Contents

Cover

Title Page

Warhammer 40,000

Prologue

Act One

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Act Two

8

9

10

11

12

13

Act Three

14

15

16

17

Epilogue

About the Author

A Black Library Publication

Warhammer 40,000

It is the 41st millennium. 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 will of the gods, and master of a million worlds by the might of His inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the Imperium for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day, so that He may never truly die.

Yet even in His deathless state, the Emperor continues His eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor’s will. Vast armies give battle in His name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst His soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bioengineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Astra Militarum and countless planetary defence forces, the ever-vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat from aliens, heretics, mutants – and worse.

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. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be re-learned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods.

THE NOBLE HOUSES OF ADRASTAPOL

HOUSE DRACONIS

High King Danial Tan Draconis – Oath of Flame

First Knight Jennika Tan Draconis – Fire Defiant

Herald Markos Dar Draconis – Honourblaze

Sire Garath Dar Draconis – Iron Drake

Gatekeeper Lady Suset Dar Draconis – Embersword

Sire Percivane Dar Draconis – Firestorm

HOUSE CHIMAEROS

Alicia Kar Manticos (Consort to the Viscount Tan Chimaeros)

HOUSE PEGASSON

Marchioness Lauret Tan Pegasson – Oracle

Lady Eleanat Dar Pegasson – Sagasitus

HOUSE MINOTOS

Grandmarshal Kurt Tan Minotos – Gustev’s Revenge

Herald Wilhorm Dar Minotos – Merciless

OTHER NOTABLE CHARACTERS

THE EXILES

The Knight of Ashes – formerly known as Luk Tan Chimaeros – Sword of Heroes

Sire Ranulf Vo-Geiss – Void

Lady Maia Kastarada – Wrath Inescapable

Lady Ekhaterina Hespar – Duty Unending

Sire J’madus Hw’ss – Crimson Death

Captain Shas – Captain of the former navy cruiser Unbroken

Commissar Hauptvier

First Officer Mister Klem

THE INQUISITION

Inquisitor Tane Massata

Captain Raniaraz

Interrogator Nesh

Shanema and Shemara – Death Cult Assassins

Lintiguis Mortens – Autosavant

Kasrkin Sergeant Kaston

Astropath Venquist

D’bu’ko the Jokaero

INTRODUCTORY NOTE ON TITLES OF ADRASTAPOLIAN NOBLE HOUSES

‘Proudly do the Knightly Households of Adrastapol uphold their customs, codes and forms of address. Though the value of such sacred traditions is beyond question, their labyrinthine complexities can lead to a degree of difficulty when integrating with other Imperial institutions.

At its most basic, the Adrastapolian form of address prefixes the surname (that of the Noble House) with an honorific that denotes status. Though unusual or localised prefixes proliferate, three key terms should be quickly learned and understood by outsiders wishing to comprehend the station of our Knights at war.

Tan – This prefix is reserved for those of direct royal descent. The master of each Noble House has the privilege of using the Tan prefix, as does their immediate family. Examples include High King Tolwyn Tan Draconis and Viscount Gerraint Tan Chimaeros.

Dar – The most common Knightly prefix. This term translates most simply to ‘of House’ or ‘belonging to House’. Any Knight who has successfully Become earns the right to this form of address. For example, if squire Willem of House Minotos survives his Becoming ritual, he will be formally recognised thenceforth as Willem Dar Minotos.

Kar – An altogether rarer and less salubrious title, the Kar prefix is applied only to those who have lost their original Noble House. Whether the House itself has been destroyed as an institution, or the Knight or other noble has been exiled from it (see Appendix VII for a full examination of Freeblades and their role in Adrastapolian society), the Kar prefix permanently replaces whatever honorific came before.

Rarely is this a mark of anything but shame.

– Extracted from the writings of Sendraghorst,
Sage Strategic of Adrastapol, vol III,
A Treatise on the Noble Houses of Adrastapol
and Militaristic Imperial Integration.

Prologue

Danial Tan Draconis stood in the gloom of his throne room. He gripped the hilt of his draconblade, willing strength back into his limbs. Every breath came with pain. His wounds gnawed at him. Fatigue threatened to force him to his knees.

His warriors pressed close with their weapons drawn. They were little more than shadows in the dark. Many were injured. Some wouldn’t see another dawn. Yet they stood resolute, and Danial drew strength from theirs. Militia crouched behind barricades all through the chamber, autoguns and heavy weapons aimed at the doors. Civilians huddled at the rear of the hall. Some brandished improvised arms. Some merely crouched in terror; weeping, shaking and shielding their loved ones with their bodies.

‘Feel the draconsfire within you,’ said Danial, his voice firm amidst the rasp of his warriors’ breathing and the scuff of their feet on the flagstones. ‘Even if it is only embers. Find it. Stoke it. We’re all that remains now. Draconis’ last hope. The Emperor expects.’

A boom echoed through the throne room. The dracon-inscribed doors shuddered from a ferocious impact.

‘They’re right outside,’ hissed a voice. Danial couldn’t place whose.

A second crash rolled like thunder, causing the men and women around him to flinch.

‘Emperor preserve us,’ came another voice.

‘House Draconis, hold your nerve,’ commanded Danial.

The doors bowed inwards. From beyond them came monstrous roars.

At another impact, the doors groaned as their hinges and locks strained. A multitude of feral war cries rose beyond them.

‘Warriors of Adrastapol,’ cried Danial. ‘Lords and Ladies of the Draconspire. Ignite!’

Danial thumbed the rune on his blade’s pommel. As one, his Knights followed suit. With a whooshing snarl their draconblades lit up, fuel reserves burning hot to wreath their swords in fire.

A last, titanic impact smashed the doors from their hinges, and the monsters came for them.

Act One

Luk Kar Chimaeros, the Knight of Ashes, pursued his quarry across the stars. The sorceress Alicia Kar Manticos was ever one step ahead. Alicia had brought ruin upon his Noble House, had led them into damnation and left Luk an outcast. Did she flee his wrath, or did she lure him on towards what she hoped would be his own tragic end? Most likely it was both, for wherever the Knight of Ashes went, his erstwhile stepmother had already departed, leaving destruction and mayhem in her wake.

Son of the disgraced Viscount Gerraint Tan Chimaeros, Luk had taken the Freeblade oath in order to distance himself from his father’s heresy. Yet the deeds of House Chimaeros hung over Luk like a darkened cloud. Their descent into rebellion and daemon worship, their willing alliance with arch-heretics and witches, their murder of High King Tolwyn Tan Draconis and their attempts to usurp the crown from its rightful owners – these were deeds in which Luk had not been complicit, but by which he was tainted through association.

Thus, after the conquering armies of Adrastapol returned to their world in triumph, Luk did not tarry long. As his childhood friend, Danial Tan Draconis, ascended to take the mantle of High King and restore order to their fractured lands, Luk departed to begin his hunt. He left upon a fast ship with a small compliment of Sacristans and serviles – all that he would need to keep his Knight, Sword of Heroes, in fighting condition while he tracked down Alicia Kar Manticos and administered the Emperor’s justice.

Yet the hunt soon proved a more complex and challenging affair than the Knight of Ashes had anticipated. From Ghamdor to the Tyvorian Spiral he went. From there he went on to Undul, Sacramentus and Pydos. Always he found rebellion fermented, dark sorcery unleashed, madness and horror to be confronted. Always his quarry was gone, leaving nought but mocking echoes.

Along the way, the Knight of Ashes gathered a band of followers, fellow Freeblades alongside whom he fought, and who saw in his hunt for redemption a chance to earn their own. They were heroes all, despite their outcast status, and they did much good together. Still their quarry eluded them.

At last, on U’latu, Luk found the information that might end his bitter pursuit. An aging gas-prospector spoke of a world of shifting sands and fiery mountains. There dwelt the Oracle of the Silver Eye, whom Luk had long sought.

Five years sidereal had passed since Luk departed Adrastapol on his quest. Five long, bitter years of frustration, anger and unceasing battle against the machinations of Chaos. Finally, the Knight of Ashes had a chance to end his hunt. Believing that this shadowed figure might hold the key to concluding his pursuit, Luk turned his small fleet for the world of Kandakkha.

Extracted from the writing of Sendraghorst,
Sage Strategic of Adrastapol,
vol XX ‘The Hunt for Redemption’.

D’atsub drove his heels into his lanka’s flanks. The leathery beast croaked and increased its pace, sand spraying as its hooves dug into the dune. D’atsub hung on to his steed’s harness, wincing as something exploded yards to his left.

Fire blossomed.

Grit rained down on him.

The lanka crested the dune beneath a sky whose fiery clouds boiled like a cursed sunset. More projectiles whizzed around him. The desert stretched away before D’atsub, volcanoes rising amidst the hissing sands like islands in a distant ocean. Directly ahead, the strange stone columns of the Maze rose in profusion. Then D’atsub was hanging on for dear life as his croaking beast took the downslope in loping bounds.

‘Pho’mada,’ he gasped into his vox-bead, struggling to hear his own words over the ringing in his ears. ‘Do you receive? They hunt in my tracks.’

‘We stand ready, kin-of-my-kin,’ replied Pho’mada through a swirl of static. ‘Lead them into the Maze, to the Circle. We wait.’

‘Just draw them in,’ came another voice. The offworlder. ‘We’ll do the rest.’

‘There are hundreds,’ said D’atsub. ‘Three clans at least! The Gha’tna have joined them, and brought their iron engines.’

Pho’mada cursed, and D’atsub heard fear in his voice.

‘They have nothing to give us pause,’ said the offworlder, his voice flinty. ‘Don’t deviate from the plan.’

‘Too late to do anything else,’ said D’atsub, clinging to his lanka’s neck as the beast neared the base of the dune.

He heard the throaty growl of engines at his back. Shells fell around him, blasting him with their furnace-like heat, but by the blessings of the Emperor, he remained untouched. His lanka’s hooves bit deep, propelling him into the shadow of the Maze. Graven by millennia of wind-blown sand, the stone columns were twisted and hollow, their strata showing through in rainbows of silicate. They pressed close to one another, forming winding passages and ways.

D’atsub kicked his steed again and sent it careening between the columns. Bullets and las blasts struck stone, jagged shards whizzing around him. He hauled the lanka between two columns, racing deeper into the forest of towering rock. Left and right the beast weaved, outdistancing his pursuers.

‘Not too fast, girl,’ he hissed, fighting to rein the lanka in. ‘We must not lose them.’

A beam of light speared over his shoulder and gouged a hole in a nearby column, toppling it in a shower of stone.

‘Not lost,’ he said, kicking his steed. ‘Go, go!’

D’atsub’s lanka lunged through a tight bunching of columns and into a wide natural depression. Half a mile or so across, the Circle was hemmed in by stone monoliths. Its bedrock was all but free of sand, and in better days it had seen clan-meets and nomadic bazaars.

Now, deployed across its mid-point in a thin line, waited D’atsub’s clan.

The Faithful Sons numbered less than a hundred warriors, many of them old men or boys. A few sat astride lankas, and carried dune-bows. Others wore the Imperial body armour of their fathers’ fathers, while a lucky few clutched antique lasguns and autoguns. Their single, dilapidated Chimera sat in the middle of their battle-line, Pho’mada stood atop its mural-painted hull.

‘Weapons!’ shouted D’atsub as his steed pelted towards the clan lines. Pho’mada’s beckoning wave turned into a wide-eyed shout of warning, and D’atsub felt a lurch. His lanka gave a despairing croak and fell – shot from behind. D’atsub had time to cry out before the rock floor rushed up to smash into his face.

Groggily, he pushed himself onto his hands and knees. Everything was jumbled. His cheek burned like fire and something was in his eyes. He blinked and tried to remember where he was. Dimly, D’atsub heard yelling. Running feet. The rattle of something that could have been drums. Or… gunfire? One arm gave out and he sprawled, looking back the way he had come.

His eyes widened as he saw the dark mass of the heretics, spilling from between the columns.

‘D’atsub!’ Pho’mada’s voice swam through the vox. ‘D’atsub, get up! Move, kin-of-my-kin, or you’ll die!’

‘Just… shoot…’ gasped D’atsub, fumbling for his laspistol.

‘Gilded throne,’ cursed Pho’mada, before giving the order. With a desultory crackle, the Faithful Sons complied. Lasbolts and bullets whipped over D’atsub to rake the enemy lines. Dark figures in keph’tas and sand-goggles tumbled to the ground, spiked clubs and pistols spilling from their hands. Yet more came behind them, dozens more, screaming praise to their bloody god.

‘The iron engines!’ shouted Pho’mada. ‘They come!’

Behind the swarm of traitor clansmen came dark shapes – lumbering hulks that might once have been Imperial battle-tanks. They rolled on brazen tracks, festooned with spikes and Chaos fetishes. Where they advanced, columns toppled like betting stones. Their guns screamed, and D’atsub cried out as his clan’s battle-line vanished in a string of explosions. The smoke cleared, revealing clansmen staggering in shock amidst the ruined bodies of their dead. The Chimera was on fire, and Pho’mada was nowhere to be seen.

‘Offworlder!’ shouted D’atsub. ‘Where are you? You swore the Emperor’s oath!’

‘I did,’ came the offworlder’s voice across the vox. ‘And my oath is my bond.’

The ground shook beneath D’atsub, a pounding rhythm that grew by the moment. Titanic footsteps drew closer. From either flank echoed tumbling stone. And then they came. Metal gods, engines of the Emperor, striding into the Circle with murder in their glowing eyes.

‘Pho’mada,’ breathed D’atsub. ‘They are everything you claimed…’

Forty feet tall and more, the ironclad giants had fearsome guns and revving blades for arms. They bore more guns and racks of missiles upon their hulking shoulders, and proud pennants fluttered around them as they marched. In unison, their weapons lit with fury, and D’atsub realised it was now the heretic clansmen’s turn to vanish amidst the fires of retribution.

‘Praise the Emperor,’ screamed D’atsub, elation eclipsing his terror. ‘It is a miracle!’ Seizing his chance, the clansman scrambled to his feet and ran for the Imperial lines.

‘Knight of Ashes to all Exiles,’ voxed Luk Kar Chimaeros. ‘As we discussed, a simple pincer if you please. Void, Duty Unending, you have their left flank. Crimson Death, Wrath Inescapable, their right.’

‘What of you, Knight of Ashes?’ Lady Ekhaterina Hespar’s tone was mocking. ‘Don’t tell me the blade of Adrastapol plans to hang back in terror from these heathen curs?’

‘No, Lady Hespar,’ he replied. ‘We don’t all go to such lengths to avoid battle as former Knights of House Hawkshroud. I shall go straight up the centre.’

‘You’ll face the consequences of that remark later, Luk,’ she said.

‘Promises,’ he replied, but his focus had already shifted to the battle before him. Luk’s cockpit auspex swarmed with target designators. His throne mechanicum sang with power, and the wisdom of his ancestors whispered in his mind. Sword of Heroes rumbled around him, its machine-spirit thirsty for traitor blood.

Who was he to deny his steed?

With a thought, Luk fed power to his motive actuators, stepping Sword of Heroes over the battered loyalists in a single stride. He clenched his haptic gauntlets, mindful of the green rune that showed the loyalist scout still staggering towards safety. The traitors were almost on top of him.

‘No you don’t, recidivist scum,’ muttered Luk. He willed his weapons into action. His Knight’s heavy stubbers engaged, raking bullets into the clansmen. Bodies disintegrated in sprays of blood. The scout kept running, but almost fell as he gawped up at the war engine that had saved him.

With his field of fire clear, Luk clenched one haptic gauntlet and unleashed the might of his thermal cannon. Prickling heat crawled across his skin, sympathetic feedback as the weapon fired. Searing energies burst amidst the onrushing traitors, turning a swathe of them to vapour and gouging a glassy crater in the bedrock. A cheer rose from the Imperial lines, and Luk allowed himself a tight smile.

‘Always nice to know my efforts are appreciated,’ he said.

To Luk’s left advanced Void, the pitch-black Knight of Ranulf Vo-Geiss, its avenger gatling cannons screaming as they ploughed twin furrows through the charging cultists. Vo-Geiss’ sombre chant carried across the vox, an ominous counterpoint to the slaughter.

‘Concentrate your fire on their iron engines,’ voxed Luk, striding Sword of Heroes towards the enemy.

‘Iron engines,’ replied J’madus Hw’ss, pilot of Crimson Death. His strange Knight’s rangy frame was reminiscent of the old Heresy-era Cerastus Atropos. Clad in a bastardised version of House Krast’s fiery raiment, the Knight bore weird energy weapons on its arms, and carried a bulky shield generator like a hump upon its back ‘Oilspit. They are barely worthy of the name.’

Crimson Death’s positron driver screamed as it charged, then let fly with a shocking flash of light. A trio of iron engines detonated as they emerged from the Maze, blown apart by Hw’ss’ weapon.

A ruby beam of energy spat from another iron engine, splashing against Luk’s ion shield and staggering his steed.

‘Don’t underestimate them,’ he said. ‘This quarry has claws.’

He returned fire, annihilating his attacker and the luckless heretics surrounding it, then turned his stubbers on another cluster of foes.

‘There are more here,’ voxed Lady Ekhaterina Hespar, the aristocratic former herald of House Hawkshroud. ‘Allow me to remind you what the wrath of Hawkshroud looks like, Luk.’ Her Knight was Duty Unending, clad in panoply of rich yellow and purple. Its rapid-fire battlecannon loosed a tight salvo of shells, each punching through the hull of an enemy tank. Iron engines exploded, rolling to a stop as burning hulks.

‘I’ve seen it enough times, my lady,’ said Luk. ‘Though as demonstrations go, that was impressive.’

‘You talk too much,’ voxed Maia Kastarada, striding Wrath Inescapable into the enemy lines. Her steed was a sleek Errant, clad in midnight blue and ice white. Its thermal cannon roared as Maia advanced, crushing clansmen to pulp with her ironclad footfalls. ‘All of you. Your chatter dishonours the deed of killing.’

‘Freeblades fight as they will, Maia,’ said J’madus. ‘Our comrade the Void chants all battle long, ignores half the orders Luk gives him, and still his slaughter remains optimised.’ The former Krast Knight cursed in binharic as a lucky shot pierced his energy shield and blasted a crater in his steed’s torso. A spindly servitor unfolded itself from its charging port in the side of Crimson Death’s iron hump, and went to work repairing the damage.

‘She’s right,’ said Luk. ‘We’re here for a reason, and the longer we tarry against this unworthy foe, the longer it will take us to attend to our real duties. Exiles, obliterate these heathens so we can be about the hunt.’

D’atsub watched the slaughter with wide eyes. From the instant the Knights joined the battle, he and his fellows had become irrelevant. The Faithful Sons still fired into the enemy ranks all the same, whooping with the adrenaline rush of vengeance long sought.

Pho’mada stood beside him, leaning on D’atsub as a wiseman bandaged his burns.

‘They are magnificent,’ breathed the chieftain. ‘Iron angels of the Emperor.’

‘They are terrible engines of death,’ said D’atsub, nodding. ‘In this dark age, we need such things to survive.’

Cannons crashed. Missiles streaked through the air to detonate amongst the heretic lines. The Knights took long steps, their legs swinging through the air like those of mythical desert beasts, before crashing down with pile-driver force. Blood sprayed with every footfall, heretics bursting like gore-filled lanka bladders.

Packs of frenzied clansmen screamed as they charged, battering at the joints and cabling of the Knights’ feet and ankles to no avail. Some fired crude pistols and firelock muskets while others hurled fizzing potash bombs that detonated uselessly against the Knights’ armoured hides.

‘Even the guns of the iron engines cannot hurt them,’ said Pho’mada, as another volley of shots splashed blue against the shield of the nearest Knight. ‘See, their fury cannot overcome the blessings of the Emperor.’

‘I am glad that they fight on our side of this war, kin-of-my-kin,’ said D’atsub. ‘Imagine if such a weapon was to be wielded by the blood worshippers.’

Pho’mada scoffed. ‘These are divine engines of the Emperor’s will, D’atsub. Their purity could never be sullied by the hands of heretics. Be careful what you say, lest you stray into heresy yourself.’

D’atsub nodded, taking the occasional shots at the enemy as he watched the slaughter. Some amongst the Faithful Sons cheered rapturously and fired along with him. Others were silent, wide-eyed at the sheer ferocity of the Emperor’s judgement.

Soon enough, it was over. The last of the Gha’tna clansmen, their fervour finally spent, tried to flee into what remained of the Maze. The Knights’ fire brought stone columns tumbling down on them.

‘It is victory,’ said D’atsub as the rocks toppled and fires rose. The Knights stopped firing at last, and the sudden quiet was almost as deafening as the fury that preceded it.

‘None survive!’ said D’atsub, louder, turning towards his clansmen. He grinned fiercely as the realisation of victory struck him. ‘None survive!’ he bellowed, and his comrades took up the cry. ‘Praise the Emperor! Death to the heretics!’

Their cries rang out over the Circle’s butchered corpse-piles and by the shattered remains of the Maze to echo across the dune sea.

The Knights had defeated the minions of Chaos in this final battle.

Kandakkha was saved.

Luk walked Sword of Heroes across the dunes to compensate for the treacherous terrain. He followed D’atsub, who loped over the hissing sands on a fresh lanka.

Beware your flanks, lad, lest any have survived that massacre, whispered a ghost from his throne.

Better to mind the sand betwixt your toes, murmured another. A fall on sand’s more likely to kill you on this world than any backwards heretic…

‘Neither is going to kill me, old scullsmaids,’ said Luk as he watched his auspex and instruments. His steed rumbled, as though in agreement.

‘The clansman rides quickly,’ observed Lady Hespar from her position thirty yards behind Sword of Heroes. The rest of the Exiles were strung out behind her, the Knights spaced to watch one another’s flanks.

‘Wouldn’t you?’ asked Ranulf Vo-Geiss. ‘If iron gods strode at your heels?’

‘We are not gods,’ said Lady Kastarada. ‘Never allow such conceit into your thoughts.’

‘A turn of phrase,’ replied Vo-Geiss gruffly. ‘Just words.’

‘Words have power,’ said Maia. ‘Oaths are forged from words.’

‘You will not win with this one, Ranulf,’ said Hw’ss. ‘I hail from a world aligned with the Adeptus Mechanicus, brought up in the Forgecastles of House Krast, and still I am less dogmatic and literal than she.’

‘No wonder they exiled you then, Cogs,’ said Ekhaterina.

Luk checked his manifold.

‘Mind your duties, Exiles,’ he said, slowing Sword of Heroes to a standstill. ‘The lanka’s stopped.’

‘Finally,’ said Vo-Geiss. ‘An end to this time-wasting.’

Luk scowled but said nothing. Now was not the time to engage in yet another battle of wills with the Void.

The foothills of a volcano loomed through the swirling veils of grit. High on its slopes, Luk’s magnified vision picked out fresh lava trails crawling slowly downwards, glowing amidst the wind-blown sands. The lanka rider motioned towards a defile between two basalt outcroppings. They framed a pathway leading into darkness.

‘Inviting,’ said Luk. He sighed. ‘But we haven’t come all this way to balk now. Duty Unending?’

‘Yes, Knight of Ashes?’

‘You have the lance until I return.’

‘Understood – we will be vigilant. And Luk?’

He paused, halfway out of his throne.

‘Yes, Lady Hespar?’

‘Be careful, sir Knight. You’re no use to us dead.’

‘Understood, my lady.’

Luk uncoupled his neural jacks and felt the familiar lessening as the ghosts of his throne left him. He folded his haptic gauntlets in his seat, smoothing their wires down carefully. Checking that his bolt pistols were holstered at his hips, he unhooked his sheathed chainsword from its equipment rack and slung it onto his back. Fixing a rebreather and sand goggles in place, Luk clambered up the ladder to his cockpit hatch and out into the wind.

As Luk’s boots hit the sand, D’atsub guided the lanka over to him. The leathery beast honked and thrust its snout at Luk, sniffing him suspiciously.

‘Is that it, then?’ he asked over the moaning wind.

‘That is it, offworlder,’ said D’atsub, pointing reverently at the sulphurous defile. ‘The Path of Fire and Shadow wends between the Gnashing Rocks, unto Lorgukhu’s maw. There will you find the one you seek.’

‘Your people have a reassuring way with names,’ said Luk.

‘Ours is an unforgiving planet, offworlder,’ said D’atsub. ‘Everything here kills. Everything demands respect, and so our fathers’ fathers gave respectful names. We are reminded always to treat Kandakkha as it deserves. It helps us not to die.’

Luk sketched a half bow.

‘I meant no disrespect. Your clan has honoured its half of the bargain, and you have my heartfelt thanks.’

‘You came with the wrath of the Emperor, in our hour of need, Knight of Ashes,’ said D’atsub. ‘You are our saviours, and it is we who thank you. Even your name is auspicious, for it bespeaks the breath of Lorgukhu.’

‘The Oracle,’ said Luk, squaring his shoulders. ‘No. She will not kill me. She will give me what I need to finish my hunt.’

‘I hope it is so,’ said D’atsub. ‘We will wait. If you do not return by the time the sands turn black, I will lead your comrades back to safety, and we shall sing songs of mourning in your honour.’

Luk nodded wry thanks, then set off towards the shadowed cleft. As he went, the volcano, Great Lorgukhu, rumbled angrily.

Passing between the craggy outcroppings, Luk entered chill shadow that was quite at odds with the fiery wrath far above. A veil of sulphur-smoke drifted before him. It parted at his advance. Sheltered from the wind, Luk could hear the hiss of his rebreather loud in his ears.

The path wound and twisted, its walls jagged. Rock rose high overhead as Luk moved onwards, the sky becoming a narrow band of grey-white above him. Rounding a corner into deeper darkness, Luk flicked on the stablight strapped to his shoulder. He started as it illuminated bleached skulls, impaled upon thin spikes of stone. Beyond them, a cave mouth yawned in the volcano’s flank.

‘Throne! This planet,’ muttered Luk. He popped open his holsters and advanced. Passing between the macabre fetishes, Luk kept his breathing steady as he walked slowly into the cave mouth. His stablight pierced the darkness, revealing a rough stone floor scattered with rocks and fragments of bone. An old metal chest sat in the cave mouth, aquila-stamped and rusting. More bones dangled from the cave’s low ceiling, suspended on twists of wire.

‘Human,’ he whispered, moving carefully past the fetishes and taking care not to touch them.

‘Theatre,’ came a thin female voice from the darkness. ‘Designed to keep the locals from my door.’

Luk froze, hands on his pistol grips.

‘Who speaks?’ he asked. ‘Do I address the Oracle of the Silver Eye?’

A chuckle rose from the gloom.

‘You do, Knight of Ashes. Such is my dubious honour.’

‘You know who I am?’ asked Luk. Uncomfortable memories of sorcery and betrayal played through his mind.

‘I know who you once were, Luk Kar Chimaeros,’ chided the Oracle. ‘What kind of seer would I be, if I did not?’

‘That is not an answer,’ said Luk. ‘And that is no longer my name. If you know who I am, then perhaps you are acquainted with whom I hunt. It would be her way to set a trap with secrets as bait.’

‘They have poisoned you,’ came the voice, sad now. ‘The ones whose betrayal you seek to punish. They stole your trust. Your faith.’

‘They taught me the truth of people’s hearts,’ said Luk, voice tight. ‘But you still haven’t answered me. You could be her thrall. You could be her. Give me one reason not to draw my weapons.’

‘You sought me, Knight of Ashes,’ came the voice. ‘Not I you. You stand in the mouth of my cave, not I in yours.’

‘And yet…’ said Luk. His hands didn’t leave his weapons.

From the darkness came a heavy sigh, followed by slow shuffling. The sound was dry, rasping, like snakeskin on stone. Luk stepped backwards and drew his pistols. But the figure that swam from the darkness in no way resembled Alicia Kar Manticos.

Luk’s stepmother was tall, raven-haired and beautiful. This woman was ancient, hunched and rounded like a weathered rock. She wore a hessian robe embossed with faded aquilas, and an Imperial eagle topped her battered walking staff. Her skin was a leathery mass of wrinkles. Her eyes glinted from beneath drooping lids, their gaze sharp as flint. Yet it was the woman’s forehead that drew Luk’s attention, and the mouldering velvet blindfold that bound it.

‘A Navigator,’ he whispered.

‘What I was is no concern of yours, Knight of Ashes,’ said the old woman. ‘What I am is all you need to know. You’ve felt the taint of sorcery. You’ve witnessed the allure of Chaos. Tell me, am I she you seek and fear?’

Luk could feel the power that radiated from the figure before him. It made the hairs on his arms stand on end and his heart thump. But there was nothing unclean about it.

‘It reminds me of the Shrine to the Emperor in the Draconspire,’ he said.

‘The Emperor? Yes, I am his instrument, praise be to Him in all His infinite might and wisdom,’ replied the Oracle, and Luk was surprised at the bitterness in her tone. ‘Now, if you have satisfied yourself that I am not a heretical sorceress, I’d appreciate it if you’d holster your weapons and ask what you came here to ask. These old bones do not enjoy prolonged periods of standing.’

‘I…’ began Luk, then shut his mouth and holstered his pistols. He bowed deeply and proffered the sign of the aquila.

‘I apologise, lady,’ he started again. ‘As you say, I have learned mistrust, but I meant no disrespect to one so blessed.’

‘Blessed?’ she scoffed. ‘Blessed, am I? I would tell you how old I am, young Knight, but you wouldn’t believe me. My only company on this barren world are local fools too fearful to even look me in the eye.’

‘I didn’t–’ said Luk, but the Oracle interrupted him.

‘That metal chest you see upon my threshold? They leave offerings in it. Food and drink, when I am lucky. Without them, I’d be dead within a week. Emperor only knows what I shall do the day I hurt myself, or sicken with something. Die, probably. Alone. My home is a rocky hole at the foot of an active volcano, and I haven’t tasted decent amasec in decades. Yet here the Emperor sent me, and so here I reside, until our lord and master has no more use for a withered old seer. So, if we’ve done with my blessings, I’ll ask you again. Speak your piece, and let me get back to my meditations, hm?’

Luk rallied as best he could.

‘Lady,’ he said. ‘You know whom I seek. I would ask you where she is, so that I can end this hunt and reclaim my honour.’

‘You are honourable, sir Knight,’ said the old woman, her voice softening. ‘They could never take that from you. Without your honour, your nobility, you would not have assembled these Exiles that you lead. They follow you because they see your honour, even if you cannot.’

‘One of them, perhaps,’ said Luk. ‘Mostly they follow me because they are indebted, or because I give purpose to their hate.’

‘If you say so, then so it must be,’ said the Oracle, her voice knowing. ‘One way or another, Knight of Ashes, I hope this may prove an end to your long hunt.’

The Oracle reached into her robes. Luk reached for his guns again, believing for a moment that he had been fooled after all. Yet the old woman withdrew a roll of parchment that looked scarcely less weathered than she. A bone-white ribbon kept it furled.

The woman proffered the scroll, and Luk took it from her warily. She gestured, an impatient flick of shaking fingers.

‘Well? You’ve waited long enough for this information,’ she said. ‘Read it!’

Luk unbound the ribbon from the scroll and unfurled it, careful not to tear the crumbling parchment. Carefully, he read the words inscribed in crabbed hand upon it.

‘She is there,’ said the Oracle. ‘This I saw long ago, before even you Became. That is where your once-mother lies in wait for you, and I warn you now that she knows you are coming. You are not the only one to gaze into the weave of fate.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Luk, his voice hard. ‘I will go there, and I will end this.’

‘You may do,’ said the Oracle. ‘But there again, you may not.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Luk.

‘What means more to you, Luk Kar Chimaeros? Your honour? Or your family?’

‘I have no family,’ he replied.

‘You have a home world. Friends. Those for whom you care.’

‘I can’t think about them,’ he said. ‘Not until this is done.’

‘And yet,’ she said. ‘You must. Even now, a terrible shadow falls across the world of your birth.’

‘Adrastapol?’ asked Luk. ‘What do you know?’

‘More than I ever wished,’ she said.

‘Speak plainly!’ he snapped. ‘What threatens Adrastapol? I will send a message, warn them of its coming.’

‘That will not be enough,’ she said sadly. ‘The Emperor has shown me this. Either you choose your hunt and abandon all those you love to perish, or you turn aside to rescue them.’

‘What of Alicia?’ he asked angrily. ‘If I return home without concluding my hunt, will I lose her trail?’

‘I know much, Knight of Ashes, but I do not know that,’ said the Oracle. ‘I know only that you must choose your path wisely. Much rests upon your shoulders.’

Mistrust and anger warred within Luk’s heart. He crumpled the scroll, causing flakes to crumble from it.

‘This could all be her machination, her way of shaming me and evading my pursuit yet again,’ he said.

‘It could be,’ said the oracle calmly.

Luk shook his head and thrust the scroll into a pouch at his waist.

‘I came here for answers,’ he said. ‘You give me only questions.’

‘So it is, for those who seek to read the weave of fate,’ she replied. ‘Trust me that I take no pleasure in this. It is as much of a burden to speak these words as it is for you to hear them. The quarry of your hunt is foul and deserves to be purged with the Emperor’s light. Yet the threat to Adrastapol is as real as you or I, and without you they will fall. Even with you, perhaps. But can you truly turn away and know that you did not try?’

Luk stood a moment longer, silent. Then he bowed again, stiffly, and turned away.

‘Thank you for your words,’ he said as he strode away. ‘May the Emperor watch over you.’

‘And you, Luk,’ said the Oracle. ‘Choose wisely…’

Danial Tan Draconis stood before the throne of House Minotos. He wore a tabard in the crimson, black and gold of his house, belted over his half-armoured bodyglove. Upon his brow sat the crown of the High King of Adrastapol. At his waist was his draconblade, Oathkeeper. Three ornate servo-skulls hovered above him, each crafted to echo one of the three Noble Beasts of Adrastapol: the dracon, the minot and the pegassus.

The minotane throne room was a study in martial grandeur. A mosaic floor depicted towering Knights marching out to war. The high ceiling bore a likeness of the Emperor as a warrior god, heroes and heretics battling around him across a stylised star-field. From the chamber’s cavernous doorway to the foot of the throne, the way was lined with huge statues in marble and iron. Each depicted a Grandmarshal of House Minotos, wielding their hammers, bellowing battle-cries, standing proud in victory. Many incorporated industrial machinery so that flames flickered in eyes and black exhaust smoke rose from open mouths.

Behind the statues rose high galleries in which the Knights and courtiers of House Minotos could gather to spectate or petition. On this day, during a visit from the High King, they thronged with bullish warriors, robed adepts, stern consorts, cowled Sacristans and many others. The hubbub of their conversation washed over Danial like waves, mingling with the martial arias that floated down from cherubic laud hailers high above.

He felt the weight of the people’s collected gaze. It was nothing compared to the glare of the man upon the minotane throne.

Sat upon that edifice of black marble and wine-red leather, flanked by the Knights of his Exalted Court, Grandmarshal Kurt Tan Minotos glowered down upon Danial. Younger than Danial, Kurt was nevertheless powerfully built and had a thick moustache – an imposing physical presence who might have cowed a lesser man. Danial stood straight-backed and proud before him, and smiled warmly.

At the ring of a court bell, the people in the galleries fell silent. Kurt’s herald, Sire Wilhorm Dar Minotos, stepped forward and cleared his throat.

‘Let all show their respect,’ he began, his voice rolling through a vox amplifier on his shoulder. ‘Here stands Danial Tan Draconis, son of Tolwyn Tan Draconis, High King of Adrastapol, liege-lord of the three houses, shield of the Majestis System, victor of the Donatosian triumph. Strike the bell thrice.’

The court bell rang out again, a ritual threefold tolling. The onlookers made the sign of the aquila and intoned the words of fealty that courtly protocol demanded.

‘Behold, he who unites the Noble Houses!’ continued Wilhorm, the men and women in the galleries speaking the prescribed prayers as the ritual of welcoming continued. ‘Behold, he who leads our people to glory! Behold, he who leads our Knights to victory! Behold, he who shields our people from harm!’

At this last honorific, Kurt Tan Minotos raised a hand. Wilhorm faltered.

‘That will suffice, Wilhorm,’ said Kurt stiffly. ‘Our High King is a busy man, I am sure. So am I. Let us be about our business.’

Shocked whispers spread through the galleries. Wilhorm stepped back, looking stricken. Courtly protocol, though tedious and long-winded, was a cornerstone of Knightly life. To interrupt the ritual of welcoming was boorish at best. At worst, the High King might choose to construe an insult.

Duels had been fought for less.

Danial took a step forward and bowed deeply and respectfully, picking up the ritual at a later step.

‘Grandmarshal Kurt Tan Minotos, son of Grandmarshal Gustev Tan Minotos, Lord of the Ironfields and Castellan of the Kulrikh Peaks,’ intoned Danial. ‘It is a pleasure to stand in your presence again. You do me great honour by receiving me.’

‘The honour belongs to House Minotos this day,’ said Kurt. He, too, had returned to the words of the ritual, albeit having skipped over half an hour of formalities. ‘You grace us with your presence, High King Danial. Pray speak your will, and Minotos shall hear you.’

‘My thanks, Grandmarshal,’ said Danial. ‘I come this day to discuss matters of state.’

For a moment, it seemed as though Kurt would commit the unpardonable insult of forcing the High King to speak on their business before the court like a common petitioner.

A muscle twitched in Danial’s jaw. ‘In closed chamber.’

The Grandmarshal stood, gesturing to his Knights.

‘Of course, my liege,’ said Kurt. ‘Pray accompany me to the iron sanctum.’ Danial ascended the steps and joined Kurt’s small entourage as they filtered through an ornately carved doorway behind the throne. They strode down a marble-floored corridor with martial arias swirling around them, Danial matching the Grandmarshal’s brisk pace.

‘How many times is this you have visited us, my liege?’ asked Kurt.

‘Since taking the throne?’ asked Danial. ‘Seven, I believe.’

‘Thrice more than House Pegasson,’ said Kurt. ‘Careful, they’ll think you’re playing favourites.’

‘The Marchioness Tan Pegasson knows how greatly I value her close allegiance and aid,’ said Danial. ‘Her loyalty is not in question.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Kurt gruffly. ‘The Lady of Miracles.’ Danial heard the disapproval in the Grandmarshal’s voice, but offered no comment.

Ascending a brazier-lined set of steps, they passed through an armoured portal and into the iron sanctum. Hulking gun servitors watched them, vat-bred slabs of muscle with metal minot heads. Danial felt their glowing sensor eyes tracking him, the yawning barrels of their heavy bolters following as he passed.

Within, the iron sanctum was a hexagonal chamber perhaps a hundred feet across. An iron table of the same shape sat at its centre, surrounded by high-backed thrones. Tapestries and relic weapons hung from the walls.

‘Pray, will you take a seat, my liege?’ said Kurt. ‘By now you must have a favourite.’ The Grandmarshal settled heavily into his own, ornate seat and thumped his booted feet up onto the table top. Danial locked eyes with Kurt, until the lord of House Minotos dropped his gaze.

Expressions carefully neutral, the Exalted Court of House Minotos waited for the High King to sit before following suit. Danial could feel their reluctance to spectate upon this discussion, but protocol had to be observed.

The Gatekeeper, Sire Ottovio, stayed on symbolic guard at the chamber’s entrance. Danial carefully chose his vacant throne, gesturing to the others to assume their normal places of honour. They did so gratefully.

‘So, my liege,’ said Kurt. ‘To what do we owe the honour this time?’

‘Grandmarshal,’ said Danial, ‘my purpose this day is twofold. First, I wish to enquire as to your progress in implementing my Adrastapolian defence decrees. Secondly, I offer an invitation that I hope you will accept.’

Kurt nodded to himself, then clapped his hands in demand.

‘Wine!’ he shouted. ‘How can we conduct the business of state with our throats parched dry?’

At his shout, a trio of house serviles hurried into the chamber from a side door, bearing iron goblets and carafes of Kulrikh sourwine. They set them down with practised swiftness, studiously ignoring the glare of their lord and master. Danial accepted his goblet with a polite nod, but allowed the servant to fill it only half way. It was enough to avoid slighting his host, but no more.

Kurt took a long pull on his goblet then set it down with a clang.

‘We have made little progress with regards to your defence decrees, my liege,’ he said. ‘House Minotos is concentrating upon recovering from the losses sustained during the Donatosian disaster, as I have told you already. Only when I am satisfied that the damage done to my own house has been repaired can I look beyond our borders. Such is my duty to my people.’

‘Grandmarshal,’ said Danial patiently. ‘The defence decrees are intended to ensure the safety of your people, and all the other peoples of Adrastapol. The planned network of orbital defence silos progresses apace elsewhere. It has furnished many regions of Adrastapol with a far more robust capacity to defend ourselves from planetary invasion.’

‘It was my father’s belief that our House’s strength at arms should always be our foremost defence,’ said Kurt. ‘To meet our enemies in full panoply upon the field of battle is the Minotos way, not hiding behind defence lasers and missile silos. I have spared what Sacristans and labour I can to this project and I will do no more until my Knightly Lances are fortified to my satisfaction.’

‘What of the Minotane air force, then?’ asked Danial. ‘During the Donatosian conflict, we saw only too well the strategic versatility and strength that aircraft provide. Even if you do not value orbital defences, you must see how a fleet of heavy landers and combat aircraft will allow your house to move more swiftly between war zones, and to defend itself from myriad threats.’

‘I allow, my liege, that such an endeavour has its merits.’

‘Then how is it that I see so few signs of progress, Kurt?’ asked Danial. ‘With the most recent shipment from Korphos, House Draconis now has sufficient heavy landers to transport two-thirds of our Knights, and over one hundred fighters and bombers. Still our efforts are dwarfed by those of House Pegasson.’

‘Pegasson possessed a substantial air force to begin with,’ said Kurt. ‘They have always been overly proud of their people’s abilities as pilots. Aircraft are not without their uses, but to focus upon such progressive tactics is to neglect the traditional primacy of our Knights. Thus, we weaken ourselves even as we appear strong.’

‘What of the industrialisation programs, then?’ asked Danial, forcing his voice to remain even. ‘The construction of new agriplexes, new power sources? The initiatives I have started to improve the lot and productivity of our serf-classes?’

‘I have channelled what resources I deem sufficient into your initiatives, my liege,’ said Kurt. ‘But, if I may be frank, I am not alone in believing them to be perilously lacking in traditional values. My father would not have wished to see our people grow soft from lack of toil.’

‘I hold our world’s traditions in the utmost respect,’ said Danial. ‘But rebellion ferments amidst the downtrodden and the discontented, Grandmarshal. It is our duty to ensure that our people feel the love of their Emperor, lest dissatisfaction take root in their souls. This is but one of the ways we ensure the taint of dishonour never again darkens our world. This matters, Kurt. I would see you act upon it sooner rather than later. To mistake compassion for weakness is to show it yourself.’

The Grandmarshal looked momentarily taken aback, but his scowl quickly resurfaced.

‘You will find no weakness in House Minotos, my liege,’ he said, refilling his goblet. ‘Under my rule, this house is rebuilding its strength as my father would have willed. And our compassion will be reserved for those who deserve it. We will show no mercy to any heretic that we find amidst our ranks, no matter their provenance or status.’

‘Do you believe that I have done otherwise?’ asked Danial.

‘I imply nothing of the sort, my liege,’ said Kurt. ‘I hope that the Knight of Ashes proceeds well upon his hunt for she who slew my father in cold blood. May neither of them ever darken this world with their presence again.’

‘Grandmarshal Tan Minotos, you understand the implications of the Freeblade oath as well as I,’ said Danial. ‘And you know full well that Houses Chimaeros and Wyvorn were purged utterly, their heresy expunged in the Emperor’s cleansing flames. We could have been no more thorough on that front. The Ecclesiarchy confirmed this. Please do not dissemble, Kurt, it diminishes you. Will you bring dishonour upon your Noble House by refusing to enact your High King’s decrees?’

The Knights around the table stiffened as Kurt Tan Minotos glared into his goblet. He thumped the drinking vessel down, slopping wine onto the table top.

‘My liege,’ he said. ‘I will never bring dishonour upon House Minotos, and I would duel any other who implied otherwise. I have told you on several occasions now that I will enact your decrees in the pace and fashion that best suits House Minotos. Trust me, when you look to me, you will not see dishonour.’

‘No,’ said Danial. ‘I do not see dishonour, Kurt. I see a good man, striving to show unassailable strength. One upon whose shoulders the mantle of rulership fell early, and by tragedy. One who still sees the shadow of his father cast upon the wall in place of his own. It is something I know a little of.’

‘Thank you for your insights, my liege,’ said Kurt stiffly. ‘I shall consider them as I continue to rule my Noble House as my father would have wished.’

‘I understand, Grandmarshal,’ said Danial. ‘But to be frank, your rule runs the risk of becoming isolationist and regressive. You have sent only what forces you must when I have called for aid in driving off piratical raiders. When my sister marched out to answer the call for aid from the world of Dakhera II, she led five lances of Draconis Knights, four of Pegasson, but only one of your own.’

‘I spared what warriors I believed I could,’ said Kurt. ‘With so many inexperienced Knights having just passed through their Becoming, I had few warriors I deemed ready for that battle. And the Emperor alone knows House Minotos has too few warriors to call upon these days.’

‘I understand your reasoning,’ said Danial. ‘And I do not condemn it. But within living memory, two Noble Houses of Adrastapol have turned traitor and been put to death for their crimes. I do not for one moment believe that your house harbours heresy, Grandmarshal, I wish to stress that. But understand that under such circumstances I can only show so much forgiveness before I, too, must show strength.’

Kurt’s Knights shuffled uncomfortably. Perhaps, Danial thought, his words touched upon their own frustrations. Or perhaps they resented him. He watched Kurt carefully, willing the young Grandmarshal to swallow his pride and extend some gesture of compliance.

‘You mentioned a second reason for your visit, my king?’ asked Kurt, and Danial suppressed a sigh of frustration. ‘I have heard your words, and will think upon them. But both of us have a great deal to attend to. What was this other matter, might I ask?’

‘An invitation,’ said Danial. ‘Imperatus Dam nears completion at last. Hydromechanical power for three new defence lasers, as well as light and heat for every farmstead in the north Valatane. A sign of this world’s renewal, and its advancement into the Emperor’s light.’

‘A fine achievement,’ said Kurt. ‘One for which I’m sure your people will thank you, my liege.’

‘I would prefer they thank the Emperor and the Omnissiah,’ said Danial. ‘Just as we, too, plan to give thanks. High Sacristan Polluxis has assured me that the grand awakening of the dam’s machine-spirits is now just a day away. The worthies of House Draconis shall attend this important moment in our world’s history, as will those of House Pegasson. I have come in person to extend my invitation to you and yours, that you might join us in a display of solidarity to our people.’

‘You honour me, my liege,’ said Kurt, sounding sincere to Danial for the first time that day. ‘But I… I must decline. Matters of state compel me. Please accept my apologies.’

Danial’s jaw set as he restrained his anger. He considered raising his voice, commanding Kurt to comply as was his kingly right. But he knew Kurt was glass, liable to crack if pressed too hard, which would be to the detriment of his house and his world. Danial had worked too hard to win the son of Gustev Tan Minotos around with diplomacy. He wouldn’t draw the velvet glove from his mailed fist unless he had no other choice. ‘Of course, Grandmarshal. You must do as you see fit.’

‘I appreciate the honour you offer me here, but my people must come first,’ said Kurt. ‘You understand, my liege?’

‘Well enough,’ said Danial, rising from his throne. ‘And now, as you have yourself said more than once, we are busy men. I must away, or else the awakening ceremony will take place in my absence.’

‘Of course,’ said Kurt, and he and his Knights stood too. ‘Sire Ottovio shall escort you back to your lander.’

‘Thank you, Grandmarshal Tan Minotos, and for your hospitality also.’

‘A privilege, my king,’ said Kurt, ‘Emperor be praised.’ He and his Knights bowed, making the sign of the aquila. Danial returned the gesture, then turned and marched from the iron sanctum with Sire Ottovio at his side.

An hour later, Danial sat in a cushioned restraint-throne in the transport bay of his shuttle. His was one of six such thrones lining the walls. Several were occupied by bodyguards, hand-picked elites from House Draconis’ militia clad in bulky carapace armour.

Their leader, Captain Bannoch, sat at Danial’s right hand.

Opposite Danial sat his herald, Sire Markos Dar Draconis. The grizzled old Knight scowled mightily, dragging one hand through his grey hair. When he spoke, his voice emerged as a mechanical rasp from the vocal augmetic in his throat. An old wound, dealt by a madman who thought himself a god.

‘Silly arse still isn’t budging then?’

‘If you mean, “Has Grandmarshal Kurt reconsidered his position on the decrees?” then no,’ said Danial. ‘I don’t believe he has. But there was a moment, just before I left. He looked almost as though he wished to say something other than he did.’

‘Then he should come out and say it, instead of drinking wine and sulking like a squire,’ said Markos. ‘That boy dishonours his father’s memory.’

‘He does what he believes to be right in challenging circumstances,’ said Danial. ‘And he has potential. I see it in him. His lands are not ill-managed. His tithes come in on time. His lances swell with new Knights.’

‘Yet he remains obstinately isolationist,’ said Markos. ‘It’s a position you can’t allow him to maintain indefinitely, sire.’

‘I know, Markos,’ said Danial. He massaged his temples. ‘And you know me better than to believe that I would.’ Bannoch offered him a canteen, and he took a long pull on it. The cold spring water chased away the bitter aftertaste of Kurt’s wine.

‘He will come around,’ said Danial, handing Bannoch’s canteen back with a nod of thanks. ‘I only hope he does so before I’m forced to intercede.’

‘That could go ill,’ said Markos, sounding none too troubled. ‘For House Minotos, at least.’

‘If anything comes of it, it will be jousting only,’ said Danial. ‘My father did not permit the Rule of Blood in settling our disputes, and neither shall I. Such traditions died with House Chimaeros.’

‘Not everything your father decreed was wise,’ said Markos. ‘I loved the old rogue, but he liked to be liked a little too much.’

‘Be that as it may, sire herald, that is one decree I shall uphold. The Knights of Adrastapol have fought one another enough. There will be no civil conflict upon my planet, not while I am king. It is wasteful, prideful and it dishonours us in the Emperor’s eyes. Donatos cost us enough allies.’

‘As you say,’ said Markos.

They lapsed into silence. The shuttle’s engines rumbled. Danial craned round to stare out of the viewport behind him. Framed by the blue void, he saw a Lightning interceptor in the colours of House Draconis. Three such craft formed his aerial escort.

Rocky plains rolled past far below, crater-mines and agriplexes dotting them like stitchwork on a tapestry.

‘House Minotos’ lands are as hard as its Knights,’ said Danial reflectively. ‘They are as stubborn as its stone and as proud as its mountains.’

‘The mines are rich, though,’ said Markos. ‘There’s ample ironwealth beneath all that rock and dust. Wealth they should be sharing.’

‘I don’t disagree,’ said Danial. ‘But we’ve spoken enough of this for now. It’s a long flight to the northern Valatane. We’ll eat and then see if we can’t catch a few hours’ sleep. Emperor knows I’ve had little enough in the past few days.’

‘Hah, now the king speaks sense,’ said Markos with a grin. Bannoch took his cue, motioning to one of his guardsmen to unbuckle and fetch supplies from the shuttle’s hold.

As the man disappeared through a hatch, Danial sat back and returned his gaze to the viewport. He watched the lands roll past below him and enjoyed, if only for a short while, his distance from all that he ruled.

‘Danial.’ He felt a hand shaking his shoulder. ‘Liege, we’ve arrived.’

Danial opened his eyes, blinking away the blurring of sleep. He coughed, then sat up in his restraints and glanced groggily through the viewport. The sky had turned the colour of blood and embers, limning the scattered clouds with fire, and a line of liquid gold clung to the horizon. The familiar grasslands of the Valatane spread out below, growing closer as his shuttle descended through the twilight. Rows of habitents were visible through the gloom, groundcars and Charger class heavy haulers rumbling between them.

‘Thank you, Markos,’ he said. ‘What’s the hour?’

‘Ten after six,’ said Markos. He was busying himself with ceremonial garb, buckling his tabard and checking his sword belt. ‘There’s a short while yet before the ceremony gets underway.’

‘Time enough to greet and be greeted then,’ said Danial. He removed his crown, allowing its polyfibre strands to uncouple from his neural jacks. The crown’s flow of auspex data cut off, leaving his field of vision unaugmented.

‘Polluxis did a wonderful job crafting this,’ he said, blinking and stretching. ‘But sometimes it is a relief to take it off for a few moments.’

Markos grunted, busy adjusting his collar to conceal his vox augmetic.

Danial hid a smile at his old mentor’s bluff vanity. He gave his crown a quick polish with the corner of his tabard, then set it back in place. Augmetics meshed with a feeling like cold silk on his skin, and the datastreams returned to his peripheral vision.

He stood as the shuttle yawed slowly around, engines thrumming in its final descent. Danial accepted the polymesh cloak that Bannoch handed him, fastening it at his throat and throwing it over one shoulder. He touched a hand to his grandfather’s amulet, hung upon a chain about his neck, then willed his servo skulls to hover into place above him.

‘You look regal,’ said Markos, clapping him on the shoulder. ‘Every inch the man your father was, and more.’

Danial rode out the jolt as the shuttle touched down.

‘Disengaging ramp now, my liege,’ came the pilot’s voice through the interior vox. ‘Emperor be with you.’

Hydraulics whined, runes flashed from red to green, and the shuttle’s rear hatch swung down.

As it touched the ferrocrete of the landing pad, several dozen Knights were revealed beyond. Lit by tall chem-brazier towers, they knelt in two lines, forming a corridor that Danial and his entourage advanced down. At its end waited an assemblage of the great and good of House Draconis, and at their backs loomed the Adrapotine mountains, their peaks tinged crimson and gold by the day’s last light.

Danial’s eyes went first to Lady Suset, both his Gatekeeper and Consort these last five years. Short for a Knight, she was stockily built, dark-haired, and radiated a constant energy and challenge that Danial found compelling. Suset shot him a knowing grin, there and gone again in an instant. Beside Suset stood three further Knights: Sire Percivane, Master of the Faith, who was tall and muscular with his open, honest smile; Sire Garath, Master at Arms, wiry of build and always one facial tic away from a sneer; and Jennika Tan Draconis, Danial’s older sister and his First Knight.

‘Jen looks tired,’ muttered Markos.

‘Wouldn’t you?’ replied Danial. ‘They were in the warp for a month longer than planned. She’s literally just returned, and knowing my sister, probably hasn’t even stopped to sleep.’

Jennika was taller than Danial but shared his same piercing green eyes and sandy blonde hair, which she wore shaved on one side of her head and cut short and choppy down the other. The tattoos common to House Draconis’ Knights coiled up her neck and along the shaved side of her scalp. Combined with her hard beauty and heavily armoured bodyglove, they made her look truly formidable. It was an appearance she had to maintain, Danial knew, for while House Draconis permitted female Knights, she was the first ever to hold such an august rank.

There were those amongst her subordinates who resented that fact greatly.

‘Brother,’ said Jennika, smiling.

‘Sister,’ replied Danial, with a grin, and the two embraced briefly.

‘I go away on campaign for a year and you cover the planet in farms and dams,’ she said. ‘You know Knights are supposed to fight, yes?’

‘You do enough of that for the both of us,’ said Danial, smiling. ‘And you know High Kings are meant to rule, yes? The infrastructural improvements we’re making now will benefit our people for years to come.’

‘I know. You do our house great honour by your actions,’ she said.

‘As do you,’ replied Danial. ‘How went the war?’

A shadow passed across his sister’s features.

‘Pyrodiah stands and the xenos are no more,’ she said. ‘Several Knights acquitted themselves with particular honour and I have forwarded their names for commendation. There were casualties, though. Sire Tylen fell, as did Lady Kathaine. Sire Jaekeb will be six months with the chirurgeons before he can sit in his throne again.’

‘The fallen will be remembered with valour,’ said Suset. ‘Jaekeb will pilot again, all the wiser for his scars. Another world of the Imperium stands safe where it would have been lost. And no doubt more would have fallen, my lady, had you not commanded.’

‘I hope so, Lady Suset,’ replied Jennika.

Danial noticed the newly arrived Knights glance behind him.

‘No Minotos delegation with you, then?’ asked Sire Garath.

‘No Minotos,’ said Markos. ‘Grandmarshal Kurt has not yet gained a full appreciation of King Danial’s vision for our world, apparently.’

Garath sniffed, the action implying he had expected no less.

‘He will come around,’ said Danial firmly.

‘He will,’ agreed Suset. ‘Even if it has to be at the point of a reaper or two.’

‘Lady, please don’t you start as well,’ said Danial. ‘I won’t fight you all on this, especially not now. There isn’t time.’

‘True enough,’ said Sire Percivane. ‘Polluxis voxed just minutes ago, to say that they are all but ready. Our presence is requested post-haste.’

‘Then we go,’ said Danial. ‘I would mark this moment with all of you at my side. Besides, we should not keep Marchioness Lauret waiting.’

‘We wouldn’t want to offend the Lady of Miracles,’ said Garath sourly. Jennika shot him a look.

‘Lady Tan Pegasson’s survival on Donatos was nothing short of a miracle of the Emperor,’ said Percivane. ‘You should strive to maintain the appropriate reverence, Sire Garath.’

‘Besides, I’d like to see you survive a direct hit from a macro-cannon shell,’ said Suset.

‘Yes, all right, all right,’ said Garath wearily. ‘It’s a throne-given miracle, even if it did happen five years ago…’

‘Enough,’ said Danial. ‘Let us go. Now.’

‘Honour guard,’ barked Markos.

The kneeling Knights of House Draconis rose to their feet and formed a marching column behind the Exalted Court. Danial and his comrades set out through the labour camp.

They walked north at a brisk pace, making for where the foothills dug down into the grassy soil of the Valatane. They passed banqueting tents from which workers’ hymnals floated, and passed beneath the fiery glare of the chem-braziers that lit the camp. Labourers and militia parted at their coming, dropping to their knees, bowing respectfully. Beaconflies flittered overhead, little clouds of the glowing insects mimicking the stars beginning to glimmer in the sky.

Chargers and all-terrain groundcars moved aside on the packed-earth roads that ran between the habitents, allowing Danial’s procession to pass. On the encampment’s edges, patrolling Knights sounded their vox-horns, silhouetted giants heralding the High King’s coming.

The ground rose steeply as they pressed on. The immensity of the hydromechanical dam loomed before them. Stretched between two craggy hilltops, it was a vast, dark presence in the twilight, its flanks and crest dotted with glowing lumen and electrobeacons. An enormous aquila with a wingspan of more than a mile was emblazoned across it.

Danial and Jennika pulled a little way ahead. Seeing their desire for private conversation, the rest of the Exalted Court dropped back, speaking amongst themselves.

‘It really is an impressive achievement, Da,’ said Jennika quietly. ‘A monument to your faith and wisdom as High King.’

‘It is a start,’ said Danial. ‘I only wish it were happening quicker. My rule began in such dark circumstances – it may be decades before they are forgotten. If they ever are.’

‘I wish father had been honest with us about all that happened before his succession,’ said Jennika. ‘If the circumstances surrounding the crown passing from House Chimaeros to House Draconis had been public knowledge, we would have watched Baron Gerraint more closely.’

‘He couldn’t have made it public knowledge, Jen, you know that,’ said Danial. ‘To reveal the details of the Yordax Crusade… It would have brought dishonour upon all concerned. Better for the people to believe that the succession had been willingly passed as a mark of respect, than to know the crown was taken as punishment for such gross failures.’

‘Besides, I imagine he felt responsible,’ said Jennika. ‘Even if the failing belonged to King Dyforn Tan Chimaeros.’

‘I’ve been reading a lot into our histories, trying to piece together father’s secrets,’ replied Danial. ‘I’m not sure, but I believe there may be more to it than even Markos knows. Something I’m not sure I want to find.’

‘Like what?’ asked Jennika.

‘I don’t know,’ he said with forced lightness. ‘I may never. The old tomes and scrolls are allegorical and evasive. There are gaps. Though in all that research I did find something fascinating regarding grandfather’s amulet. You must remind me to show you when we get back to the ’spire. I think there are buried heirlooms in the depths that father meant for me to find.’

‘There’s that studious boy that Luk always used to mock,’ laughed Jennika.

‘Speaking of which,’ said Danial, letting the comment hang.

‘I’ve heard nothing from him, Da,’ said Jennika. ‘There was no word at the Draconspire when I passed through on my way here, either. Nor did I expect there to be. Luk is gone, at least for now.’

‘I know, Jen,’ said Danial. ‘And I pray to the Emperor every day that his hunt fares well. If he were to bring us back Alicia’s head, I’m sure that would be a cause for celebration.’

‘Not to mention returning your best friend to you,’ said Jennika with a knowing smile.

‘I don’t deny that I miss his comradeship and his counsel,’ said Danial. ‘Though I am fortunately blessed by the Emperor himself in that respect.’

Jennika glanced back at the rest of the Exalted Court, Suset laughing at some joke of Markos’. She smiled.

‘True enough, brother,’ she said. ‘But greatness begets greatness. You earned these companions.’

‘As have you,’ said Danial. ‘Yet you are so rarely amongst them. I understand the struggle you face, the example you must set if you are to encourage more young ladies of court to Become, and more brothers and fathers to accept that choice. But you are never here.’

‘The Emperor’s wars are never won,’ said Jennika. ‘And though you mean well, brother, I don’t think you do understand the pressures I face. Not truly.’

‘Perhaps not,’ said Danial. ‘But, Jen, I value your guidance. I miss you.’

‘And I you, Da,’ she said. ‘But you have long outgrown your need for me to watch over or protect you. You are the High King of Adrastapol, now, in every thought and deed. As you excel in your kingship, so I wish to truly excel in the role of First Knight. I need you to let me.’

‘Jen,’ said Danial. ‘I will never, ever stand in your way. Just know that you do not have to flee father’s ghost.’

Jennika offered him a crooked smile. ‘Nor am I. I said my goodbyes years ago. If anyone still raises that wraith, it is you.’

Danial drew breath to reply, but at that moment the cyber cherubim of the Heavenly Host swept overhead, blaring tinny fanfares from augmetic trumpets. Danial realised that he stood at the foot of the long, brazier-lit ramp that curved up onto the side of the dam.

‘This will be quite a night,’ he said, glancing back to see the last glimmer of sunset fade from the horizon. The sight gave him a frisson of disquiet, though he couldn’t say why.

‘Let’s go and see the spirits awaken,’ said Lady Suset, smiling as she approached. Together, they headed up the ferrocrete ramp, towards the grand gathering atop the dam.

Houses Draconis and Pegasson gathered in a prefabricated pavilion for the awakening ritual. The structure had been raised at the very centre of the dam, which was over a quarter of a mile thick at its mid-point, and flat-topped aside from the guide-rails along its inner and outer edges. The pavilion looked out across the dark waters of the reservoir, to where generatorums and regulator shrines clustered on the mountain’s lower slopes. Tiers of seating rose from the pavilion’s base, hung with banners and tapestries of the three Noble Houses. A sturdy polyweave awning stretched over it to shield the assembled dignitaries from the elements, hung with electrocandle chandeliers.

The Exalted Court and their escorts climbed gilded steps, scattering to join friends and comrades already thronging the tiers. Leading the entourage, Danial passed Knights and lexographers, priests and courtesans, militia officers, artists, servitors and adepts.

‘It is sad to see the Minotos stands empty,’ said Suset.

‘It’s frustrating,’ agreed Jennika. ‘But at least House Pegasson are here in force.’

‘They’ve sent every Knight and dignitary they could spare,’ said Danial. ‘Just as we have. It’s a sign of the Emperor’s favour.’

‘There is the Marchioness,’ said Suset.

The royal box was above them. It was a formidable structure that jutted out over the seating tiers on a framework of gilded girders. Heraldic servitors were built into its structure, their faces distorted by augmetic speakers that blared hymnals. Their arms were heavy gun-units that tracked over each new arrival without exception.

Poised elegantly at the box’s railing was Lauret Tan Pegasson.

Brigantane, the once court-poet for House Chimaeros, had described the Marchioness as a woman carved from ice and starlight, with a heart to match. Her eyes were expensive augmetics dotted with silver pupils. They replaced her biological orbs that had been destroyed during her near-death on Donatos. Rejuvenat treatments had erased the deep scars from her face, leaving her skin smooth and pale. Her hair was white and swept back from her forehead in a series of elaborate plaits that trailed down her back and mingled with electrocables. The gown she wore was quartered in the ice blue and white of her house. Its cut concealed the bionics that made up much of her body. Lauret’s hands rested on the railing before her, one slender and human, the other a brushed silver masterwork whose inbuilt jewellery pulsed softly.

At her side stood three Knights of her Exalted Court and several other, more unusual figures. These wore hooded cowls, heavy cassocks and warrior vestments. Their faces were scarified and they bore weighty-looking staves. Religious tomes were bound to their bodies with chains. They were festooned with Imperial aquilas, tatters of scrollwork and scripture pinned to their clothing and flesh.

They stared as Danial and his retinue climbed the steps.

‘Marchioness,’ said Danial as he led the way into the royal box. ‘It is truly a pleasure to see you.’

Lauret bowed slightly and favoured him with a reserved smile.

‘High King Danial Tan Draconis,’ she said. ‘You honour my House deeply by your invitation. This is a moment worthy of remembrance, a grand gesture of solidarity.’

‘I am glad that you think so, my lady,’ said Danial.

‘It seems our lord Tan Minotos did not concur?’ asked Lauret.

‘It seems not, but I believe his position is softening,’ replied Danial.

‘He is young,’ said Lauret, turning back to the railing. ‘And he is of old Minotane stock. Stubborn and brave to a fault. Given time I believe that you are correct, my king. Kurt will see sense.’

‘We pray for his enlightenment, lady,’ rumbled one of Lauret’s attendant holymen.

Markos snapped. ‘You’re in the presence of the High King. Hold your peace unless called upon, priest.’

‘My lady, let us speak of more auspicious things,’ said Danial, ignoring the exchange. ‘I believe that Polluxis will begin soon.’

As true nightfall settled in the shadow of the mountains, massive chem-braziers ignited across the water. They threw dancing reflections on the reservoir’s waters, and revealed Sacristans gathered in great number on the opposite bank.

Robed half in the red of the Adeptus Mechanicus and half in the colours of their Noble Houses, the Sacristans made for a sinister sight with their strange, mechanical anatomies and heavy cowls. Cyborg cherubim and servo skulls hovered about them like familiars.

A pair of Sacristan Crawlers sat in their midst. The huge vehicles were nearly as large as Baneblade super-heavy tanks. They rested on armoured balloon tyres and bore the heraldry of House Draconis. Repair armatures and nests of servo arms were folded down atop their bulky hulls, interspersed with esoteric weapons systems and pulsing sensor shrines.

Stood atop one of these vehicles in a gilded pulpit was High Sacristan Polluxis. Clad in a more elaborate version of his comrades’ garb, he raised his arms high. In one hand the High Sacristan held a data-wand, which he flourished. When he spoke, his voice boomed from the vox-amplifiers of the Sacristan Crawlers. His words rolled across the dark waters like thunder.

‘Assembled lords and ladies of Adrastapol, Omnissiah’s blessings upon you. Tonight, you bear witness to a miracle of the Machine-God. I beg your reverent silence for the proceedings that follow. All vox traffic and communications are to be held in cessation for the duration of the ritual, lest they disquiet the machine-spirits or disrupt their divine harmonic frequencies. For High King Danial and the glory of Adrastapol, we begin.’

Danial found the rites of the Omnissiah’s faithful intriguing. Certainly, they were no shorter than the rituals of the Noble Houses, but the binharic chanting, the striking of the runes, and the strange mechanical arcana did more to hold his attention. With each new sluice consecrated and thrown open, Danial felt the rumble of fresh turbines turning within the dam. The subtle shudder was accompanied by plumes of smoke and fire from across the water as generatora and capacitor shrines roared to life.

‘It’s as though they awaken dracons on the far shore,’ murmured Suset. A glance at her enraptured expression told Danial that whatever interest he had in the proceedings, hers eclipsed it. Suset’s duties as Gatekeeper hadn’t dimmed her fascination with the secrets of the Omnissiah, a fact that set her at odds with Polluxis and his order on occasion. As the ritual of awakening entered its third hour, Suset’s eyes shone as brightly as they had when it commenced.

Danial was becoming restless, though years of experience at enduring his own house’s rituals had allowed him to perfect his façade of polite interest. Surreptitiously he glanced along the line of the royal box, hoping to see refreshment servitors moving amongst the stands. Instead, he frowned as distant movement registered in his crown’s auspex feed.

Magnifying his field of vision, he saw a robed adept hurrying along the top of the dam with a bundle of data-parchments clutched to his chest. The young man was challenged by a member of the Draconis militia as he reached the bottom of the pavilion steps. A quiet but animated conversation ensued.

Danial’s concern deepened. A glance at Jennika showed she had seen the same thing. She reached for the vox-bead in her ear, clearly intending to reawaken it. He shook his head. Not yet. It might be something minor.

That hope faded as the men took the steps at a jog, drawing whispers and sidelong glances from the nobles they passed. The pair were challenged by Captain Bannoch, and another exchange occurred beneath the muzzles of several servitor guns.

Bannoch skimmed the contents of the data-parchments and scowled. Across the waters the ritual rumbled on, but few eyes were still upon it. On Adrastapol, sacred rites were not interrupted for anything less than an emergency, and those in the stands knew it. Knights stirred. Bodyguards adjusted their stances and became quietly watchful, as knots of Consorts and Squires whispered together with increasing animation. ‘I’m going to see what this is before any further disruption is caused,’ said Danial.

Before Danial could rise from his throne, Bannoch hurried to his side.

‘King Danial,’ he said, leaning down and speaking quietly but insistently. ‘There is an urgent situation developing.’

‘A threat?’ asked Danial as Jennika reactivated her ear-bead.

‘Potentially, sire,’ said Bannoch. ‘Long range atmospheric auspex has picked up an incoming signature, descending at speed through the upper stratosphere towards this location. It is only minutes away.’

‘And we’re only hearing about this now?’ exclaimed Markos.

‘The auspex-adepts can’t account for it, sire herald,’ replied Bannoch. ‘This warning should have come at least half an hour earlier, but the contact simply appeared on their runebanks. As though from nowhere, as they put it.’

‘This is a question for later,’ said Danial. ‘Do they know what it is?’

‘Unknown, sire,’ said Bannoch. ‘It is too small for a void ship, but is possessed of machine signature. The readings coming off the contact are contradictory.’

‘Could be an attack craft,’ said Jennika.

‘Or a warhead,’ said Markos.

‘Has any attempt been made to hail the contact?’ asked Danial.

Bannoch nodded. ‘Nothing,’ he said.

‘We could intercept?’ asked Suset. ‘With the new aircraft and battery assets we’ve amassed…’

‘That won’t work,’ replied Jennika, listening intently to the chatter on her vox-bead. ‘It’s coming in over the mountains, threading the needle between our battery coverage. It’s either extremely poor fortune on our part, or forward planning on someone else’s. And the combat air patrol relocated southwards to avoid disturbing the ritual. They’re returning at speed, but they’re ten minutes out.’

‘What of your Knights on the piquet?’ asked Danial. ‘Jennika? Lauret?’

The Marchioness had plugged several of the cables from her cranial augmetics into data-ports on one armoured vambrace, and was watching intently as runes scrolled over its surface.

‘My Knights are moving to adopt a shield dispersal, liege, but the angle of approach will make it extremely difficult,’ she said. ‘Attempting to march up onto the dam would be too risky, and from down in the labour camp, even those with Icarus mounts will struggle to get a reliable shot before the contact is on top of us.’

‘The same is true of our Knights,’ said Jennika. ‘In respecting Polluxis’ ritual, we’ve left ourselves open.’

‘We’ve had no hint of danger,’ said Markos. ‘There’s been no warning from the Bastion Fleet, and Adrastapol hasn’t known the touch of hostile forces in three years now. Every possible strategic auto-séance was run for threat simulation in the planning of this event. It’s hardly an ill-judged lapse.’

‘Be that as it may, we must remedy it at once,’ said Danial. He stood, activating the vox-amp in his crown.

‘My lords, ladies and honoured guests,’ he began, his amplified voice carrying across the stands. ‘Please make your way swiftly down from the dam into the labour camp. Knights, awaken your steeds and proceed in full panoply to designated mustering points with weapons unshrouded. All other attendees, evacuation craft will ferry you from landing pads two, three, five and eight. Please proceed to your allotted departure point.’

The response was immediate, and every bit as calm and efficient as he might have hoped. Guarded by house militia, directed gallantly by the Knights in their midst, the worthies of Adrastapol filtered from the stands in good order.

‘Markos, relay my commands to the Labour camp overseers and militia captains,’ said Danial. ‘The labour parties are to be evacuated onto the Valatane. Have bulk landers standing by in case we need to pull them out altogether. And ensure the Sacristans are alerted also, they will have to appease the machine-spirits for this interruption later.’

‘My liege, the contact is minutes away at most,’ said Bannoch urgently. ‘It’s moving even faster than we projected. You cannot remain here.’

‘I don’t intend to,’ said Danial. He glanced along the top of the dam, where evacuees were still streaming in orderly lines towards the exit ramp. ‘Bannoch, vox my shuttle. Have them put down atop the dam. It will be far quicker than walking, and we need to get to our steeds immediately. Come.’

As they hurried from the royal box and clattered down the stairs, he watched the darkened skies intently. The mountains were looming silhouettes now, and the first stars glimmered above their peaks.

‘What is it, do you think?’ asked Suset.

‘Whatever it is, we’ll be able to see it soon,’ said Jennika. ‘The Knights have it on their strategic overlay now. It’s barely two minutes out.’

Danial could see the running lights of his shuttle as it rose from its landing pad and swept towards them. He glanced back at the skies, his eyes widening as he saw one of the stars flaring brighter than the rest, and growing larger as it rushed closer.

‘Emperor lend us speed,’ he muttered. ‘This will be a close-run thing.’

Danial’s shuttle swept in, the Aquila Lander lowering its rear ramp as it descended towards the dam. Downdraft from its engines battered them, snatching at their tabards and causing them to shield their eyes.

‘The last of our people are clear,’ said Sire Percivane.

‘If this truly is a warhead, that may not be enough to save them,’ said Danial.

‘My Knights are attempting interdiction,’ said Lauret, still watching her vambrace. From the camp below came the thump of gunfire, bright lines of fire whipping overhead.

‘The angle is wrong,’ said Jennika. ‘They won’t catch it in time.’

The shuttle thumped down and they hurried up the ramp into the transport bay.

‘Go,’ voxed Danial to the pilot, punching a rune to close the rear ramp.

‘There aren’t enough restraints,’ said Garath. ‘Just grab hold of something, all of you.’

The pilot fed power to his engines. They howled in response. The shuttle began to rise, sending choppy wavelets across the surface of the reservoir. Crammed into the compartment, everyone grabbed for restraint loops and webbing straps. Several stumbled. A Pegasson Knight staggered back towards the closing ramp. Jennik reached out and steadied her.

Lauret’s priests prayed loudly and fervently. Danial ignored them, clinging to a guide loop and keeping his eyes fixed on the narrowing slice of darkness beyond the ramp. The contact hurled closer with every second. His crown ran auspex trajectories, and his knuckles whitened on the guide loop as he saw their conclusion.

‘Pilot, bank hard right!’ he voxed.

The man knew better than to argue the commands of his High King. Shouts of alarm filled the crew compartment as the shuttle lurched. A priest hit his head and collapsed.

Then came a rumble that swelled into a shuddering bellow. The shuttle bucked again, its lumen flicking to crimson, and Danial gritted his teeth as he clung to his handhold with all his strength. There was a terrible lurch, the bottom dropping out of his stomach as the shuttle fell, and he braced himself for an impact.

Then the engines howled, and with a final shudder the craft managed to right itself. Danial glanced out the viewing port to see the lights of the work camp alarmingly close below. He could make out faces gaping up at the shuttle in shock.

‘My apologies, lords and ladies,’ came the voice of the pilot. The man sounded shaken. ‘The contact passed within yards of us. The violence of our manoeuvres was necessary to avoid collision.’

‘That man should receive a flogging,’ snarled Lauret’s herald, Sire Quensil Dar Pegasson. He stood protectively over the Marchioness where she had managed to strap herself into a restraint throne. Blood was running freely from a gash in the herald’s temple.

‘He just saved our lives,’ replied Danial sternly. ‘He deserves a medal.’

‘Pilot,’ voxed Lauret, ‘our thanks for your swift actions. Were you able to identify the object as it passed us?’

‘Yes, my lady,’ replied the pilot. ‘It was Imperial. A dropship or troop transport, from the bulk of it, but of a pattern I’ve never seen, and showing heavy combat damage.’

‘Current location?’ asked Danial.

‘The Valatane,’ said Jennika, one hand to her ear-bead. ‘The Knights are reporting impact ten miles out across the plains, due south.’

‘Have two lances converge on the crash site,’ said Danial. ‘They will assess from a distance. All other Knights to maintain a defensive spread and watch the skies. There may be more craft incoming.’

‘Where shall I deliver you, my liege?’ voxed the pilot.

‘Take us to our steeds,’ replied Danial. ‘Have Polluxis despatch Crawlers to meet us en route. If anyone survived that crash, they will require the Sacristans’ medicae pods.’

Ten minutes later, Danial settled into his throne mechanicum. He slid his haptic gauntlets into place, drew his combat webbing across his chest, and closed his eyes as his neural jacks coupled with cold, metallic clicks. Data streams flowed into his mind, twining with the information from his crown. The whispering voices of his ancestors welcomed him back. Oath of Flame rumbled its own greeting, reactor humming as it powered up.

Danial felt power flow through him, and let his sensorium expand through the auspex feeds of his steed.

He ascended, and became a god of war.

Through his right arm, Danial felt the pulsing heat of his steed’s thermal cannon. Through his left, he felt the revving power of its reaper chainsword. With a thought, he activated Oath of Flame’s upgraded ion shield, a relic of his house installed to honour his high status, then he flicked a series of runic switches.

From outside, he heard the muffled hiss and clank as fuel hoses and ammo feeds uncoupled. He stepped his steed out of its Sacristan armature, and felt the ground shake at his tread.

He saw Lady Suset’s steed, Embersword, doing the same. Off to his right, Markos, Garath and Percivane followed suit in Honourblaze, Iron Drake and Firestorm.

‘Lady Jennika, Lady Lauret,’ Danial voxed. ‘We’re on the march.’

‘As are we,’ replied Lauret Tan Pegasson. ‘Meet us at this location.’

A rune flashed up on Danial’s strategic overlay. The location was a mile beyond the camp’s southern boundary along the line of his march.

‘Acknowledged,’ he replied, then switched vox channels to the two lances converging on the crash site. ‘This is High King Danial,’ he said. ‘Sires and ladies, report.’

‘In Excelsium Furore, sire,’ replied one of the Knights, quoting House Draconis’ motto. ‘This is Sire Colwyn Dar Draconis. My lance is approaching the crash site now from the north-east. Converging with Lady Tamsane Dar Pegasson who approaches from north-west.’

‘What do you see, Colwyn?’ asked Danial, accelerating his steed and steering it onto the roadway leading south.

‘There’s a rising plume of smoke from the site,’ said Colwyn. ‘I suspect it’s from localised brush fires. The wreck is sighted, sire. It’s dug a trench a good mile long, looks like a controlled crash. Yes, confirming the wreck is intact, sire. There’s movement…’

‘Who was on board, Sire Colwyn?’ asked Danial. ‘Friend or foe?’

‘They’re Imperials,’ said Colwyn. ‘But… sire, I think you need to see this in person. We will contain until your arrival.’

‘Understood,’ said Danial, keeping the curiosity out of his voice. ‘We’re on our way.’

The Exalted Courts of Houses Draconis and Pegasson approached the crash site from the north with their Crawlers rumbling at their heels. They strode across the grasslands of the Valatane. The Knights of House Draconis bore proud heraldry of quartered crimson and black chased with gold. Those of Pegasson were ice blue and white. All carried imposing weapons mounting pennants and banners that fluttered proudly in the wind. Their lumen swept the darkened plains before them, and the ground shook at their coming.

Ahead, Danial saw the Knights of Lances Colwyn and Tamsane, arrayed in a loose circle around the still-burning wreck. As he walked his steed along the line of the trench, he saw human figures clustered near it, most standing, a couple laid out in the grass showing no lifesigns.

‘Not many souls for a craft that size,’ commented Markos.

Danial magnified his auspex and studied the strangers that stood beside the wreck.

The group was eight strong, and as eclectic a gathering as Danial had ever seen. There was a hunched old man with augmetic quills for hands and a cranium full of wires, clad in elaborately inscribed robes of cloth and parchment. A pair of female figures waited nearby, clad head to toe in black, rubberised bodygloves. Their face-masks bore skull designs, and their lithe bodies were adorned with sheathed blades. Near them was a tall, skeletal man, clad in the robes of an astropath, and a woman in Cadian Kasrkin battle armour, her helmet tucked into the crook of an arm. Stranger still was the ape-like xenos squatted on its haunches at their side, glowing gewgaws hanging from the crossbelts it wore.

The group’s leader stood out like a graven statue. The man wore pearl-white power armour chased with gold, over which was draped a wine-red cloak. His features were hawkish and noble, his dark skin inscribed with golden filigree tattoos. Yet the detail that held Danial’s attention was the stylised letter ‘I’ at the centre of the man’s breast-plate, and replicated upon his cloak.

Danial took a moment to calm his thoughts and let his mind work over the situation. Then he activated his steed’s vox-amplifier.

‘I am High King Danial Tan Draconis,’ he said, his voice rolling over the plains. ‘I am the ruler of this world. Identify yourself and your intent.’

The power armoured man calmly gazed up at Oath of Flame, untroubled by the battery of titan-killing weapons aimed at him from every side.

‘Emperor’s blessings upon you, High King Danial Tan Draconis,’ he said, his deep voice carrying easily to Oath’s audio-receptors. ‘I am Tane Massata, and I am an agent of the Emperor’s most holy ordos of the Inquisition. I come to you with a warning and a duty, High King. I pray that neither comes too late.’

Outsider, hissed the ghosts of Danial’s throne. Could be a liar, too. Sometimes foes come clad in the guise of friends. What if this one is a threat?

Massata tapped the design on his breast-plate in a series of quick motions. A hololithic lens activated on his armour and an Inquisitorial rosette appeared, projected in the air before him. At the same time, data streamed into Danial’s manifold, code-packets confirming beyond doubt that the man spoke the truth.

‘My thanks, inquisitor,’ said Danial. With a blink-click, he ordered his Knights to shroud their weapons and raise their auto-pennants in honour of the new arrival. ‘We were told of your coming five years ago, directly after our return from Donatos. It was presumed, when you did not arrive, that your ship was lost upon the empyric tides.’

‘It was,’ said Massata. ‘We endured months of peril, while in real space, years passed. It was by the Emperor’s grace that we broke free and at last reached your world.’

‘You spoke of a warning and a duty?’ asked Danial. He paused, considering his next words carefully. ‘With respect, inquisitor, do you threaten us?’

‘No, King Danial,’ said Massata. ‘Originally I came to excise any remnants of the taint within spread by the traitors to your world. Yet now I bear warning, also, of a terrible threat from without. One upon your very threshold.’

‘What manner of threat?’ asked Danial. ‘Explain.’

‘There is little time,’ said Inquisitor Massata. ‘These are matters best spoken of in private.’

Danial felt a chill at Massata’s words, but there were practicalities to be taken care of, and the Code to be followed. He blink-clicked several runes in his peripheral vision, sending coded commands flashing away through the noosphere.

‘We thank you for bringing us these warnings, inquisitor, and we will hear them in closed chambers shortly. Our Sacristan Crawlers will provide you with transportation, and Knights shall escort you. What can be done for your fallen?’

‘Thank you,’ said Massata. ‘They are beyond help. My pilot and my medicae, both killed in the crash.’

‘We honour their sacrifice,’ said Danial. ‘And now, inquisitor, my Knights and I will return to our encampment. Let us reconvene in my habitent shortly.’

‘As you wish, King Danial,’ said Massata.

Danial’s habitent was somewhat less grand than the magnificent abode his father had taken on campaign. A large, dome-shaped structure in the colours of House Draconis, it contained a sleeping area, a strategic holocaster, equipment racks for his weapons and armour, a small shrine to the Emperor and a large table with sufficient chairs for a full war council. His personal effects were minimal, with the exception of an unfolded auto-trunk whose shelves were crammed with books.

He sat in his throne at the head of the table, while the Marchioness Tan Pegasson and the Knights of their respective Exalted Courts sat around him. No other had been permitted within the tent. Danial had even sent away his house serviles.

‘We are sure that this man is who he claims to be?’ asked Jennika.

‘I am,’ said Danial. ‘The full nature of the Emperor’s Inquisition is set out within the Tome of Kings. The rosette he carries also corroborates his identity. Such technology is typically gene-locked, and impossible to replicate or steal.’

‘That doesn’t mean he’s an ally though,’ said Markos. ‘By reputation, inquisitors aren’t exactly friendly characters.’

‘We do not know his agenda, it is true,’ said Lauret. ‘But we must listen, analyse and understand. Such individuals speak with the Emperor’s voice. They are not to be questioned or gainsaid lightly.’

A rune winked in Danial’s peripheral vision – data sent from his crown.

‘Guard your tongues and do as the Marchioness counsels,’ said Danial. ‘This man has the authority to kill worlds. We will respect the weight of his office, and not antagonise him needlessly.’

The habitent’s gas curtain opened, and the inquisitor strode in. Up close, the man’s physicality was imposing, his power armour thrumming. Danial noted the short-hafted power axe mag-locked to the inquisitor’s hip. He reckoned it could cut through an armoured bodyglove like cloth.

‘Inquisitor Massata,’ he said, standing and bowing. The assembled Knights followed his lead. ‘Will you take a seat, my lord?’

Massata nodded before sitting heavily. The Knights seated themselves again.

‘My thanks,’ said Massata. ‘Why have my retinue been excluded from these proceedings?’

‘They refused to part with their weapons,’ said Jennika, locking eyes with the inquisitor.

‘Reasonable,’ said Massata, ‘if unnecessary. They intend you no harm.’

‘Inquisitor,’ said Danial, ‘you spoke of dangers to our world. I would ask you to elaborate now.’

‘There is a vast ork fleet moving through deep space beyond the Mandeville point of your system,’ said Massata. ‘It will fall upon your world within days.’

‘How do you know this?’ asked Danial. ‘We have had no warning from our orbital auguries of these xenos.’

‘Or of an Inquisitorial lander falling through our atmosphere,’ muttered Markos.

‘You will soon enough,’ said Massata. ‘They must be approaching your outer system beacons by now. My ship escaped its imprisonment upon the tides of the warp only to land straight in the jaws of the greenskins.’

‘With respect, inquisitor, you seem remarkably alive, considering,’ said Markos.

Massata turned his steady gaze upon the herald.

‘The Emperor shields his true servants until their purpose is done, and my ship captain was a master of her trade. We broke warp amidst the orks’ advance elements, a flotilla of warships all far smaller than my own, and of vastly inferior quality. There appeared to be some form of internecine conflict already occurring between the orks, leading many of their craft to be damaged. I thank the Emperor for that.’

‘Where is your ship now?’ asked Danial.

‘Lost, with all its hands,’ said Massata. ‘Captain Raniaraz turned her prow for your world while raking the orks with fire. Yet they pursued. Their numbers were too great for one ship to overcome. We were fortunate that the main bulk of the horde was far behind, but still, by the time we reached the inner system, the Light of Truth was sorely damaged. Raniaraz turned to fight, and in doing so, bought time for myself and my retinue to escape aboard a dropship.’

‘You are all that survived?’ said Danial.

‘My duty compelled me to abandon them. They died bravely and in the Emperor’s service.’

‘Lady Jennika,’ said Danial. ‘Establish vox with the Draconspire. Marchioness, do the same with the Pegassus’ Eyrie. Have them sweep the fringes of the system and report back at once. Check for word from Mount Imperius, also. If there’s something out there, the astropathic conclave will surely have sensed it.’

Tense minutes passed as Danial and his Knights awaited confirmation of Massata’s story. Massata sat patiently, refusing to be further drawn upon the greenskin threat, while around him, the Knights spoke urgently of strategies, supply lines and defensive strengths. Then Jennika nodded, frowning as she listened to her vox.

‘Mount Imperius has been compiling readings for almost an hour,’ she said. ‘They were preparing to send word. Several astropaths are catatonic. The rest are reporting visions of a great beast, its jaws closing upon our world. Some say they can hear war drums thundering in the void.’

‘My court seer warns of the same, High King Danial,’ said Lauret. ‘The deep void augury is starting to pick up signals on the system’s edge, from beyond Borastus and Lamnofor. Something is coming.’

The Knights looked at one another, and in their eyes Danial saw his own thoughts reflected. Dismay that such a threat loomed, determination to protect their world, but behind it all the growing excitement of a righteous war to be fought in the Emperor’s name.

‘Our thanks for bringing this warning, Inquisitor Massata,’ Danial said. ‘You understand that my comrades and I must return to our seats of power at once. House Minotos must be alerted. Defences must be prepared. You will be accommodated under guard until the necessary military clearance can be approved for you and your followers.’

‘King Danial,’ said Massata, ‘it is not so simple as that.’

‘How so, inquisitor?’

‘My original duty remains,’ said the inquisitor. ‘In fact, it is now long overdue. Though great peril descends upon this world, I cannot risk further delay. Adrastapol has felt the touch of Chaos, and it is my sworn mission to eradicate that sickness, if it has not already festered afresh.’

‘With respect, inquisitor, that matter is long behind us,’ said Danial. ‘We were exacting in our purges. The Ministorum presided over every rite and cleansing. Both seats of Houses Wyvorn and Chimaeros were levelled with artillery fire, and the catacombs beneath them purged with flame. Rites of banishment and reconsecration were spoken over the ruins. The last Knights of those houses were either put to death or, if pronounced untainted by our priests, banished as Freeblades.’

‘I have spent my life battling the agents of Chaos,’ said Massata. ‘I don’t doubt that you were as thorough as you could be. I am not questioning your faith. But however deep you believe the corruption went, I assure you that it ran deeper.’

‘It has been five years, inquisitor,’ said Jennika. ‘Do you not think that we would have seen some sign in that time, if such a threat existed?’

‘Chaos is insidious, my lady,’ said Massata. ‘I am saying that it is my sworn duty to ensure your world does not still harbour traitor elements. Until I have confirmed this to the Inquisition’s satisfaction, Adrastapol enjoys a stay of execution only. Two of your world’s Noble Houses turned traitor. If you were of less value to the Imperium, you would have greeted a spread of cyclonic torpedoes, not myself and my retinue.’

Deafening silence reigned around the table. Danial broke it.

‘What do you seek to do, inquisitor, and how can we assist you? We are a loyal world, and we will comply fully with whatever investigations you must perform.’

‘Good,’ said Massata. ‘I have no desire to see the strength of this world wasted. It is my intention to travel to the former seat of House Chimaeros, where the traitors Alicia and Gerraint fomented their rebellion, to satisfy myself that the matter is truly dealt with. For this, I will require transport and assurance that I will remain unmolested while I conduct my investigation.’

‘You shall have both,’ said Danial. ‘Moreover, you shall have an honour guard. A shuttle would be quicker, but if you will consent to travel on the ground, I can provide you with a heavy hauler to transport your retinue and a lance of Knights to watch over you. Should you find the danger you fear, their firepower will prove invaluable.’

‘Thank you, King Danial,’ said Massata. ‘It will be as you say.’

‘I beg permission to lead the lance,’ said Jennika.

‘You are First Knight,’ Danial replied. ‘Your warriors will have need of you.’

‘They have you, my liege,’ said Jennika. ‘And the rest of the Exalted Court. If the inquisitor is right, and the witch’s corruption still taints our world, then we cannot leave outsiders to see to its destruction. The Code compels us.’

Danial deliberated in silence before voicing his decision.

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘Very well. Inquisitor Massata, my First Knight Jennika Tan Draconis will lead your escort. There is no finer blade upon this world to aid you in your hunt.’

‘I am honoured,’ said Massata.

‘Then we are done here,’ said Danial, rising from his throne. He exchanged a look with his sister. ‘Lady Jennika, aid the inquisitor in making whatever preparations he requires, and go with the Emperor’s grace. The rest of you, we look to our world’s defence. In Excelsium Furore. Let the draconsfire burn bright within you.’

Sire Percivane’s steed crested a rocky ridge. Firestorm handled the terrain with ease, and came to a halt overlooking the Lanceway. The wide ferrocrete road stretched from the gate of the Draconspire, all the way across the north Valatane to the foothills of the Adrapotines. It was an arterial route for trade and transport. Like a great river, it had many, smaller tributaries that branched off to cut through the grasslands, past fields and agriplexes, copses of olidarne trees and Ministorum shrines.

Now the Lanceway seethed with refugee traffic, from rugged groundcars and lumbering agri-transporters to stridecradles, wagons and the thousands who went on foot. Lowing beasts were herded along by prod-armed servitors. Preachers led huddled masses of serfs and serviles, their worldly belongings hefted on their backs and their infant children cradled in their arms. Some sung prayers. Others wept or watched the skies fearfully.

‘Sire Percivane to all Knights,’ he voxed as the river of refugees swept by below. ‘Please confirm progress in your sectors.’

‘This is Sire Reikard,’ crackled a voice, ‘confirming steady advance in sector one. The head of the column advances unhindered, Sire Percivane. No sign of enemy contacts and no complications thus far. We’re only two miles now from the Draconspire gate. Passing the Northrise Battery.’

‘Sire Calluhm,’ came another voice. ‘Sector three is moving steadily. An agri-tiller has broken down near the junction with the westerway, but Sacristan Gau had his Crawler haul the machine clear to minimise traffic obstruction. Its owners were persuaded to abandon their machine and proceed on foot.’

‘The Emperor smiles upon your efforts,’ said Percivane. ‘Remain vigilant for gurghol in that region. I believe their territory extends beyond the junction through the woods to the east. Lady Kassendra, what of sector four?’

‘Sector four is moving well,’ came Kassendra’s reply. ‘The tail of the column is fifteen miles from the Draconspire gate. No sign of hazards at this time. Also, I would like to commend the militia for their continued efforts at preventing stragglers from falling behind.’

‘Noted, lady,’ said Percivane. ‘Can the militia cope with the strain?’

‘Five of their Chimeras are now filled with weak and wounded, Sire Percivane,’ replied Lady Kassendra. ‘If there are additional transports available to take over from them, I believe the lieutenant’s men would be grateful.’

‘I will see what can be done,’ said Percivane. ‘But remember, the Emperor looks with favour upon those who toil in his name.’

‘I’ll remind the lieutenant of that,’ said Kassendra. ‘I’m sure he’ll find it a comfort.’

Percivane ignored Kassendra’s wry tone. Many of the Draconis Knights found his piety chafing at times, but Percivane didn’t begrudge them that. They were warriors, fiery of temper and deed. His faith was absolute, and his appointed duty was to use that faith to shield his fellow Knights and those over whom they watched. The Emperor had always rewarded him with blessed good fortune. They would be glad of faith and fortune both when the orks came, of that he was sure. Percivane reached up to touch the aquila that hung on a silver chain from the ceiling of his cockpit.

‘Sire Garath,’ Percivane voxed, switching to a longer-ranged channel. ‘How fares your evacuation of the Golden Swathe?’

‘Slowly,’ came Garath’s response. ‘The chattel couldn’t organise themselves into a straight line if they had the help of three-dozen Sacristans and an explicatory tapestry. Milling idiots.’

‘Have faith in them,’ said Percivane. ‘They are the Emperor’s servants, just like you and I.’

‘When they can sit a throne and steer a steed, they will be equal to you and I,’ replied Garath irritably. ‘Until then they’re cattle, and stupid cattle at that. We’ve had three delays, two of them from the same herd of grox panicking at the sound of engines and scattering all over the place. The second time, I had Lieutenant Drahn’s men shoot the bloody things.’

‘Sire Garath, those livestock are the property of House Draconis’ serfs,’ said Percivane sternly. ‘The crown will have to reimburse those crofters for their loss.’

‘If the crofters live through what’s coming, I’ll reimburse them myself,’ said Garath. ‘All I know at the moment is this refugee column is still twenty miles out at the head, and over thirty at the arse-end. The damn xenos aren’t going to wait for us to get to safety.’

‘There is time, Sire Garath,’ said Percivane. ‘The Emperor protects.’

‘He does,’ said Garath. ‘But He’ll find it a lot easier once we’ve got these simpletons corralled behind the Draconspire walls. I don’t want to be out here playing nursemaid when greenskins start falling from the skies.’

‘Our column is nearing safety,’ said Percivane. ‘I’ll leave Sire Reikard in charge and travel to you, to see if I can offer assistance. At full stride I ought to be able to reach your route in under an hour.’

‘If I tell you to go jump off the High King’s new dam, you’re just going to come and help anyway, aren’t you?’ asked Garath.

Percivane smiled to himself. ‘We understand each other perfectly. I will see you in an hour.’

Garath gave a sour grunt and cut the vox connection. Sire Percivane issued quick orders to his subordinates, then fed power to his motive actuators and set off downhill. For all his faith and confidence, even Percivane could not help stealing the occasional glance at the clouds above. Soon, he thought, the xenos would be upon them. As he piloted his steed across the sighing grasslands, Percivane prayed to the Emperor that the evacuation would be completed in time.

Danial strode down a long corridor, his footfalls ringing on the flagstones. Markos and Suset walked with him, Bannoch and his men marching at their backs.

They were deep within the Draconspire, making their way from the forge-temple of the Sacristan Order to the grand strategium. The walls were lined with statues of famed Knights, while tapestries, portraits and ritual weapons hung around them. Illumination flooded from electrosconces, pouring through stained armourglass windows.

‘Polluxis seems confident that our defences will be ready,’ said Danial.

‘I still think that he’s being conservative,’ said Suset. ‘I’m sure that they could wring more power out of the generatorums if they just shut down the non-essential electroshrines. The Omnissiah would understand.’

‘Be careful how loudly you say that,’ said Danial. ‘The Sacristans would consider it tantamount to heresy.’

‘I’m the Gatekeeper of the Draconspire,’ she said. ‘My faith is as strong as the next Knight’s, but I’ve oathed my blade to keeping this castle secure and the enemy outside our gates. If I see an advantage, isn’t it my duty to press for it?’

‘It is,’ said Danial, grazing her hand with his. ‘Your diligence does you credit. But your approach could be more diplomatic. I need you and Polluxis working together, not at odds.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I recognise that he’s versed in the deeper mysteries of the Omnissiah, while I know only some fragments picked up during adolescence. But as he’s so wise in the ways of the Machine-God, it would help if he hoarded that wisdom a little less.’

‘He’s a Sacristan,’ said Markos. ‘Secrets and mysteries come with his Dar Mechanicus title.’

‘They do,’ said Danial. ‘Suset, if you think there’s an advantage to be had, then I trust you. Continue to press him with my authority. Just try not to vex him too greatly.’

‘I will try,’ said Suset. ‘If vexation means victory over the orks, a little may be worthwhile.’

‘Anything we can muster is going to be worthwhile,’ said Markos. ‘If the Ork Wars are anything to go by, this is going to be a difficult fight.’

They rounded a corner and saw several squads of House militia approaching. Clad in flak armour and Draconis tabards, the soldiers stopped and moved aside, bowing respectfully to their High King as Danial and his fellows walked through their midst. Danial made eye contact with as many as he could, acknowledging them with a confident smile.

They moved on, passing through a guarded doorway into the colonnaded courtyard beyond. The yard was open to the sky, spires and towers looming massively overhead. Higher still, the faint blue shimmer of the castle’s void shield could be seen.

The courtyard rang with the clangour of swordplay. Squires were fighting here, twenty of them duelling beneath the stern gaze of several seasoned Knights. All had their hair shaved short to their scalps, and many fought wearing torturous-looking hobbleframes that restricted their movements to mimic a steed’s.

‘Jennika will be pleased,’ said Danial. ‘I see more young ladies amongst the intake.’

‘Her message is getting through,’ said Markos. ‘For better or worse.’

‘Better,’ said Suset firmly. ‘There’s nothing a lady of House Draconis can’t do in a Knight that a man can. If it means we can put more blades in the field, then it’s a good thing. It works for House Pegasson.’

‘I’m sure you’re right, my lady,’ said Markos, his mechanical voice box rendering his tone neutral.

‘They’ll all have to face the Becoming,’ said Danial. ‘Those that survive will have the right to call themselves Knights. Male or female, it doesn’t matter. It won’t be a day too soon either. We’ll need every blade we can muster.’

‘Orks on Adrastapol,’ muttered Markos. ‘Twice in one lifetime. I must have really annoyed the Emperor…’

‘You defeated them then, and we’ll defeat them now,’ said Danial. ‘Come along, the grand strategium awaits.’

The Draconspire was a towering fortress – a man-made mountain of obsidian, plasteel and granite. Its outer walls stretched for many miles. Its highest towers had to be enviro-sealed against the killing cold of the lower stratosphere. The walls and ramparts lay in three concentric rings with thousands of gun emplacements studded into them. Districts of tangled streets and structures were pressed in between them. If an enemy broke through the outermost line, the defenders could fall back to the second, and then, in the direst of circumstances, to the third.

Such desperate measures had not been required for several thousand years.

The entire edifice was replicated as a finely detailed hololith at the heart of the grand strategium. Revolving slowly, flickering with static, the projection rose thirty feet high to dominate the heart of the chamber. Around it sprawled the cathedral-like strategium, divided into numerous levels of platforms, balconies and galleries all interlaced by walkways and arched foot-bridges. Images of the dracon were everywhere, on flame-wreathed banners hanging on the walls and worked into the gilded architecture of the chamber. The only icon more prevalent in that massive space was the Imperial aquila.

Danial made his way through the serviles, adepts and militia who thronged the strategium. He stopped before the hololith and used the control wand to zoom in on key sections of the fortress. Manpower estimates and ammunition counts scrolled over the image at his behest.

‘The ’spire looks ready,’ he said approvingly. ‘You’ve done good work, Lady Suset.’

‘Thank you, my king,’ she said. ‘The fifth through twentieth militia regiments are now fully deployed to their stations. First through fourth have taken reserve stations in the upper levels to provide defence for the spaceport or inner walls as required. Ammunition and medicae stocks are estimated sufficient for at least two years’ protracted siege at this time, and Polluxis has his adepts working a rotation of prayer and appeasement rituals on all of the ’spire’s systems. Communication, defence and power distribution should all be functioning at optimal levels.’

‘How many Knights have we held back?’

‘Twenty-three, including us,’ said Suset. ‘Five are on outer patrol. The others are currently dismounted to assist with militia deployment or strategic coordination.’

‘The rest?’

‘Spread across the Valatane, as per your orders my liege,’ said Markos. ‘They are aiding the evacuations, or moving into position around our key assets.’

The herald beckoned a robed adept, who hurried over with a data-slate. Markos accepted it with a nod, scrolling quickly through its readout.

‘Latest reports have the agriplexes in the Longmarch, South Valley and Aquilos regions fully evacuated. The refugee columns are streaming into Mount Imperius and Fort Redfang under Knightly guard as we speak.’

‘What of the southern Valatane?’ asked Suset.

‘The rougher terrain looks to be slowing things down a little,’ said Markos. ‘The loggers’ roads through the olidarne forests weren’t made to cope with this volume of foot-traffic. Still, as of three hours ago when we received the vox report from Sire Kristun, High Kelt was almost entirely evacuated, and the Drakesclaw mines weren’t far behind. A couple of the logging villages have resisted evacuation as expected. Fools.’

‘They’re independent and insular people,’ said Danial. ‘It was to be expected that some would want to look to their own defence. I hope excessive force was not used?’

‘It doesn’t say,’ said Markos, scanning the slate. ‘But Kristun’s a good man. He’ll have tried to be tolerant.’

‘If any of those communities refuse to be evacuated, they’ll be in terrible peril from the orks,’ said Suset.

‘They would be decimated by the xenos in a matter of minutes, lady,’ said Markos. ‘But it won’t come to that. They’re chattel of House Draconis and the Imperium whether they like it or not. Our Knights will relocate them by whatever means they must.’

Danial nodded and manipulated his control wand, opening a vox-link to one of the galleries high above.

‘Master Astrogator Baelus,’ said Danial. ‘What can you tell us of the greenskins?’

‘High King Danial, it is an honour to be addressed by you, sire,’ came Baelus’ voice, a deep baritone. ‘Orbital augury has been extended to its furthest ranges, aided by the swiftest scout ships from amongst the Bastion Fleet. We have had some word from the astropaths of the mountain, also. The conclusions are… alarming, sire.’

‘How severe is it, Master Baelus?’ asked Danial.

‘There are estimated to be upwards of nine thousand ork space craft, sire,’ said Baelus. ‘Though their formation is so entangled and their nature so variegated that it is hard to produce an accurate estimate. They are ploughing in from the outvoid like a vast green fist, aimed straight for our world.’

‘So many,’ breathed Suset in horror.

‘The Bastion Fleet currently numbers one hundred and fifty-seven ships in total, correct?’ asked Danial.

‘Just so, my liege,’ said Baelus. ‘Of those, seventy-two are of cruiser class weight or above, when set against what appears to be several thousand greenskin equivalents.’

‘We can’t offer a straight fight in orbit,’ said Markos. ‘Our ships would be overwhelmed within minutes. They would never cause enough damage to the orks to render their sacrifice worthwhile.’

‘We knew this would likely be the case,’ said Danial. ‘Master Baelus, are the fleet captains briefed?’

‘They are, sire,’ said Baelus. ‘The captains will observe the oncoming foe for as long as they deem the risks acceptable. They will then fall back, laying what orbital mines they can, to the far side of the moon of Triaetos.’

‘If the last war is anything to go by, I’d estimate that at least half of those ork ships will attempt to make planetfall,’ said Markos. ‘Probably more. The greenskins came with no restraint or subtlety in that last campaign. I doubt they’ll have changed their ways since. A number of their ships will likely be asteroids or heaps of space-junk that the orks have lashed engines to and packed with warriors.’ Markos shook his head. ‘Crude animals.’

‘Once they land, and the remainder scatter through the orbital envelope, that’s when the Bastion Fleet can start making harassing attacks,’ said Danial. ‘Baelus, have we received word from Houses Pegasson and Minotos that their captains have leave to follow this plan?’

‘We have, your highness,’ said Baelus. ‘House Pegasson were emphatically in support of it. House Minotos sent a brief communique indicating that they would support the scheme “so long as it continued to protect their interests directly”.’

Markos muttered something uncomplimentary about Grandmarshal Kurt’s honour.

‘Do we know when the orks will make planetfall, Baelus?’ asked Danial.

‘We have an estimate, sire. In the worst case, providing they do not become distracted by infighting or diverge to attack our orbital docks above Secutol, the bulk of the horde will reach us in a little under seven hours.’

‘Thank you, Baelus,’ said Danial.

‘Your highness,’ said Baelus, voice wavering. ‘The astropaths, sire. They’re reporting visions of a vast beast closing its jaws upon our world, crushing and tearing it apart. They see fields of bloodied corpses, burning steeds piled high… They see death, sire. Adrastapol’s death, and ours.’

‘Master Baelus,’ said Danial calmly. ‘While I do not pretend to understand the esoteric intricacies of astropathy, you and I both know that what they see are just visions. They are warnings, sent by the Emperor and open to both interpretation and change. If the Emperor is still sending our astropaths visions, then he is still watching over us, and if that is so, no xenos horde will ever overthrow this world.’

‘Yes, sire,’ said Baelus.

‘You and your adepts are doing a magnificent job of keeping us informed,’ said Danial. ‘Your efforts in the coming fight will be invaluable, for the Bastion Fleet must be our blades in the heavens, to strike at the flanks of this great beast. Can I count upon you, Baelus?’

‘Of course, my liege!’ replied the Master Astrogator. ‘We shall not fail you in this!’

‘I thought as much,’ said Danial. ‘Carry on, Master Baelus. Emperor be with you.’

‘And with you, sire,’ said Baelus. ‘In Excelsium Furore.’

Danial cut the link and glanced at Markos and Suset.

‘He isn’t the only one close to panic,’ said Suset quietly. ‘I’ve had the priests of the Ministorum moving through the ’spire since deployment began, doing what they can to steady nerves. As for the serf classes, they must be terrified. The tales of the Ork Wars are glorious, but they are bloody. The Fall of Ironspire? The Battle of the Bloodied Sea? The Slaughter in the Pass? In none of those conflicts was victory bought without a steep cost.’

‘Those stories are embellished and glorified,’ muttered Markos. ‘As are all such accounts. I was there, and whatever the bards sing of the Ork Wars now, the reality was far worse.’

‘Then we must set a clear example,’ said Danial. ‘We must show that we have a plan to defend our world. That, at least, is true, and thanks in no small part to you, Markos.’

‘Well, fighting that throne-cursed war had to have some benefits, my liege,’ the herald replied. ‘Those of us still around remember how the greenskins fought, and I’ll say again it’s imperative not to let them overwhelm us. Anything we can do to stall their momentum, butcher their leaders and prevent them from massing their forces will be crucial.’

‘Our lances are already in the field,’ said Danial. ‘We’ll protect our orbital batteries, and our fortifications. We’ll strike at ork landing sites across the Valatane as they develop. The Marchioness assures me that she will follow our lead in this.’

‘The Pegassus’ Eyrie is the most remote and defensible of all the noble seats of power,’ said Markos. ‘One would hope that Lauret can spare plenty of warriors from guarding the passes to go on the offensive, especially with her House’s magnificent air force to call upon.’

‘We may be more prepared for invasion than the last time the orks attacked, but we’ve also lost Houses Chimaeros and Wyvorn,’ said Danial. ‘We have fewer steeds to put in the field, fewer thrones…’

‘And then there’s House Minotos,’ said Markos, his augmetic voice failing to hide his anger. ‘Cowering behind their defences, refusing to leave their own borders. It’s shameful.’

‘I am disappointed in Kurt’s judgement,’ said Danial. ‘His non-committal response to our plan was damning. He diminishes the honour of his house.’

‘Let’s hope he doesn’t also diminish our chances of victory,’ said Markos.

‘Orks will land in Minotos territory just as they do in ours,’ said Suset. ‘And as you say, we can count on the firm allegiance of House Pegasson. We will all fight the xenos, with the best plan at our disposal. And we will win.’

‘Well said, my lady,’ said Danial. ‘And therein lies our own thread in the tapestry, Markos. You and I are expected in full panoply at the Typor Battery within the hour, to rendezvous with the lances there.’

‘Best get to our steeds then, sire,’ said Markos, cracking his scarred knuckles. ‘They’ll be impatient for ork blood.’

‘Good hunting, my liege,’ said Suset. ‘I’ll make sure the ’spire’s still standing when you return. Please, be safe.’

‘My lady, I could wish for no finer Gatekeeper,’ said Danial. ‘Captain Bannoch and his men will serve as your honour guard while you command the defence here. I only wish old friends were here to march at our side in this fight.’

‘So do we all,’ said Suset. ‘In Excelsium Furore, my King.’

‘Wield the fires within, my lady,’ he replied, then turned and marched away with Markos at his side.

Elsewhere, Jennika Tan Draconis strode Fire Defiant across the rocky foothills of the Adrapotines. Three Knights marched in arrowhead formation with her – two of House Draconis, one of House Pegasson.

With every mile covered, they pressed further north and west, out of Draconis territory and into that once ruled by the disgraced House Chimaeros. Steady drizzle fell, slicking the metal skin of their steeds and draping a soft veil over the rugged terrain.

In her steed’s shadow, the inquisitor’s Charger lumbered along beside Sacristan Traxin’s Crawler. Massata had insisted that the Kasrkin, Sergeant Kaston, drive his vehicle, refusing to have any Adrastapolian-born aboard his transport. Jennika had to admit that the Cadian was doing a fine job, the hauler traversing the difficult terrain without a snag.

‘Inquisitor,’ voxed Jennika.

‘Lady Jennika?’ replied Massata.

‘Three days, we have been travelling. Yet in that time, we have spoken little and you have told me nothing of what you fear lies ahead…’

She waited, but was answered only by the hiss of an open vox-line. Irritated, Jennika pressed on.

‘We will aid you in your efforts, inquisitor, but I do not think it unreasonable for me to ask. What could be so important that it cannot wait until after the xenos threat is dealt with?’

‘That is not an unreasonable question,’ said Massata. ‘Yet, as an inquisitor, I am under no obligation to answer it. You are brave to have even asked.’

‘My honour compels me, inquisitor,’ said Jennika. ‘I respect your rank, but the Code Chivalric is clear. My lance and I are bound to aid you in your undertaking on behalf of our world. As the lance’s leader, I am required to gather all information I can about the threat we face, so that we can better acquit ourselves against it.’

‘Very well,’ said Massata, sounding irritated. ‘I have faced Chaos in many guises, Lady Jennika, upon many different worlds. It is never more dangerous than when it subverts good Imperial servants. It is not just the corrupted themselves who are to be feared, but the taint that their dark worship leaves behind. The roots of such corruption go far deeper than most would believe, deeper even than the reach of the most fervent Ministorum prayers.’

‘You fear that this corruption has taken root beneath the former seat of House Chimaeros?’ asked Jennika.

‘The sorceress Alicia Kar Manticos,’ said Massata. ‘She was Consort to Gerraint Tan Chimaeros for many years, and it is my belief that she was tainted by the worship of Chaos throughout all of that time. She had long decades for her evil to seep into the scions of House Chimaeros, and to poison the keep in which she dwelt. If I am right, then the Houses of Adrastapol may have been guilty of the sin of complacency. Believing the Great Enemy vanquished upon your world, you may instead have afforded it time to gather its strength and become a threat again.’

‘We cleansed the seats of Houses Chimaeros and Wyvorn with fire and faith,’ said Jennika angrily. ‘We could have done no more. There was no complacency on our part, sir.’

‘Yet the threat may remain,’ said Massata. ‘I only pray that I am not too late to do what must be done to save this world.’

Jennika’s reply caught in her throat as a dull rumble became audible, growing swiftly to a roar. She worked her auspex, sweeping for threats, unshrouding her guns. High in the sky, a light became visible. It swept closer, a blazing meteorite ploughing through the clouds. The bellow of its coming filled the world, and caused Jennika’s steed to shudder.

She watched as the huge mass of rock and metal rushed over their heads, wreathed in the flames of re-entry, arcing away towards the Valatane. Slowly, it receded. More hurtling projectiles could be seen now, carving their own lines of fire through the stratosphere.

‘That meteor had engines built into it,’ she said. ‘Guns.’

‘The invasion has begun,’ said Massata.

‘Whatever threat you believe is out here, we must face it quickly and be done,’ said Jennika. ‘Adrastapol’s fate hangs in the balance.’

‘It truly does,’ agreed Massata.

The orkish scourge fell upon Adrastapol with breathtaking fury. Their ramshackle armada filled the void. Upon the orders of High King Danial Tan Draconis, the Bastion Fleet retreated rather than face certain annihilation by a vastly larger force. The Adrastapolian surface batteries, on the other hand, let fly the moment the greenskins’ ships entered orbit.

It is estimated that over one hundred ork ships were annihilated by lance and missile fire from the surface before the xenos even began their invasion. It is a testament to the size of their horde – or ‘Waaagh!’ – that this did not even give the greenskins pause.

As their first waves of frigates and gunships were blown apart, and burned up in Adrastapol’s atmosphere, the craft behind them swept on unscathed. Many of these were invasion vessels known as Roks. Stolen asteroids fitted with crude thrusters, gun decks and controls, these warships fell upon Adrastapol in their hundreds. The tunnels and crew decks of each were crammed with thousands upon thousands of xenos, all filled with an unholy eagerness for butchery. They were, perhaps, comparable to a heretical perversion of our own noble Drop Keeps.

Of course, not all of these Roks survived their fiery descent from the heavens. Many failed to decelerate, slamming into Adrastapol with sufficient force to hurl plumes of debris high into the atmosphere, and to kill every last greenskin aboard.

Others broke up, or spun wildly out of control, dashing their passengers to ruin across the planet’s rugged mountain ranges or plunging them into the unmerciful waters of its oceans. More still were savaged by the Adrastapolian batteries, for the Roks were extremely large targets whose evasive skills could be likened to those of a vehemently flung brick.

Yet if even a full half of the orks’ Roks met their end, still this left many hundreds whose suicidal plunge was a success. Their fall cushioned by retro-rockets fired at the last moment, they impacted Adrastapol’s surface with great force.

Those that landed amidst open wilderness or agricultural land formed instant fortresses, their stony flanks unassailable and their gun batteries able to fire upon targets many miles distant. Worse still were those that – through sheer bad fortune – struck landmarks and sites of strategic value. The Umberan agriplex was destroyed by such an impact, the militia left to garrison it annihilated at a stroke. The void shields of Mount Imperius were overloaded by another such collision, its catastrophic shockwave killing more than half of Adrastapol’s astropathic choir.

A logger’s village in the south Valatane was destroyed and all of its inhabitants killed – just punishment perhaps for their refusal to follow the orders of their king. Yet there was nothing just about the subsequent landslide that the impact caused, that buried an orbital battery and the lance of Knights who guarded it.

Worst afflicted were the lands of House Minotos. Possessing naught but the most rudimentary of orbital defences, the Minotane lands presented an open portcullis to the greenskin ships, which fell upon them in great number.

The same was true of the northern and southern polar continents, Adrasal and Adoropae. Yet there the greenskins would find only dense and dangerous jungles, thundering volcanoes and voracious super-predators that must surely have greeted the invaders with a savagery even they were hard pressed to match.

For a day and night, the ork ships rained down. Wherever the invaders landed, they wasted no time in pouring forth, chanting the name of their warlord: a beast named in their crude tongue as Gorgrok Killfist. Though they adorned themselves in a jarring mass of gaudy colours and foul trophies, the overwhelming majority of the invaders wore vivid blue, and waved ragged banners of the same hue. White skull glyphs were plastered upon their armour, skin and war engines, the mark of a sub-species of greenskin known as the Death Skulls.

It has been observed by Imperial authorities that this particular caste – or clan – of orks possess a remarkable talent for debase larceny, and the heretical retro-engineering of other races’ technologies. Such soon proved to be the case upon Adrastapol as, alongside wave after wave of bellowing infantry, hurtling aircraft and ramshackle ork vehicles, there advanced countless stolen Imperial battle tanks.

Such technological heresy was an affront to everything in which the Knights of Adrastapol believed, yet still it was not the worst. Looming over the greenskin hordes and shaking the ground with their tread came mighty greenskin war effigies, bloated giants of scrap-iron armour that dwarfed even the proud steeds of the Adrastapolian Knights. Clearly these mechanical monstrosities were meant to personify the gods of the greenskin creed. Wherever their heavy tread fell, they profaned the very soil of Adrastapol with their presence.

For all this horror, in spite of the tide of foes that befouled their world, and the swarms of enemy voidcraft that rained fire from on high, still the Knights of Adrastapol marched out to meet the xenos with their heads held high. They marched in full panoply. They followed the finely crafted battle plans of their assembled leaders. They made the enemy pay in blood for every forward step they took. For weeks, they took the fight to the greenskins and held them at bay.’

Extracted from the writing of Sendraghorst,
Sage Strategic of Adrastapol,
vol XXI ‘The 2nd Ork War’

Oath of Flame advanced at a steady stride through the burned remains of an olidarne copse. Blackened trunks passed by on either side, jutting up from the soil like accusing fingers. Many still smouldered, and drifting smoke fouled the air. Danial sat in his throne mechanicum, its neural jacks and haptic gauntlets linking him to his steed and filling his mind with ghosts.

Five Knights accompanied Danial, a full lance of House Draconis steeds. The High King advanced at the far right of their staggered line. Markos’ Knight Warden, Honourblaze, marched to his left, flanked by Sire Nauman in his Gallant, Crimson Blade, Lady Melessa in her Knight Errant, Dracon’s Ire, and finally Sire Roget in his Knight Crusader, Fires of Valour.

Cherub-like servitors skimmed overhead, grav impellers humming and eye-lenses scanning the smoke as they fed information to the Knights below. The macabre creatures were a maniple of House Draconis’ Heavenly Host, controlled remotely from the Sacristan Crawler that lumbered along half a mile behind the Knights’ advance.

Ahead of them, an ork Rok squatted like a shattered mountain amidst the smog and the grey dawn light.

‘Keep your eyes on your auspexes and your fingers on your triggers,’ said Markos. ‘The greenskins can’t be far.’

‘There’s no movement yet,’ replied Sire Nauman. ‘Perhaps this one’s abandoned.’

Danial heard the hope in his comrade’s voice, and sympathised.

‘We’ve been fighting for days now, I know,’ he said. ‘We are all tired. We are all shaken by the mindless ferocity of this foe. But don’t allow false hope to disarm you. The enemy are here, and they will make themselves known soon enough. Be ready, my Knights, and we will slaughter them as we have done a dozen times already.’

‘Yes, sire,’ came their replies.

‘Distance to Rok now three miles,’ said Lady Melessa. ‘Energy signatures on the auspex, confused returns.’

‘I see them,’ said Danial. With his mind connected directly to the sensorium of his steed, his perception of the world was vastly augmented. He saw everything that its auspex, vid-feeds and data siphons did, a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree panorama overlaid with information feeds, thermal filters and noospheric calculations. The avalanche of input would have driven an unaugmented mind mad.

For Danial, conditioned since birth and fitted with the finest augmetics his house could provide, it was akin to omnipotence.

‘Picking up movement on the strategic overlay,’ reported Sire Roget. ‘They’re out there all right, sire.’

His words were chased by a series of muted flashes amidst the smoke, far away near the foot of the Rok.

‘Shields,’ ordered Danial.

His Knights angled their ion shields to the fore. Artillery shells whipped out of the smog to detonate against them, raising sparking blue flares.

‘Cogitating trajectory,’ said Markos.

Targeting data filtered into Danial’s peripheral vision, and crimson lines traced back through the smoke.

‘All Knights, halt,’ said Danial, reining Oath of Flame in as his comrades did the same. ‘Markos, Roget, reciprocate.’

‘With pleasure, sire,’ said Roget. A swarm of stormspear missiles leapt from the launcher atop his carapace, and his long guns roared. Markos’ avenger gatling cannon howled up to speed, a stream of high calibre rounds whipping away through the smoke. Danial smiled grimly as he saw distant explosions.

The response was instantaneous. Distant klaxons rose in crescendo. Danial’s audio-receptors picked up the roar of bestial voices and the throaty revving of crude engines.

‘That roused them,’ said Markos. ‘Hundreds of separate power signatures are registering.’

‘Three war effigies,’ said Danial, studying his auspex returns. ‘Moving slowly in this direction, tightly grouped. They’re smaller than Stompas.’

‘I’m reading energy spirit agitation from the Rok,’ said Lady Melessa. ‘Beware its artillery.’

As though summoned by her words, a rippling string of muzzle flares lit the Rok’s flank. Shells and energy blasts rained around them, blowing apart burned trees and hurling rock and soil into the air. The shockwaves tore the smoke to tatters.

‘Their accuracy is as terrible as ever,’ commented Danial.

‘True enough, but their guns are just as potent,’ said Markos. ‘Complacency and death are passionate bedfellows, so mind your shield discipline.’

Danial watched his data-manifold closely, picking out multitudinous ork signatures drawing closer. The data-tapestry had no secrets from him. ‘From energy signature dispersal and seismic reverberation, I estimate… over five hundred, less than seven. Low armour density, but confirming that trio of heavy walkers. Coming straight for us, no attempt at manoeuvre.’

‘What’s our plan, sire?’ asked Markos.

‘Jaws of the Dracon,’ said Danial. ‘Sire Nauman, Lady Melessa, you are the lure. Hold position and engage as they come to you. Markos and I flank right, Roget left.’

‘Understood, sire,’ said Roget. He turned his steed and strode away.

‘Sacristan Banaxos,’ voxed Danial.

‘Yes, sire,’ came Banaxos’ voice.

‘We are engaging,’ said Danial. ‘There are a lot of them, Sacristan. Be prepared for overspill.’

‘Our guns are unshrouded and their spirits bellicose,’ said Banaxos.

‘Good hunting, all of you,’ said Danial. ‘In Excelsium Furore!’

‘Wield the fires within!’ they shouted.

‘And may the Emperor watch over us all,’ said Danial, feeding power to his motive impellers and steering his steed out towards the right flank.

The orks loped through the skeletal woods, firing their guns into the air as they came. Each alien was a muscled killer, clad in scavenged armour and leathery green hides daubed with blue-and-white warpaint. Danial reflected that, for all the tales he had heard of them before this invasion, none had truly done justice to the orks’ mindless ferocity.

Lumbering battle-tanks dotted the ork lines. At their backs towered the three huge walkers, fat-bellied mounds of armour, guns and claws that were classified as Gorkanauts and Morkanauts.

The horde was preceded by a swarm of light vehicles, ramshackle bikes and buggies that hurtled over the rough terrain. The orks sped into battle with no thought for their own safety, and as they came, their oversized guns hammered.

Nauman and Melessa’s shields flared blue as the fusillade hit them. Melessa seared craters in the greenskin charge with her fusion blaster while Nauman raked them with his heavy stubbers, waiting for the foe to close so that he could employ his thunderstrike gauntlet and reaper chainsword.

‘They’ve taken the bait,’ said Markos as he and Danial strode out around the flank, toppling burned tree trunks with every step.

‘Not all of them,’ said Danial, blink-highlighting several mobs of greenskins on the auspex. Having spotted the Knights attempting to outflank them, the orks had turned and were heading their way. In their midst came self-propelled artillery pieces. Smaller orkoid creatures, the scrawny slave-caste known as gretchin, could be seen hefting shells into the guns’ breeches.

‘Those are Imperial Basilisks, under all that scrap metal,’ said Markos.

‘I see them,’ said Danial in disgust.

Two purloined tanks opened fire, hurling shells through the air which burst against the Knights’ shields. Oath of Flame staggered at the impact. Danial rode the sway. The third Basilisk suffered a catastrophic failure. Its rusted barrel burst as the shell detonated within. Flames blasted through the tank’s crew compartment, roasting gretchin.

‘Rubbish,’ snorted Markos. ‘Such tech-heresy invites weakness.’

Pivoting his steed at the waist, he raked the tanks with fire. Thousands of foot-long shells peppered the vehicles’ hulls, cratering the metal and causing them to shudder and skid. One tank rolled to a halt, smoke billowing from it. The other kept going, its crew frantically loading another shell.

‘Turn and address,’ said Danial. ‘Their infantry is getting closer.’

Don’t let them mount your steed’s legs, came a whisper from his throne. Several more voices murmured in agreement. I was slain by just such a thing, came one voice, and he is right, they will tear your Knight from beneath you, came another.

‘I understand,’ muttered Danial, bracing Oath of Flame’s legs and letting fly with his guns.

His first shot hit the middle of a greenskin mob. Those xenos caught in the blast were vaporised, while those further out were set aflame. Danial’s eyes widened as the burning orks kept running, sheer ferocity carrying them onwards even as they burned.

With a thought, Danial set his heavy stubbers to thin out the crowd. Spurts of blood flew through the air. Greenskins were punched off their feet. Still their comrades came on, brandishing hatchets and crude chainswords.

Markos was firing too, Honourblaze annihilating the orks around him. In return, crude rockets corkscrewed through the air, fired from the greenskins’ portable launchers. Several flew wide, while more exploded against the Knights’ shields. Danial gritted his teeth as one rocket found its way through, blasting a sparking hole in his steed’s chest-plate.

Oath of Flame rumbled angrily.

With a loud boom, the last looted tank fired again. Aimed low, its shell skimmed the bottom of Sire Markos’ shield and slammed into his steed’s right leg. Fire blossomed and Markos swore vehemently.

‘Damage?’ asked Danial, clenching his haptic gauntlet and firing again.

‘Enough,’ said Markos. ‘I can move, but I’m limping. Damnation!’

‘Keep firing, slow advance’ said Danial. ‘We need to break them before they do us any more damage, or the jaws of the Dracon won’t close.’

He fed power into his motive impellers, pressing runes and blink-clicking icons to alter his targeting vectors. Danial revved Oath of Flame’s chainsword, and swung his thermal cannon to bear against the ramshackle Basilisk.

The tank’s crew were dancing about, shaking their fists in the air, celebrating their lucky shot. Their cackles turned to shrieks as they saw Danial’s gun swing towards them, and they scrambled to load another shell.

‘Too late, filth,’ said Danial. He fired.

Caught amidst the immolating blast, the Basilisk’s hull flashed from red to white in an instant, its crew vanishing in clouds of ash before it detonated. The tank’s ammunition cooked off, adding to the detonation.

Still the surviving orks came on, several dozen greenskins sprinting towards the Knights with bellowed war cries.

They flooded around Oath’s legs. Alert runes flashed in Danial’s cockpit as dozens of blades and bludgeons battered at his steed’s feet. Crude grenades spun through the air to detonate against his armour, while the most audacious greenskins began clambering up Oath’s shins.

‘Caution, my liege,’ urged Markos.

Danial had seen what happened to Knights who panicked or slowed when an ork assault hit home. He had no intention of being pulled down to such an ignominious fate. Feeding more power to his steed’s legs, he kept striding, kicking and trampling the orks as he went. Broken bodies flew through the air. Muscled monsters were crushed beneath his footfalls.

At the same time, Danial pivoted his steed’s torso forward, bringing his chainsword into play. He swept the reaper left and right, skimming it through the orks at head height.

Each of the weapon’s cutting teeth was two feet across and three high, travelling at a speed of over three hundred feet per second. It was a weapon capable of ripping through a castle wall, or piercing the armoured hides of super-heavy war engines. The orks were torn apart at the slightest contact. Mangled showers of meat and gore sprayed with each swing of Danial’s blade, and the orks broke before him.

They turned and fled, howling in terror, and he slaughtered them without mercy. Markos joined him, his gatling cannon screaming as it scythed down the fleeing xenos.

Not a single ork survived.

‘Nicely done, sire,’ said Markos as his steed limped up to join Oath of Flame.

‘Thank you, Markos,’ said Danial, checking his strategic overlay and vid-feeds. He and Markos had flanked out for almost half a mile, circumventing the main greenskin horde. The mass of xenos was now swirling around the feet of Melessa and Nauman’s steeds, which stomped back and forth with their weapons blazing. ‘We need to move quickly. Melessa and Nauman are beset,’ he said.

‘Orks,’ spat Markos. ‘Can’t turn down a fight, no matter what it costs them.’

‘Duty demands that we make it cost them dear,’ said Danial. ‘Sire Roget, are you positioned?’

‘I am, liege,’ replied Roget. ‘Requesting leave to fire.’

‘Fire at will,’ said Danial. ‘Close on their flank and give them the Dracon’s wrath.’

Feeding power to his steed, Danial advanced.

‘Catch up as soon as you can,’ he voxed to Markos. ‘The delay has left Nauman and Melessa exposed. I need to pull some of the enemy off them before they’re overrun.’

‘Of course, sire,’ said Markos, his steed limping gamely in Oath’s wake. ‘Don’t do anything reckless.’

‘Lady Melessa,’ said Danial. ‘Sire Nauman. The Dracon’s jaws are closing.’

‘Glad to hear it, sire,’ said Melessa, her voice tight, then broke off as one of the ork walkers swung its hydraulic claw at her. Dracon’s Ire parried with its chainsword, and sparks rained down on the orks below. Melessa stepped back. She redressed and fired her thermal cannon. Her attacker detonated in a fireball.

‘But we’re hard pressed,’ she finished. ‘Intercession requested.’

Oath of Flame advanced at a pounding run, the ground shaking and tree trunks toppling before it. The nearest orks turned, roaring feral challenges. Danial didn’t slow, hitting their lines like an avalanche.

Cogitating on the move, he fired his thermal cannon and annihilated a heavy transport packed with armoured greenskins. Fire raked him from all sides, and he swung his shield one way then the other, concentrating on the weapons that could harm him.

Oath of Flame’s foot descended on a greenskin truck. The ork vehicle’s fuel tanks exploded, causing Danial’s steed to lurch. He wrestled his controls, fighting Oath of Flame back from the tipping point. Alarms quieted as his steed stabilised, but the momentary distraction had forced him to slow.

Danial cursed as a mob of greenskins leapt up from amidst the horde on trails of flame. Strapped to rocket packs, they sailed gracelessly through the air, diving down on his steed like living ordnance. Several struck his shield, and their rocket packs exploded with enough force to dent Danial’s cockpit. One ork managed to land on his steed’s carapace, while another brute, with a mechanical claw for a hand, came down atop his thermal cannon.

‘Get off, vermin,’ snarled Danial, throwing Oath of Flame into a wheeling backwards stride. He saw the big brute with the claw stumble, grabbing his cannon’s shield and digging the metal prongs in deep. The Knight stomped backwards, but his assailants clung on.

From above, Danial heard a ringing clang, then another. He spared a glance at his cockpit hatch, and swore as he saw it shudder under a third blow.

Beware! moaned his throne’s ghosts. They are fearsome, strong. These beasts can tear through even a Knight’s adamant hide given time.

As one greenskin battered the hatch, the other had regained its feet and was gleefully firing its huge pistol into Oath of Flame’s right arm joint. Worse, the beasts swirling around his feet were getting bolder, shooting his Knight and trying again to scale its legs.

Don’t get overwhelmed, came the voice of his throne again.

‘It’s hardly my intent,’ spat Danial, raking the orks with stubber rounds.

Fire erupted around him as missiles tore into the horde. Shells followed, their detonations making his warning augurs shrill. As the smoke cleared, Danial saw dozens of orks sprawled dead on the ground.

‘You looked irked, sire,’ came Roget’s voice over the vox.

‘My thanks, sire Roget,’ said Danial through gritted teeth. ‘Your assistance is timely, and the foe are damnably anarchic.’

Another clang sounded from above, and sparks drizzled down from his steed’s hatch. Any moment, the ork would batter its way through, and there was no way he could fight such a beast strapped into his throne.

‘All right, you wish to enter,’ he said, grabbing his bolt pistol from its cockpit rack. ‘I’ll open it.’

Raising his weapon, Danial slammed his free hand against the cockpit release. Above, the hatch popped up and slid backwards with a hiss of released atmosphere. The din of battle roared in, and the ork gawped down at him in surprise, axe raised for another blow.

Danial shot the greenskin in the face. His bolt shell blew out the back of its head, and he heard the thud and scuff as the xenos’ body bounced away and fell from his carapace.

‘That’s one,’ he muttered. ‘Now, where’s the other…’

A glance through his vid-feed showed the other greenskin had seen its comrade’s plunge. Its bestial features crumpled in a frown of puzzlement, then he saw its eyes widen with realisation. The ork triggered its rocket pack, a short burst that hurled it up onto Oath’s broad shoulders.

‘Come on…’ said Danial again, riding the sway as his steed continued to pace backwards through the fight. The percussion of his heavy stubbers was constant.

Suddenly the ork appeared, framed in the hatch, jaws wide in a roar, a rusty stick grenade fizzing in its fist.

Danial fired, hitting his hatch rune a split second later. The bolt took the ork in the neck. Its eyes bulged and the hatch slammed shut. There came a muffled boom as the xenos’ grenade detonated, and Danial watched in satisfaction as blood ran down over his vid-feeds.

Free of his assailants, Danial saw that his Knights had wrought butchery upon the orks. Roget’s steed was pacing along one flank while Markos limped in from the other, both strafing the horde and thinning its numbers. Meanwhile, his own headlong charge had drawn enough of the foe away from Melessa and Nauman that they had been able to rally and take the fight to the foe.

The ill-disciplined greenskins had been pulled in all directions by their eagerness to engage the newly arrived foes, and their cohesion had collapsed. Danial saw a bellowing monster stomping back and forth, brandishing an axe the size of a man as it tried to restore order. He erased the beast with his thermal cannon.

The Rok’s fire still rained down indiscriminately, but with the Knights maintaining shield discipline, it was achieving little more than to speed the greenskins’ own demise. Though all the Knights were showing battle-damage, all were still in the fight.

‘Concentrate on the walkers,’ said Danial. ‘Finish them.’

‘Yes, Sire,’ came the replies, and fire raked the two surviving ork engines. One staggered, then exploded with volcanic fury.

Shrugging off the barrage, the other levelled a huge, blunderbuss-like weapon at Lady Melessa’s steed and fired.

Melessa yelled in surprise as a mass of crackling strands burst forth. Boulders and scrap metal weights sailed past her shield to enfold her steed in an electrified net. The impact drove Dracon’s Ire back and the weights pulled it off balance. Lady Melessa’s steed crashed down onto its back where it lay, voltage coursing over its limbs.

Melessa’s screams filled the vox, then tailed away.

‘Kill it!’ roared Danial. They all fired at once. The ork walker shuddered under the barrage, then toppled sideways as Sire Nauman’s thunderstrike gauntlet caught it square in the side of its ironclad skull.

As the last walker burned, the surviving greenskins fled.

‘Sires, leave them,’ ordered Danial. ‘They’re dregs. We must eliminate the primary target. Sacristan Banaxos, Lady Melessa’s steed has fallen. It’s bound in some sort of electrified net. She is likely to be badly hurt, if alive at all. Move up and do what you can. Beware, the ork artillery is still active.’

‘Understood, sire,’ said Banaxos.

The remaining Knights of the lance advanced through the smoke, shields up and auto-pennants fluttering in the breeze. Artillery fire fell around them. It battered their shields, but they pressed forward. Melessa’s fall had made them angry. Danial felt the draconsfire burning in his breast.

‘You know how this works,’ he said, shrugging off an energy blast. ‘Spread out, target weak structural points, start a chain reaction.’

‘Sire,’ said Markos. ‘We can’t sustain this. Melessa… Even if she’s alive, she won’t be fighting again any time soon, and Emperor only knows the condition of her steed. That’s the tenth confirmed casualty today alone.’

‘I know, Markos,’ said Danial, bracing his steed in a firing stance. The immensity of the Rok rose above him, thrice the height of his steed. Its fire splashed against his shield to no avail. ‘But let’s finish this.’

Weathering the frantic ork firestorm, the Knights braced their steeds and opened fire. Explosions tore through the Rok. Beams of heat melted gun decks and triggered fuel reserves. Striding close, Sire Nauman tore at the Rok with his steed’s weapons, ripping away avalanches of stone, metal and mangled bodies.

Danial’s auspex showed vivid energy spikes within the Rok.

‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘Back.’

With control and discipline, the Knights strode their steeds backwards, away from the shuddering enemy structure. Orks and gretchin spilled from within, tumbling from hatches and tunnel mouths, many on fire. The Knights strafed them with stubber fire as the Rok shook in the grip of ever fiercer explosions. Ripped apart from within, the former spacecraft collapsed, until it was nothing more than a blazing mountain of rubble and corpses.

In the battle’s wake, Danial and his Knights gathered near Melessa’s fallen steed. The electrified net had spent its fury. The fallen Knight smouldered where it lay. Banaxos’ Crawler sat in their midst, armatures extended and servitor limbs working as it effected repairs and rearmed their weapons from its internal hoppers. Melessa lay within, strapped into a medicae cradle, horribly burned, but clinging tenaciously to life.

Banaxos had pronounced her chances of survival slim.

‘Markos, you believe our offensive is no longer tenable, yes?’ said Danial.

‘I do, sire,’ said Markos. ‘We’re taking casualties at an unsustainable rate.’

‘Agreed,’ said Danial. ‘But is the price worth it? Is this how we win this war, through sacrifice? House Draconis has eliminated seventeen ork Roks and slaughtered an estimated twenty to thirty thousand greenskins since the invasion began.’

‘We’ve hurt them,’ said Markos. ‘I know what I said, about not letting them get a foothold, about staying mobile, but this horde is vast. In a war of attrition, we’re going to lose.’

‘The strategos adepts are saying it is three to four times the size of Skarjaw’s invasion, at least,’ said Danial. ‘I don’t disagree with you. If Minotos would only commit to battles beyond their damned borders, then maybe we’d make headway.’

‘I don’t think even that would help,’ said Markos. ‘Thus far, we and House Pegasson’s Knights have kept the orks disrupted with these raids, and knocked out plenty of landing sites. But you saw those orbital auguries this morning, the same as I did. They’re massing, despite our efforts.’

‘If we’re still in the open when they do, they’ll overrun us,’ said Danial.

‘Exactly,’ said Markos. ‘We’ve given the last serf columns time to reach safe havens. But now I believe we should fall back behind sterner defences ourselves.’

‘You’re correct, Markos,’ said Danial. ‘The sheer anarchy these beasts unleash in battle… They can’t be predicted. The best laid plans fall apart around them. Knights die. The beasts’ proclivity for incapacitating machinery to be pulled apart for scrap is horrifying.’

‘Filthy xenos heretics,’ said Sire Roget. ‘They treat our steeds like common junk. They pick them apart like carrion avids.’

‘No more,’ said Danial. ‘Spread the word. I am ordering a full retreat. All Knights are to fall back to their allotted fortifications. Steeds are to meet the enemy in open battle only as part of necessary sallies until I decree otherwise. We must dig in and endure their besiegement, either until they are broken enough for us to strike back, or until other Imperial forces answer our astropathic cries for aid.’

As Markos hooked into the long-range strategic channels and broadcasted Danial’s decree, the High King of Adrastapol turned his steed for the Draconspire. They were doing the right thing, he thought. The wise thing. Even his ghosts agreed, for the most part.

So why, then, did it feel so much like defeat?

‘No response to my hails,’ said Jennika. ‘Anyone?’

‘No, Lady Jennika,’ said Lady Nualah Dar Pegasson. ‘I’m receiving no answer to vox hail, and I see no signs of machine-spirit activity on my auspex. Nothing from the wardens, my lady.’

‘Strange,’ said Jennika. ‘It’s as if they simply aren’t there.’

The lance strode across marshy ground, rippling the shallow groundwater with every step. Jennika and Nualah led the way, moving slowly between gnarled trees, scanning for hidden sink-holes and pits. Massata and Sacristan Traxin’s vehicles churned through the muck behind them, muddy water spraying up around their tyres to spatter their armoured flanks.

Sires Reith and Eduard Dar Draconis brought up the rear, alert for any hint of ork activity. They had met only scattered bands of invaders thus far, and none since entering the marshes. Still, it did not pay to become incautious.

The Adrapotines rose distantly behind them, but for days now the expedition had travelled through the former agri-plains of House Chimaeros. From previous visits in her youth, Jennika remembered well-ordered and fertile lands dotted with rocky hillocks, crystal blue lakes and regimented settlements.

Now the hillocks were covered in nests of thorny growths and poisonous-looking blooms. Rising waters had claimed much of the land and turned it to a morass, while those villages that remained were hollow ruins. Strange marshfires burned in the distance, gas flames flickering yellow-blue.

‘How long has it been like this?’ Jennika had asked when they first left the shadow of the mountains.

‘Months?’ Sire Reith had answered. ‘It has been a slow process of degeneration. I walk the Pegasson range-patrols, and each time we skirt the borders of these forbidden lands they look a little more sorrowful.’

Now Jennika cast her gaze across the neglected region with fresh suspicion. Where before she had seen sombre peace, now she saw watchful menace. Ripples on the water hinted at the stirring of hungry, hidden things. The hollow doors and windows of ruins stared back like the empty eyes of the dead.

‘Lady Jennika, is there a problem?’ voxed Massata.

‘We’re ten miles from the ruins of Chimaerkeep,’ said Jennika. ‘A standing guard of militia drawn from all three Noble Houses is meant to watch over the site. They’ve been dubbed the wardens. It’s a penance duty, so they’re largely left isolated as tradition dictates, but they have vox facilities should they get into difficulties. They’re also expected to respond should they be hailed from within ritual distance.’

‘And now they are non-responsive,’ said Massata. Jennika didn’t like his grim tone.

‘There could be any number of reasons they aren’t answering,’ said Sire Eduard. ‘Perhaps their vox array has failed? Or they could have relocated to counter an ork threat?’

‘Or maybe they deserted their posts when the invasion began,’ suggested Lady Nualah. ‘Most of these men and women would have loyalties to their houses, families to protect. Duty might compel them to abandon the symbolic guardianship of an empty ruin in favour of fighting an actual invading foe.’

‘Let us hope not,’ said Massata. ‘To underestimate the threat of this place would be foolish.’

‘Keep hailing them,’ said Jennika. ‘Keep scanning, too. Their tanks’ machine-spirits should be evident from this range. Combat ready, all of you. Nualah, push ahead and see what can be seen.’

‘Yes, my lady,’ said Nualah, her Knight Warden accelerating away at a steady lope.

‘Inquisitor, do you know what this is?’ voxed Jennika on a private channel.

‘I have suspicions,’ he replied. ‘Pray to the Emperor that we find your men dead. The alternatives are far worse.’

The Chimaerkeep had been a sprawling complex of interconnected fortresses and demi-castles, its corridors labyrinthine and its defences multifaceted. Set amidst sprawling ornamental gardens and devotional shrine-groves, House Chimaeros’ seat had stretched over many miles, and been considered amongst the most beautiful of Adrastapol’s many wonders.

Now though, it was an overgrown swathe of rack and ruin, half drowned and still scarred by the furious destruction levelled against it.

Jennika stepped Fire Defiant over a toppled wall and surveyed the wilderness that had once been spectacular parkland. Close at hand, tangled trees rose in profusion, while mist and water swilled around their feet. Beyond them, Jennika could see the bleak ruins of the Chimaerkeep.

‘At the least they would have sent soldiery to escort us in, if all was well,’ she breathed. Fire Defiant rumbled in response, its disquiet echoing her own.

Her vox crackled.

‘Lady Nualah to lance,’ came the Pegasson Knight’s voice. ‘Requesting muster on my position. Beware of possible threats. Keep your weapons bellicose.’

‘Lady Nualah, a more detailed report, if you please,’ replied Jennika, feeding power to her steed’s impellers.

‘It… would be easier for you to see this in person,’ said Nualah, sounding shaken. ‘It is hard to describe, but the wardens are dead. All of them, I think.’

‘Orks?’ asked Sire Eduard.

‘No,’ replied Nualah. ‘Just gather on my position. Swiftly.’

‘Knights,’ voxed Massata from his transport. ‘My team and I will lead. Be prepared for anything, and follow my commands no matter what I ask of you.’

‘If you have any further information to share with us, now is the time,’ said Jennika.

‘Just be ready,’ said Massata. ‘And remember I speak with the Emperor’s voice. I hope we are not too late.’

Frowning, Jennika allowed the inquisitor’s transport to pull ahead, ploughing through the marshy undergrowth. She flashed runic sigils to her comrades, commanding them to tighten formation and to fire only on her express command.

They followed the ghost of a roadway, passing deep pools and dense thickets that had once been arboretums. Here and there, they saw blackened ruins, the shelled remains of Chimaeros defensive structures, shrines and follies.

Emerging from a wild tangle of exotic trees they entered a blackened clearing scattered with wreckage, and dominated by a charnel heap of corpses. Lady Nualah’s Perspicacia stood over the macabre mound, covering the approaches with its gatling cannons.

‘What…?’ breathed Sire Reith.

‘Damnation,’ said Massata.

‘The wardens fought a battle here,’ said Jennika. ‘Look at the cratering, the fire scars. This happened weeks ago, but there’s still fire-damage to the undergrowth around the clearing’s edges.’

‘Look at their tanks,’ said Sire Eduard. ‘What is that on their hulls?’

Runic designators flashed up on Jennika’s retinal display, highlighting the blackened Huntsmen scattered across the clearing. A local variant of the much-adapted Leman Russ battle-tank, the Huntsmen boasted turret-mounted inferno cannons of the sort normally seen on Hellhound flame tanks. They had originally been designed to flush gurghols from cover during Knightly hunts, their flames hot enough to damage the huge predators’ thick hides. The Huntsmen had proved such successful weapons that every Noble House, save Pegasson, had added them to their militia regiments.

These tanks, though, had been the ones to burn. Their wrecks were backed into a ragged defensive circle, and their blackened hull plates and ruptured turrets were coated with glinting outcroppings of blue crystals.

‘What is that substance?’ asked Jennika, running her steed’s auspex over the crystals.

‘Whatever it is, it’s all over the dead wardens, too,’ said Lady Nualah. Magnifying her vid-feed, Jennika saw it was true. The bodies were contorted, the flesh of many blackened or torn apart, and nearly all were rife with blue, crystalline growths.

‘Throne, their eyes have been put out,’ said Jennika. ‘Every last one of them. They died violently, in battle, but they didn’t call for help. Why?’

‘Chaos,’ said Inquisitor Massata, observing from his transport. ‘The minions of the Dark Gods did this. No doubt their machinations stifled these men’s cry for help. It is as I feared.’

‘Where are the rest of them?’ asked Lady Nualah. ‘I can only estimate, but this looks like less than half the bodies I would expect.’

‘Sacristan Traxin,’ voxed Jennika. ‘I can’t get any data that makes sense. Can your Crawler’s instruments do better?’

‘There is a high probability, Lady Tan Draconis,’ replied Traxin. ‘Do you wish me to–’

‘No,’ interrupted Massata. ‘You will not analyse the deposits, and you will not touch the bodies nor the vehicle wrecks. No one is to direct their instruments towards the remains.’

‘We need to understand what we are facing,’ said Jennika. ‘The Code demands I discover all that I can about this enemy, and ensure that our steeds do not end up the same way the wardens did.’

‘They are tainted, lady,’ said Massata. ‘Any contact with them risks passing on that taint. We need understand only that our enemies are impure. That they must be eradicated no matter the cost.’

‘Then we are the line,’ said Jennika. ‘We must stop this, now, and ensure that no trace of taint remains to escape into the wilds of Adrastapol. If we fail, our world is forfeit, is it not?’

‘It is,’ said Massata.

‘Adrastapol is a Knight world,’ said Jennika. ‘It would be an inexcusable sin to allow such an asset to the Imperium to be corrupted or lost.’

‘Are you loyal, Jennika Tan Draconis?’ asked Massata. ‘To your Emperor?’

‘Every bit as loyal as you,’ said Jennika, anger flaring. ‘As is every remaining Knight upon the surface of Adrastapol. You are alone here, inquisitor. Out in the wilds in the company of several Knights. If we were touched by the heresy of Alicia Kar Manticos, do you not think we would have dealt with you by now?’

‘Perhaps,’ said Massata. ‘But here lies clear evidence that the taint of Chaos remains. If you want Adrastapol to be judged pure, then you must follow my commands.’

‘The Code Chivalric demands as much,’ said Jennika. ‘I would no sooner turn a blind eye to the corruption here than would you. What are your orders, Inquisitor Massata?’

‘My retinue and I will dismount and go on foot from here,’ said Massata. ‘The noise of the Crawler would be too great. Your Knights will form a cordon, patrolling and sweeping by visual means only. They will not allow a single heretic to slip past their guard, and should we flush out a nest of foes, they will ensure none survives. Meanwhile, I would have you accompany me into the ruins. Consider yourself Adrastapol’s representative in this.’

‘I won’t let it be said that our world was saved by strangers while we stood by and did nothing,’ said Jennika.

Sire Eduard voxed her on an encoded channel. ‘Lady Jennika, is this wise?’

‘The Code demands it,’ she replied. ‘But more than that, I do not trust Massata. There’s more here than we see, Eduard, I’m sure of it.’

‘What will you do, alone, if they prove false?’ asked Eduard.

‘Whatever I must,’ she said. ‘The High King already faces one enemy. I won’t let another strike at his back.’

‘We’ll come with you,’ said Sire Eduard. ‘And in full panoply.’

‘You will not,’ said Jennika. ‘So far, we’ve been lucky. There’s nothing out here to draw the orks except us. But luck doesn’t last forever, and I don’t want to be trapped in the ruins of Chimaerkeep by a greenskin horde. Besides, the inquisitor is right, our steeds would alert whatever lurks within these ruins, if they haven’t already.’

‘Lady, I truly–’ began Eduard, but he was cut off by Inquisitor Massata speaking over the open channel.

‘Lady Jennika, have you addressed whatever well-intentioned concerns your Knights are raising about this plan? Time is precious.’

‘I have set out their planned patrol routes and vox codes,’ she replied frostily, knowing that her lancemates were more than capable of deciding such details for themselves. ‘But at your instance, by all means let us proceed. I will not leave Fire Defiant in this clearing though, not so near these tainted corpses.’

‘A wise precaution, lady,’ replied Massata.

Jennika checked her auspex and spotted a ruined folly, several hundred yards through the trees. Skirting the thicket, she picked her way through to the ruin, her steed’s footfalls shaking dust from its crumbling stones. Deftly, Jennika backed Fire Defiant into the hollowed-out tower, then began the dismounting rituals. Carefully, she invoked the ritual of watchfulness, which would send a fatal pulse of electrical charge through her Knight’s hull should any but she attempt to mount it.

Be careful of this man, came the voices from her throne. The Inquisition are as dreadful as they are powerful.

Nonsense, they are shining paragons who speak with the Emperor’s voice.

Oh, but that is only their mask. I have seen such things – worlds burning, loyal servants slain in their millions. When a man sees lies all around him, he becomes twisted by them.

‘Calm yourselves,’ muttered Jennika. ‘I don’t know whether Massata is who, or what, he says he is, but I must hope so. I go into this with my eyes open and blade close. One way or the other, I will defend Adrastapol.’

When Jennika became First Knight, Sacristan Polluxis and his acolytes had fashioned a unique bodyglove for her in honour of the appointment. It was more heavily armoured than most, though still sleek enough to fit within her throne’s webbing, and its squared-off plates were painted with the heraldry of her house. Onto its mag-belt she now affixed a heavy autopistol, several spare clips of ammunition and a long combat knife. Into its inbuilt back sheath she slid her draconblade, after muttering the appropriate prayers over its hilt. Finally, as she slid off her haptic gauntlets and affixed her vox headset over one ear, Jennika checked the ornate claw-ring that she wore upon her left index finger. It had once belonged to her mother, and concealed a digi-laser that could slice through steel.

Satisfied, Jennika sent Fire Defiant’s machine-spirit into dormancy and shrouded its systems, lowering reactor output to minimum. Then she uncoupled her neural jacks and clambered up the ladder, leaving her shadowy cockpit behind.

Jennika found Massata and his entourage waiting nearby. They had driven their hauler into the cover of a tangled thicket, and now stood armed for battle.

The group set off through the tangled undergrowth, Massata and his bronze-armoured lieutenant leading the way, the rest trailing behind in combat formation. Insects chirruped and thrummed on all sides, and from overhead came the whooping calls of clarionhawks.

Jennika fell in near the group’s rear. She would watch her new companions for a time, she thought, try to get their measure.

They picked their way through tangled thickets, sticking to the densest areas of cover. In places, they waded through hip-deep mud and water, and Jennika drew her knife to pry rust-leeches off her armour. They made their way gradually closer to the ruined structures that loomed amidst the trees, and as they did so, the silence around them became ever more watchful and oppressive.

‘This place dislikes us,’ murmured the Kasrkin, falling into place alongside Jennika. Her rebreather helm hung from her backpack, revealing a hard, scarred face, short-cropped black hair and steel grey eyes. She cradled her hellgun close to her chest.

‘It is a dark place,’ replied Jennika. ‘Those who dwelt here made it so.’

‘Your people,’ said the Kasrkin.

‘Not my people,’ replied Jennika with a scowl. ‘The Noble Houses of Adrastapol walk their own paths. Chimaeros strayed, and took Wyvorn with them.’

‘Your world,’ replied the Kasrkin. ‘Your people.’

They walked on in silence, sweeping the underbrush as they advanced. The fire-blacked ruins of the Chimaerkeep drew closer.

‘Sergeant Kaston,’ said the Kasrkin suddenly. ‘Cadian eighty-fifth. Made the mistake of saving Massata’s life at Haelen.’

‘I didn’t ask,’ said Jennika.

Kaston grunted.

‘I’m not trying to make friends, your majesty. If we get ambushed, you’ll be more use if you know our names. The man in the bronzed carapace, with a face like an ogryn’s punch bag? Interrogator Nesh. The cult assassins are Shanema and Shemara. Don’t try to talk to them, no one does but Massata. The auto-savant, quills for hands? Lintiguis Mortens. The other one in the robe and staff is our astropath, Venquist. Don’t talk to him, either.’

‘What about the…?’ Jennika gestured to the ape-xenos knuckling along through the muck. She eyed its garish orange fur, its twinkling eyes and long, dextrous-looking digits.

‘D’bu’ko,’ said Kaston. ‘He’s a jokaero.’

‘Why does the inquisitor keep a xenos?’ asked Jennika. ‘Is it a pet?’

‘D’bu’ko’s species are uniquely gifted technologists, and highly intelligent,’ answered Lintiguis Mortens, dropping back to join them. ‘Lady Jennika, that ring that you wear upon your finger? D’bu’ko could construct a weapon thrice as deadly in a trice, using the meanest pile of scrap.’

‘That’s tech-heresy,’ said Jennika, horrified.

‘That’s jokaero. He’s useful,’ said Kaston, her eyes hard. ‘The Inquisition does what it must. The Emperor expects no less.’

Jennika shook her head. ‘Whatever it is,’ she said, ‘don’t let it anywhere near the Sacristans. They would burn it.’

‘It is a comrade,’ said Kaston. ‘He’s saved more Imperial worlds than you ever will sat up in your high throne, majesty.’

The Kasrkin dropped back, taking rearguard and leaving Jennika to trudge alongside Lintiguis Mortens. The man’s robes were drenched with mud and sweat, and his bulbous cranial augmetics clicked and chattered like clockwork.

‘The Inquisition,’ said Mortens. ‘It is not a typical Imperial organisation. Understand, lady, we are required to face terrible truths and wield strange weapons in order to do our duty. The ends justify the means.’

‘I’m sure that Gerraint Tan Chimaeros thought so, when he allied himself with traitors to reclaim a crown he believed to be rightfully his,’ replied Jennika.

‘No doubt,’ said Mortens, unperturbed. ‘The difference is that he was being led astray by a Chaos witch. Our prerogative comes from the Emperor Himself, and thus we are righteous no matter what we do.’

Jennika glanced sidelong at the elderly savant, an eyebrow raised in surprise at his knowledge of Gerraint’s heresies.

‘You almost sound as though you don’t believe that,’ she said.

‘I believe that the more power one is afforded, the more cautious in passing judgement one must be,’ he replied. ‘We must be vigilant that one’s capacity to act does not overtake one’s ability to think, and measure, and observe. It is better if we recognise that we are righteous specifically because we understand how easily our power could corrupt us, or our fallible human senses fail us. Once we have defined ourselves in such a way, it becomes then our duty to watch for that same proclivity, or lack thereof, in those around us.’

‘You and my brother would get on famously,’ she said. Her faint smile vanished as her instincts prickled, and she hefted her autopistol.

‘This place sets you on edge,’ said Mortens. ‘It is evident in the other warriors of this group, also.’

‘I feel… watched,’ replied Jennika. ‘Don’t you sense that?’

Interrogator Nesh gestured for silence, indicating they should advance cautiously and stay alert. They crept through the thorny undergrowth. The only sounds were the muddy squelch of their footfalls and the thrum of powered armour and weapons.

The sense of watchfulness had become oppressive. The faint breeze that had accompanied them to the ruins grew still, and Jennika felt a weight settle in her chest, stealing her breath. Not a single avian or insect disturbed the sepulchral silence.

Jennika advanced with her autopistol raised, hand near her blade. Mortens stayed close by her side. Kaston had closed up behind them, using one arm to cradle her bulky gun while sweeping the area with a handheld auspex. Ahead, the others had also closed formation.

The undergrowth began to thin out, admitting watery daylight but leaving Jennika feeling exposed. Mud gave way to shattered ferrocrete paving, cratered by years-gone artillery fire and studded with jutting lengths of rebar.

‘We are approaching the outer ruins,’ voxed Interrogator Nesh. ‘Vigilance protocols.’ Sergeant Kaston broke into a jog, sweeping out around the right flank and leaving Jennika and Mortens at the rear.

The remains of the Chimaerkeep loomed above them. They walked in silence through its sundered corpse. What had once been towering ferrocrete bastions were hollow shells, slumped under bombardment and blackened with cleansing fire. Courtyards were rubble-filled, dotted with weeds and crooked trees. In places, they walked through the flayed remains of corridors and walkways, often slanted at crazed angles and scattered with the remains of smashed statues and burned banners.

‘Did your people do this?’ asked Mortens as they picked their way through a ruptured tunnel between two ruins. Its walls were scorched, and daubed with aquilas and prayers.

‘We did,’ said Jennika. ‘We first purified House Chimaeros, and then House Wyvorn. I remember the fires as we shelled this place. The bombardment lasted for ten days, and then the militia moved in. They were led by Ministorum Preachers. They were… thorough.’

‘Well, your people’s vehemence cannot be faulted, at least,’ said Mortens. ‘This purge was driven by more than mere piety, I think. There is real hatred in this destruction.’

‘They betrayed us,’ said Jennika. ‘They betrayed the Emperor. You never hate any foe the way you hate a friend that’s betrayed you.’

‘Just so,’ murmured Mortens. ‘And what of the people themselves? The servants, the militia? Those Knights who did not fight on Donatos?’

‘They were tainted by association,’ said Jennika sadly. ‘They fought us. Their bodies lie in grave pits ahead. They…’

Jennika trailed off as they emerged into daylight, and a grim sight was revealed. Around them towered the shattered remains of the central keep, which had been a spectacular structure before its ruin. Teetering segments of its outer walls still stood, but they were little more than a gutted shell. Rubble rose in jumbled mountains, glittering with shattered fragments of stained glass and dotted with the wreckage of thrones, tables, statuary, machinery, furniture and anything else that the hungry flames had not consumed.

At the heart of the ruin was a wide open space. Cairns of fallen stone had been piled over the grave pits of Chimaeros’ people, each one topped with a black aquila and layered with prayer papers.

In their midst, a massive slab of marble had been laid down to seal the entrance to the keep’s old catacombs. It was a symbolic gesture as much as anything, intended to wall in even the interred ancestors of House Chimaeros that they might be shunned and forgotten.

Now, the slab was cracked down its middle, a ragged hole torn through it that led down into darkness. Chunks of marble lay scattered around, the distance they had flown attesting to the violence with which the slab had been broken.

‘Smashed,’ said Massata, deep voice echoing. ‘From below. From within.’

‘There’s trans-empyric residue here,’ said Nesh, gesturing to more outcroppings of the crystalline substance.

‘Disturbance around the corpse-pits,’ voxed Sergeant Kaston, sweeping her auspex across the area. ‘Something’s dug into them.’

Jennika saw that Kaston was right. At least two of the grave pits had been defiled. Holes were burrowed deep into their flanks as though enormous maggots had penetrated the earth. Down in the gloom she saw a hint of bone and the leathery texture of mummified flesh.

‘Wulfdenkyne haunt this region,’ she said. ‘Perhaps they could have dug into the pits to scavenge?’

‘Feral canids, shifting rubble to reach old corpses?’ asked Kaston. ‘Unlikely.’

‘It seems as though your world’s secrets do not care to stay buried,’ said Massata.

‘Whatever has done this,’ said Jennika. ‘I swear by the Emperor’s Golden Throne that I will see it ended, and Adrastapol purified.’

Massata nodded.

‘Five minutes, then,’ he said. ‘Check equipment, ration and hydration intake, say any prayers you need to. Then we go into the darkness, to discover what manner of hell is brewing beneath this place. And to destroy it.’

Danial stood in the grand strategium, an island of calm in the midst of frantic bustle. His Exalted Court were gathered at his back alongside High Sacristan Polluxis, while countless adepts, serviles and scribes hurried to and fro.

The High King was clad in his armoured bodyglove and flak tabard, and Oathkeeper was sheathed at his hip. Danial’s arms were folded across his chest. His piercing green eyes remained fixed upon the chamber’s primary holoscreens. Each showed a region of Adrastapol – the runic designators detailing friendly and enemy troop strengths, strategic locations that required defence, routes of attack and retreat, and a hundred other minor details.

‘How up to date are these displays?’ he asked. Markos checked a data-slate.

‘They vary,’ he said. ‘Central Valatane regions are almost in real-time. We have Polluxis’ heavenly host to thank for that. Further out, we’re relying on what satellite-augurs we have left. We’re looking at high-altitude auspex sweeps, voxed reports, but many are hours old.’

‘Throne,’ breathed Danial. ‘Look at them all.’

From the Minotane wilds to Pegasson’s mountain valleys, and great swathes of the Valatane, green runes swarmed.

‘They overran the stockade at Fort Charon a day ago,’ said Sire Percivane. ‘They’ve broken into Mount Imperius twice in the last twelve hours, but each time they’ve been thrown back. Fort Redfang is besieged. High Kelt is burning. The agriplexes along the Lancepoint are all seething with xenos.’

‘Sire Gallaghor got his people clear of Charon before the end, I see,’ said Danial. ‘That’s positive.’

‘Dracon bless that bald bastard. He always was too stubborn to lose a fight,’ said Markos.

‘There are more reports of heretical technology filtering in, also,’ said Percivane. ‘Electrified net launchers, cannons that disorient or temporarily exorcise machine-spirits, magnetic beams that pin war engines in place to be torn apart…’

‘The old precept’s tale that orks are stupid never seems to ring true,’ said Markos. ‘It’s no mystery how these xenos filth stole so many Imperial tanks, is it?’

‘Circulate another warning for all Knights to watch for unusual ork weapons,’ said Danial. ‘Throne preserve us from seeing them do that to a steed. What word from Houses Pegasson and Minotos?’

‘The master of vox reported last contact with House Pegasson two hours and sixteen minutes ago,’ said Suset, checking a sheaf of parchment proffered by a robed servile. ‘The passes, Kaurel through Iassos, remain secure. They’ve collapsed pass Nauthwyn with explosives to halt a greenskin breakthrough. Though they lost three Knights, the Marchioness believes they slew over one thousand orks in the avalanche. Passes Khabyn, Jessitha and T’ayel are contested… They’re considering further detonations.’

‘And Minotos?’

‘Last in contact thirty-eight hours ago,’ said Suset. ‘Their message was delivered by a vox adept, and stated they are holding the enemy at bay.’

Sire Garath snorted.

‘Well, isn’t that noble of them,’ he said archly.

‘The briefer the message, the more their pride is hiding,’ said Danial. ‘Kurt’s people must be badly unseated, for us to receive so little word. Otherwise he’d be only too pleased to tell us all the victories he’s won alone.’

‘If only we had steeds to spare that might march to their aid,’ said Sire Percivane. He gestured at several screens. ‘But by the look of that, the Emperor is preparing to test our mettle, also.’

‘That is why I summoned you all,’ said Suset, gesturing with a control wand. Several feeds slid from secondary imagers to the primary holoscreen, forming a composite tapestry of the Draconspire, Northrise Battery, the Lanceway and the Valatane heartlands.

‘Two warbands,’ said Danial. ‘One from the north. One from the east.’

‘You might as well call a Knight a servitor, my liege,’ said Garath. ‘Those aren’t warbands. They’re hordes.’

Danial drank in the data, his crown supplying supplementary information streams that overlaid his vision.

‘Conservative estimates put the eastern horde at twenty to thirty thousand greenskins,’ he said. ‘The one coming from the north is five, maybe six times that size, but a good six hours further away. We’ll be meeting our eastern visitors in under an hour. They have aircraft, armoured fighting vehicles, infantry, heavy and super-heavy walkers.’

‘Our scribes-strategic believe that the horde coming from the east is led by a lesser ork war leader,’ said Percivane. ‘Aircraft sorties have struggled to get close, but they’ve identified the black-and-white colouration of the Goff Clan, and banners pertaining to a war chief named Drogg. The northern horde is more easily assessed. Predominately the colours of the Death Skull Clan. We’re seeing some truly massive war engines, and the Sacristans are at a loss to categorise their armaments. And, sire, they’re flying the banners of their master. It appears that Warlord Gorgrok himself has deemed us a worthy challenge.’

‘Drogg will move in first,’ said Danial. ‘What is he trying to do? Encircle us? Pin us in place, cut us off before his master arrives?’

‘Maybe not,’ said Markos. ‘In the last war, it was the Goffs that fought first, and fought hardest. Big beasts, all scars, tusks and hate. And headstrong, too, bucking to be in charge all the while.’

‘So this is a leadership challenge,’ said Danial.

‘Could be, sire,’ said Markos. ‘Orks respect strength. If Drogg reaches us first, and pulls down the Draconspire before Gorgrok arrives, he’d able to challenge for leadership of the whole horde.’

‘I’ll die before I let the ’spire be taken as some warlord’s trophy,’ said Suset fiercely.

‘No doubt the xenos’ optimal resolution would involve all of our deaths, your own included,’ said Polluxis, earning himself a glare that he blithely ignored. ‘Fortunately, the greenskin forces from the east stand a statistically vanishing chance of achieving such a goal by themselves.’

‘They dash themselves against our defences,’ said Danial thoughtfully. ‘We kill perhaps a third of them from the walls, maybe as much as half, before they pull back and wait for Gorgrok.’

‘If we mount up and add our fire through the cannon-slits, it’ll be half the horde for sure,’ said Garath. ‘We can tear them in two.’

‘Even if we do fell half the horde, that still leaves over fifteen thousand greenskins to reinforce Gorgrok when he arrives,’ said Danial. ‘Besides which the survivors will have tested our defences. They’ll be able to advise their master on attack patterns and our weak spots…’

‘What are you thinking, my liege?’ asked Suset.

‘If we launch a counter-attack as they reach the walls, while they’re still disordered, we could tear the heart from this first horde by killing Warboss Drogg, and put his green curs to flight,’ mused Danial. ‘Let Gorgrok’s orks see the aftermath of the slaughter. Let it slow their advance, give them pause.’

Lady Suset nodded. ‘It is more chivalric than just hiding behind the walls. I’ll oath my blade to that.’

‘It’s a risk,’ said Percivane. ‘We’ll suffer more losses.’

‘Also, there’s the danger that the orks mire us in battle out there,’ said Markos. ‘It’s a five hour operational window at most, but the first waves of Gorgrok’s horde could be here much sooner if they scent a fight.’

‘Polluxis,’ said Danial. ‘What are our chances of defeating both ork hordes without leaving the safety of the walls?’

Polluxis was silent for a several moments, his eye lenses dimming slightly as he cogitated the question.

‘Chances of meaningful victory stand at thirty-nine percent against such numbers,’ he said. ‘Chances of any Draconspire defenders surviving for more than a month of besiegement stand at forty-eight percent.’

‘And if we break Drogg’s horde before Gorgrok arrives?’ asked Danial, ignoring the grim looks exchanged by his comrades.

Again, Polluxis paused.

‘Gorgrok is likely to be delayed as his forces overrun Northrise orbital battery,’ he said. ‘Addendum, I would advise its immediate evacuation. With that delay factored in, forty-eight and sixty-one percent, respectively. Not accounting for further greenskins that may be drawn into the siege at a later date.’

‘Noted, Polluxis. I have already ordered the evacuation,’ said Danial. ‘Meanwhile, have we received any word from long-range vox? From my sister, or any relief forces on their way? Anything from Mount Imperius’ astropaths or deep-void auspex?’

‘Nothing,’ said Suset.

‘Then for the time being we must assume that we are alone, and fight this battle ourselves,’ said Danial. ‘Those are poor odds to gamble the future of House Draconis upon, but they are better than the alternative. Everything we achieve now gives us more chance to tilt the fight further in our favour.’

‘Jennika would do it in a heartbeat,’ said Markos. ‘Who am I to risk any less for victory?’

‘My blade to it,’ said Garath. ‘I’m sick of waiting for them to come to us, anyway.’

‘Very well,’ said Percivane. ‘Let us do the Emperor’s work, High King Danial.’

‘Then sound the clarion and let every Knight of House Draconis mount their steed,’ ordered Danial.

Suset twisted the control wand, opening a ’spire wide vox-channel.

‘This is the Gatekeeper,’ she said, sending her booming voice through corridors and chambers. ‘Greenskin attack is imminent. Full siege protocols are now in effect. Militia Captains Rance, Kauff, Lesinger and P’larmin have martial authority over their fief-zones as of this moment. Let the clarion sound, and the Emperor guide our blades.’

As her announcement ended, a droning note rose from gargoyle-mouthed vox-speakers throughout the Draconspire. From the lowest undercrypts and the highest towers, to the armouriums and the Chamber of Ghosts, the sound rose higher until it became a clarion call.

Danial met Suset’s eyes and saw the eagerness for battle dancing within them.

‘To war,’ she said fiercely.

‘To war,’ he said.

The Firemaw Gate swung open, huge cogs and gears churning in its frame, hauling apart the towering slabs of ornamented plasteel and adamantium. Oath of Flame stood waiting for them to part. Arrayed behind Danial’s steed across the marshalling square were thirty-five Knights of House Draconis, a gathering of ironclad giants. From the fortified buildings surrounding the square, House militia looked on proudly, cheering and waving banners.

Checking his vid-feeds, Danial saw the scene being repeated at each of the other eastern gates in the outer wall. The entire strength of House Draconis was massing for the salient. One by one, his Exalted Court voxed confirmation that their war parties were prepared. Behind the Firemaw, Ironclaw, Drakeswing, Blackenfang and Draconseye gates, Knights massed.

‘In the Emperor’s name, and those of our ancestors, we march out,’ said Danial, gripping his grandfather’s amulet. ‘Destroy them.’

‘In Excelsium Furore!’ shouted Markos.

‘Wield the fires within!’ bellowed the Knights in reply. With a rumble of generators and howl of servomotors, the Knights began to move.

Danial stalked Oath of Flame through the gate, passing through a long, echoing tunnel and seeing faces staring down through murderholes from the battlements above. Then he was out on the Valatane, and the noise of the approaching horde hit him like a physical blow. Screaming engines and rumbling tracks mingled with the animalistic battle cries of thousands of xenos. Plumes of smoke and dust wreathed the horde as it approached, reducing the orks to a huge dark blur racing swiftly closer.

‘No missing them, is there?’ he asked over the Exalted Court’s command channel.

‘Indeed not, my liege,’ said Suset. ‘Sending fire commands to wall gunners now.’

Behind and above Danial rose the Draconspire’s outer wall. Two hundred feet of sheer ferrocrete and durasteel was studded with gun emplacements and topped with battlements bristling with guns. Higher still climbed the inner walls and the ’spire itself, its defences boasting ever larger weapon emplacements.

These now spoke, hurling a mighty volley into the onrushing horde. Out on the plains, explosions bloomed amidst the orks. From the walls, Danial heard the cheering of the militia, and he found himself cheering with them.

‘For days, we’ve been stuck behind those walls waiting for something to happen,’ said Markos. ‘It’s about time we get to drive our blades into these xenos scum.’

‘Then let’s do just that,’ said Danial, drinking in auspex data as his steed’s instruments scanned the advancing mass. ‘They’re coming on in two waves, fast mechanised elements to the fore, slower foot and walkers behind. They’ve already strung out, and the Draconspire guns are dispersing them further. Garath, Percivane, flank out around the first wave and commence harassing fire into the second. See if you can delay them and pull their formation apart. Suset, Markos and I will hit the first wave with a three-pronged assault to obliterate it. Then we will all converge on the remaining foe.’

‘Acknowledged, sire,’ said Markos. ‘All Knights watch for their aircraft. They may look like they’re about to fall out of the sky, but they’re fast, and they’ve got a lot of guns.’

‘Also, be advised I’m reading a huge presence in the middle of that second wave,’ said Suset. ‘Titan-class. It should be visible soon. Beware its firepower.’

‘Your auspex is keen as always, my lady,’ said Danial. ‘Knights, advance.’

On his strategic overlay, Danial saw the runic designators for the Draconis forces move out according to his plan. Feeding power to his steed, he felt the exhilaration of marching headlong into danger as the mass of green enemy runes closed in. His ghosts whispered approval and words of caution. Behind him, the Knights of his salient pounded along at a swift march, spreading out as they cleared the gate and widening their fields of fire.

‘All right,’ he said, concentrating on the whirling dust-clouds ahead. ‘Where are you, Drogg?’

Hundreds of racing mechanical shapes resolved within the murk. On the ground, bikes, buggies, ramshackle trucks and speeding scrap-tanks zoomed closer. Orks were packed into their holds and hung from their superstructures in howling mobs. Overhead, lumpen planes left black smoke-trails behind them as they streaked closer.

‘Icarus cannons,’ voxed Danial. ‘Fending pattern. Now.’

Confirmation runes flashed back, and two dozen Icarus arrays hammered fire into the skies. The Knights wove an interlocking web of firepower for the enemy to fly into. Several of the black-and-white ork planes exploded, while more spun away with wings and tails missing. The rest shot overhead, their cannons chattering while bombs slammed into Knightly shields and armour. On his manifold, Danial saw Sire Mathias’ rune go suddenly dark, while several other steeds showed damage indictors.

‘Shield discipline,’ he said. ‘Watch for them coming back around. The enemy ground forces are entering range. They’ll be upon us faster than they look. Gallants move up to counter.’

Danial’s Knights opened fire, and the din of battle intensified as shells and energy blasts tore into the onrushing orks. Bikes and buggies tumbled through the air, skidding to a halt as burning wrecks. Trucks exploded or caught fire, swerving wildly. Ork passengers burned. Danial fired his thermal cannon, turning a swarm of light vehicles into glowing slag, and shearing the cab from a battle wagon. The stricken tank flipped over and crashed down on its roof, explosions shaking it.

‘The enemy’s casualties are massive,’ voxed Suset.

‘There’s similar damage here,’ said Markos. ‘But be wary, they’ve got numbers on their side, and heavier armour further back.’

The ork vehicles returned fire. What they lacked in aim, they made up for in sheer volume of shots. Danial’s shield flashed blue with dozens of impacts as the greenskins hove into range. Bullets and blasts peppered his defences like storm rain.

To his left, Lady Lorette’s Knight Warden staggered under multiple las-impacts, its right arm shearing away at the joint. Shells looped overhead and battered Sire Godwayne’s steed. The Knight’s exhausts caught fire, and its rune went dark on Danial’s manifold as Godwayne was forced to purge power.

Something flashed amidst the murk of the ork rear lines. A huge projectile hit the ground yards to Oath of Flame’s right and cannoned on through the Knightly ranks. The bouncing cannonball tore through one Knight at waist height and swept the legs from under another, before finally slamming into a third steed and smashing it onto its back. Danial stared in horror, his auspex analysing the projectile now embedded in the crumpled armour of Sire Yusef’s slain Knight.

‘The projectile is almost entirely ferrous,’ he said. ‘It’s little more than a huge iron ball.’

‘Liege,’ voxed Sire Horadio. ‘What in the Dracon’s name was that? It collapsed the steed’s shield like it wasn’t there!’

‘That was fired from a Titan’s cannon,’ said Danial, pushing aside his shock. ‘All Knights be vigilant for another shot coming in. Your shields won’t stop it. Concentrate on evasion.’

‘Three steeds in one shot,’ said Markos over a private channel.

‘Lady Suset, tell the ’spire to scan for that Titan,’ said Danial. ‘As soon as they have a location, I want it.’

‘Already done,’ said Suset, the sound of gunfire carrying behind her voice. ‘They’re awakening the spirits of the upper spire’s macrocannon batteries, the seneschal believes they can get an angle of fire.’

‘If they can hit it, they have leave to fire,’ said Danial.

The ork vehicles closed the gap, despite their horrific casualties. They swept around the Knights’ legs with their guns blazing. Danial blasted a tank before it could ram his steed’s shins, then stepped aside and brought his ironclad foot down on a lighter truck that had slowed to a stop nearby. Its passengers hurled themselves clear as their ride exploded. Danial swept his heavy stubber through them, killing several more.

‘Fire discipline,’ he ordered. ‘Ward your comrades. Gallants, target their largest vehicles. Don’t let them swarm your legs. Kill them in the Emperor’s name!’

Greenskins swirled around the Knights’ feet. Grinning xenos used axes and claws to scale their shin armour, while others fired crude rockets up at them from point-blank range. Knights strafed each other’s steeds, using their stubbers to clear the orks away without risking damage to their comrades. Still some of the greenskins got through. Two more runes went dark on Danial’s manifold as Knights fell with their legs and hips wrecked.

‘Sire, to your left,’ came a shout over the vox, and Danial spotted a band of hulking orks in powered armour lumbering towards him. Their piston-claws snicked open and shut as they charged, and rockets spewed from launchers mounted on their shoulders.

‘Throne,’ he snarled, swinging his shield to bear. One rocket whipped through, exploding against his hull and reducing his stubber to sparking scrap. Heeding the urgings of his throne, Danial fired his thermal cannon and managed to vaporise three of the greenskins. The other two kept coming, armour aflame. He kicked out, Oath of Flame’s foot catching one of the monsters in the midriff and flinging it through the air. The other swung its claw and tore a gash in his steed’s ankle, causing warning runes to light up across his instruments.

‘I have an armoured ork trying to tear my foot off,’ he said, voice tight with concentration. ‘Requesting assistance.’

‘I have you, sire,’ the nearest Knight replied. A stormeagle rocket streaked from her steed’s carapace launcher and slammed into the ork’s back, hurling it onto its face.

‘A fine shot, my lady,’ said Danial appreciatively. He stepped Oath of Flame backwards, gritting his teeth as warning runes stuttered. Sparks drizzled from his steed’s ankle. The foot’s actuators were unresponsive. ‘Looks as though I’ll be limping,’ he said, depressing his thermal cannon and blasting the armoured ork as it tried to heave itself upright.

‘I can order the Sacristans to your location,’ said Suset.

‘No, keep their Crawlers behind the walls,’ said Danial. ‘They will be desperately needed in the days to come. I won’t risk them this early in the siege.’

‘Then be careful, my liege,’ she said. ‘That ankle looks ready to lock up entirely.’

From on high, a thunderous cacophony rang out across the battlefield. Shells streaked through the haze from the Draconspire’s macrocannons. Their detonations blasted smoke and dust aside, revealing a huge shape.

‘Dracon’s blood,’ swore Markos. ‘It’s a Gargant.’

‘Gunnery seneschal reports failed contact,’ said Suset. ‘The artillery hit some form of power field. They think they collapsed at least one. The spiretop crews are reloading now.’

The Gargant was huge, easily three times the height of a Knight and vastly wider and denser. It was a scrap metal mountain that resembled a fat-bellied orkoid, whose arms were guns, and whose head was a laser-eyed bunker. A huge cannon jutted from its gut, smoke drifting from its cavernous barrel.

Around the war effigy advanced more ork walkers, looking like gretchin by comparison. Yet each was as large as the machines that had killed Lady Melessa’s steed. A tide of xenos washed around them, chanting Drogg’s name with fanatical fervour.

‘Flanking forces,’ said Danial. ‘Report.’

‘We’ve drawn a portion of their strength and destroyed it, sire,’ said Percivane. ‘By the Emperor’s grace, we’re in position on their left flank, under scattered assault.’

‘Our situation is poor on the right flank,’ said Garath. ‘They’ve got a leader with a few brain cells extra over here, and have encircled us rather than just coming head-on. We’ve got a number of super-heavy walkers out here, too. Stompa class according to my throne.’

‘Preserve your forces and keep those orks from reinforcing the centre,’ Danial instructed. ‘Percivane, move in on their flank now. Their first wave is in tatters, but if we let that Gargant have free rein, it’s going to butcher us.’

As if to underscore his words, the Gargant’s guns lit up. Missiles corkscrewed from emplacements on its shoulders, battering Markos’ Knights, while laser blasts from its eyes and a storm of fire from its gun decks, engulfed Suset’s formation. Its gut-cannon fired again, and Danial felt fury rise within him.

The ghosts of Danial’s throne whispered, their subliminal clamour insistent.

‘No more delays,’ he voxed. ‘You see the banners on that beast’s shoulders? Drogg is aboard, my ghosts are sure. We kill the Gargant, we kill the Warboss, and we break the horde. All Knights, advance on the Gargant and destroy it.’

Oath of Flame limped through a sea of bellowing monsters. With every stride, it crushed more orks. Danial heard the constant clatter of small arms fire against his hull. He felt his steed’s frustration at its crippled gait, its desire to surge forwards and conquer the monster before it, but he kept his steed tightly reined in.

‘We’ll be of no use if your ankle snaps and we topple,’ he muttered, keeping part of his attention on the strategic overlay, the damage manifold, his ammo and fuel counters, his auspex array and a dozen other subsidiary systems.

‘Markos, the greenskins’ aircraft are coming around,’ he voxed. ‘Their attack vector brings them in directly over you.’

‘Thanks for the warning, my liege,’ said Markos. ‘We’ll give them a warm welcome.’

Flak fire filled the sky as Markos’ Knights expertly swatted the ork planes from the air. More cannon fire and bombs lashed the Draconis steeds in return, then the planes were arcing away, guns still blazing as they swooped over their own ranks.

‘Indiscriminate savages,’ said Danial, shaking his head in disgust.

Thunder rolled as the macrocannons fired again. One shell fell short and exploded amidst the smaller ork walkers, annihilating several. The others struck the Gargant’s shields, causing them to flicker and die one by one. In return, the Gargant hurled explosive ordnance at the Draconspire, raking its void shields but causing no harm.

‘Strike now before they recover,’ urged Markos.

‘Percivane,’ voxed Danial.

‘Yes, sire. Firing now. Emperor guide our aim,’ came the reply. Percivane’s Knights let fly. Rockets and shells tore through the Gargant’s armour. Detonations rippled across its flank, leaving a sparking wreckage and billowing flames in their wake.

In response, the Gargant swung its right arm and pointed a huge, three-pronged energy weapon at its attackers. Danial felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck as power crackled around it. Shouts of alarm filled his vox as Percivane’s steed shuddered, then levitated into the air.

‘Emperor, protect me!’ cried Percivane as Firestorm dangled, glowing energy dancing around it. The Gargant’s gun pulsed, and Percivane’s steed flew backwards and slammed into his Knights.

Four steeds collided and went down. Percivane’s amongst them. Metal twisted and tore as explosions ripped through the huge war engines.

‘Percivane,’ voxed Danial. ‘Percivane!’

‘He’s not responding, sire,’ came the voice of Sire Paolus, Percivane’s second. ‘His steed is aflame. What should we do?’

‘Keep striking the Gargant, and concentrate on eliminating that energy weapon’ said Danial. ‘And let us hope to the Golden Throne that Percivane’s blessed good luck holds. Everyone else, slave your stubbers and meltas to the greenskins. Keep moving, and target all the main guns at the Gargant.’

The smaller ork walkers were firing now as they came into range. Crude gatling cannons spat streams of fire at the Knights. Energy cannons vomited orbs of plasma, or crackling streams of electricity that caused ion shields to spark and collapse. Shrugging off the punishment, the Draconis Knights kept firing.

The Gargant shuddered with detonations. Its guts were torn open in a dozen places, and figures spilled from its fiery innards to tumble to their deaths. The turrets on its shoulders exploded. A lucky round struck the war effigy’s head and blew a gaping hole in its face. Danial saw a hulking greenskin in a horned helm rise from the flames. The ork hoisted himself out of the Gargant’s sundered skull like a tank commander in his cupola.

‘Sire,’ said Markos. ‘Casualties are rising. We need to end this now.’

‘The damn thing won’t die,’ growled Danial. ‘Gallants, engage the lighter walkers. Keep them off us.’

Ahead, the Knights Gallant met the lumbering Gorkanauts and Morkanauts head on. Thunderstrike gauntlets and reaper chainswords sliced through hull plates and stove in mechanical heads. Huge piston claws struck back, raking armour and tearing off Knightly limbs.

‘My liege,’ said Suset. ‘I think I’ve got the answer. I’m reading a massive concentration of heat signatures at the Gargant’s core, behind the breech of its cannon.’

‘Power source?’ he asked, deflecting a volley of rockets.

‘That, plus the ammunition and propellant for that cannon must be kept somewhere,’ she said. ‘Set a spark to that…’

‘And the entire war engine detonates,’ said Danial. He hissed through his teeth as the Gargant’s cannon fired again. This time, it launched a pair of tank-sized weights linked by a length of chain. Spinning like bolas, the shot struck sire Hugan’s steed at thigh-height. The chain caught, tangling the Knight’s legs and toppling it, crushing dozens of orks under its weight.

‘No more,’ said Danial. ‘Flanking Knights, target the Gargant’s head. See if you can’t knock Drogg from his perch. My force, all fire at that cannon. Eviscerate that abomination in the Dracon’s name.’

He fed power to his impellers, risking his steed’s ankle as he closed in for a point-blank shot. Explosions rippled across the Gargant’s belly. Armour plates came loose and spun away. Sparks rained down and flames belched. The Gargant’s cannon barrel deformed under the weight of fire, sections of it tearing away.

‘Drogg doesn’t appear to appreciate our efforts,’ said Suset fiercely.

As shots sparked around him, the Warboss bellowed and gesticulated. With glacial slowness, his Gargant was turning away from the firestorm, trailing flames and wreckage as it went.

‘Hound the scum,’ said Danial. ‘Don’t relent.’

He sidestepped Oath of Flame past a charging walker, scything his chainsword through its neck and sending its metal cranium tumbling to the ground. Ahead, another of the machines was coming at him with its cannon spitting shots. He bullseyed it with his thermal cannon then stormed over its bubbling wreckage.

This close, the war effigy was breathtaking, towering above him wreathed in fire and smoke.

‘In the Emperor’s name, die,’ said Danial, and fired his thermal cannon. The weapon’s blast bored a hole to the right of the Gargant’s cannon. Danial’s optics washed out at the ferocity of the explosion that followed. The effigy’s metal stomach expanded, becoming deformed, before blowing apart. Wreckage and shrapnel whipped through the air. The Gargant lurched, shuddering as more explosions tore through its superstructure.

‘Pull back,’ shouted Danial. ‘All Knights, retreat.’

Ignoring the groaning protests from his steed’s leg, Danial backed away as quickly as he could. More explosions blossomed within the Gargant, coming faster as one detonation touched off the next. He watched as its turrets filled with fire. Crew spilled from escape hatches and fled screaming. Atop the effigy’s shoulders, Drogg was immolated within a column of flames.

‘Brace!’ shouted Danial, locking his impellers and tilting his ion shield. The Gargant convulsed, then lurched drunkenly as flames roared up from within and blew its head clean off like an erupting volcano. Danial’s shield flashed blue as fire washed over it. His steed shuddered around him, jerking with impacts as chunks of wreckage rebounded from its hull. His auspex filled with static and his audio-receptors blanked to save his hearing. The Gargant’s head slammed into the ground barely a dozen yards away as little more than a huge blackened lump of scrap metal. Its body sagged, hollowed out, and slowly began to fold in on itself among the clouds of smoke.

In his mind, Danial heard the ghosts of this throne murmuring their approval.

The greenskins’ spirit was broken. Isolated bands fought on, but the explosive death of the Gargant had wrought havoc amongst their unshielded ranks and for most of the xenos, it seemed the fight was over.

As the xenos fled in disarray across the Valatane, Danial limped Oath of Flame back towards the Draconspire.

‘Victory is ours, Knights of House Draconis!’ he voxed across the open channel. ‘The Emperor will smile upon us this day!’ Cheers came back to him, and the surviving Knights raised their autopennants in salute. Wearily, he switched to the command channel.

‘That was more painful than it should have been,’ he said.

‘Orks, always more tenacious and destructive than they’ve any right to be, sire,’ said Markos. ‘But we crushed them, and casualties were acceptable. Drogg and his warband won’t be joining the siege.’

‘True enough,’ said Danial. ‘Garath, how is your force looking?’

‘Hale and hearty, sire,’ replied Garath. ‘They gave us what they had to offer, but it was a pauper’s sum.’

‘Then to you, I give the honour of the final hunt,’ said Danial. ‘Pursue what’s left of Drogg’s orks and slaughter them. I’m releasing our aircraft to support you.’

‘Thank you, sire,’ said Garath. ‘We’ll punish these xenos filth.’

‘See that you do,’ said Danial. ‘No further than the fourteenth quadrant though, Garath. Gorgrok is still coming, and I’ll not see you trapped outside the walls when he gets here. We’ve lost enough today.’

Garath sent a rune of assent, his Knights already loping away over the burning plains.

‘Suset,’ said Danial. ‘Signal the Sacristans. Salvage and medicae operations are authorised. Save repairs for inside the walls. They have two hours, then I want them back inside.’

‘Of course, my liege,’ said Suset.

‘Bid them make Percivane a priority, will you, my lady?’ asked Danial.

‘I will,’ said Suset. ‘Sire…’

‘He’s alive or he isn’t,’ said Danial. ‘The Emperor has smiled on him before. If he is, good, we’ll need him in the days to come. If not, we’ll avenge him.’

‘Of course,’ said Suset. ‘We did the right thing here. I know we lost Knights, but we could have lost a lot more if we’d allowed them to join their strength to Gorgrok’s, or permitted that Gargant to reach the outer wall.’

‘I hope you’re right,’ said Danial.

‘I am,’ she said firmly. ‘And you were, to order this attack. Stop wondering if your father would have done the same, and get on with ruling.’

Danial gave a mirthless laugh.

‘At once, O Consort,’ he said. ‘Your wisdom is appreciated as always.’

‘As it should be,’ she said. ‘The orks are coming. We need to be strong, and ready.’

‘We are,’ said Danial, and was pleased to find that he believed it.

Act Two

Luk watched as Adrastapol’s orbital envelope swarmed with ork craft. They surrounded the blue-and-green orb like shoals of piranha, raining fire onto the planet and, in some cases, one another. Smaller craft flew erratically around lumbering leviathans, leaving trails of oil and debris in their wake.

Wreckage drifted, flickering cherry-red as it burned up in Adrastapol’s atmosphere and fell upon the tortured planet below. Further out, beyond the range of the orks’ crude sensors, hung a single Imperial cruiser. Its Imperial navy heraldry had long been erased, replaced with grim, ashen panoply. Its name was Unbroken.

Aboard, Luk stared in horrified fascination at the spectacle of his home world, projected directly onto his retinas in excruciating detail. He forced himself to take it in. Strapped into the webbing of his throne mechanicum, he felt Sword of Heroes rumble with disquiet.

‘We’re not too late,’ he said, unsure whether he was reassuring himself or his steed. ‘They’re still fighting.’

Luk watched an ork cruiser come apart in a blossom of flame, underbelly pierced by laser beams from the planet below. His comrades, strapped into their own Knights that stood around his in mag-restraint rigs, watched the same feed.

‘Your world is dying,’ voxed Ranulf Vo-Geiss. ‘Soon you will join your comrades in being homeless as well as honourless. Perhaps then you’ll stop lording over us, no?’

‘Mind your tongue, Vo-Geiss,’ said Lady Ekhaterina. ‘Though he does have a point, Luk. The greenskins aren’t holding back.’

Luk could see the truth of it. Several mushroom clouds rose like cancerous trees from the planet’s primary land-mass, their palls spreading slowly. Raging firestorms had claimed other areas, while the atmosphere was lousy with impact debris and frenetic storm fronts.

‘They need our aid,’ said Luk. ‘The seer’s warning was true. The hand of the Emperor is upon us, and we shall not disappoint him.’

‘You are deceived,’ said Maia. ‘We waste time here. Our quarry is elsewhere.’

‘Wouldn’t you have done everything in your power to save your home world from the Tyranids, when they attacked?’ asked Luk.

‘I did,’ she replied.

‘Then surely you can understand why I must help my people now,’ he said.

‘No. I was oathed to fight,’ she said. ‘You are oathed to hunt, yet you are not hunting.’

‘We have had this conversation,’ said J’madus Hw’ss. ‘Several iterations of it, in fact. Our true quarry is unassailable with our current strength. Our chances of success would be vanishingly small. We need the aid of Luk’s former comrades if we are to prevail against the sorceress.’

‘We need aid,’ said Maia. ‘We do not need their aid. What do these Knights have, that other Imperial allies would not?’

‘Hatred,’ said Luk. ‘They hate Alicia with a passion second only to mine. Others might falter, or bend to her will. They won’t.’

‘Then we had better get planetside and pull their noble rears out of the fire before there’s no one left to help us,’ said Ekhaterina. ‘Talking about it won’t achieve anything.’

‘None of this will achieve anything,’ said Vo-Geiss. ‘Except getting us all killed for the sake of Luk’s erstwhile friends.’

‘Vo-Geiss, if you continue to push me, I will drag you into the sparring circle and bloody my knuckles on your face again,’ said Luk angrily. ‘Now, are you part of this company or not? If the answer is no, you can stay on the damn ship.’

‘I am an Exile,’ said Vo-Geiss. ‘Let that be enough.’

‘It’s enough for now,’ said Luk, before switching vox channels. ‘Captain Shas, are we prepared?’

The Captain’s voice came back, Valhallan accent thick over the vox. Luk could practically smell the vlod on his breath.

‘Ya, we’re ready for the drop. The Sacristans are enjoying a last chant. Their ironlegs are strapped down, kitted out good. Your mercenaries are bundled up nice and tight in their dropships.’

‘What of our approach?’ asked Luk. ‘Do we have a clear run?’

Shas laughed, the sound reminiscent of something ursine being violently ill.

‘Like an inspection cruise,’ he chortled. ‘Nice smooth ride, you won’t even notice the orks.’

‘Shas,’ said Luk warningly.

‘Ms Telok has a vector, and if she cogitated it, you won’t get better,’ said Shas. ‘I don’t know if it’s unclear on your screens, but your home world is deshysva, covered in xenos. I’ll drop you where I can, Luk. Beyond that, it is in the hands of the Emperor.’ Shas made a guttural noise that Luk knew was accompanied by a heavy shrug.

‘Just get us down in one piece, captain,’ said Luk. ‘And yourselves out alive afterwards.’

‘There’s not a xenos alive could knock Unbroken out of the sky,’ Shas replied fiercely. ‘We don’t worry about them, they worry about us.’

‘Good enough, captain,’ said Luk. ‘You have the order. Commence your attack run.’

‘We’ll hit them like the wrath of an avalanche. The xenos filth won’t stand a chance. All hands, battle stations! And Luk?’

‘Yes, captain?’

‘Let the mercenaries know I packed them a little present on their dropships, eh? They check the storage compartments, they’ll find some extra deck mops.’

‘Deck…?’ began Luk.

‘For when they piss themselves in terror on the way down!’

Luk shook his head despairingly, cutting the vox link and the sound of Shas’ laughter.

‘That man is a lunatic. He’s going to get us all killed,’ said Ekhaterina.

‘Actually, I think he’s probably one of the few people I’d trust to get us through this alive,’ said Luk. ‘But all the same, a few prayers to the Emperor wouldn’t hurt.’

Captain Shas sat forward in his leather command throne, one hand clamped on its arm. The other, a rugged augmetic, hissed and clicked as he stroked his forked beard. Shas’ good left eye was fixed upon the bridge holoscreen, while data feeds poured across the display of his bionic right one. Over his straining uniform, he wore a fur-trimmed greatcoat whose chest was heavy with medals.

Around Shas, the bridge bustled with activity as crew worked their stations, hurried along iron gantries clutching scrolls, or knelt in prayer to the machine-spirits. Commissar Hauptvier prowled the walkways overhead. Valhallan victory hymnals echoed from the bridge’s vox speakers.

‘All right!’ bellowed Shas, his parade-ground voice carrying across the bridge. ‘You all know what we’re doing. You all know who we’re fighting. And you all know that you’ll serve your Emperor, your ship and your captain, or the good commissar will make a deck-stain out of your skull, ya?’

‘Yes, captain,’ his crew shouted back at him. Shas smiled a huge, hungry smile and took a slug from his hip flask.

‘Then in the Emperor’s name, we begin!’ he cried. ‘Engines, all ahead full! Helm, follow Ms Telok’s trajectory cogitations, you don’t deviate for anything. Guns, unshroud all decks and power up the lance batteries. Shields, get ready for a storm!’

Shas’ crew responded swiftly and smoothly, and he felt a warm satisfaction that had nothing to do with the vlod. On the main screen, he watched the planet swell as the Unbroken lit her drives and leapt towards it like a thrown spear.

Shas’ first officer, Mister Klem, stood with his hands clasped behind his back. Where Shas was a bear of a man, Klem was whip-thin and spare, and gnarled like an old tree root.

‘The orks will notice us soon, captain,’ he said, voice clipped.

‘They will,’ replied Shas. ‘But not soon enough, eh?’

‘That is the hope,’ said Klem. ‘There’s a lot of Kroozers out there, sir, to say nothing of that Dreadnought-class abomination over the northern pole.’

Shas made a dismissive noise and waved one meaty paw.

‘Your capacity to convey contempt while utilising only vowels continues to impress, sir,’ said Klem.

‘Orks are dangerous,’ said Shas. ‘They’re vonskak. Crazy. But they’ve got no discipline. They don’t pay attention to anything unless it’s right in their faces. That’s why we’re coming in from behind. Ms Telok’s trajectory is good. We don’t fire ’til they already know we’re there, then we skim atmos, drop cargo, and use planet’s gravity to slingshot away before the greens know what’s happening. Emperor smiles on us, this will be over in minutes.’

‘That is the hope, sir,’ repeated Mister Klem.

The ship was vibrating now, the steady rumble that indicated it was up to combat speed. Runes flashed across Shas’ instruments, indicating readiness from helm, engines, shields and the gun decks. Down in the ship’s bowels, sweating teams of labourers would be hauling massive shells along loading rails to be driven into the breeches of his ship’s immense guns. Armsmen would be jogging down corridors with their shotguns held ready, deploying to key junctions in case of enemy boarders.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Here we go.’

‘Sir,’ came the voice of Mister Malsyn on auspex. ‘The xenos have spotted us. Several ramships and frigate-class vessels are firing up their manoeuvring thrusters and adopting intercept headings.’

‘Noted, Mister Malsyn,’ said Shas. ‘Ballistics, hold for now. Helm, how’s our course?’

‘My compliments to astrogation,’ came the voice of Mister Frent, Shas’ first helmsman. ‘Course is optimal. Two minutes to atmos contact, angle golden, debris impact minimal.’

‘Shields holding,’ reported one of the bridge Tech-magi. ‘Orbital debris hazards encountered and neutralised thus far, captain. By the Omnissiah’s blessings, I cogitate no major impediments along our trajectory.’

‘Enemy firing,’ called Mister Malsyn. ‘More ships waking up, captain. A couple of Kroozers amongst them.’

‘Brace for impact,’ ordered Shas. ‘Ballistics? Give them the Dasvanov salute!’

Tectonic shudders ran through the deck as crude ordnance struck their shields, and the Unbroken’s guns roared in return. On the holoscreen, he watched lance beams and macrocannon shells reach out to blast smaller greenskin craft to atoms.

‘Compliments, ballistics. Fine work!’

Mister Klem, riding out the ship’s convulsions with his feet planted, nodded to a secondary screen.

‘Torpedo-boat to port, sir.’

‘I see it,’ said Shas, stealing another nip from his flask. ‘Ballistics, they think they’re a torpedo-boat. Show them what that really means. Full spread, intercept vector, but mind the gravity well.’

An assent rune flicked up on his instruments, and moments later a volley of checkered torpedoes sped away on plumes of fire. Shas watched as the slab-jawed ork ship tried to launch a volley of its own in response.

‘You’ve left it too late, vermin,’ he said viciously. Even as the ork torpedoes escaped their tubes on dirty plumes of smoke, his own projectiles ploughed into them, and through into the bays behind. Fire lit the void as impact after impact shivered the ork ship, and a cheer filled the bridge as the Kroozer listed and fell away towards the Adrastapolian atmosphere.

‘A bottle of vlod for that gunner!’ shouted Shas, thumping the arm of his throne.

‘More enemy inbound, captain,’ voxed auspex. ‘They’re really waking up now, sir. Things are about to get difficult.’

‘Atmospheric skim commencing in ten, nine, eight…’ As Helm counted down, Shas gripped the arms of his throne.

‘Permission to hang on, sir?’ asked Mister Klem. Shas answered with a grunt, and the first officer took a firm grip of the back of his Captain’s throne.

They hit the atmosphere with a savage kick, Klem’s feet leaving the deck for a moment then clanging back down. The shaking intensified.

‘Our shields are taking heavy fire,’ reported Magos Chak’lir. ‘Operational efficiency down to fifty-three percent and dropping.’

‘Fire in compartments seventeen through twenty-one,’ reported Ms Petronov on damage control. ‘Aft lower gun deck magazine detonation, voided to space but blast shields holding. Auspex array nine has taken a hit, reads as inoperable.’

‘Hold your course,’ boomed Shas. ‘Steady, my fine voidfarers, steady! The Emperor is watching, and so is our good friend Hauptvier!’

‘Dissuading them, captain,’ reported Mister Jessab on Ballistics.

‘Drop coordinates in thirty seconds,’ called Mister Frent.

‘Second aft shield collapse,’ warned Magos Chak’lir.

‘Torpedo hit, that section,’ barked Ms Petronov. ‘Damage to third aft gun deck. Damage to aft life support. Damage to starboard saviour pods. Warp core now at risk, captain.’

Shas swore vehemently.

‘Magos, get my bloody shields back in place! Helm, drop the cargo.’

‘Fifteen seconds to–’

‘I can count, Frent!’ roared Captain Shas. ‘Just do it then get us clear of this kuklashka!’

‘Drop commencing,’ said Mister Frent, his voice tight. On his screens, Shas watched as a swarm of craft disengaged from the launch bays of his ship and plunged away on fiery trails. In their midst fell an airborne fortification, a fearsome slab of armour and turrets fitted with grav-chutes, retro thrusters and ceramite heat shields.

Luk’s drop keep, aboard which the Exiles rode to war.

‘Good hunting, Knight of Ashes,’ said Shas, raising his flask in salute. ‘Now get us out of here you gang of ork-fondlers, or I swear on the Throne, I’ll crush your skulls myself!’

Aboard the drop keep, Luk felt the thrill of acceleration rise in his chest, mingling with the adrenaline rush of his nerves. The drop keep shook and shuddered as it thundered down through the atmosphere.

Back to your birth world, exile, muttered a sour voice from his throne. Oath unfulfilled, added another. Honourless, still. How do you think they will receive you?

Luk shook their words from his mind, dislodging memories that were never his.

‘Drop rituals successfully observed,’ he said, checking over his instruments. ‘Sacristan Dolvar, Colonel Gesmund, report.’

‘This is Dolvar, sire,’ came a deep voice laced with bhinaric. ‘Confirming clean drop, Omnissiah be praised. Our pilot servitors report that angle of atmospheric entry is sound.’

‘Gesmund,’ came the Vesserine colonel’s gruff voice. ‘All drop ships away and following re-entry protocols. But that Valhallan drunkard dropped us early. We’re off course by hundreds of miles.’

‘I see that, Colonel,’ said Luk. ‘Considering the weight of fire that the Unbroken was taking, I’d call his decision sound.’

‘Yes, sire,’ said Gesmund, sounding unconvinced.

‘Just ready your people, gentlemen,’ said Luk. ‘Barring mishaps, in just over three minutes, we’ll be landing in potentially hostile territory. We can’t afford mistakes.’

Dolvar and Gesmund chorused their assent, and Luk switched channels.

‘Emperor damn that alcoholic madman,’ he said angrily. ‘He’s dropped us away-and-gone on the wrong side of the Adrapotines. We’re lucky we’re not landing in the bloody ocean.’

‘You weren’t wrong, though,’ said Ekhaterina. ‘He did need to get us clear.’

‘And I will thank him if we ever see him again,’ said Luk.

‘I’ve cogitated our precise landing coordinates,’ said J’madus. ‘Exloading them now.’

Luk studied the data, transposing it to his strategic overlay.

‘That’s House Pegasson territory,’ said Luk. ‘The Diaphane highlands.’

‘There appears to be a structure near to our drop site,’ said Maia.

‘A border fort,’ said Luk. ‘If it’s garrisoned that could prove useful. Even if it’s overrun, there’s a chance its long-range vox will still be operational. We could get access to the current command channels, make contact with the Draconspire.’

‘If we are landing in the territory of House Pegasson, would it not be more efficient to speak to their ruler?’ asked Ranulf.

‘No,’ said Luk. ‘Danial will be coordinating the defence. It’s him I need to talk to.’

Vo-Geiss answered with a non-committal grunt that Luk ignored.

‘I’m reading scattered signatures around the structure,’ said Ekhaterina. ‘We’re too far out to tell origin but the dispersal doesn’t look Imperial. Too anarchic.’

Luk nodded to himself.

‘All ships,’ he voxed. ‘The drop keep is coming in three miles to the north of the fortress structure you see on your strategic overlay. Sacristans, land within our turret cover and deploy ironlegs. Colonel, bring two of your ships in alongside us, and send the other one ahead. Deploy forces and scout the structure.’

‘Understood, sire,’ said Colonel Gesmund. ‘I’ll send Pirkhin’s boys.’

‘Exiles, be prepared for anything once the portcullis goes up,’ said Luk. ‘Let’s not allow our steeds to be hobbled before we’ve even left our armatures’ shadows.’

‘We’re ready, Luk,’ said Ekhaterina. ‘Just make sure that you are.’

The drop keep hit bedrock like a hammer striking an anvil. Autofanfares blared, and the portcullis rattled upwards as layers of heat shielding slid aside before it. The pale daylight of Adrastpolitan morning spilled in, and Luk felt a surge of nostalgia as it washed over his steed.

He willed Sword of Heroes to advance, striding his Knight out of the drop keep and onto the soil of Adrastapol for the first time in long years. For a moment he felt slightly lightheaded, battling the idea that no time had passed at all, and that his entire exile had been nothing but a strange dream. The others followed, marching out like a war party of demi-gods from their stronghold. Their resounding footfalls brought Luk back to reality.

The region they had landed in was a cold, dry tundra. There was little to see in any direction but swaying grassland and rocky outcroppings, that Luk knew sloped away to the ocean if you travelled far enough north. South and east of them the Adrapotine range rose as a hazy line of grey-blue. Closer, columns of black smoke coiled lazily towards the sky.

‘Not much to be seen,’ commented Ranulf Vo-Geiss. ‘Nothing to kill, either.’

‘Patience, Vo-Geiss,’ said J’madus as his towering Knight strode out through the grasslands. ‘I’m reading xenos machine signatures around the border fortress. You shall have your slaughter soon enough.’

‘This region may not look like much, but watch your footing,’ said Luk, watching the Sacristans’ and mercenaries’ drop ships descend. ‘The highlands stretch out across a high plateau for several hundred miles. They’re riddled with chasms and cave systems, and much of the area is untamed. There are plenty of hazards for the unwary, and more than enough holes to turn a steed’s ankle if its pilot is rash.’

The drop ships came in to land, flames licking beneath them as they put down on heavy hydraulic landing gear. Ramps slammed down, and the rest of Luk’s unconventional army emerged.

Their Sacristans rode in heavy mechanical walkers, in the style of olden day Hawkshroud. They were a little reminiscent of the Sentinels used by the Astra Militarum, but bigger and supported by four-jointed piston-limbs rather than two. Affectionately known as ironlegs, the lurching machines were top-heavy with servo-arms, omnitools, ammo hoppers, fuel bowsers and all the other indecipherable techno-arcana used by adepts of the Machine-God. They carried heavy weapons for their own defence, and each was piloted by a Sacristan and several supporting servitors.

The mercenaries, meanwhile, were Vesserines that Luk had hired on Tanos Station. They wore dark blue carapace armour and crested helms. Colonel Gesmund led several platoons of heavy infantry, all furnished with Taurox transports that allowed them to keep pace with their Knightly paymasters. Equipped with a mixture of man-portable heavy weaponry, and supported by a squadron of Banehound chem-tanks, they had proved their worth to the Exiles on many occasions.

‘Form up,’ voxed Luk. ‘The orks could be on us at any moment. We need to move quickly.’

‘Luk,’ said Ekhaterina over a private channel. ‘Take a breath. Centre yourself. You won’t help anything by rushing this and making errors.’

‘I know, my lady,’ said Luk. ‘It’s just… been a long time since I was here. It’s a lot to take in. I need to talk to Danial, to ensure that my old comrades live.’

‘And to find out whether your return is actually welcomed?’ she asked.

‘That, too,’ he said.

‘The scouts are down and deployed,’ voxed Gesmund from his command Taurox. ‘They’ve gained a defile within sight of the border fortress and are reporting scattered orks. There’s no sign of loyalist forces and the fortress has seen better days, sire.’

‘Then let us pray to the Emperor that its vox-array is intact, at least,’ said Luk. ‘Have your scouts hit the greenskins when we do. All forces, full advance.’

Luk and the Exiles led the advance, making no effort to conceal themselves while the Vessarines followed in support. As they came into sight of the fortress, Luk saw that the towering structure had been partly gutted by fire, and sections of its walls had collapsed. Ork glyphs were daubed everywhere. Already the crude creatures had started to adorn the structure with ragged banners, and spikes topped with the impaled bodies of Pegasson militia. A single steed lay slain before the main gate, and Luk was disgusted to see greenskins swarming over its corpse like maggots, pulling it apart with pry-bars and massive wrenches.

The orks formed a bellowing mass as the Knights strode into sight, but a single volley from the Exiles eradicated swathes of them and sent many others fleeing into the grasslands. The Vesserines plied their trade, ensuring that those that fled didn’t get far.

From within the fortress rose a thwopping wing of ork gyrocopters, whose manic pilots dived down on the Knights with rockets spilling from their vehicles’ launchers. Ion shields flashed, while the Exiles’ guns roared in response and swatted the ork craft from the skies.

As the last of the gryocopters crashed down, the remaining greenskins turned tail and fled.

‘Little enough fight in them,’ said Ranulf, playing his guns across the scattering orks.

‘Never begrudge an easy hunt,’ said Maia, stamping her steed’s foot down atop one of the crashed scrap-copters. ‘They leave fewer slain friends.’

Vo-Geiss grunted, his disinterest in such things clear. Luk ignored them and strode his steed up to the sundered fortress gate.

‘Duty Unending, Void and Wrath Inescapable, establish a perimeter with Colonel Gesmund,’ said Luk. ‘Crimson Death and I will lead the sweep through the ruin. Gesmund, we’ll need two squads of your finest to support us.’

Assent runes flashed on his instruments. Powering his steed down and uncoupling his neural jacks, Luk grabbed his weapons and dismounted. He met Hw’ss in their Knights’ shadows. The former Krast Knight was shorter than Luk, made stocky by the burnished chrome augmetics and bundles of fibre-wires that jutted from his body. He wore a rubberised crimson bodyglove and cowl, and carried a much-modified boltgun, but for all his Mechanicus affectations, his face was surprisingly human. He glanced towards the fortress.

‘Engaging dismounted,’ he grinned, energy sparking behind his augmetic pupils. ‘This contradicts every strategic subroutine my old data-precept operates by.’

Luk snorted.

‘You’re delighted, aren’t you?’ he asked. Hw’ss grinned wider in response.

A pair of Tauroxes rumbled up, and the requested Vesserines piled out with a thunder of boots and a clatter of body armour. They held bullpup lasguns ready, while several of their number cradled hissing flamers ideal for building clearance. Their sergeants stepped forward and saluted. Luk knew the men, Undoh and D’vansa.

‘Reporting,’ said Sergeant Undoh. ‘Request permission to lead the sweeping force in, sires.’

Luk nodded. ‘Go ahead, sergeant. D’vansa, your men have rearguard. We stay together and make for the operational sanctum at the top of the fortress. That’s where the vox array will be.’

Undoh nodded, gesturing to his men. The Vesserines spread out smoothly, making for the nearest wall breach with their guns up and ready. The Knights followed, with Sergeant D’vansa’s men sticking close on their heels.

They clambered over the rubble of the breach, stepping around militia and greenskin corpses buried amongst the wreckage.

‘These corpses are three days and five hours dead,’ said Hw’ss. ‘Visual augury suggests a brief but violent firefight. The walls were brought down by heavy shelling and then the breaches forced by combat walkers. None of which are now present.’

‘Hopefully,’ muttered Luk. ‘Though I suspect we’d have seen them by now if they were.’

Inside the fortress’ marshalling yard lay dozens more corpses. A wrecked ork walker lay in their midst, mangled militia strewn around it.

‘A Dreadnought,’ said Hw’ss. ‘Caution, Sergeant Undoh. I’m reading faint lifesigns.’

Undoh froze at the warning, signalling to his men to spread out around the fallen machine. The Dreadnought was slumped on one side, its legs a tangled mass of metal and two of its long hydraulic arms crumpled under it.

As the Vessarines moved closer, Luke heard a muffled snarl from within the Dreadnought’s hull. One of its arms twitched feebly, pistons gasping and engines whirring as it tried to open its huge industrial shears. The Vesserines backed away, guns up, but the Dreadnought showed no further signs of movement.

Luk paced around in front of the machine, and craned down to stare through its rusted vision slit. Red eyes stared back at him, feverish with hate and pain. He could barely make out the Dreadnought’s occupant, just a shadowy lump of flesh still wired into the machine that had become its tomb. The ork croaked words, crude sounds that sounded like fists hitting flesh.

‘I don’t know what it’s saying,’ he said. ‘But I’m fairly sure it isn’t happy to see us. Filthy xenos, smells like its rotting alive in there.’

‘Let it,’ said Hw’ss. ‘It is demonstrably unthreatening, and displays no ranged communicative capabilities with which to warn its allies of our presence.’

‘This unclean thing will not pollute my home for another minute,’ said Luk. ‘No mercy for these xenos. You understand?’

Luk beckoned to one of the Vesserines, taking his flamer from him and pointing its nozzle at the Dreadnought’s vision slit. Within, the monstrous xenos threw itself about and snarled. Its machine’s arm stirred again, the shears snicking halfway open.

Luk squeezed the trigger. Flames belched from his borrowed weapon and filled the Dreadnought’s interior. Flesh burned and fat crackled, the ork managing a last roar of pain before it fell silent. Luk handed the weapon back to its owner and turned towards the fortress’ central tower. He drew his chainsword and revved its blade.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s move inside.’

They found no further living greenskins in the fortress, only corpses and wreckage.

‘They put up an optimal fight attempting to defend this facility,’ said Hw’ss as they clambered up another set of brushed steel steps. They were nearing the operational sanctum, picking their way over a carpet of butchered bodies tangled in fallen House Pegasson banners.

‘The militia here gave a good account of themselves,’ said Luk. ‘The Marchioness would be proud.’

Vesserine Sergeant Undoh advanced around a last curve of the staircase and stopped, gun up.

‘Sires,’ he said, ‘the operational sanctum lies ahead. The doors are caved in. There’s fire damage, but no sign of movement.’

‘If you have a good word to put in with the Omnissiah, J’madus, now would be a good time,’ said Luk. ‘Sergeant, advance and secure that chamber.’

They moved inside, following the all-clear vox pip from Undoh. The chamber was sizeable, and had once been airy and grand judging by its arched windows and glass-domed ceiling. Now much of it was burned black, trappings and furnishings ruined, glass smudged with soot. The Vesserines had woken the stablights slung under their guns, piercing the gloom and revealing heaped corpses and wrecked machinery.

‘There,’ said Sire Hw’ss. ‘Beneath those fallen greenskins. The vox array.’

They picked their way across the chamber towards the blackened stack of machinery and its garland of bodies. As the Vesserines heaved the xenos corpses aside, Luk saw runes flickering dimly beneath a layer of soot.

‘Yes, there is motive force,’ said Hw’ss, slinging his boltgun and bending over the array. He swept away a cloud of choking soot to reveal a console, battered but operational. Muttering benedictions, Hw’ss unfolded several mechadendrites from apertures within his bodyglove and set to work.

Luk surveyed the blasted chamber, the heaped bodies, and felt his hatred of the orks burn hotter. He would make them suffer for every drop of Adrastapolian blood spilled.

Sire Hw’ss stepped back from the array. ‘I have resanctified the machine as best I can, calmed its bewildered machine-spirit and interrogated its internal cogitator. I have acquired the primary Adrastapolian command channels for your use, Luk.’

‘Thank you,’ said Luk, taking up the voxman’s headset and settling it over his ears and mouth. His mouth was dry as he manipulated the array’s controls and selected the priority vox-channel for communication with the Draconspire.

‘Attention, Draconspire grand strategium vox array,’ he began. ‘This is the Knight of Ashes. I have made planetfall upon Adrastapol with a military force and seek immediate vox-communion with High King Danial Tan Draconis. Repeat…’

It took twenty minutes of repeated enquiry to make contact with a flustered sounding vox-adept, and a further ten to convince him that Luk was who he said he was. A major martial undertaking was underway, Luk was told, and anyone flippantly occupying a choral slot on this channel would be subject to punitive execution. Luk persevered, surprised, in truth, that his reception had not been more hostile.

Eventually, after almost an hour of increasingly frustrating, static-laden negotiations, a runner was sent to request the High King’s presence.

Luk sat in the voxman’s throne, leaning back in the seat and toying with the grip of his pistol. The Vesserines still crouched in watchful positions, looking every bit as efficient as they had when he first entered the chamber. Sire Hw’ss had wandered away to the far side of the room, sifting through damaged systems and doing what he could to placate and repair them.

Suddenly, a voice sounded in Luk’s ear.

‘Luk?’

For a moment, he was sure it was High King Tolwyn, returned from the grave. Ridiculous, he thought. The man was long dead.

‘Luk, is that you?’ the voice came again.

Danial sounded older, harder and far more confident. Still, there was a hesitancy that Luk recognised. It matched his own.

‘High King Danial,’ he said, clearing his throat. ‘It is… very good to hear your voice, my liege.’

‘Luk!’ said Danial. ‘Throne. It’s good to hear your voice, brother. You return at a fortuitous time.’

‘No coincidence,’ said Luk. ‘I had warning that Adrastapol was endangered. I came to help.’

‘Warning?’ asked Danial. ‘Someone knew this invasion was coming?’

‘Nothing so specific,’ said Luk. ‘A prophecy of danger only, not its exact nature.’

Danial was silent for a moment, and Luk felt a pang of frustration. This was not how he had imagined their reunion.

‘Your oath,’ said Danial. ‘Is it…?’

‘Alicia lives,’ said Luk. ‘But I know where she is, at last. I can strike her down, with your aid.’

‘I see…’ There was a tense pause. ‘That is… a matter for later, then.’ Background static hissed into their awkward silence.

‘I came to help,’ said Luk again. ‘I have Knights with me. A lance of Freeblades, and mercenary soldiers. A force of just over one hundred men with fighting machines.’

‘Every blade is welcome,’ said Danial. ‘We’ve taken heavy casualties. The Draconspire is besieged.’

‘What of Jen?’ asked Luk. ‘Markos? The others. Are they…?’

‘Alive,’ said Danial. ‘Though Percivane is badly injured. The Sacristans are doing all they can. And Jennika is… well, it’s complicated, but to my knowledge she still lives.’

‘More matters for later?’ asked Luk.

‘I am glad of your return, but bewildered by its nature,’ said Danial. ‘I am also coordinating a world-wide war effort against an incredibly savage and numerous foe. We haven’t the luxury of time to discuss these things now.’

‘I understand,’ said Luk, noting with surprise the hard edge of authority that his friend had not possessed when last they spoke. ‘Nothing has transpired as we thought it would, but I’m here now, with blades at my side, ready to help. What do you need of us?’

‘You are a known figure,’ said Danial. ‘The Noble Houses recognise you. They know we are friends and, for better or worse, that our friendship survived the fall of your former house.’

‘Many of them no doubt despise me,’ said Luk. ‘But you are right. What of it?’

‘The force you lead would be a pinprick in the hide of the horde that now swirls around the Draconspire,’ said Danial. ‘Seventy thousand greenskins flowed down from the north, overran the Northrise Battery and then encircled the walls. Now we have word that other, smaller warbands will soon reinforce them. The orks have weapons out on the Valatane that no one can put a name to, and they’ve been hammering the void shields for two days with little signs of stopping. To come here is to die, Luk.’

‘We have come a long way across the galaxy, diverted from our hunt, in order to aid you, Da,’ said Luk. ‘I won’t shy from that, no matter the odds.’

‘I thank you for it, Luk, but there are better ways,’ said Danial. ‘The greenskins’ leader is here, outside the walls. He’s taken Northrise as his personal command post, from what we can see. Markos says that if we kill Gorgrok then we can throw the orks into utter chaos. Half of them will flee, the other half will fall to infighting, and we will have a chance to swing this war back in our favour.’

‘But to do that you need a relief force,’ said Luk.

‘A mighty one,’ said Danial. ‘The Knights of Houses Pegasson and Minotos must march out and come to our aid. They must break Gorgrok’s horde against our walls like a hammer striking an anvil. I need you to–’

Luk winced as static screamed in his ears. Danial’s words were swallowed by a storm of interference that no amount of working the vox controls could break through. Cursing, he tore the headset off and dropped it.

‘Cut off,’ said Luk, in answer to Hw’ss questioning stare.

‘Atmospherics?’ asked the former Krast Knight, but Luk shook his head.

‘Too violent,’ he said. ‘Too sudden.’

‘Then what?’ asked Hw’ss.

‘I don’t know,’ said Luk. ‘We must hope we’re not too late to help them.’

Jennika made her way along a darkened tunnel beneath the Chimaerkeep, her draconblade drawn. The flagstones were uneven beneath her feet. The only illumination came from the dancing stablights of Massata’s retinue. The scuff of their booted feet was loud to her ears.

In places, the ceiling had cracked open, spilling damp soil across the floor. Once already they had been forced to clamber over a huge heap of rubble, crawling on their bellies through the gap that was left even as they thanked the Emperor that more had not collapsed. The rest of the time they were forced to advance in single file through the dripping darkness.

‘Retinue,’ Massata’s hushed voice crackled through Jennika’s vox-bead. ‘Confirm status.’

One by one, they whispered confirmation, working up the line from where Sergeant Kaston prowled as rearguard. Jennika, half-way up the line behind Interrogator Nesh, responded when it came her turn. D’bu’ko grunted, while the Death Cult Assassins, Shanema and Shemara, sent non-verbal runic signifiers.

‘The auspex is reading a wider space ahead,’ said Massata. ‘Still no life signs, but that doesn’t mean anything. You are servants of the Inquisition, remain vigilant.’

‘It feels as though we’ve been stuck down here for days,’ muttered Mortens from behind Jennika. ‘Even a wider space will be welcome.’

‘It’s been less than three hours,’ said Jennika. ‘You will be fine, I’m sure.’

‘It’s all right for you,’ grumbled the savant. ‘You’re used to confined spaces, I suppose, sitting inside a Knight all the time.’

‘No, that’s quite different,’ she said. ‘Fire Defiant feels safe, and you can see everything, for miles. Down here feels… trapped. Buried. Malevolent, somehow, like there’s something watching.’

‘There is,’ said Nesh over his shoulder. ‘The Emperor. Now stop talking and stay vigilant as the master ordered.’

Jennika bit back her response, following Nesh beneath a lintel inscribed with the faded heraldry of House Chimaeros.

They emerged into a wide chamber with squat columns whose ceiling had once borne an intricate unsettling mosaic of intertwined serpents, beasts and human figures. Jennika frowned as she realised the images were melding into one another, naked human flesh flowing into serpentine scales and brightly hued feathers.

The chamber’s floor was taken up by stone pews, several of which had been crushed to rubble when a huge section of the ceiling had broken away and fallen upon them. The chamber’s far end remained untouched. There stood an elaborate stone altar behind which two darkened doorways led onward.

‘A profane shrine,’ said Nesh, his scowl deepening. Venquist, the astropath, leant heavily upon his staff. He put a hand to his temple.

‘There are echoes here,’ he said. ‘Pain. Dark worship. Debauchery.’

‘Recent?’ asked Massata.

‘They are old,’ said Venquist. ‘Decades of degenerate practice.’

Massata glanced at Jennika, who realised that her expression must radiate the horror she felt.

‘We had no idea,’ she said. ‘We fought and feasted alongside them. We called them friend.’

‘I believe you,’ said Massata with a deep frown. ‘And yet, still it went on. How could anyone else have known, when the heretics hid their evils so deep?’

‘This is an ancient world, inquisitor,’ said Jennika. ‘If I have learned one thing since Becoming, it is that Adrastapol keeps many secrets from us. Not all are pleasant to learn.’

‘Some of them kill,’ said Sergeant Kaston. ‘Something slew those men up there in the clearing. And something left this.’

The Kasrkin had rounded one of the columns and was gesturing with her gun at a heap of bones and ragged cloth at its base. Jennika moved up to stand beside her. Crystalline deposits glinted in the stablight’s glare.

‘Those are militia uniforms,’ she said.

‘Looks like,’ said Kaston. ‘More of your people from the garrison?’

‘No,’ said Jennika, paling as a horrible thought struck her. ‘These are older marks of uniform. That’s a pre-ascension Draconis crest. There were always disappearances around the Chimaerkeep but they were put down to the wulfdenkyne packs. They’re not usually dangerous, but in numbers they have been known to abduct lone serfs and militia sometimes.’

‘Well, this wasn’t the work of opportunist predators,’ said Lintiguis, adjusting ocular lenses over his eyes. ‘Look at the patterns where the bones have been worried and cracked.’

‘They’re bite marks, Mortens,’ said Kaston. ‘That hardly disproves the wulfdenkyne theory.’

‘They’re human,’ said the savant. ‘Human bones, gnawed by human teeth.’

‘Vigilance,’ reiterated Massata, then glanced at Venquist. The look was brief and subtle, as was the astropath’s answering shake of the head, but Jennika caught both.

‘There is nothing here,’ said Massata. ‘Whatever corruption remains, it lies further into this underworld. We proceed.’

Jennika took up her position in the retinue’s formation, following Nesh with her blade and pistol ready. But the exchange between the inquisitor and his astropath played on her mind as they plunged into deeper darkness.

The group made their way through labyrinthine underways. They followed spiralling ramps past caverns and cells. They trod dusty passageways where ancient Knightly statues stood alongside banners bearing strange crests, and passed dark doorways that made Jennika’s skin crawl. At any moment, she expected hands to lunge from the gloom and snatch at her flesh. She missed the comforting solidity of her Knight’s cockpit more than ever.

‘These passages are far older than the ruins above,’ whispered Mortens as they walked.

‘I could have told you that,’ said Jennika. ‘There’s heraldry down here so ancient that I don’t even recognise it. Whatever this was, it must have been here long before House Chimaeros built their keep atop it.’

‘For all this to remain secret for so long,’ said Mortens. ‘It cannot have been common knowledge amongst House Chimaeros. Someone would have talked, or a servile would have seen. One assumes that this sorceress must have known of it. I would postulate that she had an inner circle, special cases amongst the Knights or servants of House Chimaeros, that she inducted and showed the routes into the passages below.’

‘Conjecture,’ said Jennika.

‘Cogitated conjecture is my area of expertise,’ replied Mortens. ‘Based upon hundreds of minute determining factors and oracular probabilities. It is why Massata keeps me. I am rarely incorrect, Lady Tan Draconis.’

‘My apologies, then,’ said Jennika. ‘Perhaps it lurked down here unknown for centuries. Perhaps Alicia was the one who found it.’

‘There is something ahead,’ said Nesh. ‘The readings are strange. Weapons up.’

Jennika paced forwards, ready to ignite her blade at the slightest movement. Puffs of dust swirled up from their footsteps, dancing in the stablight beams. Ahead, she saw glints of blue crystal, and frowned as the scene resolved itself. The wide corridor ended abruptly, crushed under hundreds of tons of fallen rubble. An avian statue jutted from beneath the rockfall, one talon raised as though beseeching. Jennika took a step closer, shining her light upon the twisted claw, but Kaston’s hand shot out and wrapped around her arm.

‘Best not, your majesty,’ she said. ‘With daemon worshippers, danger can lurk in strange places.’ Jennika looked at the stone talons again, at their finely sharpened onyx points, and imagined them grabbing her as Kaston had. It was a disquieting notion. She looked hurriedly away.

Massata stood with his arms folded, staring at a dark pit in the floor. It was wide enough to drop a Huntsman down, like a well of deeper blackness amidst the shadow, and its ragged edges were encrusted with blue crystal. Lumps of rubble lay around it, thick with more of the odd deposit, which seemed to refract their light and make it squirm.

‘Nesh,’ said Massata. ‘What do you make of this?’

The Interrogator sat on his haunches and stared around the rim of the pit.

‘Something created this after the collapse,’ he said, glancing at his auspex. ‘It was bored or blasted from below. Not by heat weapons, or the rock would be glassy. Not digging implements or claws either – they’d leave gouge marks. Coupled with the deposits, I’d say dark sorcerey did this, perhaps by something labouring to escape entrapment.’

Massata nodded.

‘My thoughts also. I suspect this pit leads down to deeper chambers still. Chambers we must investigate.’

‘Whatever has been taking people, it is most likely down there,’ said Nesh. ‘Venquist, anything?’

‘An abiding sense of evil,’ said Venquist. ‘Malice. Suffering. Nothing more specific. I’m not an auspex, Nesh.’

D’bu’ko rapped his knuckles swiftly together, creating a series of clicks and cracks. Jennika realised the creature was communicating in some sort of code.

‘Yes, I see that,’ said Massata. ‘The surface is definitely rough enough to climb. Presumably how the mystery assailants have been exiting and returning. It is hazardous though.’

D’bu’ko snorted and gestured to a small, glowing device attached to one of his crossbelts.

‘Please,’ said Massata. ‘That will help a great deal.’

‘I’ll take point,’ said Kaston. ‘The Knight can follow me.’

‘I’ll take rearguard,’ said Nesh. ‘The rest of you between us.’

Jennika knew better than to argue, despite the xenos’ involvement. She had no desire to dishonour her world by refusing. Yet as she crouched by the edge of the pit, she paused, listening intently.

‘Does anyone else hear that?’ she asked.

Kaston squatted next to her, head cocked.

‘Movement? Breathing?’ she said. ‘It’s too faint to be sure, too intermittent.’

‘Explosives?’ asked Nesh, pretending to throw a krak grenade down the pit.

‘That would risk another collapse,’ said Kaston.

‘You’re the ones descending first,’ Nesh said. ‘I leave it to you to determine if the risk is worthwhile.’

‘Saviour flares,’ said Kaston. ‘Drop them first, then jump with weapons ready. If there is something down there, it will be blinded. Then dead.’

‘Jump?’ asked Jennika. ‘Unless we have some way of knowing how deep this pit is…’

‘Two hundred feet straight down, give or take,’ said Nesh, consulting his auspex. ‘Into a large chamber of some sort.’

‘Then unless we can fly…’ said Jennika, letting her statement hang.

‘With D’bu’ko’s help, we can do the next best thing,’ said Massata. ‘Now, enough questions. Kaston, it is time to do the Emperor’s will.’

The Kasrkin pulled a pair of bulky alchemical flares from her webbing and struck their tops against one another, ripping away the quietus seals that kept them inert. White light burst to life as the flares hissed, and Jennika looked away before she was blinded.

She realised that D’bu’ko was manipulating his glowing device, his long fingers moving with exceptional speed and dexterity that caused it to flash and hum. As Kaston stepped towards the pit and dropped her flares, a flash of golden energy leapt from the xenos gadget to enfold her in a shimmering halo. A second later, she stepped off the edge and vanished.

Jennika followed, squashing the panic she felt as she stepped over the pit’s edge and glowing energy flared around her. She felt a moment of vertiginous horror at the drop below, and then she was falling.

Jennika found herself descending in a steady drift. It was not slow, perhaps jogging pace, but it was far from the terminal plunge that her body had tensed for. Below her, Kaston was floating downwards, while beyond her, Jennika could see the harsh light of the flares tumbling away from them. The alchemical devices hit bedrock with a faint clatter, and Jennika tensed as she saw movement in their light. Hisses and gasps floated up from below, along with a massed scuffling sound.

‘Engage. Keep our point of ingress clear,’ ordered Massata.

Kaston aimed her hotshot lasgun between her feet, and its scream filled the pit as she opened fire. Laser light blitzed downwards, eliciting plosive gasps and glottal clicks from below.

Jennika glanced up to see the Death Cult Assassins floating above her. She aimed her pistol at the bottom of the pit, trying to find a clear line of sight past the Cadian. Strobing light and shadow made it hard to see clearly, but she had a sense of squirming movement and scurrying bodies. Her pistol barked as she fired a tight burst of shots, and something shrieked in response.

‘Landing in twenty seconds,’ said Kaston. ‘Lots of them down there.’

With a hungry roar, an orb of blue flame shot up from below. It narrowly missed Kaston and Jennika, slamming into the wall of the pit. Jennika cursed, blinking after-images from her eyes. Another livid blast followed, missing Jennika’s face by a hair’s breadth. She felt no heat from the fire as it passed, but instead a bone-deep nausea and a terrible tingling as though the skin of her face had gone momentarily numb.

‘What in Throne’s name is doing that?’ barked Nesh. ‘Kaston, we’re chained martyrs up here.’

Jennika could see them now, vague humanoid figures lit by the dying light of the flares and the strobe of Kaston’s gun. She had a fleeting impression of corpse-white flesh, emaciated bodies scarred and tattooed, sightless eyes and gaping mouths. Amidst them she saw a larger figure, something hulking and unclean with avian features and curling horns. It raised a twisted staff, unnatural flame gathering about its tip.

Kaston’s lasfire ripped into the creature from above, punching through its torso and splattering the bedrock with gore. It convulsed, but managed to loose its blast before it collapsed. Jennika winced as the projectile shrieked past her.

From above came a scream, and she looked up to see that one of the Death Cultists had not been so fortunate. The leather-clad warrior was twisting and writhing as blue flames danced over her. Jennika felt revulsion as the Cultist’s body twisted and shriveled. Blue crystals burst through her flesh.

Below, Kaston landed at last, her boots thumping down beside her sputtering flares. She was immediately beset. Hissing and shrieking, pallid mutants launched themselves at her from all sides. Kaston turned, spraying fire that punched the degenerate creatures from their feet.

‘Cover me,’ she shouted. Jennika kept shooting, raining autopistol rounds onto the creatures until her magazine clicked dry. She snarled in frustration at the stately pace of her descent, seeing the things pressing in towards Kaston.

Finally, her feet touched the ground. Jennika landed directly behind Kaston, draconblade blazing. She swept the weapon in a roaring arc, bisecting one abomination and beheading another as they lunged at Kaston’s defenceless back. The mutants fell back, but more poured forwards, a maelstrom of clubbing fists and bared, rotten teeth.

‘Get clear,’ shouted Nesh.

Jennika glanced up to see the burning Death Cultist plunging towards them. She dropped her shoulder and slammed into Kaston’s back, knocking the Cadian aside and sprawling with her. The blazing corpse thumped down where they had stood, followed by the still-living Shanema. The Death Cultist keened a furious war cry and lunged into the mass of mutants, blades flashing in bloody sweeps.

Bare feet and twisted shins surrounded Jennika. Punching fists and kicking feet pummelled her, and she had a split-second to be glad of her armoured bodyglove before she took a jarring blow to her jaw. Her head snapped back, and her thoughts slowed down to a dull blur. She was dimly aware of the flash of gunfire, then a firm grip hauling her onto her feet.

‘…ake up, your majesty,’ snapped Kaston, her voice swimming into focus. ‘Fight!’

Jennika shook her head to clear it, then reignited her blade and brought it up in a tight swipe that sent a mutant reeling away aflame.

‘They don’t like the fire,’ said Kaston.

‘Good. Let them burn in it,’ spat Jennika, cutting and stabbing. The fight was anarchic, but their enemies were armed with little more than teeth, fists and the odd human femur. In return, Massata’s retinue landed one by one and brought their weaponry to bear.

Venquist came down with solemn dignity, one hand pressed to his temple. A swathe of mutants reeled back, hissing and shrieking in fear. Several dropped where they stood with blood jetting from their eyes. D’bu’ko followed, and Jennika felt her horror at the xenos’ powerful technology as blasts of energy leapt from the rings he wore on one hand. The image flashed unbidden to her mind of such weapons being used against her Knight, and she thrust it swiftly aside.

Behind them came Massata, and Interrogator Nesh with Lintiguis Mortens clinging to his side. While Nesh’s pistols boomed, Massata drew his axe and swung it in meteoric arcs. Strange energies crackled in its wake, and each mutant struck burst apart in a cloud of ash.

Jennika caught glimpses of these things while she fought furiously, back to back with Sergeant Kaston. The Cadian mowed down howling mutants, shooting them point blank through their torsos and faces. Jennika hacked and stabbed, sweeping the legs from under one mutant then impaling another before lopping the arm from a third. Those wounded reeled away shrieking as their flesh and rags caught light in the draconsfire. Wherever these living torches staggered through their comrades, they spread terror and panic.

‘Drive them back in the Emperor’s name!’ cried Massata, his voice booming. ‘Break them!’

Another sword swing, and another. A bone club struck Jennika in the ribs, hard enough to make her grunt in pain. In return she smashed her hilt into her attacker’s face to send him reeling away. She hacked and slashed, keeping a space clear, preventing their numbers from pinning her limbs, driving knees and elbows into pallid flesh where she had to.

Suddenly the tide broke. One moment, Jennika was fighting for her life against a hissing mob. The next, the ragged remnants of the mutant horde scattered into the darkness, fleeing across the cavern and leaving their dead in heaps behind them.

‘Hold position,’ ordered Massata.

Shanema ignored his order, keening another death cry as she sprinted after the fleeing mutants.

‘Shanema, no pursuit!’ bellowed Massata. ‘Remember the debt you owe your Emperor!’ The Death Cultist stopped, quivering in frustration as she watched her sister’s killers flee.

Jennika, however, was glad to comply. She gasped deep breaths as she concentrated on slowing her heart rate. Adrenaline drained from her limbs, leaving pain in her jaw and ribs like rents in a Knight’s hull after a fierce battle. She extinguished her blade, checking its fuel reserve.

‘Sixty percent,’ she muttered. ‘Good enough.’

Glancing up, Jennika took in her surroundings. The cavern was rough and gnarled, festooned with stalactites and stalagmites, and dotted with oily-looking pools. Jutting from one wall were the remains of a heavy, barred gate that looked to have been smashed from its hinges by the rockfall that had filled the corridor beyond. In the other direction, the way that the mutants had fled, the cavern vanished into darkness.

‘Nesh, auspex sweeps, I want warning if those creatures return,’ ordered Massata. ‘The rest of you, ammo check, bind your wounds. Mortens, examine these mutants and see what you can determine. No one is to touch Shemara’s remains. We will avenge her, but her body is corrupted.’

Jennika looked at the crumpled remains of the Death Cultist, her twisted limbs and the glinting crystals growing from her like fungi. She shuddered.

‘Thanks,’ said Kaston from beside her. The Cadian was pulling the smoking las cell from her backpack and replacing it with a fresh one.

‘What for?’ asked Jennika, reloading her autopistol.

‘You knocked me aside,’ said Kaston. ‘Could have been my corpse laid under hers. I owe you.’

‘On Adrastapol we live by the Code Chivalric,’ said Jennika. ‘Its tenets do not permit me to allow allies to come to harm when I can prevent it.’

‘Still,’ said Kaston, and Jennika nodded graciously.

‘This cavern stretches back almost a quarter of a mile in that direction, then there’s another tunnel mouth,’ said Nesh, looking up from his auspex. ‘It looks narrow.’

‘Exfiltration?’ asked Kaston.

‘We shall find a route when the time comes,’ said Massata. ‘At worst we return here and scale the shaft. But if Lady Tan Draconis is correct, and these creatures have been preying on the wilds around Chimaerkeep for years, one assumes they must have other ways to escape.’

‘It is unbelievable,’ said Jennika. ‘Mutants. Sorcery. All lurking beneath our feet. Thank the Emperor these things seem averse to light…’

‘It has forced them to remain below, festering like poison in a wound,’ said Massata. ‘Still, a wound, if infected, can kill the entire body.’

‘That which threatens us, we cauterise with flame,’ said Jennika, brandishing her blade.

‘You may need to do a great deal more cauterising yet, lady,’ said Mortens, bent over the corpse of the larger mutant. He straightened up, flipping lenses back from his eyes, quill-fingers scratching over a ream of vellum as he spoke. ‘In the smaller mutants, twisting of the limbs, sharpening of the teeth and a degree of osteodeviancy appear to be the limits of their dubious blessings. This creature, however, is genuinely heretical. It bears a subcutaneous mark, a sigil that I shall not show you for the sake of your own spiritual purity, but that may have conveyed actual empyric power. Note its avian features, the feathery growths around its neck and shoulders, the enhanced musculature, not to mention its taloned feet. See also its stave, from which that unnatural flame was conjured.’

‘A higher order of mutant, then?’ asked Nesh. ‘A leader caste, perhaps, more rewarded by their god and thus more powerful.’

‘Likely,’ said Mortens. ‘And I believe there must be more than one of these beings. Quite aside from the chances that we would happen to encounter the mutants’ only leader in so fortuitous a fashion, one of these beings alone did not create all the crystalline deposits left upon the remains of the wardens on the surface.’

‘We press on regardless,’ said Massata.

At the cavern’s heart, they found the missing wardens, or what remained of them. Gnawed flesh and tattered uniforms were piled high. Many bodies had been forcibly impaled upon stalagmites for ease of feeding, and gore stained the ground around them.

‘At least that explains what they were doing waiting for us down here,’ said Nesh. ‘Feeding in this cavern, then drawn to our lights before we descended.’

‘Let us hope it is simply thus,’ said Massata.

Beyond the gruesome feeding ground, they found the cavern narrowing until it tailed off into the tunnel that Nesh had spoken of. It was narrow, barely wide enough for them to proceed single file, and its ceiling was low.

‘Shanema will lead,’ said Nesh. ‘She is the best suited of all of us to battle in such tight confines. I’ll follow with the auspex, to ensure we don’t go astray.’

‘Venquist will take that positon,’ said Massata. ‘Down here, his ability to sense the psychic spoor of our quarry will prove more useful for wayfinding.’

Jennika frowned.

‘Inquisitor. Is it not better to put our trust in the definitive data returns of an auspex?’

‘Lady Tan Draconis,’ said Venquist. ‘On the open field, you understand war. Down here, beyond the Emperor’s sight? This is our battlefield. Stick to swinging your sword, and let us worry about the rest, yes?’

Jennika bristled but held her tongue.

Within the tunnel, the confines were claustrophobic. The ceiling pressed low overhead, and the walls seemed to constrict. The air was still as ditchwater, and Jennika had to fight the sense that at any moment the tunnel might close like the throat of some awful monster and crush them in its gullet.

As they advanced, Jennika closed in behind Sergeant Kaston. Covering her vox-bead, she whispered to the Cadian.

‘Sergeant, you said you owe me.’

Kaston glanced back expectantly.

‘I would request an explanation as repayment,’ said Jennika. ‘What is the inquisitor really here for?’

Kaston’s face remained neutral.

‘To purge the corruption from this world, that your people failed to address,’ she said. ‘He seeks proof you were not all complicit.’

‘You will excuse the expression, Sergeant Kaston, but that is ghurgol shit,’ whispered Jennika. ‘I’ve seen the looks he keeps exchanging with the astropath. And the way he’s put the man up front now like a hunting canid? The threat of Inquisitorial censure is an impressive blade to hang over my head, but I know and you know that the Noble Houses of Adrastapol are guilty of nothing worse than believing the Ministorum had done their job. So what are we doing down here? What is he looking for?’

Kaston kept her voice low as she replied. Her stare was level and intense.

‘Dangerous questions get dangerous answers, lady,’ she said. ‘Don’t presume what the inquisitor does or does not know, or what he’s doing here. Just wield your blade, show your honour, and remember that an enquiring mind is swiftest poisoned by tainted truths.’

Kaston turned away and kept walking, leaving Jennika to trail angrily in her wake.

‘They’re still out there,’ said Nesh. ‘I’m reading contact before and behind.’

‘We are on the correct trail,’ replied Venquist, as the group took a tight left fork in the tunnel. ‘I sense it somewhere ahead.’

‘Keep moving with a prayer on your lips,’ said Massata. ‘We are in the belly of the beast, now, but we shall not falter.’

The new tunnel led downwards so steeply that they were forced to clamber and scramble. Jennika swore quietly as jutting shards of rock scratched her hands and face. As it levelled out, the tunnel branched again, then again, its ceiling becoming still lower and feeding into Jennika’s claustrophobia. Sweat beaded her forehead and ran down the back of her neck. Her heart thumped, and every breath felt tight as they pressed on and on through the narrow, dark tunnels.

She could hear sounds, now, over the scuff and scrape of their own passage. Distant moans and cries reverberated along the passages. Ululating shrieks rang around them, their origins impossible to place.

‘There’s an open space coming up,’ said Nesh, and Jennika felt a flood of relief. ‘It’s big, and I’m reading some sort of gap or chasm. Perhaps a bridge?’

Jennika realised she could see more than just their stablight beams. Illumination hazed the tunnel up ahead, a dancing blue light that filled her not with the relief of daylight, but with a nameless dread.

‘Be ready,’ said Massata. ‘We are nearing our goal. They will not let us pass unchallenged.’

The tunnel ended abruptly, widening out like a yawning maw and spilling them onto a broad stone ledge. They gazed out across a vast cavern that was split across its middle by a deep, dark chasm. Brass gargoyles jutted from the cavern’s walls, ancient grotesques as large as Knights, bearded with the accumulated sediment of millennia. In their gaping mouths burned blue pyres, whose light filled the cavern with strange, dancing shadows.

Bridges stretched across the chasm, several dozen thin spans of stalactite-hung stone barely wide enough for one person to walk across at a time. They interlinked as they leapt out over the drop, tangling together like strands of spider web.

On the far side, beyond the perilous crossing, was another broad ledge. Beyond it, carved into the bedrock, was the entrance to some kind of shrine. There was no mistaking the Imperial nature of the architecture, the graven aquila and the images of saintly beings flanking its entrance. Yet Jennika recoiled at the foul sigils that had been burned into the stone, the defacing emblems and warping that had rendered the holy site into something altogether darker.

‘We are expected,’ said Massata. Waiting before the entrance to the shrine were more of the hulking avian mutants, who pointed their staves like weapons and began to chant. At the same time, a terrible rustling and rushing reached Jennika’s ears. It flowed like a wind from the tunnel to their backs, and from dozens of other smaller entrances that dotted the rock like maggot holes.

‘Move,’ barked Nesh. ‘Shooters, suppress the witches on the opposite ledge. Lady Jennika, rearguard, keep them off us.’

Led by Shanema, the retinue hurried out over the chasm as fast as they dared. The footing was treacherous, the rocky spans slippery and damp, their edges rounded. The drop waited below, a hungry maw awaiting sacrificial offerings.

Massata and his warriors opened fire as they advanced. The avian mutants unleashed their flames in return. Bolts and blasts whipped back and forth, their din echoing in ancient spaces that had not seen the fury of battle for millennia.

Jennika cursed as mutants spilled from the tunnels behind and all around. They scrambled onto the bridges in a hissing mass, surging towards the invaders with such vigour that the weakest of their number were sent tumbling into the darkness with plaintive screams.

‘Keep moving,’ shouted Jennika, lashing her sword at the nearest mutants as she backed across the bridge. Ahead of her, D’bu’ko was clambering nimbly along, ushering Mortens before him. The jokaero grunted in response, and she heard the scream of his digital weapons as he incinerated a gaggle of mutants coming across a joining bridge. Jennika followed suit, firing her digi-laser into a mutant’s face and sending its corpse tumbling away.

A volley of fireballs roared around them, the projectiles sailing wide to detonate against the far wall. Jennika heard the thunder of Nesh and Massata’s bolt weapons firing, the howl of Kaston’s hellgun.

Another wave of mutants rushed her, and she kept her footing on the perilous span as she hacked them down one by one.

‘Hold formation,’ called Nesh. ‘Keep moving.’

More fireballs whistled around them, one striking an adjoining bridge. Crystal fire splashed across it, immolating several mutants and causing the surface Jennika stood on to shudder furiously. She heard a cry from behind her, and spun to see Mortens hanging over the void. D’bu’ko had hold of his wrist with one hand and was clinging to the bridge by his other, face tight with the strain of pulling the scribe back up.

Mortens’ legs kicked. His eyes bulged.

‘Jennika!’ shouted Kaston. Jennika spun again in time to see a bloated mutant rushing her, vestigial arms flailing in its flabby gut, club-like fists swinging. She swept her blade up and the mutant ran straight onto the weapon’s point, all the way to the hilt. The creature’s momentum drove her feet from under her.

Jennika felt a moment of horror as gravity reached up to snatch her in its fist, then she was falling into darkness.

Runes swam across Sire Garath’s vision, picking out priority targets in the greenskin horde. His steed, Iron Drake, stood within a cannon slit set to the right of the Ironclaw gate. The embrasure provided his Knight with a limited field of fire at the attacking hordes, and with his ion shield angled forward and the armoured ferrocrete of the wall protecting him, he was all but impossible for the orks to hit.

Garath fired with a clench of his fist, and an ork tank exploded. The fireball engulfed a mob of greenskin mechanics, and sent blazing chunks of wreckage bouncing through the xenos ranks.

‘They’re as thick as bloodspiders on a carcass out there,’ he said. ‘It’s insultingly easy.’

‘True,’ replied Sire Reikard, whose Knight, Pyromancer, stood at the embrasure on the opposite side of the gate. ‘It’s more a case of hitting something worthwile.’

Garath grunted in agreement. ‘They’re more likely to starve us of ammunition than they are to breach the walls.’

Checking his strategic overlay, Garath saw hundreds of orks surge towards the Draconspire’s walls. Explosions blossomed incessantly as their small arms fire and bombs hit the ’spire’s void shields. The sky filled with fire, but still, the energy field held.

The return fire of the Draconspire militia was withering. Las and autogun fire punched through green flesh, while heavy weapons, gun emplacements and Knightly weapons laced the ork lines with shells and piled brutish corpses in bloody hillocks.

‘They’ve been doing this for days,’ said Reikard. ‘Will they never tire of throwing their lives away?’

‘A ghurgol has more brains than these savage beasts,’ said Garath. ‘They’ll keep throwing themselves at our walls, and we’ll continue killing them.’

‘Do not underestimate the xenos, sire Garath,’ voxed Sacristan Nilsoch, ensconced in his Crawler behind their position. ‘They have forced us to expend almost one third of our stockpiled ammunition in less than a week. The beasts’ assaults have gained the outer walls four times, and last night their infiltrator caste almost carried the Drakescale tower. Those xenos are still not all accounted for, and if Lady Suset had not led the counter-attack when she did…’

‘They’d have taken a single tower for a short while,’ Garath’s tone was singularly unimpressed. ‘Their technology is made from scrap and rubbish. They have no honour or discipline, and they throw themselves at our walls like rabid wulfdenkyne. Every raid by our air forces thins their ranks. Every attack costs them a hundred lives to every one of ours that falls. These xenos are going to break themselves against the Draconspire until they’re all dead, you’ll see it.’

‘They won’t run out of bodies in a hurry,’ said Reikard, punctuating his words with raking volleys from his gatling cannons. ‘I heard another two warbands arrived from the south overnight. We’ve killed thousands of the brutes, but they spring up as fast as we put them down. They’re like fungus after rain.’

‘It would not do to forget their heretical technologies, either,’ said Nilsoch, his lecturing tone rankling Garath. ‘The orbital augury suggests a substantial reserve of super-heavy war engines and aerial assets that the orks have not yet committed. I suspect the warlord is testing our defences in an attempt to exhaust our supplies.’

‘Oversized rubbish and flying rubbish is still rubbish,’ said Garath scornfully. ‘They can’t keep throwing bodies at us forever, and I don’t believe for a second they’ve got the brains to do anything cleverer than that. They will be worn down, and when our relief force arrives, slaughtered.’

Garath fired again, his shells arcing perfectly between a pair of lumbering walkers to hit a larger super-heavy tank that crawled behind them. Garath’s shot was sublime, punching through a corroded armour plate he had spotted and touching off the tank’s internal magazine. It lifted into the air, a colossal firework whose fury flattened the walkers nearby and killed dozens of orks.

Iron Drake rumbled in appreciation, and the ghosts of his throne filled his thoughts with congratulatory whispers.

‘Hah,’ he laughed. ‘That’s it, see? They’re fleeing again.’

Sure enough, the orks were turning aside from their attack, dashing in all directions. Tanks ploughed straight through mobs of infantry, flailing green bodies vanishing beneath their tracks. Lighter vehicles jounced away, piling on speed as they skidded out of Garath’s line of fire.

‘Wait…’ said Reikard uneasily. ‘They’re turning aside, not running away. What is this?’

‘Caution, sires,’ said Sacristan Nilsoch. ‘I am detecting a significant energy build up in the greenskin rear lines. Postulate Gargant weapon system. Power growing at an exponential pace, this is highly alarming. Sires, I recommend–’

Nilsoch didn’t have a chance to finish. Garath saw a titanic flash of light from the dust clouds wreathing the ork rear lines. Alarms shrilled in his cockpit, warning of a power spike, then everything went black.

In the High Strategium, the electrosconces extinguished as one, dying along with the holoscreens, the cogitator arrays and even the strategium servitors. Sparks exploded from the holoprojection of the Draconspire, and people cried out in shock as the image vanished.

Danial stood in the gloom, a useless control wand in one hand and a dead vox-horn in the other. He took a slow, deep breath. Luk’s voice was gone, choked off in an instant. He would have to trust his friend, and the Emperor, that Luk had received enough of his message.

Voices cried out, demands for clarification, prayers to the Emperor and the Omnissiah, shouts of pain as people stumbled into one another or tripped over obstructions in the dark. Nestled within the inner spire, the strategium was a fully enclosed space and, with its lumen and monitors extinguished, it now lay in complete darkness.

Panic built like a storm rising.

Danial stood and raised his voice.

‘Knights and adepts. Be still!’

Quiet rippled outwards from him as those within earshot obeyed, and passed his instructions on to those in the higher galleries and recessed vox-pits. Danial felt his subjects waiting tense and quiet for his words. Distant cries and rumbling booms could be heard through the walls, and he fought down his own panic as he wondered how far this machine curse had spread.

‘Chief adepts,’ said Danial. ‘Locate the saviour shrines and illuminate the chem-lanterns within. Pass them out.’

Shuffling could be heard, and a few moments later, cold yellow light sprang to life amidst the galleries. As the chem-lanterns were distributed, Danial glanced at Suset, her worried face barely visible in the wan glow.

‘Lady Gatekeeper?

‘Duty Sacristans,’ she called. ‘Attend the emergency generatorum, begin your rites of awakening. We need a return of power as soon as the Omnissiah wills. Chief adepts, perform full section check. If we have any functioning systems, I wish to know of them. The rest of you, until we know what has occurred you will wait by your stations. Militia, open the reserve lockers and distribute small arms.’

As purposeful bustle replaced near-panic, Lady Suset turned to Danial.

‘My liege, what has happened? Is this an attack, do you think?’

‘It must be,’ he said. ‘This is no localised machine-spirit failure. Even my crown has ceased to function.’

He glanced at Markos, who scowled and tapped his vocal augmetic, then angrily shook his head.

‘We need to know how widespread this is,’ said Suset. ‘Have they hit the high strategium somehow, or is this everywhere? If so…’

‘It could be catastrophic,’ said Danial, nudging one of his fallen servo-skulls with his toe. ‘We’ll make for the north rampart, third fief. Vox Polluxis and–’ Danial caught himself. ‘No vox. Throne. Gather the younger adepts, anyone swift-footed with a good knowledge of the ’spire. Have the scriptorium adepts manually copy out instructions by hand for them to circulate. Fiefs and sections are to establish their own runners, restore light and distribute arms, then await further instruction.’

Suset nodded, then turned and began issuing orders.

‘My lady?’ said Danial. She stopped and looked back. ‘Get this strategium barricaded as soon as you can, and call up a platoon of militia to secure it. I want you to coordinate communications from here. If the orks are attacking then this chamber has to stay secure.’

‘I know what to do,’ she said firmly. ‘Worry less about me, and more about the Draconspire. I’ll send word when we’ve got everything secure.’

She turned and marched away towards the Sacristans who were huddled around the backup generatorum. Danial noticed most of them were dragging deadened mechanical limbs, or supporting comrades who could not walk at all.

Danial strode from the grand strategium with his herald, Bannoch’s squad and a small group of scribes and runners in tow.

Long before they reached the battlements, Danial could hear the swelling roar of fighting outside. Making his way up a steep flight of stairs, he staggered, grabbing the railing as the ’spire shuddered around him.

‘Artillery,’ said Bannoch.

‘The shield is down,’ said Danial. ‘Dracon’s blood.’

He hurried up the remaining stairs and through a richly appointed meeting chamber. Several dozen refugees crowded there in the pale light that fell through the chamber’s windows. They looked out of place in their serfs’ garb, seated on velveteen chaises or crouched under olidarne-wood tables, shielding their children with their bodies.

They stared at Danial with huge eyes as he passed.

‘Be calm, my people,’ he said. ‘The Knights of Draconis protect you. We are your shield. No harm shall befall you, you have my word.’

As he walked through an archway into the adjoining corridor, he muttered to Bannoch.

‘Send one of your men to Lieutenant Drahn. Have him organise militia squads to round up all the refugees and move them to more secure containment in the high spires. Not too high though, throne knows the situation on the high-atmosphere levels. I don’t want these people in harm’s way, and I don’t want them in our way if fighting breaks out.’

Bannoch nodded, pointing to one of his accompanying soldiers who hurried away.

Meanwhile, Danial led the way through an armoured door that opened onto the northern battlements of the inner ’spire. Daylight and smokey air washed inwards as he and Markos heaved the door open, accompanied by the shocking din of battle. Something exploded nearby, and they ducked instinctively. Bits of stone and metal rattled down around them.

Danial straightened, swept back his cloak, and strode out onto the battlement.

A broad firestep stretched away to right and left. Wide enough to accomodate two Leman Russ battle-tanks abreast, it curved along the facing wall of the spire, which was dotted in places with windows and doorways. Ramps led down to lower firesteps, and up to the next one that protruded from the wall some fifty feet above.

Hefty ferrocrete crenulations protected the battlement. Militia clustered behind them. In places there were gaps where lucky shells had blasted chunks out of the masonry. Here and there, fires were burning and corpses strewn. Squads of soldiers dashed up and down, following the bellowed orders of their sergeants. At a glance, Danial could see the emplaced weapons sat silent and useless, their crews praying over them in frustration.

He lent over the parapet, staring out as the wind tugged at his cloak. Below, beyond the Draconspire’s myriad roofs and turrets, and its outer battlements where soldiers milled and fires burned, were the orks.

Thousands upon thousands of them.

The beasts crashed against the walls, their feral warcries carrying up to where Danial stood. Fleets of light vehicles hurtled around the Draconspire, raising clouds of dust as they strafed the battlements. Even now, grapnels were looping up over the outer walls, the distant figures of militia frantically hacking at them with blades and striking them with gun-butts. Steeds stood dark and silent in their cannon slits, guns drooping, postures slumped.

Hundreds of ork tanks and artillery pieces elevated their barrels and coughed smoke as they launched shells towards the walls. Massive walkers loomed over them, war effigies of every size and weight class. Those engines’ guns boomed, raking the walls with laser blasts and streams of shells.

Barely visible amidst the greenskins’ rear lines, Danial’s eyes were drawn to the foul xenos banners rising over the proud ramparts of the Northrise Battery. Near it loomed an especially enormous and hunched Gargant, which was blazing merrily and gouting smoke.

‘There,’ said Danial, ‘the architect of our woes.’

The engine’s right arm, and much of its torso, was taken up by some kind of unidentifiable energy weapon that was now wreathed in flames. Smoke rose from the distant machine, while frantic figures swarmed across it in bucket chains. A cone of devastation led from the Gargant’s feet to the north wall. It was littered with greenskin vehicles and downed aircraft.

Markos nodded, his expression murderous.

‘Throne, it looks as though we’ve lost it all,’ said Danial. ‘Wall guns. Void shields. Even the manportable weaponry has perished.’

‘At least the blast missed our aircraft, sire,’ said Bannoch, gesturing skywards. Danial saw Marauder bombers and Vendetta gunships lifting off from high perches, stooping to begin fire missions in support of the beleaguered outer battlements.

‘Those high enough to avoid the blast,’ said Danial. ‘We need to know more about this phenomenon, and quickly. If this is permanent, the siege just became a question not of weeks, but of days.’

Markos nodded, gesturing to the outer walls and their blazing battlements, then running a finger across his throat.

‘You’re right,’ said Danial. ‘The outer wall is too long, too thinly defended for us to hold against orks without guns. We need to pull back, take stock, dig in. Re-arm.’

Markos looked at him enquiringly. Danial pulled his grandfather’s amulet out from under his tabard and ran a hand over its surface.

‘You always told me I read too much, Markos,’ he said with a humourless smile. ‘Well, all those days spent locked away in the Draconspire libraries may yet prove our salvation. From the Tome of Kings, I followed the clues hidden in Pastalius’ lore, to the archival writings of Elderknight Gajeydrin. I wanted to show Lady Jennika, to have her reason it out, but then of course all of this began. Markos, I believe that father left me a map, whether he knew it or not. A map that may lead to our salvation. But before I test the truth of that, we need to control this situation.’

Danial pointed to the young adepts that had accompanied him to the walls.

‘Take this down and distribute word,’ he said. ‘You to the first fief, you to the second, you around the third. Outer walls are to be abandoned, effective immediately. All forces that can are to fall back to their rally points around the second perimeter. No breach of the second wall can be permitted. If admitting warriors will risk this, those warriors are not to be admitted.’

He paused, allowing their scratching quills to catch up. Something exploded nearby, and everyone ducked save Danial and Markos. Smoke drifted around them. The cries of fresh wounded echoed along the battlements.

‘Barricades are to be constructed at every strategically viable juncture within the second wall structures, and every door and window is to be reinforced,’ he continued. ‘Use whatever necessary for this. Nothing is sacred. Distribute all available close quarters weaponry. Break out the squires’ crossbows and distribute them to the militia.’

‘They’re primitive, but they’ll put a quarrel through an inch of steel,’ said Bannoch.

‘There’s a few hundred at most,’ said Danial. ‘Nothing like enough. You,’ he pointed to a sandy-haired young scribe. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Paladhin, sire,’ stammered the runner.

‘You are to go straight to High Sacristan Polluxis’ shrine,’ said Danial. ‘Find out everything he has managed to discover about this phenomenon, and relay that information to Lady Suset in the High Strategium. You have my personal authority in this, code phrase Regulatum. Polluxis will respect that code-word. Paladhin, you are to be the conduit for information between Polluxis and she until I command otherwise.’

Markos pointed to himself, and to Danial, then looked enquiring.

‘We are parting ways,’ Danial said. ‘Gather a force and assist in the fighting retreat from the walls. Markos, I need you to make sure no orks get into the second line, do you understand?’ The herald nodded, face grim. ‘Bannoch, you and I are going down to the lowest undercrypts of the Draconspire. If the writings of the Lords of Draconis are true, then we are going to unlock the Ancestral Armoury.’

Flickering light returned to Garath’s cockpit as he pumped his emergency breaker. He heard air circulating, but little else. Iron Drake remained unresponsive. Dead. He couldn’t even hear the ghosts of his throne, and his neck was agony where feedback from his neural jacks had scorched his flesh.

‘What in Throne’s name happened?’ he wondered aloud. ‘One way to find out.’

Garath unhooked his weapons from his cockpit rack, but frowned as he found that his laspistol was lifeless.

‘Dracon’s blood,’ he cursed, casting it aside. At least his draconblade was unaffected.

Garath climbed his cockpit rungs quickly, and swore again as he saw that the hatch release rune was dead. Something exploded outside his steed, causing it to sway like an autopennant in a high wind.

Gritting his teeth, Garath unlocked the manual hatch release and pumped the handle several times. He recited the prayer of unlocking as he worked, beads of sweat running down his forehead. On the fifth recital, the bolts released with a thump. Garath pushed his hatch open and gulped a lungful of fresh air.

Pulling himself up onto Drake’s carapace, he saw Sire Reikard atop his own steed, which was similarly lifeless. The tall, dark haired Knight shrugged helplessly in Garath’s direction. Garath pointed at the ground behind the gate, then slid across Drake’s carapace to the dismounting ladder.

As he did, a volley of shells whooped overhead and exploded amongst the lower towers of the Draconspire.

‘Damnation. The shield,’ he hissed as more shells rained down. Above him, men were blasted from the battlements with screams of terror.

Garath broke into a run the moment his feet hit the ferrocrete, meeting Reikard directly behind the armoured slab of the Ironclaw Gate. From outside, ork war cries rose like a tidal wave. Explosions flashed atop the walls, and militia corpses littered the marshalling yard.

‘What in Emperor’s name happened?’ asked Reikard.

‘Does it look like I know?’ said Garath. ‘The power has failed. The damned greenskins must have worked some sort of tech-heresy.’

‘We need to muster the militia,’ said Reikard. ‘They need to hold the walls.’

‘They can’t,’ said Garath. ‘What we need to do is–’

He was interrupted as something struck the Ironclaw gate with a thunderous boom.

‘Shells?’ asked Reikard, looking at Garath doubtfully. Another thunderous blow shook the gate. Rivets popped loose like bullets.

‘No,’ said Garath. ‘We’ve got to get everyone back. Now.’

‘You men!’ bellowed Reikard, trying to attract the attention of the militia on the wall.

‘They’re too far away and the damn xenos are too loud,’ said Garath as another impact shivered the gate. ‘We’re going up. You take the sector eighteen stairs, I’ll take sector nineteen. Pull them back to the wall keeps then dig in. Orders will come.’

‘We’ll have to abandon our steeds,’ said Reikard.

‘I never thought this day would come,’ said Garath bitterly. He cared for Iron Drake a great deal more than any living creature he had ever met, but to remain was to die.

‘Emperor forgive us, then, Master at Arms,’ said Reikard.

‘He will if we earn it,’ said Garath, then turned and ran for the distant stairway that led up to the battlement. As he went, the gate boomed again, and a metal claw the size of a Knight’s shin burst through it.

A scream filled the air, rising to deafening volume. Garath had a fleeting glimpse of huge rockets plunging down upon the battlements, then came an apocalyptic explosion. Garath was lifted and hurled through the air, lungs punched empty, mind screaming. Fire scoured everything, and the roar of the explosion was like a wrathful god.

He hit the ground and skidded, pain tearing through him before he hit the bottom step of the sector nineteen stairs with crunching force.

Groggily, Garath looked back the way he had come. Through a swimming haze, he realised that the entire Draconseye gate, and the section of battlement above it, was simply gone. Smoke and flame danced over a mountain of rubble and wreckage that spilled into the ravaged marshalling yard. Iron Drake was lost amidst that mountain of ruin, destroyed or buried. On the blast zone’s edge, Sacristan Nilsoch’s Crawler lay on its roof, ablaze from end to end.

Dull at first, but growing louder, Garath heard a rumble. His brain struggled to comprehend its importance, even as his instincts tugged at him, forcing him to his feet. Garath hissed in pain, feeling cracked bones grind together in his chest and neck. His flesh was scorched, agony gnawing at him from every angle.

Yet now his heart beat faster as sense returned.

‘Throne, the orks,’ he croaked. Casting about, he saw militiamen crawling from the debris, dazed and covered in dust. Some clutched the spurting stumps of severed limbs. Others had faces that were masked in blood.

Garath croaked, coughed, spat, tried again.

‘Men, draw your weapons,’ he rasped. ‘The orks are coming. Rally on me!’

Blank eyes stared at him. Gaping mouths worked over silent words. Garath felt anger surge, helping him to shake off his own torpor. He brandished his blade.

‘Are you men of House Draconis?’ he shouted hoarsely. ‘Or are you useless curs? Draw your damn blades, ready your damn bayonets, and bloody well rally on me or I swear by the High King’s crown I will shoot every last one of you.’

Now they stirred, all but the most broken motivated by duty or fear. Stumbling and shaking, the militiamen gathered to him. There were several dozen of them. Many were wounded. Some, for a blessing, still had blades.

The sound of the orks’ approach grew to a cacophonous bellow as the smoke from the blast cleared.

‘Any moment now, they’re going to charge through that gap,’ said Garath. ‘They’re going to spill through it. There’s thousands of them and a scant few of us, so I’m not going to waste all our lives trying to stop them. Fighting retreat, on me, back through the Blacksmith’s District to the second line bastions. We’ll rally there. Move.’

Garath turned and ran for the nearest street leading towards the inner walls. His men ran with him, as best they could. At their backs, the orks’ roar broke like a wave. A horde of monsters poured from the smoke. They looked a lot bigger when you fought them on foot, thought Garath.

The greenskins were hulking brutes, charging forward with their tusked mouths open wide in ferocious war cries. Some brandished crude chainswords that roared and belched smoke. Others cradled fat-barrelled autogun equivalents that sprayed bullets as they ran.

Shots whipped around Garath, striking sparks from the ground. A fat slug whined past his ear. To his right a running militiaman was thrown onto his face as shots struck him in the back.

‘Keep running!’ yelled Garath.

He dashed through the shadow of a blazing building and pelted down the street, his soldiers running with him. More shots whipped around them. More soldiers fell.

There came a roar of rockets, and dark shapes shot overhead. Garath swore as a handful of orks slammed down in the street ahead of them, their crude rocket packs flaring.

‘Charge!’ he cried. The orks turned with feral grins and ran to meet him.

The impact was bone-crunching. Soldiers fell, carved open or smashed flat. Garath swept his blade through the neck of the first ork he met, lopping its head from its shoulders. He barged the body aside and spun around it, whipping his sword in an arc that disembowelled a second.

A huge green fist caught him in the stomach and doubled him over, driving the air from his lungs. A leering ork raised its axe over him, only for a howling militiaman to drive his bayonet into the greenskin’s chest. The ork staggered, the blade embedded to the hilt in its chest. It snarled, and Garath saw the moment of horrified realisation on the militiaman’s face before the greenskin slammed its axe into his chest.

‘No!’ gasped Garath, sweeping his sword up and hacking off the ork’s axe arm at the elbow. The militiaman fell away, dead, and the ork spun towards him with a roar. Garath swung low and cut off one of its legs, spilling it to the street in a spray of blood.

‘Come on,’ he yelled. ‘Through them. If we halt here, they’ll overwhelm us!’

He ducked the swing of a chain-choppa and drove his blade point-first through its wielder’s jaw. Ripping his weapon free, Garath started running again and those that could followed. A glance told him that he had maybe half of his force still with him, all running for their lives.

They dashed down a long concourse and across a junction where a Knight loomed dead and dark. Its hatch hung open, and blood painted its carapace. The sight of it filled Garath with despairing anger.

Shells fell around them, blasting open buildings and bringing rains of masonry down upon the unprotected streets.

Turning a corner, Garath almost ran headlong into a band of militia coming the other way with a small group of Sacristans in tow.

‘With me,’ yelled Garath. ‘They’re right behind us! Beaconfort, postern gate. Come on!’

The men and women of the militia responded with admirable speed, chivvying their Sacristan charges into an ungainly run. Garath could hear the roar of the orks as they poured through the streets. Up a short, steep climb rose the dark bulk of the second wall, and the battlements of the Beaconfort.

He could see pale, wide-eyed faces staring out from the fort’s embrasures.

‘Open the gate,’ he yelled, arms and legs pumping as he dashed up the steep roadway. ‘Open the damn gate in the name of the Master of Arms!’

‘Sire Garath,’ shouted a man from above. ‘The High King has ordered us to seal the gates.’

‘You do that, you’ll watch us die down here,’ yelled Garath. ‘There’s time if you act right now, and as a Knight of the Exalted Court, I order you to do so! Stop wringing your hands and open the damned gate!’

Handles cranked and cables groaned as militiamen manually winched the Beaconfort gate ajar.

They were a hundred metres away, then eighty, then fifty. Shots whined around him, striking the Beaconfort’s walls.

Closer, closer, and then Garath finally reached the gate. He stopped, bellowing encouragement to the soldiers and Sacristans charging up the hill behind him. The orks had appeared, a wall of green brutes racing uphill at their heels.

Men and women dashed past him, lunging through the cracked-open gate. The last of them, a limping militiaman, was ten yards from the gate, his eyes locked on Garath’s when ork fire raked him. Garath felt the man’s blood spray his face, and then he was ducking through the gate, bellowing at the garrison to close it.

The metal gateway slammed shut, and Garath pressed his back to it, sliding slowly down into a sitting position. He glanced up, seeing the grateful, frightened faces of the men and women he had saved. In every face, he saw the last man to die staring back at him. Then their image swam, and his pain caught up to him, and his blade clattered from his hand.

The last thing Garath saw was militia medicaes hurrying to his side.

Deep beneath the Draconspire, Danial advanced by torchlight. Bannoch and his men carried burning brands, lighting their High King’s way. They had progressed ever downward, through arming chambers and mausoleums, victuallaries and dungeons, past barricades under hasty construction. Finally, they had come to the very lowest levels, where only the most august personages were permitted to tread, where the secrets of House Draconis brooded in darkness. Now they progressed slowly, and Danial’s frustration grew at each wrong turn and dead end.

In his youth, Danial had descended into the tunnels only rarely, and always with his father. Once the tunnels were this deep, they had a strange metallic cast to them, and were lit intermittently by sleek-looking lumen that had not been affected by the orks’ weapon. Danial led the way, following the instructions he had memorised from the scrolls of the Elderknight and watching for sigils of ancient script emblazoned at junctions and portals. He sought the fabled Ancestral Armoury of House Draconis, the secret that had been passed from one regent of the Noble House to another until its very existence had become little more than a fable.

At last, as Danial was beginning to lose hope, he found himself before a huge door melded somehow from stone and metal. It bore writings so archaic that he could not read them, and sigils whose warning or welcome he did not understand, but it matched the stylised illuminations in the Elderknight’s works. Set into its frame was a socket lined with glowing filaments, and this, at least, he understood. Danial pressed his grandfather’s amulet into the socket, where it fitted with a click.

Light flared as hidden beacons strobed the chamber, and ancient airs washed over them as the heavy doors rumbled apart. A mechanical voice droned words in a language that sounded familiar, yet illusively incomprehensible. He caught something that sounded like ‘long march’, something that might have been ‘emergency’.

Beyond, in a chamber of cold metal and glowing archeotech, lights flickered on. They illuminated metal racking, row upon row of it within which objects sat in shimmering stasis fields.

Danial looked upon them, and smiled a hard smile.

‘By the grace of our ancestors,’ he said. ‘House Draconis is not defeated yet.’

Jennika opened her eyes onto absolute darkness. The pain in her chest, her head and her left wrist told her she still lived. She felt cold. Her skin was unpleasantly wet with some tacky substance. In the dark, she struggled to tell what she lay on, or which way up she was.

Panic threatened, and she crushed it down viciously.

‘Not here,’ she whispered. ‘Not now. That would be death.’

The sound of her own voice brought some measure of comfort, allowing her to rationally assess her situation.

‘I fell,’ she said quietly. ‘From the bridge. We were at the… shrine. The inquisitor wanted whatever was in there. There’s more to his mission than there seems.’

She felt the truth of it as she said it. The glances at Venquist, the insistent search; the inquisitor had come to do more than just scour the taint from her world. He was using the Knights of Adrastapol for some hidden end. But why hide his purpose?

‘This cannot be good,’ she muttered. ‘I need to find them. Confront him.’

Jennika felt the steely determination that had carried her through her father’s death and the terrible events that followed. With it came clarity. She needed, first, to see. Feeling about, and wincing at the stab of pain from her left wrist, Jennika determined that she was wedged between spurs of rock, laid on top of something soft and yielding… Fleshy. The mutant that had knocked her from the bridge had also broken her fall.

Struggling in her constricted position, Jennika groped around until she found what she sought. The hilt of her draconblade, still jutting from the thing’s chest. If she hadn’t been wearing her bodyglove, she realised, its pommel would have shattered her sternum upon landing.

Painstakingly, she dragged the weapon free and managed to squirm away from it somewhat, turning herself onto her side with a hiss of pain.

‘Dracon, be with me now,’ she prayed, then thumbed her blade’s igniter rune.

Fire leapt in the darkness, and Jennika breathed a sigh of relief. Squinting against the sudden glare, she took in her surroundings.

She was near the bottom of a deep ravine whose walls were jagged stone. They stretched above until they left the light of her draconblade. She had come down between two spurs of stone, fall cushioned by the mangled carcass of the monster that had tried to kill her. Its tacky blood was still drying on her skin.

‘Emperor be praised, thank you for this miraculous intervention,’ Jennika whispered fervently. ‘I will not waste this chance that you have given me.’

After a few moments of wriggling and straining, she could see where to move, and worked herself free of the cleft. She skidded to the floor of the chasm, splashing down in a foot of brackish water, hissing in pain as her ankle ground beneath her.

Jennika took a moment to run a diagnostic through her bodyglove’s systems. Broken left wrist. Two broken ribs. Possible fracture of her collar bone. Badly sprained ankle. Cuts, abrasions and bruising all over.

‘Lucky,’ she said. ‘Still lucky.’

At its base, the ravine was no more than a few feet wide, its floor an uneven mass of jagged rock, gnarled clefts and dark water. It stretched away in either direction, neither way looking more appealing than the other, and for a moment Jennika felt panic again. The thought of being trapped down here, no way out, devoured by its stony maw…

‘No,’ she told herself sternly. ‘No. Not while they need you.’

Jennika extinguished her blade for a moment, closed her eyes and held her breath. Her mind reached out for anything that might give her a clue. The slightest sound, or a breath of air would be enough. She frowned as she felt instead a faint warmth upon her right cheek. The sensation was akin to standing before a guttering hearth, and she opened her eyes and reignited her blade but saw nothing there.

‘Touched by the draconsfire, perhaps,’ she murmured. ‘It’s as good a sign as any.’

Turning right, Jennika began to pick her way along the defile.

Hours passed. Her armour’s inbuilt chronolog helped her keep track. But hours was still time she could not afford, and Jennika knew it. Limping through the gloom, her draconblade’s fuel runes turning amber and winking out one by one, Jennika struggled with the worst nightmares her mind could conjure.

Her. Dead. Turning to mouldering bones, lost forever. The Knight who never returned.

The orks victorious, howling their hate from atop the fallen steeds of Adrastapol.

The inquisitor revealing himself to be a traitor as foul as Alicia Kar Manticos.

The Draconspire in flames.

Jennika pushed the images away, snarling angrily at her mind’s attempt to turn upon itself. Yet she couldn’t deny that her wounds hurt, and her body was growing weaker. She was painfully thirsty, and her limbs ached with tiredness.

‘They need you,’ she told herself after a moment of groggy weakness. ‘No, Throne take them, they’ve always needed you. You need you. You are the First Knight of House Draconis and you deserve better than this.’

Again, Jennika felt that promise of warmth upon her skin, and thought for a second that she heard the crackle of distant flames.

‘Delirious,’ she muttered. But all the same, she followed the sensation, forcing her tired limbs to keep moving, limping along the slippery floor in the guttering light of her blade.

Rounding a jagged bend, Jennika frowned as she realised that her sword was not the only source of illumination. A faint shimmer came from ahead, the suggestion of light as faint as the pre-dawn glow.

Hope drove her forwards with renewed vigour.

The pale light swelled, and after a while Jennika extinguished her blade. It was pale, diaphanous. Not daylight, she thought with a pang of disappointment, but something at least.

Overhead, the ravine’s walls met and melded like lips pressing shut, leaving her in a glowing, water-logged tunnel. A hundred yards further and Jennika limped from its end into a cavern that took her breath away.

The cave was huge, its roof like the domed ceiling of a cathedrum. Stalactites and stalagmites had melded into towering pillars as thick as a Knight’s leg, encrusted with crystalline deposits like jewelled waterfalls. It was from these crystals that the light shone, a kaleidoscope of blues and yellows and pinks.

Jennika realised that, beneath the dust and grit, the floor bore a stone fresco. Many of its tiles were shattered or missing, but it depicted an image she recognised only too well. A Knight, tall and powerful. Its hull was less ornate than the steeds she knew, its lines curving and strangely industrial, but it was a Knight nonetheless. At its feet were fallen trees and the bodies of slain beasts. Above it was a darkened sky full of stars, in which one blue-and-green orb glinted larger than the rest.

Jennika’s attention was drawn to the chamber’s centre, and her breath caught. There stood an altar whose design was clearly anything but Imperial. Eight pointed stars and flowing, serpentine symbols decorated it. Avian statues overlooked it, foul things graven from the same crystals that clad the pillars. Banners fell from their taloned hands, things of blue silk bearing ancient designs that were hard to look upon.

Jutting from the top of the altar, Jennika saw an object wrapped in chains. She felt that phantom fire again, warmer now upon her face. Something compelled her to approach.

Jennika limped towards the altar clutching her blade in her right hand, while her useless left arm hung by her side. Her eyes darted, alert for any threat. Nothing moved but her. Amidst the still air and silent, dancing light, it felt as though nothing ever had.

‘It’s a draconblade,’ she said wonderingly.

The ornate weapon rose from the surface of the altar. Though most of its length was driven into the stone, Jennika could tell that it was the most beautiful weapon she had ever seen. Heavy chains stretched from the altar’s flanks to wrap around the sword’s hilt and crossguard, but between their links Jennika could see fiery opals and rubies glowing, set into masterfully worked adamantium.

She felt an urge to reach out and grip the weapon, but stopped herself.

‘What is this?’ she asked aloud. ‘A sacrifice? A trap? Emperor, if you can hear me, guide me.’

She checked her belt, and saw that she still had three krak grenades mag-clamped to it. Enough to blow the door off a bunker or wreck a battle-tank. Surely enough to destroy an altar to the dark gods, and the strange weapon it imprisoned.

Yet the blade was chained in place, like a warrior trapped against their will. It looked out of place here, a weapon of the Emperor, not of the daemon gods.

Jennika felt a surge of frustration. Now was not the time for her world to reveal more of its cryptic secrets. Yet she felt the gravity of this moment, as though falling into the chasm had plunged her into the gears of fate themselves. She must play her part, or be crushed by them.

She took a deep breath. Hoping fervently that it was the Emperor guiding her hand and not some other, darker agency, she sheathed her own weapon and reached out to grip the draconblade’s hilt.

The moment her hand closed around the weapon, she felt fiery warmth radiate through her. Fresh strength spread along her limbs, like the feeling of sunlight warming cold skin. The formidable-looking chains disintegrated, burying the altar in a drift of dead iron flakes.

She pulled, and the sword slid from the altar as though from a well-oiled scabbard. She raised the blade before her, and felt a deep sense of power radiating from it. The sword’s pommel was a stylised dracon’s head, the creature staring at her with tiny emerald eyes. Its blade was forged from a metal she didn’t recognise, and danced with a fiery sheen that had nothing to do with the light of the crystals.

That light, she realised, was beginning to fade. As though she had torn out its beating heart, the chamber was dimming towards darkness.

‘You are a mystery for another day,’ she told the sword. Acting quickly, she ripped down one of the unclean banners and wrapped the blade in its folds, bundling it in one layer after another until it was unrecognisable. She removed one of her bodyglove’s crossbelts, binding it several times around the blade before strapping it back in place. Now, with the strange sword strapped firmly to her back and the light fading, Jennika drew her own weapon and reignited its flame.

‘This won’t last long,’ she said. ‘Emperor, please don’t let me–’

She stopped at a sound of stone grinding on stone, and watched in surprise as a set of carved stone steps slid out of the chamber’s far wall. She made for the steps at a hurried limp, seeing now that they climbed up to a doorway that had slid open in the rock.

‘Where there are doors, there are corridors,’ she said. ‘And where there are corridors, there’s got to be a way out. I’m coming, Massata. You owe me the truth.’

Hours later, Jennika limped up a last stretch of stone corridor, past blackened statues of Chimaeros Knights, and out into the pale moonlight. Her blade’s fire had died long ago, leaving her to fumble along in darkness. Exhaustion clawed at her, and her vision swam, but the feel of fresh air and natural light on her skin was enough to make her gasp with relief.

The shattered spar of corridor emptied into a muddy clearing flanked by gnarled trees and a looming stone wall. Undergrowth rose around her, and the stars were dimly visible through gaps in the canopy.

Jennika took a deep breath, dreading what she might hear, then activated her short-range vox-bead.

‘This is Jennika Tan Draconis,’ she said. ‘Eduard? Nualah? Reith? Is anyone there?’

Static hissed, and she leant against a tree trunk, summoning the energy to try again. Then Lady Nualah’s voice was in her ear.

‘Lady Jennika! You live!’

‘Thank the Throne!’ exclaimed Sire Eduard. ‘He said you were dead!’

‘Who?’ asked Jennika. ‘The inquisitor?’

‘Yes,’ said Lady Nualah. ‘He and his party emerged a few hours ago, my lady. They reported you had fallen in battle. They said your last words were a demand that they go at once to the Draconspire and report the scale of the Chaos threat. Massata ordered us to stand guard, to watch for Chaos worshippers emerging from below ground until he could return with a sufficient force to purge them.’

‘I did fall,’ said Jennika, pushing herself upright. ‘Into a chasm. But the Emperor saved me, and by his name I made no such request. The inquisitor has been lying to us. Who knows what he would have done to me if I hadn’t fallen by chance.’

‘I said as much!’ said Sire Reith. ‘Didn’t I say as much?’

‘This is verified,’ said Sacristan Traxin. ‘As is our pleasure at your survival, my lady.’

‘Reith offered to escort the inquisitor,’ said Sire Eduard. ‘To ensure he delivered his message safely. Or to try to patch him into the global strategic vox.’

‘Massata refused on both counts,’ said Reith angrily. ‘To the first he said he needed all three steeds here to form an effective cordon, and to the latter he said he couldn’t risk so dangerous a message being heard by the wrong people. It had to be delivered in person.’

‘Dracon’s blood, but it’s good to hear your voice, my lady,’ said Nualah. ‘We were on the verge of dismounting and making our way into the ruins to search for you, and never mind the inquisitor’s orders.’

‘Well, I’m here now,’ said Jennika. ‘Release a flare and I’ll come to you. We must pursue him.’

To her west, a hissing projectile leapt into the heavens, drifting slowly through the dark sky and burning red like draconsfire. Jennika straightened her back and limped in that direction.

‘Lady, he left hours ago,’ said Sire Eduard. ‘He and his retinue took the Charger and headed out through the wilds. If he wasn’t making for the Draconspire, we may have lost him.’

‘Factual amendment,’ said Traxin. ‘As a precautionary measure, I had my Crawler’s machine-spirit fixate the engine-spoor of the inquisitor’s transport when we first departed the Draconspire. I reasoned that it would be sub-optimal for so august a personage to become separated from his escort.’

‘Fixate his machine-spoor?’ asked Jennika. ‘Do you mean you can track it?’

‘Inquisitor Massata’s transport is currently one hundred and three miles from our position, travelling south-west at an average speed of approximately forty miles per hour. I can continue to monitor this information indefinitely, within a two-hundred-mile range.’

‘Excellent work, Sacristan!’ said Jennika.

‘Even if you could have mentioned it sooner,’ muttered Reith.

‘The Omnissiah bequeaths knowledge only when the time is auspicious,’ said Traxin, sounding singularly unrepentant. ‘Furthermore, I cogitated a high probability that, if I were to divulge this information sooner, your compromised emotional state might have led to your pursuit of the inquisitor before we had recovered Lady Jennika.’

‘You presume to know my mind, Sacristan?’ said Reith angrily.

‘Peace, Sire Reith,’ said Jennika.

‘We know he’s not headed for the Draconspire,’ said Lady Nualah. ‘He might be making for the Shifting Pass? There’s nothing else out that way but the southern tail of the Adrapotines, and the Valley of Kings.’

‘Nothing we know of, anyway,’ said Eduard. ‘More to the point, he is travelling quickly. He risks catching the orks’ eyes. Why is the inquisitor in such a hurry?’

‘We should catch him before we’re forced to find out,’ said Jennika. ‘Traxin, prepare the medicae bay in your Crawler. I’m going to need urgent attention if I’m to pilot, but nothing more than the basics, you understand? We need to begin our hunt.’

Many miles distant, Inquisitor Massata sat in grim contemplation as his Charger rumbled through the wetlands. Its lights were the only glimmer amidst the vast darkness. The throaty roar of its engine echoed away into the silence of that dead region. Within its dimly lit cargo bay, the inquisitor and his retinue sat in silence.

Most were wounded. D’bu’ko lay on a makeshift stretcher taking wheezing breaths, his fur scorched and his flesh blackened. Interrogator Nesh cradled a broken arm, his face like thunder. Venquist appeared catatonic, huddled in a corner and staring sightlessly into the middle distance.

On Inquisitor Massata’s lap lay a book. Its cover was so black that it seemed to suck in the light around it, and emblazoned upon it was a forbidden sigil wrought in blue crystal and gold. The inquisitor had chained the tome shut with blessed silver, yet still he could feel the evil radiating from it.

‘It is a malevolent prize that we have won,’ said Lintiguis Mortens. ‘It despises us, and it hungers for our souls.’

‘That is true,’ said Massata. ‘But it also contains within it the information that we require to finally vanquish our real foe. It is worth the price, and the pain.’

‘I doubt the Adrastapolians would see it that way,’ said Mortens. ‘Lord, is this truly the correct course?’

‘For years, we pursued the Dark Apostle,’ said Massata. ‘Years, during which Varakh’Lorr defeated us thrice. Always through the intercession of the foul daemon that he worshipped. Always at the cost of lives and worlds that were the Emperor’s rightful due. He almost succeeded on Donatos. You know this, Mortens.’

‘I do, lord,’ said Mortens, choosing his words carefully. ‘That is precisely why I fear that the sacrifice of another world, this time by your own hand, will raise the tally of the dead beyond that of which the Emperor would approve. Especially if we slay the very warriors who stopped Lorr when we could not. We have been on Adrastapol for four years now, lord, seeking absolute confirmation of the book’s location, building a true understanding of the Noble Houses. We have seen precious little evidence of the deviancy we feared.’

Massata sighed heavily.

‘When Varakh’Lorr died on Donatos, I dared for a moment to believe it was done,’ said Massata. ‘He was the mortal servant of That Which Dwells in Darkness, its foremost puppet and the key to its monstrous schemes. But there was another. This sorceress, Alicia. Born of this world, Mortens. The source of its corruption.’

‘True,’ said Mortens. ‘And had her taint spread to the other houses I would not question our course, my lord, but…’

He let the sentence hang.

‘It appears that it has not,’ said Massata. ‘True enough. They were still guilty of negligence. They still allowed this corruption to grow unchecked.’

‘They fought it, when we showed them their error,’ said Sergeant Kaston. ‘They are loyal. Pious. Valuable.’

‘But where the daemon has concealed one worshipper, it may conceal more,’ said Massata. ‘And were we to save these people we would then become embroiled in their war against the orks, wasting time we do not have.’

‘A war we started,’ said Kaston, and Massata heard anger in her voice.

‘Enough, my friends,’ he said. ‘I do not wish this course, but it is already set in motion. Sometimes victory requires the hardest of sacrifices.’

‘It’s not too late,’ pressed Kaston. ‘We could deviate. Reach a high-gain orbital vox. There’s the Draconspire.’

‘We would be cutting our cloth exceptionally close,’ said Mortens. ‘Captain Raniaraz’s timetable allows for little error, and Kaston’s piloting skills do not stretch into the realms of aerial combat. If we were shot down, or couldn’t reach the array in time–’

‘Then we would all die, and with us would go the true name of the daemon we fight,’ said Massata. ‘The stakes are too high. I do not do this lightly, but even if the Knights of Adrastapol have proven their purity, I must martyr them for our cause. We hold to the plan, rendezvous with the lander in the Valley of Kings and strike for orbit before Captain Raniaraz unleashes exterminatus.’

Smoke rose over Pass Khabyn. Luk sat in his throne and looked up through his steed’s mechanical senses, past thickets of evergreens to where gunfire flickered at its crest. Khabyn sat between two jagged peaks known as the Horns. Beyond, rising above their towering heights, the Pegasson’s Eyrie could be dimly seen through veils of mist and cloud.

‘The upper pass is thick with orks,’ said Ekhaterina. ‘There must be hundreds of the buggers up there.’

‘And precious few defenders at the barricades,’ said Luk. ‘I don’t see a single steed.’

‘There is one,’ said Sire Hw’ss. ‘It is toppled. Look.’

A pict-capture flicked up on Luk’s manifold, cribbed from J’madus’ long-range auspicators. A Knight of House Pegasson, slumped back against the rocks of the mountainside, pinned in place by metal harpoons that had pierced its limbs and torso.

‘Note the corrupted motive force crackling from those projectiles,’ said Hw’ss. ‘Another of the orks’ strange weapons meant to incapacitate war engines.’

‘The greenskins are all over its legs,’ said Maia in disgust. ‘They’re picking it apart while it still lives.’

‘Be that as it may,’ said Luk, listening to the whispers of his throne. ‘Even with a Knight to lead them, the holding force here is pitiful. Are Pegasson stretched so thin?’

‘If so then we may find scarce help for your friend here,’ said Ranulf. ‘But at least there are plenty of xenos to slaughter.’

‘Colonel Gesmund,’ said Luk. ‘We are going to lend aid to our Pegasson comrades. ‘Can your Tauroxes handle the rocky terrain along the pass’ edges?’

‘It’s what they were built for, sire,’ said Gesmund.

‘Split your force in two and enfold their flanks,’ said Luk. ‘We’ll go straight up the middle and catch them against the Pegasson barricades. Your job is to stop them escaping the kill box.’

‘Understood, sire,’ said Gesmund, and a moment later Luk heard the throaty roar of Taurox engines firing up.

‘Sacristan Dolvar, keep your ironlegs behind us. Support duties only, and watch for wreckage tumbling down the slope.’

‘As the Omnissiah wills,’ said Dolvar.

‘Exiles,’ said Luk. ‘Check ammo, address shields and unshroud your guns. Let’s wipe these filthy aliens out.’

The Freeblade Knights stormed up the pass. Snow swept around their legs like cresting waves, then slid away behind them in miniature avalanches. The angle was steep, and not one of the Knights had made it this far without suffering some form of damage from the roving orks they had encountered. Yet the steeds were strong, their spirits bellicose. Nothing could slow their advance.

‘Scanning them now,’ said Sire Hw’ss. ‘Strong infantry contingent as you would expect. Ingenious beasts though, they have modified their vehicles for the terrain. Chain tires, tracks, primitive but effective.’

‘In the centre,’ said Luk. ‘A war effigy, Stompa class. They’ve attached tracks to it, too!’

‘Throne, these xenos would be preposterous if they weren’t so bloody dangerous,’ said Lady Ekhaterina. ‘Those launchers must be what brought down the Pegasson steed.’

Luk saw the long, wicked-looking cannons sat atop the Stompa’s right shoulder, racks of spear-like projectiles lashed below them. The Stompa was grinding its way slowly up the slope ahead of them, barging through the middle of the ork horde. Already it was raking the beleaguered Pegasson barricades with fire.

If it reached the top, the battle would be over.

‘Concentrate your fire on the war effigy,’ said Luk. ‘While it has its back to us. Punish them for their complacency.’

His Knights opened fire, the shockwaves from their cannons causing the snow to leap and shiver. Shells and rockets whistled up the pass and struck the monstrous war engine. Armour plates buckled inwards, turrets and piping sheared away in blossoms of flame, and secondary explosions burst from the Stompa’s bulbous torso.

The ork advance faltered. The mobs and tanks towards the rear of the horde slowed, turning back towards the metal giants forging up the slopes towards them. Meanwhile, the Stompa itself ceased its grinding advance and began to execute a lumbering turn. Its guns kept firing, cannon shells strafing along the Pegasson barricades.

‘Shields up,’ said Luk. ‘Here they–’

‘Unidentified Knights in the pass,’ a woman’s voice burst from his vox, underpinned by the hammer of gunfire and the roar of greenskins. ‘Do you receive?’

‘We hear you,’ said Luk, angling his shield to deflect incoming rockets. His stubbers roared. ‘Who is this?’

‘Captain Erika Schaur, Pegasson seventy-second militia,’ she replied. ‘Identify yourselves.’

‘The Knight of Ashes,’ said Luk. ‘Leading the Exiles, and Gesmund’s Vesserines. We march to your aid.’

Captain Schaur’s pause told Luk his name had been recognised. He steeled himself for hostility.

‘Knight of Ashes,’ said Schaur. ‘With respect, your aid is more trouble than it’s worth. This pass is slated for collapse. The charges are primed and the orks are where we want them, but my sappers can’t blow them while you’re stood there.’

‘Damn,’ said Luk. ‘My apologies, captain. Exiles, new plan. Cripple the war effigy’s motive systems and push through the horde to the barricades. Gesmund, stay mounted and get clear. Reinforce Captain Schaur’s militia. Sacristans, split and follow the Vesserines through. Gesmund, keep them alive.’

A chorus of assent came back from all save Void. The orks surged down the pass, running pell-mell down the steep slope with no thought to their own safety. Projectiles hammered Luk’s shield. A hurtling war truck swerved around the blast of his thermal cannon and rammed headlong into Sword of Heroes’ shin, almost tripping his steed.

Luk fired again, pressing forward as he blasted greenskins to ash.

‘There’s an awful lot of them,’ said Ekhaterina, her battlecannon thumping shells into the horde. Missiles leapt from her steed’s shoulders and slammed into the Stompa’s right track array. Flames leapt, and sections of track link spun away, but the huge war engine kept turning.

‘More souls for the Emperor’s table,’ said Sire Vo-Geiss, marching Void uphill with his gatling cannons howling. Orks dissolved before him in a blizzard of flesh and blood, the survivors crushed underfoot.

‘Void, remain in formation,’ ordered Luk, but the sable Knight showed no signs of slowing. ‘Vo-Geiss! What are you doing?’

As the Stompa swung around, the many-barrelled cannon on its arm spun up to speed. Shots chewed along the edge of the pass, turning several of Gesmund’s Tauroxes into fireballs and shredding a pair of ironlegs.

‘Damnation,’ shouted Luk angrily. ‘Us, not them!’

He triggered his thermal cannon, and the shot melted several of the Stompa’s armour plates to bubbling slag. The range was still too great, however, and he achieved little more.

‘Crimson Death, kill that thing,’ said Ekhaterina.

‘Omnissiah, guide my aim,’ said Sire Hw’ss, and fired his positron driver. The blasts struck the Stompa and caused it to shudder and twitch as lightning crawled over its hull. Fires burst through its armour plates. Smoke billowed.

Still it turned, raking Ranulf’s steed with cannonfire. Void, ranging ahead of its lancemates’ protection, staggered as dozens of holes were punched through its armour.

‘Agh, Throne damnit,’ he snarled. ‘I’m hit. Holy Throne, my leg’s half off.’

Luk felt anger and dismay at his comrade’s gasps of agony. Void staggered, almost toppling back down the slope. One of its cannons was a sparking wreck, and the orks were closing in.

‘Wrath Inescapable,’ said Luk. ‘Keep him alive. Get to the barricades.’ A rune flashed in reply, and Maia’s Knight angled its advance towards Void. Her thermal cannon hissed, and orks vanished in puffs of ash.

‘Sire, I have to detonate the charges,’ came the voice of Captain Schaur. ‘Hurry.’

‘Crimson Death, hit the Stompa again,’ said Luk. ‘Duty Unending, keep the greenskins off us. I’m going to finish this.’

‘Make it quick, Knight of Ashes,’ said Ekhaterina. ‘I sense our friend the captain has a limit to her patience.’

Luk pushed power to his motive impellers, riding out the jolting climb as his steed loped up the slope. A mob of greenskins rushed at him and were trampled underfoot. A pair of looted tanks turned their turrets his way, only for Lady Hespar’s shells to turn one into a fireball, and send the other skidding downhill on its side.

Bolts of light pulsed from Hw’ss cannons, slamming into the Stompa. This time the effigy’s cannon arm exploded as energy ripped through it, and its right track array ground to a halt in a fused and sparking mass.

‘Omnissiah be praised!’ shouted Hw’ss. ‘Take that, xenos filth.’

Luk strode closer, kicking an ork tank out of his way. A volley of rockets hit Sword of Heroes from the side, buckling armour plates and turning cockpit runes red. Damage warnings chimed in his ears.

The Stompa’s remaining arm, a twenty-foot-long chain blade, was revving up to speed. Hydraulics hissed and smoke belched as it swung in his direction, but the angle was poor. The machine had to reach around its own bulk to strike at him, and Luk was easily able to sidestep its clumsy flailing.

In return, he fired his thermal cannon straight at the Stompa’s head. Metal glowed cherry-red, then vaporised even as it melted. Superheated gases exploded outwards in a fierce blast, flames racing down into the war engine’s guts to trigger further blasts that scorched it from the inside out.

Luk stepped back from the dying war engine, trampling orks as he went.

‘Exiles, Vesserines, Sacristans, the way is clear,’ he voxed. ‘Get to the barricades. Go!’

The explosions triggered one after another. Each fed into the last to create a swelling roar that shook the ground and raised clouds of snow and smoke. Thousands of tons of debris swept down upon the orks still crammed into the pass, rushing them away in a roaring tide. The few greenskins fortunate enough to be near the barricades avoided the devastation, but outnumbered, they hurled themselves at the Pegasson defences with little hope of survival.

While Gesmund’s Vesserines added their fire to the militia and gunned down the last of the xenos, the Exiles gathered on a plateau a little way upslope, in the shadow of the higher peaks.

Vo-Geiss was extracted from his cockpit with difficulty, lifted down on a cradle of armatures and swiftly cocooned in a thermal-shielded medicae pod. The Freeblade had not exaggerated, thought Luk; his wounds were severe, his left leg and much of his abdomen a mangled red ruin.

‘Void won’t be fighting for a while,’ said Ekhaterina. ‘That’s if Ranulf makes it at all. The Sacristans don’t seem sure that he will.’

‘My fault,’ said Sire Hw’ss. ‘If I’d just calibrated a more bellicose positronic wave…’

‘If anyone is at fault, it’s me for not seeing the obvious ambush we were walking into, and for not keeping that headstrong fool in line,’ said Luk. ‘But blame is no use to us now. We have a mission, and it cannot wait while we flagellate ourselves.’

‘Here comes the captain,’ said Ekhaterina. ‘I’ve a sense she’s not that grateful for our assistance.’ Luk saw Schaur wading towards them through the snow, straight backed in her thermos-baffled militia captain’s uniform, face like thunder. She raised a hand to hear ear, activating a vox-bead.

‘Luk Kar Chimaeros, yes?’ she asked.

‘The Knight of Ashes,’ corrected Luk.

‘Chimaeros were heretics and traitors,’ said the captain. ‘Your House is destroyed, your people dead. What are you doing here?’

Luk’s jaw clenched. ‘We were hunting the architect of that heresy. We received word of Adrastapol’s plight and returned to lend our aid.’

‘We, being Freeblades and mercenaries, yes?’ asked the captain.

‘Freeblades and mercenaries who just destroyed a war effigy on your behalf,’ said Lady Hespar hotly.

‘And who nearly ruined an ambush that cost me the lives of several dozen good soldiers to orchestrate,’ replied the captain. ‘I ask again – you are in House Pegasson territory. Why?’

‘I am here on the express instruction of High King Danial Tan Draconis himself,’ said Luk. ‘Freeblade I may be, but I still sit a throne mechanicum, which means I have no need to explain myself to you, and you will show some damn respect. We are going on to the Pegasson’s Eyrie, for an audience with the Marchioness. Now. You can either vox ahead and clear us a path or impede our efforts to do the High King’s will.’

On his retinal display, Luk saw the captain’s mask falter.

‘The High King?’ she asked. ‘When did you speak to him? Contact was lost with the Draconspire several days ago.’

‘All the more reason for haste,’ said Luk.

‘Very well,’ said Captain Schaur. ‘You may proceed, but you’ll dismount outside the main south gate and leave your steeds and weapons there. Your Sacristans will stay with them. Your mercenaries can stay here until we know your intentions, Knight of Ashes. I’m sure you wouldn’t begrudge us their aid?’

‘Luk,’ began Ekhaterina angrily. Luk cut her off.

‘Good enough, captain,’ he said. ‘We have a man sorely wounded…’

‘Don’t we all,’ said Captain Schaur, an edge of exhaustion in her voice. ‘I’ll ensure he’s received by medicae at the gates. Proceed, Freeblade.’

‘My thanks, captain,’ said Luk. He turned his steed towards the road onwards. It arced up from the plateau and hugged the mountainside all the way to the gates of the fortress high above. The roadway was armoured, and lined with gatehouses, satellite fortifications and anti-air emplacements.

‘That was not a warm welcome,’ said Ekhaterina. ‘I could have stepped on that damned woman.’

‘I have never lied to any of you about the circumstances of my exile,’ said Luk. ‘What sort of welcome did you expect? Banners? A parade?’

‘She has been fighting long and hard,’ said Maia. ‘Still she showed strength. Did her duty. There is beauty in that.’

‘What is it with you and common-born women in uniform?’ asked Lady Hespar. ‘The last one was a bounty hunter, wasn’t she?’

‘My private liaisons are not your concern,’ said Maia coldly.

‘They really aren’t,’ said Luk. ‘A little focus, Ekhaterina? I know you’re angry, but we have a duty to fulfil.’

‘One that would be easier without obstreperous little commoners getting in the way,’ said Lady Hespar. Still, she subsided, and they strode their steeds up the roadway. At each blockade, Captain Schaur’s word proved good as barriers were lifted, gates rumbled open and their way was cleared.

‘The view is remarkably optimal, for all that it is war-torn,’ said Sire Hw’ss.

Luk couldn’t argue. As they scaled the mountainside, a magnificent vista opened below them. Snowy slopes dropped steeply away towards lower peaks and passes, some thick with evergreens, others swarming with the dark stain of orkish hordes. Knights could be seen, wading into battle down below, holding narrow passes and exchanging fire with ork war engines. The skies were busy with skirmishing aircraft, their contrails criss-crossing through the tattered clouds.

Around and above them, the Pegassus’ Eyrie directed a rain of fire into the fight. The stronghold of House Pegasson was not one structure but many, towers and fortifications radiating out from huge central keeps that were themselves spread over several neighbouring peaks. Countless sky bridges, walkways and armoured overhangs connected the proud white-and-blue structures, and gun turrets in their hundreds flared in their walls.

‘A spectacular war,’ said Maia.

‘And one that Pegasson looks, for the moment, to be winning,’ said Luk.

‘Let’s hope that doesn’t count against us when we ask them to abandon their stronghold and rush to the Draconspire’s aid,’ said Lady Hespar.

‘Ever the optimist, Ekhaterina,’ said Luk. ‘Keep an eye on your thermogauges. The wind’s high up here, and the temperatures exceptionally low. When we dismount, be sure to dial up the thermoregulators on your bodygloves, and cover as much exposed skin as possible. Rebreathers, too.’

At the summit, the main south gate of the Pegassus’ Eyrie loomed above them. The Exiles disconnected from their thrones, quieting their steeds and dismounting. Luk knew they must seem a strange group, him in his battered attire, Hw’ss the robed cyborg, Lady Maia as small, delicate and reserved as Lady Ekhaterina was haughty and flamboyantly garbed and tattooed.

Luk suspected that their outsider status would also count against them, and felt a pang of guilt at the thought that maybe Ranulf – with his skeletal war paint and morbid cowl – was better off in a medicae pod for now.

As the wind wailed around them, and snow skirled past in flurries, they were met outside the tall adamantium gates by a compliment of militia. The soldiers were led by a Knight whose long, silver-white hair was tied back in an elaborate weave.

‘Lady Eleanat Dar Pegasson,’ said Luk, grinning despite himself. ‘It has been long years, my lady.’

Eleanat offered him a reserved smile.

‘Not since that business on Donatos,’ she said. ‘It is good to see that you live, Luk.’

‘There are plenty who wouldn’t agree with you, my lady,’ said Luk, startled by her kindness.

‘They weren’t there,’ she said disdainfully. ‘They didn’t see you fight at the High King’s side. Let them mutter into their wine all they wish.’

‘Thank you, my lady,’ said Luk, surprised at how grateful he felt for her words. He glanced at Ekhaterina, who quirked one corner of her mouth.

Perhaps there was hope after all, her look said.

‘Follow,’ said Lady Eleanat. ‘The Marchioness awaits you in her throne room. She has a war to win though, Luk, so when you see her, be brief.’

Eleanat leant close, dropping her voice so only Luk could hear. ‘Also, beware her spiritual advisors.’

Luk was taken aback at the distaste he heard in Lady Eleanat’s voice.

‘You don’t approve of these advisors, my lady?’ he asked.

‘Better you see for yourself,’ she said. ‘But be prepared for hostility.’

They made their way through the fortress. The interior of the Pegassus’ Eyrie was light and airy, with walls and ceilings made of glass and crystal, and sculptures of light and ice hanging in stasis fields at major junctions. Banners and long carpets in the house colours decorated the hallways, and elegant gold servitors stalked by on telescopic limbs.

Luk saw war’s touch, too. Ballrooms and feast halls had become barracks, refugee encampments and triage stations. Blood-stained stretchers spilled out into the hallways and injured militia moaned in pain. Ammunition carriages rumbled past, towed by muscular servitors with Pegassus heads, while militia and Knights jogged down the corridors with their weapons at the ready.

The Exiles crossed one of the soaring sky-bridges, and Luk felt a moment’s discomfort as he realised the floor was clear armourglass. The drop below was dizzying. If Eleanat and her soldiers noticed his discomfort, they showed no sign, instead marching on over the gulf as though it wasn’t there.

Eventually, they halted before a high stone arch inlaid with theldrite carvings that sparkled like ice and diamond.

‘Here,’ said Eleanat. ‘Proceed within. You may keep your weapons, but do not unsheathe them, even with honour. This is a time of war.’

Luk nodded, glancing to his companions. The grand doors whispered open, and the Exiles passed through.

Lauret’s throne room echoed the stylings of the rest of the Pegassus’ Eyrie, a haven of beautiful carvings, cold light and high, airy spaces. Few courtiers had found the time to attend an audience at short notice, and at such a fraught time, meaning no more than a few dozen adepts, courtiers and minor nobles occupied the chamber’s galleries.

Lauret herself sat atop a tall throne that looked as though it had been carved from ice, set on a podium reached via a set of silvered steps. Circuitry pulsed and glowed throughout the throne’s structure, and the datacables wound into the Marchioness’ elaborate tresses connected to its various sockets. Imperial aquilas were much in evidence, the trappings of the faith displayed on banners, braziers and auto-shrines around her.

At the throne’s base stood several Knights of House Pegasson, along with a gathering of priests and a compliment of blue-armoured bodyguards.

One of the Knights stepped forward.

‘Knight of Ashes,’ he said. ‘You are welcomed to the throne room of the Marchioness Lauret Tan Pegasson. I am the lady’s herald, Quensil Dar Pegasson. Please make your companions known.’

Luk bowed deeply.

‘My thanks for your welcome, Sire Quensil,’ he said, before briefly introducing each of his companions in turn as protocol demanded. ‘There is one other amongst our company, Sire Ranulf Vo-Geiss, but he is sorely injured. He is with your medicae now.’

The Marchioness looked down at Luk, her expression unreadable. He in turn looked back at her, marvelling at how she had restored herself after her agonies of Donatos.

‘Welcome, Knight of Ashes,’ she said at last. Her throne pulsed with light in time to her words. ‘I am told that you bring word from High King Danial Tan Draconis. Is this true?’

‘I come on his behalf, and at his behest,’ said Luk. ‘We spoke shortly after I made planetfall. Before transmission failed, he gave me urgent instructions, and asked a great task of me. One that I would entreat your aid in completing.’

‘My lady,’ said one of the priests, ‘I urge caution.’ He was a hulking man in a heavy cowl and sleeveless robes, whose muscular arms were wrapped with chains. ‘This mercenary bears the name of House Chimaeros, who have been declared hereticus diabolus upon this world. He speaks with a serpent’s tongue!’

‘He has taken the Freeblade oath,’ said one of Lauret’s Knights angrily. ‘Still your ignorant prattle on matters you don’t understand.’

‘A few oaths cannot expunge the taint of Chaos,’ said the priest. ‘No matter how solemnly they may be spoken.’

Luk held his temper, studying the gaggle of holy men around the throne. They were ragged and dishevelled to a man, and covered in aquila tattoos and scriptures. Many wore chains or iron masks, and they all bore the scars of self-flagellation.

‘My Lady Tan Pegasson,’ he said. ‘The message I bring to you is urgent in the extreme. Am I to suffer the interruptions and scorn of these fanatics throughout its delivery?’

In the galleries, postures stiffened and voices murmured.

‘Knight of Ashes,’ said the Marchioness. ‘These men attended me during the darkest days of my recovery. They are strong in the Imperial faith, and they speak from the heart, not the mind. That is a valuable trait, even if they may not understand the intricacies of the Code Chivalric. If you have news of the Draconspire, speak on. You will not be interrupted again.’

The outspoken priest bowed his head in contrition, and made the sign of the aquila.

‘Marchioness,’ said Luk. ‘When I spoke to the High King, he reported that a massive greenskin horde had laid siege to the Draconspire.’

‘This much we know from orbital auguries,’ said Sire Quensil. ‘Atmospheric interference becomes more troublesome by the hour thanks to the ongoing deployment of macro-ordnance and the like, but we believe that the ork presence around the Draconspire continues to increase.’

Luk nodded, feeling some small relief. He had feared the worst when Danial’s vox transmission had failed.

‘High King Danial charged me with breaking that siege,’ said Luk. ‘He said that the greenskins’ warlord is leading the fight in person.’

‘Slay the warlord,’ said Ekhaterina. ‘Break the horde.’

‘My lady, you will speak only when the Marchioness addresses you,’ said Sire Quensil, earning an imperious stare from Ekhaterina.

‘It is true that orks are known to fall to infighting, should their leader be slain,’ said Lady Eleanat. ‘The disruption amongst the invaders should we achieve that feat would be substantial. It would allow for a counter-offensive while the xenos fought one another for dominance.’

‘More to the point,’ said Luk, ‘it would allow us to rescue House Draconis and the High King before they are overrun.’

‘You have come to ask me to lend my strength to this endeavour, yes?’ asked Lauret.

‘I have, my lady,’ said Luk.

‘Impossible,’ said another of the Pegasson Knights, a tall woman with short-shaved hair and a bionic eye.

‘Lady Shellaine,’ said Lauret warningly.

‘I’m sorry, my liege, but we’re fighting our own war here,’ the Knight pressed on. ‘The orks are contained in the lower passes, but if we were to remove even a portion of our strength there is no guarantee that would remain the case. Are we to abandon our own keep that we might save House Draconis’?’

‘You have only the word of this traitor’s son that he even spoke to the High King,’ said one of the priests. ‘My lady, he may have sworn away his titles, but he is still his father’s son. And his mother’s.’

This last was added venomously, and Luk scowled.

‘The Knight of Ashes hunts his mother, to kill her,’ said Lady Maia. ‘We follow him because we believe in him. We believe in his hunt. We turned aside from that hunt to save your lives. Learn respect, priest, or I will teach it to you.’

‘My lady, these rogues make threats!’ exclaimed the priest.

‘You provoke them, Gastor,’ said the Marchioness. ‘And you all speak out of turn. Silence. Yet the priest raises a valid concern, Luk. You have been gone many long years. The timing of your return is fortuitous at best, suspicious at worst. We do not know what may have befallen you. Your… prey… is a known witch and enchantress. How do we know that you have not returned in her thrall to do us harm?’

‘We came at the behest of an Imperial seer, an oracle who speaks the word of the Emperor,’ said Luk. ‘You are the Lady of Miracles. Surely you recognise them when they occur?’

Lauret stiffened in her throne, but her expression remained neutral.

‘Even allowing for the Emperor’s divine intervention–’ began the first priest, but Luk cut him off.

‘I will submit to whatever tests you can devise,’ he said. ‘So long as they are quick. I am pure in my faith, and so are my comrades. But time is of the essence. You are winning the war for now, my lady, but if Pegasson waits until all else is lost, then soon enough, you will fall also.’

‘Marchioness, he speaks truth,’ said Lady Eleanat. ‘You know this. The orks’ greatest strength is elsewhere, fighting Houses Minotos and Draconis. If… when… they fall, we cannot fight a world of orks alone. Our stores will dwindle. Our soldiers will die. Eventually we will lose Adrastapol to these aliens, and then how will the Emperor judge us?’

‘My lady,’ said Gastor. ‘I know little of strategy, but I know that the Emperor will judge us more harshly if we allow the honeyed words of a heretic to lure us from behind our fortress walls to be destroyed by foul xenos.’

The Marchioness frowned.

‘Leave me now. All of you,’ she said. ‘I must pray for guidance.’

‘My lady,’ said Luk. ‘Please. Don’t take too long.’

‘All are to leave the presence of the Marchioness at this time,’ announced Sire Quensil, his voice resounding through the throne room. Lauret had closed her eyes, and her throne pulsed with soft light as its circuitry sparkled.

‘Come,’ said Lady Eleanat. ‘Follow me, I’ll quarter you in one of the upper guest chambers for now. I’ll find you some food, and water to bathe with, too.’

They followed the Knight from the throne room, and up through more corridors and stairways.

‘We can’t wait long,’ said Luk. ‘The Iron Maze is many days’ march away, even in full panoply. And the Draconspire is besieged as we speak. We still don’t know what’s happening there, why they suddenly lost vox, we don’t even know–’

‘I understand, Luk,’ said Lady Eleanat. ‘But the Marchioness has difficult decisions to make. She must think of her own people, and after Donatos there is not a Knight on Adrastapol who would not look twice where they tread, lest they walk into a trap.’

Luk sighed.

‘My House’s final legacy,’ he said.

‘No,’ said Eleanat, opening the doors to a broad, airy chamber. ‘You are your House’s final legacy, Luk, and the only one that matters.’

He smiled wanly at her, and led the Exiles into their temporary accommodation.

The room was large and well lit, with comfortable padded chairs and a guest bed along one wall. It had a writing desk, a long bookcase, and a picture-window of thermo-baffled armourglass that afforded a stunning view of the wooded passes below. Lady Hespar settled herself on the bed with a warning that she would fight any who tried to deny her of it, while Sire Hw’ss gravitated towards the bookshelf. Luk, meanwhile, went and stood at the window. Maia joined him.

They both stared down at the violence taking place below.

‘Strange to watch, not fight,’ said Lady Kastarada.

‘Frustrating,’ said Luk. ‘I didn’t come all this way to sit in a comfortable bed chamber and watch others die for this world. Danial needs our aid.’

‘Rest,’ said Ekhaterina from the bed. ‘When they bring food, eat. Have a damned wash, Throne knows you could use one. We all could. Your Marchioness will make her decision soon enough, and then it’ll be back to the blood and thunder before you know it.’

‘Lady Hespar posits the optimal course,’ said J’madus, riffling through the pages of a leather-bound tome. ‘Just as a steed needs fuel and maintenance, so too do its biological actuators. Besides, we cannot depart until we know whether Ranulf will be joining us, and Colonel Gesmund’s men no doubt require rations and a chance to rest also.’

Luk sat at the writing desk and dragged his fingers through his hair, sighing heavily.

‘I will not be too late,’ he said. ‘I refuse to fail them.’

‘You won’t,’ said Maia.

Three hours passed, during which they ate the food that was brought to them by harried-looking serviles, and washed off the grime of war using hard soap and pitchers of cold water. The Exiles took advantage of the rare moment of peace, all except Luk. Lady Hespar dozed, Maia meditated and Hw’ss read. Luk did little more than pace.

Finally, the door opened again and Lady Eleanat entered the chamber.

‘Your man, Vo-Geiss, will live,’ she said. ‘He’s full of elixirs and restoratives now, and he’ll need bionics in the long term. But he’s stable, and given a week or so he should be able to fight again.’

‘Thank you,’ said Luk. ‘What of our request?’

Lady Eleanat took a deep breath.

‘After careful deliberation, the Marchioness has elected to act. She will not draw more Knights from the defence than she can afford, so offers a force of forty-eight steeds.’

‘That is… generous,’ said Luk, struggling to hide the disappointment in his voice. Not enough, he thought. Nowhere near.

‘It is pragmatic,’ said Lady Eleanat. ‘But there is more. The passes are secure, and our defences are strong. With the winds so high, and storm belts rolling in, we have little need of our fighters and bombers at this time. Thus, barring a few reserve squadrons, Lauret Tan Pegasson pledges the entire air force of House Pegasson to your cause.’

Luk blinked.

‘That’s certainly a little more than pragmatic!’ he said, excitement building in his chest.

‘Indeed,’ said Lady Eleanat. ‘Over two hundred combat aircraft, and a sufficient fleet of heavy lifters to transport not only your small force and all of ours, but whatever Knights House Minotos pledges to your cause, if they choose to do so.’

‘Lady Eleanat, please give the Marchioness my warmest thanks,’ said Luk. ‘That is wonderful news.’

‘You can tell her yourself, Knight of Ashes,’ smiled Eleanat. ‘She will be leading the Pegasson force. The Marchioness Tan Pegasson rides to House Draconis’ aid. Let the xenos fear her wrath.’

Danial, Suset and Markos crouched behind a barricade made from statuary and furniture. They wore sleek, armoured bodygloves with servo-joints and thrumming refractor-field generators built into their backs. The suits were prizes from the archeotech trove that Danial had unlocked deep below the Draconspire, as were the weapons they cradled. Heavy bolt guns of an archaic style, with deep magazines, long plasteel stocks, and machine-spirit targeters that meshed directly with the wielder’s subconscious mind.

Markos raised his head above the barricade, pulling it back quickly as ork rounds chewed into wood and stone.

‘They’re coming again,’ he said, his voice a faltering rasp of static. He scowled, and rapped his knuckle against his vocal augmetic.

‘That won’t help,’ said Suset. ‘The Sacristans said the effects are wearing off gradually. Just be patient, Markos.’

The corridor rang with a savage alien war cry.

‘WAAAGH!’

‘I wish they’d stop shouting that,’ snarled Danial.

The corridor was a short one, adjoining two barracks chambers within the second wall of the Draconspire. Already, ork corpses sprawled upon its flagstones, blown open by bolt rounds, their blood congealing in thick pools. Now a fresh wave of orks charged over the fallen bodies, filling the corridor like a tidal wave of green muscle and flesh. Spiked armour plates struck sparks from the walls.

Beady red eyes stared and hulking bodies jostled as the greenskins charged. They fired crude handguns that sent thumb-sized slugs thumping into the barricade.

In return, Danial and his comrades rose into firing crouches and let fly. With the orks packed so tightly, it was impossible to miss. Mass-reactive bolts punched through rusted armour and leathery flesh, detonating deep within their targets.

Blood sprayed the walls. Severed limbs spun through the air. Heads exploded.

The lead orks fell, only to be trampled by those behind, who were gunned down in turn. Still they came on.

A shot struck Danial’s armour’s refractor field, causing a burst of light as it rebounded into the wall. Suset cursed as another slug struck her shoulder, staggering her and spoiling her aim.

‘Damnit,’ she said. ‘This archeotech is amazing, but it takes some getting used to.’

‘Blades!’ croaked Markos. As one they mag-locked their guns to their bodygloves’ thigh plates, then drew and ignited their Draconblades.

‘Where in the Dracon’s name is Bannoch?’ asked Suset.

‘No time,’ said Markos.

The first orks spilled over the barricade. Danial lashed out and hacked the head from one, while Suset drove the point of her blade into another’s eye. Markos impaled the first brute to come at him. It erupted into flames, and Markos shoved it away.

More orks scrambled over the barricade. The lead greenskin swung a snarling chain-choppa at Danial, and the High King’s arms were numbed by the shock as he parried.

Suset hacked down a snarling foe then cut the legs from under Danial’s attacker, allowing him to run it through and finish it. He nodded thanks and she shot him a fierce grin.

An ork leapt from atop the barricade and bore Markos to the ground. The monster hammered its gun butt into his face, and blood sprayed as the herald’s nose broke.

Markos’ augmetic spat angry sounds, and he punched his armoured fist into the side of the ork’s head. On the third blow, its jaw broke with a sickening crunch. As the ork pulled back, Markos drove his sword up through its throat and out the back of its skull.

Danial cut down another enemy, then staggered as a crude axe rebounded from his chest-armour.

‘Bannoch!’ he shouted into his vox-bead. ‘Where are you?’

Faint static answered, and Danial cursed. The Sacristans were gradually coaxing the machine-spirits back to life after the orks’ attack, but it was a tortuous process. Many systems were still inoperable.

The rattle of gunfire erupted at the orks’ rear. Flares of light flashed along the walls and ceiling.

‘Draconis!’ Danial heard Captain Bannoch’s shout, taken up by the men he led. The orks faltered. Some turned back, while others pressed forward with frenzied determination.

‘In Excelsium Furore!’ bellowed Danial, cleaving his blade through an ork’s chest and kicking its burning corpse aside. He vaulted onto the barricade, sweeping his sword in blazing arcs and driving the orks back into Bannoch’s guns. Markos and Suset joined him, forming a second wall of metal and fire the orks couldn’t break. A savage blow threw Danial sideways into Suset, but before his attacker could capitalise on its success, its head exploded and sprayed them both with gore.

The headless xenos thumped to the floor, twitching, revealing Captain Bannoch lowering his smoking bolter. A dozen men and women of the militia stood behind him, breathing hard and clutching autoguns and crossbows. Several more lay amidst the dead orks, hacked down even as they pressed their ambush home.

‘You left it late, captain,’ said Danial.

‘We ran into resistance while flanking, my liege,’ replied Bannoch. ‘Gens and Haller were lost to an ork flamethrower.’

‘The ambush worked,’ said Danial, wincing at his burning aches. ‘That’s another corridor cleared.’

‘The last,’ said Suset, frowning as she pressed her hand to her vox-bead. ‘It sounds like the breakthrough has been driven back to the ramparts.’

‘Then that’s where we need to be,’ said Danial.

They jogged along the corridors of the Draconspire, guns at the ready, picking their way through areas where corpses lay amidst burned wreckage. Crossing a junction, they met a pair of militiamen limping the other way, holding each other up. One man’s face was a mask of blood.

‘What news from the ramparts?’ asked Danial.

‘They’re pressing hard, my liege,’ said the more coherent of the two. ‘We’re all that remains of the ninth. Word is the orks broke the defences at Blackiron tower, and they’re spilling along the western wall.’

‘Get yourselves to the medicae station in Caogan’s Gallery,’ said Danial. ‘Warn them there’s been another ork breakthrough, and to be ready to move the wounded if they must.’

‘Yes, sire,’ said the militiaman, limping away with his wounded comrade. Danial and his Knights shared a dark look.

‘Losing battle,’ said Markos quietly, the crackle of his augmetic fading in and out. ‘If Polluxis could get the shield back up…’

‘They’re inside the shield now, anyway,’ said Suset. ‘They’re shelling from the outer districts.’

‘Luk will be here soon, with enough Knights to see the orks butchered,’ said Danial. ‘We just have to hold them back until he arrives.’

‘Luk is an exile,’ said Suset. ‘My liege, we have to consider the possibility that he may fail us, or else the other Noble Houses won’t obey his summons.’

‘He will be here, and they will listen,’ said Danial firmly.

They pressed on, staggering as the corridor shook and the lumen flickered from some huge detonation.

They passed through the Preceptor’s Chapel, where shards of stained glass lay scattered, and exhausted militia prayed to the Emperor for strength. Near the exit, a runner caught up to them. The young man handed Danial a scroll, then bent double with his hands on his thighs as he strove to regain his breath.

The High King unfurled the parchment and scanned its contents.

‘Word from Polluxis,’ he said. ‘Automatic weapons are back to seventy-five per cent function, as close as he can gauge. His Sacristans have got a number of the inner wall guns working again, thank the Emperor, but the outer emplacements are lost. Las weaponry is taking longer to coax back to life, and he advises we remain wary of our plasma weapons for fear their machine-spirits might rebel.’

‘What of the steeds?’ asked Suset. Danial shook his head.

‘They’re quiescent, not dead,’ he said. ‘That’s something. Polluxis has yet to reawaken even a single one, but he says he’s making progress. A number are stirring. He’s managed to bring a few Crawlers to operational status, but says that many of their finer systems were burned out in the attack.’

‘Damn,’ said Markos. ‘Can’t counter-attack. What use–?’ His emitter cut out again, and he thumped it angrily.

‘We can still fight, sire herald,’ said Danial. ‘We can still set an example, and make our ancestors proud. House Draconis has the fighting strength to make the orks pay in blood for every yard of ground they take. So that is what we will do.’

Markos saluted with his blade.

‘Autoquill?’ Danial asked the runner. The lad pulled a stylus from his robes and handed it to the High King, before turning his back so Danial could lean the parchment upon it.

‘Take these instructions to Sire Percivane in the High Strategium,’ said Danial. ‘Tell him there are greenskins on the western wall. We need a salient through the Wyreweaver’s District with squadrons of Huntsmen and infantry to cut off the ork reinforcements. Tell him to locate Captain Kauff and have her reroute the sixty-fifth, sixty-sixth and eighty-first militia companies to sectors eight through eleven west. Second fief. We’ll catch the greenskins in a vice and crush them on the battlements.’

The runner furled the scroll.

‘And, lad,’ said Danial, ‘tell Sire Percivane not to overexert himself. He’s lucky to be alive. Again. His faith will only sustain him for so long.’

The runner nodded, bowed, then dashed off into the corridors.

‘I’d march on the Eye of Terror itself for a reliable vox-net,’ said Suset.

‘This will suffice,’ said Danial. ‘Those young men and women are keeping our war effort alive.’

‘True enough, my liege,’ she said. ‘So, we’d better get on and fight, hadn’t we?’

Danial led the way out of the chamber. After another minute’s jog, they clattered up a set of steps through an archway onto the upper western ramparts.

‘Oh, Emperor,’ breathed Danial.

The rampart they had emerged onto was high up on the second western wall, the uppermost of four such firesteps that lined its flank. Turreted towers soared high above them, House Draconis banners flapping proudly in the wind.

Below, everything was mayhem. The outer districts were aflame, seething with orks as far as the eye could see. Many buildings were collapsed ruins of fire-gutted shells, and greenskin heavy weapons blazed from every window and rooftop.

Militia companies lined the battlements, pouring fire down into the attackers. They hurled explosives and rolled burning promethium barrels down angled ramps to plunge into the hordes milling below. The bravest leaned out to rake autogun rounds into the xenos, and more than one man was blown off his feet by return fire.

Here and there, Knights of House Draconis strode up and down the line, clad in their archeotech bodygloves. They bellowed encouragement, and fired bolters down into the foe.

Wall guns were firing, too, their hammering all but drowned out by the endless roar of voices, engines and detonations from beyond the walls. The air stank of smoke and blood, and tasted of ash.

The orks were hurling fire at the walls. Artillery shells and missiles looped in from the Valatane to blast craters in the wall. Hails of bullets and bombs flayed the battlements with concussive fury, while greenskin aircraft roared overhead, dogfighting furiously with the Draconis aircraft.

In the middle distance, towering ork walkers could be seen shouldering their way through the buildings of the outer districts, firing relentlessly.

Markos shook his head, eyes wide.

Danial glanced up and down the firestep, then beckoned to a militia officer. The man hurried over, accompanied by a pair of runners.

‘Lieutenant,’ said Danial. ‘Report.’

‘Sire,’ said the lieutenant, making the sign of the aquila. ‘They’ve been attacking since dawn. Five hours now they’ve been pushing without rest. We must have killed thousands. They claimed the lowest battlement twice with rope and grapnel assaults. We drove them back, but some mobs broke through and pushed deeper.’

‘That we have seen,’ said Danial. ‘Those xenos are slain.’

‘Welcome news, sire,’ said the lieutenant. ‘We’ve sufficient ammunition for another two hours’ fighting at this pace, though Captain Lesinger sent runners to request additional munitions and medicae. They may not have broken through. There’s word of ork infiltrators, sire. Stealthy, ambushing runners and sabotaging ammunition supplies.’

Danial looked to Suset.

‘It’s the first I’ve heard of this,’ she said. ‘But anything’s possible. If there’s a risk to our communications and supplies, we need to deal with it.’

‘Agreed,’ said Danial. ‘Lady Suset, take Bannoch and his men. Get to the Grand Strategium and work with Percivane to coordinate sweep teams.’

‘At once,’ she said. ‘I’ll double the guards on our ammunition stores, medicae stations and Sacristan shrines.’

‘Agreed,’ said Danial. ‘Put guards on our runners wherever possible.’

‘What about you?’ asked Suset.

‘I’m going to circle south along the walls,’ said Danial. ‘Markos, you go north. If the greenskins have gained a foothold anywhere, we lead the counter-attack to throw them back. If not, there’s still value in making ourselves seen and inspiring morale.’

Markos nodded.

‘I’ll find Garath,’ said Markos through a wash of static. ‘Make sure… miserable sod hasn’t got himself killed.’

Danial nodded, knowing the herald’s gruff mockery veiled real concern. Since the loss of his steed, Garath had been grim and withdrawn.

Markos turned and marched away. Suset hesitated for a moment, locking eyes with Danial. He saw fiery emotion burning with them.

‘Be safe, my liege,’ she said.

‘I will, my lady,’ said Danial. ‘And you.’

She saluted, then gestured to Bannoch and marched away without a backwards glance. Danial watched her go, feeling a mixture of love and fear, inspiration warring with chest-tightening dread.

‘What more wondrous torment than to possess something you truly fear to lose?’ asked his father’s voice in his mind. Danial shook his head.

‘Mooning after her like a squire,’ he chided himself. ‘Remember, duty and honour.’

‘Sire,’ said the lieutenant. ‘Do you require bodyguards for your tour?’

‘No,’ said Danial. ‘Thank you. We need every man and woman at the walls. I won’t pull anyone else away from their duties.’

The lieutenant saluted, and Danial set off along the firestep. He kept his back straight and his head up, despite the explosions that shook the battlements. It was how his father would have presented himself and, no matter Danial’s feelings on the man and his past misdeeds, Tolwyn Tan Draconis had known how to inspire his soldiers.

Though fire continued to hammer the battlements, and shells screamed in from on high, where Danial walked the militia stood taller, and fought with renewed vigour. Danial understood his own talismanic value. He used it.

‘In Excelsium Furore!’ he cried to his valiant warriors. ‘Keep fighting. Make the Emperor proud!’ They cheered, pouring fire down into the attacking hordes.

Still, for all his bravado, Danial ached to sit his throne, to march out to battle in Oath of Flame. Watching the greenskin walkers lumber brazenly back and forth rankled at him. Their presumption made him angry.

As Danial neared a flight of ferrocrete steps, he saw a commotion ahead. Scorched and blood-stained soldiers were spilling down the stairway, wide-eyed with fear.

‘Orks!’ they shouted. ‘Orks on the walls! Run!’ Militia looked up in shock at their sudden appearance. Some tried to crane out over the battlements and look along the walls to see what these men were fleeing from.

‘Hold!’ shouted Danial, striding to meet the fleeing men. For a moment, he believed they would keep running and trample him into the ground. Yet fealty was a powerful notion on Adrastapol; despite their terror, the militia stumbled to a stop and knelt before him.

‘Explain,’ said Danial.

‘Sire, do not go that way,’ said one of the soldiers, glancing frantically back up the steps. ‘The orks are right behind us. They used rocket packs to gain the battlements. They got a foothold, then more climbed behind them.’

‘You will run no further,’ said Danial. ‘Turn and form a line here. Reload your guns. You men,’ he gestured to several nearby squads, ‘form up with them. If anything inhuman comes down those steps, you destroy it. Understood?’

‘Yes, sire,’ chorused the soldiers, finding a measure of courage in the presence of their High King. As the militia deployed their firing line, Danial strode to the battlements. He looked out over the hordes, and saw that, sure enough, greenskin transport tanks were rolling towards the abandoned section. A Gargant lumbered behind them, and Danial’s heart thumped as he saw the banners of Gorgrok himself rising from its shoulders.

‘The great beast comes to drive home his attack,’ he said grimly.

Danial tried the command channel.

‘This is Danial Tan Draconis,’ he said. ‘Can anyone hear this? Percivane? Suset?’ Static answered, and Danial cursed. ‘And not a runner in sight,’ he muttered. ‘Emperor, help me stop them with what I have.’

He pointed to a militiaman.

‘Militiaman, you know the quickest way to the Grand Strategium?’

‘I do, sire,’ replied the soldier.

‘Run, now. Get word to them,’ said Danial. ‘Tell them that the counter-offensive we’ve planned will be insufficient. We hold the orks here, or they break the second wall. Tell them to send all available reserves to this sector, and that I will hold the enemy until help arrives.’

With haste, the militiaman dashed away along the battlements.

Blade drawn, Danial strode to the top of the steps. The militia came behind him, guns raised, faces pale. He had drawn as many men and women from the battlements as he dared, leaving the upper levels virtually empty. Now he was glad he had.

Ahead, orks were cascading along the firestep and battering at the armoured doorways set into the wall. More were scaling up towards the turrets above, whose guns were barely keeping the tide in check. Slain militia lay everywhere, mingled with xenos dead.

‘Grappling hooks,’ said Danial. ‘Thick along the walls. There are more of them on their way.’

‘Sire, their war effigy,’ said a militiaman fearfully, pointing to where the Gargant stomped closer. The engine’s head and shoulders rose higher than the level of the battlement, and ork faces could be seen leering toothily through its eye-hatches.

‘Never mind that. We deal with the immediate threat,’ said Danial. ‘Take aim.’

Orks, big brutes with rockets strapped to their backs, turned their way. The greenskins cheered and clashed guns and blades together as they saw fresh enemies to fight.

‘Fire,’ said Danial. Autoguns barked, and a handful of orks went down, riddled with bullets. Danial fired his boltgun one handed, hitting a particularly large ork in the face and blowing it back over the walls.

Everything moved fast now. The orks charged headlong down the firestep. Danial’s force advanced to meet them, pouring fire into the greenskins even as they moved up to allow more and more militia to push behind.

‘Grenades!’ shouted Danial, and a cluster of explosives sailed over his head to erupt amongst the foe.

‘Steady!’ he cried, seeing the ork charge was about to make impact. A stick bomb flew over Danial’s head and exploded behind him, showering him with his men’s blood. The orks crashed into his force, meeting them on the narrow frontage of the battlements.

Danial hacked and hewed, aiming to reach the grapnels and cut them down. He took a blow to the ribs from a green fist, and another from a boot to the back. A point-blank shot to the face was stopped only by his refractor field, and he lopped off the shooter’s head before they could try again. Around him, his militiamen fought desperately, clubbing with gun butts and stabbing with blades. The orks were huge, tough and obscenely strong. They ripped men limb from limb. They picked them up and flung them off the battlements to plunge screaming into the horde far below.

Despite Danial’s best efforts, more and more xenos swarmed up the ropes and onto the battlements, as the ground shook with the approaching tread of the Gargant. A monstrous figure could be seen, stood on a gantry on the Gargant’s shoulder. The ork had to be fifteen feet tall, clad in piston-driven armour painted in blue-and-white checks. He crashed his power klaws together, causing sparks to rain down as he bellowed exhortations at his warriors, and the strange cannon mounted on his shoulder jerked left and right as it spat screaming blasts of energy into militia and orks alike.

‘This is the High King, west battlements sector ten, second fief,’ Danial shouted into the vox. ‘I need immediate reinforcements. Gorgrok has come.’

A dozen yards to his left, a mass of metal and whirling saw-teeth rammed into the battlements. Danial was hurled from his feet by the shockwave as the Gargant’s enormous chainfist chewed into the wall. Rockcrete flew. Sparks showered. The firestep shook as though in the grip of an earthquake. Militia soldiers and orks howled as they slid down the collapsing walkway and were mangled by the whirling blades.

Danial hung on, gripping the battlements with one hand and his draconblade with the other. He ran a greenskin through and kicked it into the monstrous saw-blades, then eviscerated another one as it tried to grab his legs.

The wall guns pummelled the Gargant, but Danial could see it wouldn’t be anything like enough. Spotting a lower gantry running around the war engine’s chest, and a rickety ladder connecting it to Gorgrok’s perch, he steadied himself and gauged the distance.

‘I can make that,’ he said, voice lost in the cacophony. ‘Emperor, lend me strength. I will slay the beast and end this.’

Danial pulled himself up onto the parapet for the leap, but the stonework convulsed under him. There came a juddering roar, an awful feeling of everything solid coming apart and collapsing around him. Suddenly Danial was falling. Orks and militia and stonework tumbled past him into the void below.

In the Grand Strategium, adepts and serviles worked frantically by the light of electrolumen and chem lanterns. They pored over charts and parchment maps of the Draconspire, marking them with auto-quills and shoving coloured rune-blocks about to show troops movements and crisis points.

Their efforts told a tale of rapidly escalating catastrophe.

Suset stood, arms folded tightly, glaring at the master-map spread out across the top of the holo-projector. Percivane was beside her, a mechanical brace enfolding much of his body, metal pins sunk into his limbs and torso.

‘They’re striking us from the north again,’ he said. ‘Another push from their profane battle-tanks.’

‘The third in that sector,’ said Suset. ‘Whoever claimed orks were wild animals, or that they couldn’t plan and strategise, was a damned fool.’

‘This must be it,’ said Percivane. ‘Their big push to carry the second wall and herd us back into the inner ’spire. Rumours of Gorgrok’s presence have been confirmed.’

‘It’s working,’ said Suset. ‘Look at this, they’re hitting the north, south, east and western walls all at once. Super-heavies spearheading every attack. Three confirmed forces of infiltrators located and destroyed so far, throne only knows how they’re getting in or how many more there are.’

A runner dashed up, bowing and handing Suset a scroll. She read it, face an impassive mask.

‘Damn,’ she said. ‘Master of maps, the thirty-forth and one-hundred-and-forty-second militia companies, both annihilated by heavy shelling in south sector twenty-two, third fief. Update, please.’

Another runner skidded to a stop and handed her scroll to Suset. Again the Gatekeeper’s scowl deepened.

‘Orks have broken through at east sector thirty-one,’ she said, hastily scrawling out orders. ‘Take this back to Captain Rance,’ she said, and the runner saluted and sped away. ‘I’ve told them to pull the medicae stations back and lock down all bulkheads through neighbouring sectors,’ she said. ‘There are no reserves left to send in.’

‘Lady Suset,’ said Percivane. ‘I fear that–’

‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘Not while there’s a chance we can hold them.’

‘There has been no further word from the High King,’ said Percivane, his face a mask of sympathy. ‘I understand, my lady, but the greenskins broke through in that sector more than an hour ago, led by Gorgrok himself. They have overrun two neighbouring sectors since, and our counter-attacking forces have yet to make it back to the safety of the inner walls. I pray to the Emperor that he is safe…’

‘But you suspect he is not,’ she said bitterly. ‘You may be right. I’ve been telling myself that I delay out of duty, but I can convince myself no longer. We’re overrun. Send runners to every sector and initiate a fighting retreat. Spike the guns, lock down the bulkheads, and pull all remaining forces back to the inner spire. All available air crews are to cover the retreat, then pull back to defend the spaceport. May the Emperor forgive me.’

‘The Emperor has only love for those who serve him well, especially when their duty is hard,’ said Percivane, placing a hand on her shoulder. ‘In this, you do his work, my lady.’

‘I hope so,’ she said. ‘Because there’s nowhere left to run, now, Percivane. With this order, I trap us all within the Draconspire, and place our fate in the hands of a son of Chimaeros.’

‘He will come, my lady,’ said Percivane. ‘And Danial may yet live.’

Suset’s jaw clenched tight, and she stared at the map as though she could burn away the proliferating ork rune-blocks with her fury alone.

Act Three

The journey from the Pegassus’ Eyrie to the Iron Maze of House Minotos progressed far more swiftly than Luk Kar Chimaeros could ever have hoped. It was well that it did, for matters across Adrastapol had become desperate indeed.

Even as the warriors of House Draconis fought on at the Draconspire, they could not know that Mount Imperius had fallen. Though the Knights and militia fought bravely there against the encroaching greenskin hordes, they could not prevail. Profane alien weapons brought sections of the mountain down with fearsome tectonic blasts. Others trapped the defending Knights within impenetrable force fields, their pilots able to do little but watch as militia and refugees alike were slaughtered around them. At the last, a jeering cabal of the greenskins’ foul psyker caste fell upon the surviving Astropaths and wrought horrible violence upon them. Their death agonies would cause storms of nightmares to plague the surrounding regions for decades to come.

Elsewhere, the defenders of Adrastapol fought to hold back the tide. Forts Ironpeak, Shield and the Typor Battery held out against each fresh wave of enemies. The armoury at Lanceguard and the defenders of Imperatus Dam were both overrun, the orks demolishing the latter structure with close-ranged shelling that saw a catastrophic collapse occur, and both Imperial and greenskin forces annihilated in the ensuing flood.

Meanwhile, the lances of House Minotos were driven ever back. Lacking the orbital defence infrastructure of their neighbouring houses, the Minotane forces had little reply as the ork Roks rained down. Without aircraft to support their forces, they suffered against the marauding squadrons of ork aircraft that filled the skies. At the Battle of the Chasm, the Defence of Hallanspoint and the Ironfields charge, they had been soundly beaten by the xenos invaders.

Thus, even as the combined force of the Exiles and House Pegasson swept low over the Ironfields to come to their aid, House Minotos faced a battle for their very survival.

Extracted from the writing of Sendraghorst,
Sage Strategic of Adrastapol,
vol XXI ‘The 2nd Ork War’

Luk fed power to his motive impellers, striding Sword of Heroes down the ramp of the Pegasson dropship. Several dozen such craft had rumbled in over the Ironfields and put down atop Heroes’ Ridge. As his steed thumped out onto the rocky hilltop, squadrons of sleek Pegasson fighters screamed overhead. Their guns chattered as the fighters plunged into the ork aircraft and sent them spiralling down in flames.

‘Thank the Throne for air cover,’ said Ekhaterina as she walked Duty Unending out behind him. Crimson Death and Wrath Inescapable followed. Ranulf remained at the Pegassus’ Eyrie, judged too badly injured to be moved.

‘You can thank the Marchioness,’ said Luk.

‘Even with the air cover, and the strength of House Pegasson beside us,’ said Sire Hw’ss, ‘I believe this will be a challenging fight.’

They drew their Knights up in a line near the ruins of a Minotos listening post, Gesmund’s Tauroxes joining them. The ironlegs of the Sacristans came close behind. Meanwhile, the Knights of House Pegasson massed in their own lances, gathering their strength atop the rocky slope. At their heart stood Lauret Tan Pegasson’s steed, Oracle, armed with its masterwork battlecannon and gold-taloned fist.

Luk looked down upon the battle raging below, and couldn’t help but agree with Hw’ss.

The Iron Maze, fortress and seat of House Minotos, was a remarkable fastness. Built into the roots of the Kulrikh Peaks, it was defended to its rear by sheer cliffs of stone. It spread out along that towering natural wall for over thirty miles, an interconnected mass of bastions, castles and redoubts arrayed in complex, concentric rings.

As its name suggested, the Iron Maze was intended to confound and disorient attackers, who might break through a gate or wall only to find themselves flanked by two other bastions, or drive into an apparent weak spot only to find themselves wading through a murderous crossfire. The stronghold epitomised the stubbornness and resilience of those that had built it.

For all its defensive batteries, the solidity of its armoured walls and the ingenuity of its layout, the Iron Maze had failed.

‘There are thousands of greenskins down there,’ said Ekhaterina.

‘I could provide you with an approximation of their numbers,’ said J’madus. ‘You would not thank me.’

The main approach to the Iron Maze was across a rocky plain, bordered by hills and ridges, cut through by three ferrocrete highways that radiated away like the spokes of a wheel. When Luk had last visited this place, many years ago, the plain had once boasted Minosaal, a substantial city defended by towering walls and gun turrets.

Now, Minosaal was a ruined wasteland that seethed with orks. Its buildings burned. Its gates were thrown down, and its walls collapsed. Greenskins surged along its highways in vast mobs, bellowing warcries as they pressed towards the walls. Hundreds of ramshackle war machines had drawn up amidst the ruins and were hammering the Iron Maze relentlessly.

Worse, the Maze itself was burning. Huge breaches in its walls bespoke the terrible violence of the battles fought here. The rubble was strewn with drifts of ork corpses, and the stricken remains of fallen Knights.

Black smoke rose from burning towers and redoubts, forming a dark pall that hung over the seat of House Minotos like a death omen.

‘They still fight, at least,’ said Ekhaterina. ‘We’ve not come here for nothing.’

Though the innermost fortifications were in ruins, both wings of the Iron Maze still showed signs of fierce resistance. On his retinal display, Luk saw magnified snapshots of gun turrets blazing, Knightly weapons spitting fury from cannon slits and militia raining shots down on the orks.

He was forced to dismiss the strategic warning runes flashing on his overlay. There were too many crises occurring at once, too many fights that required their attention.

‘This isn’t a siege,’ he said. ‘It’s a last stand.’

‘Knights,’ Lauret’s voice came over the open channel, stern and proud. ‘Before us, we see a terrible foe. We see the destruction they have wrought upon our allies. We see the death of our world, if we let it be so.’

‘This is not the death of a world,’ said Maia. ‘Yet.’

‘But we will not allow it!’ said the Marchioness. ‘Looking upon this spectacle of devastation we will know not horror, not fear, but wrath! Witness this affront to the Emperor and let it fill you with a righteous anger. By their coming, these alien filth have profaned His world. By their deeds they have done Him grievous insult. With every Imperial life they take, the xenos worsen their crimes, but no more! We are their punishment. We are the Emperor’s judgement wrought in flesh and steel. We shall sweep down upon these ignorant beasts and crush them, and as they burn, and scream, and die, the Emperor shall look down upon our work and know only pride! For the Emperor,’ cried Lauret, raising her Knight’s fist and clashing its talons together. ‘Fall upon them and leave none alive!’

‘Follow your rune markers and try to keep up,’ voxed Lady Eleanat to Luk.

‘We’ll do our best,’ said Luk with a wry grin. ‘But lady, this looks to be a desperate fight. We can’t afford to lose too many Knights here or–’

‘You’ve been out on your own for too long, Knight of Ashes,’ said Eleanat as the Pegasson Knights began their advance. ‘Let Lauret worry about the grand strategy. You Exiles just do your part.’

Luk sent her a rune of assent, accelerating his steed as he absorbed the strategic information flooding through his manifold. He felt fierce excitement rise in his chest as he took in Lauret’s plan.

‘Audacious,’ he said.

‘Swift and direct,’ said Ekhaterina. ‘Better than anything you could conceive, O Knight of Ashes.’

‘Duty Unending,’ said Luk, ‘just unshroud your damn guns and follow my lead.’

‘Follow,’ snorted Ekhaterina. ‘Oh, Luk, you precious soul.’

The Knights accelerated down the rocky slope towards the devastated city below. Lauret and her Exalted Court marched at the centre of the line, lances of Pegasson Knights spread out to either side along a frontage of several miles. Luk’s Exiles were out near the left end of the line, following runic designators that flashed up on their strategic overlays.

‘Gesmund,’ voxed Luk. ‘Hang back. Protect the Sacristans, and watch our rear. This is a Knightly war – you’re best staying clear.’

‘Understood, sire,’ said Gesmund. ‘I get paid regardless of where I fight. Not a scratch on the ironlegs, you have my word.’

The advance accelerated into a loping run that shook the ground. Luk and the Exiles adjusted their heading, the line flowing into a single lance-point charge with Lauret’s Exalted Court at its tip.

The Knights drove in towards the sundered walls of Minosaal, aiming for the ruined gateway where the centremost highway broke through the walls.

‘A maximal percentage of the orks are fully engaged with the combatants to their fore,’ said Hw’ss. ‘They haven’t noticed us yet.’

‘They are about to,’ said Lady Maia.

The fighters screamed in first. Lightnings and Thunderbolts in the white and blue of House Pegasson streaked low over the burning streets. Their guns chattered, and rockets streaked away from their wings. The few aircraft that the orks possessed were swept away like leaves in a gale, and Luk watched runic designators vanish on his overlay as strafing runs ploughed furrows through the tight-packed orks on the highway.

Bombers roared in the fighters’ wake, explosives spilling from their bays. Detonations rippled through the greenskin hordes, shockwaves levelling the ruins to either side of the highway. Orks died in droves, blazing away with little luck at the machines that were killing them. Luk called up vid-feeds from the bombers’ gun boxes in his peripheral, and grinned as he watched scrap-metal tanks and howling aliens vanish in tides of fire.

‘Through the flames!’ cried Lauret. ‘Crush anything left standing. Follow your designators!’

Led by the Marchioness, the Knights stormed up the blazing highway. Fire danced around them, and Luk stilled his cockpit’s thermal warnings. Ahead, Pegasson Knights trampled over the scorched survivors of the air raid, kicking aside blazing tanks and gunning down those few enemies still standing.

‘At this rate, we won’t have to fire a shot,’ said Ekhaterina. ‘It’ll be easy, providing we don’t broil in our thrones.’

‘Beware complacency,’ said Maia. ‘The beast awakens.’

Sure enough, the swarms of green runes on Luk’s strategic manifold were moving, the mobs crowding the other highways turning and spilling through the ruins towards them.

‘Here they come,’ he said. ‘Exiles, ready to turn on your mark and fire at will.’

Affirmation runes flashed in his peripheral, followed by a silver command rune sent from Lauret’s own manifold.

‘Now,’ said Luk. With a twist of his controls, he turned Sword of Heroes aside and ploughed into the burning ruins. Rubble rained down as the Knight smashed through the devastated ruins and into a smaller street beyond. The Exiles followed, flanking him.

On Luk’s strategic overlay, Lauret and a third of her force charged on up the burning highway. Meanwhile, the trailing edges of her Lancepoint split off, flanking left and right.

‘Enemy incoming,’ voxed J’madus. ‘Numbers considerable.’

‘Let them come,’ said Ekhaterina with relish.

One moment, the street before them was a barren wasteland, empty but for wreckage and rubble. The next, it swarmed with orks. Their warriors spilled through every alleyway and door. They appeared at windows with heavy cannons and opened fire with clattering roars. Their light vehicles sped down the street, guns blazing, while heavier armour smashed recklessly through the ruins.

‘Fire!’ said Luk, and the Exiles opened up as one. His thermal cannon obliterated a squadron of greenskin tanks, even as his stubbers strafed the upper windows of a hab-block across the way. Maia joined him, directing a thermal blast that brought a tower crashing down on the greenskins. Ekhaterina’s battle cannon spat shells that blew out ruins and hurled orks through the air.

Their ion shields flared as firepower washed against them, and Luk saw damage runes light across his instruments as the inevitable shots broke through.

Shouldering between a pair of blazing shop-fronts came an ork walker, Gorkanaut class, its rotary cannon spitting shells. Maia cursed as it raked her shield and struck sparks from her steed’s shins.

‘Crimson Death,’ said Luk. ‘Destroy it.’

‘Gladly,’ said Hw’ss. His energy cannons pulsed. Beams of power converged on the walker, boring through its chest and blasting it apart from within.

Even as its blazing wreck crashed sideways into a building, more orks poured over it with their guns hammering.

‘Numbers increasing,’ warned J’madus.

‘Flanking forces,’ said Lady Eleanat over the vox. ‘Air cover coming in, brace brace brace.’

A bellow filled the air, and Luk shrouded his auspicators in the instant before fighters and bombers hurtled overhead. Explosives fell like hail. The buildings before them disintegrated in a racing firestorm that hurled shrapnel against their shields and rained burning xenos remains down upon their steeds.

‘Magnificent!’ laughed Lady Hespar. ‘Bloody magnificent! Burn, you alien scum!’

‘Stay focused,’ ordered Luk.

He punched his clenched fist forward, his haptic gauntlet translating the gesture into a roaring blast of heat that leapt from his thermal cannon to annihilate an ork Battlewagon. The ruin next to Sword of Heroes collapsed as another Gorkanaut crashed through it. The machine swung its claw at the Knight’s torso, and Luk parried with his chainsword. The reaper hacked through hydraulics and metal blades, severing the claw and carrying on to saw the machine’s head off.

The Gorkanaut’s wreckage slammed into Luk’s steed, and he fought his controls to brace against its weight. Topple alarms shrilled. Hydraulics whined. With his ghosts clamouring in his mind, Luk managed to take a step back, then another. His steed’s footfalls crushed blazing orks, and the wreck of the Gorkanaut fell away, slamming into the roadsurface.

Luk saw another Gorkanaut coming at him, too fast for him to redress. Wrath Inescapable surged past him, meeting the ork walker’s charge with one shoulder lowered. Sparks flew and metal crumpled, the impact so ferocious that the Gorkanaut’s feet went out from under it. The ork war machine smashed down on its back, and Wrath Inescapable killed it with a point-blank shot to the head.

With mental impulses and deft twitches of his haptic controls, Luk brought Sword back into a fighting stance.

‘My thanks, Wrath Inescapable,’ he said. She flashed a rune in response, already storming on into the foe.

Luk cycled his autoloaders and checked his strategic overlay. Lauret’s spearhead had made it almost to the walls of the Iron Maze, their path cleared and flanks defended by a beautifully orchestrated ballet of airstrikes and strafing runs. Meanwhile, the ork counter-attack on both flanks had been met by walls of Knights, also bolstered by close-range bombing runs. It was shock tactics, fast and risky.

‘But it’s working,’ he grinned.

Then a thunderous note rang out. It took Luk a moment to realise it was the blare of a vox-horn, and that it came from the walls of the Iron Maze. Another blast rang out, then another.

‘Lady Eleanat,’ voxed Luk, still striding up the street and blasting one target after another. ‘Does that signal what I think it does?’

‘The Marchioness has made vox contact with Grandmarshal Kurt,’ said Eleanat. ‘He has–’ She broke off for a moment, and Luk heard a string of fierce explosions over the vox. ‘He has Knightly forces still fighting within both wings of the Iron Maze,’ she continued. ‘They’re about to sally forth and link up with us.’

‘Now we’ve got them,’ said Luk.

‘Hold to the Code Chivalric, Knight of Ashes,’ said Eleanat. ‘They could unseat us yet.’

‘Understood, my lady,’ said Luk. ‘Wise as ever.’

He broke vox, stomping Sword of Heroes to the end of the street and around the corner of a burning cathedrum into the square beyond. Ekhaterina’s steed emerged from a street to his left, while Maia and Hw’ss followed behind him.

Luk saw a huge statue of a Minot at the centre of the square, cast in bronze and leaning, headless, from its podium. Then his cockpit alarms howled and he swung his ion shield to bear with the speed of reflex.

Something struck the shield with titanic force, staggering Sword and causing sparks to shower from Luk’s systems. He gasped at a flare of sympathetic pain as his shield generator burned out, and his chainsword arm went dead and dark.

‘Baneblade!’ shouted Ekhaterina.

‘Once,’ said Sire Hw’ss. ‘Now, it is an abomination!’

The tank sat on the far edge of the square, monstrous main gun smoking. Its formerly noble lines had been corrupted by spikes and panels of scrap-metal, crudely painted blue and covered in ork glyphs. Xenos surged around it, some riding in jouncing trukks, others on foot.

‘Prioritise the super-heavy,’ ordered Luk. ‘Keep moving, don’t let the infantry close.’

‘Knight of Ashes, get clear,’ said Ekhaterina. ‘Your shield’s down. You can’t risk a direct hit.’

‘Then we’d best kill it before it scores one, lady,’ said Luk. ‘Crimson Death, you have the best ranged weapons for dealing with that abomination. Blast it.’

A rune flashed back from Hw’ss, and the ancient Knight stalked out into the square with its positron drivers howling. Shot after shot raked the Baneblade, punching through its armour and causing explosions to billow within.

Luk pushed his steed into a swift series of sidesteps, putting the crippled statue between him and the Baneblade’s main gun. As he went he blasted an ork transport tank, reducing it to ashes, and raked stubber rounds through the ork hordes. Maia and Ekhaterina followed his lead, circling out around the square with their guns blazing. Dozens of orks were dead in seconds, yet still the greenskins came on.

The Baneblade advanced with a bellow of engines, trailing flames and debris as it surged towards Crimson Death. The demolisher cannon in its hull fired, and a shell slammed into Hw’ss’ shields. Energy flared as the shell detonated several feet from his hull, and Crimson Death strode through the flames.

‘Crimson Death, evade. He’s zeroing on you,’ shouted Maia.

The Baneblade’s lascannons spat searing light, one shot flying wide. The other slammed into Hw’ss shields and overloaded them in a blast of light.

‘Omnissiah’s blood,’ cursed J’madus, a second before the Baneblade’s main gun fired again.

The shot caught Crimson Death in the shoulder. The explosion tore a gaping rent in the war engine’s armour, and Luk heard Hw’ss cry out in pain. Flames billowed, and the rangy Knight ground to a halt as its emergency protocols dumped power.

Crimson Death stood defenceless before the Baneblade.

‘No, you don’t,’ snarled Luk. He stormed across the square towards the Baneblade, charging his thermal cannon as he went.

‘Luk!’ shouted Ekhaterina, pushing Duty Unending into a loping run. The Baneblade’s lascannons fired again, but Lady Hespar’s shield caught the shots in a blaze of blue light.

Runes scrolled down Luk’s peripheral vision as he reached optimal range. Any second the ork gunners would have another shell loaded. Any second they would fire the shot that killed Sire Hw’ss. Or him.

‘Xenos scum,’ spat Luk, triggering his cannon. The shot bored through the Baneblade’s flank, melting armour, cabling, power conduits and fuel pipes. It triggered shells in their breeches, vapourised crew, and ignited the tank’s fuel reserves. Then the tank’s primary generator detonated. The Baneblade lifted a dozen feet into the air on a roiling fireball, then slammed back down with earth-shaking force.

For the second time in as many minutes, Luk fought frantically to keep his gyrostabilisers balanced, seeing more warning lights flash up as his steed’s servomotors burned out. Flames billowed around him and he gasped as the metal of his cockpit grew hot enough to burn his skin.

Then the fires of the explosion dimmed, and the clatter of multiple impacts filled the cockpit as shrapnel pattered off his steed’s scorched armour.

Ekhaterina strode her Knight up level with his, firing shots into the panicked orks who were fleeing in terror at the destruction of their mighty tank.

‘You owe me your life, Knight of Ashes,’ she said. ‘Again.’

‘I’ll find some way to repay you, I’m sure,’ said Luk, hurriedly powering down non-essential systems and wrestling his red-lining reactor to quiescence. ‘Crimson Death owes me his, now. Perhaps I could just transfer the debt?’

Lady Hespar laughed. ‘No chance,’ she replied, continuing to fire. ‘This is much more fun. On the positive side, your paintwork is blasted to atoms.’

‘How is that a positive?’ asked Luk, wincing at the thought of the work it would take to bring Sword of Heroes back to optimal fighting strength.

‘Well, you really do look the part now,’ she said. ‘A true Knight of Ashes…’

The battle lasted another hour, but the Exiles took little part in it. With Sword of Heroes badly damaged, and Crimson Death inoperable, Maia and Ekhaterina stood guard over the square until Gesmund could escort the ironlegs to their position. Together with the Vesserines, Duty Unending and Wrath Inescapable saw off several smaller ork attacks while the Sacristans went to work repairing Sires Kar Chimaeros’ and Hw’ss’ steeds.

Once it had been established that J’madus was alive – if somewhat shaken and injured – inside his steed, Luk turned to watching the strategic manifold. He observed with admiration as the Marchioness’ battleplan unfolded, her constant air strikes herding the greenskins and blunting each of their counter-attacks. Luk doubted that the Draconis air crews, finely trained as they were, could have matched the elaborate manoeuvres performed by the Pegasson pilots that day.

He saw the moment that Grandmarshal Kurt led one Lancepoint of Minotos Knights from the western wing of the Iron Maze as his herald Sire Wilhorm led another from the east. With their vox-speakers blaring martial arias, the Minotane lances ploughed into the reeling orks, who had only just turned to face the Pegasson Knights attacking from behind.

In a series of crunching battles, the strength of the ork horde was broken between the hammer and the anvil of the Knightly forces. Some steeds were damaged. Others fell. But thanks to the Marchioness’ bold strategy, and the skill of her and Kurt’s Knights, the damage was less than it could have been.

Luk’s and J’madus’ steeds were pronounced sufficiently repaired in time to limp through the burning ruin of the city and observe the meeting of the victorious leaders.

Lauret Tan Pegasson dismounted from her steed and met Grandmarshal Kurt Tan Minotos before the walls of the Iron Maze. At her behest, Luk dismounted and joined them with Ekhaterina as his second.

Lauret and Kurt stood amidst the Knights of their respective Exalted Courts, ringed by watchful steeds and Minotane militia. Burning rubble and ork corpses were strewn all around them. Lauret looked ethereal and deadly in her sculpted bodyglove, silvered data-tresses spilling down her back, eyes glowing with power.

By comparison, Luk thought Kurt looked shaken, battered and young. His waxed moustache had grown out into a messy tangle, and he had a long, fresh scar down one cheek. His heavily armoured brass bodyglove was badly dented, and he leaned on his heavy Minotane hammer like a wounded man with a crutch.

‘Only three Exalted with him,’ noted Ekhaterina. ‘He’s lost a couple of his closest to this war.’

‘Marchioness Lauret Tan Pegasson,’ said Kurt after a long, increasingly awkward silence.

‘Grandmarshal Kurt Tan Minotos,’ said Lauret, inclining her head.

‘My lady,’ said Kurt, bowing stiffly. ‘Allow me to extend to you the fullest thanks of my house. You rode to our aid, unbidden and unlooked for, and you have my gratitude for the help you have rendered.’

There were subtle stirrings amongst the Pegasson Knights. It was scant thanks, going by the strictures of the Code.

‘Your gratitude should not be directed solely at me and mine, Grandmarshal,’ said Lauret. ‘You owe thanks also to the Knight of Ashes. Without his counsel and his selfless example, we would still have been ensconced within our mountain fastness. You did not, as you say, choose to call for aid.’

Kurt looked for a moment as though he had been slapped. Then Luk’s name seemed to register, and his brows drew down. He turned a hard stare on Luk and Ekhaterina.

‘Luk Kar Chimaeros,’ said the Grandmarshal. ‘Knight of Ashes.’

Luk bowed. Ekhaterina sketched a curtsy that stayed just the right side of mocking.

‘Grandmarshal,’ said Luk. ‘I come on behalf of High King Danial.’

‘Your father,’ said Kurt slowly. ‘He betrayed this world and everyone on it. His deeds weakened us when we needed strength. He’s partly to blame for all this.’

‘Grandmarshal, as you must know, I have taken the Freeblade oath,’ said Luk wearily. ‘Whatever ties I had–’

‘I know,’ snapped Kurt. ‘I know. I promised myself that in my father’s name, if I ever met you I would take this hammer to your skull, oath or not.’

There was a collective gasp from the Knights around them. Even Kurt’s own warriors looked at him aghast.

‘But here you stand,’ the Grandmarshal continued. ‘Returned from your hunt, to a war you had no part in. Returned, I presume, to offer your blade. You bring the Knights of House Pegasson, when I was too proud to ask them for aid. You bring word of the High King, still fighting when I left him to fight it alone. You shame me, Knight of Ashes, and even as one part of me wants more than ever to strike you for that, the other knows this would be the act of a child and a fool. I have played the part of both for too damned long. My people have paid the price.’

Silence reigned. Fire crackled. Distantly, gunfire rattled as the last of the orks were hunted through the streets.

Luk walked into the circle of high ranking nobles and fell to one knee before Kurt Tan Minotos.

‘I knew your father,’ said Luk. ‘Not well, my lord, but I knew him, and he would have been proud of such frank humility. Whatever I can do to repair the hurts my former house did to yours, I pledge on my blade that I shall do.’

‘You have already done a great deal,’ said Kurt. ‘Stand. Please.’

The Grandmarshal turned back to Lauret.

‘I assume, from the Knight of Ashes’ words, you have not come simply to aid House Minotos in its hour of need?’

‘You assume correctly, Kurt,’ said Lauret. ‘We both have stood back for too long. Donatos taught us mistrust, yet in embracing that lesson we have only weakened ourselves, and our world. It took the son of this world’s greatest traitor to show me that, but I see it now. Our High King calls for aid. Will you join me?’

Luk saw something kindle in Kurt’s eyes then.

The Grandmarshal turned to his Knights and raised his hammer.

‘House Minotos will bloody well fight with you, won’t we, boys?’

His Exalted Court gave a hoarse cheer, and from the vox-horns of the Minotane Knights came booming notes of assent that echoed over the ruined city.

Despite himself, despite knowing the odds still stacked against them, Luk found himself grinning.

‘There’s a chance now,’ he said to Ekhaterina, who returned his smile with one of her own. ‘If they can just hold them back until we can march to their aid, there’s a chance now…’

Jennika led her lance across the wetlands at a loping run. The sun rose at their backs through curtains of mist and shadow, reaching glimmering fingers of light across the swamp. The Knights ploughed wakes through the stagnant water, sending waves rolling away to lap at half-submerged ruins. Traxin’s Crawler followed, engines running hot as it strove to keep pace with the war engines.

As Fire Defiant strove tirelessly to catch up to its quarry, Jennika brooded on all that had occurred. Her body ached with tiredness and pain, though Traxin had patched her wounds as best he could in the scant time she allowed. Stimms and nutrient feeds kept her biological needs at bay, but she knew that exhaustion and injury would catch up to her eventually.

‘For all my power, still just mortal,’ she told herself. ‘But weakness must wait.’

As the miles rolled past, Jennika’s eye was drawn again and again to the cloth-wrapped bundle she had thrust into her cockpit’s storage rack. In the dark, with so much occurring, it had been easy enough to conceal her strange prize from her comrades. She still wasn’t sure why she had. Something told Jennika that the blade should be kept secret, at least until she could learn more of its provenance.

‘Da will know more,’ she thought. ‘And if not, he’ll know which tomes to pore over until he does.’

The thought of her brother caused her a pang of concern. The long-range vox was a fouled mess, and all efforts to reach the Draconspire, Pegassus’ Eyrie and the Iron Maze had failed. There was no way for Jennika to discover how the war against the orks fared. Or, she thought bitterly, to alert her people to her suspicions about Inquisitor Massata.

What does this man truly want? whispered the ghosts of her throne. He is an inquisitor, he speaks with the Emperor’s voice!

If that is so, why hide his purpose from the Lady Tan Draconis?

Inquisitors need tell no one their plans, those of faith must simply trust.

Oh, but we trusted before, didn’t we? the ghosts disagreed. So often trust is met with duplicity. What if he is a threat to this world?

Always trust an inquisitor.

Never trust an inquisitor…

‘Approaching the Shifting Pass in five miles,’ voxed Lady Nualah, interrupting the ghostly clamour in Jennika’s mind.

‘Target remains stationary,’ said Sacristan Traxin. ‘Distance now two-point-six-three miles and closing.’

‘It’s time we received answers,’ said Jennika.

‘Do you truly believe he means us ill, my lady?’ asked Sire Eduard. ‘We have shown him nothing but fealty and honour.’

‘If not, why lie?’ replied Sire Reith. ‘He would have had us believe Lady Tan Draconis dead, and left us standing like fools while he vanished into the night.’

‘I want to believe that his intent is pure,’ said Jennika. ‘But for all we know he is a servant of the Dark Gods himself.’

‘Surely not,’ exclaimed Lady Nualah. ‘The Emperor wouldn’t allow such a thing.’

‘The Emperor allowed Donatos,’ said Reith bitterly.

‘All I know,’ said Jennika, ‘is that I feel as though I have been playing regicide blindfold these past few days. It is time for clear sight, no matter what it reveals.’

‘Reading weapons discharge at the inquisitor’s location,’ warned Traxin. ‘Substantial life-signs.’

‘Orks,’ said Jennika. ‘Hurry.’

She fed more power to her motive actuators, attitude runes flickering to orange as she pushed her steed as fast as it would go. Ahead, the flanks of the mountains reared huge and grey, and the pass sat shrouded in darkness. The light of the dawn had not pierced its shadows yet.

The inquisitor’s Charger was a wreck. Its cab had been sheared away, and lay on its roof. The main body of the vehicle listed to one side, riddled with bullet holes.

Jennika took in the scene as she approached. Her augmented cerebrum cogitated at superhuman speed, spitting out tactical manoeuvres and targeting solutions in the blink of an eye. Massata and what remained of his retinue were trapped in the wreck of their transport. They leant out from their scant cover, guns blazing as they tried to drive off the ork horde encircling them. It wasn’t a huge warband. A few dozen greenskins with scrap-iron guns made up the bulk of it, supported by a band of bikers that circled the wreck in a whooping mob, and a couple of artillery pieces overseen by a grizzled ork of prodigious size.

It was more than enough to see Massata and his followers dead.

‘Nualah,’ said Jennika. ‘Knock out the long guns. Eduard, Reith, crush the infantry. I’ll take the bikes. Caution, Knights. No one harms the inquisitor.’

Assent runes flashed on her retinal display. The orks saw the towering war engines coming, and reacted with what looked bizarrely like glee. As their leathery overseer bellowed orders, gretchin frantically swivelled their artillery pieces to bear. Rockets leapt from the carapace mount of Nualah’s steed and detonated in their midst, blasting the guns and their crews into scrap and corpses.

At the same time, Sire Eduard and Sire Reith opened fire, Draconis and Pegasson fighting together to exterminate the ork threat. As the greenskins vanished amidst blossoming explosions, Jennika turned her battle cannon on the ork Bikers. The greenskins swerved in her direction, and a blizzard of heavy shells hammered her shield as they charged. Jennika ignored the damage reports as rounds broke through to dent her steed’s armour and punch through secondary systems. She led her targets, as she had once taught Danial to do, then fired.

Two heavy thumps. Two shells soared through the air. Explosions flashed one after the other, twin blasts that sent ork bikes tumbling through the air aflame. Greenskin corpses bounced and rolled to a stop, and as the smoke cleared nothing remained of the Biker mob but burning wrecks and mangled bodies.

‘That was the easy part,’ said Jennika, seeing that her comrades her made short work of the xenos warband. ‘Now for the real battle. I would ask you to keep your own counsel, Sires and Lady. I will handle this. Remember, this man is still an inquisitor. We will not make an enemy of him unless we must.’

The Knights came to a halt, looming over the remains of the inquisitor’s transport. Jennika dismounted, seeing that Massata had emerged and was waiting for her amidst the heaped corpses of the orks. Sergeant Kaston and Interrogator Nesh flanked him, both looking worse for wear. At their backs, Lintiguis Mortens hunched in the rear hatch of the hauler, and Jennika noted the heavy tome he clutched to his chest.

Slowly, deliberately, she drew her blade and walked to meet Massata.

‘Lady Tan Draconis,’ he said. ‘I am glad that you live, but disappointed to see that your warriors have abandoned their vigil.’

‘Inquisitor Massata,’ said Jennika. ‘They remained for as long as they did only because of a lie that you told them. I do not appreciate having false last words put in my mouth.’

‘A necessary deception,’ said Massata, and if he felt any shame at being caught out, Jennika didn’t hear it. ‘Without it, I believed they would have rushed into the ruins in search of you, and thus risked Imperial lives for nothing.’

‘Unlike you,’ she said, glancing pointedly at Mortens. The scribe looked shame-faced, and shrunk further into shadow. ‘For that book, I assume, you have risked many lives, including mine. Is it not so?’

‘Not just risked, but lost,’ said Massata. ‘Venquist, Shanema, Shemara, all dead. D’bu’ko is barely clinging to his life. You, I thought, and many others. Not one unworthy martyr, I assure you, my lady.’

‘For a book?’ asked Jennika, stopping before Massata. She studied his body language, noting his hand moving carefully towards the haft of his axe, the forced relaxation in the postures of his followers. They were ready for a fight.

‘It is not just “a book”,’ said Massata. ‘It is a mighty weapon in the war against the Emperor’s enemies. A grimoire that will allow me to at last defeat a dreadful foe. That tome contains the true name of the daemon responsible for Donatos, and a dozen other atrocities besides. He who holds a daemon’s true name can destroy the fiend.’

‘Inquisitor, I will be frank,’ said Jennika. ‘I believe that you came to this world not to aid us, but to do us harm. You omitted word of this grimoire, and lied to gain our trust and aid. What else have you lied about? What are you here to do? Are you really a servant of the Emperor, or just another emissary of the Dark Gods who comports himself as a faithful man?’

Massata glanced up at the sky, streaked now with rose-tinted clouds. He looked back at Mortens, and the book he clutched to his chest.

He sighed, and shook his head.

‘I admit, my lady, that I have not told you the entire truth,’ he said. ‘But now, at this desperate hour, what harm is there? I believe I owe you, at the least, an explanation. My retinue and I came to Adrastapol long before we met. We have been here for years, watching, hidden, gauging your peoples’ intent. Judging their guilt or innocence.’

Jennika’s expression became dangerously neutral.

‘A trial held in secret?’ she asked. ‘Without our knowledge, without honour?’

‘Your world produced two Noble Houses riddled with heresy,’ said Massata. ‘Frankly, my lady, if Adrastapol had been a hive world, it would likely have been purged without a second thought. But Knights are valuable military assets, considered on a par with Space Marines by many. You were to be given a chance. But considering the duplicity that had been wrought by Houses Chimaeros and Wyvorn, and the entity from which Alicia Kar Manticos derived her power, I considered it too dangerous to openly show my hand lest the agents of Chaos were alerted to my presence.’

‘So, you lied to us,’ said Jennika. She saw the sense of his words, but her Knightly conditioning ran deep. Everything about such dishonest conduct was repugnant to her. She fought to keep her anger in check.

‘A man who knows he is watched, knows what he must hide,’ said Massata. ‘Besides, if I am honest I had already made up my mind. I sought only confirmation of your guilt, and an opportunity to acquire the grimoire from which the sorceress Alicia gained so much power. Adrastapol enjoyed a stay of execution while I sought that tome, nothing more. I had a plan in place, men in position amongst the Wardens ready to allow me access.’

‘That was how you knew of the corruption below Chimaerkeep,’ said Jennika.

‘Yes,’ said Massata. ‘I was unsure of how to proceed, for I did not know how great a threat I would face while recovering the grimoire. Any course of action seemed likely to tip my hand, and leave me open to any heretics lurking upon this world. Then, an opportunity presented itself.’

‘An opportunity?’ asked Jennika, feeling a horrible suspicion rising like bile at the back of her throat. ‘What opportunity?’

‘The orks,’ said Massata.

‘The orks,’ repeated Jennika, her knuckles white on the haft of her sword. ‘How?’

‘I did not lie about my battleship,’ said Massata. ‘But the Light of Truth is very much intact. On my order, Captain Raniaraz ran a masterful campaign of strike-and-retreat actions to bait the orks while my agents and I laid our preparations upon Adrastapol. She and her sister ships baited the xenos, leading them towards the Majestis System.’

‘You brought this scourge upon our world?’ asked Jennika. ‘And yet you can still meet my eye?’

‘Of course,’ said Massata. ‘I serve the Emperor, to expunge the evil that Varakh’Lorr began, and Alicia Kar Manticos propagates even now. The orks were to be my distraction, keeping your people occupied, allowing me to appear as the bearer of a dire warning and acquire just enough aid to facilitate my ends beneath Chimaerkeep. I would then locate and reawaken the lander that my retinue concealed several years ago in the Valley of High Kings. It was my intent that the ship would carry us and the grimoire to safety, piloted by Sergeant Kaston, shortly before Captain Raniaraz launches the cyclonic torpedoes that I ordered made ready before my departure.’

Jennika’s mind reeled.

Cyclonic torpedoes.

‘Exterminatus…’ she breathed.

‘I am sorry, my lady,’ said Massata. ‘Yes.’

Jennika imagined herself swing her blade, imagined herself cutting the inquisitor’s head from his shoulder. She could do it, she knew. She could strike the blow before Kaston or Nesh could stop her. He had signed her world’s death warrant, and there he stood, calmly admitting the deed.

Instead she took a slow, deep breath, steadying her shaking hands and sheathing her blade.

‘Inquisitor Massata,’ Jennika said in her most formal courtly address. ‘You have erred, and I believe that you know it. You have passed false judgement upon the Emperor’s behalf. You have committed a terrible sin in his name.’

‘This world harboured heretics and daemon worshippers,’ said Massata. ‘There is no judgement too severe for such a crime.’

‘We destroyed those heretics,’ said Jennika. ‘We slew all who consorted with the Dark Gods. We passed our own judgement in the Emperor’s name. You have seen us as we truly are, inquisitor, so you must know that if the Knights of Draconis, Pegasson and Minotos committed any sin it was only that of believing that our allies were as honourable as we were ourselves. It was a sin of honour, of trust. I do not care how you justify your actions here, inquisitor. By them, you have made us guilty of that same sin again, and I believe you will be every bit as damned as Chimaeros and Wyvorn for it. You claim you seek to combat the evil of Alicia Kar Manticos. I say you serve it.’

‘Lord,’ said Sergeant Kaston. ‘Perhaps–’

‘Silence!’ thundered Massata. ‘My verdict has already been passed!’

‘Yet you doubt yourself,’ said Jennika, locking eyes with Massata. ‘Why else did you insist upon my accompanying you into the ruins?’

‘I told you, I did not know the scale of the threat,’ said Massata. ‘Everything I have observed told me that you were amongst this world’s most capable warriors. I brought you along as another blade, nothing more.’

‘I don’t believe that, and neither do you,’ said Jennika. ‘You brought me with you because you knew that your judgement is false. You wanted me to react, to reveal something down there in the grave of House Chimaeros that would prove you right or wrong, one way or another.’

‘I am the Emperor’s arbiter and I have no room for mercy or doubt,’ growled Massata, hefting his axe. ‘My work remains undone, and you are keeping me from it. If I do not reach the lander in time, then all this will have been for nothing.’

‘If you go through with this, then you make yourself an implement not of the Emperor, but of the Dark Gods,’ said Jennika. ‘But if you are so certain in your judgement, then who am I as a loyal servant of the Emperor to question your word?’

She dropped to her knees before him, ignoring the angry cries of her Knights through her vox-bead.

‘I submit myself to your judgement, Inquisitor Massata,’ she said, baring her neck. ‘If it is to be execution, then let it start with me. I will not resist the Emperor’s justice, and neither will my people.’

Massata loomed over her, axe in hand, his expression grim. The inquisitor’s henchmen stared, clearly unused to seeing such emotion from their master. Jennika’s heart thumped steadily. In her mind, she offered up a simple prayer.

The axe fell from Massata’s grip, and thumped to the ground. Dawn light gleamed along its blade.

‘Very well,’ said Massata, and it was as though he dredged the words up from the deepest depths within him. ‘Perhaps I judged poorly, or was too puritan in my approach. Fear forced my hand, and so I erred. By your brave example you shame me, lady.’

To his followers’ amazement, Massata reached down and gripped Jennika by the shoulders, raising her up to stand before him.

‘I can offer you nothing but my heartfelt apologies, however,’ he said. ‘It is too late. By my chron, there is less than a day-cycle remaining before Raniaraz enacts my last command.’

‘Cancel the exterminatus,’ said Jennika.

‘I cannot,’ said Massata. ‘It must be my voice that issues the command, and to do that I would require high-gain orbital vox. The invasion, the war, has fouled the atmosphere. My vox is useless.’

‘Adrastapol hasn’t endured thousands of years of war against the enemies of the Emperor only to be destroyed by His own servants,’ said Jennika fiercely. ‘You said you had a shuttle, yes?’

‘I do,’ said Massata. ‘An Aquila Lander, perhaps forty miles due south. But by the time I got into orbit and evaded the ork ships–’

‘No,’ interrupted Jennika impatiently. ‘The Draconspire! You’ll find your orbital vox there. You can call off the attack, and command your ships to join the fight instead. You can make this right, inquisitor.’

Massata was still for a long moment. In her mind, Jennika prayed as fervently to the Emperor as she ever had in her life.

‘Yes,’ said Massata at last. ‘Yes, you are right. Any other course would only serve the daemon’s ends.’

‘And if this grimoire truly can lay low Alicia Kar Manticos and whatever horror she serves, then I swear to you that you will have the aid of the Knights of Adrastapol in your fight,’ said Jennika. ‘Now get your warriors aboard Traxin’s Crawler, quickly. We will need your directions to reach the lander.’

‘Of course,’ said Massata, then he paused. ‘I have slain greater personages than you for speaking to me as you did today, Lady Tan Draconis,’ he said. ‘I commend your bravery, and your honour for helping me to see the error of my ways.’

‘Save your thanks, inquisitor,’ said Jennika. ‘I’ll accept them after we rescue Adrastapol.’

Luk stared hard through his magnoculars, fighting down the dread he felt at the sight before him.

‘We thought the Iron Maze was in a poor state,’ said Ekhaterina. ‘This is…’

‘Catastrophe,’ said Luk, heavily.

They lay on the crest of a grassy rise, staring east across the Valatane towards the burning Draconspire. Several of Gesmund’s men crouched nearby, relaying their findings via a bulky vox set to Lauret Tan Pegasson and Kurt Tan Minotos. The Vesserines’ Taurox idled at the bottom of the slope, waiting to bear them back to where the Knightly force was marshalling on the Valatane.

‘Is anyone still alive in there?’ asked Ekhaterina. Luk shook his head, appalled.

‘I don’t know, my lady,’ he said.

The Draconspire he remembered was no more. Surrounded by a seething ocean of orks, what remained was a blasted ruin. Some of its spires and towers had toppled like felled olidarnes, crushing the other walls and structures beneath their weight. The ravaged battlements were festooned with corpses on spikes and ork glyph-banners, and slain steeds could be seen sprawled amidst the ruin, being picked apart by industrious greenskins. Hordes of xenos rampaged around the ruins, pouring in through rents in the Draconspire’s defences.

More banners rose from the Northrise Battery, and there Luk saw a gathering of the biggest ork walkers he had seen yet.

‘Look,’ said Luk, pointing. ‘They’re not attacking Northrise. I’d guess it’s already theirs. But they’re still marching on the Draconspire.’

‘Meaning there’s still someone in there for them to fight,’ said Ekhaterina, grinning and clapping him on the shoulder. ‘Your friends may be alive, Luk!’

‘I hope so, Lady Hespar,’ he said. ‘Either way, someone is still fighting, and if that’s the case then it’s our duty to come to their aid.’

‘Besides,’ she said, ‘that certainly looks like the sort of banner I’d have if I was a filthy great xenos warlord, so Gorgrok must still be present. And clearly, for us to prevail here and be about our hunt again, the warlord must die.’

‘Just so,’ said Luk, then frowned. ‘I wonder what has them so agitated?’

He motioned to the Vesserines, who were clustered around their vox set. One of the men looked up and beckoned urgently to the Knights. Sliding down from the crest of the ridge, Luk and Ekhaterina broke into a doubled-over jog and hurried to join the soldiers.

‘Priority vox hail,’ said one of them. ‘Sire, it’s showing Inquisitorial clearance codes, a demand to speak to the leaders of the Knightly force currently assembling on the Valatane.’

‘Surely the Marchioness or the Grandmarshal should take it,’ said Luk, but the soldier shook his head.

‘No, sire, they’ve deferred the hail to you. Said they’re the military commanders, but you’re the unifying leader.’

Luk blinked. Ekhaterina smirked. He took the vox headset from the Vesserine, frowning as he clamped it to his ear.

‘This is the Knight of Ashes,’ he said. ‘Responding to priority hail, over.’

‘Luk?’

‘Jen?’ breathed Luk. ‘Jennika, my lady, is that you?’

‘It is,’ she replied. ‘Luk, you don’t know how good it is to hear your voice!’

‘I imagine about as good as it to hear yours,’ said Luk. ‘Where are you? Why in Throne’s name are you on an Inquisitorial channel?’

‘I’m aboard an Inquisitorial lander,’ she said. ‘We’re approaching from the north.’

‘An inquisitor, my lady? What business has an inquisitor doing on Adrastapol?’ asked Luk. ‘Why are you airborne, what has happened to your steed?’

‘There’s no time, Luk,’ said Jennika. ‘We need to access the orbital vox at the Draconspire, right now. We have to call off the inquisitor’s ship, or we’ll all have a seat at the Emperor’s table before nightfall!’

Luk felt a surge of confusion and fear, but his Knightly conditioning clamped down firmly on the emotions.

‘Yes, my lady,’ he said, marshalling his thoughts. ‘Redirect course and land at the coordinates I’m about to relay. The Draconspire is under heavy siege, I’m not sure how much is left in there or who still lives. I doubt the vox is even still operational.’

‘What of the High King?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘There’s a lot to tell, and it sounds like not much time to tell it in. But we have to get in there while there’s still someone alive to rescue. And if you need orbital vox, I may have an idea.’

‘I will see you very soon,’ she said.

Jennika broke the link, and Luk thrust the vox headset back into its operator’s hand.

‘Into the Taurox,’ he ordered. ‘Get us to the mustering point. There’s no time to lose.’

Danial swam back to consciousness. He blinked, bleary eyed in the gloom, then jerked into wakefulness as he saw a shape above him. Hands gripped him, firmly but gently.

‘Da,’ a female voice said. It sounded familiar. ‘Da, it’s all right. It’s me.’

Danial blinked and took a shuddering breath.

‘Suset,’ he croaked, then coughed because of his dry throat.

‘It’s all right. Drink this, you must be parched.’ She pressed a canteen into his hands and he sipped. Cold water, brackish but refreshing. He drank greedily, before taking hold of himself and setting the water aside.

‘I remember the wall,’ he murmured. ‘We were fighting… then Gorgrok was there and I… I fell?’ He adjusted his position, and winced as pain sent up flares all through his body.

‘You did,’ said Suset. ‘I swear to the Emperor, I thought I’d lost you. If you hadn’t been wearing that Emperor-blessed armour, I might have. I had to order the retreat from the second line. We’ve been bottled up and fighting for our lives ever since. But you were lucky. We both were. The sixty-fifth found you during their retreat through the Wyreweavers’ district. They lashed you to the last of their Huntsmen and brought you in just minutes before the gates were sealed.’

‘Why–’ Danial broke off, coughing and wincing at the fresh waves of pain it caused. ‘Why are we in the throne room?’ he asked, sitting up and looking around. The huge chamber was dimly lit by chem-lanterns and torches. Hundreds of people packed the throne room, shadowy figures pressed close together. Civilians huddled towards the chamber’s rear, highborn and commoner alike gathered in knots behind the imposing throne of House Draconis.

Nearer to hand, Danial saw militia, Knights and Sacristans. Some were busily building barricades between the chamber’s columns, arranging them in concentric rings that faced the main doors. Others were readying weapons, distributing equipment from the Munitorum-stamped crates heaped near the throne, or simply snatching a moment to rest, eat, or stare numbly into space. Others tended to the wounded, amongst whom Danial lay on a stretcher.

‘They drove us back to here,’ said Suset. ‘The throne room, the Sacristans’ forge-temple, the Chamber of Ghosts, the armoriums, and a few other places… They’re the strongholds we have left.’

‘The orks have overrun everything else?’ asked Danial. ‘How long was I unconscious?’

‘You’ve been swimming in and out for about three days, as best I can reckon it,’ said Suset. ‘We’ve fought them every step of the way, Da. Every corridor, chamber, barricade and stairwell, they’ve bled for them. We choked every route into the Grand Strategium with their corpses before we gave it up.’

‘I believe it,’ said Danial. ‘You wouldn’t have let it be otherwise.’

‘I’ve done everything I can,’ said Suset angrily. ‘It just hasn’t been enough.’

Danial placed a hand on her arm, but she shrugged it off.

‘What of Luk?’ he asked. ‘The relief force?’

Suset gave a mirthless bark of laughter.

‘Impossible to say,’ she said. ‘We haven’t had visibility outside the walls for two days. Polluxis has re-established limited vox within the ’spire, enough to let our holdouts talk to one another. But we lost touch with everything above the mid-spire when the Grand Strategium fell. Garath was leading the rearguard there, herding civilians up towards the space port with a force of militia and a few Knights. If he got up above the squires’ yards and managed to barricade the Scaled Stair then maybe…’

‘Garath is as stubborn as they come,’ said Danial. ‘If anyone could do it, he could.’

‘True,’ said Suset, nodding.

Danial realised he could hear the sounds of battle, radiating through the walls from outside the throne room.

‘They’re close,’ he said.

‘Very,’ said Suset. ‘I’m afraid we may be facing our last stand, if they keep coming. It’s why I had the medicae wake you now.’

‘The medicae?’ asked Danial.

‘They injected you with stimms, sanctified restoratives and that sort of thing,’ said Suset. ‘If the orks do break through, I thought you’d prefer to face them by my side as High King with a blade in hand, not half-conscious and strapped to a stretcher.’

‘I don’t imagine the medicae were too happy about that,’ he said with a faint smile.

‘They raised quite a fuss about risks, and letting your body rest and heal,’ said Suset. ‘I pointed out that, if the orks overrun us, we’d all have ample time to rest at the Emperor’s side. Until then, the Draconspire needs its High King.’

Danial nodded and forced himself to stand. Suset gripped his arm and helped him up.

‘Still in my bodyglove, then?’ he said ruefully. ‘I was worried the surgeons would have had to cut it away.’

‘No,’ said Suset. ‘Percivane wouldn’t let them damage it. Precious archeotech, a gift from the Emperor et cetera. Luckily, they were able to remove segments and do their work then fit it back in place. You need better care than they could give, but you’re functional, at least. Da…’

Her look said everything it needed to. He pulled her close, and they held each other for a moment, fiercely, possessively.

‘Idiot,’ she said into his shoulder. ‘Falling off the damn wall when there’s a war on.’

They laughed then, a moment of relief in place of the tears that threatened, and Danial saw militia glance their way with hollow curiosity. Laughter wasn’t something anyone in the Draconspire had heard in a long while. The thought sobered him. Suset saw it too and stepped back, looking him up and down.

‘Enough lying around,’ she said. ‘Time to be High King again. The men who saved you couldn’t find your bolter, but they recovered your crown and your draconblade.’

‘More than good enough, my lady,’ said Danial. ‘They’ll receive medals, all of them, when we get through this, and rewards to show my gratitude.’

‘There’s precious few of them left, my liege,’ said Suset. ‘The last few days haven’t been kind.’

‘Markos?’ asked Danial.

‘With Polluxis,’ said Suset.

‘What of the steeds?’ asked Danial. ‘Any technology, for that matter. The machine-spirits were stirring…?’

‘They still are,’ she said. ‘Most of the guns are working, barring some of the older plasma weapons. And there’s a band of Sacristans still labouring on the steeds in the armoriums. Polluxis has been supervising remotely. They have all the surviving Knights down there, ours included, and last we heard they’d roused a handful. It’s all that stopped the orks overrunning their position. The greenskins have been hitting the armoriums hard, but Nauman and Crimson Blade have been leading the defence.’

‘It’s a relief to know the steeds are reawakening,’ said Danial. ‘But it’s of limited use to us here, I suppose. Unless we could get to them or them to us.’

‘We could order them to break out across the north martialling yard,’ said Suset. They’d be able to loop out through Ottavio’s Arch then blast their way through the outer audience chambers and reach us that way. Don’t think I haven’t considered it.’

‘It’s too risky,’ said Danial, and Suset nodded.

‘There are too few steeds, and too many foes between us and them, with close quarters exacerbating the enemy’s advantage,’ she said. ‘The terrain between them and us is absolutely swarming with greenskins. That gunfire you hear? That’s the outer audience chambers. I’ve ordered the rearguard to hold for as long as they can, and they know we can’t open the throne room doors again. They’ll have to find sanctuary elsewhere.’

‘Then we need to be ready to fight,’ said Danial. ‘No matter what. We have to hold out as long as we possibly can.’

‘Luk?’ she asked.

‘Luk, Jennika – Throne, even Lauret and Kurt,’ said Danial. ‘I don’t believe they’d abandon us.’

‘Hah, Kurt?’ said Suset. ‘But if you believe it, then so do I. We shall keep fighting until help arrives.’

‘Luk gave me his word,’ said Danial. ‘That’s enough.’

He bent painfully, picking up his scabbard and locking it back in place on his armoured bodyglove. Suset set his crown on his head, mating its data-filigree with his neural jacks.

‘My king,’ she said, stepping back and giving him a warrior’s salute.

‘Lady Gatekeeper,’ he said, returning the gesture. ‘We fight until the fire burns out.’

‘Until the fire burns out,’ she echoed.

At that moment, the last stutters of gunfire from the outer audience chambers ceased, replaced by a shuddering war cry that the armoured doors did little to muffle.

WAAAGH!

Danial Tan Draconis stood in the gloom of his throne room. He gripped the hilt of his draconblade, willing strength back into his limbs. Every breath came with pain. His wounds gnawed at him. Fatigue threatened to force him to his knees.

His warriors pressed close with their weapons drawn. They were little more than shadows in the dark. Many were injured. Some wouldn’t see another dawn. Yet they stood resolute, and Danial drew strength from theirs. Militia crouched behind barricades all through the chamber, autoguns and heavy weapons aimed at the doors. Civilians huddled at the rear of the hall. Some brandished improvised weapons. Some merely crouched in terror; weeping, shaking, and shielding their loved ones with their bodies.

‘Feel the draconsfire within you,’ said Danial, his voice firm amidst the rasp of his warriors’ breathing and the scuff of their feet on the flagstones. ‘Even if it is only embers. Find it. Stoke it. We’re all that remains now. Draconis’ last hope. The Emperor expects.’

A boom echoed through the throne room. The dracon-inscribed doors shuddered from a ferocious impact.

‘They’re right outside,’ hissed a voice. Danial couldn’t place whose.

A second crash rolled like thunder, causing the men and women around him to flinch.

‘Emperor preserve us,’ came another voice.

‘House Draconis, hold your nerve,’ commanded Danial.

The doors bowed inward. From beyond them came monstrous roars.

At another impact, the doors groaned as their hinges and locks strained. A multitude of feral roars rose beyond them.

‘Warriors of Adrastapol,’ cried Danial. ‘Lords and Ladies of the Draconspire. Ignite!’

Danial thumbed the rune on his blade’s pommel. As one, his Knights followed suit. With a whooshing snarl their draconblades lit up, fuel reserves burning hot to wreath their swords in fire.

A last, titanic impact smashed the doors from their hinges, and the monsters came for them. The doors of the throne room crashed down and orks spilled through the breach. They resembled a single, monstrous beast, all blood red eyes and jagged tusks and roaring war cries.

‘Fire!’ bellowed Danial, and the defenders of the throne room let fly. Bullets and bolts tore into the massed orks and swept dozens from their feet. Blood sprayed.

More greenskins surged over their fallen, trampling the wounded and the dead alike. They crashed into the outer line of barricades and began trying to clamber over. Some hurled crude stick bombs that detonated amongst the militia. Others opened fire with hissing flamethrowers and chattering cannons.

Bodies hit the floor, mangled corpses in the raiment of the House Draconis militia.

Amidst the greenskin masses, hulking leaders exhorted their warriors in their crude tongue. The message was clear. Fight harder. Kill them all.

Finish it.

‘Knights!’ barked Danial. ‘With me, drive them back!’

Ignoring his pain, he pushed himself into a charge. Danial dashed across the throne room where he had sat in state so many times. His draconblade burned hot in his hands, and the shield of his archeotech bodyglove flickered as shots rebounded from it.

He vaulted a barricade and hit an ork feet-first in the chest, driving it to the floor. He hacked down another greenskin then drove his blade through the eye socket of the first.

All around him, the Knightly charge cut deep into the greenskin lines, and the ork attack faltered.

‘In Excelsium Furore!’ roared Danial. ‘For the Emperor!’

Outside the Draconspire walls, battle raged. A force of almost two hundred Knights stormed into Gorgrok’s horde, splitting into two spearheads as they came. One, led by the Exiles, drove straight for a breach in the stronghold’s outer wall. They hit the greenskins from behind, blasting ork artillery batteries and scattering mobs of gretchin as they came. Above them soared the aircraft of the Pegasson armada. In their wake came a spearhead of Sacristan Crawlers and ironlegs, escorted by Gesmund’s Vesserines. Guns blazing, shields glowing under the return fire of panicked orks, Luk’s force swept aside the trailing elements of the horde and forced passage through the Draconspire’s outer wall.

As they went, so Lauret Tan Pegasson and Kurt Tan Minotos launched their own attack. To them fell the task of recapturing a different fortress.

‘Northrise Battery four thousand yards and closing,’ reported Sire Wilhorm Dar Minotos. ‘Heavily fortified, my lord. Reading massive concentration of greenskin lifesigns.’

‘Understood, Wilhorm,’ replied Kurt, riding the pounding sway of his steed, Gustev’s Revenge. The Knight was a modified Gallant, mounting a twinned melta cannon on its carapace, a huge adamantium shield on one arm and a vastly oversized Minotane hammer on the other. Kurt couldn’t wait to bring his weapons to bear against the xenos that had despoiled his lands.

‘The enemy know we’re here,’ said Kurt over the open channel. ‘Nesbaen’s third aria of Vengeance I think, gentlemen.’

Kurt marched at the head of half the surviving Minotos Knights, and all of them now engaged their vox speakers. Bombastic martial music rolled across the Valatane to announce their coming.

‘Be prepared for anything,’ voxed Lauret, from where she led her own force of Knights off to his right. ‘The xenos have deployed heretical weapons of every sort. We shall need all our faith to prevail here.’

Kurt pushed aside the urge to remind Lauret that his people had suffered worse than hers at the hands of the orks.

Master your temper, young Grandmarshal, whispered a voice from his throne. The Marchioness is simply sharing information. This attack is too important to leave anything to chance.

‘Thank you for the advice, my lady,’ he said. ‘Our auspex detects substantial alien life signs garrisoning the structure, and my onboard cogitators cannot categorise the weapon systems they have raised atop the fort’s battlements. I recommend a dispersed advance to lessen the impact of their ordnance, and concentration of fire upon those weapons.’

‘Agreed,’ said Lauret. ‘If your Knights suppress the wall guns, we will interdict the ork forces outside the walls.’

Even with much of Gorgrok’s horde inside the walls of the Draconspire, a mass of orks, lumbering tanks and ironclad walkers still swarmed around Northrise Battery. Now they raced out from the foot of the fortress to meet the attacking Knights.

Shots began to smack against Kurt’s ion shield. Rockets whistled around him.

‘There’s a Gargant class walker in their rear lines,’ voxed Eleanat Dar Pegasson, and locator runes flashed up on Kurt’s manifold. ‘It looks fire-damaged, but semi-operable. What in the Throne’s name is that enormous gun, though? It dominates half of its body! It’s a wonder it can walk!’

‘Let us not give the greenskins time to show us,’ said Lauret. ‘Remember, sisters and brothers, our role in this fight is vital. Northrise Battery possesses the last functioning extra-orbital vox array within a hundred miles.’

‘We hope,’ muttered Kurt to himself, thinking of the destruction that ork occupation would have wrought within the battery.

‘If we do not secure that array then Inquisitor Massata cannot rescind his order of Exterminatus,’ Lauret continued. ‘We all die, and worse, our deaths serve not the Emperor, but the foul minions of Chaos.’

The ork wall guns opened fire as they stormed closer, sending bubbles of energy and crackling blasts of lightning arcing down. Sire Mikal Dar Minotos’ steed lost an arm to a crushing force field. Lady Jessain Dar Pegasson gave a last scream as her Knight was set alight from head to toe with lurid green fire. Kurt saw ork witches capering atop the walls, ectoplasmic green energies haloing their heads.

‘Psykers,’ he spat the word in disgust. ‘The Marchioness is right, we do this or we die. Now, for Adrastapol, attack!’

The Knights of House Minotos and Pegasson opened fire. Racing fireballs exterminated orks in their dozens. Shells and energy blasts wrecked looted tanks. Lauret led a loping charge around one flank, making straight for the Gargant that was trying, ponderously, to shudder to life in the shadow of Northrise’s walls.

Kurt, arias booming from his speakers, melta cannons roaring, stormed into the middle of the greenskin horde and swung his hammer with a roar of hate. He sent a Battlewagon tumbling away like a broken toy, and pulped a dozen orks. Around him, his warriors strafed the wall-tops, wreathing them in a blizzard of fire.

‘Into them!’ he bellowed. ‘For Minotos! For Adrastapol!’

Luk walked his steed over blackened rubble and into the Blackpowder District of the Draconspire. His emotions were locked away, all the horror and anger pushed deep to the back of his mind. He couldn’t afford to let them control him now.

The stakes were too high.

A cratered market square stretched out before him, scattered with rubble and corpses from the tumbled wall. A band of orks was hard at work, ripping apart the carcass of a Draconis Knight with crude tools and ferrying the parts to a squadron of stolen Huntsmen.

‘They’re cannibalising parts to repair stolen tanks,’ said J’madus in disgust.

The xenos looked up in shock as Sword of Heroes stomped through the breach with an army of Knights at its back.

‘Scavengers,’ snarled Luk, annihilating half the orks with a blast from his thermal cannon. The Exiles opened fire around him, and swept away the remaining greenskins in a heartbeat.

‘Keep moving,’ voxed Jennika from Colonel Gesmund’s Taurox. ‘The real fight is deeper in.’

‘Of course, my lady,’ said Luk. He fed power to his motive impellers and strode across the burning square, making for a thoroughfare that led through the district. Knights followed him, splitting off by lance to advance down the main streets. On his strategic overlay, Luk watched more lances penetrating the walls through eight other breaches, spreading their assault along the outer western wall.

‘Push inward,’ he voxed. ‘Break through, don’t let them slow you or scale your steed. Take the breaches in the second wall at point one-oh-one and point one-oh-seven. Converge on the inner spire.’

A wing of Pegasson Lightnings streaked overhead, opening fire as they went. Deeper into the ruins, a fierce explosion rose skywards. Hidden guns fired back, chattering streams of flak turning one of the fighters into a tumbling fireball and perforating the wing of another.

‘This isn’t going to be easy,’ said Luk. ‘I wish you had Fire Defiant, Lady Jennika.’

‘Not as much as I do,’ she replied. ‘I know it’s locked down and guarded, but still…’

‘Ork tanks,’ voxed Maia. ‘Heavy armour and mobile artillery coming up the thoroughfare.’

‘Shields up,’ said Luk.

‘Win here, and we win this world,’ said Hw’ss, opening fire. His shots ploughed into the lead elements of the ork tank column, leaving several vehicles as blazing wrecks. As he did so, more runes flashed on Luk’s retinal display.

‘Ork infantry pushing up through the ruins,’ he said. ‘Serious numbers. Gesmund, keep our flanks clear.’

‘Understood, sire,’ said the Colonel. His Tauroxes split and flowed around the Exiles, powering down smaller side-streets with their guns blazing.

Rockets and hails of shot hammered Luk’s shield. A searing energy beam caused it to flare, the impact staggering Sword. He fired back, pushed forward. Ork tanks exploded in balls of flame. Stubber rounds chewed through the ruins, blasting puffs of brick dust and ork blood into the air. With Luk in the lead, the Exiles pounded their way deeper into the city.

‘Be alive, Danial,’ he muttered as shots pinged and clanged against his steed’s armour. ‘Just… be alive. You owe me that much.’

‘Draconis!’ bellowed Danial.

He hacked his blade through an ork’s neck. Its burning head bounced across the floor. A flurry of shots struck Danial’s shield. One punched through and ricocheted from his shoulder, sending a flare of pain through him.

The ork that had shot him died the next instant, autogun fire converging on it from three directions. But there were more behind it.

Always more.

They had hurled back the first greenskin charge. The second had overrun the forward barricades, only to be shredded by gunfire. Leading the charge, Danial had reclaimed the ground the orks had taken. But now they were coming again.

‘It’s like fighting a flood!’ he yelled.

‘No flood may quench the fires of the Dracon,’ replied Percivane over the vox. Danial glanced to his left and saw the burly Knight hacking and stabbing in the gloom. He showed little sign of the pain he must be in, despite the servo-frame that pinned his limbs together.

‘Inspirational, Sire Percivane,’ said Suset, who fought somewhere off to Danial’s right. ‘Still I wish we could build another dam to stem it.’

All along the barricades, militia fought with gun butts and blades, firing point blank where they could, hacking and bludgeoning where they couldn’t. The Knights were scattered through their ranks, beacons of strength and determination whose burning blades did as much to inspire their soldiery as to slay the invaders. Sire Calluhm and Lady Kassendra fought back to back. Alyssa, Lorette and Luka Dar Draconis poured bolter fire into the foe.

For their part, the orks fought furiously, roaring guttural threats, hacking and shooting and bludgeoning with the strength of wild animals. Danial saw an armoured beast with a mechanised claw grab one man’s head and crush it like an egg, before Sire Percivane drove his sword through the beast’s temple. Three militiamen emptied shots into the ork as it jerked and twitched on Percivane’s blade.

A second greenskin lunged at Danial, and he parried the whirling chain-teeth of its choppa. He punched his hilt into the alien’s mouth, shattering its tusks, then grabbed the back of its head and smashed its face into the top of the barricade until it stopped twitching. He realised he was screaming in anger as he did so.

Another one came at him, managing to sink its axe into his shoulder deep enough to draw blood. He ran the xenos through, kicking it off his blade to fall burning amidst its comrades.

Another followed. Its heavy pistols blazing. He hacked off its arm, then its head.

Another.

Another.

The fighting became mechanical, exhausting and endless. The screams and yells and gunfire faded. The pain of his wounds faded. Nothing existed but the draconsfire flowing through his limbs, giving him strength, keeping him in the fight.

‘King Danial,’ he heard his name. His thoughts sharpened. ‘My liege!’ It was Suset on the vox.

‘My Lady?’

‘Do you hear that chant?’

He did now. Individual ork voices, shouting a name. They became a mass chant that beat upon the defenders like waves against a cliff.

‘GORGROK! GORGROK! GORGROK!’

Danial assessed the fight, drinking in the data his crown was feeding him.

‘Fire teams,’ he barked. ‘Ready in the second line! Assault teams, disengage and listen for my signal.’

He kicked an ork in the chest, swung his blade in a fiery arc that drove his enemies back, then turned and ran. A hundred yards separated him from the next line of barricades and the pale, resolute warriors stood behind it. He dodged and wove as he ran, yet he felt the awful itch in his back that told him at any moment a bullet, a rocket or an axe would hit him right between the shoulder blades and end his reign.

Still, he ran, and his warriors ran with him. Those who could break away, at least.

Danial glanced back and saw the orks flowing over the barricades. Militia screamed and died as the xenos hacked them apart. It was time.

‘Now!’ he bellowed, hurling himself prone. A heartbeat passed, a narrow window for his warriors to react to his signal. Then the gunners on the second line opened fire.

Heavy bolters thundered. Stubbers and autoguns spat streams of shells that stitched the ork lines. Lasguns flashed in the gloom.

Danial rolled over, deafened by the fusillade, and watched the front ranks of the greenskin charge cut to pieces. Dozens of Draconis warriors lay in his wake, the firestorm flashing over them. Others were not so lucky. Militiamen were gunned down from behind by greenskins or were too slow to evade their comrades’ fire. Their blast-riddled bodies hit the ground.

‘Mourn later,’ came Suset’s voice over the vox. ‘Now’s the time for the living.’

Danial nodded, pleased to hear her voice.

‘Fire teams, keep us covered,’ he ordered. ‘Assault teams, back to the second line.’

He crawled, arm over arm, beneath the withering fire, then pushed himself up into a crouching run. He reached the barricade and threw himself over it, nodding to Captain Bannoch who crouched next to a heavy bolter team.

‘Good work,’ said Danial as more of his warriors cleared the barricades or were hauled over them to safety.

‘Thank you, sire,’ said Bannoch over the roar of gunfire. ‘That’ll give them pause.’

Danial rose, accepting an autopistol from a nearby militiaman with a grateful nod. He saw the truth of Bannoch’s words. Ork dead were heaped around the outer barricades, more dying by the moment as they tried to scramble over the slain and charge into the Draconis guns.

The din of the barrage was phenomenal.

‘How long can we maintain this?’ asked Percivane, limping along the line to join them.

‘Our ammunition stocks are depleting rapidly,’ Danial replied, checking his crown’s data feeds. ‘Another few minutes, then we’re down to blades.’

He took a shot, and cursed as it bounced off an ork’s helmet. A bolter shell caught the beast in the chest a moment later, detonating within its torso.

‘Any more tricks?’ asked Suset, joining them from the other direction. Danial noticed she was bleeding from a gash in her forehead.

‘I was hoping you might have an idea or two,’ he said.

‘We fight until we can’t,’ she said grimly. ‘That’s all I’ve got.’

‘Last stand, then,’ said Captain Bannoch, snapping a lasgun shot at the enemy. Answering fire struck sparks from the top of the barricade and beheaded the militiaman who had handed Danial his gun.

‘Perhaps not,’ said Danial, pressing one hand to his vox-bead. ‘Sire Markos, can you hear me? This is Danial.’

‘Sire,’ came Markos’ voice, barely audible over the cacophony of battle. ‘I hear you.’

‘We’re pinned down in the throne room,’ said Danial. ‘Do you have any forces available to–’

Danial was interrupted by a deafening mechanical scream. Metres to his right the barricades vanished, consumed by a searing blast of green energy that turned several militia to ash. The shockwave buffeted them, wiping Danial’s vox out in a wash of static.

‘Gorgrok,’ said Suset.

Danial looked over the barricade, and saw the immense warlord storming towards them. Shots rattled from his piston-driven armour, and his claws snapped open and shut with the eagerness to kill. More armoured greenskins surrounded him, each hulking beast clad in mechanised suits of slab-like armour whose arms ended in roaring guns, snapping claws and industrial buzz-saws.

‘They’re wading through our fire like it isn’t there!’ exclaimed Bannoch. ‘Others are using them for cover.’

‘Throne,’ cursed Danial. ‘All fire teams, everything you have left on Gorgrok and his retinue. Assault teams, reserves, rally to me. We slay the beast, no matter the cost.’

His warriors responded with commendable speed. A firestorm engulfed the greenskin warlord even as militia and Knights ran, bent-double, along the line of the barricades to mass on their king.

‘Even if we kill Gorgrok,’ said Suset. ‘They’re still going to overrun us.’

‘But this way, we give whoever’s left out there a chance to break the ork invasion,’ said Danial. ‘We may yet save Adrastapol.’

She nodded, her expression proud but sad.

‘It has been an honour, my king,’ she said.

‘It truly has, my lady,’ said Danial.

The thunder of gunfire petered out as the last of the gunners’ ammunition ran dry. Gorgrok gave a deafening battlecry, his pounding footsteps ringing from the flagstones. Countless orks answered, their feral roar shuddering through the throne room.

WAAAGH!

‘For Draconis, and the Emperor!’ shouted Danial. ‘Cast them back! Gorgrok must die!’

The orks hit the barricades at a run, and the warriors of House Draconis rose to meet them. Blades flashed. Gun butts crunched into alien skulls. Axes thunked into necks and chests.

Gorgrok struck the barricades like a battering ram, and metal buckled and tore beneath his monstrous bulk. Danial and his warriors dived aside as the ork warlord smashed his way through the obstruction, his armoured elites at his back.

‘Into them!’ cried Suset, hurling herself at the nearest greenskin. She wove around the cumbersome swing of its hydraulic claw and hacked her draconblade into its flank, deep enough to draw blood.

Following the Gatekeeper’s example, the last defenders of the throne of Draconis charged. Gorgrok’s cannon screamed again, and then Danial was face-to-face with the towering beast, seeing close up the rage, hate and feral cunning in its red eyes.

Gorgrok swung a claw bigger than Danial’s body, and the High King ducked under it. He threw himself sideways as the ork’s other claw slammed down where he had stood a moment before, rolling to his feet in time to swing a blow of his own. Danial’s draconblade described a flaming arc as it sliced through Gorgrok’s thigh. Armour split and blood sprayed, but the ork barely registered the wound.

Danial gave ground as Gorgrok bulled forward, trying to crush the High King with his immense bulk. One huge metal foot slammed down, and Danial just evaded having his kneecap shattered. Another claw swing followed, then another. Danial dodged the first, but the second clipped his shoulder as he wove aside.

It was like being run over by a battle-tank. Armour split, flesh ripped open and bone shattered. His left arm went numb. Danial was flung through the air, rolling to a stop near the sundered barricade. For a moment everything felt numb. Feet thumped all around him. Something dark loomed overhead, and he looked up groggily to see one of Gorgrok’s elite raising its buzzsaw fist to butcher him.

A massive metal claw slammed into the ork’s side, hurling it through the air in a welter of blood. Gorgrok’s outraged roar echoed through the chamber, and Danial picked out crude words as the warlord slammed his claws against his chest armour.

The message was clear. My kill.

‘Arrogant bastard,’ snarled Danial. He scrambled sideways, grunting at the pain in his shoulder, and snatched up his Oathkeeper. Gorgrok’s claws swung down again and Danial rolled away, letting out a gasp as broken bones ground together. He drove himself back to his feet, raising his guard one-handed.

Gorgrok turned, pistons hissing, an ugly leer on his face. In that moment, Danial saw the chugging generator built into the backplates of the warlord’s armour and felt a sliver of hope.

He glanced around, took in the frantic melee all around him. He caught a glance of Suset, ripping her blade from an armoured greenskin’s skull. Percivane, leading a band of militia in a frantic fight against the massed orks. Sires and Ladies of Draconis, hacking and parrying with their burning blades, on the verge of being overrun. More Draconis warriors, far too many, sprawled dead or dying amongst the heaps of slaughtered xenos.

And still more orks poured into the chamber.

‘Emperor give me strength,’ he muttered, missing the voices of his ghosts in the back of his mind. ‘I wish we could have done this in panoply.’

Gorgrok was coming at him again, his pounding footsteps cracking the flagstones. Danial feinted left and the ork took the bait, swinging a ponderous blow. Danial lunged right and spun, his swift footwork carrying him clear of his enemy’s claws. Heart thudding, shoulder a white scream of agony, Danial sprang past Gorgrok and swung his sword one-handed at the ork’s back.

The blade cut through cables and fuel lines, and took a chunk out of Gorgrok’s generator. Immediately the warlord’s armour began to smoke and whine, crude servos burning out as coolant feeds spurted and power failed.

Cursing and snarling, Gorgrok tried to turn. His movements were cumbersome, and sparks showered from seizing joints. Through sheer brute strength, the ork kept moving, but Danial moved with him, lunging around his slower opponent and swinging another blow that crunched through Gorgrok’s generator again. Fuel sprayed, and ignited. Flames leapt up Gorgrok’s back, and the warlord howled in fury.

Driven by pain and ferocity, the ork lunged backwards, catching Danial by surprise. Flames seared the High King’s skin, and Gorgrok’s armoured bulk smashed him from his feet for a second time. Danial gasped in agony, his vision swimming, but he managed to scramble clear before Gorgrok’s huge foot came down to crush him.

A headless militiaman fell across him, and Danial heaved the corpse away with his good arm in time to see Gorgrok break into a staggering charge. The warlord was ablaze, much of his armour inactive, yet still his incredible resilience and battle-lust kept him moving. He drove the immense weight of his armour through belligerence alone, eyes bulging as he swung back a claw to crush Danial like an insect.

‘Burn in the Draconsflame, you xenos filth,’ spat Danial, heaving himself to his feet and lashing out with his blade again. The blow hacked through flesh, bone and cabling. It severed the ork’s right claw at the elbow.

Danial didn’t give his enemy time to react. He hacked at Gorgrok again and again, splitting cables, mangling pistons, setting light to the greenkin’s flesh with the last guttering reserves of his draconblade’s fuel.

Gorgrok was trapped in his own armour, driven mad with frustration and pain, blood pumping from the stump of his right arm even as flames engulfed his body. Danial staggered back as Gorgrok burned, and the ork’s frantic howls filled his heart with the Emperor’s light.

‘See your leader burn, scum!’ he roared. ‘Hear his agony! This is the Emperor’s judgement made manifest!’

Around him, the orks faltered, gawping at the agonising fate of their leader. The warriors of House Draconis capitalised upon their hesitation, hurling themselves into their enemies with the last of their strength. Draconblades hacked through tough flesh and bone. Knives thrust into sunken red eyes.

Danial saw Percivane, bleeding from deep cuts across his breast-plate, decapitate one of the armoured orks and heave its body back over the barricade.

The greenskins gave a rising bellow of rage. As they surged forward, Captain Bannoch stepped to meet them with blade and pistol. He shot down one ork, ran another through, then was plucked off his feet as a third wrapped its piston-driven claw around his head. Bannoch struggled, battering his attacker’s face and shooting it in the chest. Shrugging off his efforts, the ork leered at Bannoch before snapping its claw shut with a horrible crunch.

Danial cried out in anger at the sensless death of the noble captain, and his heart sank. This wasn’t a heroic tale told on a tapestry to young squires. The monsters didn’t stop fighting, didn’t retreat just because you slew their king. They would keep coming until the last warriors of House Draconis were dead. Wearily, he raised his blade and sought for Suset. He could at least die by her side.

The outer wall of the throne room exploded with incredible force. Blazing rubble sailed through the air, crashing down like meteorites amongst the ork horde. Masonry collapsed in an avalanche, crushing them.

For a second time, the greenskins howled and pointed as towering Imperial Knights stormed into the throne room. Rockets and shells blasted them apart. Stubbers and gatling cannons chewed greenskins to bloody mist.

Danial recognised the heraldry of the Knight leading the charge, and felt an incredible surge of fierce delight.

‘Luk!’ he yelled as the last of the orks panicked and scattered at last. ‘Luk, my brother!’ shouted Danial again, hearing the manic edge in his own laughter and not caring. He found the strength to hack down a fleeing ork, then impale another as it tried to barge past him.

Danial saw the strange Knights that followed his friend to battle, and the wave of Taurox armoured transports that roared on their heels. More gunfire tore into the orks as soldiers deployed from the armoured transports and loosed disciplined volleys. Greenskins fell by the second, slaughtered from in front and behind as they tried in vain to fight their way free of the trap.

Danial cut down another ork, vision greying with exhaustion, and suddenly Jennika was there, soldiers flanking her, blade blazing as she slaughtered every alien in reach.

‘Jen,’ he said, relief flowing through him. ‘Jen, you made it! We survived!’

His sister approached and saluted with her blade.

‘Brother,’ she said. ‘It is good to see you.’

‘What is it?’ he asked, reading the grim desperation behind her smile. ‘What else has happened?’

‘We don’t have much time,’ she said. ‘Whatever steeds you have, mobilise them. And gather the Sacristans. If we’re to save our world, Danial, there’s one last battle to be fought.’

High above Adrastapol, guns the size of hab-blocks spat hundred-foot-long shells into the void. Lances sent silent, blinding beams of energy through the darkness to chop apart ork warships, and strew their blazing wreckage across the starfield. Ork gun batteries hammered Imperial void shields. Fighters and bombers hurtled around the larger ships, fighting out their own zero gravity dogfights or engaging in desperate bombing runs through hails of flak.

With its numbers depleted by weeks of planetary drops, defence battery fire and harassing attacks from the Bastion Fleet, the ork armada was a shadow of its former self. Its ships still numbered in the hundreds, but many were damaged or scattered, their crews depleted.

Orbital scans had revealed the desperate fight taking place on the planet below. With only a little browbeating from the irascible Captain Shas, the Bastion Fleet Captains had voted to ignore their standing orders and launch an all-out attack to break the back of the greenskin fleet.

Two hours into the naval action, and the fight was going well. Still, Captain Shas sat in his throne and glowered. On the main holoscreen, a compact fleet of Imperial warships could be seen cutting their way through the scattered ork armada from its opposite flank. Glowing lines on the astrogation monitor indicated they had slipped out from behind the dwarf moon of Triaetos, and were now on a direct heading for Adrastapol’s orbital envelope.

‘Auspex confirms one Oberon-class Battleship, two Exorcist-class Cruisers and six frigates of various marks,’ said Mister Klem. ‘Heavily modified, all vox encrypted.’

‘They’re still ignoring our hails?’ asked Shas, taking a slug from his hip flask. The metal digits of his augmetic hand tapped out a slow beat on the arm-rest of his throne. The aperture on his bionic eye whined and refocused, a sure sign Shas was tense.

‘Yes, captain,’ said Klem. ‘They appear to be disinterested in an exchange.’

The Unbroken shuddered as her gun decks spoke, hammering an ork ramship to scrap off the port bow.

‘What about the rest of the Bastion Fleet?’ asked the captain. ‘Any of these ujovskae got an opinion worth hearing?’

‘Nothing that wouldn’t provoke further insults from yourself, captain,’ said Klem. ‘They’re not the most experienced captains, and terribly bound by all this chivalric business.’

Shas grunted and scowled.

‘Mister Malsyn,’ voxed the captain. ‘Can you confirm the iconography on those ships?’

‘Yes, captain,’ came Malsyn’s reply. The man glanced up from his distant console, expression worried. ‘No doubt about it. That’s the sigil of the Emperor’s holy Inquisition.’

‘Well,’ said Shas heavily. ‘Throne damn it.’

‘Succinctly put, captain,’ said Mister Klem. ‘What do you wish us to do?’

‘You think those ships just happen to be flying past, Klem?’ asked Shas. ‘Hm? You think they’re winging their way through the ether, they just happen to see all this? Think to themselves, you know what the Emperor wants, is we keep our mission in the other hand while we come help fight the greens?’

‘The probability does appear vanishingly small, captain,’ said Klem.

‘Hah!’ barked Shas. ‘About the same damn odds of you growing a proper Valhallan beard. Not going to happen.’

‘Wouldn’t want to show you up, now would I, captain?’ asked Klem, his noble features unreadable. Shas barked a laugh.

‘What I think, is these koshnova have been waiting here all along,’ said Shas. ‘I don’t know why, don’t want to either. But I don’t think they’re about to lend their aid. If we have to, I think we go and get in their way.’

‘I’m not sure that Commissar Hauptvier would agree with your assessment, captain,’ said Klem quietly.

‘I think you’re not wrong,’ said Shas. ‘And I think chances of cutting our way through all this carnage in time are pretty slim anyway. Especially with only ujovskae Bastion Ships for backup. Never stopped us before though, hey?’

‘No, captain, that’s true,’ said Klem with the ghost of a smile. He tapped the holstered las pistol at his hip gently. ‘I’ll be ready, if you give the word. It is heroic of commissars to face the dangers they do, especially when one considers the accidents that can happen in the white heat of battle.’

‘Good man,’ growled Shas, then raised his voice to a sudden bellow. ‘All right, you bunch of whimpering conscripts on this bridge. You’ve all seen Imperial ships before, why are you staring now? Look fierce! There’s orks to slaughter!’

Still, the captain’s eyes lingered on the trajectory of the menacing Inquisitorial ships, and the chron cycling swiftly down on his displays. They would enter geosynchronous orbit within minutes, and Shas had an inkling suspicion of what might happen then.

Northrise Battery was wreathed in smoke and flame. Pegasson and Draconis aircraft streaked back and forth overhead, dropping bombs and sending streams of gunfire to strafe the orks. Gunfire spat down from the battlements, hammering the shields of the Knights fighting to gain entrance. Greenskin forces swarmed over them, Stompas leading waves of tanks and infantry against the Imperial force.

The Knights of House Pegasson strode in long, swift arcs, torsos twisting and guns hammering as they circled the towering ork Gargant. The machine was ablaze, secondary systems and armoured compartments blown to ruin. Yet its flickering force fields kept springing back to life, and with every cumbersome salvo of return fire it left another steed sprawled as wreckage on the Valatane.

The Knights of House Minotos had succeeded in blasting a breach in the battery’s walls, but with enemies coming from every side they were hard-pressed to capitalise on their achievement.

‘Damnation!’ roared Grandmarshal Kurt. He stepped his steed backwards, barely evading the churning teeth of a Stompa’s chainsword. He clenched his haptic gauntlets, tensed in his throne and swung a return blow. Gustev’s Revenge responded in bellicose style, swinging its Minotane hammer in a meteoric arc. The huge weapon connected with the Stompa’s jaw and tore its head clean off.

Sparks flew and flames leapt as the war effigy tottered backwards, decapitated. Kurt drove Revenge forward, slamming his battered shield into the Stompa’s gut and overbalancing it completely. With a mighty groan the ork war engine tipped backwards and crashed down on its back. Secondary explosions rippled through it, blasting loose hull plates and deforming its mangled hull.

‘Knights, report,’ snapped Kurt as shots splashed from his ion shield. The battle was brutal, and he had a dark sense that they were losing.

‘Sire,’ came Wilhorm’s voice through the vox. ‘We’ve lost another two Knights. They’ve pushed us back on the right, and blocked the breach with more damn Stompas.’

‘Marchioness, what’s your status?’ asked Kurt, switching channels.

‘Stalled,’ came Lauret’s reply, delivered through gritted teeth. ‘This Throne-damned Gargant will not die! Energy readings suggest its primary weapon is almost charged.’

‘You’ve got to destroy it,’ said Kurt. ‘Emperor alone knows what that thing does, but–’

‘I know, Grandmarshal,’ snapped Lauret. ‘I’ve lost six Knights to this abomination already. We’re directing all of our fire into it, but it simply will not stop.’

Kurt checked his strategic overlay, and felt a fresh surge of fury at the sight of yet more greenskin runes spilling around the fortress towards his beleaguered Knights.

‘Where are they all coming from?’ he cursed.

‘Irrelevant,’ said Lauret. ‘We need to do something to turn this battle in our favour or Adrastapol is lost.’

‘Sires Gastaurn, Colchin, Willer, with me,’ said Kurt, mind racing. ‘We’re going to punch through the breach. Everyone else, covering fire, be ready to follow us in the moment the way is open.’

Assent runes flashed back to him. Vox speakers still booming their war arias, the Knights of House Minotos swung into action.

Kurt charged, enemy fire rebounding from shields. Sires Gastaurn, Colchin and Willer, Gallant pilots all, formed lance on him, striding heroically towards the towering Stompas that held the breach.

The lead Stompa fired a spread of huge rockets that streaked down to explode amidst Kurt’s charging force. One warhead hit his steed’s slablike shield and rebounded, Revenge stalking on through the resultant fireball. Another slammed straight into Sire Gastaurn’s steed and blew it apart.

Kurt swore furiously as energy beams stabbed down from the artillery on the walls, converging to saw a leg from under Sire Willer’s Knight.

Gatling rounds and battle cannon shells stitched the Stompas blocking the breach, causing them to shudder with detonations. The ork war engines opened fire again, the sheer volume of fire stealing Kurt’s momentum and forcing his steed to a grinding halt with its shield held before it.

He fired his melta cannons, carving a glowing hole through the chest of the closest Stompa and causing its magazines to detonate. Still the other two war engines kept shooting, and Kurt cried out in dismay as Sire Colchin’s steed suffered a string of hits to its torso that left it a gutted, blazing wreck.

‘My liege, pull back!’ voxed Sire Wilhorm.

Kurt forced his steed forward another pace, and another. Shells hammered his ironclad shield, chewing chunks of metal from its edges. More shots splashed from his ion shield, forming a perpetual blue haze. He growled in frustration as warning runes flashed across his intruments.

‘My liege!’ urged Wilhorm again.

‘Grandmarshal,’ barked Lauret. ‘Curb your wrath. Withdraw, and try another approach.’

Kurt swore vociferously, walking his steed back from the looming Stompas as shots continued to batter his steed.

‘What do you suggest, my lady?’ he asked. ‘Time is running out.’

‘Pull back and help us finish this monster off,’ said Lauret. ‘Perhaps with our forces combined we can–’

Kurt frowned at Lauret’s pause, turning his steed towards the towering Gargant and flashing runic commands to his subordinates.

‘My lady?’ he asked.

‘Look, Grandmarshal,’ said Lauret, and in her voice he heard a note of hope. ‘The Draconspire. The orks are fleeing. And behind them…’

Kurt magnified his vid feeds, and barked a fierce laugh.

‘The High King!’ he said, his voice booming through the vox channel to inspire Knights of Minotos and Pegasson alike. ‘Danial Tan Draconis lives, and he’s riding to our aid. For the sake of our world, we cannot let him down!’

Oath of Flame crossed the Valatane at a loping run, pennants flowing in the wind. Lances of Knights followed in its wake. Draconis steeds, all those that the Sacristans could awaken. The Knights of Houses Pegasson and Minotos. Luk and the Exiles stormed into battle on Danial’s heels, alongside Suset, Markos and Percivane.

Vehicles roared in their wake, the Vesserines’ Tauroxes escorting a wedge of Sacristan Crawlers and the few remaining Draconis tanks and transports, with as many militia as could fit packed into their holds and clinging to their flanks and roofs. Danial knew that Jennika was amongst them, riding with a colonel who served Luk. He had had scant time to grasp the full situation, just a few moments while the medicae pumped him full of painkillers and stimms, and fitted a servo-brace to his shoulder so that he could pilot. But he knew enough.

With every moment, the fight around Northrise Battery grew closer, and looked more desperate. The remaining dregs of the greenskins fled before his force, yet those around the battery still fought furiously.

‘All Knights,’ said Danial over the open channel. ‘Understand that there is no price too high for victory here. By Inquisitor Massata’s reckoning, we may have a matter of minutes to save our world. We must smash the xenos aside, and allow High Sacristan Polluxis and his brothers access to the battery’s vox. Succeed, and we save this world for the Emperor. We earn a chance to win this war. Fail, and we die by fire. But Knights of Adrastapol, we will not fail!’

Vox horns blared and autopennants were raised. Overhead, wings of Adrastapolian aircraft fell into formation, ready to support the attack.

‘Sire,’ voxed Markos. ‘The Gargant. That’s the monster that banished our machine-spirits during the siege.’

‘Energy build up around the war effigy’s primary weapon is prodigious,’ voxed Polluxis. ‘I would posit that its crews are readying to fire another such energy blast. Were they to succeed in this it would reduce our chances of success to virtually nil.’

‘Then it dies first,’ said Danial. ‘All Knights, long guns and missiles to target the Gargant. Assist the Marchioness.’

The charging Knights opened fire. Shells, energy blasts and missiles filled the air, converging upon the ironclad mountain. The war machine’s force fields collapsed one after the other, each one blowing out with a thunderclap of displaced air. A battle’s worth of ordnance struck the Gargant’s head, chest and arms. Explosions flared and wreckage spun away.

The engine’s belly cannon buckled and was driven barrel-first into the ground. Its gun decks exploded one after another, and fire danced about its portholes and gantries. The machine’s skull was staved in, explosions blossoming from its mismatched eyes as its command crew were atomised. Still, energy gathered around its immense main gun, static squealing and streamers of lightning dancing around it as it prepared to fire.

‘For Adrastapol!’ cried Marchioness Lauret. ‘Concentrate all fire on the primary weapon!’

She and her warriors opened fire as one, the Knights of House Minotos joining them. A second wave of fire hit home, and suddenly the weapon’s energy was arcing wildly, leaping out to crawl across the Gargant’s hull. It shuddered and smoked, the flares of white light growing more frenetic by the second.

‘Evade!’ ordered Danial.

Kurt and Lauret’s forces responded, their steeds turning or backing away with their shields raised.

There was a blinding flash of light, from which raced an expanding shockwave of crackling energy. Danial cursed as his auspex crackled with static and his steed’s power fluctuated wildly.

‘No!’ he cried, fearing the worst. Then his readings stabilised, and as the blast faded, the wreckage of the Gargant crashed down around them.

Its explosive demise had left a smoking crater a hundred feet across, scattered with the burning remains of the Gargant. It had toppled several Knights and left others crippled. Most importantly of all, it had blasted a huge, ragged breach in the fortress wall.

‘There’s our way in,’ said Luk.

‘Marchioness, Grandmarshal, report,’ said Danial.

‘We’re alive,’ came Kurt’s reply. ‘My steed’s down, Lauret’s is in shutdown, and nearly lost her reactor. Don’t worry about us, just end this.’

‘Understood,’ said Danial. ‘Lady Suset, Lady Eleanat, bring your lances with me. We’ll spread out and run interdiction against the ork forces. Luk, Markos, you have the breach. Break their defences wide open and get Polluxis to that vox array.’

‘Whatever happens, Danial, it’s good to fight beside you again as a brother,’ said Luk.

‘Don’t tell me you’re going to start all this nonsense again,’ said Markos. ‘There will be time for making maiden’s eyes at each other later. With me, Knight of Ashes. We have a world to save.’

Luk and Maia led the way through the breach. Their thermal cannons flashed, tearing through a Stompa that was trying to lumber into their path, leaving it as blazing wreckage. Crimson Death, Duty Unending, Percivane’s Firestorm and Markos’ Honourblaze followed. The Knights opened fire at the ork horde boiling from within the fort, sowing explosions through them as more Knights followed them into the fight.

Ramshackle tanks came at them and were blown to pieces. Hulking walkers stomped forward, firing salvoes that tore limbs from Knights and left them as fire-gutted wrecks. In return, the Imperial forces let fly with everything they had and hammered the ork war engines to scrap.

Luk saw a Pegasson Knight explode to his right. He strode past its flaming wreckage and vaporised its killers with a blast from his cannon.

Behind him, Ekhaterina swore vehemently as an ork Dreadnought managed to ram its power saw through her steed’s knee joint. She swatted the machine away, leaving it a heap of tangled wreckage, but Luk could see she was stranded.

‘Bloody hobbled,’ she spat. ‘Sorry, Knight of Ashes.’

‘Just keep shooting, my lady,’ he said, storming onwards with Markos, Maia and J’madus at his side.

The battery itself was an orbital gun emplacement whose cannons had been wrecked early in the invasion. The main fortress sat within a compound dotted with support structures and encircled by the high, battlemented walls.

Now the orks that had garrisoned the inner buildings spilled forth in great numbers.

‘Firing line,’ ordered Luk. ‘Blast them back to whatever hell they crawled from.’

‘We’ll have to make it quick,’ said Markos, bringing Honourblaze to a stop. More Knights drew up to either side of him, even as the Sacristan crawlers rolled through the breach at their backs. ‘Break their charge, then drive them back and wipe them out.’

Around Luk, the Knights of Adrastapol opened fire, and the Exiles joined their barrage. Orks were annihilated as explosions flared in their midst and hails of shots chewed through their lines. One last time, the Knights stood firm against the xenos charge. One steed fell as energy beams tore through it. Another was toppled by the headlong charge of a greenskin walker. A third was destroyed as orks swarmed up its legs and tore them apart with claws and explosives.

‘Keep firing!’ shouted Luk. ‘They’ll break.’

And suddenly, as though his words had wrought it, the nerve of the ork horde collapsed. With their ranks decimated and word of their warlord’s death spreading, the greenskins began to lose heart. One or two fleeing mobs compelled more to run, panic spreading and a rout breaking out.

‘Forward,’ barked Markos.

The Knights advanced, footfalls pounding the ground and guns roaring. Inside Luk’s cockpit, ammo runes flashed red. He continued firing as ork corpses started to pile high and outbuildings collapsed, gutted by exploding shells.

‘It’s working,’ voxed Luk. ‘Wrath Inescpable, Lancepoint, force passage to the battery.’

Lady Maia’s assent rune flashed on his retinas and her steed accelerated, striding ahead with guns blazing. Polluxis’ crawlers followed her, flanked by Tauroxes. As they sped past, Luk saw the top hatch of one of the transports swing open. Jennika emerged, pulling herself up into the cupola and saluting him as she swept by. Luk raised his reaper in reply, then continued his advance.

‘All yours, my lady,’ he voxed.

As Gesmund’s Taurox skidded to a stop outside the battery’s main gate, Jennika was already vaulting out of the cupola. She hit the ground at a run, unsheathing and igniting her draconblade.

The door slammed open and a bellowing ork barged out, firing his pistols wildly. Jennika cut the greenskin down, shouldering its corpse aside and lunging through the doorway.

As she went, she pipped her vox-bead.

‘Inquisitor, it’s time,’ she said.

‘I am on my way,’ replied Massata. ‘We may already be too late.’

‘We’ll make it,’ said Jennika, impaling another ork as it lunged from a nearby doorway. ‘Just get here so you can operate the damn vox.’

Gesmund and his Vesserines stormed through the doorway behind her, guns up and sweeping. With Jennika leading, they cut down the few orks that tried to challenge them, and stormed up the battery’s cast-iron stairways to the command deck.

Hacking her way through a gaggle of cowering gretchin, Jennika stormed into the chamber. She stopped, and her heart sank.

‘The place is a wreck,’ she voxed. ‘They’ve pulled everything apart.’

‘Looks as though they’ve been using the command deck as some kind of workshop,’ said Gesmund. ‘Throne alive, is that the vox array?’

‘What’s left of it,’ said Jennika, looking despairingly at the tangle of scrap and wires that jutted from the central mezzanine.

Behind them, Sacristan Polluxis swept into the chamber.

‘It’s too late,’ said Jennika, numbly. ‘Sacristan, they’ve defiled it.’

Polluxis stopped, stock still. For a moment, Jennika took it for shock. Then the High Sacristan moved again, gliding up to the mezzanine with robed acolytes in tow.

‘Sufficient holy circuitry remains, Lady Jennika,’ said Polluxis. ‘In the Omnissiah’s wisdom, he concealed much of this device’s workings deep beneath the floor of this chamber, where heathen hands could not reach. It is merely the interface that has been damaged, and with data-choristry and binharic prayer, that problem can be bypassed.’

‘Thank the Throne,’ said Jennika, dashing across the chamber to stare out of the armaglass windows. ‘There! Massata’s shuttle. There’s still hope.’ She watched the craft intently, willing it to put down, and not simply to fire its thrusters and flee into the skies above.

As the Sacristans attached mechadendrites and coupling tools to the mangled remains of the vox array, and began a swaying, chittering chant, Jennika watched the inquisitor’s shuttle put down in the compound with Kaston at the controls. Massata leapt from its rear ramp even before it had landed, crossing the open ground at a flat run, ignoring the last convulsions of the battle still raging around him.

As he vanished into the battery with Kaston and Nesh at his heels, Jennika could only will him to reach them in time. She stared skywards, as though she could pierce the churning clouds and see the Inquisitorial ship bearing down upon them with doom loaded into its launch tubes.

‘Not yet,’ she whispered. ‘Please, not yet. Emperor, protect us.’

‘Captain,’ said Mister Klem.

‘I see it, Klem,’ growled Captain Shas. ‘Damn battleship’s lining up for a bombardment.’

‘It could be targeting xenos forces?’ suggested the First Officer.

‘Orkdung,’ spat Shas.

‘What are your orders, captain?’ asked Mister Klem, his hand settling gently on the butt of his laspitol. He glanced casually towards where the commissar was pacing the deck, staring sternly at the ordnance crews as they cogitated ballistic solutions.

‘Damn it,’ said Shas. He swigged from his flask. ‘We’re too far away for anything but torpedoes. It’s going to have to be a full spread, everything we’ve got, and hope to Terra that the things hit home and the Emperor forgives us.’

Shas drew breath to issue the order that would doubtless see him and all his crew condemned for heresy.

‘Men,’ he said heavily. ‘Prepare to–’

Klem grabbed the back of his throne.

‘Captain,’ he hissed. ‘Look!’

Beyond the churning void battle, past drifting wrecks and ferocious firestorms, Shas saw the Inquisitorial Battleship ignite its thrusters.

‘Did they fire already?’ asked Klem, but Shas shook his head. He magnified the holofeed, grinning and thumping the arm of his throne as he realised the ship was climbing away from the orbital envelope.

‘They’ve called it off,’ bellowed Shas, taking a long pull from his flask. He grimaced as he found it empty and tossed it aside. ‘Hah, they’ve called it off. Emperor only knows why, but they’re pulling away. They’re coming for the orks.’

‘It appears as though we’re about to acquire some surprising new allies, captain,’ said Mister Klem. ‘Perhaps, considering their importance, I could advise you to refrain from your usual frank forms of address?’

Shas snorted.

‘If they kill orks, Klem, I’ll call them whatever damn fool thing they insist on, eh? Now, call up a rating. My flask needs refilling, and we’ve still got a battle to win…’

Epilogue

The siege of the Draconspire marked the turning point in the Second Ork War. Though Warlord Gorgrok was dead and his army shattered, many more greenskin warbands still roamed the wilds of Adrastapol. The planet’s defenders had suffered grievous casualties, and two of their three great seats of power were virtually in ruin. Crucially, however, all three Noble Houses were truly united at last beneath the banner of their High King. The war in the void turned firmly in the favour of the Bastion Fleet, for the greenskin armada had been worn down by constant attrition while the Adrastapolian captains seem to have received Imperial reinforcements at this time. It is perhaps unsurprising that, during such a fierce and desperate conflict, the precise nature of these reinforcements seems to have been lost from official records, but whatever the case their presence appears to have tipped the scales at last.

Gauging the strategic situation with self-assurance, and his usual disregard for what he viewed as outdated traditions, High King Danial formed the War Council of Adrastapol. A unified body for military governance, this group comprised not only the three regents of the Noble Houses and all the surviving Knights of their Exalted Courts, but also the Knight of Ashes, the High Sacristans of Houses Draconis, Pegasson and Minotos, and a number of other Knights and militia captains felt to possess sufficient strategic talent to be of use. Eyebrows were raised at such an apparant egalitarian approach to rule, but its worth was swiftly proven after a series of blistering offensives that drove the orks back from the northern Valatane and the feet of the Kulrikh Range, as well as relieving the ongoing siege of the Pegassus’ Eyrie.

With the orks mired in infighting, and the seats of Imperial power secured, the campaign began in earnest to purge the xenos invaders from the face of Adrastapol. Nor did High King Danial waste any time in ordering the commencement of reconstruction, setting a punishing pace for the restoration of those strongholds and facilities damaged in the fighting. Even as Mount Imperius was being purged of xenowitches, and the fortresses of the Ferric Hills and the South Valatane were being reclaimed, ruined sections of the Iron Maze and the Draconspire were already being cleared, and scaffolds rising like fresh shoots after a forest fire. Such was the nature of High King Danial, a man for whom victory in war was not an end unto itself, but merely a necessary step along the road to prosperity and strength for his people.

At last, after many costly battles and fierce engagements, Adrastapol was declared free of xenos taint and reconsecrated in the Emperor’s name. Though its people were exhausted, and there was still a great deal of work to be done before Adrastapol would recover from its trials, it was a day for great celebration.

Extracted from the writing of Sendraghorst,
Sage Strategic of Adrastapol,
vol XXI ‘The 2nd Ork War’.

Danial and Suset stood at the railing of their chambers’ balcony, cradling balloon glasses of Lyrnmount vintage. The warm summer night rang to the sounds of cheering, music and revelry that washed up from the streets below. Above, the stars glimmered against the velvet canopy of the night sky, broken only by the looming scaffolds that marked new towers under construction.

‘Here’s to victory,’ said Suset, clinking her glass against his. Danial smiled, leaning in to kiss the woman who, since the grand ceremony a month earlier, was now High Queen of Adrastapol.

‘It has been a long, hard road,’ he said. ‘Costly, in our subjects’ lives, in nobles and steeds… I almost can’t believe that the fight is done at last.’

‘Oh, Da, the fight is never done, is it?’ she laughed. ‘And we’d none of us know what in Throne’s name to do with ourselves if it was.’

‘True,’ he said ruefully. ‘We’re Knights. It’s the Emperor’s will that we fight His wars until the day we die. But not them.’ He gestured down at the streets of the inner districts far below. There, labourers and serviles, victuallers and smiths and adepts and countless other civilians raised coloured lanterns on poles while they drank and sang victory hymns. ‘For them, the nightmare is over at last,’ said Danial.

‘It is a dark and violent galaxy,’ said Suset, sobering. ‘There will always be another threat, another terror lurking in the dark, another buried secret to rear its head. You can’t keep everyone safe, Da.’

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.’

She smiled at him and finished the last of her wine.

‘For today at least, you have succeeded, my king,’ she said. ‘So, what better time to discuss the next terrible danger that we must plunge into?’

Danial chuckled.

‘The more power you have to change the galaxy for the better, my queen, the less time you get to enjoy the results of your labours,’ he said. ‘They’ll be here in a moment.’

They retreated into the royal chambers, Suset refilling her glass from a carafe, setting it back next to Danial’s former servo-skulls. The High King had decided not to have the antiques restored after the ork attack, instead setting them on plinths and keeping them as ornaments.

There was a knock at the door.

‘Come,’ called Suset, and the doors swung wide to reveal Sires Percivane, Markos and Garath. All three boasted new augmetics, earned during the fight for the Draconspire. The sight made Danial roll his own mechanical shoulder and rub at his arm, a habit he wasn’t sure he would ever shake.

Behind the Knights of the Exalted Court strode Luk, his flamboyantly attired comrade Ekhaterina, and a tall figure in a plain robe and hood who was trailed by a lumbering scribe-servitor.

‘Merry Victor’s Day,’ said Sire Garath sardonically as the group entered the chamber. ‘I’d toast the occasion, but…’ He waved an empty hand.

‘The orks may have wrought destruction across Adrastapol, but at least Sire Garath remains unchanged,’ smiled Danial.

‘I don’t know about that,’ said the Master at Arms, and a shadow passed across his face. ‘That last fight for the upper ’spire… I don’t think anyone could have come through that unchanged, sire.’

‘True for us all,’ said Danial. ‘But come, though we attend to serious business, there is no reason we can’t enjoy a little of our own success. There are glasses, wine, spirits, food. Help yourselves.’

‘Look at all this,’ said Lady Hespar, helping herself to a large glass of amasec and rolling her eyes in exaggerated bliss at her first swallow. ‘You’re going to eschew all this to continue on your hunt, Luk?’

‘My offer does still stand,’ said Danial to his friend. ‘You have more than proven your loyalty to Adrastapol, brother. I could pardon you, give you new lands, have you start a new Noble House with whichever of your Exiles wished to join you. None would gainsay it now.’

Luk shook his head.

‘My hunt is not complete,’ he said. ‘My honour is stained until the day Alicia lies dead, and all she has wrought is unmade.’

Ekhaterina pulled a face, but Danial saw that, underneath her veneer of insouciance, Luk’s comrade was pleased at his answer.

‘Besides,’ chuckled Luk, ‘can you imagine telling Lady Maia that we were giving up the hunt to sit around drinking wine?’

‘She’d kill you herself,’ said Ekhaterina. ‘Probably with her teeth…’

‘What of Vo-Geiss?’ asked Luk. ‘Do you think he’ll follow us on this endeavour?’

‘Hard to say,’ said Ekhaterina. ‘He hates you, you know this. And I think he blames you for his injuries.’

‘Then he is a fool,’ said Luk. ‘Vo-Geiss will follow, or he won’t. It will be as the Emperor wills it.’

‘Where is Lady Jennika?’ asked Suset. ‘I would have expected the First Knight at such a gathering.’

‘She could not be found,’ said the hooded figure. ‘This matter can wait no longer.’ Inquisitor Massata pulled back his hood, and strode to the holotable in the middle of the chamber.

‘We’ll have to reweave this tapestry for the Lady Tan Draconis when she surfaces,’ said Markos. ‘She’s probably sharing a drink with her warriors, and who can blame her?’

‘To business, then,’ said Danial.

They gathered around the holoprojector, which Suset awoke with a flick of its control wand. An image of Adrastapol sprang up, revolving slowly. New orbital platforms could be seen hanging in the void, skeletal and half built.

‘Today, my friends,’ said Danial, ‘we officially toast victory over the ork menace.’ They raised their glasses, all except Massata, who had not taken one.

‘And today,’ said the inquisitor, ‘with the full authority granted to me by my office as an inquisitor of the Imperial Ordos, and speaking with the voice of the Emperor, I formally rescind the judgement placed upon Adrastapol and its Noble Houses. I find this world’s people to be faithful, pure and true servants of the Emperor of Mankind.’

As the inquisitor spoke, his servitor scribe scritched its auto-quills over sheaves of parchment that spilled from its mouth-slot, vestigial lower limbs gathering the writings up like a spider spooling silk. The Knights maintained mask-like composure as the inquisitor spoke, years of conditioning allowing them to keep their true feelings hidden.

Mostly.

‘Adrastapol and its Noble Houses thank you for this decree, and for your part in aiding the war effort to purge the invading xenos from our world,’ intoned Danial. ‘We ask that full honour be done to the hundreds of nobles who fell during the fighting, and the countless thousands of militia and serfs who lost their lives to the ork scourge.’

‘Any sacrifice is worthwhile in service to the Emperor,’ said Massata, his tone neutral.

‘Easier when it’s not your own people though, isn’t it?’ snapped Sire Garath, earning a stern glare from Danial. Massata showed no reaction to Garath’s words.

‘To the business at hand,’ said Luk, seeking to diffuse the moment of tension. ‘It is time, in this small and trusted company, that I reveal the location of Alicia Kar Manticos.’

‘The heretic who caused all of our ills, who destroyed Luk’s House and betrayed our people,’ said Danial.

‘The arch-priestess of the entity I have hunted for decades,’ rumbled Massata. ‘Our true enemy, against whom we all must stand united.’ The Knights of Adrastapol shifted uncomfortably at this, and exchanged pointedly neutral glances.

Luk opened a pouch on his belt and reverently drew from it the crumbling scroll he had acquired upon Kandakkha over a year earlier. It had not seen daylight in the days since, and now he unfurled it again with wonder and disquiet.

Accepting the control wand from Suset, Luk carefully entered a series of astrogation coordinates. On the hololith, Adrastapol receded, vanishing to a dot, and then to a rune that indicated the entire Majestis System. The image spun and reeled, sweeping across the sprawling starfields of the Emperor’s domain, further and further towards the galactic north-west.

Danial watched the image move, and as he did so, dread settled in his chest. He knew, even before the hololith stopped whirling, where it would settle.

‘The Eye of Terror,’ he said.

‘Almost,’ said Luk. ‘A world upon its brink, not more than two hundred light years from Cadia herself.’

‘Hastour,’ said Markos as the image zoomed slowly in, settling on a cold white orb. ‘Looks like a blinded eye. What do we know of it?’

‘Very little,’ said Luk. ‘Former Adeptus Mechanicus Explorator outpost. Lost to traitor forces two centuries ago, which is when the last reliable information was garnered. A frozen hellscape from what I understand.’

‘Why in the Dracon’s name would the witch make her lair there?’ asked Garath. ‘Looks dead. Worthless.’

‘That is but one mystery we must answer if we wish to defeat the sorceress and the being she serves,’ said Massata. ‘But we must solve it soon. The longer Alicia Kar Manticos remains at liberty to further the desires of That Which Dwells in Darkness, the greater the peril to the Emperor’s realm.’

‘Agreed,’ said Danial. ‘But you are talking about a crusade, inquisitor. One that will take us to the very threshold of madness. I must speak to Lauret and Kurt, attempt to convince them that such an undertaking is viable. That will take time.’

‘It is the Emperor’s will and it must be done,’ said Massata.

‘We would be swifter, stronger, more easily convinced to fight, if we had not just endured a xenos invasion,’ said Markos angrily.

‘I understand,’ said Massata, and if he was troubled by Markos’ hostility he showed no sign of it. ‘The Emperor wills that sometimes we must ask, and achieve the impossible. I need time for careful study of the tome that I recovered, for until its heretical passages can be safely deciphered its worth as a weapon is nil. The swift step finds the pit, not the path. Besides, there are debts of loyalty I can call upon. Allegiances I can revive. When the Knights of Adrastapol set out to slay the witch, they will not do so unaided.’

‘There will be logistical matters to attend to,’ said Suset. ‘Forces to marshal, and defences to be completed before we can leave our world to fend for itself.’

‘Nothing we can’t get done,’ said Garath. ‘Especially now that even Grandmarshal Kurt has realised the value of a true alliance.’

‘In the meantime, there are prayers to be said for the dead, ceremonies of rememberance to be performed,’ said Percivane. ‘The cost of this war to Adrastapol’s people has been horrific, the damage to our newfound infrastructure barely less so. If we fail to acknowledge the losses, to enshrine the deeds of the dead and rebuild our fortifications to shield the living, this world may yet be lost.’

‘That will take months,’ said Massata. ‘Months we may not possess.’

‘It is absolutely necessary, inquisitor, and I will not be moved on that,’ said Danial. ‘It is my first duty as High King, and the Emperor would damn me if I failed in it. You will have your crusading force, if it is mine to give by any means, but not until I have seen to my people.’

The air in the chamber grew thick with tension as Danial and Massata locked eyes. Eventually, the inquisitor waved a hand airily.

‘As you say, High King Danial,’ he said.

‘I also intend to comb the libraries of the Draconspire for anything that may aid us further,’ said Danial. ‘If this conflict has taught me anything, it is that Adrastapol conceals more secrets than we know. We are people who venerate our past, yet to truly derive strength from it, and to defend ourselves from the secrets buried beneath our feet, we must understand it.’

Inquisitor Massata nodded.

‘We must prepare ourselves in whatever way we can,’ he said, his eyes growing hard. ‘When we depart this world again, it will be upon the most dangerous, and most holy quest that any of us has ever known.’

‘It will be the last hunt for the Witch of Adrastapol,’ said Luk. ‘And it will end in nothing but blood.’

Hundreds of miles distant, Jennika Tan Draconis padded silently through long grass, beneath the pale light of Adrastapol’s moons. Cradled in her arms was a cloth-wrapped bundle. Around her loomed tall shadows, dark edifices of stone and marble that radiated a sepulchral stillness. The wind soughed softly, a whisper through grass and stone.

Jennika slowed, her stablight picking out the structure she sought. She played her light upwards, over steps of black granite inlaid with theldrite moonsilver. Up over an engraved plinth until she illuminated the stern features of King Tolwyn Tan Draconis, graven in cold marble.

‘Father,’ she murmured. ‘I have something for you.’

Jennika picked her way up the steps to Tolwyn’s mausoleum, passing through the stone archway into the blackness beyond. There, her father’s crypt, in which nothing but echoes and memories lay entombed. The High King’s body, his crown, his throne, none of it had ever been found.

She halted, making the sign of the aquila and whispering a prayer for her father’s soul. Walking softly past the tomb, she made her way into the offering chamber behind it, and set her stablight upon a marble shelf.

Jennika drew her draconblade and slowly, carefully, worked loose one of the marble slabs that covered the floor. Setting her sword aside she dug into the cold soil below, working with steady tenacity, pulling out small rocks by hand and ignoring the dull ache that built in her fingers. At last, hands stained and fingernails bloody, she was satisfied.

Jennika took up the bundle. Surrounded by shadows, she laid it gently into the hole she had dug. She looked down at it, the silken banner shrouding the mysterious sword, and for a moment she believed again that she felt a faint warmth upon her skin. One hand moved slowly towards the wrapping, took hold of a corner as though to pull it back and look again upon the magnificent weapon.

Instead, Jennika pulled her hand back and shook her head.

‘Not until I know what you are,’ she said. ‘Father will stand guard over your secrets, as well as he stood guard over his own.’

Taking a deep breath, she started to push the soil back into the hole.

Minutes later it was done, and Jennika emerged back into the warm summer night. She let out a slow breath, feeling the goosebumps fade on her flesh, and looked out over the rows and rows of mausoleums that stretched away into the darkness. Hundreds of High Kings, thousands, stretching back over millennia into the dim shadows of the past.

Squaring her shoulders, Jennika set off through the grass, back to where Fire Defiant waited. Back to the Draconspire, to prepare for war.

About the Author

Andy Clark has written the Warhammer 40,000 novels Kingsblade and Shroud of Night, as well as the short story ‘Whiteout’, the Age of Sigmar short story ‘Gorechosen’, and the Warhammer Quest Silver Tower novella Labyrinth of the Lost. Andy works as a background writer for Games Workshop, crafting the worlds of Warhammer Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40,000. He lives in Nottingham, UK.

For Murray, in recognition of his ongoing and heartfelt love of the world’s many pandas.

A Black Library Publication

Published in Great Britain in 2018 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by David Alvarez.

Knightsblade © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2018. Knightsblade, 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.

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-78572-798-6

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.