount of knowledge for Gedd to possess. Gedd wondered what would have happened if he had made a different determination.

‘We thought them wiped out. Many, many years ago, but here they are again. Resurgent.’ His jaw clenched, Gedd saw it in the sharp line of his cheekbone.

‘You’re angry,’ she ventured, inwardly cursing herself for her boldness; it would likely get her killed. ‘That he’s dead. That it’s unfinished.’

To Gedd’s surprise, Cartovandis’ stern countenance turned thoughtful.

‘Unfinished?’

‘Whatever was between you,’ she said, and pointed to the screens and vox-casters, the last of which were silent now with no one left alive or physically or psychologically able to operate them. A strange un-noise emanated instead, the tendrils of some half-heard dream, scarcely remembered but which weighed upon the listener well into the hours of first light. ‘He spent most of his time where you are sitting now. He treated it as his calling.’

Cartovandis regarded the screens as if seeing them for the first time. He felt the ache in his own wounds and experienced a profound sense of empathy for his departed mentor. His frustration faded. He began to absorb. Everything.

‘I am the watchman in his stead,’ he uttered. ‘Show me what he meant for us to see, Gedd.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

City of Vorganthian, Kobor, within Terra’s light

A flare of light, the dull register of energy in a city cast into permanent night, that’s how they found it. Meroved had forced Orn’s hand. In an ocean of darkness, something like the power required by a teleportation event tended to stand out. It only identified a region, but Gedd knew how to pinpoint a location.

‘They use a mark,’ she had explained to Cartovandis as he analysed myriad data-streams. ‘It identifies the boltholes and safe houses the cult have established around the city. That’s how Meroved found them.’

‘Describe it to me…’ said Cartovandis, assimilating all live and archived visual information with a series of ultra-rapid saccades.

‘That’s the devious part,’ said Gedd. ‘The mark is broken up into pieces and inscribed in several places. It can only be discerned at a certain angle and distance, at a point where each of the pieces align and come into focus.’

‘The shape of an eye with the letter “I” inside it,’ said Cartovandis.

‘Er… Yes, that’s it.’

‘I’ve found it.’

‘You have?’

‘Yes. Meroved has kept excellent records. The teleportation flare narrowed the search considerably. The rest was simply visual data analysis.’

‘Saint’s piss…’ said Gedd, looking at the pict-feeds herself but seeing a visual blur without meaning. ‘That was easier than I thought it was going to be.’

‘It was incredibly difficult,’ Cartovandis replied, taking up his sheathed sword, which he had removed so he could step into the machine.

‘It took you less than a minute to find it.’

‘I know.’

The old clock tower had collapsed during a hivequake many years ago and never been rebuilt. Since that tragedy, the city had scabbed over it, layer by accreted layer until the clock tower became part of the lowest deeps.

Half of its face, a truly cyclopean structure that must have once inspired awe and reverence in all who saw it, jutted from a stagnant sump, the accumulated run-off from sanitation pipes and industrial chemical drains. Its gold detailing had succumbed to a grubby patina of verdigris, the effigy of the Emperor as a hooded chrono-lord dictating the passage of time similarly degraded. Some of the clock tower’s inner workings lay exposed where the perma-glass or crystalflex used in its construction had broken like wounds in a body. Great cogs and rusted springs, pulleys and cables extruded viscerally.

The entrance was an old maintenance access hatch, easily large enough to accommodate one of the Revered Fallen, let alone the three Custodians.

Once inside, the true expanse of the clock tower was revealed. Due to destruction, it leaned on a strange angle and this affected the dimensions and orientation within.

Efforts had been made to erect several staging areas, platforms and gantries fashioned from industrial pallets and bulkhead doors. This iron framework rose up into the high ceiling and above the encroaching fluids of the sump.

Cartovandis was first to mount the staging area and looked out across a large chamber lit with a daisy chain of sodium lamps.

At the far end, he saw a flash of light and discerned the metallic churning of the Vexen Cage. For now it was out of direct line of sight, secured in some lower vault or sub-chamber. The main room was dark enough that the armed cultists of the Illuminated hiding in the shadows thought they could not be seen.

‘There are only a few dozen,’ he said as Varogalant and Adio joined him. Ursula Gedd followed after them.

‘Looks have been deceiving before,’ said Cartovandis. ‘Tread carefully.’

‘Stay with me, peacekeeper,’ uttered Adio, swinging up his axe into his grip as he slammed down his shield in a defensive posture.

‘The Emperor protects…’ she murmured in response.

Adio nodded. ‘He does, and through His Aquilan Shields.’

They were about to engage when a scratchy vox sounded over casters rigged up around the room.

‘I knew you would come,’ said Orn. He sounded calm, measured. ‘Nothing could have stopped that. But you are misguided, blind. I would see Him reborn, through the blood of the Sigillite’s heir. Illumination awaits if you would but allow it.’

Cartovandis scowled. ‘Shut him up.’

For a few seconds a trio of bolt casters ripped back the shadows, destroying the vox-rig in a flare of sparks and squawking static.

The cultists came out of hiding, weapons free, and with the knowledge their deaths were inevitable.

They died swiftly in a blur of furious gold and black as Cartovandis and Varogalant cut through the mortals with ease.

‘Another delaying tactic,’ growled the Shadowkeeper, wrenching Vigilance from a dead cultist’s body.

‘It’s his last,’ asserted Cartovandis, the crackling light and the sanity-grinding hum of the Vexen Cage only a short distance away. He looked to Adio. ‘Varo and I can stop Orn.’

Gedd stepped up, realising what the Custodian meant.

‘I am seeing this through to the end,’ she said, though in truth she looked more haggard than ever. Prolonged use of the null-collar had taken a profound toll upon her, but she was determined.

Adio gave a noncommittal look to Cartovandis.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘But stay by Adio’s side. He will protect you. I couldn’t save Meroved, and you’re about all that’s left of his legacy, Ursula Gedd.’

She nodded, understanding.

‘Another pit,’ Varogalant remarked as they approached the edge of a deep recess. Sump fluids drooled down the edge, pooling in the corners. It was unlit, but the Cage shone over stark iron walls and a host of figures, men and women both, standing side by side and bound by rune-etched chains.

Orn, the Vexen Cage and the Sigillite’s heir were behind them.

‘Is it just me,’ said Gedd, ‘or is that shitting thing getting louder?’ A trickle of blood seeped from her nose and she wiped it away.

Cartovandis burned the cultist blood from Arcana and leapt into the pit.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

City of Vorganthian, Kobor, within Terra’s light

Gedd had felt horror before, but this was different. Her fear had reached beyond the point of paralysis into a place of desperate survival. So she fought, her golden shadow by her side. The things in the pit came for her, perhaps sensing weakness, perhaps out of malice in that her death would mean another failure for the Custodians. She didn’t care. She only wanted to end them, whatever they were. They wore the flesh of men and women but their forms swiftly changed, bloating and mutating into horrible parodies of humankind with limbs and bodies and mouths distending into savage versions of their former incarnations. They wore scales and hides and arachnid carapaces, or grew tusks and claws and barbs. Each was a weapon of altered flesh and bone, a monster from the deep places.

The Verifier bucked in her grasp, the auto-loader on a continuous cycle and burning ammunition as fast as Gedd was using air with every desperate gasp. It had little effect, except to stun or irritate.

Her protector was consummately more lethal. He weaved and cut with almost balletic grace, his shield miraculously deflecting every blow regardless of whether it was directed at Gedd or himself. She tried not to watch, for it was dizzying and she feared she might collapse from nausea. Effective as he was, the Custodian’s combat prowess was not the greatest boon bestowed upon Gedd. His presence galvanised her. She believed that without it, her mortal mind would have already folded in on itself. Without him, she would have been a quivering and vomit-strewn mess of limbs, food for the unholy creatures trying to kill her.

‘Stay with me!’ she heard her protector say, the strength of his oration such that she had no choice but to obey.

Giddy, her quickening pulse feeling as if it were about to tear right out of her arm, Gedd followed… And then abruptly stopped as she came face-to-face with Xeus.

The Lamplighter regarded her with curious eyes, pitying and condescending at the same time. Gedd staggered, her appreciation of time dwindling away like the sands in an hourglass.

‘Xeus…’ She felt strange, her voice sounding far away even as it resonated inside her skull.

+Shoot him, Gedd…+

‘W-what?’

+Shoot him.+

‘I can’t, I…’

+He can’t protect you.+

She looked to the blurring figure of her protector, so much slower than before. Everything was slower. His dance of blade and shield painted the air in gold. Dark, viscous blood fountained in miniature, slowly exploding blooms.

‘I… He…’

Xeus drew closer, a syncopated movement, jerky like a pict-cast skipping a few frames.

+Shoot him now, and I will do the rest.+

Gedd felt pressure inside her skull. The null-collar burned her neck, but she resisted the urge to take it off.

+You know me, Gedd…+

She saw her arm raising the Verifier, the experience of doing it removed from the actual action itself.

+You trust me, Gedd…+

‘I…’

+Do it…+

‘I…’

+DO IT!+

‘I never liked you, Xeus…’ She shot the thing wearing the body of the Lamplighter in the face. Time resumed its usual pace as the blade of a Custodian’s axe cut off Xeus’ head. ‘But I am sorry that you’re dead.’

Barely a few seconds had lapsed, and as they fought on Gedd thought she caught a fleeting glance from the Custodian. He had a look in his eye, there and gone in a moment. Gedd could have sworn it was approval.

Cartovandis cut one of the daemonspawn across the midriff, spilling its vile innards. As he pressed on, Varogalant came up in his wake and finished it. They fought as two lions, alternating primacy at the vanguard of the fight, one the claws that maimed and disabled, the other teeth that applied the killing blow. One attacked then the other, their fighting styles utterly unalike, but their synchronicity of purpose undeniable.

This martial rhythm brought Cartovandis to the edge of the Vexen Cage, standing on its stepped dais. He felt its power wearing at his armour, scratching at the mental bulwarks that protected his mind. Through the rapidly turning spheres of the Cage, he saw the one referred to as the Sigillite’s heir properly for the first time. He was withered, every tortured revolution of his body bringing him closer to dissolution. His eyes had long been burned from their sockets, blood and ocular fluid plastering his drawn cheeks like wax. Crackling, pearlescent light blazed there instead. It spewed from his mouth too, which was wrenched open, a chasm leading to the deepest pit of the man’s agony.

It reminded Cartovandis of another’s pain. The Lord Malcador’s as he took up the Throne in His stead, a death sentence by any discernible measure. Cartovandis had not seen it, but every Custodian knew of this sacrifice and honoured the man who had given it so selflessly. This was not that. It was an abomination, but the symmetry of it left him disquieted.

And at the heir’s feet sat a partly fleshed ork skull. It retained a leer within its porcine rictus, and its sheer size and apparent age suggested only one possible provenance. It had come from the War of the Beast, when orks had stridden the galaxy as conquerors. Their leaders had been beyond anything the Imperium had known before, literal titans with savage intellect to match their colossal stature. Here, then, was the thing that Meroved had believed was enhancing the Cage’s reach, the tapped psychic power of a greenskin demigod, still potent after nine thousand years. Cartovandis felt the belligerence of its anima.

Orn stood nearby but did not impede him. The missionary was wise enough to know he posed no challenge to a Custodian. He talked instead.

‘It can’t be stopped, Cartovandis…’

Cartovandis’ gaze snapped to Orn, who, though he wore a null-collar of his own, was evidently more gifted than he let on.

‘You’re wrong.’ Cartovandis shot at the Vexen Cage but the rounds ricocheted away harmlessly. He hacked at it with Arcana, but his blow rebounded so ferociously it tore at his shoulder and he took a step back. Behind him, he was aware of Varogalant fending off the daemonhosts.

‘I told you,’ said Orn, his rising confidence seeing him come forwards.

Cartovandis struck again, but did not make a dent. The Cage turned, faster and faster, its victim almost lost in a blur of ancient metal.

Orn smiled, his face cast in the light of the rapidly moving shadows.

‘It is inevitable. It is His will. The Emperor shall rise from stupor and reclaim the galaxy anew. It cannot be undone.’

Cartovandis hefted Arcana again, but the weight of sorrow dragged upon his arm. It was a matter of seconds, a momentary doubt, the physical articulation of his desire to hear the Emperor’s voice again, to know that the Rift had not silenced Him.

Orn stabbed him in the chest, the vibro-knife slipping insidiously through auramite and the armour underneath, into skin and flesh and finally organs. Cartovandis gasped, his pain and disbelief all too apparent.

‘Do not yield to despair…’ whispered Orn, his wet lips pressed to Cartovandis’ ear as the Custodian sank to one knee and the vibro-knife began to move. ‘Your suffering serves–’

Orn stopped to look down at the misericordia protruding through his chest. He peered up, confusion radiating across his face, spitting blood, trying desperately to say something, anything, as Varogalant mounted the steps.

‘Told you…’ he said to Cartovandis, cutting off the priest’s choked words before Orn finally expired.

Wrenching out the vibro-knife with a grimace, Cartovandis staggered to his feet and turned to face the last of the daemonhosts. Adio held them all at bay, allowing his brother to have cast his knife. Gedd stood behind him, alive but almost spent.

‘It is impenetrable,’ Cartovandis said to Varogalant.

‘Nothing remains unbroken forever,’ he replied. He jammed his spear in the second sphere of the Cage, stopping it in a jerk of sparks and disgorged power. Then he seized it and the outermost frame of the Vexen Cage in both hands and started to pull.

Psychic energies rippled outwards like coronal mass ejections, striking Varogalant as he heaved at the relic. His armour and flesh burned, unmade by the arcane science of the Vexen Cage. Every strike lit his skin from the inside, turning it translucent and exposing the structure of his bones within.

He pulled, his face a rictus of agony, and slowly the complex frame of the Cage began to part. A fractious tendril of energy lashed out, impaling his body. Blood painted his armour. He kept pulling. The Cage began to slow.

Cartovandis roared as he leapt for the Cage, Arcana clasped in both hands. His blade struck the metal hard, but the force of the blow returned tenfold and he was thrown, pinwheeling, off the dais.

Gedd saw Cartovandis flying through the air. She had slumped to one knee, struggling to stay upright with the hammering inside her skull. Darkness encroached at the edge of her vision, but she saw the turning Cage and the Custodian being slowly ravaged to death by its foul energies.

She saw the man inside it turning too, his yawning mouth locked in a silent howl of sheer agony. The Cage was hard to look at, but she managed to lift the Verifier and take aim. She felt her fingers tightening over the trigger. She heard the ravening of the monsters behind her and the ferocious defence of the one who had sworn to protect her.

Gedd was just another mortal. She was not fit to fight alongside these auric gods, but Meroved had chosen her for a reason. She had endured terror and seen a glimpse of the galaxy’s true face. Unblinking, her outstretched arm steady, she faced the Cage, and fired.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

City of Vorganthian, Kobor, within Terra’s light

The bullet seemed to twist in slow motion. It passed through the nexus of psychic energy that was killing Varogalant and scraped against the finest edge of the Cage in a brief cascade of sparks before it struck the man within in the heart and ended it.

There was no explosion, no flash of energy. It simply stopped, like a turbine starved of power, grinding meekly to a halt.

With a final swipe of Puritas, Adio beheaded the last of the daemonhosts. The wretched creature dwindled to slurry, devouring its stolen body until nothing remained but smoke and charred bone. Breathing hard, he turned. His castellan axe clanged loudly against the ground as he saw what had become of Varogalant.

A skeletal husk poking through broken auramite was all that was left.

The Vexen Cage endured but it no longer turned, its metal spheres dormant once more. The figure inside it held his form for a few seconds before collapsing into ash, only to be scattered away on the air.

Cartovandis stood with difficulty. Gedd looked back at him, exhausted. She unclasped the null-collar, clearly relieved to be free of it. She looked weak, her body and mind at the very limit, but determined not to falter in front of the Custodians.

‘Is it over now?’ she asked him.

He exhaled a long, drawn-out breath and felt the impermanence of his flesh as never before.

‘By the Emperor’s grace, it’s over.’

But nothing would ever be the same again.

EPILOGUE

Several months later…

Vorganthian howled into the night, a wounded beast needing to lash out at its pain. Lawlessness plagued its streets and though the armies of neighbouring cities had begun to assert some form of order at the fringes, its heart remained in turmoil. Gangs roamed freely. Murder cults rose up from the ashes of unbelief. Its badly outnumbered peacekeepers found themselves beleaguered. It would yet be months before the greater Imperium came to reclaim the city.

The Eyes of the Emperor watched it all keenly, ever vigilant for a true threat to the Throne.

‘Order will return…’ a figure murmured, his face half lit by banks of pict screens, his attention split across manifold vox-channels and data-feeds. He saw all. He knew all.

‘And in the meantime?’ asked a second figure, much slighter and much shorter than the first.

‘We watch, Gedd,’ said Cartovandis, a shrewd smile turning the corners of his mouth, ‘and we listen.’

The Vexen Cage returned to Terra in a warded casket, thrice blessed by the most potent psykers of the Ordo Hereticus. Santic runes had been inscribed into the metal. Six belts of chain were wrapped tightly around the sides.

No triumphal fanfare greeted its successful recapture. It came back in secret, brought in via gunship with a guard of twelve Grey Knights swathed in black cloaks.

They met the Shadowkeepers at the subterranean gate to the Dark Cells, one group barely acknowledging the other during the silent transfer of responsibility. As the Grey Knights departed as clandestinely as they had arrived, the casket was placed upon a grav-sled and taken in solemn procession to its empty cell, where a Custodian armoured in black awaited it.

As the other Shadowkeepers went to their duties, he was left alone. Grasping Vigilance in both hands he stood with his back to the cell, determined to honour his brother’s sacrifice.

At the Tower of Heroes, the Bell of Lost Souls would be tolling.

‘For you, Varo,’ said Adio.

THE BLOODIED ROSE

DANIE WARE

CHAPTER ONE

The things were still out there.

On the altar steps, Sister Felicity stood waiting for them. Her red armour was stained with gore, her black-and-white cloak in tatters. At one hip rested her now-empty bolter, at the other, her silent chainsword.

A small, upright figure in the heart of the broken cathedral, Felicity stood alone.

Before her, scattered about the cathedral nave, the tech-priest’s servitors lay dead, their haphazard defence overwhelmed, their repairs all brought to an unready end. Jencir had commanded them to protect, and they had done so with utter brutality, hurling rubble and using their mechanised limbs to horrific effect – yet the incoming numbers had just been too many. Overcome by the rising tide, they had fallen as they had fought – mindless to the last.

In a ruined state, around the base of the steps, lay the five Sisters of Felicity’s squad, their last stand thrown down. They too had fallen fighting, blade and bolter, fist and faith, savage to the last woman.

In her head, she bade them farewell: blessed be their memories. She would not be able to give them their Last Rites, but they had perished with courage, and they stood now at the hand of the Emperor.

With them lay the tech-priest Jencir, his back ripped open as he’d tried to flee – not an act of cowardice, but a failed attempt to reach the exterior vox-transmitters. And finally, slumped against the ruined wall, the missionary Lyconides was too broken to stand, his last breaths now rasping bloody, his lasrifle still gripped in his hand. His other hand was in his lap, as if trying to stuff his steaming bowels back into his belly.

She respected the man’s courage – he was no soldier, but he’d given his best.

As Felicity listened, his final prayer drifted like a ghost across the emptiness, and was gone.

‘Requiescet in lumine suo,’ she whispered softly. Rest in His Light.

The missionary toppled over sideways and lay still.

Down in the nave, the things yammered.

They were coming closer now, skulking and sneaking – she could hear their claws scraping on the ancient stone. They were circling round to her sides, lurking in the hot, ruined darkness of transept and cloister. She could feel them pacing, feel their presence like a crawl of sweat across her skin. She didn’t know if they were taunting her, waiting to see if she would falter, or if they were simply awaiting commands – but she knew that there were dozens of them.

Hundreds.

She drew the chainsword.

If she stood fast against the beasts’ onslaught, she thought, she may yet get a strike at their master…

Before she died.

Slowly, Felicity walked up the final steps. She looked back at the fallen Jencir, his eye-clusters and mechadendrites hanging damaged and broken, his red Mechanicus cloak spread about him like a pool of blood.

She reached the high altar, and stopped before the final step.

Above her, the great window was missing, fallen from its stone frame thousands of years before; the new electro-candles, bought as a promise of reconsecration, burned with a tiny and defiant light. Despite the creatures behind her, she took a moment to bend one knee, her free hand tracing the fleur-de-lys on the front of her armour.

‘A morte perpetua. Domine, libra nos.’

And then she stood up.

And turned around.

The Sisters had not known.

Felicity’s directive had come from Ophelia VII, direct from the canoness of her Order, Ianthe herself – and she and her squad had been sent all the way across the segmentum to this tiny world, this sweat of overgrowth and jungle. The previous deployment of Sisters had declared the location secure – they’d driven back the marauding orks, and had cleared the area enough to allow the tech-priest in. Felicity had come as security, and – more importantly – to ensure that the cathedral stayed within the ownership of the Order of the Bloody Rose, and of the Convent Sanctorum.

An icon of Saint Mina, or so it was rumoured, still lay within this building – and her Order were not about to relinquish it.

But their restoration had been interrupted.

Jencir had raised the alarm – his deployed servitors, seeking to understand the extent of the repair, had ventured into the crypts. They’d detected movement, and the Sisters had gone down on reconnaissance.

The first encounter had been small, and easily defeated.

But they’d had no time. Even as they’d regrouped, taken a tactical defence position at the head of the crypt’s steps, more of the creatures had come.

And then more.

A welter of horrors, surging up from the depths. The servitors had been overcome in moments; the incoming beasts had seethed like nightmares, like a surge of teeth and blood. Outnumbered, surrounded, the Sisters had been cut off from their makeshift, modular habitations, and from any hope of off-planet communication.

They’d done the only thing they could – they’d fought back. They’d retreated, defended the altar with every prayer, with every breath, with every last expended round… and they’d sung with the fury of it, their voices raised to the cathedral’s roofless, ruinous silence.

But the things had just kept coming, mindless and slavering, attacking from every angle. Krak grenades had slain hundreds of them, brought walls down in cascading rumbles of broken stone; the creatures hadn’t cared. Felicity had seen her squad fight and fall, one after another, had watched the things dismember them, watched the creatures drag her Sisters’ limbs away in their teeth and worry at them, gnawing on them like old bones. They’d scattered the women’s remains in some deliberate pattern, some vile act of blasphemous worship.

It was too hot in here, close and suffocatingly still. Under her blood-scarlet armour, sweat slid down her spine. Her gauntlet tightened on the hilt of her still-silent chainsword.

Noli timere, she told them silently. I do not fear you.

Felicity did not know why she still stood while the others had all perished, but she suspected that the things had some greater purpose for her, more than just their thirst for her life.

Calmly, she recited the hymnal.

‘That Thou wouldst bring them only death,

That Thou shouldst spare none,

That Thou shouldst pardon none

We beseech Thee, destroy them.’

And the creatures heard.

They were creeping into view, now, letting her see them. They came down the aisle, and around the bases of the headless pillars; they rose up over the rubble like the slow advance of some thick, red tide. They came patiently this time, almost as if they savoured it; they came sniffing and snarling and licking, their long teeth bared and their spiked shoulders slinking low.

They were taunting her, and she knew it.

She raised her blade. She wanted to go down there, punish them for the deaths of her Sisters; she wanted to hack them to gobbets, pick them up and throw them against the walls, slam them into the cracked and weed-grown floor until they howled in pain and their bones broke and shattered–

But she was the Emperor’s Daughter and her thoughts were clear.

She stood where she was, His light at her back.

The things came on, closer, closer. Their eyes were sharp as fangs, yellow and glinting. They reached the foot of the altar steps, and more and more came in behind them until the whole floor of the cathedral was alive, a writhing mass of red and glistening bodies.

With a rasping snarl, she started the chainsword. The sudden roar echoed through the building, and the things leapt forwards as if goaded. They bounded up the steps, baying with impatience, jumping for her throat.

‘Mori blasphemous fui!’

Die, blasphemer!

She cut the first two clean in half, caught another on the backswing and sent it flying, its ribs half pulled from its body. Blood slicked her already-red armour. They were all round her in moments, worrying at her cloak, their teeth and claws scraping over ceramite and plasteel. She kicked with her boots, hitting skulls and spines; the things snarled and yelped. Her free hand grabbed a leaping creature; she snapped its neck with a jerk of her wrist and threw it aside.

The chainsword rasped its way through more.

Her blood and voice sang.

But still, they just kept coming. The cathedral was full of them, the whole floor rippling with spike-shouldered motion. They surged round her to get at Lyconides, and at the remains of the tech-priest. They threw themselves at her bodily, one after another, trying to knock her from her feet. She fought them off with knees and elbows and head-butts; she sawed into their red flesh, she kicked and stamped at them. Her free hand grabbed them by their collars and tossed them aside. But they had no regard for their own lives; they were driven by a bloodlust that burned from their skin.

Ten more died, exploding into mist and gore.

Twenty.

Twenty-five.

They just kept coming.

Piles of crippled creatures grew around her, slowing their advance. One sank its teeth into her vambrace and hung from her forearm, the weight dragging at her shoulder. But she was still fighting, still singing the words of the hymnal, still defiant and exultant, still burning with her faith that was every bit as powerful as their craving for blood–

They stopped.

She staggered, suddenly bereft of resistance. The one on her arm hung limp; she had no recollection of having struck it. She sawed it off at the neck, watching the body detonate before it hit the floor.

Recoiling almost reluctantly, the things shrank away. They growled at her, baring gore-smeared, yellow teeth. Coiling like curs, they slunk to the bottom of the steps and then stayed there, snapping at each other and pacing, restless.

They watched her as they did so, their eyes burning.

Felicity felt a rush of pure zeal; the Emperor was with her. She was still alive, still on her feet, still fighting. Her armour was scarred but intact.

And she was still singing, her voice loud in the vox though there was no one left to hear it.

But her discipline was strong – this was not victory, not yet. Those hounds were not beaten, they were waiting for something. She’d proven that she could best them, and they’d been called off…

By something bigger.

By something that wanted to face her itself.

Not victory – but perhaps the single highest purpose of her life.

Felicity was a Sister Superior of the Order of the Bloody Rose, here to reclaim this cathedral in the name of Saint Mina, and of the God-Emperor Himself.

She had failed.

Nevertheless, her final task was clear.

Her bloody chainsword in one hand, she laid the other on the very last of her krak grenades.

Whatever this warp-spawned horror may be, it did not daunt her. And she would take it down as she offered her life to the Emperor.

Defended by the high walls of the Convent Sanctorum, Sister Superior Augusta wore her padded scarlet underarmour and a chasuble of black and white. Her steel-grey bob of hair fell forwards over her face as she bowed her head. Murmuring the Litany of Cleansing, she knelt upon the cold stone floor of her chamber, and she cleared her mind, her soul and her heart.

Augusta was a warrior, a Daughter of the Emperor and the fighting fist of His Imperial Creed – but these ritual moments were just as sacred as the bloodshed and the battlefield.

On the floor before her, laid out on its familiar red cloth, was her Sabbat-pattern ceramite armour, each piece positioned correctly, as illustrated in The Accords of Deacis VI. Her chainsword, stilled and silent, lay down one edge; her bolter, stripped and cleaned, on the other. The arrangement was as much a part of her as her litanies and the fleur-de-lys tattoo upon her cheek.

Coloured light tumbled from her tiny, narrow window, catching the scarlet curve of her helmet and making it shine.

It was dawn, and this was Lauds, and the ritual that came with each morning.

She recited, ‘Et promissa – daturum adversus vires hostium Arma omnium qui oderunt nos.’

He promised that He would grant us strength to face our enemies, the weapons of all who hate us.

As she intoned the words, she picked up the armour, piece by piece. She checked its fastenings, its purity seals, its strength and integrity; she studied it for damage, for cracks and dents, for uncleaned bloodstains.

A Sister’s wargear was her second skin – one of the first battle-lessons Augusta had ever learned. ‘Every Sister walks with the Emperor,’ her tutor had told her, many years before. ‘But she must also depend on three things – her armour, her weapons, and her Sisters that surround her’.

It was a lesson that Augusta had never forgotten.

Continuing her recitation, she picked up her vambrace to check its inbuilt chrono-compass, her pauldrons, and then her breastplate to examine its semi-hidden fleur-de-lys blade. Then she laid the last piece back upon the cloth and sat back on her heels, head bowed.

A familiar, armoured footstep sounded at the chamber doorway. Without turning, Augusta knew who it was, standing in the outer cloister and waiting for her to finish her morning devotions.

‘Sister Superior,’ said Sister Jatoya respectfully, as Augusta raised her head. ‘I did not wish to interrupt.’

In one smooth move, Augusta came to her feet and turned around.

Her second-in-command stood waiting in the cloisters’ biolume, her head bare, her helm upturned under her arm. Her dark skin gleamed, but there was expectation in her stance – she was here with a request.

Or an order.

‘You’re early,’ Augusta said. ‘Do you not have a class this morning?’

‘Aye,’ Jatoya said. ‘Teaching the schola’s novices the finer tricks of open-handed combat.’ She gave a faint smile, and the light from the window lit her face with the reflection of the Saint, and with the deep colours of the Bloody Rose. ‘But Canoness Ianthe has requested our presence, Sister. When our devotions are done, we’re to report to the Order chapel.’

A rush flickered through Augusta’s skin. ‘Do you know why?’

‘No.’ Jatoya shook her head. ‘I’m not privy to such knowledge, and the servitor was little help.’ The smile spread, then faded. ‘But for the summons to come before the morning begins…’

Jatoya let the implication speak for itself. A personal summons from Canoness Ianthe was rare – in twenty years, half of them as the Sister Superior of her squad, Augusta had responded to maybe a dozen… and every one of them a call to war.

The rush grew stronger, but it was instinctive, recognisable. It was the touch of her faith, that so-familiar flare of passion and hope.

She looked up at the Saint in the window, at the holy light that haloed her stern, sword-bearing form, and gave a moment of thanks.

Jatoya said softly, her tone amused, ‘I feel the nature of our devotions is about to change, Sister.’

It wasn’t Jatoya’s place to speculate – but the two women had known each other for more than a decade. They’d stood side by side against the orks on Lautis, the aeldari at Mis’bah, the tyranid invasion at the war-ravaged cities of Yulzond Cross. The trust between them was battle-honed, and strong.

‘You may be right.’ Augusta began to pick up her armour, donning it piece-by-piece – breast- and back-plate, cuisses, greaves. She closed her gorget around her throat, slung her blade at her hip, picked up her bolter and snicked the sight and magazine back into place. Then she opened the breech, sighted briefly down the barrel, and closed it again.

‘Very well,’ she said, holstering the bolter and picking up her helmet. ‘It would hardly do to keep the canoness waiting.’

They walked through the cloisters together, the huge drop of the convent’s outer walls to one side, the black rise of the Hallowed Spire to the other. The great, stained-glassaic windows ran with rain, and the blur of starships – the war vessels of the Imperium, the cargo and transport ships of the Ecclesiarchy – moved across them like shadows.

The Chapel of Saint Mina was a later addition to the Convent Sanctorum, built by Deacis VI some two and a half thousand years after the ascension of Sebastian Thor. The Order of the Bloody Rose was young, but as warlike as its Saint had been, and no less militant.

Walking past the votive candles and the floating cherubim, past the statues of the Saints and the engraved prayers, Augusta murmured the Litany of Mettle like a reflex, words of hope and strength.

Beside her, Jatoya echoed each line.

Age and faith surrounded them. Since the days of Thor himself, the Sisters of Battle had carried the flame of their devotion to all corners of the galaxy, had waged a ceaseless war against the Emperor’s foes – every witch, every mutant, every heretic, every xenos, every trace of Chaos wherever it could be found.

As if eager, Augusta’s sword rattled against her thigh. She placed her hand on the pommel. Her squad been cooling their heels in the convent for almost a month – studying, practising, teaching the arts of war to their less experienced Sisters.

It was rare for a veteran of Augusta’s rank to be at rest for this long, and peace was not in her nature. She missed praising the Emperor with bolter and blade.

From the convent, voices began the morning hymnal, the verses immediately lifting into crystal-pure, four-part harmony.

Gooseflesh prickled down Augusta’s arms.

Jatoya said softly, ‘I will be glad if this hiatus is at an end. By Dominica’s eyes, if I have to spend another evening playing Tall Card…’

‘Only because Sister Caia always wins.’ Augusta chuckled, but briefly. ‘But beware, Sister Militant. You may say those words to me, but in the presence of the canoness, you will show the proper respect.’

‘Aye,’ Jatoya agreed. ‘I understand.’

She was nervous, Augusta realised – curious, as Jatoya had never once shown fear in the face of an enemy.

‘But…’ Jatoya made a final comment as they neared the chapel doors. ‘Tell me you don’t long for a new mission.’

They knew each other too well, and Augusta did not need to speak her answer aloud.

CHAPTER TWO

The heavy doors creaked, loud as a declaration, and the servitor clicked as it checked and reported their presence.

Ignoring it, Augusta paused in the open doorway, a draught stealing over her armour.

The chapel seemed empty.

It rose before the Sisters in a long hollow of pale grey, pillared and chill. Twin lines of banners, red and black and white, depicted the fleur-de-lys and the Bloody Rose of their Order. At its far end, flooding its emptiness with light, the great window portrayed the Emperor Himself, His gauntleted hands gripping the hilt of a huge, upturned blade. Sol rose behind Him, haloing Him in wonder, and the star’s bright yellow illumination slanted all the way down through the nave, and warmed the walk to His feet.

Electro-candles burned upon the altar, outshone by His Light.

In two decades of service, Augusta still could not enter this building without a catch in her throat.

She lowered her gaze and murmured a prayer. She heard Jatoya again echo her words.

‘Sister Superior, Sister Militant.’ One of Ianthe’s novitiates, robed in grey and her blonde head down, had appeared soundlessly beside them. The girl was flanked by two more servitors, each of whom carried a wide brass tray. Observing the proper respect, both women relinquished their helmets, then unclipped their bolters and laid them aside. More slowly, Augusta drew her blade and placed it, too, within the servitors’ care.

She felt bereft without her weapons, but you did not enter the chapel bearing arms.

The servitors retreated.

‘In the name of Saint Mina and the Golden Throne,’ Augusta said. ‘We are the willing daughters of the God-Emperor. We come at His command, and to do His bidding.’

‘The canoness is waiting for you, Sisters,’ the novitiate said. ‘Come.’

She beckoned, and the two women followed her up towards the chancel. They passed beneath the organ’s lofty hollow, the tall lines of brass pipes that rose glittering towards the vaulted roof. They passed beneath the armoured statue of Saint Mina herself, her sword at her hip. From the window, Sol’s yellow illumination brought a touch of gentleness to her austere features.

They came to the foot of the altar steps.

Here, both women dropped to one knee and traced out the lines of the fleur-de-lys on their armour. Then they rose back to their feet and stood smoothly at ease, feet apart, hands behind their backs, their chins lifted and their heads bared to the light.

At the foot of the pulpit, Canoness Ianthe was waiting for them.

‘Your eminence,’ Augusta said. ‘You wished our presence.’

The canoness said nothing. Tall and pale and bone-lean, her chill gaze raked both women head to foot.

‘I did,’ she said, when her examination was complete.

Neither Sister reacted. Ianthe was a stern disciplinarian who kept her Order under tight control – and they both knew when not to speak.

She snapped a command, and both women stamped to attention, hands to their sides, feet together. She nodded at their efficiency. Her steps quiet, she stopped before them, hair ice-white, her face lined and her tattoo faded to blue with her age. She inspected their wargear as if they stood upon a parade ground, her gaze pausing on the multiple beads on Augusta’s chaplet – her many medals of merit. Augusta had faced foes across every segmentum of the galaxy, and had never once flinched from the fight.

Both women continued to stare at the steps.

‘At ease,’ Ianthe said at last.

With a simultaneous stamp, they returned to their original stance.

‘Sister Superior.’ The canoness’ words seemed like an announcement. ‘Sister Militant.’ She paced before them, her rigidity uncompromised. ‘I understand that you are both becoming…’ she spun on her heel, ‘… restless… with your studies.’

‘Yes, milady.’ Augusta answered honestly, though her gaze didn’t waver. ‘We miss the hymns of the battlefield.’

‘I have some sympathy with your agitation, Sisters.’ Ianthe spun back again, and nodded at them, her face almost smiling. ‘These walls are holy and no foe would dare assail them. Yet it is a Sister’s place to hunt and slay the foes of the Light, wherever they may be found.’ She stopped, eyeing Jatoya, the moment of amusement gone. ‘But I take it that you comprehend your hiatus?’

‘Yes, milady.’ Augusta said. ‘We have a new Sister in our squad, replacing Sister Kimura. Blessed be her memory.’

‘Blessed be her memory.’

The litany was returned, and all three women observed a moment’s quiet.

Ianthe said, ‘Certainly, you must be familiar with your new recruit.’ Something in her voice seemed to hint that Augusta had missed the point, but she went on, ‘You must trust her with your lives, know that you can rely upon her, know that she will praise the Emperor fearlessly, with battle, blade and bolter, just as you do.’ She spun, paced again. ‘You need to know her as well as you know all your squad.’

‘Yes, milady,’ Augusta said. ‘Sister Akemi is young but wise. Her skills are extensive. And this hiatus has enabled her, and us, to learn a great deal about each other.’

‘You say “wise”, not “strong”.’ Ianthe paused, looking from one face to the other. ‘Do you consider her battle-ready, Sister Superior?’

Augusta knew her canoness well enough to realise that the question was a test in itself – an examination of her expertise, and of her knowledge of her squad. If she answered ‘yes’ simply to secure a new mission and to bring their hiatus to an end then she was not worthy of her command.

But Augusta had long experience – she had been tested before and would be tested again. She answered, evenly, ‘I judge her battle-ready, milady. She shows both strength and insight. Sometimes the latter can be a strength of its own.’

‘Just so,’ Ianthe agreed. ‘And you, Sister Militant?’

Jatoya answered, ‘I, too, would trust her with my life. She is a worthy addition to the squad.’

‘Good.’ Ianthe said, nodding again. She resumed her pacing. Despite the location, the canoness wore her armour like a confrontation, like some constant challenge – and her own numerous merits told tales of that challenge fulfilled. Ianthe was a formidable warrior, and not one of her Order would question her.

‘Then, Sisters,’ she said, ‘I have some news for you – perhaps news you will even welcome.’ She spun on her heel and paused in front of them. ‘Your hiatus has reached its end. I have a mission for you that may test even your…’ she glanced at Augusta, ‘…considerable mettle.’

The last words were faintly edged; they carried implications that Augusta didn’t quite follow. ‘Milady?’

The canoness gave a faint, humourless smile, and continued her pacing, making them wait. At last she said, ‘How well do you remember Sister Superior Felicity Albani?’

Felicity!

The name was like a shock – sudden and unexpected. Augusta knew Felicity, had known her for years. She remembered the woman from the schola, small and dark and determined, and one of the single finest swordswomen that the Order had ever seen.

Carefully, she said, ‘I know Sister Felicity well, milady. We studied together.’ She paused, catching up with the implications, and then said, ‘And she commanded the squad–’

‘That took your place. Upon Lautis.’ All signs of levity gone, Ianthe turned to face them and stopped dead, her hands behind her back. Her tone was cold, now. The light from the window made her red shoulders gleam.

Caught, uncomprehending, Augusta could only stare straight ahead and say, ‘Yes, milady.’

‘The world,’ the canoness continued, ‘which you and your squad had reported secure.’

The word was an outright accusation. Augusta felt Jatoya almost flinch, but both Sisters held themselves still.

‘Yes, milady.’

Ianthe came forwards, glared into Augusta’s face.

She went on, ‘In your final report, you declared that the ork tribes upon Lautis had been slain or broken, and that the area was secure enough for the Adeptus Mechanicus to begin their analysis – and repair – of the discovered cathedral. Do you recall this report, Sister Superior?’

Still staring straight ahead, Augusta said, ‘Yes, milady.’

The canoness continued to glare. ‘You slew the ork warlord?’

‘Not I, milady,’ Augusta told her. ‘The warlord was slain by Sister Viola Taenaris.’

‘But the warlord was slain by your squad?’

‘Yes, milady.’

‘And with the beast dead,’ Ianthe said, ‘you considered the task completed, did you not?’

‘No, milady,’ Augusta said. Her voice was level, betraying nothing. Yet the light from the window seemed too bright; she could not have raised her gaze to Him even if she’d been permitted. Instead, she offered the contents of her report. ‘After the death of the warlord, we remained upon Lautis for fifty-seven days. We sought, and discovered, the landing point and the established base of the Crossed Axe ork tribe. Without strong leadership, we found them scattered and easy to defeat–’

‘That was not the question, Sister.’ With an inhalation like annoyance, Ianthe resumed her pacing. Her shadow moved across the floor like an accusation. ‘I’m asking you whether the area was, indeed, secure.’

‘To my knowledge, milady,’ Augusta said, ‘the area was secure.’

Ianthe continued to watch them, narrow-eyed and gauging. Above, the cherubim circled as if they were recording every word, preserving the data for the Order’s records.

An error, never to be forgotten.

The canoness said, ‘As of Compline yesterday, we failed to receive Sister Felicity’s regular report – and all our subsequent attempts to reach her have found only static. It has been seven days since any communications have come to us from Lautis. Attempts by the Adeptus Mechanicus to reach Jencir have been likewise unsuccessful.’

Prevented by stern discipline from doing anything else, Augusta waited for the canoness to keep speaking.

‘I need,’ Ianthe said, ‘your assurance that your reconnaissance was thorough. That there was no ork, or xenos, or taint of Chaos, remaining upon Lautis when Sister Felicity was despatched to take your place.’ The lash of her anger was strong, now. ‘Because if I discover that you were in error, Sisters, I will see you both among the Repentia.’ She had stopped again, her red shoulders seeming to fill the grey space of the chancel. ‘Do I make myself clear?’

‘I gave the order, milady.’ Augusta said. Her mind recalled the cathedral ruins upon Lautis, the battle with the orks, the sweaty heat of the jungle-marsh and the poverty of the townspeople. ‘Sister Jatoya is blamele–’

‘Silence.’ The word was not loud, but it brought Augusta to an immediate halt. The canoness flexed on her toes, her armour creaking. She said, ‘I understand that you do not always insist upon your squad’s… strictest discipline, Sister Superior. Am I correct?’

‘Milady,’ Augusta said. ‘Upon the battlefield, our discipline and unity are without question. And, as it was my decision to execute the missionary Tanichus for his deception of the Adepta Sororitas, so it was my decision to declare the Lautis cathedral secure. Sister Jatoya is blameless in this.’

The canoness said nothing; she seemed to be considering. Above them, the Emperor watched, seeing all.

‘Very well,’ Ianthe said, at last. She gestured at the novitiate, who scurried for the doors. The girl’s place was taken by one of the servitors, who offered the canoness a data-slate.

‘Stand easy,’ she said, allowing both women to relax. She scrolled through the data, then said, ‘Sisters, your service records are flawless, both of you. You’ve served Throne and Emperor with courage and faith for more than thirty years between you, and I’ve seen you both grow from girlhood into warriors of whom I am extremely proud. But this…’ she brandished the slate, its surface glittering, ‘…this is Sister Felicity’s final report. She states that their base had been established, their perimeter defences set up. She states that the missionary Lyconides had made beneficial contact with the local town, and that the reconstructive assessment of the cathedral was commencing on schedule. The Adeptus Mechanicus have released information which corroborates this, and they add that the tech-priest’s servitors had commenced the initial works.’ Ianthe looked up, her expression cold. A warrior to her core, Augusta had little patience for politics, but she had learned at the schola that there was a strong and long-term bond between the followers of Saint Mina and the Adeptus Mechanicus.

‘Something has happened to them, Sister Superior,’ the canoness said. ‘Whether an electromagnetic storm has damaged the transmitters, or whether an unseen foe has arisen, we do not know.’

Jatoya said, ‘Permission to speak, milady.’

‘Granted.’

‘Is there still a ship in orbit?’

‘There is not,’ Ianthe said. ‘The Tukril, the ship of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and its escort, the Imperial warship Kyrus, have already returned to Mars, carrying requests for Jencir’s additional supplies. They’re not due back into Lautis’ orbit for another eighty-two days.’

‘And you want us to go with them.’ Augusta spoke the understanding aloud. ‘Milady.’

Ianthe smiled at her, her expression cold.

‘No, Sister Superior, I do not.’ The words were final, icy. ‘The Adeptus Mechanicus cannot risk more resources on a world so bereft of either wealth or merit – not until their security is assured.’ Her tone was razor sharp. ‘Sisters, you will secure the area. And, this time, without a mistake.’

Augusta still stared straight ahead, though she felt the Emperor’s Light above her, His gaze that saw all. The implication was clear: if something had happened to Felicity’s squad, then she, Augusta, was responsible – by accident, by omission, by inadequate information – and the standing of her entire Order had suffered because of it.

Her squad were being sent to Lautis not because of their experience or their efficiency but to rectify that error, and to cleanse the name of the Order of the Bloody Rose.

She felt Jatoya flick her a tiny, sideways glance, and realised that her second-in-command had understood the same thing.

‘Of course, milady,’ Augusta said, raising her chin. ‘This is my responsibility, and I will take it willingly upon my shoulders.’

‘I’m glad you see this my way, Sisters,’ Ianthe commented dryly. ‘Very well then. Muster your squad, Augusta. Report to the docking bay for Matins tomorrow morning.’ She held up the data-slate. ‘And may I suggest you take the intervening time to study Felicity’s report and the information offered by the Adeptus Mechanicus. Memorise the maps, Sisters. You will be needing them.’

‘Yes, milady.’ The Sisters responded together, watching the servitors with their brass trays as they whirred down towards the doorway.

‘Very well then,’ Ianthe said. ‘You are dismissed.’

Both Sisters came back to attention, stamped a smart about-turn and marched back down the aisle. Above them, the floating cherubim watched them go, their cold, augmetic gazes recording every step.

‘Lautis?’ Sister Viola’s freckled face showed pure surprise. ‘Again?’

The squad were gathered round a small table in the refectorium, a votive candle flickering at its centre to which to offer Grace. Augusta had called them for a briefing before they attended midday prayers and then went back to their respective classes.

‘Be mindful, Sister,’ Augusta told her. ‘This is not just a reconnaissance mission. The honour of our Order is in jeopardy.’

Viola grinned. ‘But – we get to kill more greenskins?’

Augusta checked a sigh. The squad’s best shot, and field-promoted to the use of its thrice-blessed heavy bolter, Viola had returned from Lautis with a foolhardy streak that verged on overconfidence. She had never questioned her orders, nor taken an uncalled-for initiative, but sometimes Augusta wondered if she had been entirely ready for the advancement.

‘Lautis is at the outermost edge of the segmentum,’ Augusta reminded her. ‘We may find bigger things than orks.’

Viola’s hand strayed to her hip, and found her empty holster. Unlike the bolters of her Sisters, her own weapon was too bulky – and too sacred – to be casually carried. She rattled her fingertips in annoyance.

Caia and Melia, one pale and with hair like bronze, the other dusky-skinned and dark-eyed, exchanged a glance. As close as blood-kin, they had come up through the schola together and had fought under Augusta’s command for almost as long as Jatoya.

‘May I say something, Sister?’ The squad’s newest member, Sister Akemi, still spoke with a slight hesitation, her novitiate habits hard to leave behind.

‘Of course.’

‘I’ve spent many years studying.’ Her eyes darted from face to face with a faint nervousness. ‘And I know that Lautis has little resource. Explorations onto its moon have found promethium deposits, but nothing worth the expense of mining. As a world, it has little or no value–’

‘It has the kynx and lho-leaf that brought the orks in the first place,’ Melia commented. Caia chuckled.

Augusta was not amused. ‘All the more reason to be wary,’ she said. ‘If something does dwell upon Lautis – and that something has faced or defeated Felicity Albani – then we will need to be on our guard.’ Her gaze travelled sternly round her squad.

‘My apologies, Sister Superior,’ Melia said. ‘I fear this rest-interval has made me cranky.’

‘That will be rectified soon enough,’ Augusta told her, with a hint of amusement. She pushed back her chair with a loud scrape and stood up. ‘Pre-dawn muster, Sisters, at Matins, at the landing pad. And in full wargear. I will speak to the quartermaster and requisition our off-world equipment.’ She glanced up at the refectory window. ‘May we walk with the Emperor and carry His light into the very darkest reaches of the galaxy.’

CHAPTER THREE

The shuttle’s cargo bay was cold.

Strapped into her seat, her back to the cold metal wall, Augusta cast an eye over their requisitioned gear – Phaeton-pattern reinforcement kits, field generators, new vox-antennae, everything they would need to secure the basecamp.

They were thirty-seven days out of Ophelia VII, and this trip down to Lautis’ surface was the very last leg of the journey.

She spoke into the internal vox. ‘Shipmaster, how long?’

The commander of the Imperial vessel Sorex, now in parked orbit about the planet, had insisted upon piloting the shuttle personally – perhaps to ensure that the Sisters were delivered safely, and that he’d discharged his responsibility without mishap.

His voice came back to them. ‘Two minutes ‘til we drop below the cloudline, Sister. Twenty-three to the landing point.’ The shuttle’s interior screen showed a continuous, passing rush of grey, soupy cloud. ‘Current data shows climate conditions at sixty-eight per cent humidity, atmospheric temperature at twenty-nine-point-five degrees. It’s a swamp down there.’

Caia muttered, ‘We know.’

‘Any communications?’ Augusta said.

‘We’re just getting static. Full surface scan commencing as soon as we hit optimum range.’

Jatoya asked, ‘Signs of hostility?’

‘Nothing that doesn’t belong,’ the shipmaster said. ‘Life signs are minimal and all fully indigenous. Just the local predators, Sisters, nothing you’re not expecting.’

The screen showed more clouds.

‘How long before we’re in visual range of the town?’ Augusta asked.

‘Fourteen minutes,’ he said. ‘Will keep you updated.’

‘Thank you.’

Viola, her heavy bolter now rested across her lap, voiced a curse. ‘I’ll be glad when we’re off this blood boat.’

‘Blood boat?’ Akemi asked her, puzzled. ‘What is a blood boat?’ The newest Sister had a little fetish that she toyed with constantly, a tiny, silver feather that she flicked endlessly between the fingers of her left hand.

‘Old Imperial slang,’ Augusta said. ‘It means a cargo ship that travels a very long way, usually to secure grox-meat or similar.’

Frowning, her small, pallid face ever-serious, Akemi nodded. Augusta could see her twisting the little feather and filing the information away, every last detail where it belonged. Akemi had a remarkable memory; she had almost taken her Oath to the Convent’s Order Dialogous, the Order of the Quill. Now, fielded for the first time as a sworn soldier and a member of the Bloody Rose, her tension was becoming apparent.

Yet Augusta had no doubts about the young woman’s readiness. The Sister Superior had spent the five weeks of their interstellar journey running her squad through endless pattern-drills and live-fire training manoeuvres. They’d jogged round the gantries, morning and night, in full wargear; they’d practised skirmish exercises until they knew and could anticipate each other’s reactions. And they’d observed their rituals of daily prayer – Matins, Lauds, Vespers, Compline – in the Sorex’s tiny chapel.

The screen showed a brief flash of Lautis’ bloated, orangish sun, and Akemi’s little fetish glinted in the light.

As if suddenly aware of her habit, she slipped it back into the cuff of her vambrace, then leaned back against the wall. Augusta could see her lips moving as she prayed.

Throughout their journey, the Navy crew had stayed well away from the Sisters – too intimidated or awed by their presence, or by the legends that accompanied them. Sometimes, greatly daring, they’d watched from the farthest walkways, and once, goaded by mocking colleagues, a young officer had called a lewd remark at Akemi’s armoured back. The shipmaster had slung the man in the brig and had reminded the crew that the Sisters were servants of the God-Emperor, and soldiers like themselves. They were not saints to be iconised – the thought was outright blasphemy – nor objects to be ogled.

Once the young man had been released, Sister Akemi had spoken to him face-to-face. Augusta didn’t know what she had said, but the man had left with his skin ashen and his knees shaking.

And so, Augusta had thought, do the legends perpetuate themselves.

But still, it had allayed any flickering doubt: Akemi had courage. The Emperor had called her to be a warrior, and a warrior she would be.

‘Reaching optimum range now, Sisters,’ said the shipmaster. ‘Scan of township commencing.’

The clouds had thinned to wisps and were parting completely as the shuttle dropped below their cover. The screen began to show a dull, greenish atmosphere, heavy with rising steam and trapped heat. Augusta studied it carefully, remembering an identical scan from their initial reconnaissance trip, now almost a Solar year before.

Her hand touched the fleur-de-lys on her breastplate.

‘Lautis.’ Caia, sat next to her, gave a faint groan. ‘Not somewhere I ever needed to see a second time.’

Melia said, ‘At least we know what to expect.’

‘Do we?’ Caia answered her. Always the sharpest of the squad, Sister Caia missed little. ‘Do we really?’

Her words were met with silence as their import sank home.

The shuttle slowed, descending further, and the passing seethe of jungle became more visible. There were the familiar festoons of creepers, and the marshy deceits of the underlying swamp. There was the dark, volcanic rock, jagged and pitted with holes. There was the rising outcry of the indigenous wildlife, the loud and colourful birds and the lurking monsters of the stagnant water.

Eyeing the waiting mire, Augusta’s belly tightened with the descent. Like Caia, she had not expected to come back here.

The area was secure, she reminded herself. We slew the warlord. We hunted down the scattered remnants of its tribe. We offered the town our protection.

She wanted to try her vox, to try to reach Felicity on the Order’s private channel, but she was still out of range. Data flickered across the bottom of the pict-screen, showing the angle of the planet’s rotation, its climate and weather systems, its twenty-two hour day. She reminded herself of the information as she studied the passing rush of the native flora, and searched for the particular pattern that marked the town itself – the habitation closest to the ruined cathedral.

‘Threat level green,’ the shipmaster said. ‘You’re in the clear. Requested landmark becoming visible in three… two… one…’ There was a faint note of relief in his voice as he said, ‘And there we are, right on schedule. Final approach now. Praise the God-Emperor, Sisters, we’re safe and sound.’

Augusta undid her straps and stood up, her back stiff. With one hand on the shuttle’s roof to steady herself, she came forwards to scrutinise the screen.

And there it was: the looming, crumbling mass of the cathedral’s ruin, and, slightly closer, the square, black shape that was the town’s ancient ziggurat, its icon, temple and government. Around it spread the familiar mosaic of dark, stone buildings and odd, right-angled roads. To one side, there was the brief, rippling flash of moving water.

Her belly lurched again as the shuttle slowed further.

That was the same town, the one they’d saved, the place for which Sister Kimura had given her life. They’d given Kimura her Last Rites in the ruined cathedral, but the townspeople had celebrated her memory and their own gratitude. They’d raised firebrands to the Emperor’s name, singing hymns of local tradition.

Carved into the stepped sides of the great ziggurat, Augusta remembered, there were armoured warriors, their features blunted, their weapons and armour stylised, but recognisable – symbols left over from the Great Crusade. Lautis was older than the Order, older than the Sisters themselves. And yet the town’s priest – she remembered the woman clearly – had understood the Sisters’ faith and their love for their Emperor. She had pointed at the ziggurat’s carvings and talked about their local legends–

‘No life signs,’ the shipmaster said.

What?

The comment stopped Augusta dead. Uncomprehending, she studied the screen. Though they were still too far away, she found herself searching for movement, for some way to deny the man’s words.

Behind her, her squad were suddenly tense. Viola’s hands tightened on the heavy bolter; Akemi’s fetish was back in her fingers, turning over and over. Surprise and concern shot from Sister to Sister along the inside of the cargo bay.

Augusta said, her tone grim, ‘Scan again.’

‘Aye.’ Side-rockets fired. The floor tilted as the vessel turned, and Augusta caught at a rivet-studded upright to keep her feet. After a moment, the shipmaster said, ‘Scan radius expanding. Two miles from grid one-niner-seven by three-forty-five.’ There was a longer pause, and he repeated, ‘No life signs, Sister. Nothing. Not even the predators.’

‘But…’ Viola sounded as shocked as Augusta felt, ‘…there’s a whole town down there.’

Felicity’s final report had said nothing about the town being threatened, nor about any incoming force or foe.

Augusta said, ‘That township’s home to over three thousand people.’

‘Sister.’ The shipmaster’s voice held respect, and complete certainty. ‘There’s no one down there.’

‘Can you get a signal?’

The others were standing up now, checking weapons and wargear. The first flickerings of combat-readiness were stealing through the inside of the shuttle.

‘No communications, Sister,’ he returned, his tone even. ‘Even this close, there’s no response from the basecamp. Will keep trying.’

‘Rotate frequencies,’ Augusta said. ‘Try every Imperial channel.’

‘Trying all Imperial and all known Mechanicus frequencies, Sister. There’s no response.’

Akemi dropped her fetish and leaned over to pick it up. In the faint, green light, her small face was etched with worry. Viola’s fingers traced the carvings and the purity seals on the Godwyn-pattern heavy bolter.

Aware of their tension, Augusta still watched the screen. The absence of the townspeople was a significant shift in their mission parameters – and removed almost all possibility that Felicity’s silence had been caused by some errant storm.

It also meant that the townspeople could offer them neither information nor supplies.

The Arvus was slowing still further now, dropping below the canopy; it smashed through the jungle, dense and green. Brackish, noxious waters reflected the vehicle’s belly-lights, and the pitted, dark stone of the town’s outer walls grew closer.

Akemi’s gaze flicked back and forth, reading the scrolling data. Melia’s hand touched her fleur-de-lys, while Caia fiddled with the sight on her bolter, clicking and unclicking it, again and again.

In the metal walls of the shuttle, the noise was oddly loud.

The shipmaster’s voice said, ‘Do you wish to return to the Sorex, Sisters?’

‘We do not,’ Augusta said. ‘Our mission is very clear. Take us to the landing point, shipmaster, and drop the hatch. Once our gear is unloaded, I want you out of here. Upon your return to the Sorex, please upload what we have found so far. We do not know what waits for us, but I wish the canoness to be aware of the situation.’

She didn’t need to add: In case we cannot make that communication ourselves.

‘Yes, Sister,’ the shipmaster said. ‘Landing point ETA, two minutes.’

The screen became murkier as the vessel passed into the treeline. The cargo bay seemed suddenly very dark.

Caia’s clicking stopped.

In the faint, greenish light, Augusta looked at her squad.

‘Very well.’ She was alert now, her mind sharp and working – they were in the field, and this was no time for doubt or hesitation. ‘Listen to me. When that hatch comes down, Viola, out and on point. Caia, Melia, you’ll take back up. Jatoya, Akemi, with me – we’ll need to unload our gear and let this shuttle get back into the air. It’s vulnerable, and I need it safely away.’

‘Yes, Sister.’

‘And once we’re down, our first priority is to secure the basecamp. Jatoya, take Viola, Caia and Melia. Do a full sweep and establish the perimeter. Akemi, with me – I’ll need you to access the camp’s records.’ She glanced at the young woman, her black hair shining. ‘You read machine dialect, yes?’

‘A little, Sister Superior,’ Akemi said. ‘My training was very basic.’

‘Good enough. See if you can get into Jencir’s records as well as Felicity’s.’ Augusta’s smile was grim, humourless. ‘You never know what you might find.’

‘Yes, Sister.’

‘I’ll take the field emitters and the gun emplacements, make sure everything is rearmed and fully operational. And once we’re secure, we’re going into that town.’ She was still watching the scan, watching the rising blur of stone that was the ziggurat, now looming close. ‘From this point, Sisters, we assume that Felicity’s squad has passed into the Emperor’s blessing, that the area is hostile, and that this is a full combat mission.’

‘Yes, Sister.’ They saluted her, fists to chestplates.

‘Helmets on,’ Augusta said. ‘And may His light be with us all.’

Akemi dropped her fetish back into her vambrace. She picked up her helm, dropped it over her head, and twisted the seal closed.

‘Approaching the landing point,’ the shipmaster said. ‘Dropping speed-flaps now. Thirty seconds.’

Augusta could feel the vessel lowering, slowing to a hover. Her ears popped, and she lifted her own helm and snapped it into place. She flicked off the safety on her bolter, checked its ammo for the fourth time, and laid her other hand on her chainsword.

From plague, deceit, temptation and war…

The alarm on the rear hatch started to blare. The lock released with an audible clunk. Hydraulics whined.

Like uncoiling ribbons, light and steam stole down into the cargo-bay.

Viola was already on her feet, heavy bolter in both hands.

To Augusta, she looked like she wanted to fight.

The Arvus hovered, jet engines thundering. The air reeked of promethium fuel and shimmered with oily heat. Bright belly lights showed the landing area – an open surface of cracked, dark stone that bordered the town on one side.

…Our Emperor, deliver us.

Under the engines’ noise, the words of the Litany of Battle flowed, steadying them. Line and verse wove from one voice to the next over the vox – where one Sister paused, another would take up the words, and the prayer rolled through and around them all, reminding them that this was His work, that they were here in His name.

Here, upon Lautis.

Again.

Perhaps, Augusta thought, they were hoping that Felicity would hear them.

The shuttle door lowered more fully, and the thick mist of the jungle flooded the back of the vehicle. Looking out at the swamp, the Sister Superior felt a pang of unease.

She came to the side of the ramp to see more clearly, and saw that the rock of the landing area was speckled with green. There was only a tiny amount, but gentle, curling fronds of jungle vegetation had crept between the slabs, up through the various cracks. Small, perhaps, but with enough time, they could shatter the rock asunder.

Obsessive to a fault, no tech-priest would permit such carelessness – no one had been out here in weeks.

The lowering hatch thunked to a stop.

Viola was already moving, boots crashing down the ramp, heavy bolter to her shoulder. She jumped from the ramp’s edge, landing in a combat kneel and moving her weapon in steady arcs. The heat of jet and jungle would confuse the preysight in her helmet, but Viola had the vehicle at her back and a clear field of fire – if anything moved, she’d see it.

Nothing moved.

Caia and Melia followed at a low run, dropping from the edge of the ramp. They crouched to offer Viola cover as she dashed forwards again.

The Sisters’ skirmish-deployment was perfect, a smoothly functioning combat-machine. Their voices came back over the vox, now together, united in a quiet, steady chant of the hymnal – not the harmonised rage of full-on warfare, but the calm, clear caution of routine scouting.

The still-firing engines drowned other noises out. The Arvus dangled in place, three inches above the stone ground, waiting.

‘Jatoya!’ Shouting to make herself heard, the Sister Superior instructed Jatoya to take the position at the ramp’s foot, flamer covering the approach. Then she gestured for Akemi to give her a hand with the gear.

One by one, the two women threw the heavy cases out of the back of the shuttle. Silently cursing the absence of loaders, Augusta kept her bolter and chainsword holstered, and gestured to the side of the landing area, where the walls of the township could be clearly seen.

‘Over there! Stack it by the watchpost!’

The cathedral, further back and on the other side of the town, had faded to a shadowy blur, drowned in the planet’s noxious mist and the colossal overgrowth of flora.

‘Viola! Advance and secure the basecamp area! Caia, Melia, with Viola. Jatoya, Akemi, with me! Let’s get out of here!’

Breathless from the heat, ducking the noise of the Arvus and its hot convection winds, the Sisters picked up their gear and ran for the camp.

Once they were clear, the shuttle lifted to the top of the canopy, its lights bright.

It hovered there a moment, almost as if it were waiting for something, then it turned, and was swallowed by the trees.

CHAPTER FOUR

Sister Akemi crouched at the corner of a dark and moss-grown wall, her heart pounding. The wall was basalt, and carved in lines and patterns that still glowed faintly, as if with a biolume all of their own.

Five paces ahead of Akemi’s position, Sister Viola crouched with the heavy bolter covering the roadway. Her armour glistened scarlet with condensing mist. Behind Viola’s shoulder, Sister Caia had her bolt pistol in one hand, and her auspex in the other.

‘The shipmaster was right,’ Caia said, over the vox. ‘There’s nothing out here.’

Akemi had read the reports, and she knew what the Sisters had been expecting. There should have been people here – hunters, foragers, crafters, builders. There should have been farmers, and the strange, pot-bellied livestock they called ‘paru’. There should have been soldiers, coming to welcome them, or to warn them away. There should have been the local priest, the leader of her people.

But there was nothing.

With its eerie, patterned gleam stretching outwards into the swamp-mist, the entire town looked empty.

From plague, deceit, temptation and war…

The words of the hymnal were warming, familiar.

…Our Emperor, deliver us.

‘Be sure.’ Augusta’s tone was calm.

‘I’m sure, Sister,’ Caia told her. ‘There’s nothing moving, not so much as a beetle.’

‘Very well,’ the Sister Superior said. ‘We remain in skirmish formation and proceed into the town. Viola, on point. Caia, on scan. Be alert, we cannot miss anything.’

‘Aye.’ Viola moved forwards five paces, then crouched, again, to cover the roadway.

Behind them, they’d found the basecamp empty. Allaying some of the squad’s initial fears, the fusion reactor and chemical batteries had been untouched; the interior lumens had shown pods and corridors in all their reinforced plasteel glory. Akemi had not known what to expect, and she’d found it oddly severe, carving its place out of the jungle with electro-fences and gun-emplacements, all still fully operational. The field emitters had even kept the flora at bay.

Jencir, Augusta had commented, had extended the original camp – enlarged the area to accommodate his servitors, and the equipment he would need.

But Jencir had gone. The servitors had gone. Felicity and their Sisters had all gone. The tiny chapel had been deserted, the pods echoing empty. The food in the storage units had been rotting in the heat, the water purifier all congealed with a thick, local moss.

Even the tech-priest’s little brass cogitator had been left all alone, standing in his workshop with its metal beginning to corrode.

While the squad had moved to secure the area, Akemi had studied the thing, trying to understand Jencir’s precisely noted analysis. But even from the tech-priest, there had been nothing – the reconnaissance of the cathedral had commenced on schedule, and the parts of his records that she could read had been chemical compositions, structural assessments, and endless, endless lists.

She had tried to read more, struggling with the mist-rotted printouts, and she’d listened to Augusta’s attempts to make contact over the vox, listened to the bristle of static that was her only answer.

The basecamp had been deserted.

And now, the town was exactly the same.

What had happened to the people?

From the scourge of the kraken…

Suddenly, the silence seemed huge, and full of waiting. Her flesh crawling, Akemi fine-tuned her preysight. She wanted to see down the misted streets; she scanned the doorways and the windows and the tops of the walls. Surely there must be people still here somewhere, out in the farmlands, or standing by the odd, obelisk-shaped fountains and collecting the water that flowed down their sides?

But even the water was stilled now, choked by the moss.

The mist seethed, mocking, and she shuddered.

…Our Emperor, deliver us.

Augusta said, ‘Keep moving.’

‘Aye.’

Following Viola and Caia, Akemi ran to the next point and crouched again.

This time, she’d ducked down beside a square, open-fronted stone building. Outside, a stylised figure, familiar armour crudely depicted, stood with its arms outstretched. Against it leaned a dozen electro-spears, their points scattered with rust, and glinting with moisture.

From behind Akemi, Melia breathed, ‘Where did those come from?’

‘Jencir, I would think – or Lyconides. A gift for the town.’ Augusta picked one up and thumbed the switch. The weapon fizzled and died. She put it back against its stone support, and said, ‘But I do not understand why the weapons are abandoned. If the people have left, then why are these still here?’

‘Cross the jungle unarmed?’ Jatoya commented, from the back of the line. ‘Unwise, even without the orks.’

‘Perhaps they’re all dead,’ Viola commented.

‘Then where are the bodies?’ Caia’s answer was bleak.

‘I dislike this.’ Even the Sister Superior sounded tense. ‘I want every building checked, every road, every corner.’ There was something in her tone that made Akemi’s fear rise again – Augusta usually seemed so indomitable. ‘Whatever’s happened here, we need to know, and we need this location secure before we move on to the cathedral. I’m not leaving our backs open.’

‘Aye.’

They moved on. The hymnal was a breath now, almost subvocal as the squad listened to the silence of the town.

From the blasphemy of the fallen…

Another zig-zag crossroads, another fountain. The ancient stone patterns gleamed in green, all blurred by the mist.

But nowhere was there movement. Not a bird cawed as it fled their advance; not a beetle scuttled as it escaped their boots. Even the surrounding jungle was utterly silent, as if the festooned loom of the trees was as bereft of life as everything else. Despite the environmental protections of her armour, Akemi was beginning to perspire. She had a sense of darkness and pressure, of rising claustrophobia; she felt like her helm had been broached, somehow, like she was inhaling the sweltering closeness of the atmosphere, the tightness of the sweat-thick air.

…Our Emperor, deliver us.

But none of the internal breach-warnings had been triggered, and sternly she told herself to breathe more deeply.

Slowly, the moss grew thicker. It clustered in the corners of the walls and blotched the roadway like an infection. Desolation stretched out around them, endless and soundless. Side-road after side-road showed nothing – only the patterned lines in the dark stone.

From the begetting of daemons…

They crept onwards, even more slowly now, watching in every direction. The hymnal faded to almost a thrum, a steady rhythm that offered strength and faith, and the town gradually opened out into a sequence of wider, more regular crossings, many of them offering odd, metallic sculptures at their centres. These were huge and angled, impossible creations that rose high above the buildings and that defied Akemi’s comprehension.

Jencir had recorded these, his drawings exquisite and exact – but she had not understood his extrapolations.

Now, the moss had covered and blurred the metal. Thick and dark and rust-red, it clung to the sculptures, and to the stone, and to the fountainsides. It choked the waterflow, and it suffocated the flowers in the untended gardens. It swelled from the windows as if the very buildings were clogging from the inside.

Surely, there had not been time for the moss to grow that thickly?

Even the air felt thick, infecting their very breathing. Akemi could almost feel it, growing in her lungs.

…Our Emperor, deliver us.

Augusta, however, showed little interest in the metalworks – she had seen them before. Instead, she gave the gesture for the squad to move on. Again and again, Akemi saw Viola kneel and watch, saw Caia pause to use the auspex, straining to find something – anything – some ghost of motion, some hint of life.

And every time, she responded in the negative, and she and Viola ran on.

‘Where are they all?’ Melia asked, her words soft with horror. ‘Where did they go?’

Like Felicity, the entire population of the town had simply…

…vanished.

Akemi shuddered, sweat still sliding over her skin. She remembered running the gantries of the Sorex, the endless, repetitive drills. They’d been training missions to make her combat-responses reflexive, she knew that – but out here, the safety of the clattering metal walkways seemed very far away.

‘I feel like something’s watching me,’ Melia went on. ‘Or like something’s growing–’

‘We walk in His light,’ Augusta said, her voice like steel. ‘With me, Sisters. From the curse of the mutant…’

‘…Our Emperor, deliver us.’

Slowly, the buildings grew taller, more decorous. As they turned, at last, into a wide and ornate plaza, Akemi paused, surprised.

More of the metal sculptures loomed here, brass and rust and steel – and these were even larger, stretching upwards into the mist. There was a circle of them, like twisted dancers, all fathomless and extreme. And they looked… wrong, somehow, their angles distorted, their struts and cogs and pipes a mystery and all covered in rot.

With an odd flicker, Akemi understood that the other sculptures, the smaller ones, had all been part of the same construction and shape. Pieces of the same thing, perhaps?

Jencir had drawn this one also, his recreation meticulous.

‘Wait. Sisters, wait!’

Augusta paused. As the Sister Superior nodded, Akemi moved to study the closest, to walk around it until she found what she was looking for…

Writing.

She blinked. Jencir had drawn this too, and the symbols were unknown to her. They seemed to writhe across the metal rather than being engraved within it.

For a moment, the fear in her throat almost threatened to choke her.

‘What does it say?’ Caia asked her, auspex still in hand. The scanner was flickering, and its green light played on the sculpture’s metal.

‘I cannot read this, Sister,’ Akemi said, apologising. ‘It is not a language I comprehend.’

‘Is this not machine dialect?’ Augusta asked, surprised. ‘We had concluded that these came from Mars, from the Ring of Iron. As the town and the ziggurat were first built by the Great Crusade, so the machines of the Mechanicus…’ Her voice faltered, and it was enough to bring Akemi out in a fresh sweat.

Seeking reassurance, she said, ‘Sister, Jencir showed much interest in these… creations. They captivated him. But if this is – was – a machine, then its spirit is long, long dead.’

A ghost seemed to pass across all of them – a shiver of something other, something beyond their experience or comprehension. Melia was nervous, restlessly checking the empty roads; Caia was studying the auspex, as if puzzled by its behaviour.

‘What did his notes say?’ Augusta asked Akemi. ‘Exactly?’

‘I’m sorry, Sister,’ Akemi said. ‘I could not read his records very well.’ She had an urge to reach for her fetish, dismissed it. ‘He speculated a twenty-nine-point-eight per cent possibility that the machinery had been for mining, a thirty-four-point-two per cent possibility that its purpose had been construction. Those percentages… are not very high.’

The notes had gone into painstaking and unreadable detail, but Akemi paused as Augusta commented, ‘Then what would be the purpose of such devices?’

‘I do not know,’ Akemi said. She offered her ignorance hesitantly, as if she expected a reprimand.

But Augusta tapped a boot, thinking. ‘Did he offer speculation? A source – or purpose?’

‘No, Sister,’ Akemi said. ‘Not that I could read.’

Restless, Viola kicked at a stone and sent it scuttling across the plaza.

‘Desist.’ Augusta snapped the order at the impatient younger Sister, and turned back to the metalwork. She considered it for a moment longer, then moved as if she’d made a decision. ‘Thank you, Sister Akemi. We will keep this information for the future. For now, we cannot make use of it. Jatoya, hold this point. Akemi, with me. There’s something else here that I need to check.’

‘Aye.’

Jatoya commanded the squad to a compass defence, watching every approach; Augusta directed Akemi to the building beside the sculpture. It was the largest one they’d seen, the patterns on its walls more elaborate than the rest, and it was almost smothered in the thick, rusty lichen, creeping from its insides like decay.

Her blood thumping, her mind still reciting the words of the litany, Akemi moved to the door.

And stopped, her heart suddenly in her mouth.

‘Throne!’

Her exclamation was involuntary, and she knew Augusta was behind her, and she knew the drills. Controlling her initial shock, she dropped to one knee, her bolter covering the mess.

Augusta swore, her words vicious enough to almost make Akemi blush.

This building had a much larger living space, a room big enough to accommodate a group – maybe a town meeting or council. Its interior walls were carved in incredible patterns, and they lit its inside to a thick, green light.

Behind her, Augusta’s voice was grim. ‘So, there was fighting here after all.’

In the living space, there were signs of a struggle. The furniture had been smashed and scattered, the rugs torn from the doorways.

Augusta’s chainsword, still silent, pointed past Akemi’s shoulder, and the younger woman looked down.

The floor-rug was shredded, as if by frantically scrabbling hands. Pieces of bright fabric were scattered across the black stone, alongside what looked like a familiar votive candle.

But they were not what Augusta had indicated.

Beside the rug’s remains, there was a long, rough smear, harder to see against the rock.

But it looked like something – or someone – had been dragged from the building. Dragged, and fighting all the way.

Following the line of the marks, Akemi found herself looking at a stain on the bottom corner of the doorway, right by her foot.

One that looked very much like fingers, grasping at a forlorn and final hope.

‘Kawa Koumu lived here.’ Augusta named the priest who had governed her people, who had fought the orks as best she could, and who had welcomed the Sisters as protectors. ‘She was a good woman, strong in her faith.’

The Sister Superior stepped past Akemi and into the room, her armoured shoulders rigid with anger, and with tight, personal control. She picked up the candle and put it in its niche on the wall.

‘Sister,’ Akemi said. ‘Whatever took her, it took her out towards the ziggurat.’ She used the muzzle of her weapon to gesture at the lines on the floor, how they curved when they passed the doorway. ‘She did not go willingly.’

‘I doubt she would have,’ Augusta said, her tone bleak.

‘But why the priest?’ Akemi asked her. ‘This is the only place we’ve seen fighting. Why would she, alone, offer resistance?’

Augusta had crouched and was inspecting the stains.

From behind them, Jatoya’s rejoinder was dark. ‘Perhaps because she was the only one that could.’

Akemi caught her breath, stopped herself from cursing.

Gesturing for Akemi to remain in the doorway, Augusta moved carefully through the debris, shifting it with the end of her chainsword.

But though they searched every corner, there was nothing else to find.

They left Kawa’s home, and turned at last into the centre of the town.

Here, close and looming, stood the ziggurat. It was huge and stern, its dark flanks stepped, its head and shoulders rising high above the levels of roofs and trees. The mist curled round its sides, making the stone gleam with moisture; carved warriors decorated its sides and two armoured figures stood like twin guards at the foot of its long flight of steps. And, at its peak, a lone figure waited, His chin lifted, His head haloed in light-rays.

Akemi paused. The others may have seen this before, but this ancient depiction of the God-Emperor was new to her, and wondrous. She touched one gauntlet to the front of her armour and bowed her head.

But the ziggurat, too, was blotched in moss.

Viola muttered, her tones vicious.

Here, the stains seemed a travesty, a confrontation – and the sight of them prickled the hairs on Akemi’s neck. And it wasn’t just at the moss, not just its blasphemous invasion of the stone; it was the creeping, suffocating anxiety that had been with them from the moment they’d left the Arvus. As Melia had said, it felt like they were being watched, like there was something lurking in one of the moss-splotched buildings, or in the surrounding streets. It was something dark, something inhuman, something hidden in the hot mist.

Something that had all of them in its sights.

But they had, at least, found the population of the town.

Under the ziggurat, there lay bodies.

At first, Akemi didn’t realise what she was seeing – the people lay in a wide half-circle, almost as if they were sky-gazing. Foolishly, she thought at first that they were unwell, and that she was seeing some sort of outdoor valetudinarium.

And then she realised that the faint blur to her vision was not the smear of heat in her preysight.

It was the flies.

‘Dominica’s eyes!’ The curse was Melia, quiet with shock.

‘Sister?’ Augusta’s bark was subdued.

Melia said, ‘They’re all dead. Have been for some time.’ She sounded shaken. ‘Whatever killed them must have laid them out like this. Done it deliberately.’

Akemi knew what would happen to a corpse, left outside and in this heat. She paused, her fear clamouring at her; she raised her eyes to the ancient God-Emperor as if asking Him for help.

‘Viola,’ Augusta said. ‘Follow the outside of the plaza until we get full visibility. If something has left this here intentionally, it could well be an ambush.’

‘Aye.’

‘Akemi!’ Augusta’s bark was sharp in her vox-bead. ‘Move!’

Akemi jumped, did as she was ordered. They moved onwards, more cautiously now, circling the bodies and the lined grey-green of the plaza itself. It seemed almost that the blood-rust moss had started from here, had flowed outwards from the ziggurat’s foot and had spread like corrosion through the deserted streets.

And then, Akemi saw something else.

Every single one of the dead townspeople had been…

‘Where are their heads?’ Viola voiced her exact thought.

Akemi faltered, stopped. The moss was in her lungs and she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t…

A morte perpetua…

‘That’s not the only problem,’ Caia said. ‘Sisters, the plinth…’

‘Hold this location.’ Augusta’s command was almost unnecessary; the Sisters had halted in a combat half-wheel, their backs to the nearest wall. They bristled bolters in every direction, waiting for that lurking foe, for that darkness that had stalked them through the town.

…Domine, libra nos.

Akemi, holding to the litany like she’d held to her little fetish, looked over at the single basalt plinth that occupied the centre of the plaza, and the foot of the ziggurat’s steps.

A single figure lay upon it. It was arched backwards, chest thrown out, as if it still struggled, but it had been dead for many days. Its flesh had bloated and blackened, and it had started to decay.

The flies hovered over it, fat and lazy.

Its head, too, was gone. Its ribcage had been cracked open and parted like doors; its internal organs were liquefying in the heat. Black stains covered its robes and had spread down the sides of the plinth – black stains that now swelled with the thick, rust-red moss.

She caught the stench and gagged.

‘Kawa,’ Augusta said, the word a breath, grieving. The Sister Superior dropped to one knee, touched one hand to the front of her armour. ‘Fighting to the last. Walk in His light, my friend.’

The Sisters repeated, ‘Walk in His light.’

Stretched out in some barbarous and heretical sacrifice, the town priest had lost her battle against whatever had dragged her from her home. Beneath the ziggurat, beneath the ancient stone gaze of the Emperor Himself, she had been executed – and in some vile act of mockery, in some rite of blood-worship that Akemi could not understand.

But she made herself look, think.

Kawa’s wrists and ankles showed no signs of restraints. It suggested that she had been rendered incapable of fighting, or that something – somethings – had been holding her down.

And around her, her people lay headless, their blood staining the stone.

Augusta said, ‘That Thou wouldst bring them only death, that Thou shouldst spare none…’

Reciting the litany, her chant grew in tension, and her voice trilled with tightly controlled fury. Akemi knew the squad’s history – the priest had been their friend and supporter, had welcomed them, as she’d welcomed Sister Felicity.

‘…That Thou shouldst pardon none, we beseech Thee, destroy them.’

The squad answered her. Viola’s voice seethed as she shaped the words. Jatoya’s deep tones were soaked in a low throb of pure wrath.

Augusta looked up at the ziggurat as though she made her promise to the Emperor Himself. ‘Whatever did this, we will find it.

‘And we will be its ending.’

CHAPTER FIVE

The Lautis cathedral was not as Augusta remembered it.

Walking down the ruined aisle, the building hollow and roofless over her head, the Sister Superior let her boots ring from the stone. Kawa’s fate and the desecration of the town had left her tight with anger, and she walked bolter in hand, the weapon issuing an outright challenge to whatever was lurking here.

With her, her squad walked in double-file.

But they could not reach the steps.

Unlike their previous visit, the nave was filled with rubble – tumbled pillars, collapsed walls, smashed pieces of fallen buttresses. Augusta knew the pattern of krak grenade debris all too well; she recognised the scars in the stonework where the ammunition of her Sisters had chewed chunks from the rock.

She halted, Caia behind her, auspex in hand.

‘Full suppression bursts,’ Caia said. ‘Bolter and heavy bolter alike.’ She paused, studying the spreads of the scars. ‘They fought a retreating action, backwards, up the aisle.’ Turning slowly, studying the instrument in her hand, she pointed. ‘There!’

From beneath the rubble she saw a single, augmetic foot, grip-talons extended as if in some final act of rage or pain.

Scatters of warm rain misted across the air.

Augusta knelt, carefully moving the rocks. ‘Common construction servitor.’ The thing was smashed to a pulp, the flesh parts of its face rotting and the cogs in its skull all starting to corrode.

‘Melia?’

‘Been dead longer than the townspeople.’ Melia dropped to one careful knee beside the Sister Superior and turned what was left of the head with a red-gauntleted hand. ‘Flesh doesn’t last in this climate – there’s nothing left but tools and circuitry.’

‘Jatoya, watch our backs.’

‘Aye.’

They moved more of the fallen stone. The heap groaned and shifted; scatters of dust and pebbles rolled down its sides. Slowly, they exposed more of the thing, its chest a disintegrating mess of cybernetic organs, its left arm ending in a heavy, stonecutter saw.

Its right arm was completely missing.

‘It was fighting something.’ Melia tapped the dried stains on the sawblade.

Augusta nodded. ‘They must have been surrounded, or overwhelmed.’

‘But what could do this?’ Melia asked her. ‘What could move with this sort of swiftness? Overwhelm a squad of our Sisters and a contingent of fully-equipped construction servitors?’

‘And was it the same thing that emptied the town?’ Augusta’s question was rhetorical; she was still moving the rubble, searching. ‘I do not yet comprehend this, Sisters, not this place and its mysteries, and not this foe. I fear that there are darker things here than orks.’

Melia said nothing. The other four had deployed to a compass defence, covering pillars and archways; Caia still moved her auspex in careful arcs. Augusta’s mention of the orks had returned the memory of their previous battle, and the squad had no intention of being caught a second time.

The Sister Superior moved more of the pile. It shuddered and shifted, exposing a second, semi-human body, this one with its face all but missing.

She looked down at it, gauging. Servitors could put up a hard and nasty fight – there were worse melee weapons than heavy construction tools. And, like Melia, she did not understand what could have overcome them so swiftly.

‘Very well,’ she said. ‘We scout by twos, roll call every ninety seconds. Melia, with me. This puzzle requires an answer.’

The squad deployed as it had done once before, spreading out to explore what was left of the transept and cloisters. Augusta kept Melia with her, needing the woman’s medical training – Melia was not a Hospitaller, but her field knowledge was excellent.

What they found were pieces.

The dismembered remains of the servitors were spread throughout the nave – almost as if some predator had gone on a hunting rampage and had scattered leftovers in its wake. Not one of the corpses remained intact: many of them were missing heads, or limbs, or tools, or tracks. Many more had been disembowelled and their internal organs spread out around them.

Yet they found no sign of Jencir himself – and nothing to show what had happened to the Sisters.

Melia picked up a servitor’s detached clamp-arm and turned it over. ‘This was bitten,’ she said. She held it out. ‘What can bite through plasteel?’

‘Very big teeth,’ Augusta commented, taking the limb to examine it.

Over the vox, Viola said, ‘There were gun-servitors in the east transept. There’s no sign of whatever took them down.’

‘Which way are they facing?’ Augusta asked.

‘They’re a mess,’ Viola commented. ‘But my instincts say the attack came from the nave.’

‘Understood,’ Augusta said. ‘Keep looking.’

‘Aye.’

Picking their way past the fallen stonework, pieces of it as large as an immolator tank, Augusta and Melia reached the bottom of the steps. Electro-candles had been left here, one on each step climbing towards the altar, but they stood rusting and lightless, now – forgotten.

But still, not a single flash of scarlet armour.

Bitten.

A suspicion was starting to grow in Augusta’s heart.

Over the vox, Jatoya’s voice said, ‘West transept clear, proceeding into the cloisters. Looks like the repairs started as scheduled, Sister, there’s a full support framework out here, platforms and scaffolding.’

‘What of the defences?’

‘Gun-servitors here, too,’ Jatoya said. ‘Weapons are still half-loaded. Whatever took them down was fast.’

Augusta’s suspicion was solidifying with every word Jatoya said. She paused before the top step. The drop to her knee was as much a part of her faith as drawing breath, but this time, she stayed standing.

And her hand tightened on her bolter as the anger surged in her soul.

On the Emperor’s high altar, there sat a skull.

Just the one.

It was – or had been – human, but its plates and eyestalks and mechadendrites identified it easily.

Jencir.

It had been flayed of all skin and placed in the altar’s centre, exactly where the Holy Aquila should have been. To one side of it lay a rosarius. To the other, a single fleur-de-lys blade.

All three items were stained with dried and flaking blood. It had been poured lavishly over them. It had streamed from Jencir’s eye sockets; it had covered the top of the altar, coated its sides and spread out across the stone like a stain.

A flicker of sweat stole across Augusta’s skin – like an echo of a dark disquiet.

I know this…

Melia had stopped at her shoulder.

Softly, the Sister Superior murmured a prayer – for the tech-priest, for the profaned altar. She spent a long moment looking, then she stepped onto the top step, the Holy of Holies. With a surge of anger and the slam of one armoured fist, she knocked the skull sideways. It clattered across the chancel and rolled to a stop.

‘Noli timere,’ she said. ‘Feruntur Lucem.’ The words were soft, aimed at the bloodstains, at the dark and eerie creeping in her skin. I do not fear you. I carry the Light.

Carefully she picked up the blade and the rosarius and tucked them into her belt. Then she turned around and drew the chainsword with a rasp that echoed down through the nave.

‘Sisters,’ she said. ‘To me. We are played.’

Melia had put her back to the altar stone, was covering the approach with her bolter. ‘What do you mean?’

Augusta’s suspicions had become a certainty, cold and hard. ‘This was a gift,’ she said. ‘A taunt.’ She stood still, framed by the desecrated altar, by the empty window where the Emperor should have been, resplendent in glassiac and glory. ‘All of you, to me.’

‘Aye.’ Jatoya’s tones were dangerous; Augusta could hear the squad moving, running for the steps.

‘I have faced this foe before,’ she told them. ‘Witnessed the depths of the horror it brings. It thirsts for blood, and for warfare. It haunts my dreams, and it wakes me in a cold sweat.’ The admission was a warning, not a weakness. ‘And it knows that other members of the Order must come, seeking their Sisters.’ She turned to look through the nave, searching. ‘It has been waiting for us.’ Then she snapped, ‘Like that!’

Unsurprised, she used the blade to point down the steps, indicating a curl of red flesh that crept around the base of a pillar. The motion was sinewy and horribly familiar. It brought a mouthful of anger and bile, echoes of images she could never forget. But her faith burned fiercely and she held herself still, her flickers of fear and fury absolutely controlled.

She said, ‘What has teeth that could bite through plasteel?’

Melia cursed. ‘What in Dominica’s name is that? It looks like it’s been…’

‘Skinned alive.’ She knew these things, these things that brought terror like a herald, like a rush of sickness to their hearts.

‘There.’ She pointed the blade again, at another one, a second slide of hot, red skin. ‘And there.’

And at another, around the pillar opposite.

At a fourth, a fifth.

Blade still in her hand, she raised her bolter, and began to recite the Litany of Mettle.

‘Et Tu quaeris tibi fortitudinem stare coram nobis…’

We stand before You and ask for Your strength…

And more and more of them crept into her line of sight.

Augusta knew exactly what the creatures were, had faced them before. On the industrial world of Hephaestus, down in the heart of the ash-choked mines, too much death had summoned them, and they had come.

Come hunting.

The things were quadrupedal and big; their spiked and sloping shoulders were the height of Augusta’s hip. They had long, yellow fangs, and eyes that burned with unholy light, bright as bloodlust and cruelty. Some had horns on their muzzles; others had back-ridges that spread like batwings. But every single one of them was as red as glistening gore, as red as a newly flayed victim, as red as the Sisters’ own armour.

As they crept forwards, they stared, unblinking, at the women.

‘Flesh hounds,’ Augusta said. ‘Denizens of Ruin.’ She held the gaze of the lead beast and stared it down, confronting the fear, the memories. Her heart pounded as the litany trilled through the vox. ‘They can tear through flesh and bone and metal. Overwhelm servo-skulls and servitors alike.’

Beside her, Melia had bolter in hand, but her aim was trembling as she watched the things slink low across the floor. They moved like blood, like the rise of night, and the fear came off them in a wave. Augusta raised her bolter, but she did not fire, not yet.

She watched.

She watched as more and more of them came into view. They skulked behind the rubble-piles; they lurked in the half-light. Their eyes glowed with hellish colours, and steam rose from their backs.

She felt like she was struggling to breathe, like there was a knot of tension in the top of her chest.

‘Single shots,’ she said. ‘Aim carefully and conserve your ammunition – there may be more. Hold steady, my Sisters. The fear is but an illusion, a trick of the dark. His Light is with us.’

‘Aye.’

Melia raised her bolter and shot a creature in the face. It shook its head and growled at her, teeth bared. Saliva sizzled as it hit the stone.

At the sound, the others started to snarl, a low, bubbling rasp. It echoed throughout the ruin, rising in volume and fury.

The air grew thicker still. Augusta’s grip tightened on blade and bolter both.

Then she heard Jatoya, ‘A morte perpetua!’, saw the fierce whoosh of fire as it leapt in an arc from one side. Two of the creatures exploded into flame; one of them staggered. It voiced a horrific, hollow howling, a sound that almost tore the litany from the air…

…and then it detonated, a nightmare banished.

The flames flickered in its wake.

The second beast, its flesh burning, turned and threw itself at the women.

Beside Jatoya, Akemi hesitated for just too long; the beast landed full on her chest, knocking her over. Eyes and skin afire, its sharp, slavering teeth went for her gorget. Frantically, she scrabbled backwards, her bolter lost, both panicked hands reaching for the thing’s bronze collar.

Jatoya leaned down and picked the hound up, one-handed, almost without effort. With pure, physical strength, she slammed it bodily against the nearest pillar.

Augusta heard it crack.

It fell to the floor, twitching, burning.

Firmly, Jatoya brought her boot down on its skull. It exploded with a force that sprayed blood across armour and stone.

The flicker of the remaining flames made the building dance with shadows.

Jatoya reached her gauntlet to pull Akemi to her feet. ‘Never freeze in battle,’ she said. Her voice was firm but carried no judgment. ‘You know this, Sister. There is no fear. The Emperor is with you.’

‘Aye.’ Akemi’s tone was full of failure.

‘Say it, Sister Akemi.’

‘The Emperor is with me.’

Nodding, Jatoya raised the Litany of Battle and Augusta saw Akemi raise her head; she felt her own blood surge in response. She saw Viola stop by a headless pillar, check her field of fire and then take down a single creature with a short, precise burst.

Caia called, ‘My auspex is broken, I think. But there are more incoming, Sisters. They’re everywhere!’

Augusta said, ‘To me, all of you. We will hold at the altar!’

They ran.

Behind them, the growl rose in volume. It sounded eager, like hunger made manifest, like the creatures of the darkest teachings brought to snarling life. But Augusta knew this, remembered it – she held to the words of the litany and took aim on a skulking hound. Beside her, Melia fired careful, single shots, her breathing tight with fear.

The creatures’ snarls grew louder; they were coiling to spring, and any minute now…

‘Viola!’

The other four sisters had raced up the steps. As she reached Augusta’s location, Viola turned, raised the heavy bolter and cursed. ‘All the rubble’s in the way…’ As Augusta had done, she took the final step, right up to the altar, and turned around.

‘Now.’ Viola grinned, the thrice-blessed heavy bolter in both hands. ‘Sentio de ira Imperatoris!’

The weapon roared into full life. With it, she thundered the words of the litany.

All through the nave, the hounds reeled under the suppression. They shuddered and twisted and crumpled under the impacts. They tried to flee but instead whimpered and detonated, vanishing back to the warp. Some staggered sideways, leaving red smears on the floor, others broke into a full lope, leaping forwards with froth on their chests and their teeth bared. Still more, further back, tried to duck behind the rubble, but Viola’s elevation meant they had nowhere to hide.

Music and gunfire boomed from the headless walls.

Stone rumbled, and the remains of a pillar cascaded down over the aisle, crushing the hounds beneath. A red mist rose in their wake.

Augusta shouted, ‘Hold!’

The bolter was silenced, and the quiet was deafening.

Dust blew through the air.

‘Caia.’

Caia said, ‘The screen keeps glitching, I can’t read it properly.’

Viola went to move, but Augusta held up a hand. ‘Stay there. Reload.’

Unmoving, almost unbreathing, the Sisters watched the nave. Augusta watched the auspex in Caia’s hand. Its light flickered and danced.

It showed nothing.

No motion.

No life.

The whole cathedral seemed to hold its breath, waiting.

And then…

One blip.

Two.

Five.

Ten.

All clustered down by the main doorway.

‘Where are they coming from?’ Akemi asked.

‘From the crypts,’ Augusta told her, watching the auspex. ‘Viola?’

‘Aye.’

‘Hold until I give the word.’

More of the red shapes were coming back into view now, creeping up the ruined aisle. Augusta said, ‘Jatoya, guard our backs. Akemi, that one, there.’ She pointed her chainsword at the nearest snarling hound. ‘Shoot it.’

‘Sister?’

‘Shoot it, Sister Akemi, and then keep shooting. Single shots, to the head if you can.’

‘Yes, Sister.’

Aware of Akemi’s tension, Augusta took up the litany once more, and felt the younger woman steady. Akemi raised her bolter in both hands, sighted on the bared teeth of the lead hound and pulled the trigger.

She hit it clean in the face. Its skull exploded with the impact; the body twisted and was gone. More gore splashed across the stone.

‘Good,’ Augusta said. ‘Like that.’ Augusta shot another, and another. She kept speaking over the barking of the weapon, over the rhythm of the litany. ‘For every stain they’ve made upon this cathedral, we’ll make one of our own. For every death brought by Chaos, we’ll bring a death for the Light of the Emperor. Keep firing, Sister Akemi, and feel His Light as you do.’

With Viola still standing above them, heavy bolter in her hands and waiting for the order to resume, the Sisters of the Order raised their voices to the broken walls and shot at the incoming hounds.

But the air was still thickening, still choking them. The beasts surged forwards, and Melia fell back.

‘Sister! I… can’t…’

‘I said keep firing!’ Augusta’s order was a sharp bark. ‘Switch to short bursts, these things cannot be permitted to reach the altar!’

Impossibly, their numbers were still swelling; a seething mass of scarlet that covered the floor of the nave and flowed higher and higher over the rubble.

Augusta could feel Viola’s tautness – feel her itching to open fire.

She shouted, ‘Now!’

Again, the heavy bolter roared and the beasts smashed backwards in the sudden blast of destruction. But there were too many of them – as the ones in the centre exploded, one after another, there came others, surging at the flanks. Caia cried out as one bounded up at her, teeth bared and hellish eyes glowing. As it opened its jaws, she fell back, tried to put the bolter muzzle in its mouth.

But it was too close, and its teeth closed on her elbow.

She cried out. Her armour splintered as the thing bit down, and her voice hit a crescendo of pain. She couldn’t use her bolter, but then Melia was beside her, shouting, clubbing the thing on the head with her own weapon, over and over and over again, finding a release for her fear in the sheer fury of the action.

Augusta barked an order. Both women fell back as the heavy bolter turned its suppression towards that side of the steps.

But the weapon clunked to a stop as the magazine emptied. Cursing, Viola reached for another.

Augusta turned and beheaded the closest hound, but they were still coming. Still snarling.

And the fear was still clamouring in her chest.

The Sister Superior knew that Sister Felicity Albani must have done this.

Exactly this.

Faced these monsters, this onslaught.

And Felicity had surely fallen.

But her squad would not. Could not. As Viola replaced her magazine and opened fire once more, as the full suppression drove the beasts back, Augusta prayed aloud.

Because she knew, as Felicity must have known, that these were only the vanguard. Somewhere, they had huntmasters, monsters that drove them on.

Like the flesh hounds themselves: daemons.

Her hand tightened on the bolter.

Daemons that had ripped their way through the mines of Hephaestus, driving the people to madness and screaming death. Daemons that had profaned this altar, this place of the Saint and of the God-Emperor.

Daemons that had slain her Sisters.

Viola gave a shout of defiance and victory – the tide was beginning to falter. Augusta gave her the command to drop back, but still the Sister Superior did not lose her focus.

She raised her own weapon to blow the last of them away.

But the fight, she knew, was only beginning.

CHAPTER SIX

The hounds had left no corpses.

Daemons of the warp, they had exploded, they had twisted and folded and faded. And like the echoes of bright lights on closed eyes, they had left red smears across Augusta’s vision.

Caia stood with her hand wrapped over her elbow, blood oozing between the fingers of her gauntlet. The wound was deep, but Melia was beside her, chirurgeon’s tools ready. ‘Witch bane and tetraporfaline,’ she said. ‘This will cleanse and heal the wound. Can you move your elbow?’

‘Not very well,’ Caia said. ‘I feel foolish, letting it get that close.’ She turned to Augusta. ‘What did you say these were?’

Neither Sister had been there upon Hephaestus; they’d never seen these beasts before, never felt their hot breath, never witnessed the destruction they could bring.

‘They’re flesh hounds,’ Augusta said. ‘Khorne’s pets.’ Her voice was tight with anger. ‘They hunt us, test our mettle, wear us down.’

‘Sister Felicity fought these things?’ Viola asked.

‘I would think so,’ Augusta said. ‘But these are not the things that slew Kawa, nor emptied the town.’ She paused, then said, ‘No, somewhere, these things have a master. Something with purpose.’ Her boot tapped, restless, on the stone. ‘And whatever that purpose may be, we must prevent it. Sisters, we have been called here for this, exactly this. We carry His blade, His bolter, and His name. The forces of darkness cannot withstand us. And we do not fear.’ Augusta placed her gauntleted hand on Akemi’s shoulder.

‘Confidunt in Eo, Akemi. Believe.’

‘I believe.’ The young woman’s response was fervent. Her bolter had taken lives now, and it had not left her hand. And she had not hesitated again. ‘He is with me.’

‘Always,’ Augusta said. She let Akemi go, then pulled the data-slate from her belt to call up the maps that Felicity had left them. A wash of pale light bathed their armour.

‘We will progress into the crypts,’ she said. ‘Here.’ She pointed, then indicated various other lines on the map. ‘They’re simple, underchapel, valetudinarium, reliquary – we observed them upon our previous reconnaissance.’

‘The shipmaster said there were no life signs,’ Viola commented.

‘The density of the stone could have defeated the scans,’ Caia told her. ‘The Sister Superior is right – these beasts must have come from below.’

Jatoya commented, ‘They always come from below.’

Jatoya had been there, upon Hephaestus. Like Augusta, she remembered the screaming.

The fire.

The hooks.

‘But…’ Viola studied the map, confused. ‘There’s not enough room. How can they?’

‘A breach in the warp, perhaps,’ Jatoya commented. ‘Though such things are relatively rare.’

Augusta said, ‘Or simply enough bloodshed, somewhere beneath this building… The false gods of Chaos can manifest wherever such deeds are performed, even if it is not in their names.’

‘I have a suggestion.’ The voice was Akemi’s, surprising Augusta slightly, but she let the young woman speak. ‘During the Great Crusade, the cathedrals of the Emperor were often built upon older, local sites. Perhaps this is true of the town?’

‘Just so.’ Augusta placed the data-slate back in the pack. ‘It may perhaps explain the town’s metalworks – dead things, left over from the Age of Strife.’ The thought made her pause as something in her mind caught on the presence of the tech-priest. Jencir had volunteered for this mission to Lautis, and now she found herself wondering why. She considered for a moment, then banished the thought in favour of more practical matters. ‘I suspect the crypts are not as we remember them.’

Viola snorted, counting her remaining ammunition. She pulled the half-empty magazine from the heavy bolter and replaced it with a full one, slamming the thing home with a noise like pure defiance. ‘Whatever’s lurking down there,’ she said, ‘we will send it straight back to the hell it came from.’

‘We will cleanse this place,’ Jatoya told her.

‘By His Light,’ Augusta said. She sheathed her sword almost regretfully. ‘Viola, on point. Jatoya take the rear. Akemi, stay by me. We fear neither rift nor daemon.’

The crypts were high and vaulted, their ceilings and pillars all swarming with dark clusters of roots. Navigating by jury-rigged strips of lumens – more evidence of Jencir’s explorations – the Sisters came to the bottom of the dipped-smooth steps.

Before them, stone sarcophagi lay in a silent circle. Some bore recumbent, robed statues upon their lids, each with his or her hands still crossed in the sign of the aquila. They had been swept clear of dust, and candles left upon them. By the dates on their sides, these were the cathedral’s builders, more recent than the Great Crusade.

But something had changed.

The air down here should have been still, thick with age. Last time, there had been a single, root-clogged exit – a gap that opened out into an old oubliette – but that had been all.

Now a hot wind blew past them like the exhalation from a planet-core forge.

‘No motion,’ Caia said. Her wound had been bound and treated, but the vambrace of her armour was in pieces, and they could not afford to go back for a replacement. Her left gauntlet was missing completely, her hand and forearm bandaged, but bare. ‘But the air’s at thirty-three degrees, and the humidity’s fallen significantly.’ They held a defensive formation while Caia continued to scan.

Then she said, ‘It’s coming from the valetudinarium.’

And there it was – the error that Augusta had made. Something so simple, and something that the tech-priest must have found so easily.

The room had changed.

Augusta remembered it as small – a hospice to serve the people of the town. Now, it stretched outwards, far beyond her memory of it and back into the dark – a huge stone chamber, crumbling with age. Augusta could see where the rubble from the previous wall was tumbled at the room’s edges; the marks of Jencir’s servitors were still visible in the stone.

Beside her, Caia watched the auspex. She shook her head as Augusta glanced around. ‘Nothing.’

‘Look,’ Akemi said, pointing. ‘What’s that?’

Amid the tumbled stone at the wallside, there were fragments that looked different – curves like carved armour.

‘I recall no statue,’ Augusta said.

‘Perhaps it was on the other side?’ Caia’s suggestion drew no answers. Akemi was already kneeling by the pile, finding more of the pieces.

‘It’s not very big,’ she said, finding another, and another, and fitting them like parts of a puzzle. ‘It must have been recessed into the wall.’

Viola stifled a grumble. ‘Do we have time for this?’

‘Wait,’ Augusta said.

Fragments laid out on the floor, the statue was coming together.

‘Sisters…!’ Akemi sat back on her heels.

Augusta stared.

The statue was familiar – a female figure with her sword held aloft. The blade itself was still missing, but the armour was just like their own…

Augusta touched a hand to her fleur-de-lys, but said nothing. She watched as Akemi picked up the final pieces: the statue’s boots and plinth.

Akemi said, ‘There’s an inscription.’ As the Sister Superior looked at her, she went on, ‘Fluxu sanguinis vitae nostrae, Et in supplementum it et liber: De quomodo eraserit magos et quod, Velint beatificare illos quasi impotens!’ She brushed at the dust. ‘It’s an older verse, and it means “our Blood and Sacrifice”, but it could… it could be translated in other ways. It could mean “bleeding for survival”, or “blood for our lives”… It must have been a part of the fallen wall.’

‘Blood for our lives,’ Augusta repeated.

The statue was the Saint herself, of course it was, but Augusta could make no sense of it. Why had she not seen it before? Why had it been on the other side of the wall? And in her head, she was remembering Hephaestus’ daemons – creatures of greed and laughter and cruelty. They’d slavered in the mines’ darkness, roared with flame and blood. Their appetites had been more than human, more than–

Blood for our lives…

She found herself shuddering, and stopped.

‘The curiosity of the Mechanicus is often their undoing,’ Jatoya commented. She indicated a fallen servo-skull, apparently crushed by the tumbling rock. ‘Whatever they loosed in here, it slew them all.’

Her words brought silence as they contemplated the darkness. Fear yammered at them, taunting at the edges of their awareness.

The screaming.

The fire.

The hooks…

‘We are missing something,’ Augusta said. ‘Some piece of the history of this place…’

‘Sister?’ Akemi stood up, curious. ‘I studied Lautis in some detail, and there is nothing–’

‘Our answers lie ahead of us,’ Augusta said. ‘We will proceed.’

‘Aye.’ Viola flicked on her suitlight.

Jatoya said, her voice soft, ‘From the begetting of daemons…’

Taking up the prayer, they stepped out of the crypt’s illumination, and into the unknown.

As they walked, the construction of the walls began to change. The stone became rougher cut, as if the work had been left somehow unfinished, and the air became steadily hotter and thicker. Augusta was not surprised to see the devices of the sanatorium: the suspended cages, the steel chairs with their swing-down bridles, the tiny cells set back against the walls.

But – and the question loomed large in her mind – to whom had they actually belonged?

Here, the symbols of the Creed had gone. They had been replaced with odd, geometric designs that looked more like the unnamed machinery in the centre of the town.

Augusta stopped, struggling with her memories, with screams that, once again, were echoing in her mind. The town’s machines had come from the Age of Strife, but her understanding of that fact had been academic. Now, she found herself trying to encompass what that really meant.

That this had been a godless world, a world of no faith.

The concept made the place seem suddenly, horrifically empty. It was a vacuum, bereft of hope or purpose or meaning.

Blood for our lives…

Blood for the Blood God.

For a moment, the horror threatened to bring her down. She longed for a warship – for the armaments to eradicate this hell-planet, once and for all…

But she did not have that power, or that choice.

She had her faith, and that was enough.

The far end of the room opened out onto a balustrade, a walkway that circled the smooth edge of a pit. In the faint illumination of the Sisters’ curious suitlights, it seemed to stretch downwards to the planet’s very heart. When Augusta picked up a stone and dropped it over the edge, there was no sound of it hitting the bottom.

About her, the squad had drawn together, tension in their voices as they recited their prayers. Akemi’s fetish was back in her fingers, and even Viola seemed subdued – her grip on the heavy bolter was vice-tight, as if the weapon was the focus of her courage.

On the far side of the room, across the yawning threat of the pit, there waited five – six – other entranceways, each a carved arch in the rock. They were crumbling, layered with moss and roots and vast age.

Too regular for mining tunnels – but it no longer mattered. The squad needed to progress, to face their fears, and to find the masters of the hounds…

‘Catacombs.’ Melia shuddered. ‘I wonder what’s down there.’

No one offered an answer.

With no choice, they ventured onwards.

But Caia’s sense of direction was as sharp as her wits. Despite the still-flickering auspex, she directed them carefully and they moved downwards, always downwards. They passed rusting doorways into more cells, many of them empty. Some showed cold firepits, or elaborate metal frameworks, each sized to hold a human body. Several bore faded red tally marks, hundreds of them, decorating every wall – and leaving them with images of prisoners, abandoned and rotting in eternity. Sometimes, the squad encountered rockfalls or dead ends, and then had to loop back on themselves to try another route. And sometimes they paused, confused, convinced that they had explored this tunnel before.

But at last, wordlessly weary, they stumbled into a second open space.

And stopped.

Here, the roots could no longer penetrate – but eight sarcophagi stood about the walls, each one bearing a grotesque face, its tear-ducts caked with fluid. At the room’s centre, there was a pool, stained to darkness with a layer of desiccating flakes.

The chamber offered two further exits, each one carved in the shape of an open mouth.

Still on point, Viola’s breathing was harsh.

‘Which way?’ she asked, paused at the entranceway, her head bowed. ‘Or are we just going to get lost again?’

‘You try navigating,’ Caia answered her, tone sharpening.

The Sisters were tired, and the fear of this place was strong – but such behaviour was not to be tolerated. ‘That’s enough.’ Augusta’s order brought silence. ‘This is frustrating, and I understand. But our faith is tested in many ways – and patience is one of them.’

The words were a warning, and the younger members of the squad fell silent.

‘Let us rest,’ Jatoya suggested. ‘And pray. Clear our minds and our hearts. We have good lines of sight and a defensible location. Fifteen-minute rotations for trail rations and water. Viola, Akemi, you first.’

‘Aye.’

While Melia took a longer look at Caia’s injury, and Jatoya prowled restlessly, flamer in hand, the two chosen Sisters sat on the raised lip of the pool and removed their helmets. Viola’s red hair and freckled skin were sticky with sweat; with a slight shock, the Sister Superior saw that the young woman was more afraid than she’d realised. Viola was hiding it well, but her reactionary bravado was the only thing that was keeping her on her feet. And it may yet get her, and the squad, into trouble. Beside her, Akemi’s pale face was drawn and worried, her shining black bob of hair a curtain as she bowed her head.

Augusta came to sit beside them. ‘Pray with me, Sisters,’ she said. ‘For courage to face the darkness. Ego veritatem tuam. Vos ipsi nos docuit non timere, quia tu omnia superare.’

I hold to Your truth. You have taught us not to fear, for You have overcome all.

Leaving Caia to study the sarcophagi, Melia broke out the flatbreads that were their ration packs – condensed, super-nutritional foodstuffs that tasted like solidified gruel. As Augusta finished speaking, she handed one to each of the younger Sisters. Viola, her helmet in her lap, pulled a face.

‘Might be easier to starve.’ Her quip sounded almost like relief.

It made Akemi laugh. The sound was so unexpected – and so utterly out of place – that Augusta turned away, hiding a smile. In the midst of all this horror, a prayer could still bring strength and joy.

‘Eat it,’ Melia said, her tones amused. ‘You cannot battle monsters on an empty belly.’

Caia had paused at one of the sarcophagi, frowning.

‘These are hollow,’ she said. She tapped the metal sculpture and then used her fleur-de-lys blade to prise the front of it open.

Akemi leapt upright, spitting her rations across the stone.

Augusta stared, her memories suddenly moving, curling like smoke…

The screaming…

The fire…

The hooks…

From inside had slumped a body, run through with two dozen metal spikes. The corpse was recent, dried out like old grox-leather, and still in the garb of the town.

‘The townsfolk came here?’ Caia said. Her voice was soaked in dismay. Wordless, Jatoya pointed her flamer-muzzle downwards, indicating the floor.

At the sarcophagus’ feet, there was a gutter in the rock, a straight line that led to the pool. It, too, was caked in the now-familiar flaking darkness.

‘More blood,’ Augusta said. She was tense, shaking; her head echoed with remembered cries of pain. ‘And more blood. The taint of Chaos is strong here, and it lured them from their homes.’

‘Perhaps it has been here from the beginning,’ Jatoya said, her tone bleak. ‘Soaked into the stone.’

Melia said, ‘Perhaps that’s why the wall in the valetudinarium was constructed. When the Great Crusade came to Lautis, the people wished to embrace the Light, to forget the bloodshed of their past–’

‘The cathedral is younger than the Crusade,’ Augusta reminded her. ‘It was built many centuries later than the town.’

‘Then perhaps it was built to convert the more reluctant,’ Caia said, ‘and then walled off when it was no longer of use. Either way–’

‘Either way.’ Augusta said, her tone like steel. ‘We will cleanse this holy place of the presence of Chaos.’

‘Maybe we should feed them some of this – it’s guaranteed to kill anything.’ Viola stashed the last of her rations, and clicked her helmet back into place. She picked up the heavy bolter, checked its ammunition.

Jatoya said, ‘We will cut the rest of the break until we have a better location. Sister Caia?’

A glimmer of green bathed Caia’s faceplate.

‘Scanning.’

Augusta’s preysight could see the faint blur of warmth that came from each entrance, the constant, exhaled sigh that was the hot breath of Chaos. But they both glowed the same, neither brighter than the other. Caia shook her head, shrugged. ‘I’m sorry, Sister, I still have no reading. We could walk down here until we perished from exhaustion. Which way do we choose?’

The squad remained silent, oddly reluctant. Augusta could feel the darkness as if it blurred the sharp edges of her mind.

She whispered, ‘Domine deduc me mi Imperatoris.’

Guide me, my Emperor.

‘Contact!’ Caia suddenly said, her voice like a pulse of alarm. ‘Left-hand tunnel.’

The prayer of thanks was a rush, a touch of His grace in the silence of this sweating hell. She said, ‘How close?’

The light from the auspex glittered green. ‘Five hundred yards,’ Caia said. ‘And closing.’

‘Defensive formation, we’ll hold back from the doorway. Jatoya, watch the other exit.’

‘Aye.’

‘What is it?’ Viola’s tone was sharp. ‘More hounds?’

Caia said, ‘Too slow for hounds. Moving wrong.’

Then Augusta saw a faint flicker of light from the far side of the chamber.

In the tunnel mouth opposite, there was a figure, a brass firebrand raised in one hand. It moved slowly, but the sight of it was completely unexpected.

She stared.

It was an ork, its bolt-on steel jaw pitted with rust-red moss.

Viola raised the heavy bolter.

‘Wait!’ Augusta said, puzzled.

Behind the ork came a second greenskin, this one smaller and slighter. Both creatures had great, carved scars in their hides, spikes of brass embedded in their skin. And then, behind them, came a woman in the garb of the township, her clothing torn and bloody, her eyes torn out. She carried an orkish axe in one thin hand.

More figures closed in behind her, their flesh ripped open, their faces scarred with staples and stitches. And all of them stared at the Sisters with teeth bared and gazes that burned like fire. Like fanaticism.

Every one of them, orks included, had the same symbol upon the flesh of their foreheads, etched there in dripping black fluid.

Khorne.

Tightly, Augusta let out her breath.

The townspeople had not been slain – they’d deserted their homes and farms and workshops, left everything behind them. Kawa, the priest, had resisted, had fought and been executed – the headless bodies in the town plaza must have been those with the strength to have followed her. But the rest had faltered from their faith, drawn by some ancient, buried bloodlust that had stirred in their darkest hearts, in their deepest ancestry.

Khorne.

It made her wonder about the town’s strange machines – had they somehow been made of the darkness here, inspired by the long presence of Chaos?

More figures were assembling now, eyes flaming with madness. Like the daemonic hounds, they had no sense; they were hungry, thirsty, greedy. Their teeth were bared in skull-grins.

For an instant, everything was still.

And then, howling, the horde came at them.

The people had no weapons, no armour, no technology. They carried the occasional axe, left over from the orks’ raids, or farm tools brought from the town itself. Some bore pieces of Jencir’s fallen scaffolding. But they had nothing to face, or to resist, the Sisters’ bolters.

‘Viola!’ Augusta ordered.

The first suppression cut them down in their scores.

But they didn’t care; they threw themselves over the dead and the dying, and they just kept coming.

Augusta knew what this was – knew what they were doing. This was just more blood, more lives, more fuel, but there was no other choice. If they did not defend themselves, these people would do their best to tear the Sisters to pieces.

And they were heretics, and deserved no mercy.

On another command, Viola fell back to reload and the other four bolters opened up.

Melia chanted the litany in the vox, her voice angry. Always the gentlest of them, this was not how she saw her faith, and Augusta knew that she did not wish to do this.

Yet still, she was a warrior to her core, and she fired without hesitation. A large, balding man pushed to the fore, a ball of flames seeming to burn in his overhanging belly. She took him down with a single shot.

Somewhere, Augusta thought she could hear laughing, deep and harsh and exultant.

‘Hold!’

Viola had slammed another magazine in the bolter. ‘Sister?’ She raised the weapon, unsure what the Sister Superior was doing.

‘Hold your fire.’

The furious barking of the bolters stopped.

The people kept coming, clawing over the top of one another. Their hands were covered in the blood of their fellows; they picked up fallen weapons and left their friends to suffer and die. They had no awareness of themselves, or of each other, or of what they had been.

Or of the occasional greenskin, no different to the rest.

‘Cover me,’ Augusta said.

Viola nodded. ‘Aye.’

The Sister Superior clipped her bolter back to her belt, drew her blade, but did not start the mechanism. She stepped in front of her squad and began to recite, her voice ringing from the stone.

‘Quod haereticum de prioribus surrexit. Videt Imperator non est Lux…’

The heretic has risen, he sees not the Emperor’s Light…

Behind her, her squad joined the words of the Litany of Banishment, the strength of their faith fighting back against the mad eyes of the incoming villagers.

But it was not enough. If Augusta had hoped to stop the people by the power of her faith alone, she was failing – the grip of the bloodlust was too old, and too strong. As they reached her, she slashed at first one and then another with the still-silent chainsword, then stepped back and gave the order for Viola to resume firing.

The heavy bolter cut the people down and covered the stone in more blood, and more blood. Slowly, the runnels and the pool filled with it.

Melia shook her head, but she raised her bolter and shot again.

And then they saw something else.

CHAPTER SEVEN

In among the people of the town, there was a face Augusta knew.

An older face, male, lined with sun and smiling – she remembered his name as Subul.

He had been one of Kawa’s followers, strong in his faith.

Now he had the symbol of Khorne carved deep into his forehead, and his own blood was caked dark around his eyes.

‘Hold!’ She commanded the squad to cease fire.

The people were stopping. They looked like the hounds, snarling and straining, but Subul seemed to be their leader and their voice, and they paused to let him come forwards.

‘I knew you would come back,’ he said to her. ‘Sister.’

His voice was deep and layered with power. He wore horror like a cloak.

He raised his chin, facing her down. Around him, the villagers stared, their eyes full of lunacy. A single ork stood with them, as daemon-crazed as the rest.

‘It was you,’ Augusta said. ‘You led them here.’

‘Of course.’ He grinned. ‘They followed me, and willingly. They dragged Kawa from her home, and offered her to the oldest god of all, the god of our past! Some offered their skulls, others… still wait for that honour.’ He spread his hands like a conjurer. ‘Witness,’ he said. ‘Innocent lives – the lives you once swore to protect and save. What will you do, Sister? Will you gun them down?’

‘They have turned from the Light,’ Augusta said. ‘Forsaken the Emperor–’

‘Emperor, Emperor, Emperor.’ Subul snorted. ‘What is your Emperor but a corpse? What is your Emperor but a rotting excuse for your barbarous acts? How many times have you witnessed his punishments, the horrors done in his name – they all lurk here, Sister, you have seen them! We are the same, you and I – soaked in the blood of innocents.’ He was staring at her, his expression livid, intense. ‘Join us, Augusta. Join us as your Sisters did.’

What?

That stung. Her hand tightened on her blade and she stood to her full height, inhaling the hot stink. ‘Felicity would not surrender her faith. She is a member of the Order, a follower–’

‘Of Saint Mina?’ His laugh was harsh, mocking, laden with implication. ‘Felicity saw the truth, Augusta. Saw the truth of your Order’s history, its thirst for blood. Saw what you red-clad women really are.’

‘You will perish by my hand,’ Augusta told him. ‘By my faith.’

‘You and your false God.’ Subul grinned, the expression savage and somehow wider than his face. His teeth were sharp and coated in gore, in shreds of flesh. ‘Do you not know where you are, Sister Superior, where you have blundered in your ignorance and your blind faith? You have your eyes so fixed on Terra, you cannot even see your boots.’

‘I do not play these word games.’ Augusta snorted. ‘You are a heretic, and I am done speaking with you.’

The people were chanting now, rhythmic and soft. It sounded almost like the Sisters’ battle litany, but the words had been warped, twisted.

That we wouldst bring them only death…

That we wouldst spare none…

The villagers began to move forwards again, their eyes afire, their hands outstretched. They passed Subul and spread outwards into the chamber.

Augusta stepped back, allowing her squad their field of fire.

‘Then gun them down,’ Subul said, as they surrounded and concealed him. ‘They are weaponless, defenceless. Gun them down and fulfil your warlike cravings!’

‘You cannot assail my faith,’ Augusta said. ‘They are heretics. I shall not suffer their lives.’

Behind her, five bolters cocked ready with a noise that rang from the rock.

The people of the town died.

Despite Subul’s taunting, Augusta had no doubts – the people had followed falsehood, and their lives were forfeit so that their souls might still be saved. They had no hope facing the Sisters’ weapons, and they fell and they bled and they died, and their lives leaked slowly into the filling pool.

As the bolters finally silenced, as Caia and Melia walked among the dead, Augusta found herself staring at the floor.

The blood was soaking into stone, spreading out through the rock by some strange osmosis, some chemical effect that she did not fully understand.

Soaked into the stone, Jatoya had said.

The truth of your Order’s history…

An odd, cold chill went down her back – something she was missing, something else that was happening here…

Not just the daemon, something more.

Akemi, her armour spattered in blood and her bolter still smoking, said, ‘He made us take the daemon’s lives for it.’ She was beside Augusta, staring at the now-full pool, and her voice contained the first hints of anger, new and jagged. ‘He made us feed it.’

‘These people, Akemi,’ Augusta told her, ‘have been saved twice. They walk in the Light.’

Akemi looked around at the destruction, the twisted spread of death that the Sisters had wrought. ‘I understand that,’ she said. ‘But I… I dislike being a game piece.’

‘Hold to your anger, Sister,’ Augusta told her. ‘It a gift from the Emperor and it brings you courage, and resolve. But…’ she paused, holding Akemi’s gaze through her visor, ‘…control it. Never let it master you.’

The vox crackled as the responding channel opened, but before Akemi could voice her answer, Augusta heard something else.

Something moving.

Something big.

The vox-channel closed again as all six women stopped to listen. The corruption was moving, out there in the tunnels. It felt like power, like cruelty, like hunger, like anger. It seemed to pulse through the very stone.

‘I cannot see Subul,’ Jatoya commented.

Augusta looked round at her second-in-command. ‘We must find him.’

‘He is not among the dead,’ Melia said. ‘He must have used the people to cover his escape. Though where he was going…’

‘Can we not follow him?’ Augusta asked. ‘I suspect he will lead us to the heart of this complex.’

The truth of your Order’s history…

Do you not know where you are?

What had he meant?

But she dismissed the thought – she had no time for speculation. Akemi was right, somewhere, the hounds’ masters were gathering power, sucking in the blood and the souls that had been shed within their auspice.

As if it had heard her, the sound came again – deep laughter, mocking and rich and hot. It came with a flare of pure greed, a craving sense of fury and appetite that made the sweat slide down Augusta’s back.

We are the same, you and I – soaked in the blood of innocents…

Viola raised the heavy bolter. She indicated the far side of the chamber, and the doorway that Caia was now scanning with the auspex.

‘We can follow him,’ Caia said. ‘If we move swiftly, and he stays within our range.’

‘Good,’ Augusta said. ‘Let us not release him from our sight.’

Viola stood up, heavy bolter reloaded and ready to take point, but Augusta held up a hand.

‘No, Sister,’ she said. ‘Walk rearguard and ensure nothing is following us. Jatoya, take point.’

‘Aye.’

The squad’s second-in-command came forward to take Viola’s place, and Viola moved as ordered – but Augusta did not miss the resentful flash in the younger woman’s bright green eyes.

They headed further into the maze.

Here, the walls of the tunnels were studded with skulls in the manner of an ossuary, bleached-white bones in elaborate patterns, streaked with blackened and ancient blood. In places, the angled and leering spirits of the Age of Strife were etched into the stone, their obsidian and mica covered with long-congealed gore.

The Sisters’ suitlights moved across the patterns of the dead. Between the bones, silent archways opened in every direction, caked with the rust-coloured moss. Behind them, endless corridors led away into the darkness.

The Sisters had no idea where they were. Augusta found herself fighting for breath, fighting the sensation that the weight of the rock above her was pressing, down, down upon her shoulders, that she would falter and fall, and the darkness would rise to swallow them as it had done upon Hephaestus.

Beside her, Melia had stopped. She was leaning against the wall, trying to reload her already loaded bolter. Augusta put a hand on her arm.

‘Stop. The weapon is ready. It holds the faith of our Order and its own strength. Remember to pray, Melia, the Litany of Truth. It will clear your mind of the darkness.’

Melia said, her voice shaking, ‘Ego veritatem tuam.’

‘We must go on. Cleanse the core of this place.’

Do you not know where you are?

A curl of fear was growing in Augusta’s heart. She knew that they should check every tunnel, that they should ensure their exit route, and not leave the possibility of enemies at their backs. But she also knew that they could not let Subul get too far ahead of them. And her instinct told her to head down, always down, that the thing they sought lurked somewhere in the catacombs’ bowels.

And that they needed to reach it before Subul assaulted them again, and its power grew.

At last they came through the final skull-framed archway and turned down a wider, stone tunnel that was precarious with its sharp descent.

Here, the moss was even thicker. It made their footing soft and slippery, and it filled the air with spores that seemed to hover like insects. It also interfered with their preysight, and further confused the auspex in Caia’s hand.

But still, they headed steadily down. Side exits became smaller and more uneven, and many led upwards, back towards the light; tiny rooms offered stone beds that indicated cells, these ones empty of devices. At some point, people had lived down here.

But those people were long gone – now, there was only the darkness. And the more they progressed, the more Augusta could feel it, that hot, close pressure that seemed to condense in her chest, making her breathing thick and heavy.

She began to recite the Litany of Mettle, feeling the others steady as she did so.

They moved on, Jatoya’s quiet strength at their head.

As they advanced, the hot wind became stronger, blowing in their faces from something ahead of them.

From the place, Augusta was sure, where the daemon would be manifest.

But when they reached the end of the tunnel, even the Sister Superior stopped to draw in a breath.

The tunnel opened out onto a walkway, a flat and narrow span of stone that crossed a chamber like some vast and bottomless pit. Jatoya had paused in the cover of the tunnel-mouth – her flamer was a shorter-range weapon and of little use unless they were attacked upon the bridge.

Augusta came forwards to look out over the drop.

Beside the bridge and stretching down into the darkness were eight titanic, carved figures, hundreds of yards tall. They bore masks with gruesome, tooth-filled grins, carried blades or great whips in iron and brass and volcanic stone. And at their feet, somewhere far below, there was the faintest glimmer of flame.

Augusta’s certainty was absolute – the Emperor had guided them. This was exactly where they were meant to be.

‘We will find a way down,’ Augusta said. ‘Caia?’

‘Subul has turned away from the main passage, and is still ahead of us.’ She indicated the last of the side-tunnels, a maw into darkness. ‘If we want to keep him in range, we’ll need to follow him, and swiftly.’

‘There is corruption below us,’ Augusta said. ‘I can hear it, feel it. We must face it.’

‘Is the bridge secure?’ Jatoya asked.

‘The density of the stone is unchanging, Sister,’ Caia said. ‘The bridge is secure.’

‘Good,’ she said. ‘Sister Superior – what is your decision? Do we pursue Subul, or do we cross?’

Augusta came to the very edge of the tunnel and looked out over the drop, her belly lurching. The floor was too far to see, but the flashes of firelight were unmistakeable.

‘We cross by twos,’ she said. ‘Jatoya, Caia, you first, and secure the far side. The rest of you, watch and give covering fire. If anything moves, shoot it.’

‘Aye,’ Jatoya said. She paused to eye the open expanse of the bridge. ‘On the double, Sister Caia. Ready?’

The two women timed themselves the count of three and then ran, tiny red figures in the expanse of the chamber, their black and white cloaks snapping behind them as they raced across. Caia slipped and Jatoya paused to steady her companion, but they reached the far side without mishap.

‘Melia, Akemi.’

Two more red figures ran.

At the rear, Augusta glanced at Viola. She had left them until the last deliberately, and now she put her hand on the younger woman’s shoulder. Over a private vox-channel, she said, ‘Steady, Viola. You are strong, and you’ve come a long way from the young woman who shot the ork warlord.’

Viola said only, ‘Aye.’ She seemed to think about it for a moment, then added, ‘I wish this were that simple.’

Augusta chuckled, the sound one of long years of battle experience. ‘One thing the God-Emperor teaches,’ she said, ‘is that no two fights, no two foes, are ever the same. Trust in His wisdom and remain strong.’

Viola nodded, looked as though she was about to say something further, but a cry across the vox made them both look up and across the chasm.

‘Sister!’ The voice was Jatoya. ‘You need to bear witness!’

Augusta gave Viola’s shoulder a brief, tight grip, then let her go.

And they ran.

Augusta was not wild about heights. She wasn’t afraid of them, exactly, but they made her queasy to the pit of her stomach – of all the tests of her faith, drop-pod missions were about her least favoured. But, as ever, she pushed the nausea aside – she could not indulge such things. As she ran, though, she was still painfully aware that they had no cover, and that if anything shot at them, there would be nothing they could do – even if a bullet did not penetrate their armour, the impact would be enough to make them fall.

Down, down into the depths…

They reached the far side safely.

As they crossed once more into the security of the surrounding stone, Caia was there to meet them, her injured arm cradled to her, her breathing harsh. ‘We found the others.’ Her voice caught. ‘But Felicity…’

The weight of the sentence was enough.

Augusta pushed past her and into the last room, the final room of the complex that was not the lurking pit below.

‘By the Light!’

Dropping to her knees, she touched the front of her armour, her heart in her mouth.

Another mockery, another taunt.

In here lay the remains of Sister Felicity’s squad – shattered armour, rotting and dismembered limbs. They had been arranged in a pattern, deliberate, some ghoulish mockery or design, and five flayed skulls sat in a pile in the centre, all of them covered in blood.

Five.

Not six.

Felicity herself was still missing.

Viola had stayed by the exit and was still watching the bridge. The rest of the squad joined the Sister Superior, kneeling to the members of their Order, now lost to the darkness.

‘Blessed be their memories.’

They stayed like that for a long moment, repeating the prayer. Then Melia pulled a small candle from her kit and placed it upon the floor, lighting it with a prayer of her own.

‘We will not let this pass,’ Melia said. She, too, was beginning to sound angry. ‘We will finish this.’

‘Aye,’ Augusta told her. ‘We will. And then we will place the monster’s head upon the altar of the cathedral itself.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

Akemi knew it was there – she could feel it.

Like the choking density of the town’s air, she could feel the presence of Chaos, feel it whispering in the back of her mind. It knew they were coming; it wanted them. It hungered for their company and for the blood-games that would follow. And they would scream before it was over.

The thought of it pulled her breath from her lungs.

Sister Akemi had never doubted the change in her calling, the shift from her novitiate classes in scriptology and linguistics to the lessons of bolter and blade. It had been a matter of faith, and unquestioned.

But this was her first real mission, the first time she had ever left the quiet security of the Convent Sanctorum for longer than her Trials of Ordination. And here she was, descending the last of the circling stone steps to the very bottom of the pit – the dark hole in Lautis’ heart.

She was a warrior of the Order, and she knew she should not be afraid.

But she could not help it.

‘Tenebris,’ Augusta said softly.

The Sisters’ suitlights went out.

In the sudden plunge of darkness, the walls offered a familiar glow. The same eerie green gleam that had lined the town lurked also down here, jagged patterns that glittered like veins, calling them onwards.

Akemi felt the shift in angle that was the bottom of the steps.

And a voice in the blackness spoke to them.

‘Ah, my Sisters. So at last you have come.’ With a boom like the command of a general, it said, ‘Let there be light.’

A rush of flame flared round the walls.

The protections in her visor prevented her from blinking, but Akemi took a step back, almost unable to stop herself from crying out.

Now, conjured to hot and flickering life, a huge firepit occupied the centre of the floor. It was piled high with skulls, the ones at the top recent, the last of their flesh now burning, the ones at the bottom so old that they were all but dust. Brass spikes ran around its outside, all pointing inwards and downwards – anything that was cast into that hole would have no way to escape.

The thought of it made her shudder.

But that was only the beginning.

Around it, the bases of the eight stone statues stood like monstrous pillars, their dancing shadows cast upon the walls behind. Before them, sconces stood in the stone, all of them bright with a rich, blood-red fire. And everywhere, the carvings ran with the blood from the pool above, the red seeping into the green. The ancient figures seemed to glint with hunger and glee.

But even that was not what made Akemi stop.

Before the pit itself stood three creatures, each one horned and scarlet-skinned. Their legs were back-bent, their arms heavily muscled, ending in outstretched hands and the talons of a predator. They made her heart shake in her chest – the fire and blood-walls limned them in power, in a slavering rage of cruelty.

They reminded her strangely of the hounds, and she did not need Augusta to tell her that these were their masters, the leaders of their hunt.

Each one carried a blade that shone with the same, unholy glare. Like a splinter of Chaos itself.

The voice said, ‘Welcome, Augusta. Your martial reputation precedes you – you are a true warrior of your Order.’ Its laugh rolled from the walls. ‘Now,’ it said. ‘Show me.’

Long tongues extending, the things licked their teeth.

‘Move!’ Augusta barked the order. ‘On the double. Let’s give ourselves some range, an open field of fire. We don’t want these things close!’

Skidding, her hand gripping her bolter and her boots going from under her, Akemi ran. Somewhere, something in her heart wanted to just keep running – to flee this place, flee this horror. Flee the writhing, shimmering colours of these creatures’ eyes and swords…

Confidunt in Eo, Akemi.

She believed.

Augusta was still shouting. ‘That statue – that one – put it at our backs!’

But behind them, the creatures, too, had broken into a run.

They were faster than Akemi had expected; they covered the ground so quickly that she barely had time to reach the statue, then turn to raise both bolter and litany like the twin flags of her faith.

But the incoming creatures didn’t care – they slowed down and bared their teeth at the Sisters, as if sneering. The squad fired and wounds appeared in the beasts’ chests and shoulders, mists of blood and steam pouring from their skin.

They did not stop. They came on like a promise – like they would tear the Sisters’ hearts out and cast their skulls into the pit.

In response, Augusta’s shout came over the vox. ‘Viola! Fire!’

‘From the begetting of daemons!’ With a shout of defiance, Viola loosed the full power of the thrice-blessed heavy bolter.

The creatures juddered under the full suppression; they shook and they staggered, but that was all. Furious, Viola kept firing, kept singing the litany so the words, too, would drive the creatures back.

One took a round in the leg, blowing it apart. It faltered and fell, hissing at them, daring them to go closer.

‘Leave it,’ Augusta barked. ‘Viola, concentrate your fire, one target at a time. The one on the left!’

‘But, Sister! I can kill–!’

‘Follow the order!’

Flinching at Augusta’s tone, Viola switched targets, letting the left-hand creature take the full force of the weapon. The things were getting close now, and Akemi wanted desperately to quail away from them. She could feel the tension in her throat rising – she wanted to scream to release the pressure.

She kept singing.

Augusta shouted, ‘The rest of you, take out the injured one!’

Gunfire and harmonies rang from the rock. Akemi resumed shooting, trying to hit the injured creature’s weak points – its joints, its eyes. Beside her, Caia shot with her uninjured hand, holding her auspex in the other. The wound in her elbow was swollen, and the auspex flickered and flared.

She cursed the thing, slung it back on her belt, and concentrated fully on the bolter.

But the closest creature was almost on them now. Eyes burning brighter than the fire, it raised the blade as if to cut them down. Panicked, Akemi felt a powerful urge to switch targets, to shoot it before it could reach them, but she knew she had to follow her orders, focus…

With a rasp, Augusta started her chainsword and stepped out to meet it.

Over the vox, the litany came from her in a low, angry rumble – like a threat of incoming thunder. Akemi had admired Augusta’s steel resolve, her unwavering faith, her utter fearlessness – but this… to stand blade to blade against this creature of Ruin, against such ferocity and rage…

The creature paused. It splayed its talons and bared its teeth; its tongue curled and rolled. The sword in its hand glowed like red hell; as Augusta brought her own blade up to cut the thing open from hip to shoulder, it parried, and hard. Sparks sizzled on the stone.

‘Akemi!’ The command was Jatoya, and it made Akemi jump. She raised her pistol once more.

Beside her, Viola had the heavy bolter braced against her shoulder. Her target creature was moving through a mist of its own blood, still taking round after round – it had slowed under the onslaught, but that was all. And Viola’s anger was as high as Augusta’s, raging completely and without limit. The litany roared from her, and Akemi could feel it – the surge of it in her heart and her soul, the pure zeal of the Sisters’ rage.

She found herself joining the shout, both furious and praising, as if daring the fear to come back. She shot, and shot again.

The injured creature snarled at her. Struggling to stand, it looked up and met her eyes. And then, suddenly, she couldn’t see – only the darkness, only the brass hooks, embedded in her skin, only the seething writhe of Chaos. She cried out, unable to help it – her shouts torn down like a dropped banner. The flash was too strong, overwhelming–

Jatoya’s gauntlet struck the side of her face – not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to make her jump. ‘Your orders were to keep firing!’

‘Aye!’ She aimed her bolter at the thing’s other knee and pulled the trigger. She saw the round strike its flesh – blow the back of the joint clean out of its leg.

It stumbled further and spat in pain; a drool of saliva ran from its teeth.

‘Domine, libra nos!’

Akemi found the litany coming from her mouth in celebration, now, in harmony to the thundering rage of her Sisters. Facing the daemon, her courage and anger were annealing, fusing suddenly into something new and bright. It felt like a forging of her faith into a new weapon, a new light. She was a Sister of the Bloody Rose, a follower of Saint Mina, a Daughter of the Emperor, and this was why she’d been called.

Beside her, Viola was still shouting, still shooting; smoke was starting to come from the heavy bolter. But Viola’s aim was good; she dropped into a kneel, leaned back, braced the weapon against her shoulder…

Akemi saw the weapon start to overheat, saw the rounds hit the thing clean in the face. And she saw the daemon finally waver – too much damage, too many wounds. It staggered to its knees, then toppled, twisting in the air in the same way that the hounds had done, becoming a spiral of detonating blackness.

And then it was gone, and the red mist was all that was left.

Smooth and swift, Viola turned the smoking bolter on Akemi’s injured creature and blew its head clean from its shoulders.

Another detonation, and it, too, was gone.

Akemi wanted to raise a prayer of thanks, or relief – but the fight was not over. There were still two struggling figures, silhouettes against the firepit.

To one side of them, the last of the creatures was circling the Sister Superior, swift and light on its feet, and grinning through razor-sharp teeth. As Akemi watched, Augusta spun her blade one-handed and struck at it, once, twice. And each time, the creature’s blood-shining sword parried the blow with a harsh, metallic crash.

The chainsword scraped and grated. Sparks flew.

Over the vox, Jatoya said, ‘Remember Hephaestus?’

Puzzled, Akemi glanced at the others.

No one moved.

Only Jatoya.

As Augusta shifted, forcing the daemon to turn to face her and expose its back to the Sisters, the second-in-command dropped one shoulder and broke into a run.

She hit the creature full-on.

It tried to keep its feet, failed. And as it hit the floor, Augusta stepped forwards and took its head straight off its shoulders. The resulting detonation covered both women in gore – but it, too, had gone.

The chamber was silent.

Nothing moved.

Only the running teeth of the chainsword.

Only the dancing crackle of the flames.

And then, the voice began to laugh.

Rich and deep and dark, the laughter came from all around them. Akemi could not see the owner of the sound, but she realised that the creatures they’d faced were just more minions.

There was something else down here.

Something bigger.

‘Impressive,’ said a voice. ‘A display like that is almost worthy of a Champion of Khorne.’

‘Coward!’ Augusta shouted the word to the stone. ‘Come out and face me yourself!’

The laughter twisted, the sound harsh and unpleasant – whatever it was, she’d made it angry. It snarled, its voice now layered with many tones. ‘Stay your tongue, wench. I’ll deal with you soon enough.’

Muttering over the vox, Jatoya commented bleakly, ‘Wench, is it? I’ll pull out its lungs and make it eat them.’

Augusta made no comment. Instead, she shouted, ‘I’ve cut down your hounds, creature, your bloodletters, your cultists. What else can you bring me?’

‘Very well.’ It sounded amused. ‘I think you’ve earned your boon.’

With a rumble, the wall before them came down.

Akemi was on the floor, scrabbling frantically away, her mind shrieking something that might have been a prayer.

The thing filled her vision, her head, her thoughts. It choked her with the reek of blood and death; it kicked its way through the rubble as if the rock were nothing but sand, and it paused on the far side of the fire. She had understood that these beasts existed, but had never believed, never even begun to imagine, what that could actually mean.

The thing was almost as tall as the chamber, its matted and filthy fur clad in brass that flashed in the firelight. Great wings framed it in darkness and power. In one hand, it bore an axe, the notched blade longer than Akemi was tall. In the other, it bore a huge, brass-spiked whip. It lashed the thongs around its head, the harsh noise snapping from the walls.

Akemi was dimly aware that the rest of the squad had fallen back, that the hymnal had faded from the air. Her mind screamed only terror and absolute, utter incomprehension.

And then she heard a voice.

Augusta’s voice.

‘Et Imperatoris nomen, non vereor vobis.’

In the Emperor’s name, I do not fear you.

Her tiny, armoured figure silhouetted by the monster, the Sister Superior had stood her ground. Unflinching, she took up the hymnal once more, her words cold and strong.

They came over the vox like a blessing, and Akemi realised that she’d fallen. Ashamed of herself, she scrabbled upright, her bolter still in her hand. Other voices were joining the recitation, now; she raised her own, striving to remember her electric rush of faith from before.

But the monster only laughed at them. The noise seemed to come from all around it, from out of the very rock. ‘Are you Mina, little girl? I think not. Greater warriors than you have faced this death, Augusta,’ the voice said. ‘Greater swordswomen than you have failed. They faltered, and they fell, and they begged for their lives.’ It hissed at her, mocking. ‘And they were drained, blood and soul, and their skulls cast upon the flames. And now, Augusta Santorus, you think yourself the equal of your betters? You will die screaming.’

Beside Akemi, Viola was still on her knees. She was reciting the hymnal like a woman demented, the same words, over and over and over. She seemed to be fiddling with something held across her lap. As Akemi leaned to see, she saw that she was reloading the heavy bolter with shaking gauntlets.

Jatoya had moved to stand at Augusta’s shoulder, another silhouette against the enormity and the flame. Caia and Melia were further away, but back on their feet. They faced the thing together, weapons in hands.

The daemon took a step forwards, and the whole chamber shook. It leaned down, teeth bared, its spread horns almost as wide as the firepit, and said, ‘Look at you, Augusta. At your bloodlust, at your fury, at your red armour all soaked in gore. Are you not just like us, Sister Superior? Are you, too, not a creature of warfare and death?’

She said, her voice flat, ‘I fight by the Will of the Emperor, and by His command–’

It laughed again, blasphemous and scornful. ‘I can feel it in you, Sister! I can feel your anger. Let it go. Revel in it! Like your saint before you, like your whole blood-armoured Order, you revel in rage, in the pure fury of the battlefield. You belong here! Lose your foolish faith, and join the darkness!’

Still reciting the hymnal, Augusta didn’t move. ‘That Thou wouldst bring them only death…’

The creature exhaled, a hiss of spittle and flame. ‘You still do not understand, little one. Did you not come here seeking truth? Seeking artefacts and icons? The building above us, that you so revere, was indeed raised in the name of your Saint. It is her statues that you have seen. It has shed blood in her name. Blood, to punish the heretic, blood to convert the unbeliever, blood for those who failed your Emperor, blood for those who did not bend their knee quite fast enough…’

‘That Thou shouldst spare none…’

‘But she did not build it, Augusta, nor did her followers.’ It paused, almost grinning. ‘We did. We have used her name to further the ancient powers of this place – we have made sure that every sacrifice made in the Emperor’s name fed us, kept us, strengthened us. That every act made in the name of your Saint has been what you would term a “blasphemy”. And for thousands of years.’ It was celebrating now, exultant in rage and power. ‘We hold a vial of Mina’s own blood here, taken from her last stand upon Hydraphur. That is the artefact that you first came here seeking. Do you want it?’

‘That Thou shouldst pardon none…’

‘We are the same, you and I. Linked by blood. Celebrate your skills, Augusta. Rejoice in them! Set yourself free from the bondage of your foolish faith!’

‘We beseech Thee…’

‘Stubborn as ever.’ The daemon sneered, scornful and angry.

‘…Destroy them.’

‘So be it,’ the creature said.

It raised the whip.

Listening to the daemon, Akemi had realised something else.

It had taken her a moment – in the first shock of terror, she had not known what was happening, but now her mind was back at the schola. She could see her old tutor, the text on the data-slate; she was scrambling after old information, after a half-forgotten novitiate class, so many years before. She faced the daemon, trying not to blink, watching its mouth as it spoke…

Or didn’t.

Its teeth were as long as chainswords, but that was not what she was looking for.

She was having the oddest sensation that the daemon itself was not speaking.

That its voice was coming from somewhere else.

She found herself scrabbling to remember – something. There was a piece of information that she needed, that she knew she had…

…but the daemon was filling her head.

Akemi clung to the words of the hymnal, and tried to clear her thoughts.

The whip coiled and snapped again, the sound sharp and harsh.

Remember, I must remember… Emperor, help me, help me clear my mind…

She was staring at the symbol on the beast’s armour, the symbol of the Blood God, the same one that had been engraved in the skin of Subul’s forehead…

Augusta said, quite clearly, ‘…destroy them.’

‘So be it.’ The beast stood upright, its bass laughter thundering like a rockfall.

But yes, Akemi realised, she had been right – it was not the beast that was laughing. Its huge fangs were bared, but the laughter was not coming out of its mouth–

And then, the memory hit her like the long ruler of her one-time novitiate tutor…

‘Sister!’ She shouted out loud and over the vox, desperate to make Augusta hear her. ‘Sister! I think… I think we may have a chance!’

CHAPTER NINE

Watching the monster, Augusta listened to Akemi’s frantic outline, her memory of her lesson from the schola.

The Sister Superior had faced daemons before, and she knew the truth of what Akemi was saying.

‘Sister Akemi, you are truly blessed with wisdom.’ Augusta inhaled, made her decision, gave her orders, soft and urgent. ‘Go. Take the others with you. Find him. Jatoya, stay with me.’

‘I would not be anywhere else,’ Jatoya said.

The touch of her second’s strength and friendship was powerful, a touch of faith in the clamouring dark.

She heard the others scrabble as they crossed the cavern floor. The colossal might of the daemon laughed ever harder. ‘So you flee, little Sisters? So much for your devotion.’

‘We have devotion, daemon!’ The voice was Viola’s.

A flash of pure adrenaline shot through Augusta’s nerves.

‘Viola.’ Her words over the vox were swift and quiet. ‘Follow your orders.’

She didn’t turn, couldn’t take her attention from the titanic, looming height of the monster, but she could still hear the bootsteps as the younger Sister walked across the floor of the cavern.

‘I am a Daughter of the Emperor,’ Viola called. ‘A Sister of the Bloody Rose. A follower of Saint Mina. And I do not fear you, daemon, any more than I fear orks, or any other denizen of the darkness! I defy you!’ Her voice was shaking with outrage – but Augusta could hear the truth of it. Viola’s boldness was pure swagger; under the pressure of the daemon’s presence, she had a need to prove herself worthy, to live up to the thrice-blessed weapon that she bore. ‘And I will send you back!’

‘Viola!’ The Sister Superior’s bark was stronger, this time. ‘Follow your orders!’

But Viola did not reply – she may even have turned off her vox. She came forwards into Augusta’s peripheral vision, an upright figure in blood-soaked scarlet, her cloak blackened by flames, her single merit-bead flickering in the firelight.

The heavy bolter was raised, nestled against her shoulder.

‘Child,’ the daemon said. Its voice was soaked in scorn. ‘I will peel every inch of skin from your body.’

‘Try it,’ Jatoya muttered.

Whether it heard her or not, it raised the whip, curling its thongs upwards and over its head. Augusta knew that one lash from that weapon would break Viola in half, armour and all.

But as it came down, Jatoya was already moving.

Akemi scrambled across the floor of the cavern, away from the monster and the firelight and towards the bottom of the staircase. Words tumbled from her as she ran.

‘Subul,’ she said. ‘We need to find him. And fast.’

The others followed her as ordered, their confusion not voiced aloud. She replied to it anyway. ‘Think about it,’ she said. ‘There has been so much bloodshed here, and for thousands of years – from the Age of Strife, and in the cathedral’s valetudinarium… Sister Jatoya was right – the blood-worship is soaked into the very stone here.’

‘What about the town?’ Caia asked. ‘They embraced the Emperor, welcomed the return to their faith of the Great Crusade…’

‘Many embraced the Emperor, certainly,’ Melia said. ‘But the darkness has always been here, twisting and lying and deceiving. This whole world is a battleground.’

‘Then we will win that battle,’ Caia said, simply. ‘Once and for all.’

‘Aye.’

‘Kawa tried to fight,’ Akemi said, still thinking aloud. ‘Maybe Subul used her death as a summoning ritual, maybe the summoning itself was accidental – just too much bloodshed – I don’t know. But…’ she paused, turned round, ‘Subul bears the mark of Khorne, and if we can find him…’

‘We will banish the daemon?’

‘We will banish the daemon.’

Caia had her flickering auspex in her hand and was trying to understand the endless tangles of tunnels, the erratic distant blips of motion. They raced back up the long curve of the steps to the last side passage, and the direction that Subul had taken.

But Caia shook her head. ‘The signal’s gone. This place is like a nightmare. How do we find him in all this?’

Akemi controlled her rising impatience, resisted the urge to grab the auspex and look for herself.

Then Melia pointed, ‘There.’

On the stone ahead of them: a tiny smear of red.

‘Quietly, Sisters,’ she said. ‘Let us take this carefully and not let him know we’re coming.’

Akemi wanted to point out that they didn’t have time to spare – but she also didn’t want to doubt the strength and faith of the Sisters now below them.

Then Caia suddenly said, ‘Where’s Viola?’

The crack of the whip sent a sharp detonation through the air.

The stone shook.

Augusta did not move. She saw Jatoya slam Viola clean in the belly, taking the younger Sister off her feet. The whip curled over Viola’s head just as the pair of them hit the ground.

They rolled back upright in seconds. In defiance of her orders, Viola was again raising the bolter.

Augusta would discipline her squad member later.

Now, she bellowed, ‘To me, both of you!’

Both Sisters started to move, but the descending clang of the axeblade was too close, and it sent them sprawling. Snarling, the daemon raised the weapon just enough to crush both of them where they lay–

‘Wait!’ Augusta stepped forwards, bellowing up at the thing. ‘You’ll face me, daemon, not them.’

‘What are you doing?’ Jatoya asked. The squad’s second was pulling Viola to her feet, but the younger Sister was struggling to rise. She was chanting the same line of the litany, over and over again.

From the begetting of daemons… the begetting of daemons…

Augusta said, ‘Giving Akemi time.’

The daemon hissed through long, stained teeth.

‘Why? I could kill all of you with a flick, with a finger. I could hold you over the fire and flay you while you still lived.’

Because the error of this place was mine, and they should not pay for it…

‘You don’t fear me, do you?’ Her shout rang from the stone, mocking. ‘Do you fear to lose?’

Caught, the thing mantled its wings and hissed, stooping forwards to study her. Its head was bigger than she was, its eyes like pits of fire and death. As it came close, Augusta felt her throat close, her blood turn utterly cold.

The screaming…

The blood…

The hooks…

But she could also see a red Sabbat-pattern helmet, bloodied skull still within, that was hung about its neck like a trophy. It was the one that had been missing from the previous chamber.

Felicity.

And her anger came flooding back to her, her faith and her strength. ‘A morte perpetua. Domine, libra nos.’

The monster snarled. ‘You foolish women are all the same.’ Its breath was caustic, polluted. ‘So proud, so eager to die.’

‘I will take you with me.’

That made it laugh again, a deep rumble like falling stone. It stood back upright and threw back its head…

…but now, Augusta could see that Akemi had been right – the voice did not belong to the creature.

‘Your Sister said exactly the same thing,’ it said, but the words were posturing, empty.

And hope unfurled like a flag in her chest.

Three scarlet figures slunk along the edge of the wall.

They had no need for the auspex; they could hear the movement, now, hear the voices from ahead of them.

Hear the many-layered bass boom that was Subul, the summoner.

Akemi was beginning to understand that the daemon had always been here, that the blood shed down through the generations had called it back to the stone, again and again. And she could remember the stylised illustration in the schola’s manuscript – the cult leader with his symbol, his arms raised. They needed to find and slay him, and end this ordeal.

Then they could return to the cathedral, and to the town, and they could begin their work anew.

Or raze the building completely.

The three Sisters turned the last corner of the tunnel.

Ahead of them, there was light. It was the same rich, red light that came from the fire below – as if the flames themselves were somehow thick with blood.

It had all come from here.

The chamber was bright with flame – it had an open viewing port that allowed its occupants to see down into the pit. Down there, Augusta would face the daemon and she would try to give Akemi enough time…

But Subul was not alone.

One of the smaller creatures stood with him, flanking him like a guard, its hooves tamping restlessly on the rough stone floor. About its ankles curled another three of the red-skinned hounds.

And Subul himself.

He stood before an angled metal machine – a smaller thing, but a thing that looked exactly like the dead sculptures of the town. This one, however, was very much alive – and it defied her vision, its corners impossible, its edges bright with a hot, brass gleam. Writing writhed about it, seething in the air, and it contained an outline like some ancient mirror, a thing that roiled with mists of scarlet.

It did not reflect the room, nor the figures within.

Not a construction device, as Jencir had first guessed, but a portal.

In its presence, Caia’s auspex flickered, guttered and burst into flame.

With a startled curse, she dropped it.

At the sound, the summoner turned around, the vortex in the mirror haloing him in pure, Chaotic power. Subul’s grin was unchanged, and the symbol on his head still ran scarlet with his own blood.

The flow had blinded him completely, but his sightlessness was not a hindrance and he laughed the bass laugh of the daemon.

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘You are wise indeed, little Sisters.’ The hounds curled at his feet, bristling and snarling. ‘But you are not nearly strong enough. I can call forth endless foes, an army to walk over your corpses and to own this planet entire. And when your canoness comes – which she will – I can take her shuttles, and her ships. I can access the moon, and the fuel that it bears. And then, I can be freed from this rock.’

‘So that’s it,’ Melia said. ‘You want the warships.’

‘Your Mechanicus are easy bait, and your Order both warlike and prideful. You are simple to lead, and simple to slay. And this will be your ending, once and for all.’ His grin broadened, wider than his face. ‘Fitting, that Mina’s Order should make its last stand here, facing its oldest foes. And I… I will be free to leave. To carry the power of the Blood God across the galaxy!’

Melia made no response. She raised her bolter and pulled the trigger.

But Subul was no longer there. Somehow, he’d slipped sideways and the round hit the flaming, churning, seething mass that was the centre of the mirror.

The daemon hissed as if it were laughing.

And the hounds leapt forwards.

Down her long years of combat, there were many times that Augusta had been thankful for the care and attention she gave her armour, for the faith and training and discipline that kept her wargear immaculate.

As the impossibly huge axeblade crashed to the floor just beside where she’d been standing, this was one of those times. The armour would not have stopped the blow, but it moved fluidly despite its weight, and it allowed her to dodge and roll.

She came to her feet, blade still in hand, the Litany of Battle rumbling in her throat like a growl.

But, defiance aside, she also had a solidly practical understanding of the might of the daemon – if that axe hit her, she would not get up again.

And she had to give Akemi time.

Facing the thing, she fought to banish its darkness from her mind, seeking a weak point, an advantage. She had better reactions, more manoeuvrability – yet its words had caught her, like a hook in her skin.

Like your whole blood-armoured Order…

This beast had slain Felicity. Dismembered her squad. Peeled the skin from Jencir’s skull and soaked the high altar in his life. In her head, she could hear the tech-priest, screaming like the Hephaestian miners…

Snarling denial, she roared, ‘Mori blasphemous fui!’

The whip-thongs circled and snapped over its head, the noise of them deafening. Brass spikes sparked with flame.

But as the baffles in her vox-bead kicked in, she became aware of Jatoya’s deep voice, urgent words in her ear.

She softened the litany to a whisper, fierce and quiet.

‘His hand has guided us, Sister. He has shown us the way.’

‘What do you intend?’ Augusta said. ‘Quickly!’

She threw herself backwards as the whip snapped at her again, an inch from her gorget. The detonation of it almost made her stumble.

‘Viola!’ Jatoya barked the order.

The roaring bark of the heavy bolter was familiar, a relief. Viola couldn’t take the monster down, but she could slow it, keep it back.

The daemon juddered under the impacts. It paused, mouth open, hissing in frustration. ‘Are you such a weakling, Sister? Tumbling and fleeing?’

Augusta ignored the goad, kept moving.

‘The statue!’ Jatoya said. ‘You must observe this for yourself!’

The bolter hammered, flashes of rounds impacting from the daemon and from the surrounding stone. The creature was closer now. It raised a foot, stamping at the Sisters as Augusta had once stamped at the gretchin in the cathedral above, then slashed the axe at them, snarling.

Fire flashed from the blade. Seeing it coming, Jatoya moved, but she was not fast enough; the edge of it caught her full in the chest, lifted her from the floor and slammed her back into the wall.

The crunch of ceramite was unmistakeable, like the cry in the vox that was suddenly cut short.

She slid to the floor, broken.

‘Jatoya!’

Viola was shouting, raw and wild.

But the crumple of armour lay still.

Wrath rose in Augusta’s heart – the sort of anger that burned from her skin, her weapons, her voice. She drew the chainsword, started the mechanism. She may not be able to kill this thing, but she was a Sister of Battle, a Daughter of the Emperor, and Jatoya was her second and her friend.

The creature peered downwards. ‘You foolish little woman.’ The words were an accusation, a goad. ‘You think you can fight me?’

Augusta tightened her grip on the chainsword and the litany rose in her heart like the bells of the convent itself.

But revenge was personal, prideful, and a sin. She was the faith and fist of the Imperial Creed – she fought in the name of the Emperor, not in her own. This thing was daemon and defiler, and she must stop it with whatever means she could muster…

She had a mission to complete. She cast her gaze around and saw what Jatoya’s plan had been.

In one of the colossal statues, the huge pillars of carved stone that stretched all the way to the roof of the chamber, there was a crack.

A long crack, a fault-line that split the thing almost to the top.

And in it, she had placed a krak grenade.

The falling rock may well kill all of them, but it would slow the monster enough.

‘Truly,’ Augusta whispered softly, ‘you are blessed with wit as well as weaponry.’ Then, over the vox: ‘Akemi,’ she said, ‘how much time do you need?’

But it was Melia who replied, ‘Sister! We are under attack!’

There were only the three of them – no heavy bolter, no flamer, no chainsword. Subul stood with the impossible brass mirror behind him, its roil and seethe surrounding his flesh with the raw, hot churn of Chaos. They could hear the daemon, its voice interwoven with Subul’s, mocking Augusta for her cowardice; they could feel their own rage, but they were focused upon the advancing hounds.

Shoulders low and bellies slinking, the beasts approached the three women, savage and eager.

Melia’s orders were calm, clear. ‘Short, focused bursts. And sing, my Sisters, for the Emperor is with us!’

The hounds’ daemon master snarled the order to attack.

Three bolters barked; one of the beasts twisted and faded, its essence sucked back towards the portal. But two were still moving and their master came with them, blade shining red in the light.

‘Again!’ Melia’s order was unnecessary; a split-second later, the bolters barked a second time.

But the beasts were close now, too close.

Akemi heard the conversation in the pit, the words in the vox. She heard Jatoya’s cry. Then one of the things was upon her, leaping for her throat.

She went backwards, grappling for its collar. The daemon driving them was snarling and hissing in a language that made chills chase along her skin. And the beast was right in her face, yammering at her. Its teeth were bared and its breath was making her visor steam over; she couldn’t see, couldn’t think, couldn’t move. Panic rose in her heart. She heard Caia swear, heard Melia bark another order but the creature was right there and the words were lost in the chaos…

Chaos.

Another flash of memory: her brief studies of the Ruinous Powers, in the schola, all of them strictly supervised. She had opened the scrolls and read the words and felt her flesh crawling in response.

But the memory was gone again, lost under the weight of the thing, under the horror of it so close and the smog of its breath in her visor. It stank like sulphur; its jaws were either side of her gorget, and she could feel it, straining to bite down. She remembered the litany, the words rising almost reflexively. Her frantic hands found the thing’s collar and dragged it away from her face. It scrabbled, claws scraping on ceramite with a noise that set her teeth on edge.

She gripped it in one hand, brought the bolter up in the other.

With its bared teeth no more than a smoky smear, she put the bolter against its skull, and pulled the trigger.

Red splattered, blinding her completely. The creature’s weight was gone. She came up to her feet, shaking, her gauntlet scraping the blood from her face.

In the chamber, only one of the creatures was still upright, coiling at its master’s hooved feet. The bloodletter had raised its blade and was facing the three of them.

The glow of the portal shone from its eyes.

Akemi felt Caia and Melia as they pulled together, felt the strong bond of her Sisters.

Subul, furious, was roaring, his many-layered voice half-chant, half-outrage. The colours at the centre of the mirror had changed hue; they were fierce and bright, rich with the tones of brass and blood. And there were noises coming from it now, echoes of screams and warfare, of clashing weapons and gunfire, of massive, rumbling engines.

Instinctively, Akemi knew that there were more of the creatures coming.

And then more, and then more. They would never end; the portal would spew them forth in their thousands.

‘We have to stop him!’ She raised her bolter, unaware she’d said the words aloud.

Subul’s chant grew higher.

And then, with a thunderous roar, the whole chamber shook.

The detonation knocked Augusta from her feet.

Above her, the statue trembled, tottered and fell. One side slid clear, a cascade of heavy stone that hit the daemon’s shoulders and rocked it on its hooves; the other side stayed upright for a moment, then followed it down. It went over sideways in a single piece that struck the thing an immense, heavy blow.

The daemon faltered, stumbled.

Its axe hit the floor with a crash.

But even as it was getting up again, reaching for the weapon, Augusta barked, ‘Viola! Target its hands!’

The heavy bolter roared, its full rate of fire aimed at the monster’s whip-hand.

It wasn’t enough – even under the repeated impacts of the heavy bolter, the daemon seemed to shrug off the damage. It came back to its feet, rocks sliding from it; it reached to pick up the axe.

Its anger was tangible, now; it filled the air. The steam that poured from its shoulders was thick, ropes of it rising to the roof of the cavern, boiling like the jungle’s mist.

Teeth bared, it roared at them, inarticulate and furious. The hate was like a fist in the face, a punch in the gut – only the bright flame of Augusta’s faith was keeping her on her feet.

‘I do not fear you,’ she told it. ‘In the Emperor’s name, we finish this.’

The concussion had knocked the bloodletter from its feet.

It was scrambling back upright even as the detonation faded, but it was not fast enough. Melia was after it in a moment, kicking its blade away from its hand, finishing the last hound with a single, accurate shot. Behind her, Caia placed one boot on the daemon’s chest.

Even as Akemi was gathering her wits, Caia snarled a war-prayer, and shot the thing in the face.

Gore splashed; the creature snarled and struggled. But Caia kept firing, and kept firing, one round after another, again and again, her voice rising to a paean that was almost a shriek.

The thing finally detonated and she stumbled forwards, falling to her knees.

She stopped, her shoulders shaking, blood leaking down her injured arm.

But Akemi had turned to Subul, and to the mirror.

The summoner was snarling his chant, his face distorted. The symbol on his head pulsed with blood and light; its red glare lit the walls. He was savage, furious, and the daemon’s roars were echoing out of his mouth.

Steam was starting to steal across the roof of the chamber, but it was too late.

Subul may have the voice of the daemon, but he was only a man.

Only a heretic, who had dared to risk his soul for the false powers of Chaos.

‘I do not fear you.’ Akemi repeated Augusta’s words. ‘In the Emperor’s name, we finish this.’

She aimed her bolter at the symbol on his forehead, and pulled the trigger.

CHAPTER TEN

The daemon exploded with a horrific, echoing howl.

The sound shook the cavern; rubble rumbled from the toppled statue.

Then: silence.

Viola loosed a battle cry, raising her voice in a hymn of thanks.

Augusta felt relief unfurling in her soul, the release from the stink and rage and pressure of the daemon’s presence. For a moment, she felt almost weightless.

Truly, the Emperor had blessed them.

But the mission was not yet over. Walking to where Jatoya had fallen, she said, ‘Sister Akemi?’

Akemi’s voice came back over the vox. ‘Praise the Emperor, Sister. Subul is dead. The gate is closed.’

‘Be sure.’

At the base of the wall, the heap of red armour was crushed, cracked and splintered by the strike of the axe.

‘Oh, we’re sure.’ The voice was Caia’s, her tone dark and lethal. ‘We have placed grenades, ready to collapse the machinery. If we can.’

‘You and Akemi hold that location,’ Augusta said. ‘Sister Melia, I need you here.’

Carefully, she turned Jatoya’s helm to check the life signal.

‘Sister?’ Viola joined her, her voice filled with concern.

Augusta stood back, breathing hard. It took a moment before she could speak, and when she did her words were heavy and soft. ‘She walks at His feet. Blessed be her memory.’

‘No.’ Viola’s breath caught on a sob – a sound that was as much exhaustion as grief. ‘Blessed be… blessed be her memory.’

‘This place is accursed,’ Augusta said. ‘Too many Sisters have laid down their lives.’ She watched the crumpled form for a minute, then said, ‘Sister Viola.’

Viola raised her chin. ‘Sister Superior.’

‘You disobeyed my order, Viola.’ Her words were flat, somehow empty of all feeling; suddenly, she felt very tired. ‘When commanded to leave with the rest of the squad, you stayed to face the daemon. I do not need to remind you of the schola’s most basic lessons – that we must all rely upon the unity, courage and the trustworthiness of our Sisters. An order disobeyed can spell death for a squad in the field.’

Viola flinched, looking at the broken armour beside them.

‘Yes, Sister.’

‘Not only that, but you acted out of a purely personal need – a need to prove yourself. You did not act for the good of the unit, nor for your love of the Emperor. Do you have anything to say to me, Sister?’

Viola paused. She inhaled, as if searching for the right words, then her shoulders sagged once more. ‘No, Sister. I wanted–’

‘What you “wanted” is irrelevant. Your need for personal merit overcame both your training and your orders.’

Viola said, her voice quiet, ‘Sister, you could not have held back the daemon without me, and without the heavy bolter. I disobeyed the order because I feared for the failure of the mission.’ She paused, then said, ‘I will accept whatever discipline you feel is necessary.’

The Sister Superior drew in a breath. Jatoya’s death had not been Viola’s doing, but still, a splinter of anger was caught in Augusta’s heart.

With an effort, she mastered it.

‘Disobeying a direct order should see you among the Repentia,’ she said. ‘Or at the very least your badge of merit removed.’

‘Yes, Sister. I understand.’

Augusta considered her. The young woman’s head was bowed and her attitude contrite. Her lone adamantium bead glinted – the award she had received for the death of the ork warlord.

‘I feel, Sister Viola,’ Augusta said, ‘that you were unready for your field promotion, and you have been daunted by the expectation that it has laid upon your shoulders.’

Viola looked up, her expression wary.

‘Yet you have faced your task with courage and you have learned to use the weapon with great speed, great skill and great accuracy.’

Viola watched her, still unspeaking.

‘We will undertake suitable atonement,’ the Sister Superior said, her decision reached. ‘We will retrieve our fallen Sisters. We will carry them back to the township where we will raise a pyre to Sister Jatoya, to Sister Felicity and her squad, to the tech-priest Jencir and the missionary Lyconides, and to Kawa Koumu and the bravery of her warriors. We will cleanse both the cathedral and the shrines of the town, and we will grant a final blessing to those who have attained the Emperor’s side.’

‘Sister?’ Viola’s tone was surprised. ‘You–?’

‘I must accept responsibility for my decisions,’ Augusta said. ‘I made the choice to promote you to Sister Kimura’s role. And by my failure was Chaos loosed within this place.’ She glanced at the smoking daemon flesh strewn across the floor, at the last of the skulls in the firepit. ‘This planet has seen me err too many times – the blame for all of these deaths is mine. And may the Emperor accept my penitence.’

In the thick night of the Lautis jungle, the flames burned high.

Behind them, the twin guards of the ziggurat flickered in the light, and its stepped, dark shape angled upwards into the sky. At its peak, the ancient depiction of the Emperor looked out across the empty town.

Watching the hot, bright fire that consumed the figure within, Augusta had removed both helmet and gauntlets. The night air was heavy and warm, but its comparative freshness was welcome.

She looked around the gathered squad, all of them bare-headed and weary. Their armour was scratched and dented, their cloaks stained and filthy – but she was proud of every one of them. Even Viola, despite her insubordination.

‘I have transmitted the report,’ she told them. ‘And there are enough supplies within the basecamp to sustain us until the Tukril arrives from Mars, the Kyrus with it. Our mission, Sisters,’ she tried to stop the bitterness in her tone, ‘has been a success.’

‘How long will we be here?’ Melia asked.

‘Sixty-five days.’

Her response was met with a dismayed silence – she knew full well that her squad did not wish to stay here, never mind for two Solar months.

But she was not finished. ‘But be warned – we are not on hiatus, Sisters, and we must maintain our guard. Where Chaos has manifested, it may yet still return – and it is up to us to ensure that the cathedral and its tunnels remain free from any taint. The patrol work may be tedious, but it is as much a part of our calling as the banishment of the beast itself.’ She paused, but her squad still said nothing. They only stood listening to the brief. ‘And we must not err.’

Beside her in the firelight, Akemi said, ‘What of the Adeptus Mechanicus, Sister? With the Tukril returning…’

She let the query tail off into silence, but Augusta understood. The daemon had said that they were easy to lure, implying that Jencir had known of the machinery, and had come to Lautis not to rebuild, but for reasons of his own. The curiosity of the Adeptus Mechanicus, as Jatoya had commented, was often their undoing.

‘We will greet them upon their arrival and discover the parameters of their mission. I await the orders of the canoness – it may well be that the cathedral and the town will be destroyed. Certainly, it would be the most secure outcome.’

On the far side of the fire, Viola stared down into the flame, her armour gleaming. She had been very quiet on their careful retreat from the cathedral’s undertunnels, retrieving Jatoya and the gruesome remains of the fallen squad and obeying every command without question. And there had been no further sign of her outspoken bluster.

At Augusta’s words, she glanced up.

‘Permission to ask a question, Sister?’

‘Of course,’ Augusta said.

‘Why is it that the Adeptus Mechanicus have such a tie to our Order?’

Akemi, standing at the fireside and flicking her little fetish between her fingers, glanced up as if eager to answer, but Augusta said, ‘You know the legend of Saint Mina, Viola. It was the very first doctrine you studied when you joined this Order.’

Viola nodded, ‘Yes, Sister.’

Augusta said, ‘Saint Mina was martyred upon the Mechanicus planet of Hydraphur. She was slain at a small shrine and her body was drained of all blood. Yet still, her blade slew hundreds of her foes.’

‘Then perhaps Jencir’s curiosity was not just the machinery,’ Viola commented.

‘Perhaps,’ Augusta said. ‘The Mechanicus have been political supporters of our Order for many centuries.’ She let herself smile. ‘If Akemi can read enough of his notes, we may even find out.’

Akemi made a face.

‘But – what about the vial?’ Melia said. ‘The daemon Subul mentioned a vial of Mina’s blood. Do we believe that such an artefact really exists?’

‘Subul was playing games,’ Augusta said. ‘Games of words. He was taunting and provoking us and trying to make us falter.’ Her smile was grim. ‘In drawing a comparison between ourselves and the bloodlust of the followers of Khorne, he was calling everything we are into question, the entire history of our Order. But we have faced his mockery, Sisters. We have faced the minion of Chaos, faced blood and fire and death. And while we may know rage and warfare and the pure anger of the Emperor’s wrath, there remains a difference between our desire for battle and theirs.’

The others watched her; her gaze stopped on Sister Viola.

‘We fight in the Emperor’s name,’ Viola said. ‘We have purpose.’

‘Just so,’ Augusta agreed with her. ‘And we fight with control. We embrace the rage, but we use it wisely. It never commands us. And that, above all things, is why our discipline matters.’

Viola flushed, understanding all too well the point that Augusta was making.

‘As to the vial,’ the Sister Superior said. ‘Daemons are the masters of deceit. We cannot know if such a thing exists.’

‘But,’ Melia said, ‘in the days to come, we will have time. We can search for it while we patrol.’

Caia said, ‘I will find it.’

‘I don’t doubt it,’ Melia told her.

From somewhere, a cawing cry split the darkness, and made them jump.

Akemi said, ‘The wildlife of the jungle – it’s coming back.’

Caia looked ruefully at her broken auspex. ‘I suppose we had better set a watch.’

‘I will watch,’ Augusta told them. ‘And I will pray. Take the rest, my Sisters, you’ve earned it.’

She moved away from the firelight to find a vantage.

As her weary squad settled to watch the flame, she stood like the warriors of the ziggurat, silent and on guard.

Watching the Sister Superior leave the firelight, Sister Akemi flicked her little fetish between her fingers.

She had survived. She had faced her fears, faced the powers of darkness. She had spilled blood and taken lives, and seen the slavering maw of Chaos itself. She had felt the pure rage of her calling, the rise of defiance, exhilaration and courage that was the signature of her Order.

And she had understood why it was different.

She flicked the little silver icon, watching the light on the metal.

It was precious to her – the symbol of the Order of the Quill. She had always kept it with her, despite her change of calling.

The cawing rose again, now further away.

Sister Akemi flicked the item one last time, and leaned forward to place it, carefully, in the flames.

She had no regrets as to the decision she had made, and she needed the item no longer.

STEEL DAEMON

IAN ST. MARTIN

PART 1

The Wrathful Song hung inert in the twisted void that existed both within and beyond reality. The malignant and unpredictable tides of the Eye had consumed the vessel for the briefest of moments, an instant swallowed by a roiling wave of colours that were not colours. Within that moment its light, seen by all the covens of sorcerers and psychic choirs in thrall to the warband, was extinguished. The Wrathful Song emerged a changed thing: a pitted and dark shape like a corroded blade wreathed in clotted blood.

Those inquisitive minds that reached out to it recoiled at what they found. The most powerful suffered agonising afflictions, while those who could not claim their strength sloughed away into steaming pools of viscera, burst into incandescent flame, or became hosts for malignant entities that stalked the Sea of Souls. All the while, every one of them screamed, across a hundred languages of man, beast and daemon, the same word.

Hunger.

And so the Relentless sent Hakaron to learn what had become of the Wrathful Song. The master of the Crimson Slaughter understood better than most how a moment of corruption could bring about an eternity of damnation.

Hakaron and his cohort waited in silence within the boarding ram. They had been summoned from the depths of the warband’s labyrinthine fortress, the Lost Hope, where they had been whetting their blades in a purge of its lightless lower decks. Mutants, debauched tribes of savages and inhuman monstrosities were rife within the hulk, and the Crimson Slaughter routinely descended to butcher its foul denizens when not reaving through the Eye. With fresh blood upon their armour, their minds drew the closest they ever could towards serenity outside of battle.

Still, Hakaron’s mind was not wholly his own. The whispers, dulled by the bloodshed as they were, still caressed his thoughts, like silk catching on pitted steel. The renegade Space Marine saw the tics and twitches rippling through his warriors, limbs jerking beneath mismatched armour scavenged from their endless wars. Fingers spasmed irregularly, tightly clutching stolen weapons. Hakaron began to wish that the Wrathful Song had fallen to the malign entities of the Eye, that they would find the crew and warriors possessed rather than simply butchered. Daemon or flesh, death was the harbinger of tranquillity, fleeting as it was.

Hakaron’s grip tightened around his chainaxe. Whatever awaited them, he would not return to the Lost Hope without the prize the Wrathful Song had carried within its holds. Precious few of them remained, and few prices were too high to be paid to keep them.

Contact with the Wrathful Song’s hull came with a wrenching clang, rocking the silent renegades in restraint harnesses that had long ceased to be entirely mechanical. It was when the melta torches began liquefying the plate between them and the ship’s interior that Hakaron first heard his cohort. Low growls slipped through clenched teeth and the blackened plugs of iron that replaced them, issuing from decrepit vox-grilles as an inhuman bass chorus. Snarling helms tilted and twitched. They pierced the gloom with glowering eye lenses of crimson, sapphire and jade, some flickering unevenly or dark altogether from disrepair. Virulence exuded from every movement as they thrashed free of the harnesses and crowded before the egress hatchway. Even in the short time since emerging from the depths of the Lost Hope, their affliction had returned enough to sway their minds.

The air the traitors swarmed into from the boarding pod was stale and freezing. Steam curled from their back-mounted power packs. Reality was as thin as the air. Twisted corridors spiralled out before them, the iron of their forging given way to fleshy carapace and blackened horn.

Flickering wraiths trailed behind the warriors, clinging to them like cloaks of damnation. The souls of Umidia and beyond, torn from life by the wrath of the Crimson Slaughter, forever hung over their murderers, visible within the semi-real realm of the Wrathful Song. The blood-maddened traitor Space Marines paid them no heed, yet twitched and spasmed in response to their incessant whispers and condemnations.

Hakaron pressed deeper into the corrupted vessel, focused on reclaiming some of a dwindling number of anchors back to a time before they had cast aside old names and older allegiances.

Hours stretched by, trekking through the darkness, before Hakaron’s cohort found life within the Wrathful Song. Huddled wretches deep within the ship’s darkness recoiled from the renegades, before debasing their pathetic forms in submission. They dragged themselves forward, emaciated and blind, clutching at the traitors’ boots with gurgled prayers leaking from malformed lips. They were weakness made manifest, far beyond even the twisted slaves that had thronged the vessel’s decks hours before. These were the culmination of centuries of degradation, puppets to the unknowable whims of the warp.

Hakaron had neither the time nor the inclination for them. Muffled cries were cut short as the wretches were crushed beneath ceramite boots. The traitor Space Marines did not even break their stride.

The vile things had been clustered about a massive gateway, its pitted iron blackened with ash and daubed with blasphemous runes painted in human grease and dried blood. It had all the marks of a pagan shrine, one that had been tended for centuries.

How much time had passed within that tidal swell of psychic energy? thought Hakaron. How long had things been disintegrating here, and what could still remain?

The Crimson Slaughter set to the gateway with melta cutters and chainblades. Within a short time, Hakaron’s cohort had managed to pry the gate open wide enough to admit them one by one into the darkness beyond. Hakaron ground past the ancient metal, geneforged eyes piercing the gloom.

The chamber he entered was cavernous. The blackness that consumed it was not merely an absence of light, but also the existence of something ancient and bladed. Though he had no capacity for sorcery, Hakaron could sense a titanic presence of unfathomable cruelty dwelling in the dark.

Cruelty, and hunger.

Broken slabs of armour plating littered the rusted deck, scoured of the scarlet enamel that had once conveyed its allegiance to the warband. The cohort moved swiftly, adopting the piles of rent iron and ceramite as cover while they advanced. The barrels of bolters made haphazard circles in the air as they panned across the emptiness surrounding them.

The loss was galling to Hakaron. An entire host of battle tanks and Rhino assault carriers gone, their ruination scattered around him like carrion left stripped of its meat by howling scavengers. He had led these war machines into a hundred battles across the hellspace of the Eye and beyond. Hakaron was wondering what manner of beast could bring such destruction to these vaunted machines, when the author of their demise made itself known at last.

A cacophony of screaming engines ricocheted from the walls with deafening force. A gargantuan form slashed from the oppressive shadow, smashing renegades to ragged lumps of meat and crushing them beneath its bulk. A caustic pall filled the frigid air like dragon’s breath, reeking of promethium and charred blood.

Within seconds, half of Hakaron’s warriors were dead. He hurled himself aside as the beast skidded past, the spikes of iron and horn protruding from its scarlet flesh-metal tearing deep gouges in his armour. A building electric whine set Hakaron’s teeth on edge, as beams of heliotrope purple wreathed in silver lightning blasted the remainder of Hakaron’s cohort to mounds of burning ash.

The flashes at last illuminated the beast as Hakaron rolled to one knee. He had prepared himself for this, but still fought back hesitation as his dread became reality.

‘Rhoghon’s Blade!’ bellowed Hakaron, driving the butt of his chainaxe into the deck with a resounding clang.

The beast stilled, shivering with the pulse of its massive engines as the fresh blood caking its hull glistened in the sorcerous twilight.

‘Heed me!’ Hakaron rose, plodding towards the monster.

With a squeal of iron tracks, the beast turned to face the renegade Space Marine. Slowly it began to resolve from the blackness. Angled plates of dense ceramite that had reknit itself as carapace and raw muscle adorned its hull. The warband’s icon of a grinning horned skull had manifested life, its jaw clacking as it moaned a silent dirge. The Land Raider Rhoghon’s Blade had made war since before the fall of the Crimson Sabres. Now, like the Crimson Slaughter, it had become something else, a warp-spawned apotheosis that burned with the blood and breath of daemons.

The Land Raider’s forward assault ramp slammed down, edged with concentric rings of lamprey teeth as it exposed what had once been the tank’s crew bay. Deep within the possessed machine, a twitching form hung cocooned within a matrix of cables and fleshy mechanisms sheeted with black oil. With lidless eyes it stared at Hakaron, the bulky armour of its former station betraying its identity as Lorvyk. He had served alongside Hakaron through the armoured wars of the Crimson Slaughter, tending to the battle machines of the warband with fanatical zealotry.

‘Hunger!’ the corrupted warpsmith wheezed, reaching with trembling biomechanical tentacles towards the butchered remains of Hakaron’s troops.

Hakaron reached up to the collar seals binding his helm in place. A thin translucent skin tore away from the parting ceramite as he twisted the snarling death mask from his head. He was one of a rapidly diminishing number among the Crimson Slaughter who could still remove their armour. Most had become fully merged and entombed within the twisted war-plate, the immaterium’s malignant whims forbidding them from ever being anything but killing machines.

Hakaron placed a gauntleted hand, slick with blood and oil, upon the hull of the Land Raider that had forever ceased to be Rhoghon’s Blade. He had marched to war since the beginning, before Umidia. He had watched himself and his brethren fray and succumb moment by moment, choice by choice, to bring them to this. He accepted his fate, and embraced his damnation without regret.

Hakaron watched, his features unmoving and stare unwavering, as the living tank devoured the ragged corpses of his brothers…

Hakaron’s mind fled from the memory. It returned to the blackened deck upon which he stood before a monolithic gateway. A pair of hulking praetorians flanked the portal, the snarls issuing from their Terminator war-plate more alike those of a deep jungle predator than the buzz of servo fibre bundles. They were armoured in flawed gold-edged ceramite plates so dark that light did not escape their surfaces. The eightfold star of Chaos adorned their barrel chests, with an unblinking eye at the centre. The so-called Bringers of Despair, a loathsomely pretentious moniker if ever Hakaron had known one. The personal bodyguard of the Warmaster, as if such a being required sentinels.

The warrior to Hakaron’s left was silent and unmoving, the twin barrels of his Reaper autocannon angled at the deck in a practised grip. His comrade stared at Hakaron, the blades of his lightning claws scraping against one another in a tortured chorus of abused metal. The shadow cast behind the Black Legion warrior sketched a silhouette of curling horns and spreading bat-like wings, revealing the truth belied by what the naked eye saw of his form. With a screech of ripping metal, the warrior’s helm tore at the jawline, grinning at Hakaron with jagged fangs of ceramite stringed with mercury saliva.

Coming here was a mistake, and Hakaron had voiced this opinion to his lord. Had he borne command of the Crimson Slaughter, Hakaron considered that he might have acted differently, to set the warband upon a different course, though further idle speculation was pointless. Kranon had chosen, and, for good or ill, none rejected a summons from the Despoiler without consequence.

Hakaron stood in silence before the gateway, ignoring the taunting sneer of the Black Legion Terminator. He had never set foot upon this vessel, the Warmaster’s infamous behemoth known within the Eye as the Krukal’Righ, and to its prey as the Planet Killer. The power to annihilate entire worlds thrummed beneath Hakaron’s boots. The chieftain of Horus’ remaining sons certainly made no concession for subtlety.

A sliver of greater shadow swelled through the gateway, slowly blooming as the massive doors parted with the thunder of immense cogwork. Hakaron’s hold tightened on the chainaxe he carried low against his hips, the worn steel and leather of its haft creaking in his grip. He could not see into the audience chamber beyond the gateway, though whether that was incidental or by some sorcerous design, Hakaron could not say. All that could be seen as the slabs of black iron peeled back was the figure of his master as he emerged from parlay with the lord of the Black Legion.

Kranon the Relentless strode from the unnatural dark like a war deity dredged from ancient myth. A cloak of silver fur and hide hung from ornate armour of deep arterial red, flensed from a beast that could never exist within the bounds of reality. Sapphire eyes twitched and blinked across the warlord’s plate, ensconced in riveted brass. The Blade of the Relentless hung across Kranon’s back, the hilt of the massive longsword angling behind the twin horns that thrust from the crown of his leering mask.

The portal began to shut as soon as the warlord stepped through, opening only wide enough to grant him passage. Hakaron turned, keeping a step behind and to the left of Kranon as the warlord marched unabated from the closing gateway. The master of the Crimson Slaughter was unreadable behind his helm, and his stride gave no inkling of his mood.

‘We return to the Lost Hope, my lord?’ asked Hakaron.

A thin breath hissed from Kranon’s vox-grille. ‘I have pledged us to them. They stand poised to begin their new crusade, and we shall lend our blades to the slaughter when they do.’

‘My war machines are ready, lord,’ said Hakaron. ‘We shall drown their hulls with the blood of Cadians.’

‘No.’

To Hakaron’s credit, he did not falter in his stride as the Relentless pressed on down the corridor.

‘Will we not move with the Black Legion as it assails the Cadian Gate?’

Kranon’s horned helm tilted fractionally, regarding Hakaron. ‘Ours shall be a different path.’

The next words to pass from the Relentless stirred the voices within Hakaron’s mind to a frenzy of bladed wailing.

‘Tell me, do you remember Regallus?’

Heit Lytviak came to in freefall, as the world shattered around him.

The skies above the central hive city of Regallus were streaked with flame and shrapnel, an atmosphere tortured by the thousand knifing wounds of an invading army making planetfall. Ribbons of flak and las-beams leapt up from the hive’s battlements, spearing the pitted hulls of bulk landers swollen with thousands of debased cultists. Flaming bodies spilled from their ruptured forms as they were struck, raining dead upon the Imperial bastions below.

Through the madness of the skies, the squadrons of the Linoldian 706th Tactical Air Superiority Wing had struck forward, launching sorties of Lightning fighters and Marauder bombers to rain the Emperor’s vengeance down upon the landing sites and marshalling grounds of the massing Chaos invaders.

Scarce moments ago, Heit had been aboard the Ascended Light, manning the auspex and vox stations of the Marauder bomber as it neared the swelling host of infantry and tanks that was its target. With a shriek of warning klaxons and a blinding flash he found himself twisting through the expanding wreckage of the Ascended Light, hurtling down towards the burning hive with the howling wind to muffle his screams.

Huge draconic fliers were weaving through the destruction, an impossible and unholy melding of bestial monstrosity and nightmarish machine. They passed in and out of sight, stalking the swirling banks of smoke like the leviathan predators of ancient Terra’s primordial oceans. The abominable daemon engines were tearing the Linoldians to pieces, splitting hulls with razor-edged claws and liquefying whole aircraft with gouts of spectral green flame gushing forth from between their snapping jaws.

Heit had no way of knowing if it was these monstrosities that had destroyed his bomber, or any of the other myriad hazards filling the skies of Regallus with death. He could scarcely marshal thought for that at the moment, as he tumbled and thrashed at terminal velocity towards the ground.

‘Throne, Throne of the Emperor – please.’ Heit hissed the entreaties from between terror-clenched teeth. He fought with the controls of the emergency grav-harness upon his back. Having only recently graduated from the training cadres, he had been assigned to the Ascended Light for his first duty. Thus far, Heit’s experience had varied greatly from the instruction revolutions and simulators of his training schola. Particularly regarding the function of a grav-harness. His simulated evacuations during training were rote, orchestrated manoeuvres, overseen by instruction cadres more intent on moving the cadets through to the next evaluation than ensuring the doctrines they imparted could be applied practically.

The bulky device whirred and buzzed in varying pitches, and Heit could feel the internal components within its housing catch and grind against each other. Despite his frantic hammering on the control pad stitched into the shoulder strap, the device had failed to do anything to arrest his fall. The goggles of Heit’s rebreather mask had been cracked and punctured when he had been thrown from the bomber, and he blinked away stinging tears as he passed through the lowest of the smoke layers.

The central hive rushed up beneath Heit like a vast insect nest of dark iron. Even over the lower urban sprawl at the city’s periphery as he was, the hive’s spires and towers grew like blackened teeth.

A thunderclap of concussive force burst near Heit, sending him spinning end over end. The surface of Regallus flashed before his eyes, replaced by the anguished skies and then flicking back, rapidly alternating again and again. The tearing wind stole his screams of panic and frustration as the ground rushed nearer. Heit twisted, kicking frantically as he clawed at his grav-harness controls with white-knuckled hands. He was low enough to pass below the highest of the spires, and within seconds he would be nothing more than a burst sack of unidentifiable viscera on the war-torn streets.

‘Throne!’ Heit cursed, relenting in his panic to clashing his fist against the control pad over and over. The cityscape grew closer, the crenellated blade of a cathedral tower so near he felt he could touch the sculpted angels adorning it. The altimeter in his crazed visor display shrieked in warning as the runes blurred towards zero.

With a final frantic punch, Heit felt a deep clunk within the machinery on his back. A sharp whine built, and Heit’s broken rebreather filled with the smell of ozone as an anti-gravity suspensor field sparked to life. The stricken crewman felt his spin slow into a small measure of stability, and his body jinked from side to side as the small thrusters set above his shoulders coughed and sputtered to life.

Heit’s descent slowed, but did not stop. He veered away from the looming cathedral, narrowly avoiding becoming a smear against its cracked and broken stonework, and angled himself towards a courtyard ringed by squat hab blocks opened to his right.

The border of the hive below him was in flames, the front lines of the battle between the invaders and the Cadian mechanised infantry Heit’s squadron had taken to the skies to support. Spheres of dirty fire blossomed as artillery was unleashed on both sides, reducing the outskirts of the city to a hellish landscape of craters and the skeletal husks of collapsed buildings. Smears of grey and black began to take shape, resolving into a massed charge of debased cultists hurling themselves upon the Imperial guns.

A building heat pricked Heit’s back through his uniform, and pulsing runes flashed insistently on his visor as the whine of the grav-chute grew choppy and irregular. One of the thrusters failed, sending him pinwheeling down. Heit screwed his eyes shut as his vision blurred, and a white-hot web of sudden pain slammed across his body as something dark, massive and unyielding arrested his fall.

The distant crump of artillery fire jarred streams of loose rockcrete dust down upon Heit’s prone form. A shell landed closer in a thunderous impact, dislodging a fist-sized chunk that struck the airman and roused him.

Shakily, Heit brought his arms up to push himself to his knees. His right shoulder exploded in deep, sharp pain, driving the air from his lungs. He rolled onto his back, blinking away the reddened edges of his vision to look up into the ragged hole of the hab-block roof he had fallen through. The grey ruin of the city’s streets opened up to his left, putting him at ground level.

Heit tested his right arm gingerly. The limb was stiff and heavy, with his shoulder raised unnaturally at the joint. He noted there was no blood around the dislocation, so it had not broken the skin. Beyond that injury and a myriad of cuts and bruises, he was alive and able to move.

Resting his head back for a moment, Heit pulled his rebreather mask off, and drew in a deep breath. The air was thick with ash and smoke. He thudded his left fist against the harness of his grav-chute, unlocking the restraints. Slowly, he slid his right arm out, and sat up.

Heit looked down at the mound of dirt and debris that had broken his fall. Peering closer, he brushed away the dirt from a shape, quickly resolving into the broken and twisted form of a human hand missing several fingers. Heit scrambled away from the mound, seeing more pieces of bodies reaching out stiffly from it, their grey flesh pale and long dead. He pitched over, back arching as he heaved bile onto the ground. He slumped against the ruined wall of the hab block, only half successfully wiping the sick from his face with a gloved hand.

The sound of distant shouting jarred Heit from his shock. He cut a length of the grav-chute harness and tied his right arm against his chest, pulling his laspistol from the holster on his hip with the left. He had no idea where in the line he was, whether he was within Imperial-controlled territory or that which had been overrun by Chaos. Peering around the wall into the streets, Heit rose unsteadily to his feet, and ventured out.

Heit had not been on Regallus when the invasion had begun. The Linoldian forces had arrived weeks into the campaign, delayed by perilous warp storms that had claimed three of their ten vessels. By the time Heit and his comrades had broken back into the embrace of reality, they found a world in flames.

Scrambling to deploy their forces, the Linoldian commanders had rushed into the fray. Their soldiers, Heit among them, heard only snatches of what had transpired on the surface. Rumours abounded of cultist hordes millions-strong, in howling thrall to sorcerous masters; walls of screaming shades rising thousands of metres to swallow continents; red-armoured warriors twice the size of a man, reducing entire armies to ruin.

Renegade Space Marines.

The idea had seemed unfathomable to Heit. To him, Space Marines existed frozen into panes of stained glass on chapel windows, paragons of virtue as the chosen sons of the God-Emperor. How could the Emperor’s own angels turn against him?

Wing Captain Delandrier, commander of the Ascended Light, had warned him to keep such thoughts to himself, and as the commissars of the reclamation forces meted out executions and unit decimations to restore order, Heit thanked him for his caution.

Heit tried not to think of the faces of his crew as he picked through the blazing ruins of the city. In all likelihood he was the only one of them left alive, but it was neither the time nor the place to dwell on such thoughts. He had to keep moving, find the Imperial lines. After that he could see to their memory.

A crunch of loose rockcrete behind Heit turned his head, before something slammed him down hard into the road. He cried out in pain as his dislocated shoulder ground outside its socket, but was quickly silenced as a dirty hand clamped tightly over his mouth.

Heit looked up, seeing a woman with wild eyes poised to drive a combat blade into his throat. She wore a torn plastic Astra Militarum-issue rain mantle over body armour, her face streaked with grime and camouflage paint. She hesitated, her bright eyes flicking over Heit’s uniform before locking back onto his own.

‘Unit and designation or you get a new hole in your throat,’ she hissed, moving her hand from Heit’s lips and bringing the blade beneath his jaw.

‘Heit Lytviak, airman, Linoldian Seven-Oh-Sixth Tactical Air Superiority Wing,’ Heit stammered, trying as best as he could to adopt a placating posture with his arms pinned beneath the woman’s knees.

The woman considered Heit for a moment, before snatching up his laspistol and standing. She stared down at Heit, scratching furiously at the dirty stubble of her hair.

‘Pilot? What are you doing on the ground, pilot?’ Her accent was thick, unused to forming the words. Heit doubted Gothic was her first language, nor the one she spoke most often. ‘Why are you not in the air, dropping fire on the dogs butchering our lines?’

An explosion detonated nearby, close enough to whip at the woman’s rain mantle. Her eyes flicked up to the streets, then back down at Heit.

‘Get up.’ She flipped the laspistol to hold it by the barrel, offering it to Heit. ‘Get up! Throne, they are near. We must move, now.’ She pulled the lasgun she carried from its shoulder strap, slotting her blade onto its bayonet lug.

Heit took his pistol, squirming to a sitting position.

‘What?’ she demanded, glaring down at Heit. Her eyes flicked to his arm. ‘Oh, for Throne’s sake!’

She grabbed Heit’s right wrist and planted a boot in his chest. Gritting her teeth, she kicked Heit down onto his back, wrenching his shoulder back into place with a wet snap. The air fled Heit’s lungs, and he rolled onto his side, fighting to cling to consciousness.

‘I said get up,’ the woman hissed. ‘Or I leave you for them, and trust me, you will wish I hadn’t.’

Heit pushed himself to his knees, hearing shouting coming from down the street.

‘You hear me?’ Her bright eyes flashed. ‘Get up or I’ll–’

A whizzing crack silenced the woman, followed by a pop like a wet tree branch snapping. A burst of hot fluid fizzed over Heit’s face. The woman teetered for a moment, smoke curling from a finger-sized hole in her cheek, before toppling down into the street.

Heit looked up, seeing a loose pack of three dozen men in ramshackle carapace armour moving from the end of the street. Needle-thin lines of las-fire slashed over his head, and he sprang up, sprinting doubled-over into a side alley. Slamming his back against the near wall, Heit leaned out to peer down the street.

The mob of cultists had stopped over the body of the slain Imperial soldier, producing arm-length machetes and short blades as they began to chant. The words they uttered were wrong, guttural, sending vertigo rippling through Heit’s head and making his eyes water. He heard them argue amongst one another, and turned back against the wall as they began bringing their blades to bear on the corpse.

The rising sound of boots crunching rubble announced their approach, their unholy chant growing louder. The ground beneath the airman began to shudder. Panic clawed up his spine with icy sourness, and he fought to keep his breathing quiet. The cultists drew closer. Heit could hear skulls and totems clink from wires and chains as they drummed against their looted armour. Terror overwhelmed him as the ground beneath felt as though it were trying to throw him off. His mind shrank, cornered, trapped.

Squeezing his eyes shut, Heit pressed the barrel of his laspistol to his temple. As they rounded the corner, his finger tightened on the trigger.

God-Emperor, forgive me.

The crumbling wall of a hab block across the street from Heit collapsed, exploding as a massive dark shape crashed through it. Crushed rockcrete dust bloomed out, filling the air with a blinding grey pall. Heit heard the thunder of enormous engines, and the brittle crunch of stone beneath iron tracks.

The cultists shouted through the dust, firing blindly with lasrifles. The chattering boom of a heavy bolter answered them, its report deafening in the narrow streets. Heit slapped his hands to his ears, rolling on his side as chips of rockcrete and stone flew in all directions. A severed arm skidded a metre away from him, still clutching a machete as its stump emptied of blood.

Heit edged out, looking into the dust. A sightless firefight was raging between the cultists and their foe. More dark hulks burst into the street, levelling hab blocks as they brought heavy ordnance to bear at extremely close quarters.

The cultists swarmed around one of the hulks, singing as they dragged heavy cylindrical objects behind them. Withering streams of heavy bolter fire blew bodies apart, but a handful managed to reach their target. A shrill cry of blasphemous ecstasy was followed by a thunderous detonation that blasted out in a concussive roar, sending smoke and fire soaring into the sky. Shrapnel the size of human bodies rained down, scything through the rapidly diminishing force of Chaos invaders.

The shouts grew fewer. The shrieking of each cultist was abruptly silenced by a burst of mass-reactive carnage as the massive dark hulks combined their fire. Stinging beams of lascannon fire lit the dust cloud in headache-bright light for flickering instants, doing nothing to improve the visibility.

As suddenly as the fighting had begun, it was over.

Heit waited for a moment as silence solidified, abraded only by the throaty growl of idling promethium-fuelled engines. Pushing himself up into a sitting position, he kicked the severed arm away. The machete clattered as it struck the pavement.

A cone of golden torchlight pierced the dust, filling the entrance to the alley.

‘Come out, slowly!’ a tinny voice barked from a loudspeaker.

Heit swallowed, raised his arms, and stood. He stepped out from the alley, finding himself staring directly into the barrel of the largest gun he had ever seen.

Hakaron felt the Land Raider shudder with pleasure as it ground the still-screaming bodies of the fleeing soldiers to pulp beneath its tracks. The segmented treads of the tank had become porous during its apotheosis on the Wrathful Song, and it drank deep of its prey’s blood as the remaining survivors were routed. Hakaron watched impassively as networks of pulsing veins within the crew cabin swelled with stolen lifeblood, the daemon-possessed war machine gorging on murder to slake a thirst that could never be sated.

The Crimson Slaughter had swept across the ash plains separating the continent-spanning hives of Regallus, darkening its skies with attack craft and heavy bulk landers. Massed charges of cultists had absorbed the majority of the Imperial artillery bombardment, giving Hakaron and his brothers a relatively uncontested advance as they deployed from drop pods and landed heavy armour onto the surface. The mechanised units under Hakaron’s command blotted out the weak sun of the Imperial world with the ash kicked up in their wake, an armoured phalanx of tanks, Rhino troop transports, and ponderously stomping Defiler daemon engines. Leading from the tip of the spear, Hakaron rode into battle upon a machine he could no longer call Rhoghon’s Blade. That venerable war machine had been lost within the immaterium’s cruel tides. Now, only The Hunger remained.

The Imperial lines, bolstered by networks of hardened trenches and fortified bunkers, and reinforced with armour and artillery batteries, suffered their first casualties before the renegade Space Marines had even come within range. As in every other war waged by the Crimson Slaughter, their first weapon was always the most destructive. Hakaron knew it so well he did not have to witness it to know what was happening.

A surging tidal wave of rolling mist, hundreds of metres high, had appeared on the horizon, bearing directly for the entrenched defenders. Soldiers began to bleed without cause from eyes and ears. Sanctioned psykers lost all control, exploding in ruinous starbursts of psychic energy or becoming thrashing conduits for frenzied warp lightning. The latter were rapidly executed by officers and commissars, but not before bringing dozens of scorched and twisted men and women into oblivion with them.

When the mist closed to within fifty metres, the Imperial defenders began to see shapes writhe in and out of sight within its rolling pall. Howling faces and skeletal hands reached out, clawing and sinking back into nothing before appearing again. A keening shriek filled the air, echoing in the ears of the Imperial soldiers as well as their minds. Long-dead family and lovers beckoned to them with impossible, honeyed words. Secrets and lies bored into their psyches, drowning their synapses in madness.

The effect was devastating. Whole sections of the front lines broke for the rear, fleeing the storm of spectral horrors. The Commissariat resorted to establishing a second firing line immediately behind the front, whose sole duty was to kill any soldier who turned to flee. By the time the Crimson Slaughter arrived, hundreds of Imperials lay dead, killed by their own guns.

While renegade Space Marines trudged through a twitching carpet of dead cultists as they began their assault on the walls, Hakaron led his armoured units in a sweeping advance upon the right flank of the enemy fortifications. The greatest concentration of artillery batteries was gathered there, with the majority of the Imperial armour deployed to defend them. As he had countless times before, the traitor made ready to leap into the maelstrom of tank warfare.

Hakaron opened the cupola hatch over his head, which hinged like a jaw to let him through. With one hand clamped idly to the storm bolter mounted to the cupola, the Crimson Slaughter Space Marine looked out upon the warzone the planet had become. Regallus had changed with the passage of time, its urban sprawl even larger than when the Crimson Sabres had fought here to dislodge eldar pirates raiding its hive spires. Indeed, it had changed, though Hakaron acquiesced that, to the terrified mortals cowering behind the city walls, he had changed far more.

‘Stay where you are, little man,’ the loudspeaker barked again. ‘One false move and there won’t be enough left of you to make a stain.’

Heit could not have moved if he had wanted to. His mind was blank, utterly transfixed on the barrel of a cannon that could level buildings with a single shot. As the smoke and rockcrete dust thinned, more than just the immense gun barrel came into view. Heit saw the form of his deliverer, and perhaps his executioner.

The battle tank was an imposing box of dense armour, lacquered in a dappled grey camouflage pattern scorched and pitted by recent combat. The barrel of its main gun, aimed directly at Heit, extended forward, nearly doubling the length of the war machine from its place on the main turret. Set below the main gun and slightly off centre, a lascannon crackled with charge, emitting a thrumming whine that sent gooseflesh rippling over Heit’s skin. A pair of heavy bolters swivelled at its flanks, framing the thick forward-sweeping rhomboids of the tank’s tread assemblies. The right side heavy bolter panned back and forth, vigilant for targets, while the left remained inert, cocked awkwardly with its sponson armour fractured.

Despite the damaged and weathered state of the tank, it still filled Heit with terrified awe. Such vehicles had formed the iron fist of the Astra Militarum for millennia, laying waste to the enemies of mankind across a million worlds. It was a symbol of the Imperium’s military might, blessed with the honoured namesake of one of the God-Emperor’s own sons.

Leman Russ.

Four more of the massive tanks filled the street behind the one drawing down on Heit. One was little more than a charred mound of twisted metal, still burning from the cultists’ suicide attack.

Heit took a calculated risk at that moment, slowly lowering his hands. The lascannon of the Leman Russ twitched in its housing, aligning centre of mass on the airman. Heit slowly, carefully, crossed his arms over his chest, hooking his thumbs to form the Imperial aquila. He sank to one knee.

For moments that felt like hours, nothing happened. Heit watched dust fragments of stone dance on the sloping armour of the idling tank. He heard a deep clunk, and a figure emerged from the turret.

‘Okay, choir boy,’ said the figure. ‘Let’s go ahead and get those hands back up.’ Her voice was firm, laden with authority, and did not have the breathless edge of the one who had spoken through the loudspeaker. Wearing wrinkled grey coveralls and utility webbing, she climbed out from the turret cupola and plodded down to stand at the edge of the tank.

The tanker pulled off her helmet to reveal a close-cropped scalp of dark hair. Deep scars covered one side of her face, forging tributaries of glossy pink down the pale skin. She set her helmet in the crook of one arm, the other hand holding a bolt pistol aimed at Heit’s heart.

Heit raised his hands again, slowly getting to his feet.

‘No, no,’ the woman warned. ‘I liked the kneeling, that was a good idea, so stay down.’ Her eyes blazed a bright violet as she rested her finger on the trigger of the bolt pistol.

Those eyes, thought Heit. Cadian eyes.

‘Another good idea is to blast him and be done with it, Crown,’ barked the woman using the loudspeaker. ‘This area’s crawling with sappers just aching to get close.’

The Cadian tank commander spared a tired glance to the turret of the Leman Russ, then back to Heit.

‘Are you a sapper?’ she asked him.

‘No,’ Heit answered, eyes still locked on the tank’s battle cannon.

‘Then what are you?’ Her head tilted to one side. ‘Hey!’

Heit started, jarred from staring at the huge gun, and met the Cadian’s gaze.

‘I’m Linoldian Seven-Oh-Sixth,’ Heit began, the shock beginning to thin from his voice. ‘My Marauder got hit above the city, dumped me out and I landed here.’

The Cadian flashed a smirk, for an instant twisting the scar tissue on her face into pinkish lightning. ‘Choir boy, fallen from heaven like an angel.’

She turned back to the tank. ‘We’re clear. Lochna, get me a fuel check and even out what’s left with the others, if you please. Zevsin, point my gun somewhere else. Jesh and Brydl, the sponson.’

The turret of the Leman Russ ground as it traversed away from Heit. A hatch beneath it swung open, and a stocky man hauled himself up and out of the tank, circling around behind it towards the fuel cells. Two more crewmembers emerged from the turret, working in silence to begin hauling small bundles out of the tank.

One was slender, her coveralls pooling around her limbs, and could not have been beyond her teenage years. Even still, she was nearly a head taller than Heit, her frame packed with wiry muscle that spoke of generations of exacting breeding programmes. The other was stripped to the waist, showing a roadmap of scarred and burned flesh as he worked, with shining bionics that replaced his arms all the way to the shoulder. All were Cadians, fair-skinned and violet-eyed, taller and heartier than nearly any other human in the Imperium. A race born beneath the Eye of Terror, bred to serve as the first line of defence against the evil and corruption that spilled from its cursed storms.

The younger Cadian cursed, adjusting her grip on something Heit could not make out as he rose to his feet. The other tanker wheezed a quiet reprimand as he gathered it up in his iron arms, carrying it reverently to the rear of the tank. Their hands were stained scarlet. Heit realised then what they were removing. It was a body, and they were pulling it out a piece at a time.

‘Lieutenant Knispel, Cadian Forty-Fourth Armoured,’ said the Cadian tanker, drawing Heit’s attention back to her. ‘Though I’m platoon leader around here, so everyone in these cans calls me Crown.’

‘Heit,’ the airman said quietly in reply.

‘We need to run a quick patch on the sponson, but you can hitch a ride back to central with us. You run that bolter for me in the meantime and I’ll get you where you need to go.’

Heit gave a short nod, clearing his throat. ‘I don’t know what would have happened if you had not come by,’ he said as the Cadian began to turn away. The pistol at his belt felt like it weighed as much as one of the tanks. ‘Thank you.’

Crown looked back over her shoulder at Heit. ‘Didn’t come for you. We’ve been hitting enemy infantry movements all over this area, didn’t see you until after the smoke cleared.’

Heit looked away for a moment, watching as the Cadians pulled their fallen comrade from the tank. That soldier had fought and died in valiant service to the Imperium, while Heit had cowered in an alley, his own gun to his head rather than firing at the enemy. The shame burned at the pit of his stomach.

‘All the same, thank you. You are all heroes.’

Crown stopped at the word. The Cadian turned fully to stare darkly at Heit.

‘No, we’re not.’ She jerked her thumb towards her comrades moving out of the turret. ‘The only hero is the one being pulled out of that tank.’

After the body had been gathered together, the Cadians laid it in a rain mantle, tying the ends of the poncho together into a bundle. One by one the tankers sat beside the bundle for a moment, before moving off to see to their duties refuelling the tank, making hasty repairs and establishing a secure vox-link to command.

Heit stood off to the side, and watched as Crown sat down beside the body. The tank commander reached into her webbing and produced a small battered tin. She unscrewed the top and poured a measure of fine dust over the plastic mantle.

‘What is she doing?’ Heit asked Jesh. The young gunner was holding a slab of armour plating over a section of torn armour on the left sponson while Brydl worked to quickly weld it in place. The man’s bionics hissed as he worked, almost drowning out the muttered entreaties he made to the tank’s machine spirit as he applied the welds in a fountain of sparks.

Jesh flicked her eyes up towards the rear of the tank, flinching as a stream of sparks rained over her. ‘That’s Cadian soil. Few honours greater for a soldier of the Gate than to die with the homeworld beneath their feet.’

Heit looked back to the tank commander as she stood, casting his eyes away as she turned in his direction.

‘Lochna!’ called Crown. The driver’s head emerged from the forward hatch beneath the turret. ‘Our choir boy wants to help, so let him.’

‘Aye, Crown.’ Lochna gestured to Heit, then disappeared beneath the hatch.

Heit climbed onto the Leman Russ, his boots slipping on the mud and compacted ash caking the tank. Lochna appeared again from the turret.

‘Wanna help? Here you go.’ Lochna passed an empty shell casing to Heit. ‘Toss this out for me, though mind yourself.’

The spent casing was the length of Heit’s arm, and surprisingly heavy for having already been fired. The brass shell had a strong smell of ammonia, and Heit felt something slosh inside it as he turned to throw it. A cold measure of pale liquid slopped over the rim of the shell onto Heit’s hands, and he gagged as he hurled the shell away into the street.

‘I said mind yourself,’ Lochna chided, fighting to contain the sniggering his comrades saw no reason to avoid. ‘Not sure what you are used to up there, but down here we can’t exactly park in an artillery barrage and dig a latrine.’

Heit shook his hands, frantically wiping them on his flight suit as he fought down the bile surging in his throat. He sucked in a deep breath, and heard muffled shouting within the turret. Crown was having a stilted conversation, but Heit could only hear her side, meaning she was likely on the tank’s vox.

Crown flipped up the turret cupola and whistled. ‘Right, gather up.’

The crew of the Leman Russ congregated around the turret.

‘Repairs?’ asked Crown.

‘Done, Crown,’ replied Jesh, while Brydl muttered behind her. ‘Not anything we’d want an enginseer to see, but the welds will hold until we get it back to central.’

‘Well, they’re gonna have to hold a bit longer than that,’ said Crown. ‘Just in from command, the first walls are gone.’

The Cadians were silent as the import of that statement sank in. Heit’s eyes widened in shock. The first walls of the hive were extensive fortifications a hundred metres high, networked with gun emplacements, underground tunnels and even void shields to repel orbital bombardment. The direst projections vouched that they would hold for weeks. Instead, they had fallen just two days after the enemy made landfall.

‘We will not be returning to central,’ said Crown. ‘Command is massing everything they can find at the minefields, and that’s where we are heading too, so mount up.’ She looked at Heit.

‘Looks like you’ll be riding with us for a bit, choir boy.’

‘Hold,’ uttered Hakaron, concentrating on the scarlet targeting reticules that flicked across his retinal display. He felt The Hunger decelerate, though it did not fully halt. He spared a quick glance back towards the warpsmith behind him, who hung inert within the tumour of biomechanical cables with oily blood streaming from his eyes. His brother’s control over the daemon engine was slipping little by little, but Hakaron could not concern himself with it now.

The targeting reticules in the renegade’s visor were linked to the twin lascannons mounted on either side of the Land Raider. Hakaron’s gauntleted hands danced over the controls, operating the cannons independently to blast apart a ring of Chimera transport tanks deploying infantry squads around him. Multilaser fire from the Chimeras’ short turrets flickered against The Hunger’s armour, as ineffectual as rain. Searing blasts of energy from the lascannons sent the Imperial vehicles skidding back, erupting in flames as their fuel reserves ignited. Frantic mortals screamed as the fires consumed them, their flesh sloughing away like wax.

Hakaron fired short bursts from the Land Raider’s hull-mounted heavy bolters, reducing more slaves of the Corpse-God to puffs of red mist and chunks of oozing flesh. He reached down, throwing a lever at his feet. The fanged maw of the tank’s forward assault ramp thudded to the ground.

‘Go, brothers,’ said Hakaron, destroying another Chimera with a lascannon blast. ‘Leave none alive.’

With ponderous, thundering gait, the hunched forms of five Crimson Slaughter warriors stomped from the Land Raider in hulking Terminator war-plate. A brackish downpour of acid rain from the city-spanning clouds of smoke and ash pattered against the ancient ceramite, burning with thin wisps of caustic vapour.

Effectively tanks in their own right, the Terminators charged into the Imperial formations, cleaving soldiers apart and upending tanks with lightning claws and thunder hammers. Death spewed from the screaming barrels of an assault cannon and storm bolters clutched in monstrous transhuman fists. Litanies of deranged hate blasted from the vox-grilles of their tusked helms as the elite of the warband succumbed to their marrow-deep longing for atrocity.

Hakaron had been tactical in deploying the Terminators, resisting their taunts and demands to be unleashed until they were deep within the highest Imperial resistance. He knew he would never be able to recall them. The voices drove them to greater and greater acts of butchery in search of a moment’s peace they would never find. The Terminators would lose themselves completely, roving the city killing any who came near. Some might find death, though even then Hakaron doubted they would find silence awaiting their souls.

Hakaron glanced at the Land Raider’s tainted auspex. The device’s screen had mutated into a sheet of twitching red flesh, shuddering with rising pinpricks like gooseflesh to symbolise detected foes. A cluster of raised points rippled at the edge of the skin, glittering with a sheen of oily sweat.

‘Bring us around,’ barked Hakaron, glimpsing his brothers for the last time as the assault ramp folded back into place. He could feel The Hunger straining, angling its tracks towards another Imperial bastion. ‘You know where to go.’

‘Hunger,’ came the warpsmith’s rasped reply.

Heit stooped as he lowered himself into the Leman Russ. The interior of the tank was a roughly rectangular box, its cramped cabin smelling strongly of gunsmoke, engine oil and stale sweat. The driver, Lochna, settled into the forward control station in the bow, his hands dancing over control panels to bring the tank to life. The driver positively reeked of lho smoke, and Heit spied a string of blocky numbers tattooed at the nape of his neck, just visible above the collar of his coveralls.

A penal tattoo?

The gunner’s station was set directly beneath the main gun on the turret ring, with the commander seated behind and above it. Brydl crouched behind the gunner to the left in the loader’s station, iron fingers tapping against massive shells as he counted the Leman Russ’ ammunition. Jesh carefully squeezed herself into the sponson on the right side of the turret. There was even less space than aboard a Marauder, and Heit marvelled at how the Cadians were able to fight within such tight confines.

Heit felt a pair of dark violet eyes follow him from the gunner seat as he lowered himself into the tank. ‘You’re likely the first one inside this tank who isn’t Cadian, besides the ones who built her.’

Heit turned, regarding a gaunt mousy woman seated behind the tank’s battle cannon. Glossy synth-skin covered much of her face, and Heit could see plugs of dark iron in place of her teeth. Her limbs had been replaced with claws of similarly dark metal, all save her right arm.

‘Mortar round,’ said the woman, assuming what Heit was thinking. ‘I was perched with my spotter up in a cathedral tower on the Kulaxis shrine world, stacking up a good tally with my long-las. Seems the heretics sacking the place took offence to this, and finally brought the tower down around my ears.’

The gunner flexed her bionics with a buzz of purring servos. ‘Not much good as a sniper any more, new bits are too noisy. But I’ve still got my eyes and the right trigger finger.’ She waved her flesh hand. ‘So I convinced them to give me a bigger gun.’

The gunner extended her flesh hand to Heit. ‘I’m Zevsin. Sorry for before.’ She gave a short nod. ‘Arguing to kill you and all.’

‘Forget about it,’ Heit replied. ‘Sorry about your comrade.’

‘His number came up,’ said Zevsin. ‘He was Cadian. There’s no mystery why none of us ever seem to die of old age.’

‘We took a hit to the flank, glancing, but it split open a seam,’ said Jesh quietly. ‘Just wide enough for a bolter round to sneak through.’

‘Bolt-round’s not a bad way, if it finds you in the head or torso,’ said Lochna, rapping a fist against his chest. ‘Anywhere centre of mass you’ll be in chunks before you know what happened. Even a limb shot will get you after a minute or two, but you’ll know what happened then.’

Zevsin nodded behind Heit. ‘There’s home.’

Heit took a deep breath, wiping the sweat from his brow. Turning around, he folded himself into the left sponson gunner seat, a rough piece of thin rolled metal fixed at a ninety-degree angle. The chair was set into a channel in the deck of the tank, allowing the gunner to swivel left and right as the heavy bolter traversed. Heit could see the jagged gap to the right of the seat where the armour had broken, where the shot had come through to kill the gunner.

Heit peered into the periscope sight. The thin slit of armourglass was cloudy, blackened at the edges and provided little in the way of visibility. He wrapped his hand around the pistol grip of the heavy bolter, its metal stock pressing into the meat of his shoulder. The weapon was stiff, and Heit needed both arms to swing it across its field of fire. Releasing the gun, he looked down. His hands came away sticky with blood.

Crown settled into the commander’s seat above and behind Zevsin, punching keys into the vox station as she tapped the comm-bead at her throat.

‘All tanks, Imperial Son. Call in.’

A chorus of scratchy replies came in as the other Leman Russ tanks of the column reported their readiness.

‘Right, spin them up.’ Crown rapped the hatch over her head with her knuckles. ‘Let’s shake the tread.’

The Leman Russ shuddered as its engines rumbled to full-throated life. With a short jolt, the tank began to move, grinding down the cracked rockcrete of the hive streets.

‘Listen up, soldiers,’ said Crown, scanning through the tank’s auspex readouts. ‘We are linking up with what’s left of our armour to hold the minefields. Threat’s massing against them and if they break through them they’ll have punched their ticket to the hive centre. Choir boy, keep your eyes open. You see anything moving on our flank you spray them, you got me?’

Heit swallowed, taking hold of the heavy bolter again.

‘Got me?’ Crown repeated.

‘Got you,’ Heit answered quietly, squinting through the periscope into the ruin of the city beyond.

Imperial Son arrived at a scene of orchestrated pandemonium as it led the column of tanks to the outermost edge of the Imperial lines. Soldiers from a dozen armies and a dozen worlds sprinted to and fro, stacking sandbags and hauling cans of fuel and ammunition. Heavy weapons teams ministered to heavy bolters, autocannons and siege mortars. Gunners gingerly adjusted the focusing lenses of lascannons. Infantry stood in disordered rings around fires, snatching up power packs for their lasguns recharging in the heat of the flames before hurrying to their hastily entrenched positions.

Looking out from atop the turret cupola of Imperial Son, Crown raised her magnoculars to her eyes, panning across the rear. She could make out the squat forms of Basilisk artillery tanks in the distance, the barrels of their cannons raised like inquisitive fingers pointing to the sky. She looked down at Lochna, his head and shoulders clear of his hatch as he drove the Leman Russ from a standing position.

‘Roll us down over there.’ Crown gestured to a dishevelled gathering of weathered Chimeras, Hellhounds and Leman Russes. At the centre of the armour, dominating the other vehicles like a mother with children clinging to her skirts, was a Baneblade super-heavy tank.

Crown’s mouth went dry at the sight. ‘Throne,’ she cursed. ‘Look at the size of it.’

The Cadian struggled to comprehend the sheer enormity of the Baneblade. One of its track assemblies was as wide as Imperial Son’s entire chassis, and four Leman Russ transports put together barely matched its menacing bulk. Its main battle cannon was longer than Crown’s tank on its own, even with Imperial Son’s extended Vanquisher cannon. It took a bare minimum of ten highly trained personnel to operate the super-heavy tank, along with a veritable army of maintenance enginseers, logisticians, armourers and myriad other support crew to keep it at peak capacity. Eleven separate weapons were mounted on its immense frame, poised to obliterate the foes of the Imperium in a hurricane of bolter rounds, las-beams and high-explosive shells.

Crown gazed at the Baneblade’s main battle cannon. The name of the tank, etched in shining platinum High Gothic script, shone unblemished amidst a field of weathered and scored-black tanks.

Furor Imperator.

Crown swung her legs out of the cupola, striding down from the roof of Imperial Son and dropping to the ground as it rumbled across the assembly area. She set off towards a circle of officers gathering in the shadow of Furor Imperator.

‘Fuel, ammo, rations, lho,’ said Crown to Lochna. ‘In that order, driver.’

Crown smirked as she heard Lochna’s groan over the vox, and cut the link. The crew of Imperial Son disembarked from the tank, setting about their duties.

Heit followed the loader Brydl, squeezing out through a small access hatch behind the left sponson. The air was thick and hot, coating Heit’s tongue with the acrid tang of smoke and promethium. Everywhere he looked, uneven columns of ragged citizens passed, heads low and eyes sunken as they dragged themselves along. Mothers clutched babies, and men carried all that remained of their lives upon their backs. Astra Militarum soldiers stood at intervals, directing the diaspora to the network of subterranean tunnels that led deeper into the hive. Any who were of fighting age were pulled aside, barely given a moment for their families before a rifle was shoved into their hands and they were led away to join the ranks of the Glorious Defenders, the conscript battalions.

A muted shout turned Heit’s head with a shock. He saw a woman crouched against a landslide of broken rockcrete spilling from a collapsed tenement. She fought off the attempts of an older man to pull her away as she clawed at the ruins, the rough dark fabric of her robes and shawl torn and caked with dust. Chunks of masonry rolled to either side of her before she stopped.

The woman sagged to her knees, her head falling against the mound. The man placed his hands on her shoulders. She threw her head back. She let loose a wail, so sharp and true in its despair that for a moment it cut through the noise of war engines and shouting crowds. For a moment, it eclipsed them all.

The man pulled her back and turned her away from the mound, and slowly they merged with the other refugees. The woman’s face was impassive, as if she had released her very soul in her cry. Her hands were red. She had torn them to the bone to reach her son, whose twisted form lay broken and still in the rubble.

Heit was jarred from the sight by an elbow to his ribs.

‘Come,’ muttered Brydl, nodding towards a row of supply tents on the other side of the tanks.

Heit turned, sparing a look over his shoulder at the boy who lay dead in the rubble. The mound had shifted, burying him again. He was gone.

PART 2

The commanders of the other Leman Russ transports from Crown’s platoon followed behind her, leaving their crews to refuel and requisition repairs for their tanks. Cadians all, they stood head and – in one hulking tanker’s case – shoulders above the other Imperials fortifying the line.

One of the tankers passed a battered tin mug of caffeine to Crown. She nodded her thanks, bringing the mug to her nose.

‘Throne, Jayne,’ Crown winced. ‘Did you brew this on the radiator?’

‘In the radiator,’ Jayne replied with a crooked grin.

Crown shrugged, and sipped the dark steaming liquid.

The officers were circled around a cluster of broad ammunition crates converted into a makeshift strategium. Junior officers and servitors tended to portable vox-casters, relaying communications across the sector. Maps of the city were strewn over the crates, annotated with arrows and circles of red grease-pencil to denote enemy movements and positions.

At the centre of the gathering was a major. His uniform was pressed and spotless, compared to the battered flak armour of the infantry and the frayed and grease-stained livery of the tankers.

‘The cleaner the uniform,’ mused another of the Leman Russ commanders from behind Crown, ‘the less they do when the shells start falling.’

This was greeted by a low grumbling of agreement, though Crown remained silent as they reached the ersatz strategium.

‘Lieutenant,’ said the major as he looked up from the maps, ‘these are the platoon leaders of the regiment?’

Crown looked over her shoulder at the five tank commanders behind her before turning back to the officer.

‘This is my platoon, sir.’

‘Platoon?’ The major frowned in confusion. ‘I was briefed that the whole of the forty-fourth regiment has been allocated to this sector.’

‘The Four-Four got put through the grinder,’ replied Crown, making the effort to keep an edge from her voice. ‘Whatever is left of it is here before you, sir.’

The major did not respond, smoothing down the front of his fatigues and repressing a sneer. He was young, and looked completely out of his element here. Crown wondered how many officers had needed to die in these first few days for him to have come into command.

‘Gather around,’ said the major, prompting the officers and tank commanders to crowd close to the maps.

‘Late last night, the invaders collapsed a section of the outer walls directly ahead of this position.’ He gestured to the map, where a portion of the hive city’s walls was darkened in red. ‘The defences on either side of us were neutralised in the fighting, though the walls are still in place.’

‘Funnelling them right into us,’ said an infantry captain, his carapace armour cracked and singed with las burns.

The major paused, thrown off his train of thought. Crown spied the unit designation on his lapel, and pinched the bridge of her nose. Throne, a supply officer. He could have been commanding a laundry station for all we know.

‘Our position here is provisional,’ the major continued after a moment. ‘Our most crucial defensive measure is the minefield between here and the outer walls.’ He indicated a thin strip of Xs inked into the map’s surface.

‘How do they mean to breach it?’ asked Crown. ‘Artillery? Cultists?’

‘Unknown,’ answered the major. ‘What little aerial recon we have left has identified tanks in the area, but not artillery. We believe that the majority of their batteries have been concentrated in the south, bombarding the spaceports.’

‘And our reinforcements,’ muttered the captain under his breath.

‘What about other reinforcements, sir?’ asked the commander of a Basilisk artillery tank. ‘Support from within the city?’

The major shook his head. ‘I have petitioned to central command but they have nothing to spare. Our forces are spread thin all across the hive – we cannot depend on anything but what we have right here.’

Scarlet light flickered over the map, drawing Crown’s eye to a signal flare arcing through the sky. Scouts had sighted enemy movement inbound. The lines leapt into action, sergeants bellowing orders as they marshalled their soldiers for the impending assault.

‘To battle stations!’ the major shouted, waving his arms to the hastily assembled earthworks. ‘Hold the line! The Emperor protects!’

‘Mount up,’ the commander of Furor Imperator breathed calmly. The assembled commanders set off to their positions.

‘Imperial Son.’

Crown halted, turning to see the Baneblade commander looking at her.

‘I’m deploying Furor Imperator on the left flank. Place your tanks on the right. If any of the bastards make it in we’ll catch them in a pincer.’

‘Whatever it is,’ said Crown, ‘we won’t be able to hold this ground if they cut through those mines with any kind of numbers.’

‘Well,’ the Baneblade’s commander sighed, scratching at a cut on his cheek. ‘I will have eleven barrels of hell waiting for them when they do.’

Heit wrung his hands, clutching them tightly to keep them from shaking. He started as Crown climbed down from the turret.

‘Easy there, angel.’ Crown grinned, giving Heit a soft kick. ‘Keep that bolter pointed out there.’

Heit’s face flushed purple. He took a deep breath, thick with lho smoke and engine fumes. He looked up, hearing a faint whistling pass high over the tank before Crown sealed the hatch over her head.

‘Artillery’s saying hello,’ said the commander.

Heit peered through his periscope. He could not make out anything in the distance. A haze of dirty smoke blurred the ground into an indistinct smudge, and the thin strip of slate grey between that and the swollen cloud cover offered nothing he could identify as friend or foe.

Soft tremors shook Imperial Son as the artillery barrage from behind the Leman Russ began to land. Pillars of dark earth geysered up in the distance, bridging the dark surface with the clouds for flickering moments like strings of drool between blackened teeth. Heit glimpsed the commanders of mortar teams shout orders to their gunners, who began to drop shells into firing tubes with percussive metallic clinks.

‘Mortars means they’re close,’ said Zevsin, her eye glued to the sight of the Vanquisher cannon. ‘Keep your eyes open.’

Heit looked up as he heard a high whistle, barely audible from within Imperial Son.

‘Rain,’ Lochna shouted, locking the hatch over his head. ‘Incoming!’

With a rolling crack, the ground around the Imperial lines exploded in a chain of thunder. Man-sized tendrils of loose earth and flame shot up as shells dropped around the tanks. A mortar round detonated directly over the trench line in front of Imperial Son, sending a wall of razor-edged shrapnel lancing down into the soldiers below. Screams filled the air as the metal splinters tore through carapace armour and cut limbs from bodies.

A guardsman vaulted up from the smoke of the trench, his face a crimson mask as he sprinted for the rear. A commissar stood calmly, oblivious to the mortar fire, and took aim with his pistol. The brow of the guardsman’s head burst open in a cloud of blood and brain matter, and he crashed unmoving to the ground.

‘Those are their mortars,’ said Jesh. ‘They’ll be coming now.’

Heit looked over his shoulder at Zevsin. The gunner pointed insistently to Heit’s heavy bolter, then tapped two fingers against her own sight, not taking her eye from it as she scanned for the invaders. Heit pressed his face against the periscope, sweat streaming down to sting his eyes as he gazed into the occluded field in front of him. The cacophony of the bombardment slackened, thinning until the air was no longer filled with falling bombs.

‘Steady,’ warned Crown.

A dart of screaming light ripped past Heit’s viewplate, clearing the tank by spare metres.

‘Incoming!’ barked Jesh. ‘High-velocity gun!’

‘Eyes, eyes!’ said Crown. ‘Get me a visual.’

‘Armour!’ Lochna exclaimed, squinting through his periscope. ‘Forty-five degrees at eight hundred metres!’

Heit glimpsed a dark shape moving forward through the smoke. It matched the silhouette of a Hellhound tank, but with heavier armour plating and a mid-sized battle cannon bolted onto the turret in place of the promethium-spewing flamethrower of its namesake.

‘I see him,’ Crown answered. ‘Load, AP! Zev, traverse right. Let’s get in the fight.’

‘Identified!’ the gunner called back, twisting a control stick to rotate the turret to the right.

‘AP, up!’ hollered Brydl as he rammed the armour-piercing shell in place.

‘God-Emperor,’ Zevsin whispered, eye pressed to the gunsight. ‘Guide the flight, watch the target, take the unworthy’s life.’

‘Gun,’ ordered Crown. ‘Fire!’

‘Sending!’ shouted Zevsin.

The Vanquisher cannon of Imperial Son roared with righteous thunder as the tank bucked with the recoil. The gun’s breech block bounced back, spitting the spent shell casing to the deck.

‘Hit!’ Crown exclaimed with a feral grin. Smoke billowed from the target as it ground to a halt.

‘Load, high-ex. Gun, repeat, break that bastard open.’

‘First we crack the shell,’ Zevsin murmured as the high-explosive round clunked into the breech. ‘Then we crack the nuts inside.’

‘Up!’ called Brydl.

‘Fire!’

‘Sending!’

Imperial Son rocked back as the gun fired again. Heit watched through his gunsight as the high-explosive round struck the compromised armour of the enemy tank. The vehicle’s hull twisted open like a bursting flower as it exploded from the inside. Flames rolled up into the sky, wreathed in greasy smoke as the iron husk spat shrapnel in all directions.

‘Tank destroyed,’ Zevsin grinned as Crown rapped a fist against her back. Heit released a breath he did not realise he had been holding.

‘More where he came from,’ warned Crown, fingers tapping at her auspex display. ‘Keep sharp.’

Hakaron watched impassively as his forces died at the end of Imperial guns. He had sent the light tanks in – looted Astra Militarum vehicles with mortal crews – to probe and flush out the positions of the defenders. As they shattered and burned within sight of the enemy’s minefield, Hakaron now knew that his foe had tanks and mobile artillery, but not in significant numbers. His pulse flickered for a moment when he heard the telltale roar of a Baneblade’s main cannon.

Burkath and his two brothers heard it too, and Hakaron looked down from the cupola as they strained against their leashes fixed to the outer hull of The Hunger. The dense chains creaked with their attempts to pull away.

‘Soon, kindred,’ said Hakaron. Knowing what was arrayed against him, he would not send his own kin in to clear the mines. Turning back to the mewling horde behind him, he voxed to his brothers tending them.

‘Forward,’ said the traitor Space Marine, the word having barely left his lips before he heard the roar of revving chainblades and the screams of mortal weaklings.

‘Let them clear a path of blood for us.’

Heit heard the screams just as the first of them emerged from the smoke. A tide of filthy humanity surged forth. He could see the torn and dirty remnants of Astra Militarum uniforms, from armies defending Regallus. Other figures were in civilian garb, marked with badges and sashes of the planet’s organised militia units. They were flailing their arms in terror, not holding any weapons. Bulky shapes were lashed and chained to their bodies.

‘Explosive charges,’ Crown called out. ‘They’re herding them into the mines.’

Heit looked over his shoulder as the commander took hold of the control stick for Imperial Son’s hull-mounted lascannon. Crown pushed a quick breath between her teeth and triggered the firing rune.

A beam of dark purple with a blinding silver core slashed out from the tank. A swathe of the screaming mass disappeared. Several of the explosives they had been chained to detonated, killing dozens in the tightly packed crowd. The infantry in the trenches added to the fusillade, sending out a flickering wall of las and autogun fire. The other Leman Russ tanks also opened fire upon the charging mob, blasting men and women apart with streams of mass-reactive shells from their heavy bolters.

‘Sponson, you’re up!’ Crown barked. ‘Three hundred degrees, spray ’em before they take out those mines.’

Heit hauled the heavy bolter forward in the direction of the minefield. He levelled his gun upon the pitiful charge materialising from the smoke, and their uniforms made him hesitate.

‘Those,’ Heit stammered, looking up at Crown. ‘Those are our uniforms!’

‘I don’t give a damn if it’s a High Lord of Terra,’ growled Crown, leaning down to throw her boot in Heit’s back. ‘Hit them!’

‘But they’re friendlies!’ Heit spat, gritting his teeth at Crown’s kick.

‘They surrendered and are cowards,’ hissed Zevsin. ‘Or they allowed themselves to be captured, chained to bombs and thrown back at our lines. Either way they’re not friendlies.’

Heit looked back to the scope. He could see the hulking forms of Chaos Space Marines behind the prisoners. Blood arced from screaming chain weapons as they butchered the unfortunates trapped in the rear, throwing the rest forward in a desperate flight from them. His finger trembled over the heavy bolter’s trigger.

‘Fire that cursed weapon! Now!’ Crown kicked Heit again, hard. His face smashed into the periscope, cutting a gash over his right eye. He doubled over, hands clutching at his face.

‘Damn!’ Crown snarled. ‘Whiteshield!’

‘Aye!’ replied Jesh.

‘Get in the fight. Lochna, spin us around.’

‘Roger, Crown!’

Imperial Son lurched as it turned, bringing its right flank to bear at an angle.

‘Firing,’ cried Jesh, pressing tight to the heavy bolter as she fired in disciplined bursts. Prisoners came apart in a red mist of blood and spinning limbs. Their viscera sprayed those frenzied souls who rushed in their wake, compelled to animalistic panic to escape the butchering Chaos Space Marines behind them.

A deafening boom erupted when the first prisoner struck a mine. The artillery shell chained to her chest exploded a moment later, throwing bodies and shrapnel in all directions. Falling corpses and pieces of corpses struck other landmines, creating a rippling chain of devastating explosions. In moments an entire corridor had been blown open through the minefield.

The enemy pressed their advantage. Tanks and Chaos Space Marines began to pour into the opening, firing as they advanced. The twisted form of a Chaos Predator battle tank rumbled into the gap, fire streaming from its turret-mounted autocannon. Imperial troops were shredded by high-calibre shells as it fired along the trenchlines, while Chaos Space Marines and cultists surged around it to plunge into the melee.

With a blinding flash, the Predator vanished in a ball of flame. Furor Imperator, smoke curling from its main gun, rumbled forward, unleashing a fusillade from its manifold weapons batteries into the charging invaders. Shots snapped out from its lascannons, spearing tanks and troop carriers while its heavy bolters and autocannon reduced infantry to ragged mounds of twitching pulp.

With a thunderous drumbeat of massive stomping feet, a trio of brutish figures emerged at the head of the Chaos army. Trailing the snapped remnants of broken chains rattling behind them, the beasts let loose an ululating howl of mechanical anger. They smashed packs of screaming cultists aside, heedless of their allies as they hurled themselves into battle.

‘Helbrute!’ Zevsin barked. ‘Three contacts!’

The Helbrutes roared in mindless rage as they charged through a storm of las and bolter fire. Even the heavy mass-reactive shells glanced and bounced from their dense, semi-organic armour. They moved impossibly fast for creatures of their bulk, preventing the heavy guns of the Imperial tanks from tracking them.

‘All tanks,’ Crown hissed into the vox. ‘Open fire, all weapons!’

Imperial Son bucked sharply, and a warning klaxon blared within the cabin.

‘High-velocity round,’ hissed Crown. ‘Just a ricochet. Find it!’

‘Contact identified!’ called out Zevsin, spotting an enemy tank strafing from the right, smoke still trailing from its barrel.

‘Hit it, fire at will!’

‘Sending!’

Heit felt a sting at his ribs. He looked down, seeing the tip of a short blade pressed against them, and looked behind him.

‘Fire the weapon,’ growled Brydl, pushing the knife a touch deeper with his bionic hand, ‘or you die here and now.’

Heit swallowed, and took hold of the heavy bolter. Pressing his face to the periscope, he sighted a mob of cultists advancing towards the Imperial trenches. He sucked in three rapid breaths, and pulled the trigger.

Recoil impacts punched against Heit’s shoulder as the heavy bolter fired. He gritted his teeth against the deep pain blooming across his chest. Grunting with exertion, he dragged the stream of fire across the target.

Cultists flew apart as the mass-reactive rounds tore into flesh. Those that did not pass through detonated within torsos and heads in blasts of gore. Ragged hunks of bleeding meat slapped against their comrades before they too were scythed down by the fusillade.

‘Short bursts!’ Jesh shouted over the din of weapons fire. Her face was obscured in a flash of steel as the main cannon’s breech block swung back. ‘Count the rounds – don’t waste ammo!’

The ranks of advancing Chaos suddenly parted, like a school of fish making space for the passage of a hulking oceanic predator. A massive shape broke through the smoke and flames. Its sloped hull was the colour of clotted blood, festooned with twisted spikes of horn and black iron. Gaping lamprey mouths twitched and sucked across its oily armour, and the bloodshot orbs of dozens of sapphire eyes stared unblinking at the carnage that surrounded it. Immense iron tracks ground corpses into ruin as the beast surged forward.

Energy beams slashed out from twin-linked lascannons mounted on its flanks. A Cadian Leman Russ exploded, its turret sent spinning into the air to come crashing down on a mortar team in a burst of secondary detonations. The throaty boom of the enemy tank’s heavy bolters rang out, cleaving through Imperial infantry and cultists alike.

‘Priority target!’ Zevsin cursed. ‘Throne, it’s a Land Raider.’

Crown adjusted her periscope to centre over the emerging monstrosity. She had seen a Land Raider in action before. During the intense campaign of Sepris Prime, the Cadian 44th had been seconded to a strikeforce of the Adeptus Astartes Genesis Chapter. The Space Marines had used one of the gargantuan tanks at the spear-tip of a combined assault against a greenskin stronghold. The Land Raider had been responsible for more than sixty per cent of the xenos killed in the battle, peerless upon the field.

Facing such a foe was not something Crown had anticipated on Regallus.

The Chaos Land Raider fired again, reducing another Leman Russ to a shattered husk of molten iron. Imperial infantry began to break, fleeing from the crushing advance of the Crimson Slaughter. Commissars roared themselves hoarse, executing retreating soldiers until they themselves were cut apart by the invaders’ fire.

‘Imperial Son.’ Crown heard Jayne’s voice through the interference of the vox. ‘We just lost the Dawn’s Hammer. We need to displace so we can draw down on that beast from a distance.’

‘Negative,’ Crown shot back. ‘We pull back now and this whole line collapses. All tanks, concentrate fire on the Land Raider!’

The four remaining Leman Russes locked their battle cannons onto the enemy tank.

‘Fire now!’

The three other Leman Russ transports were of the standard chassis, lacking Imperial Son’s long-barrelled Vanquisher cannon and armed instead with a shorter battle cannon on their main turrets. Dust and smoke shook off their hulls as they fired, hurling one hundred twenty-millimetre high-explosive shells at the Chaos tank. One shell ricocheted from the sloped armour of its frontal glacis, striking off at an angle behind the target. The other two rounds struck directly but bounced off its dense shell, leaving nothing but circular patches of abraded, oozing skin.

‘Load, get me an AP now!’ ordered Crown.

Brydl hurriedly rammed a shell into Imperial Son’s breech.

‘AP up!’

‘Holy Emperor,’ whispered Zevsin as she gingerly shifted the position of Imperial Son’s cannon. ‘Reward my faith, and smite the target.’

‘Hit it, Zev,’ shouted Crown. ‘Fire now!’

‘Sending!’

Imperial Son kicked. Thick blooms of black smoke erupted across the Land Raider’s hull as the armour-piercing shell struck. After a moment, the prow of the massive war machine breached the blackened pall. The track assembly of the Chaos tank was damaged, yet it still ground forward with a fountain of blood and sparks. They had slowed the beast, but had not stopped it.

A las-beam struck a glancing blow on Imperial Son’s turret. The cabin filled with the reek of ozone and smoke.

‘Furor Imperator,’ Crown voxed. ‘We need your fire on the Land Raider. Do you acknowledge? Furor Imperator?… No,’ Crown breathed, clutching at the periscope. ‘Throne, no.’

Furor Imperator was on fire. The trio of Helbrutes had climbed atop the Baneblade’s roof, hammering its hull to splinters with spiked fists and siege hammers while blasting down with plasma cannons and multi-meltas. Orange fountains of liquefied armour sprayed out as the monstrosities fired again and again. Screaming crew members were hauled thrashing from within the massive tank, flung away by the Helbrutes or dashed to a paste of blood and bone against the armour plating.

A blast from a multi-melta struck Furor Imperator’s fuel cells, sending a deep crump tearing out from within the Baneblade as it began to burn from the inside. Whatever crew had not been killed by the Helbrutes scrambled clear of the dying tank, and were quickly surrounded and butchered by Chaos Space Marines and cultists. The fiends howled in savage glee, lifting the crudely severed head of the Baneblade’s commander for all to see.

Crown cursed, slamming her fist against the turret as she snatched the vox horn. ‘All tanks, Imperial Son. Full reverse, tactical displacement.’

‘Where?’ came a voice over the vox, so distorted by static Crown could not identify the speaker.

‘Just not here!’ she snapped. ‘Follow me out, and keep your chests facing that monster. Nobody’s taking a shot to the back here. Lochna, full reverse!’

‘Aye, Crown!’ the driver called back through gritted teeth, as solid and las-shots smashed off the tank’s hull.

‘Load.’ Crown looked down at Brydl. ‘Smoke. Gun, let’s give them something to choke on.’

‘Smoke up!’ answered the loader.

‘Fire!’

‘Sending!’ Zevsin fired, launching a shell a few metres short of the Land Raider. A ball of caustic white mist exploded out from the impact crater, spreading to shroud the Chaos vehicle from view.

Crown punched a series of commands into her vox console, cupping her headset as the channel opened.

‘Eagle one seven, eagle one seven acknowledge.’

‘Eagle one seven acknowledges,’ came the distorted reply.

‘Fire mission,’ Crown barked over the crash of solid shot striking the hull. She punched a series of numbers into the console. ‘Fire mission to these coordinates, send now!’

Crown fired the lascannon at an advancing troop carrier. The vehicle slewed to the left as its flank melted to slag. Tiny figures leapt from the vehicle as its fuel cooked off, thrashing as they burned.

‘Say again,’ the artillery commander voxed. ‘Cannot… you must… your position?’

The link went dead. Crown cursed, throwing open the turret hatch. She stood in the cupola, peering to the rear, where the handful of Basilisk tanks were deployed for fire support. Their lines were overrun, and a death by artillery barrage was far preferable for the infantry on the ground than whatever rituals the invaders had planned for prisoners.

‘Eagle one seven, acknowledge!’

Crown ducked as a huge crimson blur screamed low overhead. It was a massive gunship of brutal avian design. Crown had seen its like before, and had witnessed the devastation such craft were capable of, and that of the ones they carried roaring into battle.

Thunderhawk.

‘Eagle one seven, you have inbound!’

The Thunderhawk slowed. Crown glimpsed thin contrails as it launched ordnance down upon the city. Explosions tore up beneath it, as the dark shapes of traitor Space Marines leapt from either side of it. Tiny pinpricks of light slowed their descent as they hurtled down for the kill.

The Basilisks were gone. Crown spared another moment to watch the flames, jarred into action as a burst of autorifle fire ricocheted from the cupola. She ducked back within Imperial Son, hauling the hatch shut over her head.

‘All right, let’s go, let’s go, get us out,’ said Crown, squeezing off precision blasts from the lascannon into the hordes of cultists massacring the Imperial fortifications. Zevsin fired another smoke round into the densest concentration of the enemy as Lochna sent Imperial Son roaring in reverse.

Disparate bands of invaders pursued the tanks a short distance. Comprised of cultists lacking heavy weapons or support from the Chaos Space Marines, they were either cut down by heavy bolter fire or elected to withdraw back to their comrades and indulge in the slaughter. After the enemy had lost sight of them completely, the three remaining Leman Russ tanks of the Cadian 44th Armoured halted, turned and quickly vanished into the city streets.

The crew of Imperial Son climbed aboard the roof of the tank, looking down in silence as Crown threw Heit into the street. The two other Leman Russes that had survived the battle at the minefield, Morningstar and Butcher’s Block, had aligned themselves a short distance away, holding a perimeter watch for enemies. Their commanders watched from their turrets as the leader of Imperial Son meted out her own justice.

Crown hurled Heit to the ground and threw a kick into his gut to keep him there. In a moment her bolt pistol was clear of its holster, its barrel levelled at the airman’s head.

‘Give me a reason not to,’ hissed the tanker.

‘They,’ Heit wheezed, rolling to his knees. ‘They were Imperial citizens.’

‘And look what those Imperial citizens did,’ snarled Crown. ‘Did you think your cowardice was merciful? Did the men and women who died holding the line think that?’

Crown kicked Heit again, her boot cracking against his temple. ‘Mercy did not haul you out of those streets. Mercy isn’t out here! What’s out here is them.’ She pointed sharply at the horizon as it burned. ‘And me. I pulled you out because you might have been of use to me. You’re dead out there if you’re lucky, and a whole lot worse if you’re not.’

Crown seized Heit by the collar. ‘You do what I say or I will cut you loose and leave you here to them. They’re here! I can hear ’em, you can hear ’em, and they will skin you alive out here without us, you understand? You’re dead without me!’

‘There’s no sense to this,’ choked Heit. ‘No honour, no right and wrong.’

‘Not a single thing about this is right,’ said Crown. ‘This isn’t about right and wrong. This is about war, and following orders. From here on, you do what I say, when I say it. When I tell you to spray them, you fire. You kill your mother, your father if I tell you to. You’ll do that, or Throne help me, if you put my crew at risk again I will leave you here, and the things waiting out there will rip your flesh off and worse before the sky grows cold.’

‘Those weren’t soldiers,’ Heit shouted back. ‘They were militia. They didn’t even have uniforms. They were practically civilians!’

Crown’s eyes narrowed. ‘What is a civilian? Let me tell you something – out here there’s no such thing. There’s only two types of people here, those on the walls killing the enemy, and the dead. Which one are you?’

Heit stared at the barrel of the bolt pistol.

‘Which one are you?’ roared Crown.

Heit swallowed, and met Crown’s glare. ‘I’m on the walls.’

‘Then convince me.’ She shoved the barrel against Heit’s temple before pulling it back. Crown leaned down, her face an inch from Heit’s. ‘Down here the dead are staring you in the face. Get used to having to look at them.’

The horizon rumbled with chains of detonations clawing their way closer to Imperial Son. Crown lingered for a moment, before letting the bolt pistol drop a fraction.

‘Here,’ she said, racking the pistol’s slide, catching the bolt shell that ejected from the weapons chamber and tossing it to Heit.

‘You put my crew at risk again, and by the Throne, I will bleed you, and leave you here.’ She did not wait for a reply, turning to climb back aboard her tank. Heit stared at the bolt shell, and the threat it represented. He looked up at the pairs of bright violet eyes staring down at him, and pushed himself to his feet.

The howl of the mortals as they died was like a soothing balm to Hakaron’s fractured psyche. Screams of agony washed over him as men and women were ripped apart and disembowelled. He heard their frantic entreaties to a carrion god who was either uncaring of their cries or powerless to come to their aid. For the briefest of moments, it assuaged the relentless press of the whispers.

For the briefest of moments, he came as close as he ever would to serenity.

Hakaron reached down, lifting up a man who lay dazed at his feet. The slightest tightening of his fist around the mortal’s windpipe flooded the creature with the adrenaline necessary to feel every modicum of what was soon to happen to him.

‘You must witness this,’ whispered Hakaron. His tone was almost conspiratorially intimate as he hauled the thrashing mortal closer, the snarling death mask encasing his skull making the words a wet, mechanical rasp.

The man choked, leaving lines of fresh blood on Hakaron’s gauntlets as he feebly clawed his hands into ruin in a misbegotten hope of escape. It was in vain, Hakaron knew. All of this had been.

The traitor Space Marine’s eyes flicked over the rank insignia of the man. As the officer of the highest rank in the enemy camp, his suffering belonged to him. The sight of his moniker sent a spasm of amusement along the corner of Hakaron’s mouth. A major. Truly, the damnation of mankind’s diseased kingdom was nigh.

With slow, almost tender care, Hakaron pushed the man onto a spike of blackened horn protruding from The Hunger’s hull. He writhed in convulsions as he was impaled. Hakaron never took his eyes from him.

The horn’s tip breached the Imperial officer’s breastbone with gentle atrocity, anointed with his lifeblood. Blood, thick and dark like sticky wine, flecked and spilled from his mouth.

‘Your lungs are filling,’ mused Hakaron, tilting his head as he watched the mortal enter his death throes. ‘No air to breathe, only blood. And even that will soon be taken.’

The traitor leaned closer, cupping the major’s chin in his gauntlet to force his frantic eyes to look into his own.

‘No, no,’ he whispered, tightening his grip as the major’s eyes began to wax. ‘You must remain here for just a moment longer.’

Hakaron’s head tilted again. ‘Can you hear them?’

The man’s eyes bulged in terror. His short, panicked breaths began to mist in front of him, pushed past blue lips riming with hoarfrost.

‘Yes,’ Hakaron breathed. ‘You can hear them. The things waiting for you on the other side. So many are awaiting you. The barrier between is so thin now – do you hear them strain against it, as they howl for your soul?’

The mortal gagged, sending more blood foaming down his chin. Where his blood slathered onto the horn it trembled, shrinking into its hardened surface as the daemon within The Hunger began to drink.

‘Know that there is no salvation waiting for you,’ said Hakaron gently, as the last light drained from the mortal’s eyes. ‘There is only torment, ceaseless and infinite. Yet you may take comfort in the knowledge that soon, very soon, I will send every mortal soul on this world to join you upon the daemons’ feasting grounds.’

In his last moments, the major’s eyes grew milky with cataracts. The trail of blood streaming from his mouth paused, then began to flow back up his face.

Hakaron watched the man die. With the same gentle cruelty, the Crimson Slaughter warrior lowered the human’s head, allowing it to hang over his chest. His icy flesh was already pale, drawn and wrinkled as The Hunger supped upon his blood. Soon there would be nothing left of the body but a desiccated husk adorning the Land Raider’s hull. The wounds to its track assembly began to quiver and reknit, their healing fuelled by the scarlet libation of mortal life.

Hakaron closed his eyes. Like a candle’s tiny flame guttering within a tempest, he experienced a moment’s peace before the tendrils of haunted thought bloomed anew behind his eyes. He looked out again upon the remnants of the battlefield. His warriors approached, bearing the limp form of another officer, an infantry captain in battered carapace armour.

‘Bring him here,’ said Hakaron. ‘My machine must feed.’

Imperial Son was silent as Crown departed to converse with the other two commanders. Heit lowered himself back into his sponson, trying to avoid the contemptuous stares from the Cadians around him. There was no pity in their violet eyes, no sympathy. Just a cold, disgusted lack of understanding, like he was an altogether different species to them. To those born of the Gate, raised from birth to stand sentinel between the Imperium of Man and the Eye, he was utterly alien.

‘The man who held that seat once broke an entire infantry charge single-handed,’ said Zevsin, her eyes low as she made adjustments to the gun sight of the Vanquisher cannon. ‘Ran through his ammo and fought on foot with nothing but a standard-issue lasrifle and an armful of grenades.’

‘We held the line together at Kasr Wynich,’ said Lochna, tendrils of lho smoke curling up between his words. ‘Even with everything burning around us, the bastard could always make me laugh.’

‘He taught me everything I know,’ said Jesh. ‘Would have been dead a dozen times over were it not for him.’

‘He was,’ muttered Brydl, ‘a devout man.’

Heit looked down at the bolt shell. He released a breath, turning to face the centre of the tank.

‘I am sorry.’

‘Sorry?’ scoffed Lochna. ‘Can’t eat an apology.’

‘Can’t wrap it around this hull to stop a shell,’ said Jesh.

‘Can’t load it into this gun to kill the enemy,’ continued Zevsin. ‘That makes it worthless out here.’

The turret hatch swung open with a deep clunk. Crown peered into Imperial Son, finding herself staring down the barrels of a trio of autopistols aimed steadily by Zevsin, Brydl and Jesh.

‘Very good,’ said Crown as she lowered herself into the command seat.

‘What’s the verdict, Crown?’ asked Zevsin, looking up over her shoulder.

‘Losing the minefield cut us off from our defence network,’ replied Crown. ‘With the gap in our lines overrun, the enemy kept pushing forward, and they are now between us and the central spires. As of now, we are on our own. No fuel, no resupply.’

The crew was silent, with only the low growl of Imperial Son’s idling engines rattling up into the cabin.

‘Consensus with Morningstar and Butcher’s Block was, per doctrine, we could either stay put and hope the vox clears enough to signal command, or skirt around the edge of the city until we reach our lines or make contact with a friendly unit. Neither of those sat well with us – too much enemy in the vicinity for the first, not enough fuel for the second.’

All eyes were on Crown as she leaned down from the turret. ‘That Chaos beast that hit us, that Land Raider, has Cadian blood on it. It’s moving forward to add more to its tally and I can’t let that bide, not while we can fight. I am tired of holding, sitting around to give them the initiative and then defending. I want to attack. I want to hunt. That steel daemon is out there, and I intend to go into this city to find it and kill it.’

Crown looked to her crew. Heit saw the steely determination and nods from each of them. They knew where they stood. It seemed to Heit as if this were a course that they would have demanded they embark upon had Crown not already decided on it.

‘Will they not be looking for us?’

The tankers turned to regard Heit. He saw Crown’s eyes fall on the bolt shell he was holding.

‘Not after the line broke,’ Crown answered evenly. ‘Whatever made it out scattered to the wind and command will be too busy organising the defence to worry about a few tanks.’

Heit opened his mouth to reply, but hesitated.

‘How many did they send to look for you?’ asked Zevsin, turning back to the gunsight.

Heit looked at each of the tankers, then turned back to his gun. His fingers closed over the bolt shell.

‘Right.’ Crown sat back in the command seat, cycling through auspex feeds. ‘For Throne and home, let’s go earn our keep.’

It had not taken long to find the steel daemon’s path. The Archenemy had left a trail of annihilation in their wake. Entire sections of the city were flattened. Those few buildings still standing along the enemy’s path were little more than burning walls propped up by rubble, their blackened forms reaching for the sky like broken teeth. The sky held no succour, itself a mirror of the churning morass of red flame and black smoke that was the surface. Dirty rain poured from the tortured firmament, slashing down upon the desolation.

Blood covered every surface. It gathered in shell craters and the webs of cracks branching through the fractured rockcrete streets, filling the air with a heavy coppery reek. A reminder that millions of lives had dwelt within this city, now populated only by the dead and those soon to be.

Mounds of Imperial corpses were heaped behind makeshift barricades. Their twisted forms were entwined with the dead cultists they had killed and been killed by in hand-to-hand fighting, their bayonets and daggers still sunk into one another. Desecrated bodies were impaled upon walls or hung from lumen posts, defiled with blasphemous runes carved into their pale flesh. The same ruinous graffiti covered the roadway, while fires burned in impossible colours from dark iron shrines, immune to the torrential rain.

It tore at Crown not to obliterate the shrines with cannon fire. Rationing their remaining ammunition meant they had left many standing. Whenever possible, she ordered Lochna to put the debased altars beneath Imperial Son’s treads. The crew soon grew inured to the snap and low tremors rippling up from the deck as the tank crushed corpses beneath them.

The roadway was pitted and cracked, ground down by the weight of many tracked heavy vehicles moving along it at speed. Imperial Son could never have been called a gentle ride, but navigating the savaged avenues was as turbulent as moving off road.

The tanks rumbled to a stop as the blackened husk of a Chimera blocked the roadway ahead of them. At several points, the three Leman Russ vehicles had been forced to halt fully, throw out their winches and haul the road clear of burned-out tanks and armoured troop carriers obstructing the way.

‘Brydl,’ said Crown, as she had said time and again before, ‘take the choir boy and get the winch on that Chimera.’

Crown unlocked and swung the top hatch open. Brydl and Heit climbed out from a side hatch behind the sponson, walking along the side of the tank once again towards the tow cable spooled at its prow. Crown stepped up into the cupola, panning the tank’s pintle-mounted storm bolter across the street.

Within moments, Heit’s uniform was soaked through. His arms burned as he and Brydl decoupled the winch hook from the hull and dragged it forward. He had done the same six times before, hauling aside wrecks to clear a path through these Throne-cursed streets. The Cadian loader seemed unaffected by the exertion, hauling the thick steel cable along with his bionic arms.

Brydl locked the winch onto the rear of the Chimera, careful to avoid attaching it to a weakened section of the vehicle that would simply tear away when they dragged it clear. The loader looked in through a puncture in the hull of the troop transport. Heit joined him, peering inside.

Bodies filled the troop compartment, wearing the colours of the Regallan defence regiments. Their flak armour was riddled with shrapnel and las burns, but not charred and blackened by fire. A pair of waxy eyes stared back at Heit from the face of a dead trooper, slumped atop one of his fallen comrades.

‘What do we have?’ asked Crown.

‘Everyone inside is dead,’ answered Brydl. ‘Might have been an anti-personnel round.’

Brydl looked into another breach of the Chimera’s hull briefly, before turning back to Imperial Son.

‘Looks like the engines and fuel cells did not cook off,’ murmured the loader. He looked up at Crown. ‘Might be some promethium we can siphon.’

Crown did not reply for a moment, deep in thought. Her eyes flicked over the streets.

‘Do it. Have a look but be quick. Enemy left traps all over this city and this has all the hallmarks of one.’

Heit and Brydl stepped to either side of the rear assault ramp of the Chimera. Brydl checked the clip in his autopistol, while Heit drew the laspistol from his hip. Brydl nodded once to Heit, and the airman hit the exterior release control.

The ramp came down with a squeal of protesting metal, falling until it locked in place at waist height. Brydl inspected it for a moment, before placing one boot upon it and stepping down hard to lower the ramp to the street.

The myriad smells of recently dead flesh succumbing to rot rolled out from the troop compartment. Even though the air was already filled with ash, smoke and spilled blood, it still made Heit’s eyes water. He blinked rapidly, breathing through his mouth as they stooped to enter.

The compartment was cramped, lined with bench seats on both sides facing inwards towards a narrow aisle. There were ten corpses in the hold. One was sprawled across the bench on Heit’s left, his head propped up by a splinter of iron the length of a man’s forearm pinning him through his eye and into the seat. The rest were heaped atop one another in the aisle, almost as though they were huddling together for warmth. The fires in the street offered intermittent light into the compartment, throwing shadows that changed with each roll of the flames.

Brydl squatted in front of a panel on the wall.

‘Hey,’ he called. Heit hurried over.

‘Put a shot through each of their heads.’ Brydl hooked a thumb over his shoulder.

‘But…’ Heit frowned. ‘They’re dead.’

‘And you are not a medicae,’ replied Brydl, his consistently low tone deepening to lend finality to the words. ‘Through the head, while I access the fuel tanks.’

Heit stood, looking down at the bodies slumped over each other in the aisle of the crew bay. These men died in defence of their world, thought Heit. In defence of the Imperium. He raised his laspistol.

Now this is their fate. Dead, unremembered, their bodies defiled by our paranoia.

He aimed at the first of the bodies.

Is this all that is waiting for them? he wondered.

Is this all there is for me?

A sharp crack rang through the crew bay as Heit fired. A thin claret beam punched into a dead man’s skull. The corpse twitched as the beam struck it, as if it had been kicked.

Heit began to aim for the next when one of the bodies rose. It leapt forward, wrapping its arms around Heit and tackling him out of the Chimera and into the street.

Crown snarled from the turret, bringing the storm bolter around. A waspish buzzing filled her ears, and she ducked low behind the weapon. A barrage of las and autorifle fire smashed against Imperial Son. The Cadian tanker cursed as a bullet sliced across her shoulder.

Small metal cylinders clattered into the street around the tanks. A handful bounced onto the roof of Imperial Son. Crown dropped into the turret, hauling the hatch closed.

‘Brace!’ she hissed.

Imperial Son bucked as the munitions detonated across the tank’s hull. The crew pressed their eyes to their periscopes, searching for any sign of the ambushers through the smoke.

‘Do you see them?’ Crown called out into her vox-bead. The replies from the other tanks filtered back, their reports mired by static and the hammer blows against the hull.

The cultist rolled atop Heit, seizing the airman’s wrist and the laspistol he was holding. Stars exploded across Heit’s vision as an elbow cracked against the side of his jaw. The cultist bared teeth engraved with blasphemous runes, hissing in a language that sent blurred shadows flittering over Heit’s eyes.

Heit struggled, his teeth clenched as he fought to wrest his laspistol from the cultist. Rage reddened his face, and with a sharp cry of anger he smashed his head into the cultist’s nose. The headbutt threw the man back for a moment, loosening his grip on the laspistol. Heit grabbed the weapon and shoved the barrel between the invader’s teeth. The cultist’s eyes widened as Heit pulled the trigger.

For a moment, the man’s head glowed a pale red as the las-beam carved through it. Fragments of skull and gobbets of sizzling blood sprayed onto the wall as the Chaos soldier’s skull tore open. He dropped to the street with a thud, dragging Heit’s arm down with him. Heit put a boot in the cultist’s chest, kicking him away and shaking scraps of cooked flesh from the laspistol.

Las-beams slashed over the street, and Heit scrambled against the side of the Chimera for cover. The lashing rain had flattened much of the smoke to the height of his shin, revealing squads of heavily armed Chaos troopers pouring into the street. Teams of soldiers bearing heavy missile launchers hunched behind them, kneeling down to take aim at the tanks.

Thick beams of scarlet energy lanced down from windows of the hab blocks on either side of the street. The sound caught Heit’s attention. It was unlike a normal lasgun, the difference between the crack of a thin branch and that of a tree limb. Each shot was precise and accurately aimed, unlike the wild firing of the Chaos soldiers.

The cultists screamed as they were immolated. With no cover in the street, they were quickly cut down by the elevated shooters and the Leman Russ transports as they brought their heavy bolters to bear. Heit leaned out from his cover, snapping off a handful of shots, before sprinting back to the troop hold of the Chimera.

Framed in the rear hatchway, Heit saw the kneeling form of Brydl, the loader’s back turned to him. Blood caked his arms to the elbows, and he bled from half a dozen cuts across his torso and back. The bodies that had been in the hold were pulverised, skulls crushed by blunt-force trauma. Many of them still clutched hooked daggers in red-stained fists.

Brydl looked over his shoulder at Heit, his barrel chest rising and falling with each heavy breath.

‘That is why we shoot them in the head,’ said the loader, stooping to collect his autopistol from the deck.

Heit turned his head. The firing had stopped. He and Brydl stepped carefully from the Chimera, pistols raised as the smoke of the firefight began to clear.

A group of figures approached, stepping out from the smoke. They wore heavily modified carapace armour and fully enclosed helms. Each of them cradled a hellgun across their chests, thick power cabling linking from the weapons to the thrumming power packs on their backs. Rain fizzed as it struck the generators, pattering softly as the downpour began to abate.

‘Ave Imperator,’ said the lead soldier, bearing a sergeant’s markings on his arm, as he stepped forward from his squad. Reaching up, he pulled his helmet free with a hiss of air pressure, revealing a scarred visage and dark sunbaked skin.

‘They have been setting up that ambush since first light,’ said the sergeant, nudging one of the corpses with his boot. ‘Lucky for you we were already setting up the ambush for them.’

The top hatch of Imperial Son swung open as Crown emerged from the turret. The sergeant looked up at the tank commander.

‘Sergeant Gavron, Regallan Tempestus Scions.’

‘Lieutenant Knispel, Cadian Forty-Fourth Armoured,’ Crown replied. ‘Appreciate the assistance.’

Gavron shrugged. He looked back over his shoulder, nodding to his men and gesturing to the dead cultists. The Tempestus soldiers moved forward. They turned the bodies over, rifling through their webbing and checking for insignia.

‘Mazil odon,’ said one of the storm troopers, waving his comrades closer.

Crown squinted at their gathering.

‘Got one.’ Gavron grinned, and walked over to his men. He waved Crown forward. The Cadian checked her bolt pistol and climbed down from the tank, walking over to where the Tempestus Scions had congregated.

‘There is zuyevri, a superstition here,’ said Gavron. ‘From old folklore on this world, since before the God-Emperor brought it back into the fold. When a man dies, his body is visited by the shades of his ancestors.’

The sergeant crouched next to the body as one of his troops pulled it aside from the others. He frowned. ‘Shades, yes? Pryvdenya, spirits? Gothic is not our tongue.’

‘Ghosts,’ said Crown.

The Tempestus Scion shrugged again, and continued.

‘The pryvdenya appeared before you, in the time before the spirit broke from body, and they looked through your eyes.’ He pulled a combat blade strapped to his shin from its sheath, testing its tip against a gloved finger. He tapped the blade against his temple.

‘They saw the life you led, every act you ever did, through your own eyes. They made judgement on the life you chose to live. If you were virtuous, you were taken in by them in the afterlife.’

The sergeant hooked the tip of the blade into the skull of the corpse, digging the eyes out with a wet scrape of steel against bone.

‘Of course, if the man’s eyes are taken, the one who holds them has dominion over his shade. If they are destroyed, he is condemned to wander the desert between this life and the next, forever bearing the pain of his last moment.’

Crown stared down at the smiling man.

‘An amusing relic of a more primitive time, yes?’ Gavron pulled the corpse’s eyes free, sawing through the connective tissue anchoring them to the skull with his knife. ‘So, when we find any of our own who turned traitor to join the ones who set our world aflame, we take their eyes.’

He pointed the blade towards one of his soldiers. ‘Pog likes to keep them, thinks it’s worse to own their souls, rather than banish them.’

The soldier smiled, cradling a modified long-las hellgun in one hand as he reached into his webbing. He produced a glass flask that brimmed with the unblinking stare of a dozen eyes.

‘Me, however…’ Gavron looked down at the pair he held in his hand. ‘I like destroying them. No end, no respite.’

Gavron placed the eyes beneath his boot, and slowly pressed down. Bloodshot jelly popped out from beneath the storm trooper’s tread.

‘No peace for traitors, even in death.’

Gavron calmly rose to stand over the corpse. His face screwed up in a hateful grimace as he stomped down upon its skull. He drove his boot down again and again, until the corpse’s head collapsed into a flattened bag of broken bone and meat. Calm reasserted itself quickly over his features as he turned his dark eyes back to Crown.

‘It surprises me, seeing tanks out here. You are on the wrong side of the shooting, I think.’

‘We are moving to intercept the Chaos armour that hit our lines,’ said Crown.

‘Ah, hunters like us.’ A thin smile tugged at Gavron’s lips as he looked down at the dead cultists. ‘You pursue a greater prey, I think. So you seek to prevent them from using the tunnels, then?’

‘The tunnels?’ asked Crown.

‘You have maps?’

Crown nodded. They walked back to Imperial Son, and Crown pulled a small hololithic projector from the cabin. She keyed in a sequence on the runepad of the projector, which hummed to life with the whir of spinning machinery. An image of the hive city appeared in stuttering pale light.

‘No,’ Gavron shook his head. ‘Under, under.’

Crown adjusted the projection. The city shrank, drawing back to reveal a colossal structure beneath the surface. Like an iceberg, the vast majority of the hive was beneath the ground.

‘The hive extends below the surface for kilometres,’ said Gavron. ‘All of the main lifts and conveyor points are collapsed. They cannot enter there.’

‘How do you know they are all destroyed?’ asked Crown.

Gavron looked at the Cadian. ‘Because I am the one who collapsed them. But there are smaller points across the surface.’

‘How small?’

‘They are for maintenance passages, but a tank could pass through them.’

‘If the enemy were to find an access point, they could move below and circumnavigate anything we have topside.’ Crown looked to Gavron. ‘Are there any of them around here?’

The Scion nodded. ‘Yes, we were to destroy it after we had finished with our ambush here. By the trail you were following, your beast knows precisely where it is as well.’

‘Then come with us,’ said Crown. ‘We can move faster than you can on foot, and I could use your shooters. Our target is a Land Raider – we could use all the help we can get out here.’

Gavron appeared thoughtful for a moment, and looked to his men. The five Scions under his command drew their knives, spinning them in their hands to offer the hilts to Gavron in submission.

Gavron spoke to his squad in their clipped, guttural tongue, and they sheathed their blades. The Tempestus sergeant turned to Crown. ‘Our goals align. We shall hunt this beast with you, yes.’

‘Thank you, sergeant. The Emperor protects.’

‘He aids those who aid themselves,’ said Gavron matter-of-factly, his calm veneer darkening. ‘By that maxim, there is much we must give, then, to halt this foe. To bring vengeance for our dead. This is our world.’ He gestured to the ruined city. ‘They have taken our world from us.’

Crown met the battered Tempestus sergeant’s steely gaze. ‘Not just yours.’

The Regallan Tempestus Scions rode on the roof of Imperial Son as the Cadian tanks rumbled through the streets. The storm troopers would disembark regularly as the tanks encountered obstacles, clearing intersections and disarming mines and tank traps. When the Leman Russ transports came under fire from isolated sniper teams left scattered throughout the city, they cleared the ruins of buildings and towers until the shooters were rooted out and eliminated, the strict rationing of ammunition the only thing keeping the tank crews from simply bringing the buildings down with their battle cannons. More eyes were taken.

Crown ordered the column to a halt as the sun sank beneath the horizon, and checked her auspex. Gavron had dispatched a pair of his Scions to scout the path ahead hours before, and the three Leman Russes had now reached the designated rendezvous point to regroup with them.

Gavron and his Scions rolled off Imperial Son, dispersing in a ring around the tanks. Half their number entered the surrounding structures to secure their position, while the others knelt in overwatch, hellguns panning for threats.

Gavron’s vox clicked with two short bursts of static. He clicked his own vox three times. A pair of figures emerged from concealment and approached the tanks.

The two Scions trotted back to the three Leman Russ tanks, making their report to Gavron. Crown emerged from the turret of Imperial Son.

‘Well?’ she asked.

Gavron clambered up to stand upon the engine deck of the Leman Russ. ‘We have found the access point.’ The Scion pointed ahead of the column. ‘It is in a square two kilometres ahead, and there are many of the Archenemy standing upon it.’

Gavron breathed slowly through the rebreather of his helm, making short gestures to his troops in battle-sign. They moved through the streets towards the square, the stocks of their hellguns crunching tightly against their shoulders. The Scions fanned out in a hunched trot, flowing from points of cover.

Gavron came to a halt at the edge of the square. It was a massive rockcrete courtyard, framed on three sides by hab blocks and on one by a major roadway. Once the square had been a place of community, where small bazaars would sell their wares, citizens would meet and priests of the Ecclesiarchy would sermonise to crowds of rapt onlookers. Now, it was as broken as the rest of the city. Great fractures wound over the rockcrete. One of the hab blocks had absorbed artillery fire, its broken walls dropping into mounds of rubble like spilled entrails from a rent gut. Corpses had carpeted the square, now piled in gruesome heaps in corners.

Gavron took in the disposition of the enemy occupying the square. There were easily a hundred cultists and Chaos soldiers filling the area, and the Scion could even spot a handful of traitor Space Marines, standing at a distance from the rest of the rabble. Gavron had never seen one of the Adeptus Astartes before the Crimson Slaughter had made planetfall. They were utterly terrifying, consummate killing machines. The sergeant took a deep breath, making peace with the casualties in his squad that were inevitably to come.

The mortal soldiery of the Archenemy had gathered at the centre of the square. In some twisted parody of the Ecclesiarchal priests that had often garnered crowds with their zealous oratory, the cultists were enthralled by the snarling declamations of a wild shaman. The twisted, deformed priest flailed his arms, shrieking in a language Gavron did not understand, and did not want to.

The assembled force of the Crimson Slaughter were standing directly over the entrance to the maintenance passage leading deeper into the hive. In spite of this, they failed to show any regard for it, other than stationing guards at each corner of the sunken bulkhead set into the ground. Gavron frowned. Perhaps their orders were to capture the access point, not enter it. To safeguard it for the imminent arrival of Chaos armour.

The Scions watched as one of the cultists shambled up towards the priest. With fanatical deference, the man prostrated himself before the shaman. The sage of the dark gods looked to the crowd and made some declaration to them before seizing the man by his long, unkempt hair. In a moment a ritual dagger of glittering black stone was in the priest’s hand. Holding the cultist in place, the elder slashed his throat, sawing through the bleeding meat until he held the severed head aloft for his congregation. The cultists erupted in ecstatic cheers, singing foul canticles in the language of their dark patrons.

‘This is Gavron,’ the sergeant whispered into the vox-bead in his helm. ‘Status?’

‘We are in position,’ crackled Crown’s reply. ‘Hit them.’

‘Acknowledged.’ Gavron nodded to his squad, who dispersed behind cover and readied their hellguns with a low thrum. Gavron looked down at Pog, the sniper lying prone as he adjusted the optics of his hot-shot lasgun.

‘Zystaci nukil, ne tykli?’ said Gavron.

Get us started, won’t you?

Pog lined up the gesticulating shaman in his sights, and squeezed the trigger. The powerful las-bolt struck the man in the temple, and he dropped in a cloud of sizzling blood. Cries of surprise and anger consumed the crowd as disarray gripped the ranks of the Archenemy.

The Scions pushed into the square. The cultists turned, seeing the advancing Imperials, and charged them.

Gavron’s squad opened fire, sending disciplined volleys of hot-shot las into the wall of clamouring humanity. Men and women screamed as they were cut down, their flesh and clothing catching fire from the storm troopers’ supercharged weaponry. Energy bolts punched clear through cultists in the front ranks, travelling on to kill one and sometimes two more soldiers behind them.

Steam began to curl from the thrumming power packs upon the Scions’ backs, visible even in the heat of the burning city. They continued firing, the dazzling red las-beams slashing out like a surging wind fighting the press of an ocean wave. The cultists came on, trampling their dead and dying into the broken street in a frenzied lust to close with their enemy. The distance between the forces, bridged by hellgun fire, rapidly shrank.

The first several ranks, made up of emaciated and half-crazed slaves to the dark gods, were eradicated by the Scions. Their role serving as a meat shield fulfilled, the even drum of boots filled the street from behind their cooling corpses. Clad in looted flak armour and equipment from the planetary defence forces of a hundred worlds, ranks of Chaos heavy infantry in thrall to the Crimson Slaughter marched forward in disciplined formation, firing lasguns from the hip as they advanced.

Gavron swung out from a mound of rubble, stitching a burst of fire from his hellgun that immolated a pair of invaders. Barking a command to his squad, he pivoted back behind cover and reached for his webbing. He crouched, resting his hellgun against the rubble as he took hold of a frag grenade with each hand.

With a dull clink of metal, Gavron thumbed the pin from each bomb and hurled them into the advancing Chaos infantry. He watched the small black shapes of more grenades arc into the air as his squad mirrored his action. Gavron ducked back behind cover as the bombs bounced to land at the feet of the enemy.

A chain of overlapping detonations filled the street with shrapnel, smoke and screams. The front of the Chaos charge was pulverised, as if the fist of the God-Emperor had smashed down from the heavens to crush them. The wounded howled, clutching the stumps of severed limbs as blood sprayed from between their fingers. As they died, more rushed over them to take their place.

A hulking brute of a cultist, head and shoulders taller than Gavron, roared a challenge as he broke from the pack of his brethren. He held a massive flail in his meaty fist, its dark chain threaded with human vertebrae, ending in a spiked head crudely fashioned to resemble a flensed skull. The man was completely soaked in blood, both new and old, forming an uneven crust over the carapace armour wrapped around his barrel chest and the scar tissue covering his bare arms. The flail blurred into a ring of dirty pinkish-white as the cultist began to swing it over his head.

Gavron fired a burst into the cultist’s chest. The bolts carved into the filthy armour, pushing him back but failing to penetrate. A low chuckle spilled from the cultist’s lips.

The flail smashed down as Gavron rolled away, cracking into the rockcrete. The Scion came to his knees, took aim, and fired high at the warrior. The bolt struck the cultist in the face. His head vanished, burned away to nothing by the blast. The body stood for a moment, swaying before it toppled to the ground.

‘Now, tank woman!’ Gavron barked into his vox-bead. ‘Make corpses with your war machine!’

A roar of promethium-fuelled engines filled a side alley between two of the hab blocks. Dozer lowered, Imperial Son launched forward into the square, ploughing into the tightly packed mass of cultists. Men and women became liquid as they exploded beneath the treads of the Leman Russ. Thrashing bodies were impaled upon the teeth of the dozer blades, dropping and tearing free only to be crushed to mulch under the tank.

Inside the cabin, Heit moved his face back, away from the periscope. The vision slit was dark, rendered useless by the press of bodies. It was so thick it was as if Imperial Son had driven into a river of blood and rending flesh. Muffled screams battered against the hull, punctuated by thin screeches of metal as they broke the blades of their daggers against the dense armour.

‘Just fire,’ said Jesh distractedly as she fired her own weapon.

Heit fought to turn his heavy bolter, struggling against the press of invader flesh.

‘Just shoot, you idiot!’ hissed Zevsin, firing the hull-mounted lascannon into the howling masses enveloping them. The gunner blasted swathes of the cultists to cinders with every shot.

Heit gritted his teeth and fired the heavy bolter. The compressed bodies of the invaders confined and amplified the report of the cannon, making every shot a thunderous boom. The noise grew louder as Heit slammed round after round into the swell of enemies at point-blank range. Fresh, high screams peaked and silenced in time with the secondary detonations as the heavy mass-reactives exploded, ruining flesh and shattering bone. Blood and torn ribbons of flesh were flung into the air, falling back down upon the Leman Russ in such volume that to the crew it sounded as if the tank were moving through a rainstorm.

The Archenemy attack waned as the Leman Russ butchered the massed charge. Heit began to see through his periscope again. More cultists were shuffling towards Imperial Son. Thick black chains lashed the bulky forms of melta bombs and crude improvised explosives to their bodies and to each other, creating a net of suicidal fanatics. They shrieked, chanting in a language whose conception had never come by the will of man. Dark blood foamed down their chins and sprayed from their lips as they howled the unwords of the daemonic language, eyes bulging with psychotic glee as they bore their arcane procession forward.

Heit swivelled his heavy bolter around and opened fire on the suicide bombers. Bolts tore into the chanting wretches, reducing them to puffs of red mist and ragged hunks of meat. A bolt struck one of the explosive charges, detonating in a huge explosion that shook Imperial Son like a siege hammer blow.

‘Good,’ called Crown. ‘Keep piling them up.’

Heit wasn’t sure if the commander was speaking to him, but a righteous pride swelled in his chest as he blew the forces of the Archenemy apart.

Crown peered through her periscope. Morningstar and Butcher’s Block had leapt into the square on either side of Imperial Son to envelop the remaining Chaos infantry. Morningstar blasted packs of cultists to ash with its sponson multi-meltas, while Butcher’s Block doused the invaders in burning promethium from its side-mounted heavy flamers. She saw the flank of Morningstar blur with smoke as detonations stitched across its flank. The Leman Russ tracked its turret in the direction of the attack, as massive figures strode forward.

Clad in brutish and twisted power armour slathered in blood, Chaos Space Marines advanced forward at a walk, unleashing fire from their boltguns into Morningstar. At some unheard command, they stowed their bolters as one, clamping them to thigh plates and drawing massive chainblades and axes. The street filled with a mechanised scream as monomolecular chain teeth chewed the air, and the traitors began to run towards them.

‘Crimson Slaughter,’ breathed Crown. ‘Lochna, turn us around.’

Lochna hauled on the controls, fighting to rotate Imperial Son through growing mounds of the dead. Bodies piled to the tops of the track assemblies. Gore choked the workings of the tracks in such horrendous quantities that the tank laboured just to generate movement. Slowly, the Leman Russ came around.

‘Traverse right,’ shouted Crown. ‘Load, Infernus.’

Brydl pulled a shell from the magazine and pushed it into the breech. ‘Infernus up!’

‘Zev, put it down in the middle of those bastards.’

Zevsin tracked Imperial Son’s main gun to the right, levelling it dead centre on the charging Chaos Space Marines.

‘Fire!’

‘Sending!’

Zevsin fired, launching the shell screaming over Morningstar towards the enemy. The shell exploded in the air just before impact, throwing out a blinding sheet of rapidly igniting incendiary gel. The traitors vanished in the flash, consumed by the searing wall of flame. Darkened shapes materialised within it, stumbling and falling to the ground as their mutated armour liquefied. Others staggered forward, impossibly managing to survive as they strode clear of the flames.

The turret of Butcher’s Block swivelled around, depressing to centre on the surviving Crimson Slaughter warriors. The report of its battle cannon was made all the louder by the hab blocks enclosing the square. The shell smashed into the traitor Space Marines, leaving nothing remaining but a smouldering crater.

‘Good hit, Jayne,’ said Crown.

‘About time some of them started doing the dying,’ grumbled Jayne.

Crown smirked, about to reply when a deafening wail tore across the square. The crew slapped their hands over their ears. It was a blood-chilling noise, like some unholy melding of animal and machine.

‘Throne alive, what is that?’ exclaimed Jesh. ‘More cultists?’

Crown clenched her teeth in a snarl.

‘Worse.’

PART 3

The source of the keening metallic scream made itself known to Crown and the crew of Imperial Son. The side of a hab block exploded in an expanding cloud of dust and rockcrete splinters. A shadow darkened the centre of the cloud, rapidly resolving into a firm shape.

Spiked armour plates covered its every surface, from the corroded cube of black iron at its core to the tips of its six insectoid legs. The foremost of the legs ended in a pair of massive snapping claws raised before it, emitting shrieks of shearing metal as they ground open and closed. It strode through the smoke with an abominable animal grace no machine could possess, fuelled by the essence and infinite fury of the Neverborn.

‘Defiler!’ Jayne called out over the vox.

‘Hatches,’ ordered Crown. ‘Let’s go, lock and engage seals!’

At the centre of the daemon engine, a face of rippling mercury released another blood-curdling scream, its wailing maw stretching wider and wider as the twisting barrel of a battle cannon extended between its misshapen fangs.

‘Incoming!’ Lochna shouted.

Crimson smoke rippled off the Defiler as it fired. A shell forged by means known to none within reality hurtled into Butcher’s Block, ripping a gouge through its right side and shearing the sponson completely away.

‘Right sponson’s gone,’ Jayne breathed. Crown saw smoke billow from the cabin of Butcher’s Block, thinning as its crew fought the fire with suppressant foam. The wounded Leman Russ reversed, angling back to the left to protect its fractured side armour.

‘Morningstar,’ said Crown over the vox. ‘Harvick, I need you to shift and move up on its left. We’re moving right. Let’s split its fire. Butcher’s Block, you’re in this fight so throw some high-ex its way!’

‘Moving,’ replied Harvick. ‘Engaging left side.’

Butcher’s Block fired its battle cannon as it slewed sluggishly backwards. The shot went wide of the Defiler, smashing into the ruins of the hab block behind it. The daemon engine howled, propelling itself forward with incredible speed. Foul warp energies shivered over its body, melting the ground beneath it into steaming black slurry.

‘Let’s go right at it!’ Crown rapped her fist against Zevsin’s back. ‘Load, high-ex. Zev, get me a clear shot on it, no mistakes.’

‘Identified!’ Zevsin called back, manipulating the elevation of the Vanquisher cannon to centre it on the Defiler.

Brydl slammed a high-explosive shell into the cannon’s breech. ‘High-ex up!’

‘Fire!’

‘Sending!’

The shell fell short, skipping up and over the daemon engine as it charged.

‘Damn,’ snarled Crown. She fired the lascannon, knocking the Defiler’s shoulder back but doing no damage. ‘Repeat, get it up!’

‘Clear!’ bellowed Brydl as the shell clanged into the breech.

‘Sending!’

The Defiler lunged to the side, ducking clear as the shell screamed past it.

‘Reload,’ said Crown, checking her periscope. ‘Eyes up, we’ve got more infantry inbound!’

Chaos shock troops spilled into the square from the ruined hab block the Defiler had emerged from. They fired as they moved, careful to keep their distance from the blood-maddened machine. Cultists in battered and mismatched armour leapt forward, firing their weapons and hurling grenades towards the tanks and the squad of Tempestus Scions. Behind them, the hulking forms of Chaos Space Marines of the Crimson Slaughter advanced, their march measured and implacable where the mortal soldiers had been wild and disordered.

‘Get your men back,’ Heit heard Crown bark into her headset at Sergeant Gavron. ‘Get elevation and keep those infantry off our backs.’

The commander looked down at Heit and Jesh. ‘Let’s go – heavy bolters, spray ’em!’

Jesh opened fire, scything down a wave of rushing cultists in a cloud of scarlet. A pair of invaders crouched, loading a shoulder-fired missile launcher. Jesh took aim and blasted them apart. Bolt-rounds detonated their store of munitions, sending a burst of flame and shrapnel scything into their comrades.

‘Loading!’ Jesh called out, the Whiteshield’s hands a blur as she disconnected and dropped the empty ammunition feed, then locked another in place.

Heit braced, set his shoulder and fired. The deep percussive bang of the heavy bolter firing filled his ears. He dragged his fire across the ranks of cultists, shredding them into tatters of broken armour and torn meat.

Heit sighted a traitor Space Marine firing his boltgun and throwing more cultists forward into the charge. He levelled the heavy bolter and opened fire.

A fusillade of heavy mass-reactive bolts stitched up the renegade’s warped armour, exploding in puffs of broken ceramite and horn. The Space Marine’s arm was torn away at the shoulder, but still he marched forward, firing his weapon with one hand. Another burst dropped him to one knee. Impossibly, the Space Marine surged back to his feet. He staggered forward, still firing, before one of Heit’s shells struck him at the collar and blasted his head into splinters. Headless, the traitor took half a stride before collapsing to the ground.

Morningstar and Imperial Son struck at the flanks of the Defiler. Despite being attacked by enemies on both sides, the savage intelligence of the daemon engine ignored the fire lashing at it and charged forward, darting between and past the attacking tanks, directly for Butcher’s Block. It had wounded its prey, and now it hungered for the kill.

‘Bring us around,’ hissed Crown. Heit could almost feel the steely concentration in her words. ‘Bring us back around now!’

The two Leman Russ transports skidded to an abrupt halt, rotating ponderously as they strained to bring their weapons to bear in defence of their comrade. Butcher’s Block fired its battle cannon. The shell exploded against the Defiler’s armour in a cloud of sparks and black smoke. With another deafening screech, the Defiler leapt forward through the smoke, trailing mercury and magenta ectoplasm in its wake.

In an instant the Defiler had closed upon Butcher’s Block. The daemon engine’s claws latched onto the turret of the stricken Leman Russ. The dense armour plating around Butcher’s Block’s battle cannon twisted, filling the air with a keening wail of shearing metal.

The Defiler snarled as it drew its prey closer. Thick black smoke streamed from the rear of Butcher’s Block as it overloaded its engines in a last-ditch effort to fight off the walker and break free. With an unholy biomechanical roar, the daemon engine vomited a stream of sorcerous fire down upon the disabled Butcher’s Block. Flames of neon indigo veined with black surged through the Leman Russ, immolating the tank in a maelstrom of immaterial energy.

Crown flinched as if struck, hurling her headset down around her neck as it filled with an unholy scream. A leaping cloud of fire and smoke was thrown into the sky as the fuel tanks of Butcher’s Block ignited, bathing the Defiler in hellish light as it drowned the husk in more of its unholy conflagration. Heit’s eyes widened through his periscope as he glimpsed howling faces materialise across the kaleidoscopic flames engulfing the ruined tank.

Crown seethed. Imperial Son fired its Vanquisher Cannon, striking the Defiler in its flank and sending biomechanical armour spinning across the square. The Chaos walker rounded on the charging Leman Russ. Fire slashed out from the arcane autocannon mounted upon its thorax, drowning the Imperial tank in high-velocity shells.

The crew of Imperial Son reeled as the autocannon fire smashed against the hull. The tank quaked, as though a Titan had seized hold of it in its immense fist and shaken it.

‘Fire!’ roared Crown.

‘Sending!’

Another shell smashed into the Defiler, shearing one of its legs away in a torrent of azure sparks. The walker shrieked in pain and anger, firing its battle cannon but throwing the shell wildly over Imperial Son. Streams of superheated plasma blasted from the sponson multi-meltas of Morningstar, liquefying plates of the Defiler’s armour to slough away as molten slag. The walker twitched like a cornered beast, unsure of where to focus its aggression between the two oncoming foes.

The Cadian tanks bracketed the Defiler with devastating blasts from their main guns. Unholy armour shattered under the hammer blows of Morningstar’s battle cannon. A Vanquisher shell destroyed another of the daemonic war machine’s legs, tearing it away in a cloud of industrial gore. The Defiler crashed onto its side, its remaining legs clawing gouges into the rockcrete as it fought for the purchase to right itself.

Imperial Son and Morningstar ground to a halt, staying beyond the range of the Defiler’s flailing claws. Like the huntsmen of an ancient plain repeatedly thrusting the points of their spears into a wounded beast, the Leman Russ tanks hammered the Defiler with their cannons. Blast after blast tore more of the walker away until, in a blinding flash, it ruptured.

A mushroom cloud of warpfire exploded out as the Defiler died. It had the thick oily blackness of smoke, veined with purple lightning, but moved like flame as it licked upwards towards the sky. Frost crawled out over the broken ground from it, and a shrieking howl of agony and frustration pierced the sky as the essence of the Neverborn within the walker lost the vessel mooring it to reality.

Even through the thick armour of Imperial Son’s hull, Heit heard the distinct sound of claws tearing at the air, followed by silence as the daemon was banished back into the anarchic madness of the warp.

The howl that ripped from the loudhailers of The Hunger was a tectonic thing. Cultists and slaves within proximity to the Land Raider collapsed dead from the scream, those in direct contact annihilated into red mist by its force. Even with the auditory dampeners in his helm engaged to their limit, Hakaron’s ears bled. It existed as much in the psychic realm as it did within the mundane one, a blinding arc of expanding rage that ripped outwards like the shockwave cast by an exploding star.

‘Hunger!’ shrieked the warpsmith, blood and oil spraying from his lips as he writhed within his bonds. ‘Hunger!’

Hakaron slammed on the brakes, dragging the Land Raider to a grinding halt. He wrestled control back from the beast, reasserting his dominance as if he were snapping taut the leash of a disobedient hound. The spoor of The Hunger’s dirge still rang through the Chaos Space Marine’s head, pouring its molten rage over the meat of his mind.

The source of the war machine’s outrage was clear to Hakaron. A Defiler had just died. Its shell of flesh and metal was destroyed, its daemonic essence banished back into the cauldron of the Immaterium from whence it had come after its host had been shattered.

But the cry of the daemon that possessed The Hunger was not in furious grief for butchered kin; there was something more inwardly focused about it. Selfish. Perhaps the daemon inhabiting the Defiler had been a kill The Hunger had sought for itself when the time had been right. Now such prey had been stolen from it, snatched away by the cowering slaves of the Corpse-God.

An overwhelming lust for revenge radiated from the Land Raider’s cruel intelligence, tickling Hakaron’s conscience with sickly-sweet tendrils. The traitor’s lips twitched with amusement. The daemon was cunning. Vengeance was the fuel of the Crimson Slaughter. It was what drove the entire Black Crusade that was setting the galaxy on fire. It was what kept warriors like Hakaron alive.

The flesh auspex shivered, expanding to show an overlay of the city. A point of flesh rose, ticking and pulsing insistently at the site where the daemon within the Defiler had been banished. Hakaron’s eyes narrowed. It was behind the Crimson Slaughter’s advance, near one of the larger access points to the underground of the Imperial hive the Crimson Slaughter had been seeking to exploit. Imperials concentrated there represented remnants of their purge as yet incomplete. Forces of sufficient strength to bring a Defiler low could not be allowed to live.

The Hunger’s engine roared as the daemon brushed over Hakaron’s thoughts. The warpsmith shuddered, twitching and straining against his confinement in fitful spasms. Hakaron looked down at his corrupted brother for a moment, then back to the auspex. Slowly, with the deliberation of one demonstrating the totality of their control, Hakaron punched in the coordinates of the auspex reading, and released the brake.

‘So be it.’

The side hatch of Imperial Son levered open, and Heit crawled out, drawing in gulping lungfuls of air. Even the ash-soaked state of the city’s atmosphere was an improvement over the hot, smoke-laced condition billowing out from within the Leman Russ. Extended periods with the tank fully sealed would begin to overload its meagre air scrubbers, which did little to filter out the caustic gunsmoke and electric haze that filled the cabin, even at peak efficiency.

Heit wiped at the grimy sweat pouring down his face, blinking away its sting as it slid into his eyes. He heard the thump of heavy boots on the roof of Imperial Son as the rest of the crew disembarked to assess the damage to the tank.

The glacis armour of Imperial Son was severely compromised. The plating was so pitted by absorbing the impact of the Defiler’s autocannon fusillade that it looked as though it had been liquefied, with the countless shell craters like bubbles boiling up to the surface. It was a testament to the rugged durability of the Leman Russ’ design and construction that none of the shells had managed to penetrate the armour and kill any of the crew.

‘Loch,’ said Crown, pulling her headset around her neck as she jumped down from the turret. ‘Give us a once over, and grab Brydl too.’

‘Got it, Crown.’ Lho smoke mingled with the cordite billowing into the air as the driver opened his overhead hatch.

Zevsin hauled herself out of the turret behind Crown, her bionic limbs whirring and clanking as they clanged against Imperial Son’s hull. Out in the light, Heit could see that none of her augmetics matched, each a different design and shape, and likely manufactured by separate forge worlds. Even for a Cadian sniper and tank gunner, being provided with customised bionics was a long shot. The much more likely scenario was that the limbs she now used to walk with had been pulled from the bodies of dead comrades, recycled by medicae and field chirurgeon teams with far more amputees to see to than bionics to requisition and supply them with. The mismatched limbs made Zevsin’s walk a clumsy and noisy thing, and Heit could see the bitterness in her eyes at having her sniper’s grace reduced to this.

Jesh pulled herself up from the turret last, scratching at the oil-stained stubble of her shaved scalp. Heit heard her slow, even breathing as she strode towards Butcher’s Block. He heard the soft creak of leather as her gloved hands balled into fists.

The warped flames that had consumed Butcher’s Block had vanished with the daemon that had cast them. The shell was blackened and pitted, yet intact. Jesh placed her hand on the ruined tank. Heit did the same. The metal was as cold as glacial ice.

Heit peered inside the tank’s cabin. There were no bodies. No ash, no bone. Nothing. After days of seeing thousands of corpses carpet the surface of Regallus, their absence here was somehow more frightening than anything.

‘Nothing to bury,’ whispered Jesh. Heit looked at her. The Whiteshield’s eyes still had a glimmer of childhood in them, or as much of it as a Cadian could possess. This war would take that from her.

‘Bury?’ asked Heit.

Jesh made to reply before Crown clapped a hand on her shoulder. ‘I need fuel and ammo inventory, check with Morningstar as well.’

The Whiteshield spared a moment, looking back at the husk of Butcher’s Block, before turning away and walking to Imperial Son.

Heit looked at Crown, the question writ across his face. She nodded to the husk.

‘Korev,’ said Crown, placing her hands on her hips as she stared at Butcher’s Block. ‘Their loader. He and Jesh were part of the same unit in the Whiteshields. Came up from the same Kasr, same breeding tithe, though she was a year older. She was always protective of him.’

‘Like a sibling,’ said Heit.

‘Leave it alone,’ replied Crown, her voice low.

Heit turned back to the tank, and the two spent a silent moment looking upon it.

‘We are all going to die here,’ said Heit, ‘aren’t we?’

‘My money would be on yes,’ answered Crown. ‘Cadians are bred for the task. There’s never been any other outcome for us. We will do our duty, and if death comes here, so be it. Though that doesn’t mean we don’t have regrets.’

‘What do you regret?’ asked Heit.

Crown looked at him.

‘Not dying on Cadia,’ she replied.

Heit studied the ruined tank shell. He had no way to relate to Crown. Linoldia was a core world, insulated from the constant warfare tearing at the planets of the Imperium’s frontier. Planets like Cadia.

What could be going through their minds? wondered Heit. Trained from birth to kill, to sacrifice everything in defence of their world. To survive that life, and to be here while everything they were created to protect burns.

‘Heit,’ said Crown as she turned away.

‘Ma’am?’

‘Your shooting did not inspire me to execute you this time,’ said the Cadian as she walked back to Imperial Son. ‘A marked improvement – let’s keep it that way.’

Heit felt a thin smile curl at his lip. He quickly repressed it, and followed her.

The streets of the hive city blurred around Hakaron as The Hunger hurtled over the broken rockcrete. The riotous chorus of mechanical snarls and firing engines resounding within the cabin of the Land Raider barely reached his ears. He could hear almost nothing above the whispers that caught and snagged against his mind, bladed and insistent. His head swelled with the locust’s hiss of their voices. Tics and spasms rippled over his flesh as they clawed at his mind.

Hakaron tightened his jaw, the bones creaking as he clenched harder. He had to kill. Nothing else would draw them to silence, and give him a fleeting moment of serenity.

‘Hunger,’ hissed the warpsmith from behind Hakaron, twitching in a discordant rhythm from his prison within the machine.

Hakaron flicked his eyes back to the warpsmith. Did his kindred even know who he was any longer? Or had the daemon inhabiting this machine drunk the last meagre scraps of his identity, rendering him nothing more than a puppet, a resource to be exhausted and discarded once it was no longer of use? Hakaron struggled to recall his brother’s name. Did The Hunger know it? Did it care? Names were things of power to those who manifested out of the Immaterium. Was the warpsmith’s name something of value, or was it less than meaningless? His brother was a tool, meat and tubes and a fleeting spark of life. The daemon did not need his name, only his flesh and the fruit of his labour. It owned him, and could reshape or rename him into whatever it wished.

Would the daemon turn its foul tendrils upon him now, with his brother fully consumed? Would it seek to join the haunted choir shrieking within his mind? Would the other voices cease, if he allowed it? Was there peace in his brother’s oblivion?

A low snarl built within Hakaron’s chest. He smashed his head forward, crashing it against the wall of the Land Raider’s hull. Deep pain, hot and the red of dark wine, bloomed across his skull as he brought his face down again, and again. The pain was like a cleansing balm, wrapping his mind in the thin shield of its sting.

The daemon was pressing for control of Hakaron’s mind, and for the first time in centuries, the traitor Space Marine was not certain he would win.

The ragged crews of Imperial Son and Morningstar gathered between the two Leman Russ tanks at the centre of the city square. The Tempestus Scion squad had deployed across the hab blocks surrounding the expansive courtyard, forming a thin perimeter of hellgun firing positions. Sergeant Gavron had left his squad to their posts, descending to join the tankers as they assessed their situation.

‘Right,’ said Crown as Sergeant Harvick led his crew over from Morningstar. ‘The target will be moving here to gain access to the tunnel network, and so here is where we strike.’

‘Two tanks against a Land Raider?’ asked Lochna, taking a deep drag from his lho stick.

‘They’re tough, but they aren’t unbeatable.’ Crown gestured to several points across the courtyard. ‘We need to make this square a killing ground. We place any tank traps we can and draw the beast here into close quarters.’

‘We don’t have many anti-armour mines,’ said Gavron. ‘Near all of our melta charges were expended bringing the other tunnels down.’

‘Then we rig up our own,’ said Crown. ‘Set delays on high-ex shells with improvised triggers, spare fuel cells, whatever ordnance we can scrounge up. Anything that will funnel it here, and we hit it from the sides. In a confined combat zone we can outmanoeuvre it, and that means we can kill it.’

‘And what exactly will we be using to lure it here?’ asked Harvick, scratching at a scar on his jawline.

Crown turned, looking upon the husk of Butcher’s Block.

‘Do you still have your camo netting?’

The Cadian tank crews set to work. Locking their tow winches to the shell of Butcher’s Block, Morningstar and Imperial Son hauled the knocked-out Leman Russ back to the edge of the square. They set the tank in a corner between two hab blocks, angling its turret out to the centre of the courtyard and heaping rubble and broken rockcrete around it. Using the camouflage netting from Morningstar, the Cadians swathed Butcher’s Block in its dust-grey shroud, heaping additional piles of dust and rubble onto it to disrupt the tank’s silhouette.

To the untrained eye, the husk of Butcher’s Block was invisible, no different than the other angular mounds of ruined architecture and broken masonry. To the crew of the steel daemon, it would be a concealed but obvious target, and based on what they had seen of the tactics it employed, irresistible. Heit repressed a shiver, as even thinking of the monstrous Archenemy tank set him on edge.

The Tempestus Scions stripped Imperial Son and Morningstar of anything that would not compromise their combat effectiveness to craft an arsenal of improvised explosives. Expert sappers, the storm troopers picked through the courtyard, transforming it into a kill zone. Traps were set into every shell crater pockmarking the square, rigged with pressure triggers and remote detonation cables. The mangled wreck of the Chaos Defiler was hauled into the centre of the square, where the Scions set to work packing its twisted husk with makeshift charges crafted from spare fuel tanks and high-explosive battle-cannon ammunition. The foundations of the hab blocks were wired to explode, poised to bring tonnes of rockcrete smashing down upon anything caught in the vicinity.

Fuel and ammunition were inventoried and spread evenly across the remaining Imperials. Hasty repairs were made to Morningstar and Imperial Son, patching shattered armour and welding reserve plating over hull breaches. Heit and Jesh loaded belts of heavy bolter ammunition into the sponson hoppers, splitting their dwindling supply of mass-reactives between them.

With their ambush as prepared as it could be, Morningstar and Imperial Son moved into concealed positions between the hab blocks, setting up on either side of Butcher’s Block. The Tempestus Scions scattered across the hab blocks, setting up sniper perches from elevated levels while a sapper team concentrated at ground level, armed with the last of their remaining krak grenades.

Heit checked the belt feed of his heavy bolter, ensuring that the weapon was ready to fire. The cabin of Imperial Son was quiet, the crew silent as they inspected their equipment.

‘Heit,’ said Crown, a hand pressed to her headset.

‘Ma’am?’ he replied.

‘Scions are sending out a scout to set up a forward observation post. You’ve got first shift, so go with him.’

Heit nodded, catching a lascarbine Brydl tossed to him and slipping out from the side hatch.

Pog stood waiting in the square, cradling his hot-shot las as Heit approached. The sniper nodded once, and the pair walked out from the courtyard.

Umidia.

The scars of that world wound over Hakaron’s mind, never to heal. How long ago had he and his brothers burned that planet, pushing the Crimson Sabres Chapter over the precipice? Had it been centuries? Had there ever been a time before the voices?

A growing number of his kindred had rejected that such a past had ever existed. To them, the Crimson Slaughter had always been, the brotherhood’s days of loyalty to the Golden Throne and the Imperium of Man nothing more than a trick of the mind.

Hakaron remembered. Though the memories waned, rendered into an indistinct haze by the relentless susurrus of the haunted whispers, he held fast to where he had come from. To surrender his past made the spirits something that had always been a part of him, rather than the invading presence they were. As his brethren slipped away into the storm, one by one, Hakaron resisted.

The Hunger was fraying Hakaron’s resolve. It split his mental defences, forcing him to choose between fighting the monsters within, or the one without. The war machine seized upon this, drawing more and more control from the traitor Space Marine as it roared forward with abandon.

Vox traffic flittered through Hakaron’s helm. He half listened to reports from across the continent-sized city as the Crimson Slaughter pressed further for the centre. The Imperial defences were breaking, and soon the true butchery would begin in earnest. To Hakaron’s surprise, the lure of such genocide was weaker than the daemon’s lust for vengeance, and he watched with increasing detachment as it tore down the streets towards the site of the Defiler’s destruction.

It took Heit more than an hour to scale the cooling tower, the tallest structure left standing in the surrounding hive for miles. He followed Pog, the Tempestus sniper, silently as he padded up crumbling stairwells, clambered up pitted rockcrete walls, and climbed groaning iron vanes that covered the exterior of the tower like rusted vines. The ascent left Heit exhausted as they reached the summit, the shallow bowl of an inactive comms array Pog chose as a makeshift perch. The Scion didn’t even appear to be breathing hard, though Heit could only guess that from the even rasp whispering from Pog’s impassive rebreather mask.

Heit drew deep breaths in through his nose, crouching in the wind-scraped iron of the comms dish. He looked over at Pog, who had crawled to the lip of the array. The sniper had extended the spring-loaded forks of his lasgun’s bipod, setting the rifle beside him as he scanned the streets below with his magnoculars. Heit moved next to him, ducking against the wind clawing at his uniform as it tore overhead.

‘Anything?’ asked Heit, squinting down at the urban sprawl that spilled out below them clear through to the horizon.

‘There are many things,’ Pog replied, his mask lending a mechanical edge to his soft tones. ‘As for your beast, it has yet to present itself.

‘Here.’ Pog handed Heit a spool of high-tensile rappelling cord and an anchor spike. He pointed to the edge of the array behind them. ‘Affix this to the end, securely.’

Heit’s brow furrowed, but he thought better of questioning the Tempestus sharpshooter. Crouched, he moved over to the opposite lip of the comms dish. Pressing the anchor against the hardened plasteel, the device drove the spike in with a blast of compressed air. Heit tugged at the anchor, and, satisfied it was secure, locked one end of the rappelling cord to it.

‘Why do your eyes not shine?’

Heit turned. He crept back over to Pog, who stared at him through the crimson lenses of his mask.

‘What?’

A low rasp hissed from the sniper’s rebreather, perhaps a sigh. Pog reached for his collar, popping loose the seals. With a short gasp of equalising pressure, he pulled the mask from his head, the collar dripping with collected sweat as he placed it at his side. Pog looked at Heit with copper-coloured eyes, peering from a scarred, hawkish face.

‘Your eyes,’ Pog said. ‘Yours do not shine like the other tankers’ do.’

A thin smile of understanding curled Heit’s lips as he nodded. ‘Ah, no. I am not born of Cadia. I do not have violet eyes like them.’

Pog grunted an affirmation. ‘Hmm, as I thought. You are too small for their kind. Why then are you here? The gatekeepers are not ones to mix their numbers with outsiders.’

‘I was serving on a bomber,’ said Heit. He told Pog of his crash, and how he had come to fight aboard Imperial Son. Pog remained silent, his gaze flicking between Heit and his magnoculars as he listened.

‘War is different down here,’ said Pog as Heit finished. The sniper turned his eyes up to the sky. ‘I was once aboard a naval ship, when my regiment moved to join a crusade through the Gyzak Expanse. Months within an iron city as it plied the dark. Everything cramped.’ He sneered at the last word.

‘Along the way, our convoy was attacked by pirates. It was a small raiding party, only a few ships, easily destroyed. Such things were common, I was told. I struggled at the strangeness of their fighting, a crew of warriors who have never seen the faces of those they have killed.’

Pog looked down at his rifle. ‘I have never not. War must not be a detached thing, I think.’ He looked back at Heit. ‘We would quickly forget why we fight.’

Heit nodded. From this height, the cityscape looked the closest it had ever been to him before his crash. The rockcrete labyrinth, monolithic towers of hab blocks stacked atop one another, streets and gridlines and manufactorum complexes had been rendered so distant in the aerial reconnaissance picts and Administratum schematics provided during his mission briefings. It had been even further from him when conducting sorties, a blurred haze of black and grey, shrouded in the smoke of thousands of raging fires. His auspex had rendered it further into arithmetic and text, data and signal echoes.

He had never seen the millions dying on the surface, the armies cutting each other apart for every metre of rockcrete, the population burning alive as the frontlines reached their crumbling tenements. It had all been so academic in the air, almost sterile. The past days locked within the rumbling hull of Imperial Son, staring the enemy in the eye as they killed, and as he killed them, had taken that detachment from Heit, never to return.

The wind changed, and Heit’s nostrils filled with the smell of ozone. The hair on his neck raised, and he felt heat prick at his back. He turned, his hand rising over his eyes as the sky filled with blinding light.

Great pillars of crimson light struck through the churning haze of smoke and acid rain, smashing down into the city. The sound came a moment later, a seismic rumble that led to a rising wall of dust and ash from the impact sites. Clouds of dirty fire leapt up, feeding on the tainted air as they swelled around the carnage.

‘Lances,’ whispered Heit, crouching lower as the shockwave caused the tower to groan and sway.

‘Then the defensive guns are gone,’ said Pog, his tone still even and soft. ‘Now the hives will truly burn.’

More lance strikes seared down from orbit, reaching for the surface of Regallus like slender fingers soaked in blood and fire. Waves of dust and ash tore over the streets, buffeting the tower. The dish beneath Heit’s boots quaked.

‘Wait,’ whispered Pog, eyes pressed to his magnoculars. He gripped Heit by the shoulder, passing him the scope.

Heit peered through the sight, his breath catching in his throat when he saw it.

‘It’s here.’ Heit watched the small shape of deep red as it moved through the twisted streets. ‘It’s heading right for the ambush.’

Heit lost sight of the Land Raider when the magnoculars’ lenses overloaded. Blinding scarlet light filled the air as a lance strike slashed down from orbit mere kilometres distant. The tower bucked, the force of the lance’s impact and the resulting detonations tearing across the city. The deep chorus of protesting metal from within the tower was punctuated with the gunshot cracks of snapping girders and shattering rockcrete.

‘We must go.’ Pog slung his rifle across his back. ‘Now!’

The two scrambled across the swaying comms dish towards the anchored rappelling cord. Heit stumbled as the tower began to tilt. Pog seized him by his collar, hauling him back to his feet.

They skidded to a halt at the dish’s edge. Pog locked the cord to Heit’s belt before securing another line to his own webbing.

‘Wait,’ shouted Heit over the din of the tower. ‘How are we–’

Pog put his palm on Heit’s chest, and pushed him over the side of the dish.

Heit’s short bark of surprise was quickly lost in the swirling maelstrom of shockwaves and tearing dust. The tower’s disintegrating edifice blurred past him as he fell. He held on to the rappelling cord for dear life, feeling the high-tensile line burning through the beaten leather of his gloves.

With a jarring crack through his lower back, Heit reached the end of the cord’s length. The air was driven from his lungs as his momentum was violently halted, and he twisted at the end of the line.

Pog appeared beside him, descending smoothly. ‘We must cut free from here!’

Heit twisted, looking down. The dust had cleared enough below for him to see the ground, a short distance from where he dangled.

‘That’s still ten, fifteen metres,’ Heit gasped, fighting to breathe normally.

Pog grunted. ‘Welcome to war on the surface.’

The sniper pulled a combat blade from its sheath on his chest, and cut Heit’s line.

Once again, Heit found himself in freefall. Despite the panic that gripped him, he observed as the top of the tower sloughed off into the street, kicking up a wall of dust. This fall lasted briefly, only a few moments of weightless terror, before he crashed to the ground. A mound of plastek sheeting and empty fuel bladders cushioned his fall, if only enough not to kill him.

Heit moaned as he pushed himself to his knees, spitting a pair of blood-pinked teeth from split lips. Pog crashed beside him, the sniper quickly staggering to his feet and pulling Heit up. It was as he came to his feet that he heard the shouting.

A cluster of dark shapes were marked against the edge of the wall of dust churned up from the tower’s collapse. The silhouettes resolved into a loose mob of red-armoured men and women, moving up the street. Hissing in uneven tones, the foremost of their number motioned towards the two Imperial soldiers, raising autoguns to shoulders.

Heit brought up the lascarbine slung at his side, stitching a burst of stark energy beams across the line of cultists. Bullets buzzed past his head and masonry popped around him as the enemy’s wild fire sought him out.

A beam of deep red slashed out, taking the head from the lead cultist. Even from such a distance, the air carried the barest trace of the scent of iron and roasted meat. Two more beams shot out, and two more of the Archenemy’s rabble died, punched from their feet into the dust.

Heit looked over his shoulder to where Pog knelt, his lasgun trailing tendrils of steam from its barrel.

‘Go now,’ Pog barked, his back-mounted power pack flaring as he fired another shot. ‘Alert the others the beast draws near.’

Heit turned back, snapping off another burst from his carbine that cored through a screaming man’s chest in a puff of flash-fried blood.

‘Go, I said!’

Heit bit down, drawing his carbine to his chest, and sprinted down the street towards where the tanks were waiting.

Pog plucked a frag grenade from his webbing, hurling it into the charging cultists. He spent the moment earned as the enemy were cut through with fire and shrapnel to pull the glass flask from his hip. A dozen eyes stared out from it as the Scion set it down beside him.

‘Watch then, fiends,’ Pog growled, firing his rifle until the power pack fused into slag. He shrugged the pack and weapon off, drawing his blade and a large-calibre autopistol. ‘Watch as I add to your number.’

Pog leapt forward into the cultists who charged out from the smoke of the grenade’s detonation. The autopistol bucked in his fist as he hammered the enemy with shots that severed limbs and tore heads from shoulders. He rammed his combat knife in under a man’s jaw, punching up into the brainpan. Pog twisted the blade, wrenching it free as dark blood sluiced down his arm.

Pog felt the cold hammer blow of a dagger punching between the plates of his carapace armour. He smashed an elbow into the woman holding it, breaking her face. A broken stanchion, wrapped in razor wire and wielded by an enormous man as a makeshift club, slammed into Pog’s abdomen, doubling him over.

The cultists swarmed, clubbing and slashing with rifle butts, knives, their own hands and teeth. Blood soaked into the rubble and rockcrete dust, colouring it a ruddy brown.

The mob did not break until a sinewy woman, shrieking from a toothless maw, raised Pog’s severed head above the chanting mass. His eyes were gone.

Crown spotted Heit from the cupola of Imperial Son’s turret as he skidded into the square, her arm draped over the pintle-mounted storm bolter. She watched as he scrambled over the broken streets into the square, to where the Cadian tankers lay in wait.

‘Look alive,’ said Crown into her headset, watching as Heit loped breathlessly towards the alley where Imperial Son was concealed. She heard two sets of clicks over the vox, affirmations from Morningstar and Gavron’s Scions.

‘It’s coming,’ gasped Heit, bent double as he leaned against the nose of Imperial Son. ‘Fast.’

Crown’s hand cupped her headset. ‘Where is the sniper, Pog?’

Heit looked up, sweat streaming lines through the grime coating his face as he locked eyes with Crown. He shook his head.

Crown pursed her lips in a grim line, muttering a quiet reply into her vox. She looked back down at Heit. ‘All right, saddle up and check your weapon.’

Heit rounded for the access hatch behind his sponson. Crown inspected the ammunition feed of the storm bolter, racking the weapon’s slide to load a pair of mass-reactive rounds into its twin chambers. The Cadian’s violet eyes flashed towards the horizon.

‘Things are going to get very loud, very soon.’

When Hakaron awoke, he was drowning in blood. He tumbled end over end through an ocean of dark crimson. Blood rushed into his mouth and nose, pouring down his throat to fill his lungs with slick, hot iron. It stole his eyesight, denying him anything but red, red, red. No sound passed but the thunder of his hearts as he thrashed through the sanguinary morass. There was nothing but blood.

Blood, and rage. And… hunger.

Hakaron realised then what was happening. The spirit of The Hunger had swallowed his mind, consuming his thoughts and casting him into its endless need for atrocity. It had assumed control of the Land Raider, Hakaron’s weakling brother the warpsmith nothing but a puppet since it had entombed him within itself. And now it was doing the same to him.

No. No.

Hakaron roared his defiance, the noise swallowed by the blood. The scarlet sea thinned around him fractionally, drawing back from his fury. He began to hear the faintest thrum of engines.

Hakaron seethed. His outrage gave him clarity. He would not fall to the daemon within the machine. He would not become another puppet. He would not serve the daemon; it would serve him.

As the blood melted back from him, Hakaron arched his back, loosing a scream of primal rage until his throat tore and the blood shattered into dust. A veil ripped away, and the traitor Space Marine’s vision returned to the cabin of the Land Raider, just as the tank smashed into the silent form of an Imperial Leman Russ tank, swathed in camouflage within a courtyard square.

Trip wires and remote detonators triggered as the Chaos tank crashed into the decoy of Butcher’s Block. The husk of the Leman Russ, packed with shrapnel and improvised explosives, vanished in a searing explosion. A chain of detonations tore up the face of the hab block behind the crash in a wave of fire and smoke. The entire wall of the massive structure detached, raining tonnes of rubble and rockcrete masonry onto the Chaos war engine and filling the square with dust.

Imperial Son and Morningstar roared out from their concealed positions, smoke and dust streaming from their hulls as they brought their turrets around. The square filled with the roar of high-velocity shells as the main guns of the Leman Russ tanks spoke, hurling explosives at the site of the enemy tank through the swirling veil of destruction. The Cadian tanks hammered the obscured target, their main guns firing again and again, until Crown gave the order to cease fire.

The expanding cloud of grit washed over the Imperial tanks, filling the square with a grinding industrial fog. The crews waited nervous seconds for the sight of the target to clear, eyes pressed anxiously to scopes and auspex readouts. Heit blinked away the sting of dirty sweat from his eyes as he desperately scanned the area through the narrow slit of his gunsight.

A mound of broken rubble resolved itself from the haze, still shifting as crumbling stone and masonry continued to fall from the shattered hab block. The deafening din of explosions and blasting cannons was replaced by an eerie silence, more stark than the fire of the guns and bombs as the tankers waited, waited.

A low, mechanical growl cut through the silence. The mound of ruins began to stir, small chunks shaking and rattling loose. Red-tinged smoke curled out from beneath the rockcrete.

A blurred shape of dark scarlet exploded from the heap, throwing chunks of wreckage in all directions. With a terrifyingly organic roar, the Chaos Land Raider spun around to face the Cadians. Blood and viscous black oil streamed from its glistening hull, and the barrels of its lascannons writhed with coruscating chains of dark energy as they tracked like a predator’s talons towards its enemies.

Morningstar fired its main gun, the high-explosive shell streaking low to ricochet harmlessly off the ground beside the steel daemon and up into the hab block. The Leman Russ rocked back, its treads grinding over the tortured pavement as a fusillade of las-bolts lanced through its hull. More energy blasts slashed through its armour, striking its power plant and shattering the tank in a deafening explosion. Crown winced as the wreckage of Morningstar smashed against the hull of Imperial Son, the sounds of rattling crashes amplified within the cabin.

‘Gavron,’ barked Crown into her headset. ‘Get your men in the fight!’

A short burst of static came through the Cadian’s vox in affirmation. Thin black lines criss-crossed over the steel daemon, their hooked ends crunching into the ground on either side of the tank and pulling taut. Leaping from the windows of the surrounding hab blocks, Tempestus Scions zip-lined to the street, hellguns blazing as they hurtled down towards the steel daemon.

The Tempestus shock troops disengaged from their zip-lines as they hit the Land Raider’s hull. Their boots thudded down, sinking into the spongy skin of the corrupted tank. Blood and ichor welled up as they fired down with their hellguns.

The steel daemon spun, tracks screaming in opposite directions. The Scions stumbled, crouching and grabbing hold of the tank to steady themselves as they drew krak grenades and readied melta bombs.

The spongy hull of the Land Raider rippled. Snapping jaws and lamprey mouths formed in its crimson armour, tearing arms and legs from the howling Imperial shock troops. One soldier was swallowed whole, sucked slowly down and devoured as his comrades struggled in vain to pull him loose. Others were thrown clear of the tank, quickly shredded by its heavy bolters or crushed to pulp as the steel daemon brought its tracks over their bodies.

Crown glimpsed Gavron through her scope as he struggled against the tank’s living hull. Within moments it was consuming him, mouths forming beneath his boots to drag him down into rows of snapping fangs. She watched as he sank to his waist, bringing his hands to his chest where he carried a melta bomb. The charge detonated in a burst of smoke and flame. The steel daemon charged through it, bleeding from deep lacerations in its hull but its momentum unbroken.

Crown cursed as Gavron’s vox link was severed, and she hurled the headset off.

‘Vanquisher round, load and fire now!’

Brydl threw the shell into Imperial Son’s breech, and Zevsin traversed the turret to lock onto the steel daemon.

‘Sending!’

The Leman Russ jumped back as the main gun roared. The shell ripped past the target, grazing its hull and spilling a tide of corrupted engine fluids but failing to pierce its hide.

‘Repeat!’ shouted Crown. ‘Lochna, get us moving now!’

Lochna hauled back on the control sticks. Imperial Son slewed back to gain distance from the steel daemon. Blinding flashes filled the cabin from the driver’s vision slit as the Chaos tank fired its lascannons, the air within the tank spiking in temperature.

‘Crown,’ barked Lochna as his control console wailed with warning klaxons. ‘We can’t–’

Fire and smoke filled the front of the cabin as a las-beam pierced Imperial Son’s glacis plate. Bits of cooked blood and scorched meat spattered over Heit as the tank listed to a grinding halt.

‘We’ve lost drive function!’ shouted Jesh over the din. Another blinding flash came, and the young Cadian screamed as the right sponson was sheared away. Smoke leapt over the rest of the cabin in a suffocating pall, whipping free into the square through the ragged hole in the tank’s right flank where Jesh had been moments before.

Heit shouted a wordless cry of anger and pain, wildly firing his heavy bolter. The weapon rattled, loose and off-kilter in his hands as he blazed through his remaining ammunition. He glimpsed the enemy tank in half-moments through the morass of smoke and flame, his fire blasting hunks of metallic meat from the steel daemon but doing nothing to halt it.

‘Get that cannon loaded!’ roared Crown. She looked down and Heit followed her gaze, seeing Brydl slumped over his station, a spar of metal through his neck. Crown leapt down from her seat, pushing the dead loader to the deck and pulling the shell from his blood-slicked hands. She slammed the round home, locking the breech closed.

‘Fire!’

Zevsin blasted the steel daemon, striking a glancing blow on its side that sent a cloud of smoke and oily blood spraying into the air. The Chaos machine fired back, and Imperial Son was wrenched around as another las salvo tore through its failing armour.

Heit’s heavy bolter clicked dry as its ammunition was depleted. He snarled, kicking the ammo feed in frustration.

‘Get clear, choir boy,’ shouted Crown, grunting as she lifted another shell. ‘You don’t have to die here, but I’m killing this bastard before I do!’

Heit looked for a moment at the side hatch, then back to Crown and Zevsin. Gritting his teeth, he pushed past the Cadian commander, squeezing up through the turret and into the cupola.

The air was superheated outside the tank, filled with the stink of exhaust and burning blood. Heit blinked away tears from the acrid haze as he gripped the cupola’s storm bolter. He raged as he opened fire, sending streams of bolts at the rushing steel daemon.

Imperial Son’s main gun fired, nearly throwing Heit from the turret. He clung to the storm bolter as his legs braced under the cupola. Looking up, he watched as the tank-killing Vanquisher round struck a direct hit on the steel daemon. The Chaos war machine vanished in a cloud of bloody fire and spiralling smoke. A rain of twisted carapace and corrupted machinery spattered over the hull of Imperial Son, hissing and leaving patches of frost where it landed.

‘We got it!’ Heit cried, as a cheer rang up from the Cadians within the turret. ‘We killed the steel daemon!’

Heit’s exhausted smile died as pinpricks of light grew from within the pall of smoke. Dark beams, thick as tree trunks and cored by silver lightning, slashed out from the cloud through Imperial Son’s broken hull.

A crushing wave of heat and pressure tore over Heit as once again he found himself falling. This time, he did not feel himself strike the ground.

Hakaron stepped from the assault ramp of The Hunger, his boots crunching down on the shattered rockcrete of the square. A viscous cocktail of blood, fuel and engine oil pooled beneath the Land Raider in a dozen places, oozing from craters of fractured armour plating and shorn vascular networks. The beast would need rest, repair, and the souls of dozens of slaves before it could take to battle again. The warpsmith within was near death, his pittance of remaining self slowly yielding to the suffocating influence of the daemon.

The traitor Space Marine looked back at the tank. Its brief usurpation over him was just the beginning. Soon the beast would be beyond even his control. Once Regallus burned to ashes, The Hunger would have to be subdued, and hauled back to the war fleet in chains. Like so much of the Crimson Slaughter, it would become savage, governed only by the rage of the Neverborn who had claimed it for its own. The Hunger would join countless other weapons of war, kept imprisoned and guarded with sorcerous wards in the black depths of the warband’s dungeons, only to be unleashed when the shedding of blood was needed.

It would never have long to wait.

Hakaron’s head turned, hearing the shot before he saw it. With instincts he knew in his soul were unnatural, even for a transhuman, he lifted his pauldron. The round smashed against his shoulder guard, ricocheting off in a burst of ceramite chips before exploding in the air. The dissipating shock of the impact jinked him back for a moment, but he remained standing.

A second shot hissed past Hakaron, wide by a good margin. His would-be assailant was either untrained or rapidly losing strength. He had seen the telltale spark of a boltgun’s muzzle flash this time, and with long strides he threw his power-armoured form ahead.

Another shot rang out, the bolt falling short and detonating in a burst of gravel beside Hakaron. He leapt upon the shattered husk of the Imperial tank he had destroyed. The mortals within it had thought to ambush Hakaron, and bring low the daemon engine he had brought to drown this world in blood.

The mortals had been foolish to think such fantasies. Hakaron had torn their delusions away from them as surely as he had torn away their lives. For a warrior who straddled the realms of reality and unreality, Hakaron had always excelled at enforcing the cold truth of war.

Hakaron heard the click of a weapon hollow of its ammunition. He looked down, the icy sapphire lenses of his helm settling upon a ragged figure hanging from the turret.

It was a woman. Hakaron could hear the staggered rhythm of her heart fighting to push lifeblood through dying flesh. What paltry store of energy she had left was spent firing a bolt pistol starved of munitions, as the light began to drain from her bright violet eyes.

Cadian, though Hakaron. The little gatekeepers of their carrion god’s domain. Had she not been so close to death, Hakaron might have considered keeping her alive long enough to barter to one of the Black Legion. The Despoiler’s chieftains so delighted in the torment of those who watched the Cadian Gate.

She pulled the trigger once more, snarling at the pain unleashed by even that small exertion. Hakaron nearly smiled. The audacity of hope. He had never known of a greater farce. There would be no hope where she was going. The Chaos Space Marine looked out upon a burning city that spanned a continent, and turned back to his tank.

‘No…’

Hakaron looked down, seeing pale arms wrapped around his greave. The Cadian woman clutched feebly to him, the act pulling her out fully from the turret. There was nothing left of her below the waist as she sold her last moments scrabbling at Hakaron, one final defiance from a being too small to stop what was coming. The Crimson Slaughter were going to murder this world, as they would every world to fall beneath the Black Crusade until the Corpse-God was cast down from his throne of lies and his diseased kingdom was naught but ashes.

‘Heroic nonsense,’ whispered Hakaron, as he levelled his bolt pistol at her head, and fired.

Heit heard the shot boom across the broken square, jarring him into consciousness. He groped at the broken ground, trying to push himself to his feet. A marrow-deep agony drove the air from his lungs, and he collapsed. His leg throbbed with blinding tides of pain. Choking, he pulled himself forward, towards the edge of the square. If he could just make the edge of the hab block, he could get to safety. He dragged himself faster, clawing at the loose rubble.

Heit’s mind swam as he crawled. The pain forced his thoughts into a tight channel of instinct. He had to keep going. He had to survive.

Heit gasped as he pulled himself over the lip of a broken wall and out of the square. He forced his mind away from the pain in his leg. He had to find help.

They had wounded the beast. Maybe not killed it, but they had stopped it, for a time. Perhaps an entire regiment of the Astra Militarum was roaring towards them just this moment. Heit grinned with broken teeth as he indulged the fantasy. They had heard their vox chatter, and were sweeping forward in a devastating counterattack that would rout the forces of Chaos and kill the steel daemon.

That’s right, thought Heit. They are coming.

Heit pulled himself into the corner of a bombed-out hab block, propping himself up into a sitting position with his back against a crumbling stone wall. His head was swimming. He blinked, trying in vain to focus his eyes. He worked his jaw, feeling a crust of dried blood covering the side of his head crack loose. At least his leg had stopped hurting. He could not feel much of anything any longer. No more pain. Just a gentle… spreading… numbness.

They are coming, his thoughts insisted. They will find you and evacuate you to a field hospital. Yes. They have to. You were one of the soldiers who hurt the beast.

Heit bent forward, bringing his hands to his mouth to cover a hacking wet cough. He looked down at his hands, sticky with his own blood.

They might even call you a hero.

Heit’s head lolled forward, and he shook his head, throwing it back drunkenly against the wall behind him. He tried to focus on a small flame guttering in front of him in the rubble, though he could not feel its warmth. He was so very, very tired. His body was so heavy. Throne, more than anything in the world he wanted to just rest his eyes for a moment. He deserved a short rest before continuing on. The flame shrank, its shadows rippling over his waxen face.

A hero.

No, thought Heit. No, not me. The flame wavered, vanishing as his leaden eyelids slowly closed.

The real heroes are still in that tank.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Nick Kyme is the author of the Horus Heresy novels Old Earth, Deathfire, Vulkan Lives and Sons of the Forge, the novellas Promethean Sun and Scorched Earth, and the audio dramas Red-marked, Censure and Nightfane. His novella Feat of Iron was a New York Times bestseller in the Horus Heresy collection, The Primarchs. Nick is well known for his popular Salamanders novels, including Rebirth, the Sicarius novels Damnos and Knights of Macragge, and numerous short stories. He has also written fiction set in the world of Warhammer, most notably the Warhammer Chronicles novel The Great Betrayal and the Age of Sigmar story ‘Borne by the Storm’, included in the novel War Storm. More recently he has scripted the Age of Sigmar audio drama The Imprecations of Daemons. He lives and works in Nottingham.

Danie Ware is the author of the novella The Bloodied Rose and the short story ‘Mercy’, both featuring the Sisters of Battle. She lives in Carshalton, south London, with her son and two cats and has long-held interests in role-playing, re-enactment, vinyl art toys and personal fitness.

Ian St. Martin is the author of the Horus Heresy: Primarchs novel Angron: Slave of Nuceria and the audio drama Konrad Curze: A Lesson in Darkness. He has also written the Warhammer 40,000 novels Of Honour and Iron, Lucius: The Faultless Blade and Deathwatch: Kryptman’s War, along with the novella Steel Daemon and several short stories. He lives and works in Washington DC, caring for his cat and reading anything within reach.

An extract from Dawn of Fire: Avenging Son.

‘I was there at the Siege of Terra,’ Vitrian Messinius would say in his later years.

‘I was there…’ he would add to himself, his words never meant for ears but his own. ‘I was there the day the Imperium died.’

But that was yet to come.

‘To the walls! To the walls! The enemy is coming!’ Captain Messinius, as he was then, led his Space Marines across the Penitent’s Square high up on the Lion’s Gate. ‘Another attack! Repel them! Send them back to the warp!’

Thousands of red-skinned monsters born of fear and sin scaled the outer ramparts, fury and murder incarnate. The mortals they faced quailed. It took the heart of a Space Marine to stand against them without fear, and the Angels of Death were in short supply.

‘Another attack, move, move! To the walls!’

They came in the days after the Avenging Son returned, emerging from nothing, eight legions strong, bringing the bulk of their numbers to bear against the chief entrance to the Imperial Palace. A decapitation strike like no other, and it came perilously close to success.

Messinius’ Space Marines ran to the parapet edging the Penitent’s Square. On many worlds, the square would have been a plaza fit to adorn the centre of any great city. Not on Terra. On the immensity of the Lion’s Gate, it was nothing, one of hundreds of similarly huge spaces. The word ‘gate’ did not suit the scale of the cityscape. The Lion’s Gate’s bulk marched up into the sky, step by titanic step, until it rose far higher than the mountains it had supplanted. The gate had been built by the Emperor Himself, they said. Myths detailed the improbable supernatural feats required to raise it. They were lies, all of them, and belittled the true effort needed to build such an edifice. Though the Lion’s Gate was made to His design and by His command, the soaring monument had been constructed by mortals, with mortal hands and mortal tools. Messinius wished that had been remembered. For men to build this was far more impressive than any godly act of creation. If men could remember that, he believed, then perhaps they would remember their own strength.

The uncanny may not have built the gate, but it threatened to bring it down. Messinius looked over the rampart lip, down to the lower levels thousands of feet below and the spread of the Anterior Barbican.

Upon the stepped fortifications of the Lion’s Gate was armour of every colour and the blood of every loyal primarch. Dozens of regiments stood alongside them. Aircraft filled the sky. Guns boomed from every quarter. In the churning redness on the great roads, processional ways so huge they were akin to prairies cast in rockcrete, were flashes of gold where the Emperor’s Custodian Guard battled. The might of the Imperium was gathered there, in the palace where He dwelt.

There seemed moments on that day when it might not be enough.

The outer ramparts were carpeted in red bodies that writhed and heaved, obscuring the great statues adorning the defences and covering over the guns, an invasive cancer consuming reality. The enemy were legion. There were too many foes to defeat by plan and ruse. Only guns, and will, would see the day won, but the defenders were so pitifully few.

Messinius called a wordless halt, clenched fist raised, seeking the best place to deploy his mixed company, veterans all of the Terran Crusade. Gunships and fighters sped overhead, unleashing deadly light and streams of bombs into the packed daemonic masses. There were innumerable cannons crammed onto the gate, and they all fired, rippling the structure with false earthquakes. Soon the many ships and orbital defences of Terra would add their guns, targeting the very world they were meant to guard, but the attack had come so suddenly; as yet they had had no time to react.

The noise was horrendous. Messinius’ audio dampers were at maximum and still the roar of ordnance stung his ears. Those humans that survived today would be rendered deaf. But he would have welcomed more guns, and louder still, for all the defensive fury of the assailed palace could not drown out the hideous noise of the daemons – their sighing hisses, a billion serpents strong, and chittering, screaming wails. It was not only heard but sensed within the soul, the realms of spirit and of matter were so intertwined. Messinius’ being would be forever stained by it.

Tactical information scrolled down his helmplate, near environs only. He had little strategic overview of the situation. The vox-channels were choked with a hellish screaming that made communication impossible. The noosphere was disrupted by etheric backwash spilling from the immaterial rifts the daemons poured through. Messinius was used to operating on his own. Small-scale, surgical actions were the way of the Adeptus Astartes, but in a battle of this scale, a lack of central coordination would lead inevitably to defeat. This was not like the first Siege, where his kind had fought in Legions.

He called up a company-wide vox-cast and spoke to his warriors. They were not his Chapter-kin, but they would listen. The primarch himself had commanded that they do so.

‘Reinforce the mortals,’ he said. ‘Their morale is wavering. Position yourselves every fifty yards. Cover the whole of the south-facing front. Let them see you.’ He directed his warriors by chopping at the air with his left hand. His right, bearing an inactive power fist, hung heavily at his side. ‘Assault Squad Antiocles, back forty yards, single firing line. Prepare to engage enemy breakthroughs only on my mark. Devastators, split to demi-squads and take up high ground, sergeant and sub-squad prime’s discretion as to positioning and target. Remember our objective, heavy infliction of casualties. We kill as many as we can, we retreat, then hold at the Penitent’s Arch until further notice. Command squad, with me.’

Command squad was too grand a title for the mismatched crew Messinius had gathered around himself. His own officers were light years away, if they still lived.

‘Doveskamor, Tidominus,’ he said to the two Aurora Marines with him. ‘Take the left.’

‘Yes, captain,’ they voxed, and jogged away, their green armour glinting orange in the hell-light of the invasion.

The rest of his scratch squad was comprised of a communications specialist from the Death Spectres, an Omega Marine with a penchant for plasma weaponry, and a Raptor holding an ancient standard he’d taken from a dusty display.

‘Why did you take that, Brother Kryvesh?’ Messinius asked, as they moved forward.

‘The palace is full of such relics,’ said the Raptor. ‘It seems only right to put them to use. No one else wanted it.’

Messinius stared at him.

‘What? If the gate falls, we’ll have more to worry about than my minor indiscretion. It’ll be good for morale.’

The squads were splitting to join the standard humans. Such was the noise many of the men on the wall had not noticed their arrival, and a ripple of surprise went along the line as they appeared at their sides. Messinius was glad to see they seemed more firm when they turned their eyes back outwards.

‘Anzigus,’ he said to the Death Spectre. ‘Hold back, facilitate communication within the company. Maximum signal gain. This interference will only get worse. See if you can get us patched in to wider theatre command. I’ll take a hardline if you can find one.’

‘Yes, captain,’ said Anzigus. He bowed a helm that was bulbous with additional equipment. He already had the access flap of the bulky vox-unit on his arm open. He withdrew, the aerials on his power plant extending. He headed towards a systems nexus on the far wall of the plaza, where soaring buttresses pushed back against the immense weight bearing down upon them.

Messinius watched him go. He knew next to nothing about Anzigus. He spoke little, and when he did, his voice was funereal. His Chapter was mysterious, but the same lack of familiarity held true for many of these warriors, thrown together by miraculous events. Over their years lost wandering in the warp, Messinius had come to see some as friends as well as comrades, others he hardly knew, and none he knew so well as his own Chapter brothers. But they would stand together. They were Space Marines. They had fought by the returned primarch’s side, and in that they shared a bond. They would not stint in their duty now.

Messinius chose a spot on the wall, directing his other veterans to left and right. Kryvesh he sent to the mortal officer’s side. He looked down again, out past the enemy and over the outer palace. Spires stretched away in every direction. Smoke rose from all over the landscape. Some of it was new, the work of the daemon horde, but Terra had been burning for weeks. The Astronomican had failed. The galaxy was split in two. Behind them in the sky turned the great palace gyre, its deep eye marking out the throne room of the Emperor Himself.

‘Sir!’ A member of the Palatine Guard shouted over the din. He pointed downwards, to the left. Messinius followed his wavering finger. Three hundred feet below, daemons were climbing. They came upwards in a triangle tipped by a brute with a double rack of horns. It clambered hand over hand, far faster than should be possible, flying upwards, as if it touched the side of the towering gate only as a concession to reality. A Space Marine with claw locks could not have climbed that fast.

‘Soldiers of the Imperium! The enemy is upon us!’

He looked to the mortals. Their faces were blanched with fear. Their weapons shook. Their bravery was commendable nonetheless. Not one of them attempted to run, though a wave of terror preceded the unnatural things clambering up towards them.

‘We shall not turn away from our duty, no matter how fearful the foe, or how dire our fates may be,’ he said. ‘Behind us is the Sanctum of the Emperor Himself. As He has watched over you, now it is your turn to stand in guardianship over Him.’

The creatures were drawing closer. Through a sliding, magnified window on his display, Messinius looked into the yellow and cunning eyes of their leader. A long tongue lolled permanently from the thing’s mouth, licking at the wall, tasting the terror of the beings it protected.

Boltgun actions clicked. His men leaned over the parapet, towering over the mortals as the Lion’s Gate towered over the Ultimate Wall. A wealth of targeting data was exchanged, warrior to warrior, as each chose a unique mark. No bolt would be wasted in the opening fusillade. They could hear the creatures’ individual shrieks and growls, all wordless, but their meaning was clear: blood, blood, blood. Blood and skulls.

Messinius sneered at them. He ignited his power fist with a swift jerk. He always preferred the visceral thrill of manual activation. Motors came to full life. Lightning crackled around it. He aimed downwards with his bolt pistol. A reticule danced over diabolical faces, each a copy of all the others. These things were not real. They were not alive. They were projections of a false god. The Librarian Atramo had named them maladies. A spiritual sickness wearing ersatz flesh.

He reminded himself to be wary. Contempt was as thick as any armour, but these things were deadly, for all their unreality.

He knew. He had fought the Neverborn many times before.

‘While He lives,’ Messinius shouted, boosting his voxmitter gain to maximal, ‘we stand!’

‘For He of Terra!’ the humans shouted, their battle cry loud enough to be heard over the booming of guns.

‘For He of Terra,’ said Messinius. ‘Fire!’ he shouted.

The Space Marines fired first. Boltguns spoke, spitting spikes of rocket flare into the foe. Bolts slammed into daemon bodies, bursting them apart. Black viscera exploded away. Black ichor showered those coming after. The daemons’ false souls screamed back whence they came, though their bones and offal tumbled down like those of any truly living foe.

Las-beams speared next, and the space between the wall top and the scaling party filled with violence. The daemons were unnaturally resilient, protected from death by the energies of the warp, and though many were felled, others weathered the fire, and clambered up still, unharmed and uncaring of their dead. Messinius no longer needed his helm’s magnification to see into the daemon champion’s eyes. It stared at him, its smile a promise of death. The terror that preceded them was replaced by the urge to violence, and that gripped them all, foe and friend. The baseline humans began to lose their discipline. A man turned and shot his comrade, and was shot down in turn. Kryvesh banged the foot of his borrowed banner and called them back into line. Elsewhere, his warriors sang; not their Chapter warsongs, but battle hymns known to all. Wavering human voices joined them. The feelings of violence abated, just enough.

Then the things were over the parapet and on them. Messinius saw Tidominus carried down by a group of daemons, his unit signum replaced by a mortis rune in his helm. The enemy champion was racing at him. Messinius emptied his bolt pistol into its face, blowing half of it away into a fine mist of daemonic ichor. Still it leapt, hurling itself twenty feet over the parapet. Messinius fell back, keeping the creature in sight, targeting skating over his helmplate as the machine-spirit tried to maintain a target lock. Threat indicators trilled, shifting up their priority spectrum.

The daemon held up its enormous gnarled hands. Smoke whirled in the space between, coalescing into a two-handed sword almost as tall as Messinius. By the time its hoofed feet cracked the paving slabs of the square, the creature’s weapon was solid. Vapour streaming from its ruined face, it pointed the broadsword at Messinius and hissed a wordless challenge.

‘Accepted,’ said Messinius, and moved in to attack.

The creature was fast, and punishingly strong. Messinius parried its first strike with an outward push of his palm, fingers spread. Energy crackled. The boom generated by the meeting of human technology and the sorceries of the warp was loud enough to out-compete the guns, but though the impact sent pain lancing up Messinius’ arm, the daemon was not staggered, and pressed in a follow-up attack, swinging the massive sword around its head as if it weighed nothing.

Messinius countered more aggressively this time, punching in to the strike. Another thunderous detonation. Disruption fields shattered matter, but the daemon was not wholly real, and the effect upon it was lesser than it would be upon a natural foe. Nevertheless, this time it was thrown backwards by the blow. Smoke poured from the edge of its blade. It licked black blood from its arm and snarled. Messinius was ready when it leapt: opening his fist, ignoring the sword as it clashed against his pauldron and sheared off a peeling of ceramite, he grabbed the beast about its middle.

The Bloodletters of Khorne were rangy things, all bone and ropey muscle, no space within them for organs. The false god of war had no need for them to eat or breathe, or to give the semblance of being able to do so. They were made only to kill, and to strike fear in the hearts of those they faced. Their waists were solid, and slender, and easily encompassed by Messinius’ power fist. It squirmed in his grip, throwing Messinius’ arm about. Servo motors in his joints locked, supplementary muscle fibres strained, but the White Consul stood firm.

‘Tell your master he is not welcome on Terra,’ he said. His words were calm, a deliberate defiance of the waves of rage pulsing off the daemon.

He closed his hand.

The daemon’s midriff exploded. The top half fell down, still hissing and thrashing. Its sword clanged off the paving and broke into shards, brittle now it was separated from its wielder. They were pieces of the same thing, sword and beast. Apart, the weapon could not survive long.

Messinius cast down the lower portion of the daemon. There were dozens of the things atop the wall, battling with his warriors and the human soldiery. In the second he paused he saw Doveskamor hacked down as he stood over the body of his brother, pieces of armour bouncing across the ground. He saw a group of Palatine Sentinels corner a daemon with their bayonets. He saw a dozen humans cut down by eldritch swords.

Where the humans kept their distance, their ranged weapons took a toll upon the Neverborn. Where the daemons got among them, they triumphed more often than not, even against his Space Marines. Support fire rained down sporadically from above, its usefulness restricted by the difficulty of picking targets from the swirling melee. At the western edge of the line, the heavy weapons were more telling, knocking daemons off the wall before they crested the parapet and preventing them from circling around the back of the Imperial forces. Only his equipment allowed Messinius to see this. Without the helm feeds of his warriors and the limited access he had to the Lion Gate’s auspectoria, he would have been blind, lost in the immediate clash of arms and sprays of blood. He would have remained where he was, fighting. He would not have seen that there were more groups of daemons pouring upwards. He would not have given his order, and then he would have died.

‘Squad Antiocles, engage,’ he said. He smashed a charging daemon into fragments, yanked another back the instant before it gutted a mortal soldier, and stamped its skull flat, while switching again to his company vox-net. ‘All units, fall back to the Penitent’s Arch. Take the mortals with you.’

His assault squad fell from the sky on burning jets, kicking daemons down and shooting them with their plasma and bolt pistols. A roar of promethium from a flamer blasted three bloodletters to ash.

‘Fall back! Fall back!’ Messinius commanded, his words beating time with his blows. ‘Assault Squad Antiocles to cover. Devastators maintain overhead fire.’

Squad Antiocles drove the enemy back. Tactical Space Marines were retreating from the parapet, dragging human soldiers with them. An Ultramarine walked backwards past him, firing his bolter one-handed, a wounded member of the Palatine Guard draped over his right shoulder.

‘Fall back! Fall back!’ Messinius roared. He grabbed a human by the arm and yanked him hard away from the monster trying to slay him, almost throwing him across the square. He pivoted and punched, slamming the man’s opponent in the face with a crackling bang that catapulted its broken corpse over the wall edge. ‘Fall back!’

Mortal soldiers broke and ran while Squad Antiocles held off the foe. Telling to begin with, in moments the assault squad’s momentum was broken, and again more bloodletters were leaping over the edge of the rampart. The Space Marines fired in retreat, covering each other in pairs as they crossed the square diagonally to the Penitent’s Arch. The mortals were getting the idea, running between the Adeptus Astartes and mostly staying out of their fire corridor. With the fight now concentrated around Squad Antiocles, the Devastators were more effective, blasting down the daemons before they could bring their weight of numbers to bear upon Antiocles. Sporadic bursts of fire from the retreating Tactical Marines added to the effect, and for a short period the number of daemons entering the square did not increase.

Messinius tarried a moment, rounding up more of the humans who were either too embattled or deaf to his orders to get out. He reached three still firing over the parapet’s edge and pulled them away. A daemon reared over the parapet and he crushed its skull, but a second leapt up and cleaved hard into his fist, and power fled the weapon. Messinius pumped three bolts into its neck, decapitating it. He moved back.

His power fist was ruined. The daemon’s cut had sliced right through the ceramite, breaking the power field generator and most of the weapon’s strength-boosting apparatus, making it a dead weight. He said a quick thanks to the machine’s departed spirit and smashed the top of his bolt pistol against the quick seal release, at the same time disengaging the power feeds by way of neural link. The clamps holding the power fist to his upper arm came loose and it slid to the floor with a clang, leaving his right arm clad in his standard ceramite gauntlet. A century together. A fine weapon. He had no time to mourn it.

‘Fall back!’ he shouted. ‘Fall back to the Penitent’s Arch!’

He slammed a fresh clip into his bolt pistol. Squad Antiocles were being pushed back. The Devastators walked their fire closer in to the combat. A heavy bolter blasted half a dozen daemons into stinking meat. A missile blew, lifting more into the air. Messinius fell back himself now, leaving it to the last moment before ordering the Assault Marines to leap from the fray. Their jets ignited, driving back the daemons with washes of flame, and they lifted up over his head, leaving four of their brothers dead on the ground. Devastator fire hammered down from above. Anti-personnel weapons set into casemates and swivel turrets on the walls joined in, but the daemons mounted higher and higher in a wave of red that flooded over the parapet.

‘Run!’ he shouted at the straggling human soldiery. ‘Run and survive! Your service is not yet done!’

The Penitent’s Arch led from the square onto a wall walk that curved around to another layer of defences. His Space Marines were already making a firing line across the entrance. A gate could be extended across the arch, sealing the walk from the square, but Messinius refrained from requesting it be closed, as the humans were still streaming past the Adeptus Astartes. Kryvesh waved the banner, whirling it through the air to attract the terrified mortals. The Space Marines fired constantly into the mass of daemons sprinting after them, exhausting their ammunition supplies. Shattered false bodies tumbled down, shot from the front and above, yet still they came, overtaking and dismembering the last warriors fleeing away from the parapet.

Squad Antiocles roared through the arch, landing behind their brethren. Messinius passed between them. For a moment he surveyed the tide of coming fury. Endless red-skinned monsters filling the square like a lake of spilled blood, washing over a score of brightly armoured Space Marine corpses left behind in the retreat. Several hundred humans lay alongside them.

He opened a vox-channel to Gate Command.

‘Wall batteries three-seven-three through three-seven-six, target sector nine five eighty-three, Penitent’s Square, western edge. Five-minute bombardment.’

‘On whose order?’

‘Captain Vitrian Messinius, White Consuls Chapter, Tenth Company. I have the primarch’s authority.’ As he dealt with gunnery control, he was also datapulsing a request for resupply, and checking through layered data screeds.

‘Voice print and signum ident match. Transponder codes valid. We obey.’

The far side of the square erupted in a wall of flame. Heavy cannon shells detonated in a string along the rampart. High-energy beams sliced into the square, turning stone and metal instantly to superheated gas. The approaching daemons were annihilated. A few bolt-rounds cracked off as the last daemons nearing the Space Marine line were put down.

‘Company, cease fire. Conserve ammunition.’ Nobody heard him. Nobody could. He re-sent the order via vox-script. The boltguns cut out.

Penitent’s Square was a cauldron of fire so intense he could feel the heat through his battleplate’s ceramite. The ground shook under his feet and he considered the possibility that the wall would give way. The noise was so all-consuming the idea of speech lost relevance. For five minutes the Lion’s Gate tore madly at its own hide, ripping out chunks of itself in a bid to scrape free the parasites infesting its fabric, then, as suddenly as it had begun, the bombardment ceased.

Where the Penitent’s Square had been, a twisted mass of black metal and shattered stone remained. So formidable were the defences of the Lion’s Gate that the structure beneath had not been penetrated, but it was like this, in small bursts of destruction, that they could lose this war.

Messinius accessed the gate’s noosphere. No daemons had as yet rounded the projecting Penitent’s Spur to come up against their new position. When the attack came again, which it would, it would come from the front.

An ammunition train raced down the walkway from the fortress interior and came to a squealing stop fifty yards away. Medicae personnel jumped down. A Space Marine Apothecary came with them. Human peons rushed about with heavy sack bags full of bolter magazines, passing them out to the transhumans. Spent magazines clattered to the floor. New ones were slammed home. Messinius contacted his squad leaders, taking a quick census of his surviving men, not trusting the digits that read ‘Company Casualties 23%’ blinking in the upper right of his visual field.

Through the smoke given off by burning metal on the far side of the ruined square, he saw movement. Auspex returns tripped his armour’s machine-spirit, and it blinked warnings in his helm.

<threat detected.>

‘They’re coming again,’ he said.

‘My lord?’ A soft voice, one that did not belong in that moment. He ignored it.

‘Engage at fifty-yard range. Make every shot count.’

The ammunition train was hurriedly relieved of their allotted supplies, and sped off, bearing the worst-wounded, to aid whichever beleaguered unit needed it next.

‘Stand ready.’

‘My lord?’ The voice became more insistent.

The voidships in orbit were beginning to fire. Their targeting systems were perturbed by the boiling warp energy and the vortex in constant motion over the Imperial Palace, and many shots went wide, crashing down into the Anterior Barbican, a few falling as far out as Magnifican.

Red monsters bounded towards them, as numerous as before, as if their efforts to thin them had been for naught.

‘Fire,’ he said coldly.

‘My lord, your duty rotation begins in half an hour. You told me to wake you.’

This time he heard. Bolters boomed. Messinius froze them with a thought, and with another he shut down the hypnomat entirely.

Vitrian Messinius awoke groggily.

‘My lord,’ his servant said. Selwin, he was called. ‘You are returned from your recollections?’

‘I am awake, Selwin, yes,’ Messinius said irritably. His mouth was dry. He wanted to be left alone.

‘Shall I?’ Selwin gestured to the hypnomat.

Messinius nodded and rubbed his face. It felt numb. Selwin flicked a number of toggles on the hypnomat and it powered down, the steady glow of its innards fading to nothing and winking out, taking the immediacy of Messinius’ memories with it.

‘The wall again?’ Selwin asked.

The hypnomat’s primary use was to instil knowledge without active learning on the subject’s part, but it could reawaken memories to be lived again. Full immersion in the hypnomat required cooperation from Messinius’ catalepsean node, and coming out of the half-sleep was never as easy as true waking. Reliving past events dulled his wits. Messinius reminded himself to be guarded. He forgot sometimes that he was not on Sabatine any more. The local saying ‘This is Terra’ encompassed a multitude of sins. Spying was among them.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Personal debriefing.’ He shook his head and unplugged the hypnomat’s input cables from the neural ports set into his arms and neck. ‘Nothing new learned.’

Selwin nodded, then hesitantly said, ‘If I may be so bold as to ask, why do it, my lord, if you expect to learn nothing?’

‘Because I can always be wrong,’ Messinius said. He pointed at the hypnomat. It was a bulky machine set on a trolley, but not too big for an unaltered man to move. ‘Take that away. Inform my armourer I will be with him in a few minutes.’

Selwin bowed. ‘Already done, my lord.’

A Black Library Publication

Auric Gods first published in 2018.
The Bloodied Rose first published in 2018.
Steel Daemon first published in 2018.
This eBook edition published in 2021 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Grant Griffin.

Servants of the Imperium © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2021. Servants of the Imperium, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, The Horus Heresy, The Horus Heresy Eye logo, Space Marine, 40K, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, the ‘Aquila’ Double-headed Eagle logo, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
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ISBN: 978-1-80026-509-7

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