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Exodus – Steve Lyons

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A Black Library Publication

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Exodus

Steve Lyons

There was fresh fruit in the governor’s palace.

It lay in a bowl on a glass-topped table in the tiled reception area, each piece a ripe, unblemished specimen.

The soldier had never seen such perfect fruit. He had never set foot in the governor’s palace before. Arch Teilloch was a private in the Home Guard, as his forefathers had been before him. At twenty-four years old, he had known no other life save this one of discipline and duty. He was here to escort a high-ranking clerk out of the building.

The clerk was attended by numerous serfs carrying cases and pushing trolleys laden with crates. These were filled with data-slates, upon which vital records were preserved. The cases bulged with fine clothes or clinked with glittering trinkets, though the clerk seemed more protective of the latter.

Teilloch’s squad, four-strong, encircled their venerable charge. Their booted footsteps rang off mosaic tiles to echo around flickering chandeliers. For all the urgent activity, Teilloch was struck by how peaceful this place was. The air was artificially clean and cool. Few people spoke, and only in reverent whispers. Not even the tremor he felt through the soles of his boots could disturb the pervading calm. The foundations of the palace were sturdy enough to absorb it.

The travails of the past few months felt a long way away.

Then, Teilloch stepped through a door – and the smoke, grit, heat and noise of the outside world struck him in the face.

The sky was a bloody shade of red, shot through with sooty plumes from many fires across the city. A fleet of groundcars sat with engines rumbling, exhaust pipes pumping out more fumes. Beyond these, an angry mob strained against a line of Home Guard troopers in orange and blue.

It was the job of Teilloch’s squad to get their clerk to a car. On Corporal Barnard’s orders, the four of them went ahead, descending a short, metallic staircase. On their helmets and flak jackets, they bore the impacts of eggs, bottles and other crude missiles. Teilloch could not understand the protestors. ‘Have we not all suffered enough,’ he complained to his nearest comrade, ‘without turning on each other?’

Another bottle, half-filled with promethium with a smouldering fuse, sailed past his left ear. He saw it too late to duck and was lucky it hadn’t been better aimed. The bottle burst harmlessly against the wall. Troopers tried to fight their way towards the bomber, but the crowd closed ranks against them. A scrawny-looking private found himself dragged under, punched and kicked.

Another, stronger tremor stole Teilloch’s footing. He stumbled down the last of the steps, turning an ankle under him.

Some protestors, thrown by the quake, had burst through the Home Guard line. The soldiers responded, as trained, with lethal force. Teilloch heard the cracks of a dozen autoguns as Private Alvado – an older and more muscular man than he – helped him up. His ankle throbbed but wasn’t broken.

They bundled their charge into his vehicle and slammed the door behind him. Barnard ordered his squad to stand sentry as the serfs loaded up their master’s luggage. Teilloch was glad that he had never earned his stripes. The crowd was louder and more defiant than ever. He felt as if their howls might split open his head. He wouldn’t have known what to do, had he not had orders to follow.

Standing rigid, he closed his eyes for a moment. He tried to recall the cool peace of the governor’s palace, but already it felt like a dream of another world. He could not imagine fruit growing here.

This was his home: a world badly wounded, crying out in pain and despair. A world, Arch Teilloch feared, that was entering its death throes.

Katraxis was doomed.

No one was saying it yet, at least in public, but Ven Mikkelson had little doubt of it. The Second Tyrannic War was over – but tendrils of the defeated Hive Fleet Kraken survived. One of them, lashing out vengefully, had struck this planet.

The industrial part of the city was quiet, though vandals and looters had recently passed this way. Obscene graffiti, some of it blasphemous, defaced factorum walls. Glass crunched beneath the boots of a quintet of Imperial Guardsmen as they marched in double-time along the desolate streets. They were members of the Valhallan 132nd regiment. Ice Warriors, they called themselves, famed for their tenacity against overwhelming odds.

They were running away.

Konrad Ven Mikkelson, their sergeant, felt sick at the thought of it. The decision had not been his to make, of course, but this hardly made defeat taste any less bitter, as his disgruntled men kept reminding him.

A voice crackled in his ear, requiring his location. He gave his coordinates and the voice sounded again: ‘You’re too far out, sergeant. The dropships are leaving at fourteen-hundred hours relative. They can’t wait for you.’

‘We’ll be there,’ he mumbled through his thick beard.

They were cutting it fine – his own fault, he knew. There had been too many distractions. He had needed to know that, at least, he had fought as long and as hard as he could. To his men, he barked, ‘Pick up the pace.’

He could hear a commotion ahead of them. Another distraction? People were running towards them, fleeing in terror. Some of them, seeing the Valhallans’ heavy greatcoats, rushed to them with pleas on their lips. They jabbered over each other, but one word came through extremely clearly.

‘Xenos,’ Guardsman Vilhelm repeated, his face twisting into a sneer. He hefted his lasgun, set his jaw and started forward.

Ven Mikkelson stopped him. ‘No.’

‘But, sergeant, it sounds like another–’

‘I said no.’

They had come in sight of a small temple. Like other devotional buildings, it was packed to bursting point, with a crowd yet straining at the doors. Among them, fighting had broken out. Ven Mikkelson couldn’t make out any details, but guessed what had happened.

There were xenos on this world that looked like men.

It was thought that they had been here for decades, even centuries, adapting, evolving. They had wormed their way into the heart of this society – far deeper than anyone had supposed. The Ice Warriors had been rooting them out for weeks, destroying scores of them. It hadn’t been enough.

Another infiltrator, it seemed, had revealed itself. Or been exposed. Or an innocent man had been accused: someone bald and heavyset, most likely, as that was how the infiltrators tended to look.

‘We need to find a vehicle,’ said Ven Mikkelson. He led his squad towards a side street, leaving the problem behind. ‘Take your hands off me!’ he bellowed at a desperate woman who tried to hold him back.

From the melee behind them rose a dreadful raucous shriek. ‘Sergeant!’ Vilhelm protested. ‘Surely no man could have made that–’

‘Ignore it.’ He had to force himself to speak the words. ‘What good would slaying one more monster do? Those people would only fall prey to the next one or the next. Or be broken by earthquakes, fried by solar flares, drowned by tidal waves. Or…’ He left other, worse possibilities unspoken. ‘We have our orders. We are to do nothing for them.’

‘The hive ship is on its way,’ agreed Guardsman Bullski morosely, ‘and we must be gone before it comes.’

Vilhelm said nothing, still chafing against his sergeant’s decision. He was young, and hadn’t yet learned to temper his idealism with pragmatism.

As fearsome as the men-like xenos were, they were only the scouts of a much larger, more terrible force – now mere hours away. These Ice Warriors knew what most of the natives did not: that a cold calculation of Katraxis’ worth had been made and no further resources would be spared to save it. The tyranids would have it.

More screams – very human-sounding screams – pursued the running soldiers like accusing spectres. Ven Mikkelson hardened himself against them. ‘Keep going,’ he commanded. ‘We can say a prayer later for those who have perished today. It may be that they are the lucky ones.’

‘It is my duty to inform you that we face a terrible threat.’

The message was being broadcast on all frequencies. It boomed out of speakers on those street corner posts that hadn’t been torn down and smashed. It rattled in the comm-bead in Private Arch Teilloch’s helmet.

‘Most of you know that xenos have been unearthed among us. Unfortunately, they have signalled to more of their deplorable kind.’

Teilloch rode near the head of a slow-moving convoy on a Chimera’s hull. More troopers clung likewise to the vehicle or marched alongside it. The Home Guard had rarely put on such a show of strength. As they ploughed along the jammed streets, however, the mood of the protestors being herded aside grew uglier.

‘The tyranids are coming. It is their approach that has caused – somehow, through some sorcerous means – our recent manifold disasters.’

Teilloch knew the voice of Governor Strawhagen, of course. Glancing back along the convoy, he could see the governor’s groundcar. It was sleek and silver, grander than the other vehicles, with blacked-out windows. Imperial flags fluttered proudly from each side of its hood.

He had never yet seen his world’s commander-in-chief in the flesh. He might not have been chosen for his personal escort detail, but he felt honoured even to be this close to him.

‘I am assured, however, that mankind has met these abominations before – and triumphed gloriously over them.’

‘Then stay and fight!’ yelled someone, and the crowd roared its agreement. More cans and bottles were hurled, most glancing off the silver car’s ceramite plating. Teilloch looked out across a sea of angry faces, screaming and spitting insults. ‘Deserter!’ was the favourite among them.

‘We are relocating key personnel to other worlds – as a purely precautionary measure. The vital work of governance must not be interrupted.’

Katraxis Port came into view. Its control towers and fuel pylons scratched the broiling sky. A ship was rising on a cloud of fire. Teilloch squinted up at it. ‘Is that an Astra Militarum transporter?’ muttered Private Alvado, beside him. ‘Where do you think they’re going?’

‘That is not for us to question,’ Teilloch rebuked him automatically. He pretended that the same question hadn’t occurred to him, too.

The crowd here was denser than ever. People strained against the port’s perimeter fences. When they saw the convoy approaching, they eagerly switched their attentions to it, crowding around the leading vehicles. They placed their hands on the Chimera as if thinking to hold it back.

Teilloch yelled at them to clear the way. One haggard-looking woman refused to do so. ‘What about us?’ she wailed at him, tears streaming down her cheeks. ‘What about my children? What will happen to them?’ Teilloch was relieved that he didn’t have to answer her. He repeated his instruction, with an additional push for emphasis. The tearful woman spat in his face.

Teilloch shot her in the shoulder.

It was a reflex action; he hadn’t even thought about it. She reeled back, looking as surprised as he felt. She clasped her hands to her wound, blood welling between her fingers. He told himself not to feel guilty. He could have aimed for her heart. He would have been within his rights.

Other troopers were already following his lead. They pumped bullets into the baying mob, aiming for the troublemakers, not always successfully. Some people, trying to escape, were thrust back into the line of fire by those behind them. The Chimera’s guns were pressed into service too – just its lasguns for now, and only sparingly because of the troopers in their way.

‘Civilians.’ Above the gunfire and screaming and engine drones, Teilloch heard Alvado’s breathy voice. ‘We’re shooting civilians.’

‘Law-breakers,’ he retorted. ‘They were warned to stay off the streets. In wartime, disobedience amounts to treason.’

He spotted a young man amid the throng, hefting another bottle bomb. He snapped up his rifle and squeezed off another shot. He aimed for the shoulder again, but missed. A fountain of blood exploded from the bomber’s neck. He dropped his bottle, and promethium slopped from it and ignited. The flames caused panic as they caught hold of the bomber and leapt to others around him.

The governor was still speaking, with a calmness that was admirable in the circumstances. His voice was drowned out, in Teilloch’s ear, by an urgent vox from a Home Guard senior officer. Strawhagen’s groundcar was under attack.

A section of the crowd had surged forward and surrounded it. They were fighting its defenders hand-to-hand, denying them the use of their weapons. They were rocking the car on its axels, threatening to overturn it. Teilloch tried, but couldn’t get to them. There were too many rioters in his way.

Someone snatched a gun from an overwhelmed trooper. He fired bullets into the silver car’s windshield until it shattered. Rioters swarmed over the groundcar’s hood. They plucked the terrified driver, in his neat black uniform and cap, out of his seat. They bloodied him and cast him aside.

Two rioters wriggled into the car. A moment later, they leapt out through its doors, looking more aggrieved than ever – Teilloch couldn’t tell why. Another moment after that, they were dead, as the Home Guard began to re-establish control.

In the meantime, the rest of the convoy had ground onwards. Other vehicles containing other dignitaries – one of them Teilloch’s venerable clerk – had made it through the spaceport gates.

‘I ask for your patience in the days and weeks ahead.’

With the doors of the governor’s groundcar standing open, now Teilloch could see straight through it.

‘The road ahead of us will surely be long and difficult. I have faith, however, that the Emperor will guide us and protect us. Praise be to the Emperor!’

The car was empty.

Ven Mikkelson had found an abandoned vehicle: a groundcar with a crumpled fender, but Vilhelm had managed to get it started.

The Ice Warriors drove for half a kilometre, then entered a residential district. Here, it seemed that every towering hab-block around them had disgorged its tenants onto the streets. The mood, so far, was more despairing than angry. Still, shell-shocked civilians in their way slowed them to walking pace. Some were howling, weeping, praying fervently. Others hammered on the groundcar’s windows, begging for hope that its occupants did not have to offer them.

They came upon a tanker, overturned, blocking their way, in a spreading pool of volatile promethium. ‘I could try to squeeze past it on the footpath,’ suggested Vilhelm, but he sounded doubtful. ‘Otherwise, we’ll have to back up and find another way around.’

Ven Mikkelson glanced over his shoulder. The crowd had closed in behind them again. He shook his head. ‘Kill the engine,’ he ordered. ‘Everyone out. From here on, we’re back on foot.’

He checked the city map on his data-slate. By his reckoning, they still had time to make their rendezvous – just. ‘We’ve been to this area before,’ he said, recalling a recent xenos hunt. ‘I know a shortcut we can take.’

He consulted his compass and led his squad back the way they had come, brushing off the wretched beggars in their path. He ducked into a winding alleyway between two buildings. Emerging from the far end, he was greeted by a scene of devastation.

A week ago, there had been a powerful earthquake here. It had toppled several hab-blocks, which in turn had crashed into their neighbours. It had taken days for the dust to settle completely. A hundred city blocks had been razed to the ground. The loss of life had been incalculable.

The Ice Warriors picked their way across the rubble. It shifted treacherously beneath their heavy boots, exposing dusty, rigid, mutilated corpses. There were areas like this across the planet, of course – and worse. They had all heard reports of a whole city to the east, washed away by tsunamis.

‘All this destruction,’ Guardsman Bullski lamented, ‘before the invaders have even made planetary orbit.’

They could make better progress now, at least. The disaster area was virtually deserted, but for a few sallow-eyed mourners. The tumult of the crowd behind these soldiers faded, and an eerie near-silence enveloped them. A light wind whipped about the Ice Warriors’ ears. It tasted of ash, but its cooling effect was welcome.

A jagged shape rose gradually before them: a half-demolished cathedral, clearly more robust than the structures that had once surrounded it. Gilded oak doors had been torn from their hinges and shredded. The Ice Warriors passed through a creaking archway. They clambered over the shattered remains of marble pillars.

Ven Mikkelson halted his squad. ‘Did anyone else hear that?’

His four men answered in the negative. The sergeant swept his surroundings with narrowed eyes. Two sides of the cathedral were open to the elements. From the other two, the skeletons of blown-out windows glowered down at him.

Perhaps he had imagined the scrape of a footstep. Perhaps it had been the sound of debris settling, or a foretaste of another quake.

Ven Mikkelson’s instincts, honed by thirty years’ experience, told him otherwise. He could see nowhere for a lurker to hide, however. He signalled his squad to proceed, cautiously, along the path of the cathedral’s nave.

As they neared the point where an altar must have stood, Vilhelm stooped to examine something underfoot. He teased a battered brass plate out of the rubble and brandished it proudly. It wasn’t the material value of the artefact that pleased him. ‘Look,’ he crowed. ‘The outline of the Imperial aquila, etched into the metal. It’s a sign! The Emperor is with us, even here, even–’

From nowhere, a monster pounced.

Guardsman Vilhelm heard it at the last possible instant and half-twisted, so its vicious claws raked across his side. His attacker was giant; a hideous bug-like thing with six bristling limbs and a carapace. A pair of clawed, multi-jointed limbs thrust forward from its shoulder blades. Disgusting feeding tentacles hung from the creature’s maw, dripping saliva. A barbed tail twitched behind its back. Ven Mikkelson had seen some horrors in his time, but none like this.

Was this what a tyranid looked like?

Its scaly hide was changing from grey to fiery red. ‘It was camouflaged,’ he warned his comrades, ‘hiding in plain sight against the rubble. Don’t take your eyes off it.’

Vilhelm groaned as he scrambled away from the xenos. The rest of the squad advanced upon it, blasting it with their lasguns. ‘That’s right,’ Ven Mikkelson encouraged them, ‘keep it busy.’

The creature was torn between pursuing its wounded prey or defending itself. It hissed as it rounded on Ven Mikkelson, and sprang at him with a flex of its powerful hind legs. He tried to leap out of its way, but debris shifted and he crashed to his hands and knees instead.

He had a fraction of a second to contemplate his certain death – before realising that he hadn’t been the xenos’ target at all. It had darted between him and his surprised comrades and, in the time it took their gazes to follow it, had disappeared again.

‘There!’ cried Bullski. ‘It’s over there!’ He pointed the way with a volley of lasbeams, which pulverised stone and chased away shadows. ‘I could have sworn I saw…’ the guardsman muttered, disappointed.

‘Form up around Vilhelm,’ Ven Mikkelson ordered. His injured comrade had hauled himself onto his knees, but was too weak to stand. The other four Ice Warriors encircled him protectively, facing outwards.

Ven Mikkelson thought he heard something – a claw scraping? – from beside the surviving archway. He shot a beam that way and was rewarded by a screech and a flurry of movement. ‘I see it!’ he yelled. He had picked out a pair of beady yellow eyes, and could make out the shape of a head and segmented body around them.

‘I see it!’

The shout came almost simultaneously with the sergeant’s own, from Bullski, directly behind him. At first, he assumed that his comrade was seeing things again. Another lasbeam volley, however, was greeted by a familiar sound, making the skin on Ven Mikkelson’s neck prickle. The screech of the tyranid creature.

‘There are two of them!’

The governor’s flagship was leaving.

Teilloch had not seen Strawhagen boarding. Presumably, few people had. ‘Some trick they pulled back there,’ Alvado muttered to him, ‘diverting the mob, while their target sneaks away unnoticed.’

‘You’d rather the governor had been killed?’

Alvado shrugged. ‘I’m sure the greater good was served. It just doesn’t seem very… well, honourable. Tell me I’m wrong again.’

‘That is not for us to judge,’ said Teilloch stiffly. ‘We still have a job to do.’

No sooner had the flagship left its pad – its polished hull reflecting the red of the sky until it seemed to be aflame – than a larger, less elegant and far grimier vessel replaced it. As it did so, speakers crackled with the governor’s voice again: ‘The Emperor has blessed us in our time of need, once more. He has sent a merchant fleet to convey many more of us – hundreds of thousands – to safety.’

More grimy freighters were dropping into the spaceport, filling it with choking smoke. Teilloch felt his spirits lifting at the sight of them. ‘You see?’ he breathed. ‘No one has been abandoned.’ The crowd straining at the gates and fences saw it too, and it only made them more determined to break through.

Corporal Barnard was only a metre away from Teilloch, but had to switch to vox to be heard. His squad and three others, having fought their way into the port, had been detailed to man a side gate. ‘We’re to start letting people through at once, to board the freighters – just a few hundred to begin with.’

‘Which people?’ asked Teilloch. ‘Is there a list–?’

The corporal shook his head. ‘No time for that. We want people under thirty-five, make an intelligent guess – and as many women as men. Fit, healthy subjects only. The slightest sign of infirmity or disease, anyone overweight or under-height, leave them behind. Most crucially, we need to weed out the heretics and worse. You all know what I mean.’

Corporal Barnard unbolted the gate and eased it open, while fifteen troopers braced themselves for the ensuing flood. A desperate tide of humanity swelled towards them, their only thought to reach the escape ships beyond them. Teilloch tried to remember the criteria for letting them pass – under thirty-five, fit, healthy – but he had only seconds to assess each person coming at him.

‘How do we tell a heretic on sight, anyway?’ Alvado grumbled, beside him. ‘They don’t all have dark sigils tattooed on their faces.’

‘Look into their eyes,’ suggested Teilloch. ‘I’ve heard you can tell an infiltrator that way.’ He wasn’t sure how, in fact – but anyone who wouldn’t meet his gaze, he assumed to be guilty of something. He waved a steady stream of hopefuls past him – but the crowd of those held back began to mount. They couldn’t get back out through the gates, so many just pushed forwards again.

A man of fifty years or so, with the weather-beaten skin of an outdoors labourer, refused to take no for an answer. ‘I have served the Emperor faithfully all my life,’ he yelled in Teilloch’s face. ‘I deserve to be saved.’ Teilloch tried to repel him with reason, then threats, to no avail. In frustration, finally, he clubbed the malcontent with the butt of his weapon.

The man reeled momentarily. He flew at Teilloch, face twisted in rage, bleeding from a head wound. His callused hands clawed at Teilloch’s throat – until, suddenly, he stiffened. The strength drained out of his body and he collapsed. It took Teilloch a moment to realise that Corporal Barnard had shot his attacker in the back.

‘No time to waste on troublemakers,’ Barnard’s voice growled in Teilloch’s ear. He nodded, accepting the admonishment, and willed himself to be stronger. The next person to argue with him – a woman hacking up phlegm, evidently very ill – backed down when he levelled his autogun at her.

His fellows were holding back the hordes with bayonet and stock, and it wasn’t long before the first bullet was fired, followed swiftly by more. Only Private Alvado hadn’t drawn his weapon. ‘They’re fighting for their lives,’ he lamented. ‘They know if they can’t get aboard one of these ships, they’ll be left here to die.’

‘Left here to fight, you mean,’ said Teilloch.

‘Then why are they taking men of fighting age?’

Teilloch thought about that, then wished he hadn’t. ‘It is not for us to question–’

‘They’re taking the people they need,’ said Alvado, ‘to start again.’

The words echoed in Teilloch’s head as he dealt with a fraught-looking young couple, who were clinging to each other. ‘Stand apart,’ he ordered them. As he had suspected, the man was unsteady on his feet.

‘He had an accident in the factorum,’ the woman pleaded, ‘but he’s healing. The medicae said he’d be able to walk again in just a few–’

‘You can pass,’ said Teilloch tersely. ‘He can’t.’

‘I can’t,’ the woman cried. ‘I can’t leave him. You can’t separate us.’

Teilloch bit his lip in frustration. No time to waste on trouble-makers. ‘Stay with him, then. Your choice,’ he said, turning away.

‘No!’ The woman yanked on Teilloch’s tunic, demanding his attention. He rounded on her, irritated, and pumped a bullet into her husband’s stomach. ‘You can pass,’ he repeated, pointing the woman towards the waiting freighters.

She gaped at him, stunned. Then, to his discomfort, she let out a distraught howl. The woman dropped to her knees and wept over her husband as his blood soaked into the ground.

He would have died anyway, Teilloch insisted to himself. He was in no state to fight the invading force. This way was more merciful. I had no choice. They shouldn’t have pushed me to it. They should have followed orders.

He felt Alvado’s elbow in his ribs and turned. Following his comrade’s gaze, he caught his breath. A cluster of new arrivals was pushing its way through the open main gates. There were six of them: colossal armoured figures, gleaming blue, white and gold. They marched with a confident, even arrogant, swagger, forcing others to scuttle out of their way or be crushed.

Space Marines. They had come to Katraxis almost a week ago, to bolster the off-world forces already present. The governor’s bulletins had been full of praise for their strength, their dedication, their achievements – full of renewed hope. Teilloch had prayed each morning to set his unworthy eyes upon them.

‘They’ve come to help us,’ he breathed. Even from this distance, he could feel their palpable presence, and it sent a thrill through him.

Alvado shook his head. ‘No. They’re pulling out.’

Corporal Barnard was shouting through a hailer: ‘That’s it. That’s all we can take for now.’ Four troopers were struggling to close the gate again.

‘There will be more ships.’ Barnard repeated the promise many times, to little avail. He was drowned out by the anguish of people who had almost touched salvation only for it to be snatched from them. They didn’t believe Barnard. They didn’t believe anything they were told any longer. Even Teilloch was beginning to have doubts.

‘Even if there are more ships,’ Alvado pointed out, ‘it can never be enough.’ The population of Katraxis numbered in the tens of billions. Against that, ‘hundreds of thousands’ suddenly felt like a very small number.

‘Stand your ground,’ Ven Mikkelson ordered his squad.

They had no choice. If they abandoned the wounded Vilhelm, the xenos would tear him apart. Or they will tear the rest of us apart to get to him, Ven Mikkelson thought.

He switched his lasgun to full-auto and strafed the ground in front of him. He couldn’t tell if he had hurt his near-invisible target, but at least he was keeping it at bay. Though not for much longer – his power pack was running low.

The xenos reappeared suddenly, flying at him with a curdling screech. Ven Mikkelson braced himself, praying that the point of his bayonet could find a vital organ. Not before its claws found his throat, he suspected.

Then a jet-engine roar filled his ears. Something bright and blue flashed before his eyes and struck the ground like a meteorite, somewhere to his left. The debris upon which he stood lurched with the impact, felling two of his comrades, almost bowling him over too – and, thank the Emperor, throwing his attacker off-balance.

The xenos’ hind claws scrabbled to regain purchase. Ven Mikkelson aimed a shot at its head, only searing its protective carapace. Three more impacts followed, all around him, until even he lost his footing. He fell atop his sprawling comrades, with every attempt to disentangle himself only digging him deeper into the rubble.

A more triumphant screech, and the xenos loomed over him, twice his height and many times his bulk. Slobber from its feeding tentacles spattered Ven Mikkelson’s cheek. He heard another mechanical roar – a deeper one, throatier – and suddenly the creature had no head. An instant later, its disgusting, segmented body collapsed on top of him.

He fought his way out from under it, spitting at the stink of its blood.

He could have hoped to make a more dignified impression on his saviour. The Space Marine, a member of the much-storied Ultramarines chapter, a sergeant by his markings, glowered down at his slighter counterpart. The jump pack on his back was still smouldering. He had stilled his chainsword and was picking chunks of xenos gristle from between its teeth.

‘Lictors,’ he grunted. ‘Not the first we have dealt with today.’

‘Thank you,’ said Ven Mikkelson, through gritted teeth. ‘But there were two of them. The other–’

A fusillade of bolter fire interrupted him. The Ultramarine’s battle-brothers had unearthed the second xenos. Trying to flee, it found itself surrounded. They closed around the creature, hemming it in. It spat and screeched and lashed out with its claws as its body was riddled with explosive bolts – until, finally, there was simply too little of it left to keep on living.

The four Space Marines regrouped. ‘My auspex is reading no more life signs,’ one of them reported. Two had livid silver scratches across the chest-plates of their power armour. Ven Mikkelson grimaced at the thought of what the lictor’s claws might have done to his less-protected flesh.

‘Why are you still here?’ demanded the Ultramarines sergeant. ‘Did you not get the order to pull out?’

‘Our extraction point is an airstrip eight kilometres north of here.’

‘We are headed for Katraxis Port,’ said the Ultramarine. ‘We have no time to spare. We must be leaving now.’

‘Yes, of course,’ agreed Ven Mikkelson. So much for the hope that his squad would have an escort for the rest of their journey, he thought. Still, they stopped to save our lives – which is more than we have been doing. We would only have slowed them down, anyway.

The Space Marines fired their jump packs again. They leapt away over the cathedral’s front half-wall and out of sight. Ven Mikkelson turned back to his fellow Ice Warriors. They were doing what they could for Vilhelm, expending the contents of their medi-kits on his wounds. It didn’t look good, though.

They had unbuttoned Vilhelm’s greatcoat and removed his fur hat, yet his face was bathed in sweat. His breathing was ragged. His flak armour was shredded and sticky with blood. He saw his sergeant and tried – but failed – to catch up to him.

‘Leave me,’ Guardsman Vilhelm pleaded.

‘You don’t get out of duty that easy,’ said Ven Mikkelson gruffly. There’s still a chance, he thought, if we could get him to the troopship’s medicae ward.

‘Never make it, sergeant,’ Vilhelm insisted, between painful wheezes. ‘Never make it to… extraction point if… me slowing you down, and I… Don’t let me be responsible for…’

Ven Mikkelson waved the others aside. He crouched in front of Vilhelm. He looked so very young. But then, they always did. Sweat had plastered his straw-coloured hair to his head. Ven Mikkelson looked into Vilhelm’s eyes and saw the light in them already fading. He had been here so many times before. It was still the most difficult of all his duties.

With a sudden burst of strength, Vilhelm gripped his sergeant’s hand. ‘Do something for me… please. I don’t want to lie here, helpless… for another bug to find me. Rather end it… cleanly.’

Ven Mikkelson nodded. He had heard such requests before.

His squad gathered around their fallen comrade, to pray over him. Ven Mikkelson said a prayer to the Emperor too, for the strength to administer His mercy. He changed his power pack and took a deep breath. He levelled his weapon at his loyal comrade’s head.

The side gate had been reopened.

They were letting more people through. Some were tearfully grateful for their reprieve, reminding Teilloch of his noble purpose. The number of angry rejects was mounting, however – as was the number intent on making trouble. Couldn’t they see that they were slowing the process down, risking more lives?

Bodies were piling up on the plascrete flagstones.

He heard a sudden burst of gunfire.

A civilian had snatched an autogun and was madly blasting it in all directions. He shot down a trooper who tried to take the weapon off him. As Teilloch started forward, a bullet pinged off his helmet. He couldn’t bring his own weapon to bear through the panicking crowd. Other troopers were closer than he was, anyway. The shooter performed a grotesque dance of agony, as their slugs ripped through his body.

The incident was over in seconds – long enough for some to see an opportunity and take it. A dozen people, then a dozen more, broke through the cordon and raced for the landing pads, with still more straining to follow their lead. ‘Hold them back!’ yelled Corporal Barnard. ‘Hold them–’ He was choked off as the next wave of desperate humanity swept him off his feet.

Teilloch shot two of the charging civilians. Law-breakers, he told himself. Even Alvado resorted to deadly force as a fiery-eyed labourer came at him with a makeshift cudgel. In self-defence, he thrust his bayonet through his attacker’s throat. ‘I enlisted to protect these people, not slaughter them,’ he protested loudly, wiping blood off his face with a sleeve. ‘We are doing the xenos’ work for them.’

Teilloch was tiring of his comrade’s complaints. Most of all, it bothered him that he never knew how to refute them. ‘They were warned,’ he grunted.

‘You can’t blame them for being afraid and angry. You can’t blame them for fighting to survive.’ When all this was over, Teilloch decided, he would report Alvado to Corporal Barnard.

When all this is over…

It had been an unguarded thought, but it filled him with sickening dread. He swallowed and focused on the present, on his duty. It wasn’t his responsibility to think about the future – the looming, terrifying future.

A pair of Space Marines had waded into the fray, heading towards the port. Their weapons were more efficient, more deadly, than those of Home Guard issue. They spat out red-hot bolts that burst on impact, punching bloody holes through their luckless targets. Teilloch averted his gaze from the carnage. Disobedience amounts to treason. The crowd was faltering, losing heart, but still he had to stand firm against them. They would seize upon the slightest sign of weakness.

‘Why shouldn’t we survive, for that matter?’

He turned to Alvado. He was sizing up the nearest idling freighter, its embarkation ramp only a few hundred steps away and his eyes were now decisive, determined. He took a deep breath and announced, ‘I’m taking my chance. How about you, Arch? You coming with me? Do you want to live?’

Teilloch’s throat had seized up. Alvado glanced at him and must have seen that he wouldn’t get an answer. With a shrug, he broke away from him. He had picked his moment well, because the Space Marines’ backs were turned to him. No one else paid Alvado any heed. His uniform would deflect suspicion, at least for the first part of his escape. He was already stripping off his Home Guard colours for the second.

Teilloch opened a vox-channel to Corporal Barnard.

‘It’s Trooper Alvado,’ he reported. His throat was still dry. His tongue felt too large in his mouth, but what choice did he have? ‘He has… He… The pressure was too much for him, corporal. He’s deserted his post and is–’

‘Then you know your duty, Teilloch,’ Barnard said tersely, and broke the connection. It was only what he had expected to hear – but he had needed to hear it.

He raised his gun and squinted along its barrel. Alvado had reached the bottom of the landing ramp. For a fraction of a second, he paused and glanced over his shoulder, and his face, afraid but hopeful, was framed in Teilloch’s sights.

Teilloch held his breath and squeezed his trigger.

The city was shaking itself to pieces.

The Ice Warriors had kept moving as long as they could – even through the warning tremors that had robbed them of their footing again and again. Ven Mikkelson’s legs, from the knees down, were a mass of cuts and bruises. Still, they had made up lost time and were barely a kilometre from their destination.

They had been so close. Now, they huddled beneath another cathedral archway, feeling helpless and resentful in the grip of forces stronger than they were.

‘Sergeant,’ ventured Bullski, ‘couldn’t we try–?’ Before the question could be asked, another building disintegrated, not two blocks away from them. The dust cloud of its passing rolled over them, setting them to coughing and spluttering.

Ven Mikkelson waited fretfully, as long as he dared. Then he moved his squad out again, though the ground had not yet completely settled. Almost immediately, a battered groundcar came bouncing towards them, forcing them to dive for cover once more.

He voxed the waiting rescue ship. At least, he hoped it was still waiting. ‘Could you possibly hold out a little longer?’

‘That’s a negative, sergeant. Another quake that strong, and we–’

‘I know.’ He prayed he would get a chance to fight again. ‘But we’re five minutes away from you – less than five.’

A short pause ensued. Then, ‘We’ll wait as long as we can.’

Ven Mikkelson relayed the news to his three comrades. Hope spurred the Ice Warriors, battered and exhausted though they were, to renewed efforts. They ran as if all the horrors of the warp were on their tails.

A heavy flagpole, wrenched from an office building, struck Bullski across his broad shoulders. An inch higher and it would have cracked his skull. The Imperial standard would have made an ironic shroud for him. He refused to let the incident slow him down, ploughing on, teeth gritted with pain.

They raced past burning buildings, overturned vehicles and broken bodies strewn across fresh heaps of settling rubble. Ven Mikkelson’s lungs were in spasm. His uniform, designed for far colder climes than this, had never felt so stifling. Sweat poured from beneath his hat and his cheeks were on fire. With every step, it seemed that his feet grew heavier and harder to lift.

Then, one of his comrades murmured, ‘Thank the Emperor!’

He lifted his head, rubbed sweat from his eyes and saw it too: the sweetest sight he had ever beheld. The airstrip lay ahead of them and, squatting on a landing pad was a single, long, angular ship. The Devourer’s nose cone was closed, its engines running, but its passenger ramp was still down. A squad of Ice Warriors formed a cordon across its foot, holding back a small, fractious crowd.

Ven Mikkelson pushed his way through the mob, ignoring their protesting howls. ‘Why?’ someone yelled, belligerently. ‘Why do you get to live, and not us?’ He staggered up the ramp, light-headed. He made sure that his comrades had boarded, then stumbled into the blessedly cool embrace of the Devourer’s belly himself. The sentry squad was right behind him; their sergeant fired three shots to discourage anyone from trying to follow them.

The ramp was already retracting, blotting out the crimson daylight. They could feel the deck plates shuddering as the old ship gathered itself for takeoff. Ven Mikkelson mouthed a thankful prayer to the Emperor. He peeled off his hat and rested his feverish brow against a nearby viewport, feeling the accusing eyes of his comrades on his back.

‘A trained soldier – any one of us – is worth more to the Imperium than an admin clerk or a labourer,’ he snarled. ‘And this is their world, after all. They are the ones who overlooked what was happening in their midst until it was too late. We fought for them. We fought as long and as hard as we could. We leave their fate in the Emperor’s hands, now. We have nothing to regret.’

Through the armourglass circle, he saw the airstrip dropping away. The crowd of would-be refugees had been scattered and some burned by the Devourer’s exhaust blast, but they were picking themselves up and screaming futilely, even throwing rocks at the escaping vessel. In the centre of it all, Ven Mikkelson saw a child – no more than four years old – sitting alone, crying and, despite his admonishments, he could not wrench his eyes away from the viewport.

He watched until he could no longer make out individuals, only dark shapes swarming across the shattered city, without purpose, without hope. He kept on watching, even after black clouds closed like curtains beneath him and rendered the people, the city and Katraxis itself invisible to him.

A spaceport fence had come down.

The mob that had been pushing, pulling, tearing at it whooped as they trampled broken wire into the dirt. Their jubilation didn’t last long. The fence had stood between them and their desperate hopes, so had become a focal point for their anger. Now, as they swarmed around the spaceport buildings, they saw the landing pads, all of them, standing empty. Their efforts had been futile.

The truth was beginning to dawn on Teilloch too: that no more rescue ships were coming. He should have known when the Space Marines left, he thought. He should have known that Alvado had been right all along. Even the Emperor’s Angels have turned their backs on Katraxis!

More fights were beginning to break out. A trooper scolded a group for blaspheming in their grief, and they set about him with their fists. Teilloch should have assisted, but others had beaten him to it and the situation was only escalating. Anyway, he felt too numb. He had grown accustomed to the roars of spaceship engines. With these gone, he felt a blanket of silence settle over him. The prevailing condition around the port, among civilians and soldiers alike, was shellshock. He couldn’t look at the bodies strewn about him. He especially couldn’t bear to see the faces of his own victims – a one-time friend among them.

Corporal Barnard had wandered away from his squad. Teilloch spotted him sitting on the ground, knees drawn up to his chest, head buried in his arms. He could see no Home Guard officers, no one to give him fresh instructions. There had been plenty around a few minutes ago – where had they all gone?

Who would tell him what to do now?

‘My people. My friends. I thank you for your continued understanding in these difficult times.’ Governor Strawhagen’s voice burst over Teilloch’s comm-bead once more. ‘The Emperor has asked much of us, as is His right – but our faith in Him has been amply rewarded.’

He sounded reassuringly close. Teilloch found himself scouring the red sky, as if he might see the governor’s flagship hovering over him protectively. Others were doing the same, lifting their heads in hope again, but only for a moment.

‘Be assured that the xenos will never take Katraxis. Yes, they have dealt us a grievous blow indeed, but for that they are fated to suffer the Emperor’s vengeance. Imperial war ships have been despatched. The tyranids will soon descend upon this world – our bright, precious world – to find their victory a pyrrhic one. Katraxis will be destroyed, to ensure the–’

The rest of the message was drowned out by howls of fury. Teilloch himself felt his stomach turning over, his knees weakening.

Exterminatus. He remembered the word from old newsreels. The destruction of a world that had become irreversibly contaminated. His heart had swelled at the thought of the Emperor’s torpedoes, consuming and purifying the unclean – xenos, mutants, heretics – in their amassed legions. He had never imagined that he might burn alongside them.

Strawhagen was still straining to be heard, telling him – telling those tens of billions of loyal subjects left behind – why they should welcome this great mercy. He concluded with a prayer to the Emperor, during which his voice broke up as his ship moved out of vox range.

What do I do now? Arch Teilloch had never asked that question before. He had always known his duty. He had always had orders to follow. The masses would surely resume their rioting once their situation sank in. Should he try to impose order? For what purpose? Should he try to protect them? How could he?

Whatever he did, he couldn’t change their fate. Nor his own.

Some of his comrades had reached the same conclusion. They were throwing down their weapons, stripping off their orange and blue uniforms. Some did so angrily, stamping on their helmets in protest at being betrayed. Others did so out of fear. Teilloch suddenly realised that his colours might make him a target, marking him out as a symbol of that very betrayal.

He began to unbutton his tunic, but stopped himself. Who am I without it? He had never had to ask that question either. He feared what the answer might be. Teilloch had lived a lifetime of devotion. Could he really turn his back on all that, in these final few hours? What would it say about the worth of his life if he did?

He had one other option – one way to silence those questions, to quell his doubts and fears. Some might consider it a sin, but how could it be, when he was doomed already? He had seen the Emperor’s mercy being granted to others…

Teilloch turned his autogun around. He nuzzled the end of its long barrel underneath his chin. He closed his eyes.

‘What in the warp kept you?’

The Devourer had itself been devoured by an orbiting troopship. Ven Mikkelson’s captain stood waiting for him in the cavernous hangar bay. The sergeant snapped his aching muscles to attention and saluted. ‘My apologies, sir. We encountered… complications en route.’

The captain’s scowl softened a little. ‘A tyranid ambush, I hear?’

‘That’s right, sir. I’ll submit a full report.’

‘Within the hour, sergeant.’

He had planned to head straight to his bunk, in his tiny cabin. Instead, Ven Mikkelson trudged after his comrades to the mess hall. Usually, when the Ice Warriors returned from a mission, the mood in the hall was boisterous. In contrast, today, it was subdued and bitter.

He didn’t feel like eating. He sat in a corner with his back to the room. He nursed a mug of tanna tea and stared at a blank data-slate. He tried to find horrific enough descriptors for the monsters in the ruined cathedral – the lictors. The only thing he could picture was Vilhelm’s eyes as his life’s light faded from them and he felt frustrated that he couldn’t avenge that lost life.

He became aware of shutters sliding over the viewports. The troopship was about to leave the Katraxis system. Not a moment too soon for his liking. Ven Mikkelson braced himself for the jump into warpspace.

The next thing he knew, he was catapulted from his seat, dowsed in steaming tanna. As he scrambled to his feet, a wave of dizziness crashed over him and his stomach churned. Around him, his comrades were picking themselves up too. The mess hall looked as if it had been turned upside-down and shaken.

Something was badly wrong. Ven Mikkelson looked at the shuttered ports. He knew the perils of the warp, of course, but his many journeys through it had perhaps inured him to them. Had his luck run out at last?

He was a passenger on this ship, not a crewmember – the same as his comrades. They could do little but wait for orders and perhaps pray. At last, vox-speakers flared to life. A voice instructed all aircrew to man their vessels. This caused an immediate stir. ‘What’s happening?’ many troopers demanded to know. Some put their pleas to Ven Mikkelson himself. ‘Are we under attack?’

Next, they heard from the troopship’s naval captain. ‘We are having a few problems. Our enginseers are working on it, but they say… and this comes from our navigator too… it may be that warpspace is somehow closed to us.’

More minutes crawled by. The younger troopers became ever more agitated. They paced the room, speculating about a range of dreadful fates and picking arguments with each other over anything and everything. The more seasoned Ven Mikkelson simply righted his chair and sat again. His data-slate was cracked across the screen. He suspected he would never write that report now, anyway.

Colonel Ztanlev, commander of the 132nd regiment, strode into the mess hall. Immediately, he found himself surrounded by impatient guardsmen, and had to call for order before he could deliver his briefing. ‘This is the situation as it has been explained to me,’ he began.

‘The xenos have broadcast a signal – a psychic signal – to disrupt the warp itself. We have lost communications, and of course our warp engines are useless to us. By the Emperor’s grace, ours is the only ship affected. Our Valhallan fellows jumped before the signal was sent. So too did the rescue ships and the Adeptus Astartes’ strike cruiser. I regret to say, however–’

And there they were: the words for which Ven Mikkelson had waited but prayed not to hear.

‘–that the xenos fleet has caught up to us.’ Whatever Ztanlev said next, it was drowned out by questioning voices. Demanding silence once again, he continued. ‘Our auspex reveals a great behemoth of a vessel, an unholy fusion of mechanical and biological matter. Thank the Emperor, he has protected our senses from this abomination.’ The warp shutters were still down. The threat without seemed somehow distant, disconnected from Ven Mikkelson’s reality. For decades, this ship, always filled with good comrades, had been his only home, his sanctuary.

‘We have two options. The first is to run, which would be futile. Even if we were fast enough, we lack the fuel – and indeed the provisions – to reach the next system on sub-light engines.’ If anything, this was an understatement.

‘Our second option,’ the colonel continued, ‘is to do as the men of Valhalla have always done. Make no mistake, we are one ship against many, and the hive ship alone is perhaps twenty times our size. The odds against us are overwhelming, but we have the Emperor behind us, while our enemies have only His abiding scorn.

‘By chance or by fate, we are directly facing the enemy. Our weapons are unlikely to have much effect upon it, but we will fire them anyway. Our Devourers and Vulture gunships will distract the hive ship’s escorts, while we–’

A fresh round of protests erupted. In the midst of the clamour, Trooper Bullski found Ven Mikkelson and clapped a heavy hand on his shoulder. ‘This is our fault,’ he growled. ‘We delayed the rescue ship, and because we did…’ Ven Mikkelson couldn’t answer him, couldn’t face his comrade’s accusing glare. The guilt that had been gnawing at his insides had grown to paralyse his vocal chords.

‘The enginseers will set our engines to overload,’ persisted Colonel Ztanlev. ‘We intend to ram the hive ship and smash right through its hull. With the Emperor’s blessing, we may start some chain reaction to bring that bloated monster down – in which case, Katraxis will be spared the xenos blight and our regiment’s name will be legend. I ask you, my comrades, my friends, to join with me as we pray for such a glorious outcome. For the Emperor!’

‘For the Emperor!’ The response from the assembled Ice Warriors was somewhat muted. Still, it was expected, and they provided it obediently – all of them but for Sergeant Konrad Ven Mikkelson.

He felt the deck plates rattling beneath his feet. He heard the pitch of the engines increasing as they picked up speed. Bullski is right, he thought numbly. Better that we hadn’t made it to the extraction point at all. Better that our comrades had left, on time, without us. Better that we had stopped outside the temple to help.

At least, then, we would have died for something…

They were smashing the city.

As if it hadn’t endured enough. A furious, unreasoning mob was now shattering any remaining windows, kicking down doors, battering abandoned vehicles with sticks and shovels. They were stoking fires inside the creaking shells of once-thriving businesses and governmental offices.

There were preachers on every street corner, proclaiming the Emperor’s word, which varied from one of them to the next. Some exhorted their fellows to rein in their aggression, to spend their final hours in contemplation and prayer instead. Others encouraged more violence: ‘If the xenos are to take this world, if only for an hour, then let them take its ruins.’

Some people were looting shops and even churches, fighting over torn clothes, battered hololith projectors and tarnished candlesticks. Teilloch couldn’t imagine the tyranids wanting such things. Others binged on stolen food and liquor, or – this, he could better understand – sought to arm themselves.

He had left Katraxis Port, to wander the streets in a daze. He realised that his feet, by habit, were taking him home. For what purpose? He hadn’t seen his hab in weeks. He didn’t know if the quakes had left it standing.

He still wore his orange-and-blue uniform, still carried his autogun. He hadn’t been able to pull the trigger. He didn’t know if that made him strong or weak. Was it faith that kept him alive, he asked himself, or cowardice?

A horrified scream and a pointed finger drew his gaze upwards. He saw lights in the red sky, shining fuzzily through the pollution. One huge light in particular – pulsing in a way that he found indescribably hateful, making his eyes water to look at it – was surrounded by scores of lesser glows. So, this is it, he thought.

Something else was up there too: another light, brighter, whiter and purer than the others. It streaked towards the darker lights, and Teilloch’s breath caught in his throat. ‘It’s a ship,’ a young man beside him gasped. ‘An Imperial warship. They’re still fighting for us up there. That has to be it.’

Teilloch had thought he had seen the last of hope. It returned now, riding the tail of that blazing comet. It was headed directly for the hateful, pulsing light – whose smaller brethren moved to intercept the white light, too slowly.

The lights collided, and Teilloch let out a cheer. He wasn’t the only one. Though the rioting continued, there were scores of people like him – beaten soldiers and traumatised civilians – who had fallen still and silent, just gaping up at the display in the sky. Then, the bold white light flared triumphantly, and died; and hope drained from their upturned faces. The pulsing, hateful, sickly light burned on, as if nothing had happened.

Teilloch looked at his gun, his useless gun, clutched in his sweaty hands. He looked down at his uniform, its bold colours. Perhaps nothing really had happened up there, but even so. These colours stood for something, didn’t they? He had to act now, he thought, before he lost his audience. He hopped up onto a cracked podium, which against all odds still hosted a proud bronze statue, and pointed to the sky.

‘Listen! I don’t know who they were,’ he announced, ‘the heroes aboard that ship, but they have reminded me of something I shouldn’t have forgotten. That I, that you, that all of us, belong to the Imperium of Man. And while our Emperor sits upon the Golden Throne, we are never defeated.’

It was working. They were turning their faces towards him. Teilloch ignored his heart’s hammering. He let the words tumble out of him. ‘So, let our enemies come, and we shall do as our kind has done for forty millennia. We shall fight them to our very last breaths. We shall defend this precious world of ours. For every square foot of Katraxis that the xenos take, let them pay a price in blood.’

Something caught around his ankle: an Imperial flag, dirty and torn. He recalled that the governor’s groundcar had passed this way. He picked up the tattered piece of cloth and waved it proudly. ‘Are you with me?’ he demanded of the crowd. ‘Are you with the God-Emperor of Mankind?’

Some of them shouted that they were, waving weapons and fists – not many, but it was a start, and the sentiment was already spreading.

Then, suddenly, there were more gasps and cries, drawing Teilloch’s eyes skyward once more. The clouds had drawn in and it was beginning to rain, thick and heavy.

Except the closer the dark droplets fell, the more evident it became that it wasn’t rain. They were far too large; as large as birds; as large as people? It suddenly occurred to Teilloch that the droplets might be bombs. ‘Get down!’ he screamed.

He dived from his pedestal as a bomb careened towards him. It ploughed through the effigy of the Imperial hero above him, which was reduced, at last, to bronze-plated matchsticks. It smashed through a warehouse wall and lay steaming in the wreckage.

Teilloch lifted his head gingerly. A deathly silence had fallen, or perhaps his ears had been deadened. There had been no explosion. As dust from the object’s landing cleared, he discerned more details of it. Its casing was mottled, greenish-purple – plant matter? It was shaped like a teardrop and, yes, it was larger than a man.

The casing had cracked open and there was something inside it, something indescribably awful. Teilloch glimpsed snapping claws, a twitching tail and a glistening, segmented wormlike body, thrashing to get out. Not bombs, he realised with a creeping sense of horror, but pods!

‘They’re here! The xenos are here!’

He had meant to bellow the words, as a rallying cry, but they came out in a deathly whisper. Sounds crashed in around him again. People were yelling and screaming and running, but some – the bravest few, the most faithful – were brandishing weapons, as Teilloch had bade them, preparing to defend themselves.

He recalled Alvado’s words: ‘I enlisted to protect these people.’ Teilloch had lost sight of that, forgetting the value of each individual life – but he could see clearly now. He checked that his autogun was loaded. Arch Teilloch prepared to fight with his people, for his world.

He was ready to do his duty.

About the Author

Steve Lyons’ work in the Warhammer 40,000 universe includes the novellas Engines of War and Angron’s Monolith, the Imperial Guard novels Ice World and Dead Men Walking – now collected in the omnibus Honour Imperialis – and the audio dramas Waiting Death and The Madness Within. He has also written numerous short stories and is currently working on more tales from the grim darkness of the far future.

After the withdrawal of Imperial troops is ordered from the ice world of Cressida, a squad of Valhallan Ice Warriors are sent on a rescue mission.

A Black Library Publication

First published in 2017 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd,
Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustrations by Phil Moss.

Exodus © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2017. Exodus, 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.
All Rights Reserved.

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ISBN: 978-1-78572-827-3

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