Feth, I love this story. David Annandale is a relative newcomer to the echoing halls of Black Library, but his work has already proved beyond doubt that he should be there. I very much urge you to seek out and read his Horus Heresy novel The Damnation of Pythos. Now he gets his Sabbat Worlds Writers’ Club tie and fancy embossed card (there’s probably some membership ritual involving rolling up one trouser leg and putting your shirt on backwards. Or did that just happen to me? You guys…). I love David’s story for a number of reasons. First, it’s one of the others in this anthology that absolutely fits ‘current’ Ghosts continuity. The whole purpose of the Salvation’s Reach mission (spoiler alert) was to sow the seeds of rivalry between the Blood Pact and the Sons of Sek. Archon Gaur is the Archenemy leader, direct rival to Warmaster Macaroth. He’s top dog, and he has the Blood Pact (notorious for being an actually organised, disciplined and thus effective Imperial Guard-style Chaos force – many are converts corrupted from the Guard itself by the dark whispers of Khorne… I refer you to John French’s story, and my own ‘You Never Know’). Anarch Sek is the Gaur’s foremost lieutenant. Sek, whose voice drowns out all others, is probably a better strategic battlefield commander than the Archon, and he envies Urlock’s mastery. Sek, inspired by the Blood Pact, has created his own ‘disciplined’ force, the Sons of Sek. Now two Archenemy monsters are fielding armies that go far beyond the feral hodge-podge of the Sanguinary Tribes. They are proper armies, equivalently skilled (and thus as effective) as the Astra Militarum. Gaunt’s mission in Salvation’s Reach was to exploit that rivalry, and make the Blood Pact think that the Anarch was trying to press for power, and make the Sons of Sek believe that the Blood Pact was turning on them. A propaganda war. Split the enemy and make them fight themselves. This terrific story shows the results of that disinformation war. It also portrays the aspect and viewpoint of the Archenemy with great skill. Set firmly in current Ghosts continuity, it is one of the other stories in this volume that provides, if rather more indirectly, vital links between the events of Salvation’s Reach and those of The Warmaster. If you never thought you’d find yourself rooting for the Pact, prepare to be confounded… Dan Abnett The Deeper Wounds David Annandale Lycotham Gamma, 782.M41 (the 27th year of the Sabbat Worlds Crusade) Human skulls were a disappointment. They were too close to the surface. Seddok Etogaur considered this as his Death Brigade moved through the disused mining tunnels. He felt an emotion like regret – regret woven in barbed wire – whenever his knife scraped bone. This wrathful frustration came whether he was carving an enemy’s flesh or his own. The blade could not sink as far as was right. There were limits to the profundity of the pain and the conjuring of blood. He marked his worship of the Blood God in the whorls of sliced muscle and flaps of cheek. But how could he give full expression to his faith and rage with such hard limits in the material? There was very little more he could do with the canvas of his own flesh. The scars overlapped. They built on each other, layering the violence of meaning. His skull showed in patches on his crown. He had even worked on the bone itself, scraping runes with the point of the blade. The extent of his mutilation demanded the respect of his subordinates. The depth of commitment to the Blood Pact was measured by the acts of war against the enemy, and in the acts given physical memory on the warrior’s body. Seddok’s loyalty was visible in every contortion of the slices. He hadn’t even spared his tongue. He could still speak without difficulty, although he could taste nothing but thickened tissue and blood. It wasn’t enough. The blade should go deeper. There should always be more pain, more blood, more flesh to tear away. He was thinking about the limits to injury because the same ones applied to the present action. He and his troops were going to inflict pain. But not enough. It would never be enough. They reached a junction. Kstah took the left tunnel without hesitation. The mining operations had honeycombed this range of the Katchgar Mountains on Lycotham Gamma. The work went on, but many of the veins had been exhausted. By tasting the air and sensing vibrations beneath its clawed feet, the loxatl could gauge how close they were to any of the workers. The reptilian xenos had led the brigade through tunnels that hadn’t been used in years. As they neared their target, Seddok could hear, faintly, the sounds of labour and industry. There wouldn’t be any need for secrecy soon. A bit longer, and everything would be about injury and the teaching of a lesson. The lesson that would not be enough. The Death Brigade had placed themselves on Lycotham Gamma four days earlier, landing in a desert, far from any population centre. Seddok and his warriors had made good time, and seen no one. They had not been detected by the Sons of Sek. The blow would come from the night. The message would be clear. The quality of the air changed. It went from stale and close to choking, oily, gritty. Seddok felt a breeze. The tunnel came to an end at an opening about twenty metres up the cliff face. Seddok looked right, to the north, at the manufactorum. It squatted in a narrow valley, its walls abutting the mountainsides. It was a cathedral of black iron. Its clusters of chimneys were spires a hundred metres high, spewing clouds so thick they blocked all sight of the sky. Though it was midday, the valley was in deep twilight. A web of rails ran from tunnel entrances, feeding trainloads of ore to the receiving bays in the complex’s east and west flanks. The south face was dominated by massive gates. From there, a road led from the valley. ‘This won’t hurt as much as it should,’ said Mevvax Sirdar, echoing Seddok’s displeasure. She was looking at the transports hauling the manufactorum’s output through the gates. They were hull components for void ships. Taking out the manufactorum would be a blow to the Sons of Sek’s strength, but hardly a crippling one. They controlled Lycotham Gamma. This was not the only centre of production. ‘Agreed,’ Seddok said. ‘But what does?’ She shrugged. ‘We have orders,’ he reminded her. ‘And we obey.’ She nodded once, the gesture tense with anger at the prospect of unjustified effort. ‘We are delivering a message,’ he said, reminding himself as much as his subordinate. They were teaching, not decapitating. The Blood Pact was not at war with the Sons of Sek. But Anakwanar Sek did not recognise the authority of Urlock Gaur as he should. The magister needed to be reminded that the forces of the Blood God in this region of the galaxy spoke with one voice, and obeyed one master. The Sons of Sek believed themselves to be supreme on Lycotham Gamma. Perhaps they were. That did not mean they were untouchable. Paraak laughed. The sound was liquid. The grotesque that masked his features had short spikes that pierced his cheeks. He was always swallowing his own blood. ‘It would do them good to bleed,’ he said. Seddok grinned, feeling the ragged edges of his lips split as they rubbed against his own grotesque. His mask, unlike those of Paraak and the other lower orders, was not iron. It was gold. Even better for us to see them bleed, he thought. There was a second lesson they were about to teach. The braggart Sons of Sek needed to be taught humility. They vaunted their military prowess. The stories of their precision and discipline were spreading through the Sabbat Worlds systems. There was some basis for their pride, yes. They were doing well, yes. But Seddok had come to show them what a Death Brigade of the Blood Pact could do. Before the manufactorum gates, on either side of the road from the valley, was an encampment. Large enough, Seddok estimated, for two hundred troops. He counted twenty sentries stationed around its perimeter and near the gates. ‘Look at them,’ said Eshk. ‘Proud of their finery.’ He meant their gear. Even from this distance, the quality of the Sons’ equipment was apparent. They weren’t wearing full-body carapace armour as the Death Brigade were, but the vests and helmets had a uniformity, and thus probably a reliability, beyond what many Blood Pact troopers had at their disposal. ‘It won’t do them any good,’ Seddok answered. He eyed possible approaches. The urge to launch into the humiliation of the Sons was strong. He wasn’t concerned by the eight-to-one odds. His brigade had annihilated larger Imperial Guard forces. But he had to be mindful of the goal. If the manufactorum was shuttered against him, its walls would be those of a fortress. He would be kept at bay until reinforcements arrived. If he followed the dictates of cold anger instead of hot rage, the path was clear. Kstah had brought them to an entrance that gave onto one of the rails. From the state of its disrepair, it had fallen into disuse years ago, now too far from a viable source of ore, and was being allowed to decay. Its span was still intact. The receiving bay it led to was fed by two other lines. One of them came from an opening ten metres down and a hundred to the right of the brigade’s position. The other started from a tunnel whose mouth was almost forty metres straight up. Seddok looked at the upper line. Kstah gave a peremptory hiss and pointed at the lower one instead. Seddok watched, trusting the loxatl’s vibratory perceptions. After a few minutes, an ore train rumbled down the track, its carts full. Its passage was loud, but added little to the metallic thunder echoing throughout the valley. Seddok raised his magnoculars and examined the sentries. They didn’t so much as glance at the train. Their attention remained on the road, the sole ground approach to the manufactorum. It was almost too easy. ‘I think they want to be hurt,’ he said. At Kstah’s signal, the brigade headed down the track. Twenty-five warriors in carapace armour stained dark with the blood of their victims. Twenty-five grotesques: metal faces of leering violence, noses and chins hooked into claws. Seddok knew their appearance would not terrify the Sons of Sek. His determination was that their actions, however, would. From the moment they left the concealment of the tunnel, they were visible from the ground. Kstah, a quadruped, would be hard to spot, but the others would draw attention with their movement if an observer’s eye fell on them. Seddok kept track of the sentries below as he crossed. They didn’t move. No alarm was raised. In less than five minutes, the brigade was entering the manufactorum bay halfway up the complex. The interior was vast. A few hundred metres ahead, slaves unloaded the contents of the ore train’s wagons and hauled their carts down ramps to the levels below. The ceiling here was low. Further on, beyond the unloading, the space opened up. Seddok took the lead now. The punishment was about to begin. They were no longer concerned with evading the enemy. Doing so for more than a few moments more was impossible. Slaves in the thousands were at work. There would be guards. What mattered now was speed and violence. And he wanted to be seen. The full meaning of the lesson he was about to deliver would be in its witnessing. They would leave survivors. Not many, but enough for the message to be spread: Respect the authority of the Gaur. His reach is long. The Death Brigade charged across the receiving bay. The sound of their boots on the rockcrete floor was just another note in the general din. The slaves did not look up until the last moment. Seddok saw their eyes widen. Their screams were the first taste of satisfaction, and the goad to more rage. These ragged humans had lived in the hope that obedience would grant them something that passed for mercy. It did not. Laspistol in his right hand, chainsword in his left, Seddok cut through the slaves without slowing his charge. Blood washed over his armour. Limbs fell to the ground. The screams of terror became screams of pain, and the screams of pain ended under the growl of his sword. The rest of the brigade followed in wedge formation, bayonets gutting and stabbing. Kstah slashed with claws, and tore out the throat of one slave with his jaws. They left behind mounds of writhing meat. A few of the drones would live long enough to tell others of the terrible force that had come upon them. Seddok smelled the rancid milk and mint stink of the loxatl. The slaughter was a trivial one. A minor thread. But it had its role to play in the tapestry of blood. Every drop an offering to the Blood God. Every drop a rebuke to the Sons of Sek. The receiving bay ended at the vast space that occupied the entire central block of the manufactorum. Levels upon levels of assembly floors were fed by huge elevator platforms that rose slowly up a vertical track to the ceiling a hundred metres up, moved horizontally a few dozen metres, then descended another track, just as slowly. Slaves moved components and material on and off the platforms. They had to move fast, as the elevators never stopped. To Seddok’s left and right, he saw more of the elevators. The work levels were staggered. The effect was a disordered tangle of metal and rockcrete. To the right, in the centre of the complex, was the colossal blast furnace. It radiated waves of heat and rumbled with the breathing of mountains. This was the heart of the manufactorum. This was the target. And it had to be attacked at its base. An elevator platform rose past the level of the receiving bay. The Death Brigade tore across it and leapt to the level opposite. More slaves here, working on deck beams. Another slaughter in passing. A surge of blood across the floor. But no pause, because these kills were far beneath the skill of the brigade. The slaves deserved no mercy, but they were not the point. They were not the subjects of the lesson. At the other end of the level, a platform descended. Seddok’s troops took it, and formed a circle as it dropped, clanking and juddering, towards the floor. Now they began to fire. They sent a stream of las in all directions, culling the slaves of every work floor within range, on every level as they went by. Workers died. More panicked. Fires broke out. Disorder spread, gathered force, turned into destruction. Seddok shot a cluster of pipes. The las melted through metal. Live steam and electrical cables fell on the slaves. More screams. More fire. Chaos spread, and this was the gift of the Blood Pact’s discipline. Rigour in the service of Chaos. Unity for Khorne. All the better to drown the galaxy in blood. Unity that the Sons of Sek would do well to remember. Two-thirds of the way down, there was a sudden change. There was no work taking place on the lower levels. There were makeshift barricades on the sides facing the platform. Seddok saw what was coming. The counter-attack began before he could call a warning. Enfilading las-fire struck the platform, killing three of the Death Brigade. Seddok and the others dropped into crouches, reducing their size as targets. But there was no shelter. They were surrounded, outnumbered. The enemy numbered in the dozens on each side, and there were more waiting on the levels below. If the brigade remained on the elevator, it would be annihilated before reaching the floor of the manufactorum. ‘In their teeth!’ Seddok yelled. ‘Forward!’ The platform was between levels. The Sons of Sek rained las down from above, but the soldiers below didn’t have an angle on the Blood Pact yet. Seddok led the charge over the edge. He brought a cataract of rage down on the defenders. There were ten of them. They responded quickly, without panic. He was a fast-moving target, yet he felt the sear of las burn through the armour on his left side. The pain was an outrage. He saw red, his vision shimmering with the pulse of his god’s wrath. He rolled as he hit the deck, and came up firing two metres behind the Sons of Sek. His first clear look at them. Their armour was ochre, and was an expression of their fidelity to Anakwanar Sek. Hands covered their mouths, either stitched across their lips or rising from the armour’s gorget. A mark of possession, of the silence of secrets, of their lord’s absolute control. The Sons struck with a cold certainty. Two more of Seddok’s troops were down, unmoving, but the others retaliated as he did. The armour of their opponents was strong, but it wasn’t enough. These soldiers were good, but they were not worthy of the Death Brigade. Seddok’s force nailed them against the barricade with fire, then closed the rest of the distance and hit with a wall of bayonets. Seddok drove his chainblade through the gorget’s hand and into the throat of the man before him. The warrior’s face was shadowed, scarred with the ritualised wounds of devotion, alive with hatred and the fever of blood. It was the mirror of his own, and it was a betrayal. The scars were related to his own. But they were not the same. There was allegiance to Khorne, but this was a disciple of a master other than the Gaur. Every deviation could mean a loss to the serfs of the false god. For such weakness, there was no death painful enough. The fight was over in seconds. The Sons of Sek lay sprawled, mutilated. No uniformity to them now. Only the variety of death, the wet gleam of viscera, the pooling scarlet of blood and the jagged white of bone. Now, Seddok thought, are you learning? This is the cost of schism. There was satisfaction in that thought. But the enemy on the levels above and opposite continued to shoot. Crouching low, the Death Brigade backed away from the barricade, out of the angle of fire. ‘They were expecting us,’ Mevvax said. ‘How?’ Eshk protested. ‘How is irrelevant,’ Seddok told him. Mevvax was right. There was nothing improvised about this defence. It was too strong, too well prepared. The space of this work level had been cleared of debris, giving the Sons of Sek room to manoeuvre. The tools were stacked against the walls on either side. The conveyor belts and generators were idle. Seddok remembered the sentries outside the manufactorum, and how they had looked so conveniently in the wrong directions. Mevvax completed his thought. ‘This was a trap.’ She was glaring at him. She was close to challenging his leadership. A weak leader was a dead one. If he didn’t reclaim the initiative from the Sons of Sek, she would try to replace him. ‘And?’ he said. ‘What difference does that make?’ he asked the rest of the brigade. ‘We knew they would come. What point would there be if they didn’t? How would they be taught respect if we didn’t ram it down their throats?’ He moved to the centre of the level. Ladder rungs were mounted on an iron column that ran between the floors. ‘They’re waiting for us? Good.’ He pulled a frag grenade from his belt and tossed it down the shaft to the level below. He sheathed his chainsword and started climbing down as the grenade went off. He kept his pistol out and pointing down. He pulled the trigger, firing suppressive shots as soon as his feet passed through the ceiling. He was through and could see the Sons of Sek before they recovered sufficiently to coordinate fire. He had a few seconds of high vulnerability. There was another squad’s strength below. Two had been killed in the explosion. The others were on the move, but there was no cover in the cleared interior of the work space. Seddok dropped another handful of rungs. Another grenade came through the opening above him. It struck the deck and bounced. It blew up in mid-air, shrapnel slashing out at neck level. One of the Sons staggered, clutching his face. Then Mevvax was through the ceiling, adding her fire to Seddok’s. The etogaur jumped, falling the last few metres, still firing. The landing sent a violent jar up his spine, but he stayed on his feet. With his back to the column, he shot in a wide arc, keeping the initiative as he forced the Sons onto the defensive. They fired as they ran, encircling his position. He ignored the near misses and took his time, aiming well and firing for effect. Two more of the enemy lay dead when Mevvax reached the ground. By then, Eshk and Paraak were climbing down. The Blood Pact’s fire became more concentrated. The vulnerability of its warriors lessened. Kstah leapt straight through the opening and landed on one of the Sons, the impact snapping the man’s neck. Before the full brigade was down, the Sons of Sek squad was reduced to five troopers. They knew they were dead. They stopped trying to evade the fire. Shouting the glory of Khorne, they grouped together. They could not survive, and so they worked to kill. Though they were outnumbered, they dropped three more of Seddok’s command before they were cut to pieces. There were two more levels before the Death Brigade would be on the manufactorum floor. From above, Seddok could hear the pounding of boots and the shouts as the Sons of Sek converged from the other decks. One squad at a time, they didn’t have the strength to be a threat. It enraged Seddok that the victories he had won so far came down to brute numbers rather than skill. That was not the lesson he had come to inflict. And now, having walked into a trap, a trap whose jaws were closing, he was faced with the possibility that it was the Blood Pact that was on the receiving end of the lesson. The edges of his vision flared hot-white. Pride fuelled his rage to the point that he thought he might snap the planet in half with his hands. He rejected the lesson. He rejected the possibility of defeat. He rejected everything that did not involve wading thigh-deep through the blood of the Sons of Sek. Most of all, he refused to consider the larger implications of the trap. He would negate them by rendering the trap futile. He would fulfil his mission. He would slake his rage. Dread, wrath and his sworn vow flashed across his thoughts in the seconds between hearing the approaching troops and grasping the rungs to resume the descent. Mevvax said, ‘This is a good way to erode our strength.’ ‘We need to reach the floor,’ Seddok answered. He thought about shooting her before her challenge became direct. With an effort, he set the idea aside. The unity of the brigade was paramount. ‘You have a better way?’ He didn’t give her a chance to answer. ‘No. I didn’t think so.’ He threw another grenade down and started to climb. ‘With me!’ he barked. The Sons on the next level were better prepared. Las-fire came for him the moment he appeared. He couldn’t move fast enough. He took a hit in the chest-plate. The armour absorbed the worst, but the hit damaged it badly, and he felt fire across his chest. Another bolt struck the column next to his hand. He kicked away from the column as he fell. The drop was over five metres. He snarled as he arced towards his foe. He kept firing. The fall was just long enough for Seddok to experience the wind-whistling speed of flight, and the anticipatory dread of defeat. He bent his knees as he hit. He rolled into an impact that pounded his skeleton like a blade in a forge. He couldn’t breathe. Raging defiance kept him moving. He came out of the roll with the momentum of his fall and leapt into a Son of Sek. They both went down hard. The Son lost his rifle. He grabbed Seddok’s throat and squeezed hard. Seddok rammed his pistol into the Son’s face and fired. He pushed himself away from the smoking corpse as more grenades went off, and his troops joined the fight. He still couldn’t breathe. His vision was blurred. He saw a shape before him. He fired, it fell, and he staggered upright, drawing his chainsword. He stumbled to the right, and the bayonet aimed for his heart struck his shoulder instead, piercing the armour through a seam. The pain shocked air into his lungs, clarity into his vision. He hissed, dragging the chainsword up. He severed the arms of the Son before him. He moved back, towards the barricade, and tugged the blade from his shoulder. Before him, the fight was ending, decided again by numbers. The Sons of Sek were dead. So were more of his warriors. The brigade was at two-thirds’ strength, and he could hear the Sons’ reinforcements arriving on the deck above. He was out of time. If he led the fight down to the final level, the struggle there would give the larger force the chance to catch up. Their only move was a desperate one. An act of will. An object lesson for all. ‘With me,’ he said once more. He held Mevvax’s gaze, and she must have realised what he was planning, because she grinned. She had lost her grotesque in the fight, and when she pulled her lips back, her angular scars moved into each other, as if dozens of small, jagged mouths were echoing the expression. Seddok’s limbs sent shooting pain through his frame. He had fractured some ribs. Rage at the prospect of defeat sustained him. Rage pushed him forward. It gave him strength and the necessary madness. He ran for the barricade and leapt over it, blind. Rage would guide him to the blood of his enemies. Rage would give Khorne the great sacrifice. There was no las-fire as he dropped. The Sons of Sek had all left their ambush positions and were pursuing in a single force. As Seddok fell to the floor of the manufactorum, he was assailed by a spiritual vertigo. He had been falling since the beginning of the assault, from greater and greater heights. He had a premonition that the next fall would not end, that it would be the terminal plunge into failure. Down. Hard strike against the rockcrete floor. Absorbing the shock as best he could, but hearing cracks inside his body. There was something wrong with his feet when he stood. Pain was a deep splintering. He wouldn’t be able to run much further or much longer. That was all right. He didn’t have far to go. Wrath would sustain him. It coursed through his blood as he started to move, vaulting over cables to run parallel to cart tracks, leading the brigade to the great blast furnace. Not all his warriors had survived the fall. Seddok glanced back. He saw two bodies on the ground. One of them was crawling. They were failures left behind for the Sons of Sek. The enemy hadn’t arrived yet. The Sons had not taken the leap. The snarl in Seddok’s throat was contempt and eagerness. He had the time he wanted. The lesson would be taught after all. Kstah raced ahead. The loxatl showed no ill effects of the leap. The twin flechette blasters of the mercenary’s body vest fired a storm of monomolecular shards, slicing to ribbons any slaves who crossed their path. There was panic on all sides. Vehicles bearing massive loads of girders and hull plating were abandoned. Humanity in all its futility sought to flee its destiny as a feast for the Blood God. The fear gave Seddok still more energy. He would justify that fear. The blast furnace loomed ahead. It was a squat titan, its massive, lantern-shaped body rising almost as high as the upper work levels of the manufactorum. Inside, heated to thousands of degrees, was a small lake’s worth of molten ore. Seddok focused on the target. The furnace was his weapon. It was what he was charging towards. All true. Yet at the back of his mind, there was an outraged, humiliated wail that saw the race as a retreat, as a flight from a superior enemy. They were within reach of the base of the furnace when the Sons of Sek struck. A wall of las fell on the Death Brigade. The Sons had created an unbroken assault line. They marched shoulder to shoulder across the floor. They climbed any obstacles for clear shots on the Blood Pact. One of the Sons did not shoot. He stood atop a stack of girders several metres high, challenging the Blood Pact to make him a target. A scourger, Seddok guessed. He had heard the rumours: officers who spoke as if with the voice of Sek himself, driving their warriors to impossible feats of war. The gestures with which he directed his troops were imperious, even disdainful. Of course they are, Seddok thought. These are not his elite soldiers. There are too many of them. A point was being made. The Sons of Sek could take on the best of the Blood Pact with their most common forces. The brigade returned fire. It was an act of symbolic defiance, a futile gesture that was swept aside by a massacre. The rear ranks fell immediately. The rest ducked beneath the huge bustle pipe that surrounded the furnace. It was a partial cover. It would buy a few more seconds. Seddok reached the base. The heat from the furnace’s volcanic heart reached through his grotesque. ‘No one is leaving this battlefield,’ Paraak grunted as he and Mevvax joined him. ‘No one,’ Seddok agreed. ‘No one.’ He spat the words, a vow etched in acid. He pulled the melta bomb from his kit. So did the other two. ‘Not a single Son of Sek will walk out of this manufactorum.’ ‘Nor will any sworn member of the Blood Pact.’ ‘And?’ ‘No one will know what we have done here.’ Seddok fixed the bomb to the base of the furnace. ‘And?’ he snarled. He didn’t care for messages or any other wider consideration now. His enemy was on the point of triumphing, and the only thing that mattered was robbing the Sons of their victory. Mevvax grinned again. Her eyes glittered with predatory ferocity above her bloody rictus. She was not challenging him. She would vent her rage along with him. ‘And blood for the Blood God,’ she said to Paraak. She moved down the flank of the furnace. Paraak went the other way. One melta bomb would be enough to pierce through. Three would ensure the Sons had no chance to react. Behind Seddok, the fight was ending. There were only a handful of Blood Pact still remaining. The Sons of Sek were closing fast. They must have realised the lengths the Death Brigade was willing to go. Their rush to stop him gave Seddok his own victory. He turned from the furnace. He saw Kstah atop the bustle pipe, firing down at the Sons. There was a supporting framework a few paces to Seddok’s left. He used it to climb to the top of the pipe. The Sons of Sek were a wave of wrath and perfect war heading his way. ‘Be ready now!’ he called down to Mevvax and Paraak. ‘We are,’ Mevvax answered, and Paraak gave his liquid laugh. Seddok pulled the detonator from his belt. With his thumb on the trigger, he stood up, facing his opponent. Time to crack the world open, as he had known he could. He pressed the button. A savage light burst across the space of the manufactorum as the melta bombs ate through the furnace walls. They released its blood, its incandescent blood. It burned and drowned the last of the Blood Pact. It met the wave of the Sons of Sek with a different wave, a terrible wave, a wave of red and orange metal that scoured them from existence. The heat was a new sort of pain, sharp as a blade, brutal as a claw. In moments, Seddok’s grotesque heated to the point that it began to cook his flesh. Beside him, Kstah writhed, meat roasting on a spit. Despite the pain, for a few seconds Seddok could still see. For a few seconds, the bustle pipe was above the flood. And during those few seconds he roared. He howled his hatred of the Sons of Sek, at the traitors to the cause. He shrieked so hard and loud that he won another victory. He held the thoughts of greater failure at bay. If he thought of the larger questions of what would happen now, of how dangerous the Sons of Sek must be to see him coming and prepare the trap, he did not care. He had won. But as the supports buckled, and the pipe tipped Seddok towards the greater pain, the blinding light of the sea of ore, he could no longer defend against the epiphany. On this day, there had been no messages, no lessons, and no victories. There was only a wound, deeper than any he had ever carved. A wound to the cause for which he had made of himself a burnt offering.