More Warhammer 40,000 from Black Library

WITCHBRINGER

An Astra Militarum novel by Steven B Fischer

TRAITOR ROCK

An Astra Militarum novel by Justin D Hill

HONOURBOUND

An Astra Militarum novel by Rachel Harrison

• DAWN OF FIRE •

Book 1: AVENGING SON

Guy Haley

Book 2: THE GATE OF BONES

Andy Clark

Book 3: THE WOLFTIME

Gav Thorpe

Book 4: THRONE OF LIGHT

Guy Haley

THE SWORDS OF CALTH

A Uriel Ventris novel by Graham McNeill

AHRIMAN: ETERNAL

A Thousand Sons novel by John French

GHAZGHKULL THRAKA: PROPHET OF THE WAAAGH!

An orks novel by Nate Crowley

THE BOOK OF MARTYRS

An Adepta Sororitas anthology by Danie Ware, Andy Clark and Phil Kelly

THE TRIUMPH OF SAINT KATHERINE

An Adepta Sororitas novel by Danie Ware

VOID KING

A Rogue Trader novel by Marc Collins

Contents

Cover

Backlist

Warhammer 40,000

Only War: Stories from the 41st Millenium

HAMMER OF THE EMPEROR

The Taste of Fire

Refuge

Redemption Through Sacrifice

The Price of Duty

Anarchy’s End

The Jagged Edge

The Place of Pain and Healing

ANGELS OF DEATH

The Labyrinth of Lost Souls

Faith in Iron

A Coin for the Carrion Thieves

THE ALIEN MENACE

Da Big Mouf

Warsphere

Path of Grief

Voice of Experience

Road Rage

Mad Dok

KEEPERS OF THE FAITH

His Will

Celestine: Revelation

The Moon-Mines of Sciara Lone

Martyr’s End

SERVANTS OF THE THRONE

Ghosts of Iron

Last Flight

Night Shriekers

The Shapers of Scars

About the Author

An Extract from ‘Dawn of Fire: Avenging Son’

A Black Library Publication

eBook license

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

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

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

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

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

HAMMER OF THE EMPEROR

THE TASTE OF FIRE

STEVEN B FISCHER

There was a beauty in the stillness of the Ourean night. A bitter clarity in the chill predawn air that seemed to echo through the very darkness itself. An illusion of peace in the dim saffron glow of the mountainous world’s sister moons filtering down through the branches of frost-laden conifers and reflecting off the slopes below.

But it was only an illusion.

Lieutenant Glavia Aerand knew this world was no different from any other. No purer than the filthy, crawling hives of Machari and Scintilla. No less obscene than the Chaos-ridden remnants of her home world. She had learned long ago that no world held a monopoly on evil, because her species carried evil with it. In one movement, she raised her hand and shattered the facade.

One last breath of blessed silence before the earth shuddered with the paired concussions of starfire mortars, which burst in the sky seconds later, bathing the high mountain valley in the watery-green incandescence of illumination rounds. Beneath that fiery dusk, Secundus Company descended on the cultist den like birds of prey.

At the back of Aerand’s mind, a familiar disquiet grew, paired with the caustic scent of charred copper in her nose. Six months ago, this sensation had crippled her the first time she’d felt it. Six months ago, she hadn’t known what it meant. Now, she understood the warning all too well. After half a year of tracking Chaos cultists through the bitter wilds of this Throne-cursed planet, her hunt was almost over.

As Aerand’s troopers rushed towards the shadow of two waiting cave mouths, the earth around them erupted into plumes of acrid smoke. Gouts of half-frozen soil and jagged stone fragments sprayed her soldiers as the drumbeat of mortars rang out from atop the ridgeline behind them.

‘Gerstahl’s breath!’ Olevier Corwyn cursed, Aerand’s company sergeant puffing with exertion as the pair sprinted to match pace with their charging platoons. ‘You’re sure you ordered Lieutenant Vyse to aim her heavy squads at the enemy, not us?’

Despite the moment, Aerand’s face split into a smile. ‘Danger close is called danger close for a reason. We hammer every egress from this place, so the heretics don’t slip our grasp again.’

Ahead, First Platoon’s lead squad rushed through the detritus, helm lumens flickering to life as they were swallowed by the cave’s gaping maw. Aerand swept in behind them. Never first in. Never last. The proper place for a commander was at the heart of her soldiers.

As she drove into the darkness, Aerand braced herself for the inevitable onslaught. She was no fool – Cadians were going to die today. A cost both she and her soldiers were willing to pay. But with every step she took down the narrow stone corridor, an even greater fear blossomed within her.

Secundus Company had been hunting this particular cultist cell for the better part of two seasons. Countless times she had stood in positions like this one, and countless times her quarry had slipped through her grasp. That fear crystallised as Aerand stepped into a small antechamber, its dripping stone walls empty and lifeless. A small collection of skulls, stained with ribbons of old, dark blood and the dirty yellow wax of tallow candles, lay scattered on the floor. To her right, First Platoon continued down the main corridor, and on her left, Second Platoon’s lumens already approached.

‘West network clear,’ Lieutenant Graves barked through her earpiece, his words garbled by the yards of bedrock between them.

‘East network clear,’ Sergeant Maltia echoed, the disappointment in her voice heavy enough to bite.

Beside her, Corwyn muttered another curse, while the drumming of mortars continued to shake the mountain. ‘Don’t know where they could have gone,’ he grumbled. ‘Vyse is turning the whole ridgeline into gravel.’

Aerand nodded, distracted, as the ringing in her ears began to swell. ‘Not gone,’ she whispered.

‘What do you mean?’ Corwyn replied. ‘This tunnel’s scarcely wide enough to hide the gut I’m growing, let alone a few hundred Chaos cultists.’

‘Not all of them are gone, at least.’

As she motioned for the sergeant to follow, Aerand stepped down a narrow corridor to her right, the ceiling low enough to scrape the top of her helm. Here, the smooth, polished walls of the main chambers disappeared, replaced by deep, unweathered grooves.

‘Fresh addition,’ Corwyn muttered. ‘And a hasty one, at that.’

Shortly, the tunnel gave way to a set of stairs, lumens flickering in the murky depths below. Cadian voices echoed up the tunnel, and Corwyn’s expression fell into a scowl as he walked ahead. ‘First Platoon,’ he called back, clearing a low archway. ‘Nbade’s squad is already here.’

Aerand followed into the small, rough-cut chamber, an oppressiveness to its darkness that seemed to resist the normally piercing light of her troopers’ lumens. Half a dozen men and women lay chained to the raw stone wall, and the lieutenant stifled the nausea rising within her as that ringing in her ears began to grow.

‘Alive, Argos?’ she asked, suspecting she already knew the answer.

Her chief medicae knelt over an emaciated young woman, her long, thin hair drifting down to cover pale, dirt-laden skin. A crude iron manacle hung around one of her horribly thin wrists, the skin beneath lacerated from her struggles against it. The remainder of her body was covered in a macabre mosaic of branded symbols, each of which stoked the fire beneath Aerand’s skin.

The medicae shook his head. ‘Not sure how long they’ve been here, sir, but long enough.’

‘Check the rest,’ Corwyn replied, an uncharacteristic edge to his voice.

One by one, Argos pronounced the prisoners dead, until he knelt over a final body. An adolescent man, the youngest of the group, and perhaps the most hale. The medicae paused, fingers resting on the youth’s neck, trying to convince himself he felt a pulse beneath.

A sudden wave of unease washed over Aerand as a sound like the sea swallowed her whole. Staggered, she took a step back, pressing her hand against the wall and closing her eyes. An image flashed through her mind, of the man on the floor erupting into a gout of searing blue flame that reached up and devoured the medicae beside him. Then, as soon as it arrived, the vision passed.

Aerand pushed herself upright and lurched towards Argos, grasping the medicae by the shoulders and dragging him to the ground. A moment later the youth’s eyes flashed open beside them and he drew a deep, ragged breath. Suddenly, a horrible blue light enveloped his hands, then burst forward to splash harmlessly against the wall.

Beside her, Corwyn took a step forward and drove the butt of his lasgun into the young man’s head. He crumpled into a heap.

‘Witch,’ the sergeant whispered, half in disbelief.

Aerand nodded slowly and rolled off Argos, pushing herself painfully to her feet. ‘Whatever he is, you do not let that man die until Colonel Yarin herself has seen him.’

Secundus Company slogged through the miserable blend of snow, mud and rain that seemed to be Ourea’s only truly unique feature. After almost a year on the planet, Aerand scarcely noticed the bitter chill in her toes or the squelching moistness that accompanied each step of her boots. She had learned the unpleasant realities of this world long ago, and come to accept that they would not change for her.

As her column filed slowly through a narrow saddle into the skeletal remains of their laconic field camp, she could not help but believe her troopers shared that same belief. Six months ago, after shattering a cultist army at the vicious battle of Apex Inruptus, the soldiers of the Cadian 900th had not thought themselves naive to hope this war might soon be over. Instead, it had simply evolved. Now, rather than conducting lightning raids against massed enemy encampments from the relative comfort of a regimental fortress, the four newly formed light companies of the 900th were scattered to the wind, operating alone in the heart of Ourea’s austere wilds, pursuing ever-elusive cells of tenacious heretics.

As Aerand marched beside her formation, she forced a grim smile onto her face. She was not blind. She knew her troopers were tired and discouraged. She knew her fledgling company was fragile and cracking. How quickly would it shatter entirely if forced to acknowledge that its commander shared her troopers’ same exhaustions and fears?

And then some. Aerand shivered slightly at the memory of her vision in the cave. Not her first premonition, but what had started as rare hunches and intuitions were becoming too frequent, and vivid, for her to ignore. That foresight might have saved Argos’ life, but she could not shake the bitter dismay such portents left on her soul. She whispered a silent prayer and forced the thought from her mind.

Behind Aerand, a vox-caster crackled to life, rousing her from her unproductive mulling. A young corporal ran through the snow, the heavy vox-pack on his back giving him an awkward, lilting gait. He arrived at her side breathless but snapped sharply to attention.

‘Kobald on the line for you, sir,’ the corporal sputtered. Behind the trooper, Sergeant Corwyn’s foot crushed a patch of frozen lichen, and he eyed Aerand with a knowing expression.

‘Thank you, Waldamne,’ she replied, flashing the corporal the brightest grin she could manage. No reason the boy should have to bear his commander’s cynicism in addition to the weight of the vox.

As Aerand grabbed the mouthpiece from the corporal’s hand, however, she spotted a quartet of spindly, mechanical silhouettes crossing over the sheer, jagged ridgeline flanking them. She handed the vox-caster back to Waldamne. ‘On second thoughts, tell Kobald I’m coming to him.’

‘Good news only,’ Aerand called, striding down the muddy, pockmarked trail that passed as the closest thing to their small camp’s road.

The lieutenant, a tall, fiery-haired man with dark, freckled skin, raised his violet eyes from his vehicle and gave her a grunt. Technically her peer in rank, Kobald snapped Aerand a quick salute regardless. Of all her platoon commanders, Kobald seemed the most comfortable being led by a fellow lieutenant, and made the least ordeal of their interactions as a result.

‘Depends on your expectations, I suppose, sir.’

Behind Kobald, the remainder of his squadron continued maintenance on their Sentinels. They had stripped nearly all of the protective armour from the tall, bipedal machines after Ourea’s brutal gravity and precipitous inclines had proven overwhelming for even their famously resilient gyro-stabilisers. But the reduction in shielding made them all the more vulnerable to the planet’s harsh elements, and both the vehicles and their pilots were showing signs of wear.

‘All due respect, sir,’ one of Kobald’s troopers called as he chopped chunks of ice and mud from his Sentinel’s footpads with a rusty, dented entrenching tool. ‘S’not all that good no matter what your expectations were.’

‘And if I expect my troopers to keep their opinions to themselves, and perhaps work harder to keep their vehicles clean?’

‘Then you’re going to be doubly disappointed, sir.’

Aerand chuckled. Famously irreverent, Kobald’s Sentinel pilots took as good as they got. She motioned to the bundled object strapped to the back of the Sentinel’s cab.

‘Show me what you’ve got, and let me be the judge of that. If there’s a crate of caff beneath those blankets, I may just give the lieutenant’s squadron to you.’

‘No such luck,’ Kobald said as the trooper removed the frayed olive-grey fabric from the back of the Sentinel and let its contents fall into the snow. The weight of the sound sent a shiver up Aerand’s spine, and by the time Kobald’s troopers began unwrapping the corpses, she was fully prepared for what she would see.

‘Tranch’s Nameless,’ Corwyn muttered as he surveyed the bodies. A young woman and a greying man, whose face reflected the woman’s as only a father’s could. ‘Just like one we found in the caves.’

‘There were others?’

Aerand nodded grimly. ‘Half a dozen, at least. Chained in a cell beneath the cultist outpost.’

Another grunt and a nod. Kobald motioned to the bruises and abraded skin ringing the corpses’ wrists. ‘Not an escape then, but a flight. Found these two frozen about nine miles from the mouth of the western tunnel. There were more footprints on the trail, but the weather had already done its work on any tracks beyond that.’

Aerand nodded. Somehow, the cultists had anticipated their raid and fled further into the mountains, bringing their captives with them – at least those they deemed strong enough to survive. That was important, then. These prisoners were important.

‘Have your pilots bring them back to Argos,’ she ordered. ‘Maybe he can read something more than just tragedy from the patterns of their bruises and bleeding. Between them and the live one, at least.’

Kobald’s violet eyes perked up at that. The first hint of hope she’d seen in any of her troopers since the night before.

Colonel Atreja Yarin was not a woman who relished surprises, so when Aerand entered her tent to find the commander of the Cadian 900th standing over her small field desk, the lieutenant’s heart immediately rose into her throat. Doubly so at the sight of the silver-haired man beside her.

General Markos Rusk needed no insignia to mark his olive-grey battle uniform – his accosting violet eyes and commanding stance announced his rank for him. Neither did he display a breastplate full of medals and ribbons. Rather, the broken, re-formed bones of his nose and left cheek, and the tangled pneumatics and wire of his augmetic right arm, conveyed the merits of his service in far more convincing detail.

‘Colonel. General,’ Aerand managed. ‘I must admit this visit is unexpected.’

‘Intentionally,’ Rusk replied gruffly. ‘Although apparently more of a surprise than the raid your company attempted this morning.’

Aerand winced at the stinging remark. She was tempted to simply withstand the rebuke, but she knew the general expected – demanded, even – that she push back against it.

‘Not entirely a loss, sir.’

‘A prisoner. We know.’ Yarin held up her hand, clearly not pleased with wasting any more time. ‘Half-dead, by the brief report your medicae gave me. The trooper deserves a medal for keeping that broken husk alive this long.’ The colonel’s voice was laden with exasperation, poorly concealed.

Aerand nodded, feeling the same anxiousness herself. ‘With respect, sirs, I stopped by my tent simply to drop off my pack. If you know of the prisoner already, why are you waiting here and not interrogating them?’

Something that might have been a look of unease crossed Rusk’s face briefly, and Aerand felt bile rise in her throat. ‘I thought it best we examine the corpses all at once.’

Outside the small command tent, a trio of bodies lay still on the cold ground. Somehow, the two corpses Kobald’s Sentinels had recovered appeared even paler and more ghastly in the waking grey light of another overcast Ourean day.

As Aerand approached the bodies, Colonel Yarin and General Rusk in her wake, an exasperated Argos stomped towards them.

‘Dead,’ the medicae spat, the word delivered with a venom that caught Aerand by surprise. Argos looked exhausted, his eyes set within deep shadows, his uniform spattered and stained with blood. ‘I leave the Throne-cursed witch alone with my patient for thirty seconds and he’s managed to undo an entire morning of effort. Nearly had the young man talking before he arrived.’

At his comment, the fifth living member of their group turned, and Aerand felt a creeping discomfort rise through her neck. From where he knelt over the third and final corpse, the psyker fixed Aerand with sunken, hollow eyes. Aerand froze, unsteadiness catching her limbs as the man’s gaze rose and fell, studying the lieutenant. Pale grey eyes set deep in a weathered brown face. Crow’s feet ringing those sunken pools of light. Beneath the shadow of the psyker’s crimson cowl, dim light flickered from rows of ageing, corroded wires weaving in and out of the man’s bald scalp like poor stitchwork.

With his attention came a stabbing pain behind Aerand’s forehead, as if a host of unseen fingers were attempting to claw their way into her mind. Aerand pushed back against them and felt their grasp retract. A brief look of surprise crossed the psyker’s face, which then settled back into its resident scowl.

‘Not dead,’ the man remarked to Argos. ‘At least, not all the pieces that count.’ He turned his gaze back to the young man on the ground and pulled his faded, threadbare cloak tighter around himself. Not a noble’s clothes, not as his rank might have earned him. No jewels or power weapons, no gold-plated staff to match the stories she’d heard of the Astra Militarum’s psyker lords. In fact, aside from his gaunt, haunted expression and the fearsome augmetics tracing the man’s skull, little marked him as anything more than a vagrant.

He raised a long, thin hand to the silver aquila brooch at his neck. ‘More importantly, had the prisoner become well enough to speak, he would not have uttered a single word worth believing.’

A terse frown appeared on General Rusk’s face. ‘I doubt Colonel Yarin’s troopers require a lecture on the duplicity of their quarry, Kellipso.’

In reply, the psyker simply shrugged, placing a hand over the young man’s frozen eyes. In his other palm he cradled three small black metal spheres. ‘Rest assured, medicae. If there are answers rooted within this mind, I will tear them out. Now leave me to my work.’

As the psyker turned his attention back towards the corpse, the fingers of his left hand began to dance, the three spheres weaving like a serpent between them. Rusk nodded curtly, and as the officers departed, Aerand felt those same sickening tendrils at her back.

‘Twenty-three miles, sir,’ Aerand remarked coldly. ‘I’ve driven them half the sector in full kit already today. Most haven’t slept more than a few hours in two days.’

‘I know,’ Colonel Yarin replied, her weathered face suddenly appearing impossibly tired. ‘And I’m certain they are exhausted. Yet General Rusk is asking you to push them further. I am asking you to push them further.’

Despite her best effort, a sigh escaped Aerand. Even as she stood here, the ebb and flow of fatigue gripped her in its unforgiving currents. ‘You told me once that you respected my candour, sir. Secundus Company is near its limit. I can push them on a hundred more marches, but my troopers can’t take any more disappointments.’

Yarin sighed. ‘You worry that this venture will be fruitless.’

A nod. ‘All on the word of a psyker General Rusk does not even trust.’

Yarin brushed a calloused hand through her short, steel-grey hair and turned to stare at the crimson-robed man across the clearing. He stood almost a hundred yards from the pair, yet Aerand could not shake the feeling that even at that distance the psyker listened to her every word.

‘Do not discount Jarrah Kellipso,’ Yarin said eventually. ‘Rusk may harbour his own resentment towards his primaris psyker, but the man is capable of much. If he says he has seen into the mind of our enemy, then I, for one, believe him.’

‘At the risk of sounding ungrateful, sir, that does not make me any more comfortable to have him at my back.’

‘Nor should it,’ Yarin replied grimly. ‘Now I believe you have a company to rouse.’

‘I have told you half a hundred times, sergeant. I see minds only in glimpses and impressions.’

Aerand trudged through the snow at the side of her column, exhausted troopers stretched out through the narrow mountain pass. On either side of Secundus Company, Lieutenant Kobald’s Sentinels stalked the forests atop untiring avian legs, providing as much of a picket as the restrictive terrain allowed.

Embedded within her command squad, Corwyn paced beside Jarrah Kellipso, seemingly untouched by the bitter exhaustion that gripped the troopers around him. His gloved hands held a half-folded map in front of the primaris psyker.

‘Yes, sir. I understand, sir,’ the sergeant continued, repeating the same line of questioning for at least the dozenth time. ‘But there’s no chance that one of those glimpses could have been of a specific location on this map? Just want to know how long I should expect to be marching.’

As an exasperated sigh escaped the psyker, Corwyn cast a sly grin Aerand’s way. She’d worried the task of minding the primaris psyker might rub on the sergeant, but it had become clear the reverse was true. For nine miles, Corwyn had hammered Kellipso with unending questions, and the psyker appeared infinitely more fatigued than even the day’s heavy march should have left him.

Kellipso’s crimson robes were mud-stained and frost-crusted, and each stride of his long, unnaturally thin legs seemed to deepen the grimace across the man’s face. Truth be told, it was a wonder he remained upright at all. Ourea’s gravity had proven harsh enough for the troopers of the 900th Regiment – Aerand could only imagine the burden on Kellipso’s gaunt frame.

In his left hand, the man cradled his trio of black spheres, each no larger than the width of a finger, and twirled them continuously in a motion that set Aerand on edge. Slowly, Kellipso looked up as she approached, fixing her with those haunted sky-grey eyes, and Aerand was reminded of Yarin’s warning.

‘Give the lord psyker some rest, Corwyn,’ she muttered, stepping in to take the sergeant’s place. From here, she saw more closely the devices in Kellipso’s hand, near enough to spot the faint blue pattern etched onto their surface, an endless, repeating fractal that made her mind spin.

‘No questions of your own, lieutenant?’ Kellipso asked gruffly, noting her gaze at the fetishes in his grasp.

‘None,’ she managed to reply. But as her gaze drifted away and fell onto the ridgeline beside them, her unease only grew. What she had previously written off as the tactical discomfort of a commander forced to traverse less than ideal terrain now raised the hackles on her back and brought the taste of metal to her tongue.

Corwyn regarded her strangely, as if she were about to faint, when a crushing sense of knowledge suddenly captured her mind. Wherever Kellipso was leading Secundus Company, they had almost arrived. Aerand tightened her grip on her lasgun and turned back towards the psyker. He showed none of her same signs of distress, but a cold chill had entered his expression. His gaze lingered on her a moment, then darted to a peak on the north side of the valley, where two Sentinels scrambled along a scree-covered slope.

Moments later, Kobald’s unsteady voice crackled through the vox. ‘Sir. I think you’ll want to see this for yourself.’

Atop the narrow, windswept ridge, Aerand could see nearly the entire sector. In the sky above, Ourea’s moons cast their foreign orange glow on the peaks and valleys below, covering the planet in a dappled patchwork of shadow and light. A fitting metaphor, perhaps, for this world’s struggle as a whole.

‘By Celestine’s kiss,’ Corwyn muttered, admiring not the mountain landscape but the imposing structure that loomed before them. ‘If that’s not a Throne-cursed fortress then I’m a heretic myself.’

Only a few miles away, at the end of another narrow valley, a massive black bulwark cut its way into the sky. As Aerand rested her eyes on the strange geometry of the structure, a sudden vertigo gripped her, accompanied by the bitter, acrid taste of burnt flesh in her throat.

Moments later an image appeared in her mind, a vague glimpse of carnage. Bodies heaped in a pile. Corpses wearing the grey uniform of her troopers. She shook her gaze away from the structure and the ghastly black scar it left on the landscape. ‘Temple,’ she managed eventually as her balance and her nerve returned. ‘Not a fortress. A temple.’

Kellipso fixed her with a questioning stare, the triplet spheres in his hand spinning more quickly. ‘Whatever purpose it serves, that’s where you will find your quarry.’

A shrug from Corwyn. ‘Either way, full of maddened cultists or not, taking the thing would at least get us out of the snow.’

Aerand nodded, venturing her gaze back towards the temple. This time, no sickly premonition gripped her mind. A shiver ran through her as the prior memories forced their way forward. She had seen something else in that vision, a single figure left alive among all the dead.

As she met Jarrah Kellipso’s icy-grey gaze, she felt the tendrils of the psyker’s mind reaching out subtly towards her. She batted them away and watched the man’s expression harden.

‘Find somewhere in that valley to camp for the night, Corwyn. I’m going to get Colonel Yarin and General Rusk on the vox.’

‘Macharius’ tears,’ Corwyn hissed beside Aerand. ‘It’s like this planet was carved by Chaos itself.’

A chastised look crossed the face of the young vox-bearer as the company sergeant slammed the mouthpiece back into its cradle. Nothing but garbled static echoed from the device.

‘Not your fault, Waldamne,’ Aerand muttered. ‘Sheer valleys, towering peaks, blankets of snow. None of these help our equipment function.’

To the south, grey clouds billowed against the last of a dying sun. Snow flitted gently down at their current position, but the blinding deluge of a blizzard appeared well on its way. Communication had always been problematic on the austere mountain world. Even more so as the companies of the 900th ventured out into those wilds, leaving the larger, immobile relay stations of hard-walled fortresses behind. Even still, a strange suspicion fell over Aerand.

No sooner than she had thought of the man, Jarrah Kellipso wandered into their small command post. All around the slopes of the narrow valley, Secundus Company’s troopers erected small tents in hopes of defending against the oncoming storm. The psyker looked at their preparations with an expression of unease.

‘No time for that, I’m afraid, lieutenant. I’ve been watching the temple, and we need to move, now.’

Corwyn scoffed. ‘Best of luck to you, lord psyker. Those troopers have marched two days and fifty miles on no sleep. I doubt even Guilliman himself could rouse them.’

Kellipso ignored the sergeant, fixing his cold stare against Aerand’s. ‘You have seen that temple. You feel what waits inside.’

Underneath his gaze, Aerand stirred uncomfortably. She had seen what waited, indeed. A vision of her company dead, and of the psyker alone standing amid the ashes.

She plastered a look of innocent incompetence across her face and motioned to the vox-caster beside her. ‘We haven’t been able to reach the regiment for hours. There’s a storm on its way, and my troopers are spent. We should rest here for the night and try again in the morning.’

‘There’s no time,’ Kellipso said again, a growing pressure behind his voice. ‘You know that, just as well as I.’

It was true – she could feel something rising over the ridgeline. Something terrible and unholy in the temple below, but with it also grew her suspicions of Kellipso. That he sought to lead them straight into its gaping maw. ‘Without orders from Colonel Yarin, or General Rusk himself, I’m not throwing my company at that in the dark.’

Kellipso’s sunken eyes rested on her for a moment. ‘Very well,’ he muttered, brushing clear a patch of snow and taking a seat on the frozen ground. ‘You demand approval to do your duty, you shall have it.’

From some hidden pocket of his cloak, the psyker removed the three dark metal spheres and began to spin them in the skeletal fingers of one hand. Slowly at first, each sphere weaving languidly between fingers, then faster until their movements were a blur. Then suddenly, their motion stopped.

A sickening certainty washed over Aerand as the haunted look in the psyker’s eyes vanished completely. Somewhere, miles away, some poor junior trooper or aide to Rusk had just fallen, rising from the ground with the psyker’s mind within them. At the thought alone, Aerand’s skin crawled.

As Kellipso sat before her, mindless, the muscles in his face twitching every few moments, her suspicions swelled like an unchecked tide. The psyker was not responsible for the rough terrain that had plagued their communications on Ourea from the start, but for a man who could cast his mind across miles, how challenging would it be to block a weakened vox signal? How easy to make himself the only conduit through which the rest of the regiment could be reached?

Memories of her terrible vision struck Aerand again. Those three metal spheres twirling in the psyker’s hand as he stood among scores of grey-clad, bloodied corpses. As the psyker opened his eyes, she tasted blood on her tongue.

‘The general agrees,’ Kellipso grunted, rising from the snow with a pained expression. ‘We push forward tonight, or inconveniences like storms and darkness will soon be the smallest of our concerns.’

Aerand turned from the psyker as he trekked back up the slope towards the ridgeline. ‘Find Kobald. Find Vyse,’ she whispered to Corwyn. ‘We need to talk.’

‘Shouldn’t be much farther,’ Kobald muttered. ‘Hasn’t moved from his perch, if my scouts are anything but blind.’

A grunt from Vyse. The tall woman rolled her shoulders in a catlike motion, fingers brushing the pommels of the twin bolt pistols she favoured. ‘Never liked the man. Never trusted a witch.’

A look of agreement from Kobald, and one of cold steel from Corwyn. The sergeant’s famous good humour had long since vanished.

‘With me?’ Aerand asked.

‘Until the end.’

A chill rose through her spine, not of fear but of appreciation. Half a year ago, her platoon had nearly mutinied when she warned them of coming danger. Tonight, it had taken only a few breaths to convince the officers beside her to challenge a primaris psyker. As she crested the rise and saw Kellipso’s crimson-robed form seated on a jagged rock outcropping, Aerand called out the psyker’s name.

‘Kellipso!’

The man did not move from his perch. Instead, he remained seated, wrapped in his tattered crimson robe, his pale eyes fixed on the temple ahead.

‘I spoke to you,’ Aerand called.

The man did not reply.

Beside her, Corwyn took a step forward, raising his lasgun, then crumpled abruptly to the ground. The sickening thud of limp flesh striking cold earth echoed behind Aerand as Kobald and Vyse joined her company sergeant in the snow. A sudden weight crashed down against her, but she forced herself upright and took another step.

At this, Kellipso finally spoke.

‘Not another step,’ the psyker ordered. His voice was a whisper that should have been easily swallowed by the rising wind, yet it rang as clear in her ears as if he stood just beside her. Without turning, he motioned to Corwyn’s and Kobald’s still forms. ‘They aren’t dead, but I can change that. Speak your piece, lieutenant, if you’ve come here to speak. But if you intend to murder me, you will not be the first to fail at that task.’

Aerand heard the certainty in his statement. Even so, she bristled at the accusation.

‘Murder?’ she replied, edging her hand towards her holster. She had killed a witch before, and she could do so again, provided he did not notice her intent until it was too late.

‘Is it murder to defend my own?’ she continued, recalling the bloody image of her vision. Slowly, she raised her arm and took aim at the psyker. ‘I have seen what happens in that temple, lord psyker. I have seen you standing over the bloodied corpses of my troopers. If you seek to betray the Emperor, you had better kill me now, because I will not be part of whatever heretic scheme you intend.’

With that, she edged her finger around the trigger and pulled. Rather than the report of her laspistol, however, she felt only a strange numbness radiate up her arm, and looked down to see that her finger had not moved. Finally, the psyker turned his gaze towards her. Where his eyes had appeared emotionless before, she now saw anger raging beneath their icy surface. She watched, terrified, as Kellipso rose, unable to move her arm, her feet rooted like trees.

‘Betrayal?’ he said softly, as if tasting the word. ‘Heresy? You speak with the certainty of a zealot. As if you alone know the Emperor’s will.’

Once again, the psyker’s eyes traced over her, just like the first time the pair had met. How she wished she had put a las-round in him then. The fingers of his mind brushed against the back of her skull again, and this time she found she could not refuse them. The psyker took a pained step towards her, his left hand beginning to move, the black spheres spinning across his palm like dark moons.

‘I can smell the taint of the warp on you, soldier. I can taste its bitter fire raging through your mind. You believe you’ve been granted an immeasurable gift, but you hold in your hands just the smallest of sparks. If I so desired, I could strip your consciousness bare. Open it wide like a volume before me and tear its fragile pages loose one by one. I could crawl into your skull, and wear your skin, and walk back to your company without a single soul knowing the difference. But even that, child, is nothing compared to the powers you toy with.’

Kellipso stood beside her now, his gaunt chest heaving beneath his threadbare cloak and flak vest, his breath rising and falling in warm waves against her face.

‘You think you saw the future, lieutenant? You think this is the Emperor’s voice, speaking to you through the void? Those tongues that whisper into your dreams are not a blessing, they are a curse.’

With those words, the psyker raised one hand before her face, and she could not take her eyes from the dancing spheres in his grasp.

‘Look again,’ Kellipso ordered, and Aerand’s head snapped to the side. ‘Look long and true, and tell me what you see.’

As Aerand’s eyes fixed on the temple below, a horrible vertigo overwhelmed her, and she felt the psyker’s long fingers reach out to rest over her eyes. No longer did she stand fixed on a mountain ridge, but instead was thrown, fully, into that terrible vision. And atop its sickening, bloody feel, the fingers of Kellipso’s mind gripped hers tight.

Once again she stood in the dark, flame-lit chamber, corpses scattered like chaff around her feet. The dark crimson tinge of blood coated the floor, seeping slowly between crudely fashioned stone blocks, reflecting the glow of blue werelight in strange, terrible patterns. She looked down at faces she recognised all too well.

Kobald. Maltia. Corwyn. Vyse. But as she met the gaze of the crimson-cloaked figure before her, she saw her own dismay mirrored in his eyes.

Slowly, Kellipso lowered his hood, staring with open sorrow at the charnel house around him. All along his scarred and thinly veined scalp, thick cables wove tangled to the base of his neck. Slowly, realisation crossed the psyker’s face, and all the anger of a moment before vanished, replaced by an expression of abject pity.

‘Tell me what you see, now, lieutenant,’ Kellipso ordered, his voice hardly more than a whisper in her mind. ‘Look into my eyes and tell me that this is my intention, and not my single greatest fear.’

Even as he spoke, Aerand felt the truth of those words. Felt the crushing pain radiating from the psyker. The unimaginable burden of a man hearing the screams of the dead, which had long since fallen silent to the rest of the living.

‘I-I’m not certain,’ she stammered. And even as she spoke, her vision dissipated and she felt herself fall onto her hands and knees. Before her on the ridgeline, Kellipso himself appeared staggered, but the psyker bore it with only a look of unease.

‘I do not envy you,’ he whispered eventually. ‘I remember well the awakening of my own psychic gifts. You are afraid, no doubt, of what you are becoming. Afraid that your future is staring you in the face.’

Aerand shifted uncomfortably beneath the truth of Kellipso’s words. Aye, she was afraid. Afraid of her visions. Afraid of herself. Afraid of becoming like the psyker before her. A twisted old woman full of misery and self-loathing, looking back on a life full of endless lies. But perhaps even more than all of that, she was afraid of the inexplicable desire within her to embrace that fate rather than run from it.

Noting her discomfort, Kellipso lifted his hood, covering again his scarred scalp and the twisted weight of his augmetics. ‘I have not been cursed with the gift of foresight, lieutenant, but believe my words when I promise you this. Chaos speaks in a multitude of voices, and nearly all of them whisper lies. I do not know what you saw. A future, perhaps. But if so, only one possible among millions. But I have touched the edge of the shadow gathering strength down below, and there is no uncertainty, no duplicity there. Whatever it intends is far darker than any vision your mind could conjure.’

Slowly, the psyker reached a thin, pale arm towards Aerand. ‘Fate and destiny are the domain of the heretic and the witch. The only destiny you serve is the one you create, with every word that you speak and every step you take forward. The Emperor would have it no other way.’

Aerand took his grasp and rose to her feet. ‘So we charge in, then?’ she asked. ‘Blind and alone?’

‘No. Not blind,’ Kellipso replied slowly. ‘And certainly not alone.’

In his hand, the spheres began to dance.

The dark air rippled before Aerand as she strode across the alpine plain. Crusted ice over lichen shattered beneath her boots, a strangely muffled sound that seemed to die only yards from its source. Let the psyker downplay his skill if he wished, but to cast a glamour over an entire company of soldiers was no small feat.

As Aerand watched Kellipso walking comfortably, no visible distraction in his step, a sense of awe, and shame, crept over her. Hours ago she had been ready to kill the man – or rather, to try. She had no illusions now that she would have been the one dead in the exchange. Hours ago she had been convinced of his disloyalty, but now she trusted him as fully as any of her own. She had seen the terrible sorrow in his eyes. Seen his utter dismay at the vision that plagued her. And of those gathered here, only he shared her knowledge of what might await them.

Beside her, Corwyn eyed the psyker suspiciously. ‘My head still hurts,’ he murmured, too quietly for anyone else to hear.

Aerand grimaced. To their credit, the sergeant and her lieutenants had kept quiet about the stand-off atop the ridgeline, but it was asking too much for them to trust the psyker too. ‘Corwyn, I’m sorry.’

The sergeant cut her off. ‘Then again, maybe it’s just my bruised ego I’m feeling. I’m sure Vyse has marked his name on a few of her bolts. But don’t worry about us – she won’t use them unless he gives her good reason.

‘Besides’ – a small smile crept across the sergeant’s face as he rubbed at the back of his head gingerly – ‘I doubt she’d have a chance to get the shot off before he dropped her to the ground again.’

Ahead, the temple stood like a hole in the skyline itself, an even blacker patch of darkness in an already empty firmament. As they approached the jagged, rising walls, the back of Aerand’s neck began to burn. She looked over to Kellipso, who nodded gruffly. ‘Cultists on the other side of the wall. Not yet alerted to our presence.’

Aerand stood silent, awaiting his further instructions, but the psyker simply shook his head. ‘I know little of tactics and the leading of soldiers. What you do with that information is up to you. I will be your eyes and your ears, lieutenant, but you must be our will.’

Aerand nodded, stepping onto the sweeping bridge that separated the temple from the valley over a broad, bottomless chasm. She might be ignorant when it came to visions and divination, but she was far from unschooled in the intricacies of war.

‘Vyse, Graves, Kobald, on me. Lord psyker, prepare to drop that glamour.’

The laspistol sang in Aerand’s hands. A jarring rhythm that shook her bones and comforted her all at once. Around her, the temple courtyard blazed with red fire as the volleys of two platoons tore into an unprepared mass of cultists. Aerand had made no offer of surrender. Their enemy had refused that gift long ago.

Already, the dark stone was littered with pale corpses, the tattooed sigils, arcane brands and savage mutilations of Chaotic rites now invisible beneath the sheen of fresh blood. She took no joy in the killing itself, only in the finality of the confrontation after months of fruitless pursuit and flight.

‘Drusus’ countenance!’ Sergeant Corwyn snapped as another mob of cultists rounded a corner to converge on Secundus Company, crudely fashioned clubs and spears mixed in among energy weapons. ‘No wonder all our raids have come up dry for the last season. Every Throne-cursed cultist on the planet has been hiding here.’

Aerand suspected her sergeant was correct, and that did little to shrink the knot in her gut. With Kobald’s Sentinels patrolling outside the walls to prevent any flanking sortie from the enemy, she had less than a hundred troopers inside the temple. One hundred Cadians against how many cultists? One thousand? Ten? Less than ideal, but all things considered, she would take those odds any given day.

As Aerand sprinted from one debris pile to another, Corwyn followed closely in her wake. On her right, Vyse’s heavies laid down beam after beam of searing lascannon fire, pushing along the natural curve of the temple’s battlements, while Graves’ platoon covered their left flank, already embedded in the cover of a crumbled enceinte. If needed, they could hold these positions all night, but her soldiers were here to conquer, not defend.

Behind her, Kellipso strode undeterred through the tumult, the trio of spheres in the psyker’s left hand flickering like shadows. Aerand watched another group of cultists emerge from deep within the temple only to charge straight into the enfilading fire of one of Vyse’s autocannons, as if they had not even noticed the threat. A chill spread up her spine as she wondered what hand the primaris psyker had in the enemy’s foolhardy decision-making.

‘How many?’ she asked, dropping behind a stone pillar. Kellipso remained on his feet, las-bolts soaring past his hooded head.

The psyker shrugged. ‘Does it matter? More than enough.’

‘Very well then, lord psyker. Lead us on.’

Kellipso nodded, then walked towards a low door in the wall ahead. As Aerand passed through behind him, a sick feeling settled in the pit of her stomach. Something in the colour of the stone and the musty, bloodied scent in the air brought her back once again to her vision on the ridge.

She paused for half a breath, turning to face Corwyn behind her. ‘Stay close. Stay ready.’

The sergeant simply nodded.

Two rounds into a woman’s bare chest. Another straight into the face of a young man barely old enough to join a Whiteshield platoon. Aerand buried her disgust and strode past both bodies.

Ahead, Kellipso walked on, unhindered, the psyker barely present behind his own eyes. Thirteen turns, seven staircases, every step carrying them deeper into the mountain itself, that taste of blood and bile rising higher with each step.

Aerand had seen tragedy here, and it haunted her now. Memories that had not yet happened. That might never happen if the psyker lord spoke true. Even still, she could not help but relive them, and they were nearly enough to make her turn back.

In contrast, Kellipso’s curse haunted him still, the ever-pressing madness that afflicted their deranged enemy encroaching against his own mind through theirs. The psyker had turned back to face her only once since they’d entered the temple proper, and she’d nearly toppled beneath the weight of that horror.

Down another corridor, this one unlit. Then two turns in succession to face a final staircase. Aerand knew what waited down below. Had she not seen it in her mind a dozen times already? Chaos. Death. The gathering darkness. Some arcane ritual or twisted cultist contraption. A heretic priestess, or simply masses of more Chaos-maddened fools. Whatever form the evil of this world had taken, this was where it had chosen to make its stand. And this was where her premonition had led her.

Here, the stone on the floor of the corridor had worn smooth with time, and the carved friezes on the walls faded to mere shadows. At the base of the staircase stood a narrow arch, and Aerand shuddered as light flickered up from within.

Blue. The terrible, unforgettable blue of witchfire and madness that haunted her visions. Ahead of her, Kellipso paused. His weathered face flickered strangely in the awful werelight, his eyes failing to reflect its unnatural hue. ‘I believe that we come now to the end, but I cannot say what lies ahead.’

Aerand nodded in reply to his unasked question. She was ready. Her troopers were ready. And Kellipso may not know what awaited them, but she had already lived through the worst possible fate. She turned slowly to face her company.

‘On the corridor, Vyse. Graves, your rifles with me.’ Her lieutenants nodded and peeled off with their platoons.

Aerand swallowed, recalling her vision one last time. The worn, bloodied stone. The empty, dead faces of the friends around her.

‘Corwyn,’ she began.

‘With you, sir. Always.’

Aerand nodded and dived into the terrible blue light.

A large chamber reared before her, older than any she had seen previously on this world. Here, the shadows grew thick and cloying, seeming to defy the cold white beam of her helm lumen.

In the centre of the room stood a ring of stone chairs. Facing each other, two dozen emaciated prisoners were chained to those seats. Thin, rusted cables stretched from the bases of their skulls and passed to a small black pillar in the centre of the ring. And in the air just above that ancient black pillar was the source of the chamber’s terrible light – a small sphere of flickering, abhorrent blue flame.

Beside her, Kellipso halted, stunned.

‘You’ve seen the like of this before,’ Aerand said.

The psyker’s face contorted in pain, truly unnerved for the first time since she had met him. ‘Not with my own eyes, but I know its design well enough. A fate I myself only narrowly escaped.’

‘Unpleasant for them?’ Corwyn asked.

‘Pure torment,’ he replied. With a shudder, the psyker surveyed the contraption. ‘Fortunately for us, however, not fully active yet.’

Aerand walked towards the captive nearest to her. A young woman – about the lieutenant’s age – her body riven with symbols that made Aerand shudder. She turned to face Kellipso, taking in the pained expression on his face.

Slowly, the psyker approached, eyes distant, those spheres motionless in his hands for the first time since she had met him. He reached out towards the cable at the base of the young woman’s skull, but as his hand closed around the crusted, bloodied metal, the chamber around them exploded with sound.

Half a shout escaped the lieutenant as the report of an autogun echoed off cold stone walls, accompanied by a muzzle flash from one of the room’s shadowy alcoves. Slowly, a dark red flower bloomed in the centre of Kellipso’s forehead, and the psyker slumped awkwardly to the ground. As she reached out to catch him, she blinked at the sound of more autogun fire. But when she opened her eyes, the room around her was silent and Kellipso stood unharmed beside the door, only beginning to approach. A sickening wave of nausea rolled over Aerand as the primaris psyker reached out towards the young woman in the chair.

‘No,’ she whispered, snatching Kellipso’s hand. She pulled him to the ground as the crack of an autogun split the room. Beside them, the young woman’s eyes flashed open, and she let out a terrible, piercing wail. As she did so, the chamber erupted with motion.

Aerand’s laspistol kicked as she fired into the shadowy alcove that had produced the shot directed at Kellipso. With a satisfying thud, a lifeless body struck stone, and Corwyn opened fire with his lasgun behind her.

Suddenly, the dozen prisoners around her woke in unison, their cries rising above the las-fire of her troopers, and in the centre of the room, the blue flame surged. From half a dozen hidden entrances cultists streamed, the edges of the chamber descending into bloody melee as Graves’ troopers raised their weapons and joined the fray.

‘Corwyn!’ Aerand shouted above the din. ‘Get Vyse’s heavies in here! I want an autocannon on every one of those doors.’

Aerand rolled over to face Kellipso, but the psyker had already risen to his feet. Slowly, he surveyed the room around him, unfazed by bolts and las-rounds skirting past his face. A terrible anguish was etched into his eyes, and as he looked towards her, the spheres in his hand began to spin.

‘Kellipso!’ she shouted, levelling her laspistol at the nearest doorway. She pulled the trigger on repeat as a group of battle-mad cultists charged through. A trio of troopers fell under the grouped melee. All around her, her soldiers toppled like timber, and the spheres in the psyker’s hands continued to whirl.

Smoke and blood filled the chamber with their gruesome aroma as the las-charred flesh of cultists fell beside the battered, bloody corpses of Cadians. In the centre of the chamber, that blue fire pulsed, its light rising and falling with the screams of the psykers who produced it. As the tempo rose, a sickening fear gripped Aerand.

She had been here before. She had seen how this ended.

Forward she dived, into the melee, her laspistol blazing. A round into the forehead of the cultist before her. Two more into the stomach of the woman behind him. Somewhere, Corwyn had managed to find Vyse’s heavies, and a pair of autocannons roared, but still the cultists rushed in.

In the centre of it all, Kellipso stood unmoving, the spheres in his hand whirling ever faster until they were nothing more than a blur.

‘Kellipso!’ Aerand shouted one final time. She had trusted the psyker. She had trusted herself. And all around her, Secundus Company died.

Raging, she crashed into a wall of cultists, firing las-rounds point-blank into searing flesh. From behind, a crude bone mace struck her head. As her face hit stone, the horrible vision returned, not imagined this time but visible in truth. Blood on the floor of this Throne-cursed chamber, Kellipso standing alone in the centre of the fray.

Aerand raised her arms to shield herself from the inevitable killing blow, but none came, and when she opened her eyes, the room was still.

+Hold.+

A single word reverberated through her mind.

+Hold.+

Aerand tried to turn her head to face the cultist above her but found that only her eyes would move. With effort, she fought the iron grasp that had suddenly latched on to her mind, and realised she recognised its touch. She threw her mind against it and managed just enough space to turn her head towards the centre of the room.

+Hold.+

Aerand watched Kellipso’s lips move in time with the word in her mind. In time with the word in the minds of every person in this temple. All across the ancient, stone-paved chamber, Cadian troopers lay motionless on the floor, thrown to the ground by the weight of the psyker’s command. Above them, an army of Chaos-maddened cultists stood dumbstruck, swinging knives and levelling weapons at enemies no longer within their reach. Slowly, Kellipso’s grey eyes met Aerand’s, blazing, as the spheres in his hand rose into the air. For a moment, their fractal pattern flared with blue fire, then the three spheres unravelled into a cloud of myriad perfect shards. With a flick of the primaris psyker’s wrist, that cloud rushed around the room like a swarm.

Aerand flinched at the sound of bodies dropping. Felt the thud of dead flesh against solid stone. A bloodied thigh bone clattered to the floor beside her, and the weight of a body collapsed across her. Warm blood trickled down from the cultist’s corpse and seeped through her flak armour as she tried to push the man off her chest.

+Hold.+

The command echoed through her mind yet again, but with less power this time. At the centre of the room, Kellipso began to fade. All around Aerand, cultists still fell to the psyker, but the pained expression on his face only deepened further as the dead piled up on the temple’s floor. As if fed by their blood, the blue flame in the chamber’s centre blazed brighter, tendrils flickering outward like rays of some terrible, hungry sun.

+Hold.+

So little left in that word. So little power the psyker had held back for himself. Guilt and fear gripped Aerand once again. Whatever confidence Jarrah Kellipso exuded, the man had been afraid. Afraid of the vision that Aerand had shown him. And now he sought its reverse. He would empty himself dry to save the soldiers around him, and by doing so he would spell their doom.

Behind Kellipso, that whirling ball of Chaos still spun, swelling suddenly, even as the psyker grew weaker. Too late, Kellipso turned to face it, to see the horrible, ravenous desire in its light. Empty now, laid bare, the psyker stood defenceless, and what a wonderful prize he would be.

With a shout Aerand shoved the corpse from atop her, then leapt unsteadily to her feet. As the terrible fire reached out towards Kellipso, she stumbled past the psyker and then fell to her knees. Scrambling on her hands, she reached out through the shadows, grasping the cable at the base of a prisoner’s skull and ripping it loose in a gout of blood and crusted fluid.

Above her, the flickering werelight reeled, drawing back from Kellipso, who pushed his last energy towards it. ‘The others,’ the psyker muttered, sweat beading across his wax-pale face.

Slowly, Aerand pushed herself onto her feet, bruised muscles and battered bones protesting every movement. Across the room, grey-clad bodies began to rise from the ground as Cadian troopers spotted their commander on her feet. One by one, rusted cables clattered to the floor, and the terrible blue fire began to fade.

The morning sun that streaked through the clouds above appeared bright and scalding beyond all reason.

‘If I never spend another moment beneath ground, I will live and die a happy man.’ Sergeant Corwyn cracked an irreverent smile as he stepped out from beneath the temple’s shadow and into the bright, unforgiving light.

Aerand did her best to smile back at her sergeant. A wave of gratitude washed over her at the expression on his face, so full of life. So distant from the empty, cold one in her vision. Even still, his lively smile could not erase the image of the dead, both real and envisioned, from her mind.

Across the courtyard, Kobald’s scouts piled casualties. Mostly the half-naked, starved forms of their cultist enemies in a large, unceremonious pile to be burned, but enough corpses in grey flak armour to make her stomach churn.

Two score – three? – dead from Secundus Company. Within her first days on the planet she had seen half of her platoon dead. Now, she had lost almost half of the first company given to her.

Behind her, Kellipso walked slowly through the arch. The man was pale, his eyes even darker and more sunken. Despite his lanky stature, he seemed somehow diminished. And yet somehow so much larger within her mind.

How many more corpses would her conscience carry had the primaris psyker not been with her today? How many fewer dead cultists, bearing those strange, small wounds of a thousand flechettes piercing their bodies like flies?

The psyker walked unsteadily into the sunlight, leading a young woman slowly by the hand. Around her shoulders she wore the psyker’s tattered crimson cloak, and she bore an expression somehow even more empty than that of the weathered man beside her.

Slowly, Aerand limped towards them and reached out her hand.

‘Thank you,’ Kellipso muttered as he took the three black metal spheres from her grasp. ‘For seeing what I couldn’t.’ The moment the psyker had collapsed, his cloud of flechettes had returned to him, crawling over one another like a swarm of insects to re-form into these perfect spheres. Inexplicably, they bore no evidence of the transition. Not a single scratch on their immaculate surface. Not the faintest hint of blood.

‘And to you, lord psyker,’ Aerand replied. ‘For the same.’

Kellipso grunted in acknowledgement.

Aerand turned slowly to face the young woman. Behind her, a small huddle of Oureans walked, Vyse supporting a pair of youths with her arms. As Aerand’s gaze settled onto the woman, she felt a familiar wave rise up behind her neck.

The psyker took notice. ‘Please, do not look towards their futures. I know well enough what the Black Ships hold in store. It would do them no favour to bear that knowledge any sooner than they must.’

‘Not for them,’ Aerand replied softly. ‘For me. I would rather know what the Inquisition has in store.’

A look of confusion, then sympathy, from the psyker. ‘You mean to turn yourself in.’

Aerand nodded slowly. Twice since landing on this Throne-cursed planet, the warp taint on her had cost troopers their lives. ‘They deserve better,’ she whispered.

Kellipso stopped. ‘And you? What do you believe you deserve?’

‘Nothing,’ she replied. ‘Whatever the Emperor wills.’

That earned her a nod, and the psyker began walking again. ‘And if the Emperor wills you to remain where you are? I’ve seen you lead, lieutenant, and I can promise you this – your soldiers will find no better commander than you.’ Kellipso glanced over his shoulder at Kobald and Vyse. ‘It is rare loyalty that inspires soldiers to risk their lives so. And I’m afraid that’s precisely what the Emperor needs.’

Aerand shook her head. ‘And how much of a risk is it to their lives to simply keep me near at hand?’

‘Less than if you leave,’ Kellipso replied. His gaze grew distant for a moment, as if he were struggling to find the words to say next. ‘And the powers within you are still young. They would not run unchecked beneath my careful eye.’

A look of confusion crossed Aerand’s face. ‘What are you offering?’

Kellipso shrugged. ‘The scholastica is not the only place for a burgeoning psyker to learn. I do not claim any special talents as a teacher, nor do I promise any certainty of the results.’

Aerand opened her mouth to reply, but before she could, she felt the clasp of a heavy hand on her shoulder. ‘Lord psyker, lieutenant,’ Sergeant Corwyn said. ‘Urgent vox from the colonel. Sounds like trouble back on the regiment’s end.’

‘Go on then, lieutenant,’ Kellipso replied, and for a brief moment his frown faded to something softer. ‘It appears your soldiers have need of you after all.’

REFUGE

STEVE LYONS

The city reminded Guardsman Lucius Myer of home.

That was the second-worst thing about this assignment. The worst, to his mind, was the nature of some of his allies.

‘I saw them in the mess,’ a young colleague had confided in him aboard the troop ship that had conveyed them here. ‘They were shackled, of course, but their eyes… One barely glanced at me, but I felt its gaze could strip away my flesh.’

‘Captain Blukher invited them aboard,’ Myer had reminded him sharply. ‘It is not our place to question his reasons.’ He was a loyal soldier, after all – and a soldier of Mordian, which meant even more.

‘No. Of course not. I never would,’ the youngster had insisted hastily. ‘I am only concerned that, in the heat of battle, I may find myself unable to… well, trust my life to them, as I ought to a comrade in arms.’

Myer had nodded grimly. ‘We must both strive to overcome such failings.’

They descended through the hive’s pulsating heart.

The grand cathedrals, public statuary and transplanted flora of its upper reaches gave way to modest squares with fountains, bordered by Administratum offices. Then came the straight lines, harsh angles and pennants of the military training centres, though fewer in number than they had been on the home world. Myer felt a twinge of sorrow as he passed through those levels.

As achingly familiar were the factories, forges and functional hab-blocks of the teeming majority, wave after wave of them, each a little gloomier, grimier than the one above, the filtered air tasting ever staler.

At every level, heads turned to Myer’s platoon. Work patterns faltered, if only for a second, as even shift overseers found their attention distracted.

They formed a perfect square atop the massive platform lift, standing stiffly to attention. Their boots, belt buckles, cap peaks and rifle barrels gleamed. Not a wrinkle imposed upon their crisp, gold-trimmed blue uniforms.

The eyes of those above regarded them with tacit approval. The eyes of those below shone with unsophisticated awe. Myer had become well used to such reactions. Still, his chest inflated with patriotic pride.

Mordian had fallen to a cowardly attack, but its people were unbowed. The Mordian Iron Guard was the most expertly disciplined of the Emperor’s fighting forces, the best and brightest of humanity. They represented hope in the darkest of days.

It pained Myer, therefore, that some eyes slid over their massed ranks to alight upon the dishevelled wretches beside them – and that the awe quickly faded from those eyes, driven out by apprehension and revulsion.

The psykers numbered seven in all. A single squad, though Lieutenant Gunderson had called them a ‘choir’ in his briefing. He had also called them ‘Wyrdvanes’, a word unfamiliar and unnatural-sounding to Myer. They were outnumbered thirteen to one by the Mordians, which was some comfort.

Commissar Steinhardt had been assigned to the Wyrdvanes alone. She was keeping them in line as best she could. Even under the threat of her pistol, they slouched and squirmed and occasionally let out little groans.

They wore tattered cloaks over regulation flak armour. Each wielded a stout staff taller than itself, crowned by the two-headed Imperial eagle cast in silver, perched atop a single eye. Myer was unconvinced by the trappings of fealty. He couldn’t help feeling that they profaned the sacred symbol by their use of it.

Five of them were male, two female. All had a certain sallow look in common. Lifeless grey hair hung in strings from lifeless grey heads. Myer had studied them aboard the ship – furtively, from afar – for mutations. He had seen none.

The Wyrdvanes were mutants, all the same, touched by the warp. They hid their corruption inside of them.

He kept his chin up, head back, gaze fixed directly ahead. He tried not to think about the mutants, but with little success. They lurked on the fringes of his senses, seeming to exude an aura of ineffable wrongness.

‘We are heading to a world near the edge of the Cicatrix Maledictum,’ the lieutenant had announced. ‘The local militia are struggling to contain a mutant problem. A short, sharp show of force has been requested.’

It had all sounded simple enough, what Myer’s old sergeant would have called a ‘training session’. Only one platoon had been assigned, accordingly. They were scheduled to rejoin their regiment in three days’ time.

His current sergeant had sounded a note of caution.

‘I’ve heard disturbing reports from that sector,’ Schtiel had confided in Myer. ‘A marked increase in mutations, for example. In some ways, so close to the Great Rift, it isn’t surprising. Corruption spreads.’

On a dingy maintenance level, the lift screeched and juddered to a halt.

Gunderson re-formed his small force into two ranks, then fell in at their head. He marched them along broad, soot-blackened tunnels. Lume-globes lined the walls, but half were dead or in their final, sputtering throes.

The Wyrdvanes marched ahead of the Iron Guard troopers. The commissar yelled at them when they stumbled out of line, and occasionally clubbed one with her pistol butt to underscore a point. Myer approved. Corruption only spreads, he thought, to those lacking in discipline.

They marched for another hour or more. They broke step to clatter down several wide staircases and, at one point, to clamber down a rusted ladder. The tunnels grew narrower, dirtier and darker, until the only light came from guttering refuse fires, of which there were many. The stench of sewage thickened the air, and sludge sucked at their polished boots.

So, this, thought Myer, is the underhive.

All cities had areas like this one – even those of the home world, even back in better times. Ramshackle slum dwellings here housed the dispossessed – those rendered, by mental or physical feebleness, unfit to serve the Emperor. They scattered to the shadows at the approach of the Mordian force, so that all Myer knew of them were their scuttling footsteps and the sounds of slamming doors.

One of the Wyrdvanes whispered to Commissar Steinhardt. She spoke to Gunderson in turn, and he halted the platoon. The officers conversed briefly, and both consulted the Wyrdvanes again. Then Gunderson gave the order: ‘About turn.’

Myer stood to attention, staring back the way he had come.

His neck hairs bristled as footsteps sloshed up the tunnel behind him.

Gunderson threaded his way between his immobile Guardsmen. The Wyrdvanes followed, herded by the commissar. A tattered grey cloak brushed lightly against Myer’s arm. He tightened his fists around the seams of his uniform trousers, willing himself not to flinch.

The lieutenant led them off again.

Little more than a hundred yards later, he turned them down another flight of steps and then a ramp. It was clear to Myer now that the Wyrdvanes were plotting their course. He thought they must have reached the very bottom of the hive by now – because surely there could be no dingier, more foetid levels still?

He soon learned that he was wrong.

The suspicion occurred to him that they were being led into a trap. He told himself fiercely, It is not my place to question. He couldn’t suppress the unworthy thought, however, and it festered in the back of his mind.

By the time they halted again, Myer had lost all sense of where he was. Underground, he thought, deep underground, but he couldn’t be sure of even this.

Clearly, however, they had almost reached their goal. Gunderson allowed his troops to stand at ease while he sent a pair of scouts along the tunnel. They returned a few minutes later with a positive report.

Gunderson addressed the platoon. He could have used the vox-net but chose to speak aloud, caring not if he was overheard.

‘Three hundred and thirty-seven yards ahead of us, there is an opening in the tunnel wall. A barricade has been constructed across it, behind which our targets are assumed to be cowering. Sergeant Kanvald, you will see to that?’

‘Yes, sir,’ acknowledged Kanvald, who led the demolition squad.

‘We know neither the layout nor the extent of the occupied area. We cannot be sure that there are no hidden routes out of it. As soon as we are through the barricade, therefore, we will fan out as widely as the geography allows. We must cover as much ground as we possibly can before they have a chance to get away.

‘As you know, we have been tasked to deal with mutant filth specifically. As you also know, not all mutations are visible to the naked eye.’ Contempt curled the officer’s lips as he spoke. Myer’s eyes flickered to the seven Wyrdvanes, but they showed no reaction.

‘Everybody – every creature – on the far side of that barricade is in open defiance of the Emperor’s will. Resistance will be met with lethal force, as always. Any target who surrenders to His authority, however, must not be harmed wherever possible. Yes, that applies to mutants too.’

No one questioned him, of course. Still, Myer detected quiet intakes of breath from all around him. One might have been his own. Never had these troopers been ordered to spare a mutant’s life before. He could only imagine one reason why they would be, and he didn’t like it much.

‘One final word,’ said Gunderson. ‘You have all been trained to defend against psychic attacks. Take a moment to remember the techniques you were taught and be ready to employ them. Above all, remember that a disciplined mind, a focused mind, is a safe mind. Understood?’

‘Yes, sir,’ the troopers chorused.

Kanvald led her squad of ten forward, and they disappeared around the bend of the tunnel. A long minute of silence followed.

As Myer stood and waited, the darkness seemed to thicken around him. His heart, he realised, was beating faster and his palms were sweating. I am not afraid, he told himself. An Iron Guard soldier is never afraid. Never again.

He had never faced a psyker before, however. He had never felt the power of the warp turned upon him. What if he wasn’t strong enough to resist it? Corruption spreads. Myer had long since accepted his own mortality. He was prepared to die in the Emperor’s service, by sword or gun or claw or explosive device. But there were fates more dreadful than death.

He felt the weight of those possible fates upon him. His chest felt tight. His ribcage was being crushed. He couldn’t breathe.

A moan escaped from Myer’s throat. He stifled it, but knew his comrades in arms must surely have heard it. Blood rushing to his cheeks shocked him back to the present, to the tunnel – where others were moaning to themselves and grimacing too.

Sergeant Schtiel, beside him, gritted his teeth in pain, while even Lieutenant Gunderson was wincing, massaging his temples with his thumbs.

‘We’re under attack,’ Myer spluttered, snapping up his lasgun. He had no target, but the action itself made him feel more in control.

Other Guardsmen did the same, while another squad’s sergeant gasped, ‘Resist it. The feelings are not real. They come from without, not from within.’

‘It’s them. It’s the Wyrdvanes,’ another voice yelled, and suddenly, a score of guns were turned upon the psykers in their midst.

‘Filthy traitors–’

‘Knew we couldn’t trust–’

‘No such thing as a good–’

‘No!’ Steinhardt’s commanding tones rang out as the commissar placed herself between the guns and their targets. ‘Lower your weapons. All of you.’

‘Sir, they’re playing tricks on our minds. They must be–’

‘That is an order, Guardsman,’ the commissar snapped, and the Mordians acceded to the instincts drilled into them from childhood. They obeyed, albeit with visible reluctance.

Myer lowered his gun too, but his eyes remained fixed on the Wyrdvanes. They had hardly reacted to being threatened, except to shrink away from the soldiers a little. He searched their eyes for malice, but all he saw was dull incomprehension – which made him despise them all the more.

Then came a fierce explosion. The blast shook the tunnel and dislodged a shower of dust and dirt from its roof. It pattered on Myer’s cap and golden epaulettes. Still, he maintained his rigid position, trusting in Sergeant Kanvald’s expertise. He had nothing to worry about, he told himself.

And, as the dust settled, Myer found himself breathing freely again. The dread weight had lifted from him, as if it had never been. He was flooded with heady relief, tempered by a healthy dose of self-reproach for his transient weakness.

Lieutenant Gunderson cocked his head, listening to the vox-bead in his ear. ‘I am told that the way into the enemy’s lair is clear,’ he announced. He cleared his throat, a little embarrassed. ‘Which may have something to do with the, ah, the easing of certain problems experienced by some of us.’

He took a breath and continued. ‘You have your orders. I know you will honour those uniforms you wear and add to the proud achievements of the Mordian people. Now, go, go, go!’

‘You know this ship is guided by a mutant?’

Myer had been in the mess hall, back aboard the troop ship, trying to reassure a group of rookies as they stripped down their lasguns for cleaning.

‘That’s different!’

‘How so? Without a Navigator, there would be no ships like this one. Which means there would be no Imperium.’

‘But they keep it chained. And drugged, I heard, to ensure its obedience. And they keep it well away from decent people.’

‘We don’t have to look at it, you mean. All the same, we trust our lives to it every time we travel.’ Even Myer had suppressed a shudder at that thought.

‘It isn’t the same,’ a rookie had insisted sullenly. ‘It isn’t the same as having to fight alongside them.’

‘What I’m saying is…’ Myer had chosen his next words carefully. ‘The Imperium has decided that some mutants are a necessary evil. By which I mean, their profane powers can be harnessed for a greater good.’

A hole had been blown through the tunnel wall.

They trampled over blasted fragments of brickwork and driftwood, into a smoke and dust haze. There were bodies amid the debris too. Myer realised this when he trod on something soft and looked down into a lifeless, sallow face.

‘There’s another one over there,’ said Sergeant Schtiel. ‘They must have been right behind the barricade when it blew. It must have been they who–’

An eruption of gunfire interrupted him.

Some of the Mordians leapt for cover. Myer didn’t have any to hand, so dropped to one knee to lessen his profile. A bullet whistled past his ear, so close that he could feel its heat. He was almost relieved. Gunfire, he was used to. Gunfire, he understood – and he knew how to respond to it.

There were multiple snipers, muzzles flashing in the unknown expanse before him like exploding stars. Myer used those lights to guide his aim. He flicked off his rifle’s safety lever and pumped its trigger. He sent beam after beam of searing radiance back along the paths of the bullets.

He was joined in this endeavour by dozens of comrades in arms; their combined fire near blinded his eyes. He couldn’t tell if his beams were striking true. The gratifying sounds of dying screams reached him, and the barks of the enemy’s guns had certainly lessened – but not by half as much as he might have expected.

A bullet struck the Guardsman to Myer’s left, who grunted and sagged into the rubble, clutching at his side.

‘Half our shots aren’t getting through. They’re shielded, somehow.’ The vox-report came from someone presumably further forward than Myer.

‘They’ll pin us down here if we let them,’ someone else added.

Myer recognised Lieutenant Gunderson’s voice. ‘Their protection is only effective against attacks at range.’ He didn’t question how the officer knew this – it was his job to know things. ‘Close up, they will lose that advantage.’

‘You heard the officer,’ Schtiel bellowed to his Guardsmen. ‘On your feet, but keep your heads down. Keep your guns firing – and advance upon the enemy placements.’ The air rang with the roars of other sergeants issuing similar orders.

Myer scrambled forward, hard on his sergeant’s heels. He heard the heavy coughs of a pair of grenade launchers behind him. Their payloads arced over his head and burst in front of him. They belched out thick, concealing smoke, which at least reduced the amount of incoming fire.

He ploughed on through the cloud, although it made his eyes itch. He picked up speed as he cleared the barricade’s debris and the ground beneath him became more level, less treacherous. He had an impression of open space around him.

He almost collided with a ladder in his path, stopping short just in time. He thought the shape huddled at its base was a bundle of rags, until it shuddered and wheezed and coughed up bile, and as he stepped towards it, the mutant – he assumed it was a mutant – squealed and fumbled for an ancient percussion rifle.

Myer shot it in the head.

A fierce crackle of bright blue energy made his teeth ache – and the mutant was impossibly unhurt. It seemed as surprised as he was, which gave him a moment to remember the lieutenant’s words and to ram his bayonet through its throat instead. The mutant choked in a puddle of its own dark, stinking blood.

Sergeant Schtiel screamed. Myer whirled around, his heart leaping into his throat. Never had he heard any Mordian sergeant make such a terrible sound.

Schtiel was outlined by a coruscating, spitting bright blue aura. His back was arched in pain, his muscles in spasms. Before Myer could do anything – before he could think of what to do – the aura faded and the sergeant dropped heavily to his knees. His eyes rolled back into his head and he fell onto his face.

An acrid smell of burning hair made Myer’s nostrils pucker.

Schtiel was still twitching, still gasping for breath. Myer rushed to him with four of his squad mates. They formed a protective circle around their leader, their backs to each other. With his rear thus protected, Myer scanned the shadows ahead of him. ‘Can anyone see it?’ he yelled, but no one answered him.

Then something flashed blue in his peripheral vision, and another trooper stiffened and cried out. Myer snapped his lasgun around and fired, guided only by some instinct he could not explain.

Whatever that instinct was, it served him well.

Like an image being brought into focus through field glasses, a shadow barely six feet from him resolved into a humanoid shape. The shape of a mutant, wreathed in filthy rags, its bald head inked with purple sigils. Its age and gender were impossible to gauge. With saucer-wide eyes, it gaped down at the hole that Myer had just burnt through its chest, then it slowly collapsed.

But it hadn’t been alone.

There were two more of them, making no attempt to hide. How could Myer have been so blind as not to see them? Only if they somehow clouded my mind, he concluded – and he realised, suddenly, that only he had seen them.

‘Ven Mertyn,’ he barked, ‘there’s a mutant directly in front of you. Valentin, to your ten o’clock. I know you can’t see them, but trust me.’

As one, as if pulled by the same strings, the mutants turned their heads towards him. They raised their right hands as if to throw grenades, only they were unarmed. Then bright blue sparks flew from their fingers, coalescing into roiling balls of energy, held lightly on their palms.

His squad mates were aiming their weapons at the mutants. Their fingers were restless on their triggers, but none of them fired. ‘Are you sure, Myer?’ one yelled.

They didn’t believe him. They thought it was he, not they, whose mind was fogged, and he had no time to convince them of their mistake. He switched his lasgun to its automatic setting as two balls of psychic energy came sizzling towards him. If he could get off one shot before he was hit, if he could strafe the area where the mutants stood…

He would never know what stopped him from pulling the trigger.

He blinked, and suddenly the balls of energy were gone. As were the mutants, fading like a dream. Appearing in their place was a sergeant whose name he couldn’t remember, leading another squad. Sizing up the situation at a glance, the sergeant kicked the body of the psyker that Myer had shot, as if to check that it was real – and really dead. To Myer’s mild surprise, it was both.

His squad mates were surprised too. Their reactions made it clear that they hadn’t noticed the body before. To them, it must have seemed that Myer was firing into thin air. He suppressed a shudder, realising that he had almost fired upon his allies.

‘One mutant,’ he breathed ruefully. ‘Just one. If one mutant can sow so much confusion among us…’

The smoke around Myer was dissipating, revealing his surroundings.

He was in a broad tunnel, overlooked on each side by four levels of railed galleries. He saw gunmen on every level – were they psykers too? He couldn’t tell – but troopers were already swarming up rickety ladders towards them.

From the ground, he heard gunshots and moans and cries and screams, and the crackling of arcane fire. He saw the ladder into which he had almost walked, and hauled himself part way up it for a better vantage point.

He saw Guardsmen with mouths foaming, clawing at their faces as if they had seen something so terrible that they feared their eyes infected. Some were aiming weapons at each other, screaming vile accusations, unable to distinguish friend from foe. Others just looked lost and bewildered.

Myer spied a cloaked mutant amid the throng and, curling one arm around the ladder, framed it in his lasgun sights. He second-guessed himself for an instant and lost it. He chided himself. This was what the enemy wanted, for him to doubt his own senses. Then he saw something else, something he hadn’t expected.

The Wyrdvanes marched into the melee, the seven of them in a tight diamond formation. They were suddenly straight-backed, exuding confidence as their feet rose and fell in perfect unison. Their heads snapped from side to side, their eyes alert, forever searching. They hoisted their staffs, so their Imperial eagles soared proudly aloft, and their pallid bodies were wreathed with arcane energy.

Each of the Wyrdvanes extended bony fingers and directed seething tendrils of that energy to lash out again and again.

The closest Iron Guard troopers recoiled from them in horror. A couple turned their weapons upon them uncertainly, until Commissar Steinhardt, still sticking to her charges, yelled at them to get out of the way. Myer could see what his comrades in arms could not – how the tendrils deftly snaked their way around them, locating the enemies among them, striking without mercy.

An enemy psyker screeched as a tendril flayed its flesh. As it buckled, it vomited up a stream of burbling ectoplasm. Another had both eyes burnt out by twin lightning forks; thrashing and howling, it was unable to defend itself against an Iron Guard squad suddenly very aware of its presence.

And all this time, the Wyrdvanes were moaning and groaning – which wasn’t unusual, but now those sounds merged into a discordant harmony that drifted to Myer’s ears, worming its way into his skull even over the general clamour. As if they were singing – like the choir for which Gunderson had named them – only it was the bleakest, most disturbing song he had ever heard.

Whatever they were doing, it was working. Befuddled troopers were regaining their senses as their attackers were efficiently slain. Myer aimed at another enemy psyker, only for it to be consumed before his eyes before he could fire.

A couple of psykers rallied, hurling energy bolts at the Wyrdvanes. They fizzled out before they reached their targets. The Imperial psykers, clearly, were better disciplined and therefore stronger than their underhand opponents. Myer couldn’t deny that without them, this would have been a far more desperate battle.

And yet, he thought, a more honourable one, perhaps.

‘What do you see, Myer?’

Sergeant Schtiel was on his feet again, a little unsteady but dogged.

‘I’d say things are under control down here,’ reported Myer.

The sergeant nodded, and bellowed to his squad to climb the ladder. Myer was first to do so, alighting on the lowest of the galleries. He turned and offered a hand to Schtiel, behind him – it was curtly if breathlessly rebuffed.

Two squads were already up here, and the metal mesh flooring rang with their booted footsteps. The gallery itself trembled, slowly working loose from the tunnel wall. The snipers on this level had been dealt with – but for one, which cast away its empty gun in panic upon finding itself surrounded.

It raised its hands towards its approaching captors – not in surrender but as if to attack. Limp sparks spilled from the mutant’s fingers. It was young, Myer noted, and weak, hence presumably the weapon. Realising its own helplessness, it vaulted the gallery rail, dropping to the ground ten feet below. It landed with a snap of bone and an anguished howl, and was quickly surrounded once more.

Dark openings studded the tunnel wall at this level. Dusty rags hung over them like curtains, while sticks of rotting furniture were piled up inside some. Guardsmen were ducking into each of the openings in turn, emerging from some with sullen, undernourished prisoners in tow. Most were very young or very old, and a small few were badly bruised and bleeding.

These were the ones that had put up a struggle – and survived.

‘You know what to do,’ Schtiel grunted. ‘Split into groups of two and three, and let’s… let’s get these hovels cleared. Guardsman Myer, you’re with me.’

Myer wrenched back the first curtain.

A ripe stench made his eyes water. A stench of disease and decay. It left no doubt that the rooms behind were occupied, or had been until recently. He sent a warning ahead of him. ‘Astra Militarum. Here on the Emperor’s authority. Lay down your weapons. Get down on your knees with your hands behind your heads.’

‘And eyes on the ground,’ Schtiel added. ‘Don’t even think of glancing in our direction.’

It was dark behind the curtain, darker even than the tunnel. As Myer’s eyes adjusted, he saw two tiny rooms separated by the crumbling remains of a wall. This had been a worker’s hab once, he imagined – many centuries ago, before the city had expanded and the workers had moved upwards. He felt contempt for the wretches that had shunned the Emperor’s light to dwell in such squalor.

To his surprise, the rooms appeared to be empty.

He stepped into them fully. He scoured the shadows with narrowed eyes in case he had missed something. In case his mind had been clouded again, though it felt perfectly clear to him. I won’t be fooled like that again, he told himself. I won’t.

Schtiel stepped through the entrance behind Myer. There was barely room for both of them, and the taller sergeant had to stoop. Myer heard raised voices and a scuffle through the wall to his right. It sounded like his comrades in arms had matters well in hand, however.

Then he heard another sound, closer. A scrape and a sharp intake of breath. He couldn’t tell where the sounds had come from but decided to bluff. ‘We know you’re in here,’ he said. ‘Step out where we can see you.’

A flurry of movement drew Myer’s attention to a crack in the back wall of the second room. He rushed towards it, slipping on something slimy on the uneven ground, then tangling his feet in a bundle of clinging rags.

The crack ran deeper than he had imagined from a distance. It widened out into a passageway behind the wall. Myer squeezed into this, almost tearing the epaulettes from his broad shoulders in the process.

He couldn’t see a thing, but he could hear more than enough.

Someone was feeling their way along the fissure, not very far ahead of him. They were stumbling and bumping, gasping in pain and fear. ‘Stop!’ yelled Myer, but the fugitive ignored him. He fired his lasgun blindly. Its crack reverberated around the confined space, but his target kept on running.

‘Sergeant?’ Myer called over his shoulder.

‘Go. Go. I’m right behind you,’ Schtiel urged him.

He forced his way along the narrow passage. Dirt showered his cap, and he wondered how stable the roof was. He was glad to emerge, after only a minute or so, into another two-room hovel. It must have backed onto the one he had just left. This one showed no sign at all of habitation – at least, not of the human kind.

Myer kicked aside rats that tried to gnaw at his ankles through his boots.

He ploughed through the rooms and almost fell to his death, stopping himself just in time. The gallery onto which this hovel let out had long since collapsed. Leaning out across the threshold, Myer looked down into a tangle of rusted metal and wire. Someone was down there, all the same. His fugitive was clambering and sliding with practised ease through the gaps in the wreckage.

He could see now that it was a child. A male child.

He had fired upon a child.

As if sensing Myer’s presence, the child paused in its hectic flight. It gaped up at him through the wreckage. He met its round, bewildered eyes – all three of them. The third eye, in the centre of its forehead, was small and almost buried by folds of skin, as if not fully developed. His stomach tightened at the sight of it.

He had some small idea of the rarity of such an aberration – and of its potential uses. It was with their third eyes – their warp eyes – that the Navigators charted their ships’ courses through the immaterium. It made this child a freak, even among freaks.

Myer snapped up his lasgun, but the freak was on the move again. He couldn’t get a clear shot at it. He stowed the weapon in its sling, turned and lowered himself into the jumble of scaffolding.

He hesitated, wondering where Sergeant Schtiel had got to. Standing orders forbade leaving a comrade behind other than in exceptional circumstances. He heard movement up in the hovel, however. ‘This way,’ he called out. ‘Mind the drop.’

He began to climb down.

Myer’s feet sank into reeking water but found ground just an inch below it.

A twisted shard had impaled his uniform jacket. He tore himself free at the expense of a shiny button. He would retrieve it later if he could.

His prey’s footsteps had ceased, with a cry of alarm and a splash. Myer waded cautiously along a broad tunnel, like the last one, overlooked by dark entranceways. He prayed there were no more snipers stationed inside them. A sputtering lume-globe in the distance provided just enough light to outline shapes.

He came upon the mutant child soon enough.

He – it, Myer corrected himself – was huddled at the side of the tunnel, arms wrapped about its legs, face pressed to its knees. It was shaking with suppressed tears. As Myer approached it, it started and released a wracking sob.

He aimed his lasgun at its head. ‘Do you know what this is?’

The mutant, still shaking, made a noise in its throat but didn’t answer him.

His gaze was pulled to its third eye. While the other two were moist with fear, this one fixed Myer with a shrivelled, baleful glare – as if some other intelligence altogether were behind it, regarding him with cold contempt.

‘Close that eye. The… the middle one,’ Myer ordered. ‘I don’t want to shoot you.’ What he meant was, My orders are to keep you alive if I can. ‘But you must do as I tell you. Do you understand? If you try to use your… whatever you call them, your powers… If you try to harm me in any way…’

The mutant closed its third eye and reburied its face.

‘Can you stand?’ asked Myer, having no desire to touch it.

It shook its head.

Myer clicked his tongue, dismayed. It was as he had thought – the mutant, in attempting to run, must have caught its foot and fallen, injuring itself. It had had no choice but to cower in the darkness and hope to be overlooked. He would need help to carry it back to the other tunnel.

When Myer looked, however, he saw no sign of Sergeant Schtiel.

He called to him, but there was no response. He tried the vox-net, only realising now that it was dead. Had he simply strayed too far from his squad’s caster? He should have been able to hear his sergeant, at least. He ought to have been struggling with the wreckage of the gallery by now. Had something happened to him?

The alternative was almost as dreadful.

What if Schtiel had never followed Myer at all?

He was somewhat larger, and dizzy from his psychic ordeal – what if he hadn’t been able to squeeze through the fissure? What if Myer, despite his resolution, despite the lies he had told himself, had fallen for another illusion? One perfectly designed to separate him from his allies and draw him to this lonely place…

Quiet footsteps behind him confirmed it.

He whirled as three figures emerged from the shadows. They resembled the Wyrdvanes, with sallow skin and tattered cloaks, but lacked the accoutrements of Imperial service. Their arms were outstretched, bright blue sparks dancing on their palms. So, the mutant child had led Myer into an ambush.

For a second, he imagined he could still survive.

If I can build a wall around my mind… resist their attacks for just a moment… strafe them on full-auto and pray that the Emperor is with me…

But then, more mutants showed themselves – a dozen more, two dozen – as if they were stepping out of the tunnel walls themselves. They closed in on Myer from the left, from the right, with yet more appearing on the remnants of the galleries above him. Each of them stared at him with the same detached expression. Each of them extended their crackling hands towards him. Each of them had the same face…

They aren’t real, he told himself. ‘You aren’t real!’ he accused the ghoulish apparitions. He didn’t entirely believe it, but he knew that his life depended on its being true, and so he yelled the words again with stubborn conviction.

And the mutant army faded into nothing.

There was only Myer and the mutant child again – and the mutant’s third eye was open, a storm brewing deep inside it.

He rounded on it with a furious snarl. ‘I warned you! I told you what would happen if you–’

The mutant threw up its hands, letting out a plaintive whimper, and Myer faltered. Anger, just as much as fear, was the ruin of discipline. If he gave in to that basest of emotions, then his enemies had won.

He took deep breaths to quench the furnace in his chest. He reached down and grabbed the mutant child by the shoulder. ‘You’re coming with me.’

The mutant looked up at Myer, its eyes shining. All three of its eyes.

The third eye drew his gaze again and trapped it like a vice. And then, before he could summon the will to resist, it sucked the entirety of Lucius Myer’s being – his very soul – into its turbulent depths.

Myer was the mutant child.

His thoughts were the mutant child’s thoughts. His feelings were the mutant child’s feelings. In the space of a never-ending moment, he knew a short lifetime of fear and pain and self-loathing. He suffered insults, kicks and punches – and, as he grew, as his nature became more evident day by day, the threat of worse, far worse – never understanding what he had done to deserve it.

He felt the shame of his parents’ disgust and the desperate terror of a night-time flight from his home. The people who found him disgusted him in turn, but only they offered him sustenance and safety, and in time he came to the bitter realisation that he belonged nowhere else in the world but among them.

Myer relived the horror of a shelter invaded. Wave after wave of blue-and-gold-clad soldiers crashed into his tunnel. It seemed that nothing could stem their relentless, emotionless advance. They brought his life – for the second time – crashing down around him. And he howled to the Emperor, Why me? Why did you visit this curse upon me? Why can’t I just be left alone?

This was meant to be a refuge…

He came to his senses, standing over the mutant’s bleeding body.

A kaleidoscope of nightmares receded into the back of his brain. His pulse and breathing were slowly returning to normal. He prickled with cold sweat all over, and he ached with a nagging feeling that he couldn’t quite identify at first but which turned out to be guilt.

He became aware of Sergeant Schtiel approaching him.

‘I had no choice,’ Myer explained, not raising his eyes. The mutant was curled into the foetal position, shuddering with every breath it took. Dark blood matted its stringy hair and soaked into his lasgun butt. ‘It got into my head. It made me see… feel things. I think it was trying to make me run, and when I wouldn’t… I had to stop it, before it… before I was forever lost.’

Schtiel clapped a firm hand on his shoulder. ‘You did your duty,’ he said quietly.

Both of them heard a distant rumble like a thunderclap, and Myer’s ear was flooded with urgent vox-reports. Had they ever really ceased?

‘We’d best get back,’ Schtiel growled. ‘We may be needed.’

Myer nodded. He gritted his teeth and hauled the mutant child over his shoulder. It let out a plaintive whimper, but didn’t resist.

The two men waded back through the reeking water, back the way they had both come. Schtiel was much stronger now, almost his old self again. Coming to the fallen gallery, he tackled it without a moment’s pause. Myer followed him upwards in silence, concentrating on his comrades’ voices. He sifted what information he could from the chatter, building up a picture of the situation ahead of him.

The main tunnel, he learned, had been mined. The enemy psykers, staring at defeat, had set off the charges. One last attempt to spit in the Emperor’s face, to slaughter His servants, at the cost of their own miserable lives. Several of their bombs had failed to detonate, however.

Myer wasn’t clear on the reason why. It could have been that the bombs were antiques, their mechanisms faulty and their potency diminished, but he also heard it suggested that the Wyrdvanes were responsible, somehow containing the blasts with the power of their minds.

If that were so, then they had saved Mordian lives.

The bombs had brought down two galleries in the main tunnel. Some troopers were injured and a few pinned down by debris, but fatalities had been blessedly light. Three names had been confirmed thus far. The enemy psykers had fared rather less well. Most of their combatants were dead. Others, presumably, still cowered in their hovels, and they would now be harder than ever to reach.

Myer and his comrades still had much work to do. He did not doubt that those few remaining mutants would fight to the last breaths in their bodies. He also knew, however, that they would be fighting in vain. They could not win.

To all intents and purposes, this battle was over.

The sun streamed into the top-level space port, forcing Myer to squint.

He sweated beneath his heavy uniform and flak armour. No sun had ever shone upon the hive cities of Mordian. No matter how many other worlds he was posted to, he doubted he would ever get used to it.

His platoon stood at ease at the edge of the ramp. They were waiting for drop-ships to take them away from this world. They were late, of course. It was a point of irritation – but also of pride – with Myer’s people that no other Imperial body matched them for efficiency and reliability.

It was thanks to this latest delay that he saw the black ships.

They swooped down from the sky in close formation like four huge, squat black insects. They settled on landing pads in clouds of smoke with malevolent hisses. A handful of figures stepped from the belly of each. They wore the cloaks and symbols of the holy Inquisition, and even Myer’s throat dried at the sight of them.

They were met by officers of the local militia. The parties exchanged brusque words, then an officer gestured and a lacklustre procession snaked its way across the ramp towards her.

It comprised a hundred or so sallow-faced figures in dirty, tattered robes. Their wrists and ankles were chained, and they were under armed escort. Almost as many soldiers as prisoners were present. They encountered no resistance, however, from their shuffling, demoralised charges.

Myer had hoped to see no more psykers for a while, not since the Wyrdvanes had been shipped out the previous morning, to everyone’s relief.

He had no doubt captured some of the prisoners himself. He hadn’t looked at most of their faces. Still, he found himself seeking out one in particular. There were plenty of children, more even than he remembered. Could one have been the three-eyed mutant child? They were too distant for him to see.

The psykers were herded aboard the waiting vessels. Black hatches clanged shut behind them with an air of dismal finality. Myer tried not to think about their impending fates, but found he could think of nothing else.

The four ships hauled themselves back into the air. They flew towards the sun, until his eyes could no longer follow them. Somewhere in space, a bigger, grander, blacker ship awaited them. He had heard the Black Fleet spoken of in reverent murmurs – even dismissed as a legend – and he almost wished he was able to see it for himself. Perhaps it was best that he couldn’t.

‘What will happen to them?’ he had asked his sergeant in their temporary barracks the previous night.

Schtiel had shrugged, unconcerned. ‘They will be assessed on Holy Terra. Most of the older ones, I imagine, will have to be put down. They have been exposed to the warp’s corruption too long, without guidance, without control.’

‘And the others?’ Myer had pressed him. ‘The… children?’

‘They cannot be cleansed of their corruption, of course.’

‘Of course not,’ he had agreed, perhaps too quickly.

‘But they can learn to resist its creeping effects. They can still have love for the Emperor instilled into them. We have seen how some, if properly disciplined, can be used as tools or weapons for His cause.’

Myer had nodded thoughtfully. A necessary evil…

Nine Mordian soldiers had died in the squalor of the underhive. Nine good, loyal Guardsmen, slain in the course of their duty. Two had been shot by their own sergeants as a mercy – their minds had been destroyed, reducing them to drooling wrecks. The profane power that could do this, in Myer’s opinion, was best eradicated outright. Certainly, it could not be allowed to breed unchecked in the squalid realms of outcasts, heretics and cripples.

He was more convinced of this now than ever before.

Myer had been weak too, once. He remembered his first encounter with the xenos hordes in the Dirkr Forest, how afraid he had felt. He had had to learn to overcome that fear. If he could do it, then so could anybody else.

He owed no sympathy, therefore, to any mutant, no matter its age. They had made their choices, as he had. They didn’t deserve the second chance they had been offered. Myer felt, in particular, a blistering contempt for those who had rebuffed that chance, choosing a coward’s death over honourable service.

He despised the child that, in a spiteful act of vengeance, had spread its filthy curse to him. He denied the part of himself that hoped for it to find a better future in the Emperor’s service – or perhaps, at least, a better, safer refuge. Such thoughts, such doubts about his own divine purpose, were themselves a type of corruption, which Guardsman Lucius Myer would overcome.

It was just a question of discipline, he told himself – the one thing that the Emperor’s enemies lacked.

They should have been stronger.

REDEMPTION THROUGH SACRIFICE

JUSTIN WOOLLEY

REDEMPTION THROUGH SACRIFICE. These enormous words had long ago been carved into the grey metal of the drop-ship wall. Positioned above the main ramp and covering the full width of the cavernous hold, they were impossible to miss. Eventually, when the ramp opened like a gaping maw and vomited them out onto whatever battlefield awaited, every man of the Second Rapture Penal Legion, the Meat Dogs, would pass beneath.

Looking up, Marcus van Veenan idly wondered how many of the thousands of souls he shared this space with could even read. The men of the Meat Dogs were not, on the whole, the sharpest bayonets in the armoury. Perhaps some of them had been high-ranking officials or wealthy merchants, but when you were forced into the grey jumpsuit of a penal legionnaire with an explosive collar locked around your neck, your past no longer mattered. Illiterate hive world ganger or planetary governor, they were all together now, one seething mass of humanity, ten thousand men in the hold of a Devourer drop-ship – a space designed for half that.

Van Veenan heard shouting behind him, but before he could turn, someone slammed into his back. Unable to stop, he crashed into the body in front of him. The head attached to that body turned – a face like a cratered moon snarled at him, revealing a mouth full of yellowing teeth.

‘Frag off,’ he said, shoving van Veenan back.

Van Veenan turned to see an equally vicious prisoner. This one, his face pointed like a scowling rat, immediately threw a punch. Reflexively van Veenan dropped into a crouch, the fist flying over his head. It connected with Crater-face behind him. Van Veenan deftly rolled away, standing and moving off through the crowd as Rat-man and Crater-face pummelled each other with their meaty fists. Commissars shouted for them to break it up and eventually provosts clad in riot-armour shoved their way into the mass of convicts and beat them into submission with heavy truncheons.

A crackling vox-amplified voice boomed out over the human cattle. ‘Legionnaires of the Second Rapture Penal Legion, this is Colonel Jairus. Rejoice, for your absolution in the eyes of the God-Emperor is at hand. We have arrived at Vandicius, a world in the grip of heresy, a world worthy of your lives. Remember, it is through your death as ultimate service to Him that the God-Emperor forgives. Redemption through sacrifice. Prepare for drop-ship separation.’

Officers and commissars made their way to fold-down seats around the outside of the hold, strapping themselves securely in place. The only harnesses the penal legionnaires would have would be each other and, if everything went to the warp, the hope that another grey jumpsuit would break your fall.

After a minute the drop-ship jolted as the primary clamps securing it to the transport barge released.

‘Planetary descent in five seconds.’

Van Veenan had been dropped into bad situations before. He’d faced tides of xenos with poor leadership and pointless orders, but at least then he’d known what was coming.

‘Three. Two. One. Release.’

Van Veenan felt the nausea-inducing acceleration as the drop-ship fell into the atmosphere of Vandicius, plummeting in a barely controlled plunge towards whatever waited for them on the surface below.

‘Move! Form up! By the Emperor, move!’ Lieutenant Kirsk, van Veenan’s platoon leader, was yelling, his face turning crimson as the convicts under his command passed beneath the encouraging words of the legion’s motto.

Kirsk ushered the prisoners into a loose formation, each man shuffling along behind the one in front. This was nothing like the tight drilling van Veenan had been used to in the Imperial Guard. They didn’t even march in step. Savages.

It was dusk and the sky was turning lavender. Other drop-ships glowed yellow-orange as they burned through the atmosphere above. Despite the late hour the air here, in what must have been a tropical region of the planet, was warm and heavy with humidity.

Van Veenan’s drop-ship had landed at a requisitioned space port in the upper levels of the city, sandwiched between the arched windows of Ecclesiarchy buildings on one side and the square windows of hab-blocks on the other. The men of the Meat Dogs were spurred on by the shouts of officers and commissars in a long procession that snaked down a ramp descending from the space port to the streets of the lower city.

Some way from the bottom the legion stopped, the men moving forward one excruciatingly slow step at a time. It took van Veenan what seemed like hours to make it down the last five hundred yards. None of the officers seemed concerned and none of the commissars shot anybody so van Veenan assumed they had anticipated the delay. This, at least, seemed typical of his time in the Imperial Guard. It was the time-honoured military tradition of hurry up and wait.

Rounding the final bend van Veenan saw the holdup. Lining the street ahead were hundreds of green supply crates bearing the familiar symbol of the Imperial aquila. Moving among the crates were soldiers, both men and women, dressed in faded brown uniforms – not Guard but what must have been the Vandicius local auxiliary force. Going through the motions as quickly as they could, the soldiers handed weapons to the passing penal legionnaires. When van Veenan reached the front the man beside him was handed an M35 short-pattern lasgun – a weapon as common to Imperial soldiers as socks and boots. Another trooper approached, this one no more than a boy – his uniform bore insignia identifying him as Vandicius auxiliary guard. He passed van Veenan a single lasgun power pack.

Van Veenan took the power pack and looked at the young soldier. ‘What am I supposed to do with this? Throw it at the enemy?’

‘He’s your partner,’ the boy said nervously, indicating the legionnaire beside van Veenan, who was currently holding the lasgun by the barrel. ‘We don’t have enough lasguns for all of you.’

‘Right,’ van Veenan said, ‘but I actually know how to use that, whereas it looks like he thinks it’s for clubbing food.’

‘Prisoner!’ Lieutenant Kirsk roared from where he watched the convicts with barely disguised disgust. ‘Move on!’

Van Veenan almost argued but when he saw Commissar Lex pull his bolt pistol from its holster he reconsidered.

‘So, I guess we’re partners then,’ van Veenan said to the lasgun-wielding brute. ‘What’s your name?’

Van Veenan’s partner-in-arms, who stood at least a foot taller than him, grunted.

‘Grunt then, is it?’ van Veenan said. ‘Well, I’ve got a pro-position for you, Grunt. I’m pretty good with a lasgun. I was thinking we could swap. You take the ammo and I’ll keep us alive.’

‘Frag off,’ Grunt said.

‘Right,’ van Veenan replied. ‘That’s a common sentiment around here, isn’t it?’

Night was kept at bay in the city by lumen towers spaced evenly along the main thoroughfares and by the little light that leaked out from the towering buildings, but for a city this size the streets were eerily quiet. No vehicles. No people. Nothing.

Under orders from their officers, platoons of penal legionnaires began to move off in different directions. A large force, including van Veenan’s platoon, marched up a wide avenue beneath overpasses and railcar tracks until they reached a section of the road bordered on either side by the immense stone walls of manufactoria. It was here, in this bottleneck, that a roadblock had been erected.

A Chimera transport that looked to be older than the Emperor Himself was parked perpendicular to the road. In front of it several hundred of the brown-uniformed Vandician auxiliary guard barricaded the street behind a low wall of sandbags and razor wire, flanked at either end by two heavy bolter emplacements. The remaining fifty yards of the broad avenue was covered with a dozen or more spiked vehicle traps hastily constructed from rusting steel beams.

The soldiers of the auxiliary guard looked haggard, their pale faces drawn long, but when they saw the legionnaires approaching their faces brightened – the cannon fodder had arrived.

As the legionnaires came to a disorganised halt a woman approached the officers. Her blonde hair was cut short and she wore a black leather storm coat over her tall and thin frame. A chain around her neck displayed an Inquisitorial rosette.

‘I am Inquisitor Mariette Nikova of the Emperor’s Holy Inquisition,’ she said to Kirsk and the other platoon leaders beside him. ‘Have your men take up positions to hold this road. I’ll address them momentarily.’

Kirsk turned and barked orders to his platoon, who moved to stand behind the line of sandbags and relieve the auxiliary guard. Van Veenan found himself in the third rank, the lasgun-wielding Grunt beside him. One of the auxiliary soldiers, his arm wrapped in a field bandage, looked at van Veenan as he passed. ‘Emperor protect you when those maniacs come back.’

‘Penal legionnaires.’ The woman who’d identified herself as Inquisitor Nikova stood on a stack of empty weapons crates, her long coat flapping rhythmically in the warm breeze. ‘Welcome to Madarn, the capital of Vandicius, a world in the grips of a heresy that could spread across the Imperium. We are here to purge it, to burn its taint away in the name of the God-Emperor. You, as penal legionnaires, have been given the privilege of finding absolution in His eyes and it is here that you will do so. You are to contain the heretics in this sector of the city. None of the wretched creatures are to make it past you. Not one. You will lay down the ultimate sacrifice to the Emperor to see this done. Do you understand?’

The penal legionnaires responded in the affirmative but van Veenan wondered if they understood the power this woman represented. He had dealt with the Inquisition once before and had vowed to never be within a frag’s throw of them again. They were the embodiment of the callousness of the Imperium of Man, the same callousness that saw him wearing a grey jumpsuit solely for doing his duty.

‘You heard the inquisitor,’ came the roar of Commissar Lex from behind them. ‘Ready yourselves to hold the enemy at bay. If they kill your partner, pick up their weapon or their ammunition and continue the fight. You will die by the hand of the enemy, or you will die by mine.’

The sound of lasguns being loaded and primed filled the air around him and, as van Veenan had done ever since the ritual had been drilled into him as a young Guardsman, he bowed his head and prayed. ‘O Holy Emperor, bestow on me the strength to destroy Your enemies. Bathe me in Your divine light that it might shield me from the dark.’

Grunt looked at him. ‘You think that’ll help?’

Van Veenan shrugged. ‘I don’t know but I’ve been in more battles than most. I’ve prayed before each one and I’m not dead yet. Why risk it?’

Grunt turned away but van Veenan heard him muttering something to the Emperor.

The first sign of the enemy was the screaming. It echoed through the eerily quiet streets, bouncing off the faces of the densely packed towers around them. These were not guttural war cries designed to inspire and intimidate. These were the shrieks of carrion birds, throat-tearing screams that seemed some combination of agony and ecstasy. The uneasy legionnaires fidgeted and exchanged nervous glances.

Then, from the gloom of the streets ahead, men and women burst into the illumination of the avenue at a full sprint. They wore what appeared to be garments of dark crimson but as they drew closer van Veenan saw that all of them were soaked in blood. Some of them wore the brown of the Vandician auxiliary force, others civilian clothing, but all shone wet with thick, dripping blood. All of their exposed skin, their faces, even their hair, had been similarly bathed, and as they ran the red streaked down their mad, frenzied faces. They screamed until they were hoarse, their eyes wide and white. They were insane and they were coming.

‘Shit on the Golden Throne,’ Grunt whispered from beside van Veenan.

‘Steady!’ Commissar Lex called. ‘Hold your fire!’

The charging heretics wielded everything from broken bottles to bolt pistols. They ran with such a thirst for combat that they barely slowed when they reached the vehicle traps. They clambered over them, around them, through them. Some barely deviated in their insanity, impaling themselves on jagged steel. Smashed bottles and other projectiles pelted down on the legionnaires but it was the first crack of a lasgun that ignited the battle.

The shot came from a heretic near the front. A woman shuddering with painful euphoria fired her lasgun from the hip. The beam struck a legionnaire, incinerating his chest cavity. Even before his lifeless body hit the ground the prisoners had opened fire in return.

‘I said hold!’ Commissar Lex roared, but it was futile. The legionnaires in the front rank fired wildly at the approaching heretics. The two heavy bolters, still manned by unlucky auxiliary soldiers, erupted in staccato bursts, raining a shower of expended shells, every fifth bolt a tracer round that lit up a phosphorous white trail over the street.

Van Veenan watched the flashes from the legionnaires’ lasguns, the instantaneous beam between barrel and target showing just how inaccurate they were. Some shots struck cultists, but most just left black scorches on the road and surrounding buildings.

In front of him van Veenan saw one legionnaire’s head snap back as a round tore into his face, his skull exploding in gore. Hundreds of blood-soaked lunatics continued to pour from the streets at the end of the avenue. He could see that the haphazard fire of the penal legionnaires was barely slowing them.

‘Front rank, get down!’ van Veenan shouted. ‘Kneel!’

They didn’t respond. Van Veenan pushed forward until he was right behind the front rank. He yelled into the ear of a lasgun-wielding legionnaire while pushing down on his shoulder. ‘Kneel!’ When the legionnaire complied van Veenan grabbed Grunt and positioned him to fire over the head of the kneeling prisoner.

Van Veenan moved up and down the line, flinching as a spray of blood from a nearby injury splattered across his cheek. He positioned more of the legionnaires in the same way, pushing those with lasguns forward and those with ammunition back, the front rank kneeling and the second and third ranks firing over their heads. Soon the formation naturally caught on. As legionnaires fell, others stepped in to take their place. In moments van Veenan had more than doubled the amount of fire flashing towards the rampaging enemy.

Las-beams scorched into the charging cultists, gouging huge cauterised wounds through their torsos and turning their skulls into smoking wrecks. Still the heretics came, attacking with a fervour van Veenan had only ever seen in greenskins. Even as those in front were killed the cultists continued in a shrieking charge, stepping on their fallen comrades in their haste. They came at the legionnaires as if some terrible master drove them on.

When the prisoner in front of van Veenan caught a lasgun shot in the shoulder and dropped to the ground, he saw someone perched on the raised portico of a tower at the end of the avenue. The figure was swathed in black, and in contrast to the madness of the blood-soaked mass below he simply stood, surveying the fray.

‘Target sighted.’

Van Veenan turned and saw Inquisitor Nikova. She was making her way through the grey ranks, staring at the figure at the end of the avenue. She spoke into her head-mounted vox-unit. ‘Located in containment sector gamma. I’m going to move in for confirmation.’ She paused. ‘Because,’ she continued, ‘thorn on rose requires confirmation and I will not let him slip our net again.’

When van Veenan looked back the shadowy figure had dropped from the portico and vanished into the gloom of the alleyways.

Inquisitor Nikova turned, her eyes searching for a moment before falling on Kirsk. ‘Lieutenant, you and your platoon are to come with me. We push forward and follow that man.’

Kirsk’s eyes widened. ‘Inquisitor, that’s suicide. We can’t go out there.’

‘Suicide?’ the inquisitor said. ‘That’s why you’re here, lieutenant.’

‘I…’ Lieutenant Kirsk looked at the inquisitor, steeling himself. ‘That’s why they’re here, inquisitor,’ he said, indicating the grey-clad prisoners. ‘I’m not a convict, I’m an officer posted to look after this scum.’

Nikova stared hard. ‘Are you refusing an order from the Holy Inquisition?’

Kirsk swallowed. ‘No, inquisitor. Never. I will happily order the prisoners to go out there, I just don’t believe I should be sent with them.’

In a motion so swift Kirsk never had a chance to react, Inquisitor Nikova pulled a bolt pistol from the holster around her right thigh, raised it level with his forehead and pulled the trigger. Kirsk’s head popped like a lanced pustule.

Nikova casually wiped away a splatter of gore that had landed on her coat. She turned to van Veenan. ‘You, prisoner – I saw you arranging these men. You have leadership experience?’

‘Yes, inquisitor, I’m…’ Van Veenan paused. ‘I was an Imperial Guard sergeant. The Talissian 51st.’

‘Talissia. That world produces disciplined Guardsmen.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Which platoon are you with?’

‘Eighth, ma’am.’

‘All right, Eighth Platoon,’ Nikova called, ‘this is your new commanding officer. Consider it a battlefield promotion.’ She looked at van Veenan. ‘We push forward. It is imperative I find that man. Your platoon will get me down this avenue.’

Most Imperial Guard platoons were between fifty and a hundred Guardsmen strong, with penal legion platoons traditionally numbering much higher at around twice that. But even with that many men Lieutenant Kirsk had been right; pushing out there was suicide. Still, van Veenan thought as he looked at the body of Lieutenant Kirsk on the road, his face cratered into a gaping hole, the inquisitor wasn’t exactly asking.

‘Eighth Platoon,’ van Veenan yelled, ‘firing phalanx formation transitioning to five deep hollow square. Forward.’

Most of the faces around van Veenan looked blank. He looked back through the ranks and made eye contact with Commissar Lex who, after a moment, slowly nodded.

‘You heard him,’ the commissar roared. ‘Move forward!’ He raised his bolt pistol and fired a warning shot into the air. The legionnaires from Eighth Platoon began to climb over the sandbags and negotiate their way through razor wire. The remaining platoons spread to fill the gaps.

Alone among the carnage, Eighth Platoon advanced. Those with lasguns continued to fire as they moved but they barely made it five yards before the first of the heretics collided into them and the firefight devolved into the madness of melee.

The cultists swung their lasguns and pistols like blunt weapons, spraying beams and bullets in all directions, cutting down their own allies as often as the legionnaires. Others swung knives and shattered bottles. Those that were unarmed bit and clawed with faces and hands caked with blood.

‘Second and third ranks, fire over!’ van Veenan yelled. ‘Close up the sides. Face outwards and fight!’

As the legionnaires found themselves in hand-to-hand combat, van Veenan had expected them to collapse. But to his surprise, many were suddenly in their element. Van Veenan saw the rat-faced man who’d tried to punch him on the drop-ship pushing his way forward for his chance to attack.

‘Keep moving!’ Inquisitor Nikova shouted.

They were making progress. There was a significant trail of grey corpses behind them but they were over halfway up the avenue now. Grunt still moved alongside van Veenan but they were on the flank and he was still firing his lasgun over the heads of those in front.

‘Grunt,’ van Veenan said, ‘face outwards, pay attention to the perimeter.’

He’d barely finished speaking when a crazed heretic, much smaller than Grunt but with a huge serrated knife, launched herself off one of the vehicle traps. The cultist, a woman whose hair was matted in a nest of bloodied curls and whose eyes were alight with crazed joy, sunk her blade deep into Grunt’s side. Grunt dropped to his knees as the woman pulled the blade free, tearing his flesh.

‘I warned you!’ van Veenan said as he collected Grunt’s dropped lasgun. He fired into the cultist at point-blank range, the las-beam eviscerating her lower torso.

‘Stay tight,’ van Veenan called to those legionnaires left. ‘Fight while moving.’

As expected, this had been a slaughter. Eighth Platoon was down to around thirty men now. Nikova was still alive inside the shrinking escort of legionnaires though, and they were less than ten yards from the end of the avenue. They’d taken heavy losses but these prisoners had done their duty and perhaps, Emperor willing, they might find redemption after all.

Knowing they were close to their goal, the legionnaires moved faster. Unfortunately, as they quickened their pace those still locked in combat were left behind.

‘Stay together!’ van Veenan called, but it was no use; their formation was failing.

Cultists forced their way in and within seconds the protective square of troops collapsed. Van Veenan fired in quick succession at three heretics that moved to attack him, blowing smoking holes in their chests. He turned to see Inquisitor Nikova pull a second bolt pistol from her left thigh holster. She held one in either hand, firing as she spun slowly on the spot, acquiring targets and eliminating them with deadly precision. As the fight became increasingly chaotic many of the legionnaires began to run, but Nikova showed not an ounce of fear. The sound of her bolt pistols was like a litany to the God-Emperor.

Van Veenan watched Nikova in awe as the cultists swarmed towards her. In a single sweeping movement she dropped one of her bolt pistols and let her long, black coat slip off. Beneath she wore an armoured bodyglove with a sheath strapped to her back. She reached over her shoulder and pulled free a short-bladed power sword that burst into light. Nikova slashed and lunged with perfect form to dismember and behead heretic after heretic. But eventually one slipped through. The screaming man landed on Nikova’s back and threw her forward, her head smashing on the road as she fell.

Van Veenan, the spell cast by the inquisitor’s martial prowess broken, lifted his lasgun and shot the cultist just as he prepared to drive a knife into Nikova’s back. Van Veenan flicked the lasgun to fully automatic and opened up, sweeping beams of las-fire across the heretics around Nikova, cutting them down while she regained her feet. He could feel the weapon getting warm in his hands. A lasgun on automatic fire would eventually overheat, but more importantly, full-auto quickly drained the power pack.

When the spray of las-beams ceased, van Veenan pulled the empty power pack from the lasgun, but before he could reach for his spare he was lunged at by a blade-wielding cultist. In a desperate spur-of-the-moment decision, he threw the empty power pack at the cultist. It struck him between the eyes but didn’t cause the slightest injury.

‘I knew that wouldn’t work,’ van Veenan muttered.

The tossed power pack had given him a second’s respite though. He dropped the lasgun and reached down to collect Nikova’s discarded bolt pistol. He brought it up and shot the cultist through the forehead, surprised by the immense recoil of the weapon. He moved then, grabbing at Nikova’s arm. ‘Come on.’

Nikova looked at the weapon in his hand. It was inlaid with gold in swirling patterns of leaves around a fleur-de-lys. ‘That’s my bolt pistol,’ she said.

‘Really?’ van Veenan said as he shot an approaching cultist twice through the chest. ‘That’s your current concern?’

‘You may borrow it,’ Nikova answered as if they weren’t currently surrounded by wild enemies soaked head to toe in human blood.

They moved, slicing and firing their way through the cultists, heading for the end of the avenue.

Together they ran into the alleyway down which the mysterious figure had retreated. Van Veenan shot the cultists coming from ahead of them while Nikova’s bolt pistol roared in answer as she despatched those that tried to follow.

‘Keep moving,’ Nikova said as they turned down another alley between the colossal towers of the city. Van Veenan glanced back to see her stop. Above her a suspended walkway linked two hab-blocks. Nikova grabbed the sole grenade clipped to her belt and launched it upwards before immediately taking off at a sprint. The grenade hit the underside of the walkway and exploded, causing debris to rain down.

With the collapsing walkway creating an obstacle behind them, van Veenan and Nikova sprinted away, winding their way through streets and lanes to lose their pursuers. Eventually van Veenan felt Nikova grab his arm and pull him sideways. She yanked him through a small door which she banged shut behind them, sealing them in a dark corridor. They held perfectly still, listening to the foul screams of distant cultists over the sound of their own rapid breathing.

For the next ten minutes, they sat against the cool, damp walls on opposite sides of the stone corridor. It seemed like hours in van Veenan’s heightened state. He had no doubt that the cultists were still hunting them but it seemed as though they’d lost them – at least for now.

Eventually Nikova pressed her finger to her ear, activating her vox-communicator. ‘Gorton, this is Nikova, do you copy? Inquisitor Gorton?’ Nikova removed the vox-unit from her head, looking it over before tossing it aside. ‘Dead,’ she said. ‘It must have been damaged in the fighting.’

They sat in silence a moment longer before Nikova spoke again. ‘Thank you for your assistance.’

‘You should thank the other prisoners too,’ van Veenan said. ‘The men who were massacred out there.’

‘They have their thanks. Their souls have received absolution for their crimes. You should feel sorrow that you too did not meet your death.’

‘Far be it from me to question the Inquisition,’ van Veenan said, ‘but that was a disaster. What in the Emperor’s name did we achieve other than getting a lot of prisoners killed and us ending up trapped in a pit of blood-soaked fragging nutcases?’

Even in the gloom van Veenan could see Nikova’s eyes burning brightly as she examined him. ‘Do not forget your place, prisoner. Hold your tongue or I will have it.’

A silence, tenser than before, fell over them. Eventually van Veenan heard Nikova sigh. ‘The lives of those men were not thrown away on a whim. That man you saw, he is the reason all of you are here. You have been on this planet for barely hours. I have hunted him across Imperial space for three decades. Finally, I have him located and surrounded. He will not escape me.’

‘Tens of thousands killed for this one man. Who is he?’

‘He is someone for whom tens of thousands is a small price.’

Van Veenan listened to the sounds of battle still floating through the city outside. ‘I’m not a traitor,’ he said.

Nikova looked at him. ‘What then? A deserter?’

‘My family have been Talissian Guardsmen for sixteen generations. I would never desert. All I did was my duty.’

‘Then what was your crime?’

‘I did only what I had to do to save my men.’

‘You disobeyed orders?’

‘No, Inquisitor Nikova, I ignored idiots to save my squad and win a battle.’

Nikova rose to her feet and looked down at him. ‘Sometimes the Emperor sees fit to change our path, prisoner. I was once a Sister of the Adepta Sororitas but He saw fit to guide me to the Holy Inquisition. Perhaps the Emperor has brought you to this moment. We have waited long enough here. I must go deeper into the sector and find the target. You have proven yourself capable enough, you will come with me.’ She looked at the bolt pistol on the floor beside van Veenan, the bolt pistol she had permitted him to borrow amidst the turmoil on the avenue. ‘You may continue the privilege of wielding my bolt pistol. I trust it will prove satisfactory in covering my back.’ She tossed him a spare magazine.

A Sister of Battle, van Veenan thought – that explained her ability in combat. It also explained her fervour. He stood, collected the bolt pistol from the floor, reloaded it with the new magazine and, without any option to the contrary, followed her outside.

The two of them moved carefully through the streets, Nikova taking the lead now and van Veenan following. They kept low, stopping at each corner for Nikova to peer ahead as van Veenan’s eyes swept the wide angles over the streets and buildings behind them.

They made their way up to the higher levels of the city, following streets and pathways that angled up towards the wealthier sectors, the citizens there elevated in both class and altitude from the unskilled and unwashed masses of the lower city.

As they moved onto a pedestrian overpass Nikova dropped to a crouch to take cover below the waist-high fencing along either side. She signalled for van Veenan to advance slowly and silently indicated for him to look down.

Below them, a short distance away, was another barricade. It was constructed from the same waist-high sandbags and curls of razor wire as the one on the avenue, but this one was burned and shredded with the scars of battle. There were piles of supply crates bearing the Imperial aquila, some unopened. There were bodies too, brown-uniformed auxiliary troops hacked into pieces and the bodies of cultists, their clothes stiff with dried blood, torsos blown apart by lasgun fire. The air around the corpses was thick with large purple insects that seemed to be depositing eggs into their open wounds.

Moving around the barricade, rummaging through crates and picking at the corpses like scavenging vultures, were half a dozen of the blood-soaked cultists.

‘This is where the auxiliary soldiers attempted to hold last night,’ Nikova whispered. ‘They fought valiantly. Blessed be they in the Emperor’s light.’

After a cursory moment of silence, Nikova moved ahead onto an elevated street that curved around yet another immense tower, keeping low.

After they’d crossed the overpass and were out of earshot of the cultists, van Veenan spoke. ‘All right, so who is this person we’re looking for?’

Nikova turned to look at van Veenan intently, evaluating him. ‘The target’s name is Cal Corditus. He is a psyker and worshipper of dark powers. That is all you need to know.’

‘And how do we find him?’

‘Servo-skulls fitted with pict-transmitters have been scouring the city for several days monitoring the movements of cultists during their attacks. They come from all over this sector but pattern analysis centres there, on that mausoleum.’ She pointed ahead. On a yet higher level of the city was a stout building, the wide facade lined with the statues of men and women of importance from Vandicius’ past – servants of the Imperium that were laid to rest inside.

‘And when we reach it?’

‘We observe. All we need is a positive identification of the target and confirmation of his intentions.’

‘His intentions?’

Nikova was about to answer when there was a shattering sound above them. Stained glass dropped with a tinkle to the elevated street. Then bodies followed, dropping from the tower beside them and landing with sickening impacts, enough to shatter femurs and burst internal organs. One figure landed on Nikova, knocking her to the ground. Another just missed van Veenan, but even as the cultist lay broken on the stones it fired a laspistol. Van Veenan felt the searing burn on his upper left arm and the blast spun him off his feet.

The screams of cultists intensified. More of them were coming. Van Veenan looked up to see half a dozen bloodied heretics clubbing at Nikova with truncheons. They were wearing carapace armour, crimson running off it in streaks, local peacekeepers that had turned to the worship of Chaos.

+Bring her alive.+

The voice slammed into van Veenan’s mind like a psychic thunderclap. Grimacing, he saw, behind the peacekeepers who had gathered around Nikova, the tall figure from the first battle. He wore a long black jacket tattered into strips around the hem. Beneath the jacket he was bare-chested, his skin a mass of scar tissue cut into unnatural symbols. This must be Cal Corditus.

The traitorous peacekeepers grabbed Nikova, whose head hung limply, and hauled her up. Van Veenan scrambled to his feet, raised the bolt pistol and fired. His first shot went wide, striking the tower with a puff of dust. He fired again, this shot finding a target in the back of one of the peacekeepers. The traitor’s carapace armour cracked and punched inwards, and he was thrown forward onto his face, unmoving.

As van Veenan readied for another shot the psyker’s attention fell on him. Corditus flicked his hand, little more than swatting away an inconsequential insect, and van Veenan was thrown into the air, landing with a lung-jolting slam twenty yards away.

Reeling, he pulled himself together and stood. He raised the bolt pistol again and began running back towards the peacekeepers who, following Corditus’ lead, were dragging Nikova away.

Two of the peacekeepers turned to face him, and he howled as he started firing. Struggling against the pain in his arm and with his mind still reeling from the psychic intrusion, van Veenan could barely control the bucking recoil of the bolt pistol and his shots went astray. He struck one peacekeeper in the arm and the other in the stomach. Both of them lurched but did not drop.

Van Veenan roared again. As he reached the pair, he swung his weapon to club one peacekeeper across his blood-drenched cheek. He felt the crack of bone under his strike and he turned quickly to fire at the second, but wasn’t fast enough. The second heretic smashed their balled-up fist hard into van Veenan’s cheekbone.

While van Veenan staggered, the first peacekeeper cracked him on the wrist with his truncheon, causing Nikova’s bolt pistol to drop to the rockcrete. The other hit van Veenan again, this time in the lower leg, and he dropped.

As they moved in to finish him off, van Veenan looked up to see Nikova being hauled away. She was looking back at him. He knew he’d failed her. A truncheon smashed down onto his chest and, as another blow came down to cave in his skull, he followed instinct. He rolled to the side, dodging the blow, and reached out with searching fingers. He managed to claw the bolt pistol into his hand. He turned onto his back and fired two shots wildly up at the peacekeepers. Then, with desperation overriding sanity and with only a vague sense of the height, he rolled off the edge of the elevated street.

Mariette Nikova did not fear death. She had been ready to die for the Emperor since she was a child, walking the hallowed halls of the Convent Sanctorum. She would have but one regret – that she had finally cornered Cal Corditus and could not complete her task.

The cultists threw her forward and she landed heavily on the floor of the mausoleum chapel. She pushed herself up and spat out the stringy metallic blood that had filled her mouth. She wondered what fate had befallen the prisoner. She had seen him drop into the lower city. He was dead or he had abandoned her. Either should have been unsurprising for a penal legionnaire, and yet she could not help but feel a pang of regret. She held hope for that one. He still had her bolt pistol too.

Corditus stood near the altar of the chapel, looking down at Nikova. His shredded overcoat was gone, leaving his chest bare, the forbidden and heretical symbols cut into his skin glowing with the foul light of the warp.

The chapel around them had been desecrated, violated in profane and blasphemous ways. The stained-glass windows that might once have depicted images of the Emperor were shattered, and the statues of great Imperial saints that lined the walls had been beheaded, their visages smashed on the ground. The walls, floor and ceiling were covered with heretical symbols of the Ruinous Powers. All of this culminated in a pool of human blood in the centre of the space that bubbled and churned as if boiling. Surrounding it stood a ring of Corditus’ cultists, their hooded heads bowed.

‘Inquisitor Nikova.’ Corditus’ voice was husky. ‘It’s been so long since our paths have crossed. Not for your lack of trying, of course. I cannot fault your diligence.’

Nikova continued to rise, struggling to her feet. Her teeth were smashed. Her tongue was split. She found it difficult to speak but she would still deliver the words she had been saving for thirty years. ‘You betrayed me, Corditus – you betrayed all of us. You are the most heinous of traitors to the Holy Inquisition, one who has fallen to the forces we are sworn to fight. I declare thee Extremis Diabolus.’

Corditus’ laugh reverberated around the chapel. ‘Your words, your labels, they are nothing. I have seen the true powers of this universe and uncovered the lies spouted to us by the false Emperor and His toy Imperium.’

‘You have consorted with Ruinous Powers and fallen to Chaos. Do you refute the charges laid against you?’

‘I do not refute your charges, Mariette. I embrace them. I want you to understand. Your beloved Emperor is no god. He is a husk, a rotten carcass. Once you know the truth then you can embrace it as I have.’

‘Then the charges stand. As an inquisitor of the Ordo Hereticus I claim thy life.’

‘Do you know the power it takes to bring forth the denizens of the warp, inquisitor?’ Corditus said, ignoring Nikova’s words. ‘The sheer force of will required to tear open the immaterium?’

‘You plan to summon daemons?’

Corditus laughed. ‘It is not what I plan to do,’ he said. ‘It is what I am doing.’

The ring of cultists around the blood pool began chanting, long, low words in some unknown tongue. Louder and louder they recited the rhythmic patterns of words until they were almost shouting. A body emerged from the pool. It padded across the floor on four legs, blood dripping away, a twisted vision of a canine. It was skinless, the pink muscle and sinew expanding and contracting in full view as it walked. It stopped beside Corditus, its forelegs splayed wide, its head low as it pulled back its lips and snarled. Nikova began whispering prayers to the Emperor.

Corditus ignored her. ‘Ordinarily a psyker is needed to provide the servants of the true gods with a pathway to our reality. But even ordinary mortal minds, if gathered in enough number, can eventually break through. You have seen my followers. The Ruinous Powers have seen fit to allow me to bind mortal minds to my will and I shall use this power to bring forth their hosts. Imagine, once I have freed myself from your petty entrapment here and gathered world after world to my side, all those minds, all those men and women spilling blood to bathe in, chanting, intoning, focusing their minds. They shall tear open the fabric of reality and the children of Chaos shall flood the Imperium.’

Nikova’s regret turned to bile in her stomach. Her worst fears had been confirmed. Corditus had succeeded in what she had sought to prevent these last thirty years, and if what he said was true, it would only get worse.

‘I had hoped to save you all those years ago, Corditus,’ she said. ‘When I saw the change in you, I should have saved you then. I should have shown you the Emperor’s mercy and killed you. Now hurry up and end this. I will die at your hand but I will have what you shall never feel again, for the Emperor protects me.’ She bowed her head, ready for the end.

‘Oh, Nikova,’ Corditus said, his voice almost pitying, ‘I’m not going to kill you. You are too valuable. You are an inquisitor, once of the Adepta Sororitas no less, and your mind is strong – trained, protected with mental engrams against the encroachment of a will like mine. What better test of my talents than to break you? Your mind will serve me better than ten thousand of those already in my grasp. I knew you could not resist coming after me yourself, overcommitting to my capture, and now puritanical Inquisitor Mariette Nikova will find herself an agent of the true gods. You are going to stand beside me as I break through your pitiful forces and spread across the Imperium.’

Nikova did not look up. She told herself it was to rob him of the pleasure. In truth, she was terrified: not of Cal Corditus, but of the fate he was promising – a fate in service to the great enemy. A fate worse than a thousand deaths.

Van Veenan opened his eyes. Surprisingly, he was alive. Unsurprisingly, he was wracked with pain. His cheek had swollen so much that he couldn’t open his right eye and his head thumped rhythmically in time with his pulse.

‘Ow,’ he moaned.

He was staring up at the dark sky. Fat drops of tropical rain had begun to fall through the humid night and were landing on his face. He sucked a breath in through clenched teeth and forced himself to sit. Whatever had broken his fall squelched beneath him. The smell would have been enough even if he hadn’t looked. He’d dropped onto a pile of garbage, a collection of trash left to fester and rot in a lower-city alley. Worse still was the open sewer pipe nearby from which brown fluid had seeped out to saturate the rubbish. Van Veenan slid off the pile. That oozing mess had likely saved his life, but it was best not to think about the details.

Inquisitor Nikova was gone. Last van Veenan had seen she was being dragged away by those traitorous peacekeepers. This was not the first time van Veenan had seen once loyal servants of the Imperium turn to Chaos, but it always left him uneasy. The Imperium was cruel, uncaring, flawed, and yet despite having faced hordes of greenskins, cowardly aeldari and a planetwide infestation of horrific tyranids, van Veenan thought the Imperium never looked as vulnerable as when it turned against itself.

As he reached the end of the alleyway he could see the mausoleum Nikova had pointed out, the building she believed housed the enemy. He knew that in the opposite direction lay the penal legion and safer sectors of the city. Could he turn his back on the inquisitor after all this? She was just one more Imperial tyrant after all. How many had died in service to those just like her? Then again, maybe she was right and enough was at stake to justify it. Regardless of all that, he couldn’t leave anyone to face whatever torments might be dished out by that dark psyker.

‘Emperor’s teeth,’ he said trying to think of how he was supposed to rescue this fragging crazy woman.

First and foremost, he’d need more weapons, and luckily he had an idea where he might find some. He moved on through the damp streets, eventually pausing at a corner. Just up ahead was the destroyed barricade they’d spotted earlier.

Four cultists still hovered around the charred and torn remains of the barrier, picking through supplies. One injured penal legionnaire against four maniacal cultists weren’t the best odds but at least he had the element of surprise.

Quietly, he released the bolt pistol magazine, slid it out and checked how many rounds were left – two in the mag and one in the chamber. He pushed the magazine back in place, letting it slowly click over the locking mechanism.

Leaning back against the wall van Veenan readied himself. He took a breath and then swung out. Nikova’s bolt pistol barked three times. The first two shots were instant kills; one opened a heretic’s skull like a piece of dropped fruit and the other tore through the neck of the next cultist in a visceral spray. The final shot struck the third cultist in the upper arm and tore it off in a shower of exploding gore.

The final cultist let out the now familiar scream as he charged. He wielded a long serrated knife, holding it outstretched as he ran.

Van Veenan moved into a defensive stance and, as the cultist swung the knife in a wide arc, he blocked the blow forearm to forearm with his left arm, ignoring the howling objection of pain, and smashed the bolt pistol across the cultist’s face with his right hand.

He followed his strike by kicking forward with his good leg and planting the sole of his heavy boot in the man’s stomach. The cultist fell onto his back and van Veenan pounced on his prey. Landing astride the cultist’s chest he repeatedly smashed the metal of the bolt pistol down on the man’s face until his blood had well and truly mixed with that he’d covered himself in.

Sucking in heaving breaths van Veenan climbed off the corpse and rose shakily to his feet. He moved to the plastek supply boxes and used his good arm to shove the empty crates aside. Flicking the latches on one of the unopened crates and lifting the lid revealed several stub-pistols. He reached in and took one of these plus an extra magazine. Without ammunition Nikova’s bolt pistol was useless but, thinking of the lashing he would no doubt receive if he lost it, he slid it securely into his belt. Opening the next crate revealed rows of krak grenades and several rolled-up bandoliers.

He had an idea.

Van Veenan looked at the dead cultists on the ground, their clothes stained red-brown. He considered for a moment and came to the unfortunate conclusion that this was the only idea he had.

So, in the humid rain, van Veenan stripped off his grey jumpsuit. He couldn’t remove the explosive collar so he chose a cultist who wore a hooded cloak. He slipped the heretic’s clothes on, trying to ignore the stench of blood and grime.

Once he’d prepared his weapons and hidden them beneath the robe he now wore, van Veenan retrieved the combat knife from the ground nearby. He knelt beside the now naked cultist, took a steadying breath and stabbed the blade into the side of the dead man’s stomach. He worked the blade up to the navel. Dark blood, no longer pumped by a beating heart, oozed out onto the stones. Van Veenan cupped his hand beneath the burgundy rivulet and, holding down the urge to vomit, splashed it onto his face. He then rubbed it all over his exposed skin and freshened up the blood on his clothing.

He once again made for the higher levels of the city, this time heading directly for the mausoleum. He didn’t hesitate as he passed cultists, hoping they would consider him one of their own. To his immense relief, it seemed as though they did. These cultists, as they stood around, did not seem as deranged and maniacal as they did in battle. Instead they weaved, swaying from side to side, entranced, as if moving to some music in their minds. As van Veenan climbed the mausoleum steps to the intricately carved double doors, none of the cultists attempted to intercept him. He slipped inside.

That was a bad idea. No, it was probably the worst idea he’d ever had in a lifetime of questionable decisions.

Inside the mausoleum was a long columned hall. At the far end was what must have been the chapel, and then in several symmetrical locations on either side of the hall there were stairs, lit by burning promethium torches, descending into the belly of the mausoleum. Van Veenan picked the first set of stairs and headed into the depths.

His search did not take long. On the first level of tombs he found the group of peacekeepers from the street. They stood in a circle like the bars of a human cage. At their centre Nikova was sitting with her knees tucked up close to her chest, her hands clasped over her ears, rocking back and forth amid some sort of psychic bombardment.

When he was twenty yards away, van Veenan felt a psychic bombardment of his own, the words of Corditus broadcasting to all minds in the area.

+He is here.+

The peacekeepers turned in unison.

Well, he’d wanted to cause a distraction, and this seemed like a good time. He reached into his cloak to grip the hidden stub-pistol and, as swiftly as he could, he lifted, sighted and pulled the trigger. The closest peacekeeper wore no helmet. His skull opened as the round entered through his right eye.

The rest immediately came for him. Van Veenan turned and dashed back onto the stairs. Once out of view he stopped and let his bloody cloak fall open. Beneath he wore two bandoliers crossed over his chest, each one holding five krak grenades. He grabbed a grenade, pulled the pin, and dropped it on the stairs before continuing up.

Just as the peacekeepers reached the stairs the krak grenade exploded. Van Veenan felt the shock wave as he emerged at the top of the stairs, smoke and stone fragments spraying out after him.

Cultists began flooding through the mausoleum’s doors. Van Veenan ran deeper into the building. Ahead of him the door to the chapel burst open. He glimpsed shapes moving inside but ignored them and took a sharp turn down the next set of stairs. In the brief time he’d had to survey the building from outside he’d guessed the mausoleum was like an iceberg, the top visible above the street while the sheer bulk of the interred dead were buried deep below. All these stairs should lead to the first level of tombs, with more stairs leading deeper from there.

At the bottom of the stairs van Veenan saw that he’d been right. Inquisitor Nikova was only a short distance away. She was still on her knees, not actively rocking like a distressed child but still clearly dazed. There was only one peacekeeper with her now. The others lay sprawled near the first set of stairs, scattered by the krak blast.

Without stopping van Veenan lifted his stubber and fired at the solitary heretic. The shots struck him in the back, arm, shoulder and chest as he turned. The peacekeeper dropped to the ground, dead.

Van Veenan knew that every cultist for miles would be descending on the mausoleum now. He worked quickly, the adrenaline pushing him through his pain. He grabbed Nikova by the back of her collar and pulled her with him. She turned to look at him, groggy.

‘Prisoner?’ she slurred.

‘Come on, inquisitor,’ he said, ‘a little help would be nice.’

Nikova, pulling at least some of her senses together, got to her feet and moved with him even as she grunted with the effort of fighting off whatever psychic attack she was withstanding. Van Veenan ducked into a tomb alcove, pulling Nikova in with him.

‘They’ll–’ Nikova started, struggling to put words together, ‘have us cornered.’

‘Not if I can help it,’ van Veenan said. He unclipped both bandoliers of krak grenades and let them drop to the ground. He took one grenade, leaned out from the alcove and sent it skittering along the floor towards the cultists pouring down the stairs and coming towards them.

Even as the blast echoed through the tombs van Veenan was already working on their escape. He pulled all five krak grenades off his second bandolier and stuck them to the end wall of the alcove.

‘What are you doing?’ Nikova asked.

‘Well, I’m either making us a cunning escape route or I’m about to bring the whole mausoleum down on top of us.’

Without hesitation van Veenan pulled the pin from each of the grenades. He and Nikova took cover behind the tomb. The five krak grenades erupted in a series of concussive blasts that seemed to shake the very planet. A cloud of explosive gases, dust and stone chips filled the alcove. The tomb shielded van Veenan and Nikova as flying debris struck cultists just rounding the corner.

The pair scrambled out from cover and ran for the hole in the wall. Putting complete faith in his estimated location, van Veenan, Nikova alongside him, hurdled over the jagged rubble of the wall and through a dense cloud of smoke. As they fell, he had the terrible thought that he had got the layout of the building wrong and they were about to plummet to their deaths. To his relief, their feet landed heavily on the street outside.

‘Come, we need to make it to Imperial lines,’ Nikova said.

They sprinted away from the mausoleum with las-beams and bullets smacking into the walls around them as they ran. Just as they reached an alleyway, Nikova let out an involuntary grunt of pain. Van Veenan turned to see her stumble. She managed the last few steps into cover before her legs gave out.

Van Veenan immediately saw that a round had hit the side of her torso just above her hip, an area not covered by her bodyglove’s armour plates. It had torn her open. He moved to help, but she waved him off.

‘No. I’m not going to make it.’ She reached out and grabbed the front of van Veenan’s blood-slick cloak. ‘Make it back to the barricade. Find Inquisitor Gorton... tell him these exact words. Code obsidian. Thorn on rose confirmed. Execute rain of Titan.’ She coughed and a spurt of blood sprayed from her lips. ‘Can you remember that?’

‘I don’t understand,’ van Veenan said.

‘Doesn’t matter.’ Nikova struggled on. ‘Can you remember it?’

He nodded.

‘Repeat it.’

‘Code obsidian. Thorn on rose confirmed. Execute rain of Titan.’

‘Good, go then,’ Nikova said. ‘Emperor protect you, pris–’ The inquisitor stopped herself. ‘Emperor protect you, Sergeant van Veenan.’

‘Emperor protect you,’ van Veenan said, and as he heard the approaching screams of cultists, he ran.

Van Veenan sprinted through the dark city, abandoning all but the barest thoughts of stealth. The cult was preparing another push, looking for a weakness in the Imperial lines where they could burst out to haemorrhage across this world.

When he reached the avenue he was pleased to see the penal legionnaires had held the barricade, though their numbers looked horrifically depleted.

As he ran onto the avenue, cracks of lasgun fire forced him to drop to the ground and crawl behind one of the vehicle traps for cover. Suddenly he was thankful the Meat Dogs were such fragging awful shots. He realised he probably should have changed out of the clothes of a cultist; after everything he’d been through, being shot by his own side would be infuriating.

‘Hold your fire! I’m one of you!’ he shouted. ‘Marcus van Veenan, Eighth Platoon!’ He was desperately aware that the cultists behind him would be close. ‘Inquisitor Nikova sent me with a message for Inquisitor Gorton.’ When there was no reply van Veenan simply shouted the nonsense words the dying inquisitor had given him. ‘Code obsidian. Thorn on rose confirmed. Execute rain of Titan.’

After a moment a man called back. ‘This is Inquisitor Gorton. Come forward.’

Hesitantly, van Veenan stood. This time no wild shooting pinned him back down but as he ran down the avenue lasgun and heavy bolter fire soon broke out from the barricade again. He stumbled, ready to hit the road before he realised they weren’t firing at him. The screaming cultists had emerged behind him. Thousands charged at the barricade again.

When van Veenan reached the barricade he dived over into the ranks of grey-clad legionnaires. A man dressed in black came forward to meet him. He was bordered on either side by acolytes. One was a heavyset man wearing a cloak with a fur collar despite the tropical heat, and the other was a young woman who watched van Veenan with bionic eyes. Each had weapons trained on him.

‘Hold those heretics at bay!’ the man shouted to the penal legionnaires before turning to van Veenan. ‘I am Inquisitor Harth Gorton. What proof do you have that you represent Inquisitor Nikova?’

Van Veenan slowly reached for the bolt pistol tucked into his belt. He plucked it free and tossed it on the ground at the feet of Inquisitor Gorton. The inquisitor looked at the weapon with its unique decorative inlay and, somewhat reluctantly, beckoned for van Veenan to join him in cover behind the Chimera.

‘Inquisitor Nikova told you to give me this message?’

‘Yes, inquisitor. I was with her in the city, searching for your target, Corditus. She was captured and I rescued her.’

Inquisitor Gorton stared at him. ‘You rescued her from Corditus alone?’

‘Yes, inquisitor.’

‘Where is she, then?’

‘Dead, shot during our escape. Her dying command was to deliver that message.’

‘And did you see Corditus personally?’

‘Only from a distance.’

‘Anything else you think it pertinent to report?’ Gorton asked. Van Veenan could tell the inquisitor was hunting for something, but he wasn’t sure what.

‘Just the same heretics with a penchant for covering themselves in blood.’

‘Like you are,’ Gorton said, one eyebrow cocked.

‘A disguise,’ van Veenan said, ‘for infiltrating the enemy.’

‘Very well. You have the thanks of the Inquisition.’ Inquisitor Gorton paused. He turned to the large man beside him. ‘Mercure, escort this legionnaire back to the drop-ship on which he arrived.’

‘That’s it?’ van Veenan asked. ‘After all that I haven’t earned my freedom from the penal legion? Just a thanks and get back on the drop-ship, better luck at redemption through sacrifice next time?’

‘You will go with my acolyte, prisoner.’

Van Veenan felt the hand of the massive Inquisitorial acolyte land on his shoulder.

‘Emperor’s teeth,’ van Veenan said as he was turned away from the barricade and led back through the streets towards the space port and the continuing clutches of Imperial injustice.

Inquisitor Gorton watched Mercure lead the legionnaire away. He could not blame the man for his attitude. He was only a convict after all. He did not understand the events around him. He did not appreciate the gift he had been given. Gorton keyed his vox headset.

‘This is Gorton. Code obsidian. Thorn on rose confirmed. Execute rain of Titan. I say again, execute rain of Titan.’

‘Acknowledged.’

Gorton waited, watching the penal legionnaires fight back this latest attack from the crazed blood cult. He prayed to the Emperor that they would not fail now. Thirty seconds later a flaming object lit up the grey clouds in an orange glow as it descended towards the city. With a roar that drowned out the screams of the cultists the plummeting object resolved into a single black drop pod. It fired its retro thrusters and slammed into the centre of the avenue, crushing one of the steel vehicle traps as if it had been made of twigs and driving a crater into the road at least three feet deep. The force of the impact threw dozens of cultists into the air.

Jets of white gas hissed from each of the five sides of the hexagonal craft as it opened. The actuated doors released slowly at first and then fell the rest of the way, landing with a crunch on the street. From inside the drop pod five figures emerged. Each stood around eight feet tall and was completely clad in a suit of shining grey power armour. As they stepped from the pod their footsteps seemed to reverberate through the whole city. Every one of the penal legionnaires had ceased firing and stared in awe at these angels who had dropped from the sky.

Space Marines.

Despite having called them in, Inquisitor Gorton swallowed the nervous lump in his throat. These were not brothers of just any Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes. The immense silver power armour of these warriors was covered with not only purity seals, but also ancient scrolls and blessed parchment. These were Grey Knights, the hammer of the Emperor against the forces of daemonkind. Gorton’s gaze met the glowing blue eye-lenses of one of the Grey Knights who turned to look in his direction. With the Space Marine’s face completely obscured by his helmet it was impossible to know how to interpret that look, but it chilled Gorton nonetheless. It felt, if not quite inhuman, then at least uncaring.

In near perfect unison the power swords in the hands of the Grey Knights burst to brilliant-blue life and, moving with a speed that seemed impossible in such bulky armour, the Space Marines slashed their way through the cultists, dispatching all in their path with the casual ease that a farmer might display while scything crops. Leaving not a single cultist alive the Space Marines moved on, disappearing into the city as they moved off to find and eliminate the heretical traitor Cal Corditus and whatever foul things he had brought through from the warp.

There was complete silence as rain fell on the men of the Second Rapture Penal Legion. Gorton let his lips billow out in relief. With Inquisitor Nikova gone he supposed the next responsibility fell to him.

‘Legionnaires,’ he said, ‘you have fought with valour and have held this line as long as we have asked. You have no doubt achieved your redemption in the eyes of the God-Emperor. Place your weapons down and form up over here.’

The grey-clad men, having left their lasguns behind as ordered, moved out from behind the barricade. There was a muted excitement among them. They were cannon fodder and yet they had survived. Their formation seemed just that little more professional.

Twenty-four Inquisitorial acolytes moved to stand beside Gorton. Each of them held a lasgun.

The eyes of the legionnaires widened but before they could flee Gorton spoke.

‘Fire.’

The lasguns cracked with fully automatic fire that raked through the legionnaires. After a moment Gorton raised his hand for the acolytes to cease. He waited for any signs of life but there were none. They had kept the cultists back but in turn had laid eyes on the Grey Knights and protocol was clear. All the legionnaires were dead. The only exception being that one legionnaire he’d sent away. The one who had assisted Nikova and delivered her confirmation message. What was his name? Van Veechen? No matter. Alone in the drop-ship’s hold that legionnaire would live, at least until his sacrifice was asked for again.

THE PRICE OF DUTY

MATT SMITH

The forest was warm but a cool breeze brushed at his face. The sun was bright, but shaded by the thick canopy, which allowed only thin beams of light to reach through, like the Emperor’s fingers reaching from the heavens to bless the ground. Jasper Nevin couldn’t help thinking it would be a nice place to go on a relaxing stroll or bring one’s paramour for a romantic picnic.

At least, it would be if he weren’t being shot at. Las-fire struck the wide colossoak tree he was sheltering behind and Nevin flinched with every impact. He had been hiding here for several minutes. He had been separated from his unit when they had been ambushed. Stun grenades had left him disoriented, and by the time he had come to his senses there were no allies in sight. Now he was pinned down and unable to find a way out. He grew frustrated. He was a graduate of the schola progenium of Grundus V, for Emperor’s sake, but for all their talk of duty and discipline the schola progenium could never truly drive the fear from a man, never truly prepare him for war.

Jasper Nevin was a commissar, and he was afraid.

He dared a glance out from behind the trunk. He couldn’t see anything. A shot hit the colossoak, stripping bark, and Nevin snapped back into cover. He fired back blindly with his laspistol. His shots were weak next to the incoming fire. They were quiet and dull and where they struck trees they left only faint burn marks. The weapon was old and poorly maintained, the powercell recycled more times than even the most generous Munitorum guidelines allowed. It whined low, drained, as more loud sharp cracks snapped back. He tried to reload the pistol but his hands were shaking. His fingers felt numb and unwieldy.

He heard footsteps. They were swift and light. He couldn’t tell how many there were, or which direction they were coming from – only that they were getting closer. He fumbled the powercell into place and dared another look out of cover. He spotted something, a figure in green hooded overalls covered in off-cuts of foliage. It moved assuredly between the trees. Nevin fired and the figure dived away. Nevin ducked back, then looked around the other side of the trunk. He caught a glance of a second figure clad like the first. It fired on full-auto from the hip as it moved, the shots spraying wildly. Nevin dropped to one knee and returned fire. A shot struck the attacker in the abdomen and it stumbled clumsily before falling on its face.

Before Nevin could relish his success, a third attacker stepped out ahead of where the second had fallen, and fired. Nevin only just managed to get out of the way before the shots buzzed past. He noticed he was panting and tried to control his breathing. This was how he was going to die: alone, at the hands of rebel logging workers on what was supposed to be a simple garrison duty before he’d ever even seen a xenos or a heretic.

No, that wasn’t how the story of Jasper Nevin would finish. He’d trained too long for such an ignominious end. He was a commissar and he had one weapon left at his disposal: righteous authority. He cleared his throat, took a deep breath, and pronounced: ‘Workers of Verdine Two logging station Primus Delta Twelve, I am Commissar Jasper Nevin! You stand in defiance of the ordained edicts of the Departmento Munitorum and the Adeptus Mechanicus! By the authority of the Commissariat, the Officio Prefectus and the Emperor Himself, stand down and–’

More las-fire cut him off. Nevin glanced out to see how long he had left. The approaching figures had once more blended into the forest but when he looked away he saw another. It was halfway up a tree directly ahead of him, suspended from a utility harness, the kind the workers used to strip high branches. He had a clear sight line. Nevin threw himself forwards onto his face as a spray of las-fire chewed up the tree where he had been sat a moment before. More fire from behind kicked up tufts of dirt around him. With the rebel sniper in play he could no longer hide. Survival instincts that had previously rooted him to the spot now lent strength to his legs. He got to his feet and ran. Las-fire chased him every step of the way, and he fired back desperately over his shoulders. He tripped and fell. More shots whined overhead and Nevin rolled onto his back, firing at random as he tried to regain his footing. He saw something move between the trees and snapped off three more shots before his pistol whined low again. The pursuer stepped out of cover. His lasgun was held at his hip, finger on the trigger as he walked calmly towards Nevin.

There was a flash of movement from the shrubbery surrounding the base of the nearest colossoak. Before the rebel labourer could react, a hand was clamped over his nose and mouth and a knife had been driven up under his ribcage. He let out a muffled splutter and blood seeped between the fingers across his face. He slumped as the blade slid free, dripping crimson. The wielder crouched, wiping the knife clean on their victim’s overalls with one hand while snapping off a series of gestures with the other. Nevin heard the distinctive snap of a single long-las shot, followed by a cry – and a moment later, a dull heavy thud. He hadn’t seen the shooter; he was still looking at the warrior who’d saved him.

Captain Rosario Vargass, ‘Viper’ among the soldiery, was powerfully built. She stood half a head taller than Nevin and her hair was a dark buzz cut. She wore a red bandana, a dirty white vest and jungle camouflage fatigues that showed off the tattoos that ran down both her arms. She was the commanding officer of B Company in the Catachan 64th. Nevin had been assigned to her upon his allocation to the regiment. In his time with B Company, he had found her to be a brutal, sometimes terrifying combatant. Beyond that, she had proven to have a keen strategic mind and an easy, natural leadership style that Nevin admired and envied. She stayed crouched unmoving in the undergrowth. In the sudden stillness Nevin heard a muted cry only a short distance to his right, followed by a sharp crack to the left. He didn’t know if it was snapping wood or breaking bone.

Captain Vargass finally moved in a swift, hunched walk towards him. ‘Get up,’ she snarled, not deigning to look down at him as she yanked up on the shoulder of his storm coat. He could smell the blood of the dead labourer on her fingers. There was movement all around them as one by one, four more Catachan troopers made themselves known. Captain Vargass stood up straight and Nevin quickly pushed himself to his feet, brushing dry dirt and leaves off his coat.

‘Your assistance was most timely, captain,’ Nevin said in a clipped tone, trying to establish an air of authority.

Vargass turned and stepped so she could whisper to him. ‘You should be careful, commissar. It almost looked like you were running away.’

Nevin stepped away and made a show of checking and reloading his pistol. ‘Merely withdrawing to a more defensible position, captain.’

‘I was referring more to how you ended up out here in the first place,’ Vargass replied, loud enough that the squad could hear this time.

‘Oh.’ Nevin cleared his throat and looked away sheepishly for a second before catching himself and snapping his gaze back to the captain. ‘I got disoriented during the ambush. These damn trees all look the same,’ he said.

‘At least none of them look like sucker trees,’ one of the troopers said. The others laughed.

‘You’re lucky that Vandien saw which way you went,’ Vargass said and nodded her head past him.

Nevin looked back over his shoulder at Trooper Vandien. He was Vargass’ adjutant and one of the youngest in the regiment, roughly Nevin’s age but noticeably taller, with a thick, dark beard. He returned Vargass’ gesture respectfully.

‘My thanks for your vigilance, Trooper Vandien,’ Nevin said.

The trooper fixed him with a cold stare for a long second, then looked away.

‘We all enjoyed your little speech about the authority of the Officio Prefectus,’ said Vargass drawing another low rumble of laughter from the Catachans. ‘How did that work out for you?’

Nevin turned back to her and forced an easy smile. ‘Unsurprisingly the rebels failed to recognise Imperial authority,’ he said.

‘Well, it helped us find you, at least.’

‘The Emperor protects,’ said Nevin.

‘Captain,’ another of Vargass’ command squad said. ‘Did you see this?’ It was the scout, Romaro. She was hunched down over the fallen labourer Viper had killed.

‘What is it?’ Vargass asked as she made her way towards her. Nevin followed unbidden. When he reached her, Romaro was prising the dead man’s fingers from his lasgun.

‘Well, captain, when the rebellion began the labourers were practically unarmed. They were fighting the overseers with forestry equipment and their bare hands. Any firearms they had were old personal items, a few autopistols and stubbers.’

‘We knew they had managed to arm themselves,’ Nevin said.

Romaro shot him a sideways glance and kept speaking to Vargass. ‘We thought they had managed to get hold of some cheap lasguns, but nothing like this. Look.’ She unslung her own lascarbine and laid it down next to the dead man’s weapon.

The guns were near identical. The clearest difference Nevin could see was in their condition. Romaro’s lascarbine, like his own pistol, looked aged. Where metal was exposed it was beginning to rust. Thick clumps of ash and dirt filled its crevices and the casing was badly cracked to the point that it was hazardous to use. By comparison, the labourer’s weapon was brand new. Captain Vargass took the labourer’s rifle and unslung her own, which was in no better condition than Romaro’s.

‘How did these upstart woodsmen get access to brand new military-issue lascarbines while we’re out here fighting with whatever is barely working after Scarda?’ Captain Vargass asked.

Nevin stood silently, looking down at the dead body.

‘Well?’

Nevin flinched at the captain’s sharp tone and looked up to see her staring at him. He had assumed the question was rhetorical. ‘I-I don’t know,’ he said, his mind failing as it scrambled for a better answer. ‘I’ll speak to the lord commissar when we get back to the outpost.’

‘Good idea,’ Vargass said, ‘we should do that.’

Outpost Beta One Alpha had been home to the majority of the Catachan 64th for the past month. It was made up of large tents surrounding a few small prefab structures. The perimeter wall was built from the wood of the colossoak trees that had been cleared to make room for the base’s construction. Currently, the regimental commander, Colonel Mason, was in orbit dealing with high command, which put Captain Vargass in charge.

On their return to the outpost Vargass had taken casualty reports from Fourth Platoon. They had fifteen confirmed dead, a dozen more injured and two missing. Nevin had stood beside the captain as the reports came in and watched with increasing concern at the growing tension in the tendons of her neck. He remained after she had dismissed the platoon sergeants.

‘What do you want, Nevin?’ she said.

‘I thought it was as good a time as any to go and see the lord commissar.’

Vargass looked at him, nodded and led the way towards the command bunker.

Commissar Nevin’s superior had laid claim to a large storage room on the edge of the command building and converted it into his office. The door was manned by a pair of Tempestus Scions from the 91st Rhoin Cobras. They wore the same camouflage fatigues as the Catachans, though theirs were layered over with plates of matt-black carapace armour and they wore black berets.

‘Commissar Nevin, sir,’ one of them greeted him as the pair snapped to attention. ‘Captain Vargass,’ he added a long moment later.

‘We’re here to see the lord commissar,’ said Nevin.

‘He’s been expecting you, go ahead.’

Nevin stepped between the Scions and placed his hand on the door. Captain Vargass made to follow him, but the Scion to Nevin’s left held up a hand to stop her.

‘Not you,’ he said bluntly.

‘What?’ Vargass replied, indignant.

‘The captain is with me,’ Nevin said.

‘Regardless, sir,’ the Scion to Nevin’s right said, ‘the lord commissar is not currently meeting with any member of the Catachan Sixty-Fourth.’

‘I demand to speak to him,’ Vargass said. She slapped the first Scion’s raised hand out of the air, and he bristled at the contact.

‘We answer only to the lord commissar, and his orders were clear. Now, please remove yourself from the vicinity, or you will be removed forcefully.’

‘I am in operational command of this outpost, I could have a hundred soldiers here to–’

‘Captain,’ said Nevin. Vargass glared at him. Her eyes were fierce and intimidating but Nevin held her gaze stoically. The silence lingered awkwardly until Vargass turned and began to walk away. ‘I’ll find you when I’m done,’ he called after her.

Vargass glanced back for a moment, but kept walking. Nevin was sure he heard her mutter something offensive. When she had passed out of earshot, Nevin turned with a nod to the men on the door and entered.

The office was a strange blend of military bareness and baroque opulence. The walls and floor were plain grey rockcrete, and a chill hung in the air. By contrast, the centre of the room was dominated by a large, rich mahogany desk piled with neat stacks of paperwork. On the wall behind it was a grand painting Nevin knew depicted the final Imperial victory on Salshiek two hundred years ago. In the centre was the heroic Commissar Bandine, depicted shining with the Emperor’s light, his blade held forth, leading the final charge into the breached fortress walls. It was magnificent and imposing, but to Nevin, not nearly as much as the figure seated in front of it.

Lord Commissar Albrec Stone was Jasper Nevin’s hero. He was bald, his uniform was immaculately pressed and he sat with a nobleman’s poise. While Nevin was just a boy, Stone had been injured in the battle for Numitus Beta. He still bore the evidence – a long scar that ran down the side of his face, and a gold-plated bionic left eye. During his convalescence, the lord commissar had given lectures to Nevin’s schola progenium class on matters of politics, philosophy, strategy and more. His oratory had always been inspiring, wise and insightful. When Nevin had been given his first posting he had been dumbfounded to see that he would be serving beneath Stone himself.

‘Commissar Nevin, do you have something to report or did you mistake my office for an art gallery?’ Stone asked. His voice was low and rasping, but still strong and authoritative.

Nevin tucked his cap under his arm, snapped to attention and saluted.

‘Lord Commissar, sir, Captain Vargass’ patrol was ambushed this afternoon. Casualties were significant. Reports are coming in of attacks on the satellite outposts also.’

‘You have the formal report?’ Stone asked, extending his hand expectantly.

‘N-no, not yet, sir. There was another matter we– I needed to consult you about. It is urgent.’

‘Who is “we”?’ Stone asked.

Nevin looked down at his feet for a second, but luckily caught himself before Stone was moved to chastise him. ‘Captain Vargass and I, sir.’

Stone sneered. ‘Go on.’

‘Sir, upon inspection of the bodies of slain labour rebels it was observed that they have acquired newly forged military-issue weaponry – lascarbines of similar design to the regiment’s own, to be specific, sir.’

The lord commissar rested his thumb and index finger against his chin. ‘How do you believe they could have come upon such armaments, Commissar Nevin?’

‘Unknown, sir. There are no manufactoria producing such weapons on this world and we do not believe the rebels have means of off-world contact. Even if they did, the Naval patrols in orbit would prevent anything being transported to the surface.’

‘A perturbatory development,’ Stone said, leaning back a little in his seat. ‘Leave this matter to me, commissar. I will investigate it personally. In the meantime see to it that any of these weapons that the Catachans may have plundered from the dead are confiscated and turned in to Tempestor Sonnen.’

Nevin wanted to respond, but didn’t dare speak out against the lord commissar. He opened his mouth to speak, but hesitated and shut it. The movement was not lost on Stone.

‘Something to say, commissar?’

‘No, well, yes, sir – it’s just that–’

‘Spit it out, commissar,’ Stone snapped.

Nevin’s fear of speaking up was replaced with a greater fear of staying quiet. He took a deep breath, filling his chest. ‘Sir, the regiment could really use these new weapons. Their own equipment is no longer fit for purpose. Soldiers are dying because their lasguns are failing them.’

Stone leant forwards, resting his forearms on the desk. He stared at Nevin intently. ‘The souls of our enemies are corrupt, as are the weapons they wield. I will not see them used by soldiers under my command.’

‘Understood, sir,’ said Nevin, ‘in which case should the weapons not go to the quartermaster?’

Stone shook his head. ‘I will trust this task to my own men and no others. Now do as commanded. Dismissed.’

Nevin snapped his heels together and saluted, then turned on the spot and left the room. His orders didn’t sit well with him; he had no desire to see Catachan lives lost when there was any way to save them. But, the lord commissar knew best. Nevin reassured himself of that. He put his cap back on, straightened his jacket and went to carry out his orders.

The inspection took hours to complete, with hundreds of bunks needing to be searched. It swiftly became clear that the Catachan soldiers were as ingenious in their methods of hiding contraband as they were unwilling to cooperate with him. Even so, with the assistance of the Rhoin Cobras, Nevin was able to find and confiscate dozens of illegal lascarbines and pistols and even several flamers. Once it was all over Nevin felt quite proud of himself. It had been a difficult job and he felt he had executed it well. It left him in a good mood as he moved on to his daily inspection of the outer walls. He climbed the ladder nearest the southern entrance and started to make his way around. He greeted each sentry as he came upon them, doing his best to recall their names, though rarely succeeding. Regardless, he was only ever met with a cold acknowledgement of ‘commissar’ and an awkward silence until he moved on. As he approached the northern gate he was surprised to find Captain Vargass among the sentries.

‘Captain,’ he said politely as he passed, hoping that he would receive the usual frosty greeting in return.

‘Commissar Nevin, you’ve saved me the trouble of having to find you,’ she said.

Nevin’s chest grew tight and his good mood drained through the soles of his feet. ‘How can I help you, captain?’ he asked, moving to stand beside her, looking out into the forest.

‘You chose not to inform me that you would be inspecting my regiment.’

‘Under the circumstances I judged it best that the inspection be a surprise, as is my prerogative,’ Nevin replied.

‘Yours? Or the lord commissar’s?’

Nevin stiffened. ‘We all have orders to follow.’

Vargass looked away. ‘That’s what I thought. My own orders are to put down this rebellion. Recently yours seem intent on undermining me.’

‘My orders, and moreover my duty, are to maintain the discipline and moral fibre of this regiment.’

‘Is that so?’ Vargass asked. There was a sudden hint of levity to her voice that caught Nevin off guard.

‘It is,’ he replied with a frown.

‘At what cost?’ she asked, turning to look at him now.

‘At any cost,’ Nevin said earnestly.

‘Remember that,’ she said, her face stern once again. ‘Follow me.’ She turned away, checking over her shoulder to ensure Nevin was following, and slid down the nearest ladder.

‘Where are we going?’ Nevin asked, calling down from the barricade.

‘The armoury. I have something important to show you,’ Vargass called back.

The armoury was a long, narrow room lined with rows of solid wooden shelving. It was mostly empty. Captain Vargass led Nevin inside and took him towards a man hunched over a workbench. Nevin knew a little of the quartermaster. He was the oldest member of the regiment that Nevin could recall, older still than the colonel. He had lost his left leg somewhere along the line, and it had been replaced with a crude bionic. That had been the end of his soldiering career. Since then he had rather let himself go; a once muscular physique had slowly turned to fat, his belly forever poking out under the bottom of his vest.

‘Bron,’ Vargass said, greeting him warmly.

‘Viper,’ the man replied, straightening up with a thin groan and an amiable smile.

‘You know Commissar Nevin,’ Vargass said, gesturing to him.

Bron Hader looked at him. His smile faded. ‘I know of him,’ he said. His voice was gravelly and Nevin thought he might break into a coughing fit at any moment. Nevin responded with a polite nod.

Hader turned back to Vargass. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’

Vargass reached into the waistband of her fatigues and withdrew a laspistol. Nevin could tell it was one of the enemy contraband. She turned it in her grip and offered it to Hader. ‘The commissar needs to know what you told me about these weapons.’

Hader took the weapon and glanced at Nevin, then back at Vargass. ‘You sure?’ he asked.

Vargass just looked at him.

‘Very well,’ he conceded, then turned to Nevin. ‘Over here, kid,’ he said, gesturing to the space beside him at the workbench.

‘That’s Commissar Nevin, if you will, Quartermaster Hader,’ Nevin replied sternly.

‘Sure, commissar,’ said Hader as he laid the laspistol on the bench. ‘Now look. See here?’ he said, pointing to the discolouration of the metal at the top of the grip. ‘That’s where Militarum-issue weapons are typically embossed with a serial number and maker’s mark. These markings have been acid-burned off.’

‘That’s unfortunate.’

‘Obviously, but it confirms that these are definitely Militarum-issue weapons. We got lucky here though,’ he said, and knocked on the casing with his knuckles. ‘It’s a plastek composite I’ve only seen on weapons forged on Kaedis Prime.’

‘I’m afraid I’m unfamiliar with that world,’ said Nevin.

‘It was the forge world providing resupply to the campaign on Scarda. What’s more, the weapons match the configuration of a resupply shipment I requested on Scarda but never received. Strange thing is, I was notified several weeks ago that the shipment was here on Verdine, and would be delivered to the outpost. Better late than never might as well be the Munitorum’s motto, but again, they never arrived.’

‘Perhaps the rebels intercepted it,’ Nevin speculated.

Hader shook his head. ‘An ambush would have been officially recorded. When I contacted Alpha Base for confirmation they told me the shipment had been assigned for redistribution.’

Nevin nodded. ‘This was meant to be a quiet garrison duty. There are other warzones in greater need of resupply.’

‘Perhaps, in the eyes of some Munitorum scribe who doesn’t know the situation we’re in, but non-delivery of requisitioned munitions obliges the Munitorum to seek confirmation from a senior officer. Alpha Base confirmed they got it, but they wouldn’t tell me who from.’

‘Who would have the authority?’

‘That’s quite the question,’ said Vargass, and the two men turned towards her. ‘Whoever it is could possibly be involved in a conspiracy to supply weapons to the labourers. There’s Colonel Mason of course, but he’s with crusade command. I haven’t been able to get in touch with him in over a month and even if the Munitorum were able to, he knows the situation we’re in. He’d have fought it, or at least let us know. There’s me and the other captains. It wasn’t any of them. That leaves two people.’

Nevin realised he was having palpitations. He knew what Vargass was going to say. His hand blindly reached back for the pistol on the bench but couldn’t find it. He dared a glance back to see it out of reach, firmly pinned under Hader’s meaty paw.

‘Lord Commissar Stone,’ she said, taking a step towards him, looking down at him right in the eye, ‘and you.’

Nevin tried to step back but he had nowhere to go. ‘It wasn’t me,’ he said, holding his hands up as if to surrender.

‘No? Who didn’t fight beside us on Scarda?’ She took another step towards him. Nevin was all too aware of the knife at her hip. ‘Who has the most to gain from keeping favour with the Munitorum? Who is the weakest, most blindly obedient man in this regiment? How can I trust you?’

Each insult stung Nevin to his core as a bright light was shone upon his failings. He wanted so much to be respected by the Catachans and he had believed he was slowly starting to earn that respect. Viper’s words stripped that belief away, and in that moment he wished she would draw that knife, run him through and save the Imperium from his weakness.

‘You can’t,’ he managed to say, ‘but I swear in the Emperor’s name it was not me.’

She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘Do you understand what you are saying?’

He did, though he didn’t want to believe it. There must have been another option Vargass hadn’t considered. He nodded.

‘And in your duty to uphold the discipline of this regiment it would fall to you to investigate the possibility of such a crime and bring justice to its perpetrator.’

Nevin pushed himself off the bench and straightened up.

‘It would,’ he said, ‘but understand that I do not believe Lord Commissar Stone would do such a thing. The most likely explanation is that this is all down to a simple clerical error. I will look into the matter further, but if the lord commissar proves to be innocent, as I expect, I shall be investigating you next. Do not think I haven’t noticed that you have no more proof of your innocence than I do.’

Vargass was quiet for a long second and Nevin worried his defiance had angered her further. He almost sighed with relief as she spoke.

‘Very well. I have nothing to hide. As for Stone, you’ll need evidence. There is likely to be a paper trail, perhaps a confirmation from the Munitorum. If we can find that we may be able to follow it.’

‘Lord Commissar Stone is an intelligent man. If it were him he would likely have destroyed any incriminating evidence,’ said Nevin.

‘He is also an arrogant man,’ said Vargass, ‘one who would not comprehend that he may be challenged.’

‘If that is the case any documents would be kept in his office.’

Vargass sneered. ‘Those toy soldiers won’t let me in there, but you they might.’

Nevin hated the thought of investigating Lord Commissar Stone, of betraying his trust, but what Vargass was saying was undeniably plausible. It was his duty to examine the possibility. ‘I’ll find a way,’ he said.

‘Good. I want to know as soon as you find something.’

‘Of course,’ Nevin said. He stepped past her, turning back to spare a departing nod to Hader, and left the armoury. He wouldn’t finish his rounds. He suddenly felt quite sick.

Each day Lord Commissar Stone took breakfast in the officers’ mess at sunrise. He ate a bowl of oats, drank black recaff and looked over the latest reports from high command. It took him fifteen minutes. This was Nevin’s window. He was nervous as he approached the office. As usual, there were two Scions guarding the door. One of them raised a hand to stop him as he got close.

‘The lord commissar is not in at the moment, sir,’ he said.

‘I know, trooper, I just saw him in the officers’ mess. He forgot to pick up the latest reports from Battle Group Orion so I offered to fetch them for him,’ Nevin said, and made to step past.

The second guard moved in front of the door to block him. ‘No one enters the lord commissar’s office while he is out.’

Nevin took a step back. He had thought that would be enough to get him inside, and momentarily regretted not asking Trooper Vandien to cause a distraction for him. It was too late now, though – he would have to improvise. He smiled, hoping it looked relaxed and not desperate.

‘You know full well that if I said I’d get the lord commissar’s reports I can’t go back to him now without them,’ he said, looking back and forth between them. The two Scions looked at each other. Nevin could tell they were unsure, but he was still a superior officer and unlike the Catachans, the Rhoin respected that.

‘Be quick,’ the first guard said. The second guard cleared his path.

‘Thank you. The Emperor protects,’ Nevin said and slipped past them. He closed the door behind himself and immediately got to work. As usual the desk was piled with papers, and Nevin set about rifling through them. There were all manner of reports from across Verdine II, high command and systems beyond. Nevin found several he had written himself, and wondered if they had even been read. He was several long minutes into the search when the door opened behind him.

‘What’s taking so long?’ one of the guards asked.

Nevin made a sweeping gesture to the paper-covered desk. ‘Can you not tell there is a lot here for me to look through?’

‘Shall I help you?’ the guard asked.

‘That won’t be necessary, trooper. Please return to your post.’

The guard closed the door. Nevin let out a long breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. His hands were shaking and he rested them on the desk to steady them before finishing flicking through the papers. He found nothing of use. With a great surge of courage he moved around the desk and started opening drawers. He found more reports filed away, stationery items, notepads, small devotional trinkets, but still nothing of use. He was starting to feel relief that Vargass may have been wrong as he went into the bottom drawer.

More papers. He flicked through them. Most were several years old, and Nevin wondered why the lord commissar even kept them. He pulled the drawer out as far as it would go in case something was lurking at the back, but the drawer came too far. He swore as it came off its runners, pulling itself out of the loose grip Nevin had on the handle and falling to the ground with a clatter. Papers spilled out over the floor. Nevin was panicking. He’d broken it. He was going to be found out now, for sure. He picked the drawer up, turned it over and was about to try to put it back on its runners when he noticed the bottom was crooked. Nevin realised there was something beneath it. Cautiously he prised the false bottom out of the drawer and found a small black folder. His heart sank. Some instinct told him this was exactly what he was looking for and had hoped not to find.

Nevin spared a glance at the door, then pulled the folder out and opened it up. At first he wasn’t sure what he was reading. Losing himself for a moment, Nevin stood up and laid out the contents on the desk. There was a personal correspondence from Lord General von Barthus thanking the lord commissar for a favour, a sheaf of papers that looked to Nevin like transfer orders and behind those, just as Captain Vargass had expected, confirmation of non-delivery of the resupply shipment, signed by Lord Commissar Stone.

He read over them several times, trying to take everything in and make sense of it in his head. He got so engrossed that he forgot about the time.

‘Commissar Nevin, what are you doing in my office?’

Nevin froze. How had he been so careless? He slowly looked up into the lord commissar’s fiery golden eye. He was lost for words. A primal part of him screamed for him to run, but the lord commissar was blocking the door.

Then something occurred to him. Running was the response of the guilty or cowardly. In this case he was not the former, and he refused to be the latter any more. He stood straight and jammed a finger down on the papers.

‘What are these?’

‘Not any of your business,’ Stone said, moving around the desk. Nevin snatched up the papers, scrunching them in his hand, then retreated until the two of them had almost swapped places.

‘You knew that the weapons the regiment needed were not going to arrive. Why did you not let anyone know?’

‘Give me those,’ Stone said angrily, holding out his hand.

A reflex deeply ingrained in Nevin’s mind almost acquiesced. This was insubordination, and he had to consciously fight to maintain his resolve. ‘Please answer my question, sir.’

Stone slowly retracted his hand with a frown. ‘It was a Departmento Munitorum matter,’ he said, ‘it was out of my command.’

‘Was it? Or were you doing a favour for a lord general so you could get yourself transferred away from the regiment?’

‘I don’t see how my career aspirations are relevant,’ said Stone as he sat down.

Nevin slammed his hands down on the edge of the desk. ‘Because people are dying. Your regiment is dying because you sold them out. You knew, didn’t you? You knew weapons were being supplied to the labourers – that’s why you wanted to handle the investigation yourself. That’s why you kept it quiet.’

Stone reached behind his chair and in a flash Nevin found himself staring down the barrel of a snub-nosed autopistol. ‘Sit. Down,’ Stone said. The indignant anger that had taken hold of Nevin drained away and he fumbled for a chair, unable to look away from the weapon pointed at him.

Nevin wasn’t sure what he was expecting Stone to do next, but it wasn’t what he did. The lord commissar cocked his head to the left, and Nevin thought he saw the barest hint of a wry smile tug at the corner of his mouth. There was a long, awkward pause. Nevin couldn’t bear it and opened his mouth, but Stone held up a finger to silence him. He then reached into his pocket and removed a small black box. He placed it purposefully on the table then tapped it with his finger, and Nevin saw a little green light start to blink. The walls went blurry, as if Nevin were looking at them through a heat haze. His skin prickled.

‘Now we can speak more privately,’ said Stone. There was a tinge of something in his voice that Nevin struggled to place. Was it warmth?

Stone got up and stepped around the desk. He perched on its edge within arm’s reach of Nevin. He held the pistol loosely across his stomach, still pointed at the young commissar.

‘I could kill you now. It wouldn’t be too hard. No one would ask too many questions. But you’ve impressed me, Jasper. I think there is a better way to handle this situation,’ he said. ‘In your time with this regiment I have had my concerns. You haven’t displayed the poise or strength of character I usually expect from even a newly appointed commissar. Now, though, you are willing to challenge a superior officer you suspect of corruption. You’ve proven yourself very perceptive. Sneaking in here and lying to my guards was a little underhanded, but it shows initiative, boldness. All traits I require in a protégé.’

‘You honour me, sir.’

‘No need for such modesty, Jasper. You’re a fine young man.’

‘Th-thank you, sir.’ Nevin couldn’t help feeling such words would have meant more to him days earlier, but surprised himself as he realised he was still seeking Stone’s validation. ‘That means a great deal to me coming from you.’

Stone nodded thoughtfully. ‘I remember you, you know,’ he said.

‘How do you mean, sir?’ Nevin asked, puzzled.

‘From Grundus Five, at the schola.’

‘You do?’ Jasper’s heart soared. He couldn’t hide the genuine smile on his face.

‘Oh yes. You were always in the front row. Always bright-eyed and attentive.’

‘You were an inspiration.’

Stone smiled and slowly shook his head, then placed his free hand on Jasper’s shoulder. ‘No, it was you who were an inspiration to me. Those long months of recovery were hard for me. Being able to speak with you boys, knowing I was helping to mould the next generation of fine young commissars, that I was still serving His will – that kept me going. I was very happy to see that it was a graduate of Grundus Five that been assigned to my regiment.’

Jasper was speechless. He was elated.

Stone continued, ‘I believe you and I can be a very effective team. Together we could have very comfortable careers. How does that sound to you, Jasper?’

‘I’m not sure I understand what you mean, sir,’ said Jasper.

‘It is important to have friends, and the best type of friends are powerful ones. We should be friends, and what better time to begin than now? In your perceptiveness you are already aware that there is a little more going on than meets the eye. You are right. I did sign away the weapons shipment as a favour to Lord General von Barthus. You see, the lord general is close to retirement and he is looking to set himself up a comfortable little nest egg, off the books. To do so he’s arranged to have some surplus supplies sold off to a lucrative third party. In a few cases he needed a little hand to ensure swift and simple administration. In return, the lord general has granted me a favour. A transfer to a more civilised regiment.’

‘Why do you wish to leave the Catachans? They are one of the most renowned regiments in the Imperium. Their history in battle is exemplary and stretches back millennia. It is an honour to serve beside them,’ Jasper said.

Stone scoffed. ‘They are not real soldiers. They have no discipline. No respect for authority. They are savages, barely better than the orks that took my eye, and – dare I say – no better than our enemies here. Given a chance they would see us both dead.’

‘Have there been attempts on your life?’ Jasper asked in disbelief.

‘Several. That is why I maintain my own retinue. Catachans cannot be trusted.’

Jasper looked to the door as if it represented the hundreds of Catachan soldiers outside in the outpost. He thought of Captain Vargass. He imagined her driving that giant knife through his chest. It felt plausible. He shook the thought away and looked back to Stone.

‘Interference in Departmento Munitorum affairs is an act of gross misconduct, punishable by court martial, even for a lord general. We were taught that at the schola.’

Stone sighed wistfully. ‘The schola progenium teaches a very rose-tinted view on war. It’s how we would like things to be, but in the face of the enemy we do as needs must. We need to be flexible in order to serve the Emperor to the best of our abilities. Have I ever told you about the war on Maesa VI?’

‘No,’ said Jasper. Stone had never shared anything with him beyond orders, before today.

‘Maesa VI is a hive world. When the regiment was posted there it was close to being overrun by the Archenemy. What had begun as a cult uprising had been reinforced by Heretic Astartes. We were one of the regiments sent to drive them out. I questioned the decision to assign a regiment of specialised jungle fighters to an urban warzone, but they didn’t want us on the front line. We were to cover the flanks of the armoured regiments, fight skirmishes in the ruins. It was a fitting assignment but in the face of heavily armoured foes the regiment was still deployed with little more than lasguns and flamers. Weapons that the enemy had proven themselves all but immune to. We were destined for slaughter. I made the decision to change that. I was able to come by several crates of plasma weapons from a most reputable trader who had been trapped in orbit. It was entirely against Departmento Munitorum regulations, but with those weapons we accounted for many of the vile heretics. The regiment was noted for its effectiveness and the war was won. Without them, who knows what could have been? So you see, it is necessary for us to bend the rules sometimes. Is it not better to do so and serve the Emperor than not to and to fail Him?’

‘I’m not sure I understand how this serves the Emperor,’ said Nevin hesitantly.

‘It serves the lord general. He is my superior, and as such speaks to me with the Emperor’s authority. Likewise, as I speak to you I speak with His authority, and when you speak to the men under your own command, you speak with His authority also. Do you understand?’

‘I do,’ said Jasper, although he wasn’t sure he entirely believed in the sentiment.

‘Good. Yet despite this the Catachans still show us no respect. With Lord General von Barthus’ help, however, I will see us transferred to one of the regiments stationed at sector command. They have true soldiers there – Mordians, Ventrillians and many more of the Rhoin. They have always treated you well, have they not?’

‘They have, sir. They are fine warriors.’

‘They are indeed. I would not trust them with my life otherwise. You could lead them also. Would you like that?’

Jasper’s chest swelled at the thought. ‘I would like that very much.’

‘I am happy to hear that,’ Stone said and got to his feet. He walked back around to the far side of his desk and opened another drawer. The autopistol was still aimed at Nevin.

‘I have a gift for you,’ he said and reached inside. What he withdrew startled and amazed Jasper. It was a plasma pistol, simple in its design but finely made in a matt-grey casing. A small bronze aquila hung from the grip. Stone offered it to Jasper across the desk.

‘This is the weapon I used on Maesa. Most of them I saw turned in to the Munitorum for redistribution, but this one I kept. It served me well, and now I pass it on to you. It is a much more fitting sidearm for a commissar than the rotting laspistol that fat old quartermaster assigned you, don’t you think?’

Jasper reached for the weapon tentatively and picked it up as if it were a fragile relic. He wrapped his hand around the grip. It felt comfortable in his palm, its weight reassuring.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘It is my pleasure,’ Stone said and sat down in his usual seat. ‘Then we have an agreement.’

It wasn’t phrased as a question, and Nevin was deeply aware that he was still being held at gunpoint.

‘We keep the lord general’s arrangements quiet a little longer, and soon we see ourselves away from this place, and begin a much more favourable phase of both of our careers.’

The conversation had left a knot in Nevin’s stomach. It felt dishonest. Who was he to argue, though? Nevin realised he knew very little of life outside the schola. Lord Commissar Stone had decades of experience of warfare. He felt betrayed still, but he put it down to his own naivety and chastised himself for it. The way forward seemed clear.

‘Yes, sir. We have an agreement,’ he said.

‘Good. Then perhaps you should hand me back those papers now.’

Jasper had almost forgotten he was still holding them. He stood up, laying down the plasma pistol so he could use both hands to try to flatten out the crumpled parchment again before handing them back. ‘Sir, would it not be wise to destroy these?’

‘No,’ said Stone, taking the papers and returning them to the folder and finally lowering his autopistol, ‘these are of the greatest importance still.’

‘How so?’

‘Simple. If von Barthus tries to renege on our deal I will use them to expose his entire scheme and ruin the old fool.’

Jasper didn’t know what to say. Despite all of Stone’s justification something about the situation still didn’t sit right in his gut. He tried not to think about it. Stone knew better than he did. This was what the real galaxy was like. Who was he to argue? Besides, he was going to be Lord Commissar Stone’s protégé. In the past five minutes he had been promised everything he had ever wanted from life. He would get past his doubts in time, he was sure.

‘Will that be all, sir?’

‘Yes, Commissar Nevin. Return to your duties,’ Stone said dismissively.

The attack came as night fell the following day. Nevin had been about to go to sleep when the klaxons started. Though he’d not heard them before, he knew what they meant, and adrenaline immediately flooded into his system. He got up and dressed himself, picked up his laspistol from a small side table then knelt down and drew a small wooden box from under his cot. He had decided to keep the plasma pistol hidden for now. It would only raise difficult questions if he was seen with it, but he didn’t want to go into a fight without it. Aside from the weapon’s own strength, it made him feel stronger just to carry it. He hoped that would be enough. He tucked it into a holster strapped across the small of his back, hidden by his coat. With that he stood up, whispered a short litany of protection and headed outside.

By the time he reached the courtyard the battle was raging. The air was filled with sounds of las-fire and shouting. Bright beams flashed through the air above him, casting dizzying shadows in all directions. He had to find Captain Vargass. The fighting was fiercest around the northern gate. He headed there.

On the barricades Captain Vargass was leading by example. She knelt within the line of Catachan soldiers, lascarbine braced to her shoulder and firing. The rebel labourers were firing from the treeline. Though their weapons were strong their aim was poor, most shots flying high overhead. It was hard to tell what effect the Catachan response was having.

Nevin knelt down beside Vargass. ‘This doesn’t seem like a very determined assault,’ he said, looking over the barricade and firing his laspistol.

‘It’s not. They know they can’t attack us directly so they’re trying to make us chase them into the forest.’

‘Perhaps we should. Is it not your speciality?’ Nevin asked.

‘If we were properly armed, yes, but I’m not going to risk running into an ambush with only knives and boots to fight back with,’ Vargass said. She dropped down under the rim of the barricade to reload her carbine.

Nevin felt responsible for the regiment’s situation now, in a way he hadn’t before. He felt guilty and part of him wanted to confess everything to Vargass right now. He couldn’t, though. He had made an agreement with Stone and he was going to stick to it.

‘Captain, do you hear that?’ asked Vandien, the other side of Vargass.

Nevin tried to listen for something, but all he could hear was the whip-crack of las-fire.

‘It sounds like an engine,’ said Vargass.

‘I agree,’ said Vandien, ‘West?’

‘West,’ Vargass nodded. ‘Keep firing! Hold them back!’ she ordered. ‘My squad, with me.’

The command group gathered together and followed Captain Vargass as she skirted around the barricade towards the western gate. Though most of the Catachan force had been deployed to the north there were three squads still at the west gate. They looked anxious, sitting idle while their comrades were fighting.

‘Do you see anything?’ Vargass asked a sergeant. Nevin had recently learned the man’s name was Foley. The sergeant had shared a cup of hot recaff with him as Nevin had walked the walls late two nights ago. Nevin liked him.

‘No, sir. All quiet, except for that engine sound,’ said Foley.

Then he was gone. A shot reached out from the darkness and struck him, throwing him back off the wall.

‘Sniper!’ Vargass shouted a warning and everyone ducked low. Some were too slow, and Nevin saw more troopers along the line get hit. The Catachans returned fire, shooting blindly into the treeline. More long-las shots snapped back. From their vantage points harnessed high in the trees, the rebel shooters were able to negate much of the protection offered by the barricade, and the Catachans hunkered lower with each shot.

‘Vandien, get sniper support over here,’ Vargass ordered and her adjutant started working with his vox-set. Despite the shooting Nevin realised he could finally hear the engine noise the Catachans had been talking about. He peered over the edge and spotted the source. It was a logging truck, near fifty feet long with twelve wheels. It came careening out of the forest as fast as Nevin imagined such a vehicle could move. It was heading straight for the gate, laden with demo charges.

‘Captain, look,’ said Nevin, but Vargass had already seen it.

‘Stop the hauler!’ she ordered. Immediately the Catachan fire turned on the truck. Those shots that struck its body did no more than leave blackened marks. A volley went through the windscreen and killed the driver, but the truck kept going.

‘They weren’t trying to draw us out, captain. It was a diversion,’ said Nevin.

‘Throne, do you think so?’ Vargass snapped back. She took a shot that put a hole in one of the truck’s tyres. It burst and sent the hauler flailing. It jackknifed. At the speed it was going, the sudden change of direction was too much. The truck toppled over onto its side but its momentum pushed it forwards, ploughing a deep furrow as it skidded towards the gate. Nevin could tell it wouldn’t stop in time.

‘Fall back! Off the wall! Fall back!’ Vargass was shouting, ahead of him as usual. The Catachans made for the ladders. More were struck by sniper fire as they broke cover and were thrown off the barricade to the ground below. Nevin reached a ladder and hurried down. He slipped on the bottom rung and fell. He scrambled to his feet, only narrowly getting out of the way before the soldier behind would have landed on top of him.

‘Make for the secondary line,’ Nevin ordered, gesturing to a ramshackle line of sandbags, munitions crates and parked troop transports some thirty feet back from the outer walls. Sniper fire still lanced down into the courtyard. More soldiers were shot in the back as they ran for cover.

Nevin sprinted until his lungs burned and his legs went soft, expecting each step to be his last.

He dived over the secondary barricade and pushed himself back tight against it. He looked back and saw the last of the troopers reach the ground and start running. Captain Vargass was among them.

There was a loud reverberating bang as the hauler truck hit the gate. Heat and light, noise and pure concussive force struck the Catachan line. Cargo trucks and supply haulers rocked on their suspension. A truck to Nevin’s left rolled over, crushing a trio of soldiers who had been sheltered behind it. A fireball soared into the sky like a miniature star, and for a second, night turned to day. Nevin was blinded and all he could hear was a single, constant, high-pitched whine. He rubbed his eyes, and slowly the world began to reappear.

He looked back. A wide, fire-rimmed hole was now all that remained of the gate. In the wake of the explosion, burning Catachan bodies were strewn across the ground. An unlucky few were still moving. Nevin panicked. He couldn’t see Captain Vargass. He heard motors, loud, revving maniacally. Through the smoke and flames, monsters advanced towards him.

Ogryns. The labour force had always utilised the hulking abhumans for their strength, for everything from moving vast fallen trees to wielding the man-sized motorised felling-saws required to bring down the colossoaks. Tools these ogryns now bore as weapons into battle.

The Catachans that had reached the second line started shooting. It sounded distant to Nevin, though he took it as a good sign that his hearing was slowly recovering. Then, as he heard the screams of the dying, he wished it hadn’t. A Catachan trooper, thrown to the ground by the blast, rolled onto his back and raised his weapon. He fired defiantly into the hulking beast that loomed over him, though if the ogryn registered pain it did not show it. It drove its felling-saw down through the man’s chest. His agonised cries mixed with the sounds of shredding flesh and shattering bone. Nevin raised his laspistol. The ogryns were big, and lumbered with brutal confidence. Even in the dark, obscured by smoke, they were difficult to miss.

Nevin emptied his powercell into the nearest beast. Shots struck it in the chest, shoulder and neck. The ogryn swatted at the impacts as if it were being pestered by insects. The rest of the Catachan fire was equally ineffectual. A gout of flame lanced out from the line and enveloped an ogryn. It let out a deep roar of pain as the fire engulfed it, but the flames soon sputtered and died. The ogryn stood, blackened but unbroken, and drove its felling-saw into another prone soldier.

‘Commissar, look!’

Nevin became aware of Trooper Vandien to his right, pointing through the smoke. Nevin had to squint to see what he was looking for, then he saw it: the unmistakeable form of Captain Vargass. She lay face down in the dirt, deathly still.

‘That’s Viper. We have to get to her!’ Vandien yelled. He fixed his bayonet and leapt over the sandbags they were hidden behind.

‘Get back in cover, trooper! That’s an order!’

‘Frag you, hangman, she’s still alive!’ Vandien shouted back.

Vargass was dead, or if she wasn’t she soon would be. The ogryns seemed to be taking pleasure in hacking apart the bodies of those thrown down by the blast. Vargass’ death made Nevin’s life easier, but her blood was on his hands. He wouldn’t let her be mutilated by these monsters now as well. He reloaded his laspistol and ineffectually emptied it again. He noticed the weight of fire beside his own was lessening, and looked along the line. One by one he saw Catachan soldiers throw their corroded lasguns to the ground and draw their knives.

‘For the captain! Charge!’ someone ordered, and with a raucous cry the Catachans attacked.

Jasper Nevin was a commissar. Right now he felt like a poor one, but a day earlier he had resolved not to be a coward any longer. Vargass’ death already hung over him. He wouldn’t leave these men to die with her. Not in a mess he was now complicit in. He owed them that much.

‘Emperor preserve me,’ he said to himself, and joined the charge.

An ogryn was closing on Vargass, felling-saw growling. It was clear to Nevin that his laspistol was useless now. He reached back beneath his storm coat, drew the plasma pistol and raised it. Consequences be damned.

The tutors at the schola progenium had given him a theoretical knowledge of plasma weaponry – that it should be used sparingly, as overuse could lead to fatal malfunction. There was no time for that now. Nevin fired. Superheated plasma, burning blue, struck the nearest ogryn in the chest, searing a deep gouge from its flesh. It looked up, seemingly in disbelief, as a second and third shot hit it, each sloughing off chunks of burning muscle. Nevin felt the weapon growing warm in his hand. Each shot was accompanied by a vented blast of hot air as the pistol fought to cool itself. They washed over his face, making his brow prickle with sweat.

He kept firing. The fourth shot put the ogryn down, but more came on. His fifth shot hit the felling-saw of the next attacker and blew it apart. The still-spinning blade took off its owner’s hand. Nevin put three more shots into it to be sure. The pistol was almost too hot to hold. Nevin felt the skin of his palm and fingers blistering. He gritted his teeth and mumbled litanies of resilience to himself. He had drawn the ogryns’ attention now. The next one lowered its shoulder and charged him, roaring. It was the largest he had seen yet. It wore a bright yellow worksuit with the sleeves torn off, and a rebreather mask covered its face. Nevin planted his feet and aimed the pistol but his hands were shaking. He tried to take a deep breath but all that came were ragged gasps. He was out of time.

He fired. It was a poor shot, glancing off the ogryn’s arm, but with such a weapon it was enough to destroy the thing’s bicep. It howled and dropped its felling-saw but came on regardless. Nevin dived aside as the ogryn was about to crash into him. It swung out with the back of its good hand. It caught him with a glancing blow that swatted Nevin out of the air and sent him flying. He landed heavily, the wind knocked out of him, and rolled over in the mud until coming to a halt. Nevin noticed he had released his grip but the plasma pistol remained attached to him, the flesh of his palm now burned to the grip. It was agony. He tried to breathe through it and compose himself, but every inhalation sent stabbing pains through his chest. He became aware of the ogryn standing over him. It lowered itself down to one knee beside him. It raised its fist.

‘Emperor, forgive me my weakness and welcome me into your eternal kingdom,’ he prayed as he awaited the blow that would crush his skull.

It never came. Before the fist could fall, a blade appeared, lashing out over the ogryn’s shoulder. It buried itself in the beast’s throat and pulled. Hot blood sprayed from the wide wound and covered Nevin’s head and face. Mud splattered him as the ogryn fell on its face. Nevin wiped his eyes with the sleeves of his storm coat.

Knelt on the fallen ogryn’s back was Viper Vargass. Her eyes spoke of a place between determination and madness. Her long knife was dripping with blood. She stood up, clearly favouring one leg, and Nevin could see her thigh was bleeding, yet still she stood tall. She reached down and Nevin expected her to grab him by the scruff of his coat, but she stopped short and waited.

‘On your feet, commissar,’ she said.

Nevin took the offered hand and Vargass helped him stand. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘The Emperor protects,’ Vargass said.

As Nevin straightened he took in the situation. They had killed several of the ogryns but there were yet more, and human rebels had moved in behind them with lasguns and flamers. The skilled Catachan soldiers were cutting down every labourer that came within a knife’s reach, but Nevin knew it would not be enough. More were pouring through the breached wall and soon the base would be overwhelmed.

‘It’s been a blessing to have fought beside you, captain,’ he said to Vargass.

Vargass opened her mouth to respond, but those words would never come. A new sound added to the cacophony of battle. Reinforcements, no doubt redirected from the northern barricade, charged into the fray. Sharpshooters among them fired into the treeline, bringing down the effective rebel snipers. The Rhoin Cobras came with them, moving with speed and purpose. Controlled bursts of pinpoint hotshot las-fire drove back the rebel infantry. Grenade launchers lobbed their explosive payloads into the breach, blasting ogryns apart. Lord Commissar Stone led them, his pistol barking, a powered rapier sparking in his hand. His face was stern and unyielding and he looked every inch the hero Nevin had always believed him to be.

The counter-attack broke the rebel momentum, and they fled. Undisciplined, it soon devolved into a rout and the labourers were washed away, leaving the bodies of fallen Catachans in their wake. Nevin looked around them. They had fought valiantly through a situation they never should have been in and suffered a fate they didn’t deserve. He was complicit in that now. The thought shamed him.

‘Pursue them! I want prisoners,’ Stone ordered, sending Scions after the fleeing rebels. He was clean and unhurt. He barely looked like he had broken a sweat. By comparison, Nevin and Vargass were both bleeding, struggling to stand or even draw breath. All because Lord Commissar Stone had conspired against them, giving their enemy the weapons they needed to kill the Emperor’s loyal soldiers. He had made Nevin his co-conspirator, and Jasper worried his soul would forever be tarnished by it.

His choice was made.

‘It seems I arrived just in time,’ said Stone.

‘It was him,’ said Nevin, turning towards Vargass and keeping his voice low. Then Nevin turned on Stone and raised his arm. The pistol, burned to his hand, aimed at Stone’s chest.

The weapons of the Scions around Stone snapped up.

‘Drop the weapon!’ the Tempestor barked.

‘I cannot,’ Nevin said plainly. ‘Lord Commissar Stone, by the authority of the Officio Prefectus I charge you with the crimes of smuggling, of conspiracy to arm the enemies of the Imperium, and through those actions I charge you with the deaths of scores of Imperial soldiers. How do you plead?’

Stone was silent for a moment, then he began to laugh and gestured for his bodyguards to lower their weapons. It caught Nevin off guard and his resolve threatened to waver.

‘Oh my, Commissar Nevin. Are there no depths to which you will not sink?’

Nevin frowned, but kept his weapon raised.

‘I know everything, Commissar Nevin. It is safe to say I was already disappointed to learn of your betrayal of this regiment, but to turn on me when I have been nothing but a mentor to you. You truly are a callous boy.’

Nevin couldn’t believe the words he was hearing. He looked at Vargass beside him. ‘He’s lying,’ he said, desperation in his voice. ‘He admitted it to me, everything.’

Vargass just looked at him, her face impassive.

‘Do you have any evidence to back your accusations?’ Stone asked.

Nevin looked back to him. ‘You know I don’t. You saw to that.’

‘More empty words. Here you stand, a fine relic of a weapon in your hand, while the soldiers you betrayed fight on with what little they can salvage. The sign of one making illicit deals with the Departmento Munitorum if ever I’ve seen one.’

‘You gave this to me!’ said Nevin, then turned to Vargass. ‘He gave it to me.’

‘I would never trust such a weapon to your incapable hands,’ Stone sneered. ‘Not that I need prove myself any further, but I was holding on to this,’ Stone said, sheathing his sword and reaching inside his coat. He produced a folded sheet of parchment and handed it to a Scion to his left. The Scion crossed the ground between them and handed the paper to Captain Vargass. She shook it open and Nevin watched her eyes scan back and forth as she read it. When she finished she looked up at him.

‘Confirmation from the Munitorum. It says you authorised the weapons redistribution,’ she said.

The full weight of Stone’s betrayal hit Nevin like a tank. Stone had had the papers forged. He had brought them onto the battlefield. This was not a response to Nevin’s accusation. This was a plan. It had been all along.

‘That’s just the start. The trail was easy to follow. With the help of a conspirator in the Departmento Munitorum, Commissar Nevin sold those weapons to a rogue trader in exchange for passage off-world. You were going to desert us, weren’t you, Nevin?’

Nevin kept looking at Vargass, his eyes pleading. ‘He’s lying, I swear by the Golden Throne. That’s a forgery,’ he said, nodding at the paper in Vargass’ hands.

‘You really are not much of a commissar, are you, Nevin?’ Stone said mockingly.

Vargass looked at Stone, then back at Nevin. ‘He’s right, you’re not. You can’t trust commissars.’

She dropped the paper in her hand and snapped off a signal. One of few Nevin had learned. It was the order to eliminate a target.

He closed his eyes and waited to die. Lascarbines and hotshot lasguns fired. Nevin felt nothing. He opened his eyes surprised to find he was still alive. He saw the Catachans swarm the Scions, and watched as dulled steel blades slid between carapace armour plates.

‘Traitors!’ Stone barked and fired his pistol at Vargass, but her own knife was already flying, spinning in the air towards him. It struck his hand as he pulled the trigger. The shot flew wide as the weapon fell to the ground. Stone tried to draw his rapier.

Nevin took aim at Stone, turned his back on everything he had thought he wanted from his life, and shot the lord commissar. Superheated plasma blew a gaping bloody hole in Stone’s chest. He wheezed and fell back. Nevin and Vargass shared a silent look of understanding, then walked to the body of the fallen lord commissar.

‘Emperor… damn you… Catachan savages,’ Stone said, spluttering as he coughed up blood. ‘Damn you to the warp and burn for eternity.’

Nevin raised his hand, the plasma pistol still welded to his palm. It was a part of him now. It had cooled once again, and purred softly in his hand. He aimed it at Stone’s head. In Nevin’s mind, the man’s rank of lord commissar faded away. In the place of his lifelong hero was now just a small man called Albrec.

‘You are a commissar! This is mutiny! Do your duty!’ he barked, but Albrec’s words no longer had power over Commissar Nevin.

Nevin looked at Captain Vargass, then back down at Albrec.

‘This is my duty,’ he said, and fired.

ANARCHY’S END

ROB J HAYES

Those who serve the machine-spirit are, in turn, served by the machine-spirit.

– Magos Domina Saleesa Vain

The engine of Anarchy’s End gave a rattle, a hiss, and then fell silent. The tank rumbled to a halt, its massive treads caked in weeks’ worth of stinking mud. It was not quiet inside the Mars-pattern Baneblade. With the constant percussion of heavy bolter fire, the scratching of quill on parchment as dozens of servo-skulls reeled off data no one but the enginseer could read, and the muted thuds of spines and bioplasma impacting ineffectively against the tank’s armour, it was never quiet. But with the engine silent, there was an odd sort of detached peace, though the atmosphere within the close confines of the interior quickly became unbearably hot and stale.

Vi stepped over the lifeless body of Jacob Waynee. It looked like a pressure build-up had caused a panel to tear free at head height, cracking the loader’s skull like an egg. One moment he was assisting the enginseer, spreading the holy oils and blessing the machine-spirit, and the next he was face down on the metal floor, blood pooling beneath him and running off to seep into the nearby consoles. Anarchy’s End was a thirsty one, always had been. Vi couldn’t remember how many Guardsmen she had seen die down in the sweltering heat of the Baneblade’s innards. Enginseer Verman was hunched over in the cramped corridor, tapping at a panel while her wasted servo-arm idly welded the hole in the plating that had killed Waynee. She wore a mask over her face, covering everything but her left eye, and Vi wondered what the woman looked like under all her augmetics. She was blocking the passageway, and Vi needed to get past. The demolisher cannon needed more ammo, and Hershen Mould wouldn’t hesitate to report Vi if she took too long fetching it. He was an arsehole like that, but he knew his job better than any gunner Vi had ever seen.

The voxcaster next to Vi crackled to life. ‘Adept,’ shouted Lieutenant Hamad, his voice tinny and distorted. ‘Get my tank moving! The swarm won’t wait for your incompetence, and we’re the only ones with the firepower to break their lines and kill that accursed tyrant. The weight of the war is upon my shoulders, and I will die before I fail our brothers and sisters of the 612th!’ The lieutenant was a taskmaster and no mistake, but then all good commanders were, though Vi had to admit he was a little obsessed with his own legacy. Some people wanted to be heroes, needed it more than they needed life itself. Vi just wanted to survive long enough to see the next drink and the next bunk.

Enginseer Verman glanced up at Vi, her servo-arm still working away at the damaged panel. The red light of her bionic eye flared for just a moment, accompanied by a frown. ‘Where is the damage?’ the enginseer asked, her voice hoarse and crackling through her personal voxcaster.

‘Lower level,’ Vi said, stifling a grin at the thought she knew more about the tank than its enginseer. ‘Fourth quadrant. She took a bad hit a few weeks back, and the wound keeps opening up, leaking coolant she needs to keep her heart running.’

Again the enginseer’s eye flared brighter. ‘Your connection to the machine-spirit is worrisome, Loader Madine. It borders on heresy.’

Vi placed a hand on a nearby panel, between two whirring servo-skulls. ‘There’s a difference between heresy and experience, adept,’ she said. ‘I’ve just been here long enough to know her quirks.’

The enginseer stood up as straight as she could in the close confines, her servo-arm finishing its idle repairs and going dormant at her side.

‘Praise the Emperor,’ Vi said quickly, removing her hand from the plating and snapping off a crisp salute.

The voxcaster next to Vi crackled to life once more. The voice of the tactical officer, Frist Makin, came through loudly. ‘Brace!’

Both Vi and the enginseer wasted no time in thrusting hands out to nearby panels to steady themselves. A moment later, the tank’s main cannon roared to life with a thunderclap that nearly deafened Vi and shook the Baneblade with its recoil. Some tanks weathered the firing of their main cannons better, but Anarchy’s End was old and her stabilisers were shot through. Each time the cannon fired, panels tore loose and gun housings groaned with the pressure. Behind Vi, there was a loud pop followed by the sound of an old bolt shooting free and clanging about the passageway. A hiss of steam rushed out, adding oil-tainted moisture to the sweltering heat.

‘Out of the way,’ the enginseer said, barging past Vi and quickly setting to work cutting off the venting steam and welding the panel back into place.

The vox opened up again. ‘Emperor’s teeth, Raffi,’ said Sabatha Tre, the driver. ‘Do you think you could hit something next time? Or do you need a bigger gun?’

Vi heard Primary Gunner Rafael Beadle laugh. ‘Might be I need a bigger target than this swarm, Tre. Why don’t you climb out and I’ll see if I can hit your ego.’

‘Quiet, both of you,’ the lieutenant said. ‘Adept. Fix. My. Tank.’

Vi turned and crossed to the vertical hatch. She clambered down onto the ladder and slid five feet to the bottom. If anything the lower level of Anarchy’s End was even more oppressive. The atmosphere was thick and cloying. Her faded green uniform, already dank with stale sweat, clung to her body and rode up in all the wrong places. The smell of grease mixed with the fumes of the enginseer’s sanctified oils. Some Guardsmen found the smell abhorrent, some even choked on it. Not Vi. She breathed in deep and the air tasted sweet. Vi loved the lower levels. Despite the cramped confines, it felt as if she were closer to Anarchy’s End down in the bowels. It felt as though the mighty Baneblade had deemed her worthy of sharing her inner sanctum.

Nearby, Vi heard twin heavy bolters roar, cutting through the general din of the tank’s interior. Barnabus Gee, the tertiary gunner, was in his sponson, dealing out death to the tyranid swarm, no doubt. He hadn’t been with Anarchy’s End for long, and Vi wasn’t sure she liked him much. Nervous as a new recruit and far too proud of his beard, was Gunner Gee.

Shell casings littered the floor and made the footing treacherous. With Jacob dead above, it would fall to Vi to clean up the spent shells. One more job to add to her ever-increasing list. One more job no one but Anarchy’s End would ever thank her for. She crouch-walked along the passageway, unable to stand and unwilling to crawl, to the forefront of the tank. The loading mechanism for the demolisher cannon sat open, the rack of shells, each more than three feet long, secured against the closest wall. A nearby servo-skull, embedded into the outer bulkhead, blinked red lights.

Vi slapped open the holding catch on the first cannon shell, and it tumbled free of its housing. She fell to her knees and grabbed at it, catching the munition before it hit the floor. Its weight was an oppressive thing and Vi felt a sharp crack of pain as it crushed one of her fingers to the metal grille below. She screamed, and the depths of Anarchy’s End swallowed her pain. Vi cursed herself for a fool. She was rushing and hadn’t performed the Rite of Release properly, and now she was paying the price. Anarchy’s End was a cantankerous old devil, her machine-spirit demanding that rites and rituals were performed with appropriate zeal. Even Vi was not exempt from such duties. She dragged the shell over to the loading mechanism and shoved it inside, then pulled the lever to slot it into the cannon’s chamber. Only then did she allow herself to look at her finger.

There wasn’t much blood, only a few spots where the flesh had been scraped away. It throbbed with a pain like fire running through her veins, but she could move it. Only bruised, not broken. Vi knelt in front of the rack of shells and whispered the Rite of Release while her hands worked at the straps.

‘Blessed be the machine-spirit, grant me this ammunition that we might use it to break your foes.’ This time the munition stayed in place after Vi had released the catch. She gathered the shell into her arms and carried it over to the loader, then repeated the process twice more.

Vi pressed the button on a nearby voxcaster; the devices were everywhere within the bowels of the tank, placed so that the entire crew could hear their orders no matter where they were. ‘Demolisher cannon reloaded,’ she said. ‘Maximum load.’

A moment later, Hershen Mould replied. ‘It’s about time.’ As brusque as always. Gunner Mould had no time for anyone who wasn’t a higher rank than himself.

The engine was still silent, the only noise coming from the clatter of shells hitting the ground, the impotent impact of the swarm’s weaponry against the tank’s hull, and the whirring of servo-skulls as they performed their countless tasks. They were, perhaps, the only inhabitants of the tank with even more duties than Vi herself. She crouch-walked aft, stopping by the Wall of Glory, where countless litanies were pinned detailing Anarchy’s End’s most glorious accomplishments.

Vi lifted a scrap of parchment that detailed the Baneblade’s involvement in the Third War for Armageddon. It had almost disintegrated due to its extreme age. Underneath, where the enginseer would never think to look, she kept a count of all the lives spent in the service of Anarchy’s End. Vi was the battle tank’s longest surviving crew member, and she needed the reminder of how many she had seen come and never leave. Besides, Anarchy’s End didn’t mind a few more scratches on a bit of plating; she, too, wanted the reminder of how many souls had died in her service. Twenty-one scratches in the plating, each one carved by Vi’s own hand. She pulled an old, rusted bolt from her pocket, the same tool she had used to carve all the scratches, and added a new line to the tally for Loader Waynee.

The vox in a nearby panel crackled, Tactical Officer Makin’s voice coming through, frantic. ‘Impact port side. Brace!’

Something hit the tank so hard it rocked, throwing Vi against the Wall of Glory. She crumpled to a heap on the oil-stained grating and then scrambled back to her feet and reached for the vox. ‘What in the Emperor’s name was that?’ she shouted.

‘Get off the channel, loader,’ Lieutenant Hamad shouted. ‘Gunner Beadle, shoot that carnifex before it tips us.’

The tank shifted again, the port side lifting slightly. The noise coming from the hull was terrifying, the scraping of a thousand claws tearing away at the armour, a horrifying sizzle that sounded like acid trying to eat its way in. Vi braced her hands against the walls of the corridor and scrambled aft. Carnifexes were huge monsters, as big as a Leman Russ tank and just as armoured, with four clawed arms and the sort of mutations one usually only saw in a nightmare.

From somewhere above came a grinding noise as motors screamed to life. The vox crackled again, this time Gunner Beadle. ‘Baneblade cannon is stuck. This bloated spawn of a freak has the barrel pinned.’

‘Gunner Gee,’ the lieutenant’s voice again, ‘use the lascannons and beat it back.’

No reply.

‘Gunner Gee, respond!’

The tank shifted again as the carnifex outside struggled for footing, pushing and lifting. Judging by the tilt, the port tracks had to be off the ground. Vi could almost feel Anarchy’s End panicking as thrums of power surged through nearby consoles.

The vox crackled open. ‘Aye, sir!’ said Tertiary Gunner Barnabus Gee. ‘Firing.’

Vi heard the whine of a lascannon powering, and then a crack as it discharged. A scream of fury ripped from the carnifex and echoed around the tank’s interior so loudly Vi clapped her hands over her ears. The port side of the tank dropped, throwing her to the oily grating once again. On hands and knees scraped raw, Vi crawled aft until she could see the open hatch into the sponson, and Gunner Gee grimacing, an expression of anger mashed together with fear.

‘Again, gunner!’ the lieutenant roared.

The whine and crack of the lascannon sounded again, followed by a roar and something scraping against the hull of Anarchy’s End.

‘Barrel is free,’ Gunner Beadle said over the vox. ‘Targeting. Acquired.’

‘Fire!’ the lieutenant screamed.

Vi grabbed hold of the sponson hatch just before the Baneblade cannon roared, rocking the tank on its treads. The explosion was so close it enveloped the tank, the thunder of raging flames all around them. The tank settled back onto its treads, and the noise died down.

The vox crackled. ‘Target eliminated,’ said Gunner Beadle. Vi was about to let out a cheer, but Beadle continued. ‘I’m getting an error. It looks like the impact was too close. The barrel is damaged.’

‘We’re all going to die,’ said a quiet voice, not coming through the vox. Tertiary Gunner Gee was staring at his shaking hands, tears falling like Adeptus Astartes drop pods, breaking apart on the armoured plating of Anarchy’s End.

The vox-channel opened again, this time with the tinny voice of the enginseer. ‘I will determine the cause and extent of the damage to the main cannon, gunner,’ she said. ‘You have neither the expertise, nor the faith.’ The lieutenant said something else, but Vi had stopped listening. She was straining her ears to hear Gunner Gee over the din.

‘I saw it!’ hissed Gunner Gee. ‘Like a nightmare wrapped in claws and armour. I saw into its maw and there was nothing but death there. We’re all going to die! Those things will eat us all.’

A vox-channel opened, separate from the argument taking place between the lieutenant and the enginseer, a private channel between the sponson and someone else. Vi could just about make out what was said, but not who was talking.

‘…has no idea what he’s doing,’ said the voice. ‘It’s a suicide mission. We have to retreat.’

Tertiary Gunner Gee nodded. He was facing away from Vi, had no idea she was standing outside the sponson hatch, listening to his conversation. ‘This old bucket can barely move. We’ve no chance of finding one monster amidst a million of them.’

‘Be ready,’ said the other voice over the private vox-channel. ‘I won’t let him kill us all for his blaze of glory.’

‘Loader Madine!’ shouted the lieutenant over the vox.

Vi startled, her foot scraping across the gratings. Gunner Gee’s head snapped around and there was panic in his eyes, tear tracks down his oil-smeared face and sweat dripping from his beloved beard. For a moment, they just stared at each other, but Vi could tell he knew. He was talking mutiny over a private vox-channel, with someone else inside Anarchy’s End. The lieutenant wouldn’t need a hearing, he could execute the traitors on the spot.

The gunner snatched a knife from his boot and lunged towards Vi, a snarl twisting his face into something almost inhuman. She froze, unable to comprehend a crewmate trying to kill her while a battle raged around them. The knife gleamed, the metal polished to a shine, and stopped just a finger’s width from plunging into Vi’s chest. The gunner was still strapped into his chair, the belts that secured him restricting his movement.

Their eyes met again and Vi saw that panic and fear had driven away all humanity and reason from the gunner. ‘Why?’ she asked.

Gunner Gee reached for the clasp securing his belt, his knife still pointed towards Vi, ready to lunge for her again. Then the sponson’s pressure door slammed down so fast, Gunner Gee’s hand was severed and dropped to the grating, still holding the knife in its grasp. The pressure door was designed to close only in extreme circumstance, when the sponson was compromised by damage. In all the years Vi had been aboard Anarchy’s End, she’d never seen it close.

Through the small glass window on the pressure door, she saw Gunner Gee clutching his wrist just above the mangled flesh. He was screaming, his face contorted in agony, but Vi could barely hear him. She ducked down and snatched the gunner’s severed hand from the floor, then prised open his fingers and freed the knife. She dropped the hand and pressed the button to open the door. She wasn’t sure how it had closed without orders, nor why, given that the sponson looked undamaged, but she would march the gunner up to the lieutenant at knife point and let command deal with his mutiny. The pressure door didn’t open. On the other side of the glass Vi could see the gunner clutching his mutilated arm to his chest, blood everywhere. He was bashing his remaining hand against the door, shouting something Vi couldn’t make out. Behind him, Vi saw a flash, a single spark from a console, and the sponson went up in a ball of flame, engulfing Tertiary Gunner Gee.

After a few seconds of inferno, the fire guttered out, the suppression system kicking in. Through the flame-scorched glass of the window, Vi saw the charred ruin of Gunner Gee’s body slumped in the chair.

The vox crackled. ‘Loader Madine,’ said the lieutenant.

Still staring through the glass window, Vi reached up and pressed the button on the vox outside the sponson. ‘Gunner Gee is gone,’ she said, her voice sounding dull and lifeless.

‘How?’ demanded the lieutenant.

‘Oil leak, I think,’ Vi said into the vox. She shook her head to clear the fuzziness she was feeling, and tucked the gunner’s knife into her boot. ‘The pressure door closed and a spark sent the sponson up in flames. He was talking to someone and…’

‘The pressure door closed?’ asked the lieutenant. ‘On its own?’

Vi hesitated a moment, then pushed the button on the vox. ‘Yes.’

The vox was silent for a few seconds, then the enginseer’s voice came across, tinny but clear. ‘Praise the Omnissiah.’

‘Get across to the starboard sponson and man the bolters, Loader Madine,’ said the lieutenant.

Vi pressed the button on the vox again. ‘Lieutenant, Gunner Gee was talking to someone about–’

‘Get across to the starboard sponson now, Loader Madine!’ the lieutenant shouted over her. ‘Adept, how many times must I tell you? Get my tank moving! The lines have moved past us, but they cannot hold for long. We are the only ones with the firepower to kill that tyrant, but we can’t find it if we cannot move!’

‘It is done,’ said the enginseer.

A moment later the heart of Anarchy’s End sputtered back to life. Lights flared a little brighter down in the dim confines, panels glowing with renewed vigour; vents gusted warm, stale air into Vi’s face, and the ambient noise became a dull roar once more. She could feel the vibrations of the heart through the gratings at her feet, and the tank seemed stronger than it had since the war began. The last time Vi had felt Anarchy’s End so invigorated was during the battle for Angel Gate, so many years ago now it felt like another lifetime. The ork horde then had seemed as endless as the tyranid swarm now, but Anarchy’s End had held the gate with two of her sisters and earned a new accolade on the Wall of Glory by being the last one standing. Vi remembered it well, like no one else, because none of the other crew were still around.

She shook herself out of her reverie and scrambled along the cramped passageway starboard, ducking under pipes, and squeezing past sections where the plating had been repaired and reinforced time after time, making it a bulky, haphazard mess. But she couldn’t get the thought out of her head: there was another traitor on board; someone had been plotting mutiny along with Gunner Gee. The voice had been quiet and distorted by the vox, and she had no idea who it could have been. Any one of the other crew, she supposed. Anyone but the enginseer. She’d warn the lieutenant once she was manning the bolters.

Vi reached the starboard sponson and marvelled at the messy state the previous gunner had left it in, strewn with oily rags and empty ration bar wrappers. She climbed in even as she felt the tracks of Anarchy’s End rumble to life, the tank fighting against the mud it was mired in. The sponson’s interior made the guts of the Baneblade look positively spacious. Vi wasn’t large, but she barely had room to breathe seated in the gunner’s chair. She strapped herself in and flicked the switch to bring the controls to life. She’d always hated being drafted into operating the starboard sponson as Anarchy’s End had a fault no enginseer had yet been able to fix, occasionally showering the gunner in heated shell casings.

Another flick of a switch and the auspex sensors and display screen flickered on. It had been years since Vi had been in a gunner’s seat, and she had to fight against the horrifying memory threatening to rise up, to consume her and take her back to the day she was demoted to loader. It wasn’t her fault, after all. The bolters had jammed. No matter what the adepts had said afterwards, or the readouts from the servo-skulls, the guns had jammed.

‘Loader Madine,’ the lieutenant said over the vox. ‘Termagant swarm at fourteen point five point two-one-six. Give our boys some cover over there.’

Vi pressed a button on the vox to transmit. ‘Yes, sir. About Gunner Gee, sir. I think he might–’

‘I don’t have time for your grief, Loader Madine,’ the lieutenant shouted. ‘Fire the damned bolters!’

Vi swung the twin heavy bolters around, using the auspex sensors to pick friend from foe targets. The viewscreen was next to useless, a dirty image fuzzy with static and blinded by the constant flash of lasgun fire and explosions. She could see little in that screen but a moving mass of armoured flesh and the muddy ground passing by underneath, dotted with the corpses of men and monster alike. She pulled the trigger and the heavy bolters let off a devastating burst that ripped through the armoured hides of the termagants and blasted apart the foul flesh beneath. Each burst of fire made her ears ring with a noise like a hundred thunderclaps all overlapping. Spent shell casings cascaded down, most falling into the mud outside, a few ricocheting back into the sponson and singeing her skin wherever they fell.

Through the auspex sensors, the battle seemed more like a simulation, just a series of red dots and green dots across the wavy white lines of terrain. This was how the gunners handled the stress. Stare into the viewscreen and things became too real, but through the sensors everything had an unreal quality to it, allowing Vi to distance herself from the death happening outside. She felt no remorse for cutting down the tyranids; they were nothing but monsters of claw and teeth and bile. They felt nothing, not fear nor joy, nor hate nor love. They were more akin to insects than people, giant bugs with a singular mindless purpose – to consume everything. Colony to colony, world to world, system to system, the tyranids devoured and moved on. Vi felt only regret that she could never kill enough of them to save the other men and women out there, facing down the swarm with nothing but lasguns and the enduring determination of the Imperial Guard.

Vi lost herself in the battle, falling into an old rhythm. Acquire target, short burst of heavy bolter fire, short burst, short burst. Acquire new target. It was a shock when she felt a hand touch her arm, and she started, squeezing the trigger hard and sending a looping arc of bolter fire sailing over the battlefield. The enginseer was at the sponson hatch, her brow creased into a frown and her bionic eye shining red like a dying star.

‘What happened to the port sponson?’ said the enginseer through her personal voxcaster.

Vi told her. In between bursts of bolter fire, she explained to the enginseer what she had overheard, how the gunner had tried to kill her, and how the pressure door had snapped shut. When she was done, the enginseer was silent for a moment, hands against the nearby bulkheads to steady herself against the trundling movement of the Baneblade.

‘All praise to the machine-spirit, its vigil unwavering and its wrath unfailing. A name is more than just words, loader. It is purpose and conviction. Anarchy’s End will suffer no mutiny within its sacred decks. And neither should we. Keep your wits about you, there may be another traitorous soul waiting to reveal themselves for judgement.’

Vi let the heavy bolters fall silent, her hands trembling on the trigger. ‘Adept, are you saying the tank killed Gunner Gee?’

The crackle that emitted from the enginseer’s vox almost sounded like laughter. ‘The machine-spirit…’

‘Incoming!’ shouted Secondary Gunner Mould. It was followed by a scream at the same time as something massive hit the front of the tank with such force the aft lifted from the ground.

Vi felt her stomach lurch upwards and tasted bile, and then the tank slammed back down onto the ground. Lights blinked on console panels all around her, and she heard the overlapping cacophony of a dozen alarms all going off at once. Servo-skulls whirred and auto-scribes reeled off data. The enginseer was on the floor, groaning and bleeding from a head wound that leaked blood almost as dark as oil down into her one human eye.

Vi snapped open the clasp securing her to the gunner’s chair and launched out of the seat and through the hatch. The enginseer was already trying to get back to her feet, mumbling something Vi couldn’t understand. She pulled her upright and saw a deep gash on the crown of her head, blood pooling around a metallic skull.

‘I am fine,’ the enginseer said, her voice sounding slow and a little slurred through the voxcaster. ‘Get back on the guns, loader.’

Just as Vi was about to clamber back into the sponson, a vox-channel clicked open again, heavy with static, distorting the lieutenant’s voice. ‘…Mould, respond.’ More static. ‘Gunner Mould, respond. Adept… get… malfunctio… Emperor save us… nothing works… Fix it!… Loader Madine, check on Gunner Mould… Report…’ The channel went silent save for the static.

Vi wondered if Gunner Mould was still alive after the scream that had torn across the vox-channel. ‘It didn’t sound good,’ she said with a bitter laugh devoid of humour. ‘Gunner Mould’s been with Anarchy’s End almost as long as me.’ She squeezed past the wounded enginseer.

‘Anarchy’s End has existed for far longer than either of us, loader,’ the enginseer said, and again her vox crackled like laughter. ‘No matter what atrocities you may witness, believe that the machine-spirit has seen worse. May the Omnissiah guide my hands, I will beseech the machine-spirit. Its pain is great and…’ The enginseer paused, head cocked as though listening to something. ‘There is a corruption inside. A festering wound crawling with maggots.’ She shook her head and stalked away into the cloying gloom of the tank’s innards, steadying herself with hands on the nearby bulkheads, looking like a spider crawling down a tube.

Vi turned and made her way fore, stopping to climb a ladder up to the second level. She had to pass the access hatch to the driver’s compartment and poked her head inside. Sabatha Tre was busy filling the air with every curse she knew, and rumour had it she had been in an underhive gang before joining the Astra Militarum, but with the vox-channel out there was no one to tell her to shut up. The tank was still moving at least. Despite the impact and the fact Vi could feel it listing to the port side, it was still moving.

Vi reached the hatch to the secondary gunner’s position, where Hershen Mould manned the demolisher cannon. She pressed her ear against the hatch, but could hear nothing over the noise of the engine thrumming throughout the tank, the sound of the treads crushing everything beneath them, and the irregular percussion of impacts against the hull. She turned the handle on the hatch and pulled it open.

Secondary Gunner Mould was dead. His chest was torn open, dripping gore onto the gratings below, more blood for Anarchy’s End to drink her fill. A sickening, crunching gurgle filled the compartment, almost like a beast cracking bones and sucking out the marrow. The gunner’s head jerked, spasmodic twists accompanied by more crunching. Vi saw a flash of bloody teeth tear through the flesh of his neck, and then Hershen Mould’s head toppled sideways to land on the metal floor with a dull thud. The brutish face of a maggot-like creature rose up out of the bloody wound, teeth gnashing and little bladed appendages either side of its head clawing at the ruined mess of a man. A ripper. Small tyranid bioforms that devoured everything they came in contact with, and they were never alone. Vi saw a second of the little monsters claw a wound in the dead gunner’s side and chew its way free. The first of the rippers swallowed down a chunk of flesh and spotted Vi, standing at the hatch door. It let out a shrill scream and slithered free of the corpse, launching itself at her.

Vi fell backwards, dragged Gunner Gee’s knife from her boot and thrust it forwards even as she hit the ground. The ripper landed on top of her, impaling itself on the blade and thrashing about. Two foot of snake-like body whipped about, trying desperately to find purchase on something and drive its gnashing teeth down into Vi. Its bladed appendages, stunted and grotesque, flailed at her, clawing open new wounds on her arms, but Vi held the knife firm in both hands and screamed back at the ripper, heaving it up and slamming it down onto the grating. She dragged the knife down along its blood-slick length, gutting it. The ripper died with a mournful, mewling howl.

Another shriek filled the air and Vi turned to see the second ripper pull itself free of the gunner’s corpse and claw its way towards her. There was no malice in its flat stare, only hunger. An all-consuming hunger. Vi kicked the hatch shut and threw her weight against it even as the tyranid hit the other side. She spun the wheel lock, trapping the little monster inside with the corpse of Gunner Mould. Vi could hear the ripper on the other side of the door, clawing uselessly at the metal. She stood in a daze, hands slick with gore, and reached for the nearest voxcaster. She pressed the button, but received nothing but static.

The tank rocked again, almost throwing Vi back to the floor, and the engine guttered out once more. The treads rumbled to a halt, and Anarchy’s End stopped. An immobile target amidst a deadly battlefield. Vi took a deep breath, breathing in the scent of blood mixing with the vaporised tang of the enginseer’s sanctified oils, and smoke. Something was burning. She needed to tell the lieutenant what had happened.

Vi struggled back down the passageway, squinting against the rising smoke and coughing with each breath of air. She found the nearest ladder and clambered down onto the bottom deck. The engine was silent, but Anarchy’s End thrummed as though raring to continue her battle. Vi paused at the starboard sponson. Something else must have hit them as a section of the bulkhead had bent inwards, blocking the passageway and exposing the still treads of the tank. She saw mud and gore mixed together, bits of white bone and purple shards of tyranid exoskeleton, all mangled in the gaps between the treads. She heard the battle taking place outside, lasgun fire, cannons roaring, distant screams and terrifying, inhuman cries. Vi turned away from the collapsed section; it was too small for her to squeeze through – even one of the servo-skulls was struggling to get past.

There was a crawlspace, mostly used by the servo-skulls, but just about large enough for a person to traverse, that led to the port side of the tank. Vi crawled inside and shuffled forwards, wriggling to stop herself from getting stuck and pushing with her feet. She heard a scrabbling noise like claws on metal and realised she was directly below the secondary gunner’s position. She could only hope the remaining ripper was still locked inside. She emerged from the crawlspace into the compartment with the loading mechanism for the demolisher cannon. The enginseer was there, her servo-arm sealing a wound in a nearby console, while she put out the fire with a small extinguisher. Behind her, the Wall of Glory burned, the litanies detailing Anarchy’s End’s accolades being consumed by fire, leaving nothing but Vi’s scratches in the panel behind. Leaving nothing but a list of all the souls the Baneblade had claimed since Vi had come aboard. She needed to add two more tallies to that count, but now was not the time.

‘The machine-spirit is willing, but it is in pain, loader,’ said the enginseer as Vi passed her. ‘Its wounds are too great and its heart too old.’

‘Can you get her working again?’ Vi asked, pausing with her hands on the ladder leading up to the command deck.

‘If it is the Omnissiah’s will.’ She sounded uncertain.

‘Adept!’ Vi pressed.

The enginseer turned to her, face smeared with dark blood, but there was a light in both her eyes. ‘I will ease its pain and coax the machine-spirit to life one more time, loader.’

Vi nodded to her and started up the ladder, climbing quickly. She heard the lieutenant long before she saw him. He was shouting, profanities mixed with threats mixed with prayers to the Emperor. Vi poked her head up out of the hatch to see Lieutenant Garon Hamad bashing a handheld voxcaster against the bulkhead in a fruitless attempt to get it working. Primary Gunner Beadle was doing his best to ignore the tantrum, his eyes on the auspex sensor readouts. Tactical Officer Makin had eyes only for the lieutenant, and a snarl of rage on his face.

‘You will kill us all with this suicide mission!’ the tactical officer hissed. Vi saw him reach down and draw his laspistol. ‘This tank is a broken-down wreck, and still you try to ram us down the enemy’s throats. I won’t die for your misguided attempt for glory.’ He pointed the laspistol at the lieutenant, and Vi cursed herself for not finding the opportunity to warn Hamad about the second mutineer. ‘As soon as the adept has this heap working again, we will turn it around and make for the salvage point at all speed.’

The lieutenant’s eyes went cold, his hand dropping towards his bolt pistol. ‘This is madness,’ he said in a quiet voice. ‘We are the only ones with the firepower to kill the tyrant. Without us, the war is lost. There is no salvage point where the tyranids are concerned. Stand down!’ he screamed the last two words.

Frist Makin hesitated, caught between his fear of death and the discipline of the Imperial Guard drilled into them all from the moment they enlisted. In that moment of hesitation, Vi launched herself up and out of the hatch, colliding with the tactical officer and reaching for the laspistol. They wrestled for a moment, face to face, and Vi saw the blind panic in the man’s eyes. It was the same panic she had seen in Gunner Gee as he reached for her with his knife. The laspistol went off – once, twice, the shots ricocheting around the command deck with a deafening percussion. Vi caught a punch to her face and fell away. A moment later another shot rang out and Makin collapsed sideways with a spray of blood, bone and brain.

Lieutenant Hamad’s bolt pistol smoked from the final shot. He shuffled a little closer in the confines of the compartment, barely able to move, and stared down at the body of his tactical officer. ‘Traitors are no better than heretics in the eyes of the Emperor,’ he said and squeezed the trigger twice more.

Vi heard a pained grunt and clambered away from the corpse. Gunner Beadle was slumped over his cannon controls, wheezing and bleeding in equal measure. One of the tactical officer’s shots had taken him in the side, and he was clutching a bloody hand to the wound. It didn’t look good. Above him, the auspex sensors were a smoking ruin, having caught the other shot.

‘Damn,’ said the lieutenant in a flat voice. ‘Gunner?’

‘Alive, sir,’ said Beadle. ‘Barely. I wouldn’t mind a medic.’

‘Shame, that,’ said the lieutenant. ‘Our only medic just shot you.’

‘Bloody typical, sir.’ Gunner Beadle attempted to laugh, but it quickly turned to a grimace. ‘Auspex sensors are shot, sir. Cannon is working, but we’re blind here.’

The lieutenant tore a handheld auspex sensor from the wall and tossed it to Vi. ‘Congratulations, Loader Madine. You’re my new tactical officer. Now open up the hatch to the pintle-mount and find my gunner some targets. Preferably the damned monster controlling this swarm.’

Vi scrambled past the gunner and onto the platform for the pintle-mount. It would be an exposed position, but a Guardsman’s duty was always dangerous. She reached up and pushed against the hatch. It didn’t budge. She tried again, but it didn’t move, even unlocked. She braced her back against it and pushed with all her might, but still her efforts were in vain.

The lieutenant growled. ‘Nothing in this piece of junk works right. He turned the lock on his own hatch and threw it open, standing up to stare out at the battlefield. Vi caught sight of a flash of spindly limbs and a chitinous claw speared the lieutenant through the chest and carried him off. His bolt pistol clattered to the floor of the command deck along with a spray of blood.

Vi met the gunner’s shocked gaze for a moment, then she scrambled over to the lieutenant’s hatch and pulled it closed, locking it once again. She stooped and picked up his bolt pistol. She wasn’t sure why, but just holding it made her feel safer.

The engine roared to life once more and Anarchy’s End thrummed with power. A moment later, the vox static cleared and the enginseer’s tinny voice came through. ‘The machine-spirit is willing one final time, lieutenant,’ she said. ‘But I do not think it will last much longer, such is its pain.’

No sooner had the enginseer stopped talking than Driver Tre’s voice came across, loud and clear. ‘Emperor’s eyes, it’s about time you got the vox working again. I can see it, lieutenant. That damned tyrant, I found it. Actually I think it found the 416th Russ unit. There’s not many of them left, sir.’

Vi glanced at the gunner again. He looked pale, flagging, his wound still soaking blood into his uniform. He shook his head. ‘I’m not in charge.’

Vi pressed the button on the voxcaster. ‘Take us to it, Tre,’ she said.

After a moment of silence, the vox crackled again. ‘Madine, is that you? What happened to the lieutenant?’

Vi glanced up at the hatch above her. ‘He, uh, stepped out for a breath of fresh air.’ A bark of humourless, hysterical laughter burst from her before she could control herself. ‘Take us to the tyrant and get us close enough for a solution.’

‘Aye,’ said Tre. ‘Commander.’

The treads ground into motion and Vi felt the tank turn to port before putting on a burst of speed. It felt different, the vibrations of Anarchy’s End’s movement more jarring than before. Panels rattled and consoles beeped in alarm. The servo-skulls around the command deck flashed violently, but whatever they needed to convey was lost to Vi. More impacts rattled against the tank’s armour, and Vi felt percussive blasts nearby rocking them. With no sensors, she couldn’t tell what was happening outside, but it felt as if the driver were taking them right into the thick of it, the heart of the battlefield.

‘Emperor’s breath,’ the driver said over the vox, ‘that thing is big. It’s seen us, commander. It has a venom cannon. Brace for impact.’

Vi didn’t feel the impact, but she heard Sabatha Tre die, her scream of agony ripping over the channel, blessedly cut short by her death. Venom cannons fired poisonous crystalline fragments that penetrated armour and liquefied flesh. A painful way to go, but a quick way at least.

The tank trundled to a halt and Vi felt the thrum of energy vibrating through the hull lessen. The vox-channel opened again and this time it was the enginseer. ‘The machine-spirit is at its limit, commander. Its heart is dying. It will move no more.’

‘Are we close enough?’ Vi asked the gunner.

Beadle let out a groan. ‘I have no idea, sir. I need coordinates.’ He raised a shaking, bloody hand and pointed at the handheld auspex sensor Vi was holding.

Vi looked up at the hatch. Even from inside, behind such thick armour, she could hear the scrabbling of claws over metal, could feel the impact of Emperor only knew what hitting the tank. She took a deep breath, then another, faster and faster, psyching herself up for what she knew to be suicide. But such was the lot of an Imperial Guardsman.

Vi opened the hatch onto the madness of a battlefield in chaos and emerged into the fight bolt pistol first. Tyranid monsters swarmed over Anarchy’s End; most were clawing uselessly at the armour, but some had managed to inflict real damage, such was the potency of their claws or venom. A nearby ’gaunt noticed Vi, hissed and leapt at her, bloody talons flailing. Vi levelled the bolt pistol and squeezed off a shot. It hit the ’gaunt in the thorax and the beast tumbled away, bleeding and howling. It caught the attention of others, and Vi had to fire off five more shots to buy her the time she needed.

The tyranid swarm was all around her. Smaller beasts skittered past, followed by hulking brutes with weaponry grown right out of their carapace. Horrific winged monsters flitted through the sky, spraying green acid from swollen glands, and here and there giant Bio-Titans lumbered forwards, huge even from a distance. The Imperial Guard forces were outmatched, but that had never stopped them before. Fluorescent lasgun fire flashed across the battlefield in a thousand different locations, and whole regiments of Guardsmen stood their ground against monsters beyond their worst nightmares. Artillery behind the Guard’s lines peppered the battlefield with explosions that wiped out dozens of tyranids at a time, but the swarm was endless, its hunger eternal.

Vi emptied three rounds into a flying tyranid and the thing tumbled from the sky, hitting the armour of Anarchy’s End with a splat, its acid glands splitting open and making the armour sizzle. She searched the battlefield for the tyrant and found it tearing the last of a Leman Russ tank squadron apart. Standing at over eighteen feet tall, it was grotesquely armoured in spiked purple carapace and wielding a massive cannon, its upper arms terminating in wicked talons that tore through the tank like a chainsword through flesh. Vi watched as it ripped the Leman Russ’ turret from the hull, tossing it aside as though it weighed nothing, then placed the barrel of its venom cannon into the opening and fired. It turned its horned head her way, and its beady eyes met hers across the field. Vi saw intelligence there, savage and horrifying, and hungry. She fixed it with the auspex sensor and fired her bolt pistol again, putting down another ’gaunt as it scrabbled up the side of the Baneblade towards her.

‘Coordinates locked,’ Vi screamed down into Anarchy’s End’s command deck. ‘Shoot it, Beadle, shoot it!’

The turret started rotating, metal grinding against the carapace of dead tyranids. Vi held off as many of them as she could, keeping the auspex locked on the tyrant while firing her bolt pistol at any of the swarm that came too close. The turret stopped, the tyrant in sight. It was moving towards them, its brutish guard hustling around it like a shield of living flesh.

‘Fire, gunner!’ Vi shouted again as she squeezed off another couple of shots, felling a beast that slithered along the ground like a snake with bladed arms. ‘Shoot it now!’

Nothing. Vi knew then, with a sickening certainty, that Gunner Beadle had succumbed to his wound. She would have to fire the cannon herself.

A tyranid warrior leapt up onto the turret. Taller than even a Space Marine, and covered in spines and talons, the creature flung itself at Vi. She fired three shots, each one blowing a hole in the monster’s skull, but it slammed into her and she felt a talon pierce her flesh, driving into her shoulder and pinning her against the hatch. The warrior slumped, dead, but Vi couldn’t move. Trapped in place, all she could do was wait for the next monster to come for her. In a vain hope, she kept the auspex sensor in place, locked on the tyrant. A pitiful fate for the Anarchy’s End and her final crew.

‘In the name of the Emperor,’ Vi said, tears of pain rolling down her cheeks, ‘somebody kill that thing!’

The Baneblade cannon fired and Anarchy’s End rocked with the force of it, shaking the warrior loose. Vi slumped forwards and watched the shell strike the tyrant with such terrible violence that it ripped the monster in half, killing it instantly.

The swarm faltered. Many of the tyranids turned and fled, while others slowed to a halt as though they couldn’t remember what they were doing. Beneath her, Vi felt Anarchy’s End give a final shudder as the engine went cold for the last time, then the tank fell deathly still.

She slumped there, bleeding from her shoulder and unable to summon even the energy to move. Without orders, the swarm continued to fragment or fall dormant. The remnants of the Imperial Guard forces gave chase, lasguns blasting apart xenos flesh as they slaughtered as many of the monsters as they could. Vi saw brutish ogryns leaping upon confused tyranid warriors, hacking them apart with monstrous bayonets. A unit of Guardsmen led by a screaming commissar charged towards the remains of the tyrant, and lasgun fire turned the dead monster’s guards into smoking husks. A trio of Leman Russ tanks, all that was left of the 416th mechanised unit, trundled past, cannons roaring, crushing the smaller tyranids under their tracks.

All around them the Imperial Guard forces surged past the fallen Baneblade that had won them the battle. Its armour was dented, scorched, buckled and broken. And it was dead. Anarchy’s End was dead.

The pintle hatch opened and Adept Verman clambered out. Her servo-arm was broken, hanging limp by her side, and she was bleeding from her head wound again. She helped Vi climb up onto the turret of the tank and they collapsed together next to the body of the warrior that had come so close to killing her. The battle was beyond them now, and Guardsmen were pouring past. They would need to flag down a medic and soon, before she bled out from the gaping hole in her shoulder.

‘Gunner Beadle is dead?’ Vi asked.

The enginseer nodded.

‘Did you fire the cannon?’

‘I was below, keeping the engine alive for as long as I could.’ Her vox crackled with static as she spoke.

‘Then how…?’ Vi asked, exhaustion and pain making her voice crack on the words. ‘How did it fire?’

The enginseer was silent on the matter, her bionic eye flickering on and off, her human eye fixed on the battle lines in the distance.

Vi sighed, remembering a passage from the Mechanicus Primer she had been given on her first day of duty aboard Anarchy’s End. She gave the thought voice.

‘Those who serve the machine-spirit are, in turn, served by the machine-spirit.’

THE JAGGED EDGE

MARIA HASKINS

At midwinter, there is scant light and no warmth to be had in the Northern Reaches. The gleam of stars on snow might brighten the darkness to a gloom, but no more than a thin, bloody sliver of sun will cut through the horizon before it fades again beyond the white mountain peaks of the Jagged Edge.

That faint light is long since gone when Sergeant Aurelia Shale falls to her knees in the snow with the barrel of a bolt pistol pressed against the nape of her neck. It’s not the first time Aurelia has had a gun aimed at her head, but it is the first time the weapon has been wielded by her sister.

I don’t understand the reasoning behind this order, Theo.

As soon as the errant nickname slipped from her lips, Aurelia knew the blow would follow, and it did.

She grimaces at the metallic taste of blood in her mouth. Theodora always had a wicked right hook, even when they were kids, fighting other street rats for food or clout, and the ten years they’ve spent apart have not softened Theo’s knuckles nor diluted her righteous sense of purpose.

All fine qualities for a commissar.

‘Sergeant.’ Theo’s voice is as sharp and unforgiving as a shiv. ‘Henceforth, you will address me appropriately as Commissar Shale at all times. Understood?’

Aurelia knows what she must say. And yet the words are hard to speak. Other words, left unsaid for ten years, burn on her tongue, eager to be spoken. But Captain Bain is glaring at her, and behind him in the shadows lurk nine Scrappers of the Keplerian 23rd. Aurelia’s squad. Her family. Her life, such as it is. And, since her surprise promotion a month ago, her subordinates.

The four newbloods she can barely name yet, but five of the Scrappers – Thorne, Henryk, Steen, Daveed and Helvia – she’s served with long enough that they’ve all saved each other’s lives more times than she can count. All nine are waiting uneasily in the snow. Waiting for their sergeant to get off her knees.

Aurelia bites down hard on her anger, well aware that whatever authority she’s gained since her promotion could well be slipping away. She releases a ragged breath, the mist of it twisting like a wraith in the frosty air.

‘Understood, Commissar Shale,’ she says, clipping her voice to eradicate any hint of emotion it might accidentally contain.

The gun lingers for a moment before Theo lowers it.

‘Good,’ Captain Bain growls. His mouth is grim and set, the long scar running down his left cheek from eye to lip forever pulling his features into a scowl. ‘Now. You had something to say, sergeant?’

Aurelia looks at Bain, away from her sister.

‘What I meant to say when I misspoke, is that I do not understand why we cannot use vox in the tunnels. If we get separated…’

Bain shakes his head. ‘As the commissar explained, the range would be limited, and our transmissions might be detected. Stealth is of prime importance.’

‘Follow orders, sergeant,’ Theo says, ‘don’t waste time questioning them. Now get your unit ready.’

Aurelia inclines her head. ‘Yes, commissar.’

Thorne and Helvia have already moved to the mouth of the tunnel. Helvia sports her usual glower, blue eyes scanning the surroundings, while Thorne is busy, closing up his pack.

‘You’re supposed to be geared up, Guardsman Thorne.’

He flashes an apologetic smile. ‘Just making sure the detonators are secure, sergeant. Was worried they might’ve got wet when we crossed the river.’

‘Everything in order?’

Thorne shoulders his pack. ‘It is now, sergeant.’

Aurelia scoops up a handful of snow to ice her throbbing jaw. She’s known Helvia and Thorne since the day the three of them joined the Astra Militarum. A month after her promotion, it still sounds strange when they call her sergeant.

No stranger than calling your own sister commissar, though.

‘Never thought I’d be eager to head inside that mountain,’ Helvia grumbles, stamping her feet in the cold, ‘but standing in the open like this is making me twitchy.’

Aurelia nods. Since the grav-chute drop from the Valkyrie late last night she’s watched for sentries, scouts, patrols, any kind of enemy movement, but the landscape has remained silent and empty. And yet her unease has grown.

She looks around. They are standing near a partially ice-covered river at the bottom of a deep ravine, the ground strewn with snow-covered rocks. Beyond the river, the steep wall of the ravine plunges down from the plains beyond. Aurelia shivers. The long slog through the snow after the grav-chute drop was hard. Climbing down that frozen cliff like spiders on a wall, following a trail that was more like a vertical drop, was worse.

In front of them, a spur of the Jagged Edge mountain range juts into the ravine, like the pointed prow of an enormous starship, bending the river around it. Two hundred feet above the river, sprawled over the summit of that prow, looms the Manufactorum Primus, the largest weapons-making facility in the quadrant.

There is a dull, low-frequency throb in the air, the kind you feel in your bones rather than hear. It’s the sound of the machines inside the manufactorum, working ceaselessly, churning out the tools of war. The factory used to be the Imperium’s greatest asset on Kepler-Gamma, the perfect complement to the mines and smelters in the Northern Reaches. But since cultist infiltrators claimed the manufactorum in a brutal battle half a year ago, it has become an acute liability, threatening to tilt the balance of power not just on Kepler-Gamma, a planet ravaged by war since the insurrection fifteen years ago, but in the entire sector.

‘Listen up, Scrappers.’ Bain barely raises his voice, but every head turns towards him. ‘The traitors holding the manufactorum think they’re safe. They trust the forbidding terrain we already traversed to protect them from us, and until now, it has been enough. Because until now, no one has tried to infiltrate this place from below.’ A grin makes his craggy face look predatory and gleeful all at once. ‘Some of you might have preferred being part of a battle rather than a sabotage mission, and I don’t blame you. I’d prefer an army at my back. I’d like to march into this place across that steel bridge downriver, busting down the gates. But that’s what the enemy expects. Something big and loud, like Operation Hoarfrost last year.’ Bain looks up at the cliff. ‘We won’t linger on that failure. We’re here because we cannot spare the troops needed to retake this facility. We’re here because we cannot allow the enemy to keep it, either. We’re here because what the heretics don’t expect is sacrifice. That we’d be willing to set off an explosion that ignites the reactor core and blows this place to smithereens rather than try to recapture it.’

Gazing up at the manufactorum, Aurelia barely believes it either. The building looks as eternal as the mountains, and the thought that the explosives in their packs will be enough to bring it down seems laughable. And yet high command has ordered it, even sending them a commissar, and the legendary Captain Bain, to get the job done.

‘Think the story’s true?’ Thorne asks, in a hush, as the unit gets moving. ‘Did the captain really kill a Chaos Space Marine with his bare hands during the invasion?’

Helvia bares her teeth in something that is almost a smile. ‘I wouldn’t bet against him in a fight.’ She gives Aurelia a look. ‘Wouldn’t bet against Commissar Shale either, if it came to that.’

Aurelia pretends she’s not listening. Pretends, as she’s tried and failed to do for the last two days, that the presence of the new commissar does not bother her. She glances at Theo. In the gloom, the blue commissar uniform with its ornate gold trim, polished gold buttons and finely woven silver sash seems to glisten. Otherwise, Theo looks much the same as she did ten years ago: a taller, rangier version of Aurelia herself. Broad shoulders, green eyes, cheekbones sharp enough to cut your knuckles on, posture as steely-straight as always. Aurelia can almost hear Father’s voice in the cold: ‘Walk straight and tall, like the Emperor is watching.’

He’d be proud of Theo, she thinks, shrugging off the memories clinging to that thought: of Father, alive and dead; of him teaching Theo how to shoot while Aurelia was only ever allowed to watch; of him smiling as Theo’s hand closed around the weapon’s grip, as she cocked her eye and hit every mark set before her.

Father’s smile was always just for Theo. The good daughter. The good student. The good fighter. The commissar.

‘Get inside,’ she orders the unit, voice gruff, and the Scrappers file past, bowing low to enter the mountain.

‘Stay to the left when you head inside,’ Thorne cautions. ‘Loose rocks on the right. Don’t want anyone to slip.’

Aurelia ducks her head and steps into the dark, snapping on the new nightsense goggles they’ve been issued. Leaving the snow and night sky behind, she considers the immense structure of rock and darkness looming above them and has a sudden vision of the manufactorum as a beast crouched at the foot of the mountains, the tunnel its maw, devouring them.

From the cramped entrance chamber, several passages lead further into the rock. Aurelia has studied the maps. She knows the mountain is a warren of tunnels, carved by the river and miners before the factory was built. She knows only one path leads to the sub-chamber beneath the reactor core, and she has spent the last two days committing every twist and turn of that route to memory.

‘Don’t fire your weapons unless the need is dire,’ Captain Bain cautions, his voice a hollow echo beneath the rough-hewn vault of stone.

With Thorne beside her, and the squad following behind, Aurelia heads into the rock, the sting of Theo’s fist still lingering on her jaw. Ten years without a word, two days of her sister barely acknowledging her presence, and then a bolt pistol aimed at her head. Some family reunion.

‘Sergeant.’

Thorne’s voice holds a warning. Aurelia stops. She’s seen it too. A furtive movement stirring the heavy shadows ahead. She sniffs the air. It smells damp and vaguely rank, like a cellar where something has been left to rot. As she takes a step forward, a hulking shape heaves up from the tunnel floor. Thorne stumbles as something barrels into them, knocking Aurelia off her feet, scattering the unit. Henryk and Helvia go down hard, cursing as they fall, and Thorne is grappling with something big and heavy enough to shake the ground.

‘Hold your fire!’ Aurelia barks as she gets up, drawing the long knives from her belt.

Of all the equipment she was issued when she joined the Scrappers, the knives are what she prizes most. They are the finest blades she’s ever wielded, prime Keplerian alloy steel – the kind that keeps its edge and does not tarnish, sharp enough to slice you open before you even notice you’ve been cut – and she loves the weight and heft of the black hilts resting in her hands.

Even with the nightsense goggles, shadows and bodies bleed together in the muddled fight. Aurelia stabs at the first limb she finds, expecting a uniform or armour; instead there’s muscle and fur beneath her hand as the blade makes a glancing blow.

Fur.

Aurelia ducks and parries before she strikes again, the blades shivering as they hit bone, the left one sticking hard, eliciting a howl that reverberates through the tunnel. Stepping back, she wrests the right knife free before the attacker goes for Thorne again.

He is backed up against the wall, but Aurelia has a firm grip on her remaining blade now and steps in close, stabbing up and in, relishing the satisfying quiver of steel, the warm gush of blood over her hand, as the knife sinks deep. There’s a groan and shudder, then stillness.

So much for stealth, Aurelia thinks, pulling her knife free and crouching into a defensive stance between Helvia and Bain, Theo and the others at her back. Hunched together in the dark, they hold position, waiting, listening, but the only noise is the distant drip of water and the ever-present hum of the manufactorum.

After the noisy fight, the silence is unbearable. A shiver runs through Aurelia’s spine into her right arm, making the knife tremble. She adjusts her grip, dragging a sleeve across her blood-smeared goggles, peering into the darkness, but there is nothing.

An eternity seems to pass before Bain calls the all-clear, his voice a raspy whisper, and Aurelia breathes out in relief. Around her, the other Scrappers do the same, cursing and adjusting their packs and weapons.

‘Is that… an ork?’ Daveed asks as they gather round the carcass on the floor.

Thorne shakes his head, his flak armour etched deep by a vicious slash of claws. ‘No. A cudbear. Not even a full-grown one by the looks of it. My grandpa always said they lived in the old mining tunnels up north.’

Aurelia takes in the creature’s long fangs, the dark violet fur matted with blood.

‘Blasted thing nearly sheared my head off,’ Helvia grumbles, blood running down her neck from a cut across her ear.

Captain Bain picks up Aurelia’s knife from the floor, wiping the steel clean before he hands it back. ‘Impressive set of knives, sergeant. Impressive knife work, too.’

‘Thank you, captain.’ Aurelia sheathes the knife and tries not to look at Theodora. ‘I learned from the best.’

But if Theodora remembers any of their back-alley practice fights, where they would feint and slash with the shivs they’d fashioned from old scrap metal in order to survive, she doesn’t show it.

There is no Theo any more, Aurelia reminds herself when they get moving. There is only the commissar. Whatever she was before is done and gone.

The tunnel curves as it steadily climbs upward, and still they walk on, the darkness erasing Aurelia’s sense of time. Outside it was cold enough to freeze your breath, but here the air is warm, stale, dense, foetid. They halt at the first junction where the tunnel splits in two. One path continues upwards, the other is narrow, littered with rocks, sloping down.

‘We’re getting close to the patrolled levels,’ Bain says. ‘Proceed with care.’

The manufactorum’s heartbeat is close here, the sonorous throb burrowing into Aurelia’s mind and flesh. Her skin prickles, like a thousand insects are crawling beneath it.

‘I thought we were sure these levels weren’t patrolled,’ Steen says, eyes large and luminous behind the goggles, a crack of panic in his voice. ‘If they find us here, they’ll trap and kill us.’

Aurelia wishes she could clamp his mouth shut with her fist.

‘Nothing the Scrappers of the Keplerian Twenty-Third can’t handle,’ she replies.

‘Keep yourselves steady and see the mission through, Guardsmen. Remember, the Emperor walks with us in this as in all things.’ Theodora does not raise her voice but puts her hand lightly on the grip of the holstered bolt pistol. ‘I trust that He shall find none of us wanting.’

At least Steen has enough sense to shut up after that.

Aurelia leads the way through the tunnel leading upward, quickening her steps at first, but soon her pace slows. The tunnel narrows, the ceiling gets lower until they’re bent almost double, rocks scratching at them from all sides, closing in ever tighter, until a cave-in blocks their way. It’s as if the mountain has shifted, tilting up the floor and collapsing the tunnel on top of it, leaving only a narrow space between ceiling and debris.

‘Nothing to it,’ Captain Bain says, undaunted. ‘We crawl. Just like basic training.’

Nothing to it.

Aurelia heads in first, down on her belly, using knees and elbows to drag herself forward. She tries not to think of the weight of the explosives in her pack, or of the weight of the mountain pressing down on her.

‘I hate this place,’ Steen whispers, his voice echoing dully against the rock.

‘Keep it to yourself, Guardsman,’ Aurelia snaps.

‘This is not so bad.’ It’s Captain Bain, sounding for all the world as if he’s sitting in the refectory, telling stories over a recaff. ‘Some of you might’ve heard the story that I killed a Chaos Space Marine with my bare hands during the invasion,’ he goes on. ‘It isn’t true, of course.’ A pause, the sound of bodies shuffling through the debris. ‘I needed a knife and a lasgun to do it.’

Aurelia can’t help herself; even with the mountain bearing down on her, she chuckles. The others chuckle too, mingled with the nervous titters from the newbloods.

They keep crawling, and while the space gets no wider, the shifting surface of scree beneath them tilts after a while, as if they’ve crested a rise and are heading down. Aurelia visualises the map in her head, lets her mind run through the passages to keep the claustrophobia at bay.

‘We’re close to the reactor core,’ she says, her voice tense and raspy in her own ears, and even as she speaks the words, the passage widens around her. With a last push, she scrambles out of a low, narrow opening into an intact tunnel littered with debris and boulders. She gets to her feet while the others emerge, cursing and coughing.

The cave-in is behind them, the opening they’ve squeezed through a dark, jagged maw at floor level, and the reek that’s been present since they started crawling is overpowering here. It’s the smell of butchery, of massacre, of corpses left to rot. Looking ahead, Aurelia stumbles.

The tunnel is a slaughterhouse, walls and floor draped with the decomposed remains of dozens of dead, bodies mutilated beyond recognition. Skulls and femurs, vertebrae and ribs litter the path. Some of the bodies have been flayed, skins plastered to the walls, etched and branded with sigils the sight of which makes Aurelia’s vision warp, her stomach lurch. Around her, the others retch and gasp. Only Bain and Theo seem unmoved.

‘Emperor save us,’ Thorne breathes while Daveed mumbles something that sounds like a prayer.

Aurelia forces down the taste of bile. After fifteen years of planetwide war, resistance and strife, of invaders and home-grown traitors tearing the world apart, everyone on Kepler-Gamma knows what the enemy is capable of, and everyone has seen their share of horror. But the fear washing over them here is not just an emotion, it’s a palpable presence, its touch debilitating, paralysing, corrosive.

‘Reminds me of the shrine we burned on that raid last year,’ Helvia says, voice almost steady. Aurelia nods, remembering the bones, the blood, the altars, the soul-twisting darkness of it all, the cultists still calling on the Ruinous Powers as they were gunned down.

‘What happened here?’ Aurelia asks, unable to disguise the fear and disgust in her voice. ‘Why leave them like this?’

‘Heresy,’ Theodora says, face grim as she looks around. ‘Pure heresy. Rituals to placate their vile, false gods.’ She nods at the remains. ‘Judging by the shreds of clothing, these people were workers from the manufactorum. Maybe they tried to find a way out. Maybe they tried to hide. And when the cultists who had infiltrated the facility found them… they were turned into meat.’ Theo looks at each of them in turn, and when she speaks again, her words blaze with wrath. ‘They did this to people who couldn’t fight back. Helpless, unarmed workers. People with families and children. We will make them pay for it. We will pull this place down on their heads and make them rue the day they turned on the Imperium.’

Aurelia nods, determination kindling beneath the fear in her chest. Looking around, she can tell it kindles in the others too. She gazes back at Theo, at her sister’s tall, unbent silhouette.

When they were children, and Father told them to stand up straight like the Emperor was watching, Aurelia always laughed, but Theo never did. She was always tough as nails, that’s how she kept herself and Aurelia alive after their parents died, but the ten years they’ve spent apart have tempered Theo’s toughness into something stronger still, something as sharp and deadly and untarnished as Keplerian steel.

This time, Theodora takes the lead with Bain, and Aurelia follows, the squad falling in behind.

Aurelia counts two hundred steps and six side passages before they reach a narrow archway leading into a cavern. The main tunnel continues past it to the right, and there’s a glint of steel and rivets further along: a maintenance hatch leading to the manufactorum proper.

‘This is it.’ Captain Bain stops. ‘The reactor hall is right above us. As far as we know, this area is not regularly patrolled, but we must be quick. Three of you will stay with me by the entrance and keep watch. The rest will lay the explosives in here, enough to collapse the chamber and cause the core to ignite. Now let’s get this done.’

The cavernous chamber beyond the archway is circular, fifty paces in diameter, the rough ceiling almost low enough to touch and reinforced with rockcrete beams. At regular intervals, thick pillars sink into the stone floor. The sound of the manufactorum fills the space, trembling in Aurelia’s head and guts.

They sling their packs on the floor, dividing up the wrapped bricks of explosives, while Captain Bain takes up position at the doorway with Steen, Helvia and a newblood.

‘We’re missing a package,’ Aurelia says after counting the bricks twice.

‘Probably a miscount,’ Bain tells her from the door. ‘You have enough to get the job done?’

‘Yes, but…’

‘Then get started.’

‘Yes, captain.’

Aurelia is at the back of the chamber, attaching the grey, pliable mix of fyceline and plastek to the innermost wall and pillars when Theodora stops beside her.

‘You have some skills, sergeant.’

Aurelia looks up. It’s the first time since Theo came back that she’s addressed Aurelia directly, without giving an order. ‘Thank you, commissar.’

Tall as Aurelia is, Theo is still a good inch taller, and up close, that difference makes Aurelia feel twelve years old again. Like the day she stood beside Theo in the orphanage’s hallway, while the missionaries from the schola progenium spoke with the headmistress in the office. Aurelia remembers Theo’s solemn face, and her own giddy, stupid questions. ‘What’s the schola like? Will we share a bunk bed there too?’

Theo hadn’t answered.

The morning after, Theo’s bunk was empty when Aurelia awoke. She ran all the way to the void port – fear and panic ripping through her guts – but Theo was already gone. And the one memory Aurelia has never been able to shake, the one that is still stuck in her mind like a jagged piece of shrapnel, is of herself, standing at the void port, snot and tears smeared across her cheeks, looking up at an empty sky.

For ten years, she has done her best to make a new life for herself in the hollow space her sister left behind. Now, here’s Theo, back again, large as life, and infuriatingly unmoved. As if the past didn’t hurt her then; as if it doesn’t haunt her now.

‘Few commissars get to come home,’ Aurelia blurts out.

Theodora’s expression is unreadable. ‘No commissars get to come home.’

Aurelia wants to ask what that means, but is interrupted by a lasgun blast, followed by Bain’s harsh, ‘Cease fire!’

It’s Steen. Lasgun held high, his voice a wail. ‘I saw something! In the tunnel.’

Bain wrests away the weapon. ‘There’s nothing there, Guardsman.’

They fall silent, listening.

Perhaps, Aurelia thinks as the silence holds for a moment, as she jams the last bar of explosives into a crack in the ceiling, adrenaline coursing through her veins. Perhaps…

But no. There’s the distant blare of an alarm. The clang of steel. Shouting. Heavy boots.

‘They’re coming,’ the newblood calls out, voice cracking.

‘Finish up,’ Bain orders, but whatever he says next is lost in a rattle of autogun fire.

Out of the corner of her eye, Aurelia sees Thorne and Henryk frantically affix the last of their explosives to a pillar at the back of the chamber. Steen and Helvia seek cover by the doorway while Bain fires his lasgun into the tunnel. He is shouting but Aurelia only hears the rough, concussive blasts of stubber rounds. She knows what he must be asking for, though.

Thorne. The detonators.

Two newbloods hit the ground, and the enemy push through the doorway. Aurelia counts eight with more on the way. They are garbed in what looks like old Imperial uniforms, ripped and resewn, studded with spikes and plates of armaplas and steel, every face marked with crude tattoos, akin to the sigils that mark the flayed skins in the hallway. They charge in, bellowing, and the world turns to noise and bullets.

Henryk goes down, a ragged hole punched through his back and chest. Daveed is knocked off his feet by a close-range blast.

Taking cover behind a pillar, Aurelia fires her lasgun. Quick shots, hastily aimed, but two attackers go down, one shot through the neck, the other in the gut. Moving low and fast she checks on the newbloods and Henryk. They’re dead, their blood soiling her boots and knees.

At the door Theo fires her bolt pistol, the crack of it deafening. A stubber round passes close enough to burn Aurelia’s cheek and there’s a muffled grunt behind her. Turning, she sees blood pouring from Thorne’s forehead into his eyes. He drops to his knees.

At the archway, Helvia is grasping her lasgun left-handed, right arm hanging limp. There is dust and smoke as if a grenade’s gone off, but Aurelia has Thorne now and is dragging him off his knees, grabbing the pack beside him. She pulls him with her, exiting behind the others as they retreat the way they came. Two newbloods lie dead outside the doorway. Theo and Bain are trying to hold off another group of heretics spilling from the steel hatch, but the heavy stubber fire drives them back. No sign of Daveed.

Looking back, Aurelia glimpses something at the back of the tunnel, something standing just beyond the threshold of the open maintenance hatch, backlit by the glare on the other side. The brightness confuses the nightsense goggles, but there’s a silhouette there, man-shaped, but so tall it has to bend down to look through the hatch. As the figure moves in the light, Aurelia has a fleeting vision of ornately sculpted armour flashing with scarlet and gold, a horned head, and shadows wrapping themselves around the apparition like a cloak of smoke and darkness. It’s just a glimpse, but even so there’s a sickening lurch of dread in her gut.

She almost loses her grip on Thorne, but Bain hauls her up, shouting words she cannot hear, her ears still ringing from the noise, but it’s enough to snap her to attention, to get her legs moving. With Thorne leaning on her, Aurelia turns and fires, lasgun rounds burning through flak armour and bone, and then the heretics are falling back and taking cover.

Waiting for reinforcements, Aurelia thinks, half expecting the shadow-cloaked apparition to come tearing through the passage. It doesn’t, but the soul-warping fear remains.

They’re almost back at the cave-in and hunker down in one of the partially collapsed side tunnels. Helvia lays down a barrage of covering fire as Aurelia drags Thorne out of the main passage, away from the branded skins and mutilated bones. For a blessed moment, all goes quiet.

‘They’re regrouping,’ Helvia says, tightening a makeshift tourniquet around her right upper arm, blood soaking through the sleeve. ‘We don’t have long.’

‘I saw…’ Aurelia shudders, flashing back to the silhouette, the horned head, the shadows swirling round it. ‘Something, it was…’

‘A Chaos Space Marine,’ Captain Bain says, his scarred features stern. ‘Yes. I saw it too.’ He turns to Thorne. ‘Set it off. Now.’

Thorne’s face is smeared with blood, part of his scalp singed and bleeding, but his eyes are open, and so is his pack. ‘I don’t have the detonator.’ His voice is strained. ‘This isn’t my pack.’

Aurelia feels an icy stab of dread.

Captain Bain has gone very still. ‘Where is it?’

Thorne glances over Bain’s shoulder. ‘Back there. I put it down. Henryk must have grabbed mine when they came through… and he…’

‘We’ll go back for it.’ Theodora reloads her bolt pistol. ‘Fight our way in. Finish it.’

Aurelia frowns. ‘Forgive me, commissar, but the six of us can’t fight our way back in there and get to the safe distance before we set it off.’

‘We just need the detonator,’ Theodora says. ‘That’s the mission.’

Thorne looks up. ‘You mean, we set it off with us in here? No. We get the detonators and move to a safe distance. The range…’

Bain bares his teeth in something that is not a smile. ‘The range of a detonator in here, with all this rock and rockcrete, is almost zero. There is no safe distance, Guardsman.’

Steen curses. ‘Of all the cracked missions…’

Theo cuts him off. ‘I will shoot you for insubordination, Guardsman. Even here. Even now. Captain, if I go now, I can still set off the explosion as planned.’

The chill sinks deeper into Aurelia’s gut.

No commissar ever gets to go home.

‘So this is a suicide mission?’

‘It’s not suicide, sergeant,’ Theo replies, ‘it’s war.’

Aurelia doesn’t take her eyes off Theo. ‘Are they even sending a Valkyrie to pick us up at the rendezvous point after?’

‘Oh, they’ll send a Valkyrie, all right,’ Bain says. ‘To check whether we got the job done.’

There’s scattered autogun fire in the tunnel, and Helvia responds with a fusillade from her lasgun.

‘They’ll be coming through soon,’ Theo says. ‘Your orders, captain?’

Bain wipes the dirt and sweat off his face with the back of his hand. ‘Right now, these warp-worshipping scum are trying to get us. My guess is that they assume we’re part of a bigger attack, not that we’re sabotaging the facility. If we head back, we risk them killing all of us. Then they’ll find and dismantle the explosives. So. We split up. I’ll head back for the detonator. The rest of you make a break for the exit, keep moving, creating all the noise and trouble you can muster, for as long as you can.’

Thorne stares. ‘That’s suicide, captain.’

‘Like the commissar said, it’s not suicide, it’s war. You know it, Guardsman, and so do I. I have been fighting in this war for the Emperor and the Imperium since I was old enough to hold a lasgun, and I have put my life on the line for a lot less than what’s at stake here today.’ Bain’s scarred features show the barest hint of a smile. ‘Besides, I’m not sending anyone else. None of you have ever faced a Chaos Space Marine and lived.’

‘Captain…’ Theo sounds as if she wants to argue, but Bain shakes his head.

‘Those are your orders, commissar. See it done. You too, sergeant.’

Aurelia meets Bain’s steely gaze. She pulls her right-hand knife loose from its sheath, and hands it over. ‘In case you need an extra blade, captain.’

Bain’s hand closes around the hilt. He glances at Theo, then back at Aurelia with a look that is hard to read. ‘The Emperor moves our fates in strange ways, sergeant. May He always light your way.’

‘And yours,’ Aurelia replies, an unfamiliar tightness in her throat.

Then, everything is in motion. Helvia throws a smoke grenade into the main tunnel while Captain Bain ducks into the opposite side passage, a lasgun on his back and Aurelia’s knife tucked into his belt beside his own combat knife. With a shout and clatter of autogun fire, four heretics burst through the smoke and dust at the far end of the tunnel. Aurelia stands her ground beside Helvia, firing her lasgun until Thorne, Theo and Steen reach the cave-in, moving into the narrow opening. The enemy is close enough that Aurelia can make out the tarnished buckles on their belts, the crude pattern of heretical tattoos snaking down their faces, the mutilated wings of the aquilas on their armour, the eagles desecrated by foul emblems.

She holds her ground a moment longer before shouting at Helvia: ‘Time to go!’

Helvia nods, and Aurelia heads for the pile of debris behind them. Not until she crouches down to push into the narrow passage, does she realise that Helvia is still firing, lasgun tucked tight under her left arm.

‘Helvia!’

Helvia half turns towards her, shrugs her injured shoulder, a half-smile tugging at her face.

‘Can’t crawl with one arm, sergeant,’ she shouts back. ‘But I can shoot.’

Helvia walks towards the heretics, lasgun blasting, the stubbers and autoguns returning fire. It’s over in five breaths but four heretics go down on their knees, on their bellies, before Helvia tumbles into the dust, creating a brief lull before the rest of the heretics come charging through the tunnel.

With bullets slamming into the rocks around her, Aurelia pushes into the narrow space beneath the debris of the cave-in. Without her pack, it’s easier to manoeuvre, but the weight of the mountain is still enough to squeeze the breath from her lungs. There’s movement behind her almost right away, and she expects a bullet to take her, hands to grab her. She crawls until she hits an obstruction blocking the passage ahead.

‘I can’t do it.’ It’s Steen, his voice a whisper. He’s curled up on his side, and Aurelia tries to push past him.

‘Move, Guardsman. Just a little further.’

Steen shakes his head, blood seeping from his mouth. From the way he’s shivering Aurelia figures he took a bullet in the gut, but she can’t see the wound, and when she reaches out to touch him, a hand grabs hold of her ankle. She’s yanked backward with unrelenting force, the rubble cutting into her face and hands. Aurelia kicks hard at the hand around her ankle, but the grip is like a vice. Rolling over on her back in the cramped space, she braces against the scree with her other foot and tries to aim her lasgun, hoping she won’t hit her own feet. There’s a blur of movement as the attacker heaves himself on top of her legs, reaching out to knock the weapon out of her hands. Aurelia jams her knee into ribs and guts and draws her knife, contorting her body to extend her reach, the roof of the tunnel scraping her head, the rough walls raking the skin off her hand as she slashes. The attacker screams and before he can grab her again, she sits up enough to jam the blade into the hollow beneath his brows, burying the steel in the soft tissue of the eye socket, kicking at the hilt to make sure it strikes home.

Harsh voices echo through the passage beyond the twitching body. Aurelia drags herself back to Steen. She reaches for him, and finds his hand, clutched tightly around something made of metal. Something with a firing pin. A grenade.

Steen has removed his goggles and moved to the side as far as he is able. His eyes are glassy with pain, his breathing fast and shallow. ‘For the Emperor,’ he whispers as Aurelia pushes past him. He makes no move to follow, and she keeps going, wondering if he’s got the strength to pull that pin.

The answer is a flash of light and heat before the darkness takes her.

When she wakes, Thorne sits beside her. Theodora is standing by the wall, bolt pistol aimed down the tunnel where a muted, grinding, mechanical sound is coming from the cave-in.

‘That’s a heavy rock drill,’ Theo says, ‘and they’re almost through.’

‘Couldn’t drag you any further than this, sergeant,’ Thorne says, sounding apologetic. ‘Can you walk?’

Aurelia tries to stand. Her legs and arms are scratched and bleeding, but there are no broken bones as far as she can tell.

‘Might as well stay here,’ she says, her thoughts on Helvia, Steen, Bain, Henryk, Daveed. ‘Take as many with us as possible.’

‘No.’ Theo’s voice is firm. ‘Captain Bain’s order stands. Our job is to keep moving and divert their attention for as long as we can.’

‘You think he’s still alive?’ Aurelia asks, throat raw from dust and grit. She thinks of the determined look on Bain’s scarred face when he took the knife from her hand, of the menacing silhouette looming in the tunnel.

‘Irrelevant. The order stands. We keep moving.’

‘Even if we get to the exit, we’re dead meat.’ Aurelia looks at the cave-in, where the mechanical sound is getting louder. ‘Once they get through with that drill, whoever comes out will take us down even if the explosion goes off, even if the reactor ignites like it’s supposed to. We’ll still be dead.’

‘I rigged the exit.’

Theo and Aurelia turn to stare at Thorne. Theo speaks first.

‘You were not ordered to…’

Thorne laughs, a pale, worn sound. ‘I know.’

Aurelia looks at Thorne, at his familiar, crooked smile beneath the blood and the exhaustion. ‘The missing explosives. I knew I didn’t miscount. You took those bricks.’

‘Sorry, sergeant.’

Aurelia slaps his upper arm. ‘Checking the detonators. Should’ve known you were up to something.’

‘What exactly did you do?’ Theo’s look of disbelief is fading, her voice sharp.

‘Well, while you were busy teaching the sergeant a lesson, commissar, I decided I didn’t like the look of this tunnel. Figured a booby trap might come in handy on the way out. It’s tripwired.’

‘You disobeyed orders and imperilled our mission,’ Theo says, raising her weapon. ‘I should put a bolt through your skull right here.’

Thorne lowers his head. ‘Yes, commissar.’

Aurelia puts out a hand, not sure what she means to do. ‘Commissar…’

Theo ignores her, eyes fixed on Thorne. ‘However, on this occasion I will defer your punishment until this mission’s over.’ She looks away. ‘So if your plan works, you’ll be in real trouble.’

Thorne’s smile is thin beneath the dirt and blood. ‘Thank you, commissar.’

Aurelia struggles to her feet, bending to pick up her lasgun. At the same time, the grinding noise from the cave-in ratchets up to a deafening roar as the drill breaks through. The blast of a heavy stubber round makes Aurelia grab the lasgun and dive for cover, adrenaline flooding her senses, and then Thorne makes a sound, choked and small. He’s still standing, but blood covers his face and neck, spilling out of his mouth and eyes.

He falls.

Aurelia catches him, as she’s caught him so many times before, as he has caught her, as death has passed them by in a hundred other battles.

Not this time.

She fires her lasgun as two heretics burst out of the debris, crawling out behind the heavy drill. There is more movement behind, and she fires again, and again, and again.

‘Aurelia!’ It’s Theodora, screaming in her face. ‘Move, sergeant.’ And they do.

Theo has Thorne’s lasgun and her own bolt pistol. They fire as they run, the taste of blood and death in Aurelia’s mouth. Ahead is the tunnel, everlasting. Behind is the enemy, uncounted.

When they push past the carcass of the cudbear, skirting its huge paws and head, Aurelia feels the ghosts of her squad crowding close. All of them gone, all of them lost. Even as she runs, rage and pain burn through her, a flame so fierce she feels incandescent in the dark.

Autogun and stubber fire echoes through the passage, striking sparks from the rocks. And then Aurelia hears it. An explosion, far-off and muffled, followed by a quaking shudder that shakes the tunnel, almost knocking her off her feet. Even as she staggers, a heady wave of triumph rushes through her like flames and lightning. Because somewhere, back there, in the depths of the mountain, in the heart of darkness, Bain has achieved the impossible and fulfilled the purpose of their mission.

Wordless, she looks at Theo, who stumbles beside her, and Theo looks back, the flicker of a smile cutting through the blood and grime.

Their pursuers have fallen back for a moment and they keep going as a second, distant explosion, bigger than the first, makes the whole mountain groan and rumble like a dying beast. Aurelia knows it is the reactor core igniting, knows they’re almost out of time. The air is thick with dust, riven with the sound of cracking stone and weapons fire. She can’t see Theodora any more, neither behind nor ahead.

‘Theo!’

The tunnel shakes, raining rocks and rubble in her path. Behind her, emerging out of the dust, two heretics barrel towards her, weapons drawn, one with an autogun, the other holding a heavy drill aloft like a melee weapon, their armour emblazoned with disfigured aquilas, wings defiled by heretical sigils. Aurelia fires, clipping one of them in the throat, but a round of autogun fire knocks the lasgun out of her hands. She reaches for her knife, remembering too late that the sheath is empty, the long steel still buried deep in a heretic’s eye socket. The autogun makes a ratcheting sound as another clip is fed into place.

A bang. Two. Loud enough to split the world. And yet Aurelia lives.

Theodora steps out of the dust, her blue commissar’s uniform stained and bloodied, the bolt pistol in her hand. She is walking straight and tall, like the Emperor is watching.

The mountain shudders, and Theo steadies herself against the wall. ‘Leg.’ She’s breathing fast. ‘Got hit in the thigh. Bleeding out.’

She crumples to the ground and Aurelia crouches beside her. Blood glistens in the dark, soaking through the uniform, soaking into the silver sash at Theo’s waist. Aurelia fumbles at the torn fabric, but Theo slaps her hand away.

‘No. Too late.’ Her lips move again and Aurelia leans close to catch the words, because Theo’s voice is no more than a ragged whisper. ‘I need to tell you. Should have done it before. When I left you here. Back then. I knew you couldn’t come with me. They told me, but I couldn’t tell you. Didn’t want to leave you. Couldn’t stay. Couldn’t lie either.’ A raspy breath. ‘I said nothing. I’m sorry.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Aurelia murmurs, but Theo grips her hand tighter.

‘I looked down when that shuttle took off. Couldn’t see you. Told myself you’d make it. And you did.’

Aurelia thinks of herself, standing at the void port, all those years ago, looking up. Thinks of Theo, gazing down. All that distance, all those years, all that silence, between them. She tries to gather up her sister in her arms, but Theo shrugs her off, blood between her lips.

‘I knew none of us would come back from this mission. Didn’t know until I got here we’d bring you along. Couldn’t tell you. Bad for morale.’

‘Theo…’

‘Take it.’ Theodora thrusts the bolt pistol at her, and Aurelia’s fingers close around the grip, the metal still warm from Theo’s hand. Theo nods, lips curled into the shadow of a smile, each shallow breath rattling in her chest.

Aurelia bows her head. There is too much to say, but she has no voice to speak.

‘It’s your turn to leave me. That’s an order, Aurelia.’ Her name on Theo’s lips. ‘Go.’

From the tunnel come the harsh cries of the enemy, even as the mountain rumbles and splits apart, even as they teeter at the edge of the abyss. Aurelia looks down at Theo, but her sister’s eyes are closed. She gets up, a numbness spreading through her limbs until nothing can hurt her any more.

Aurelia runs. She runs until she sees the bleeding edge of midwinter sun seeping through the faraway jaws of the mountain. An autogun round burns through her shoulder, but there is no weakness any more, no pain; she is wrath and ruin, and nothing can stop her.

In the faint light of the tunnel’s entrance, she spots the tripwire, a thin filament of metal, gleaming, where Thorne left it. She yanks at it before she tumbles out of the mountain, into the snow.

The explosion is nothing compared to the annihilation already rocking the mountain behind her, but it’s enough to propel her into the river at the bottom of the ravine. She rolls over in the shallow icy water as the entrance collapses, consuming whatever came after her. Above, the manufactorum’s immense shadow quakes and shudders, riven by fire as it tumbles into ruin, spewing ash and dust across the ravine.

Sergeant Aurelia Shale is on her knees with a bolt pistol in her hand. The weapon is lighter than she expected, lighter than everything else she carries with her. Her life, such as it is. Her unit. Her friends. Her family. Helvia and Thorne. Bain. Theo. Their lives and deaths are hers to carry now. Each life lost a gust of wind to stoke the fire of her hate in the days to come, each death a stone to sharpen the steely edge of her determination. To live. To fight. To remember.

Far away, in the amethyst and blood of a sun that will not rise above the peaks of the Jagged Edge, a Valkyrie swoops down over the snowy plains. Aurelia gets to her feet and straightens her back. She walks towards the Valkyrie, towards the horizon, towards the light.

THE PLACE OF PAIN AND HEALING

JUSTIN D HILL

I

A century before, these rough wool fibres had been shorn from giant yaks on the planet of Fenris. They had been rubbed, steam-pressed and boiled in successive rounds of rigorous processing till the individual fibres had matted into one impenetrable military-grade felt. The sections of felt served in a small but vital role, as dampers in the magazines of the Space Wolves Chapter’s void fleet. But now the strike cruiser’s magazines in which they reside are empty. The pallets of fyceline propellant are bare, the cartridges spent in massive broadsides, and the piles of disused felt are stacked in the corner of one magazine aboard Alpha IX, Fang of Fenris, where they act as crude bedding for the dirt-smeared form of Whiteshield Minka Lesk.

Minka lies pale and still and dirt-smeared. She might be a corpse, but for the occasional sign of life. A twitch, a flicker of eyelids, a half-formed word that could be alarm, or anger, or fear. Or all of those together, for during the battle there was no time to make sense of what she was going through. The Battle of Cadia is a tangle of nightmare moments, twisted and bound and tightened into an ugly, cancerous lump. But now her brain starts to tug at the loose ends, trying to unravel it, trying to process it all.

To sanitise the insane.

In one dream she is squatting in the sally port of the eastern gates of Kasr Myrak, hundreds of other Whiteshields around her – packed like sheep, clutching their lasrifles in trembling fingers. The skies of Cadia have always been a nightmare bruise of swirling purple – as the Eye of Terror stared down at them – and they have grown up thinking that there could be no worse a sight. But now they know that they were wrong.

Hell has vomited a host of spiked and barnacled and rusted hulks into orbit above them. The skies are thick with enmity, and searchlights illuminate faces, tentacles and screaming maws of fanged teeth howling despair down onto the planet.

This is something they will tell their grandchildren of, if they live… which looks doubtful at this particular moment in time, because the Black Fleet smothers Cadia like a swarm of cockroaches, blotting out the light and hope and any chance of reinforcement. The dark sky strobes with fire and lance-strikes as it hails its fury down at the planet.

Minka and the other Whiteshields have never experienced anything like this. The void shield bubble crackles and fizzes as energy trails ground themselves. But they know enough to know that this is just a prelude, a prologue, a preliminary, a preparation.

The enemy’s gunners are seeking a weak point, and the tension builds as the void generators whine with effort. Above the Western Bastion, the blue bubble fails with a pop of pressure. Klaxons wail. Flames leap up, and a sudden lightning storm hammers down. Eruptions rip through the whole massive edifice, and then the thin blue shell of the void shield returns. But even the commanders are rattled. Their vox-enhanced voices carry over the huddled heads of the Whiteshields. Medicae teams run past them, shouting instructions to one another.

The casualties are clearly severe. Units are already being re-deployed. The shock trooper platoons next to them move off along the barricades.

‘Fill the gap!’ The order goes out and the Whiteshields shuffle sideways. Their lines stretch thinner. They’re on their own now.

The onslaught drags on. The stress becomes too much for some. They cry out in terror, weep silently or fire wild shots into the night sky.

‘Hold fire!’ Another order goes out, and grim discipline returns. But each time the void shields crackle, Minka is sure they will fail. She is beyond terrified. She presses her eyes closed, tries to recite her catechism, to recall things her mother told her, to run through the many codes of her Whiteshield training. But she is shaking so much her teeth rattle within her skull and she cannot get the words out. It is all she can do to hold onto her lasrifle.

In desperation she reaches inside her flak armour. Her fingers close over the items within, and she presses them into her palm. The hard metal shapes are deeply familiar. One is an autorifle hard round; the other is a cheap press-metal image of Saint Katherine picked up on a scholam field trip to the Adepta Sororitas abbey, perching on the crags above Kasr Batrok.

She prays to Saint Katherine of the Order of Our Martyred Lady and feels a moment’s calm spread through her body. She focuses on this moment of calm, and at last her teeth come to rest, and the words start to tumble out.

She prays with a fervency she has never known before. She doesn’t ask for much.

‘Just let it begin,’ she begs, and petitions for courage and strength and a clean end, when it should come. ‘And let me take a heretic with me,’ she asks. It is a little thing to trouble a saint with. It is all she dares to hope for. ‘Saint Katherine, please do not let me die a Whiteshield.’

There is another devastating lance-strike hitting the outer defences, and suddenly a whole section of wall lifts up into the air as tunnel mines erupt along its length. The blast throws her down onto her face. They’re all struggling to get up as a whistle blows and the call goes out: ‘Breach! Breach!’

And then that dream ends as suddenly as a human life. And another begins.

Minka is weeks into the battle. She is lying on a pile of rubble with the crumbled edifices of habs rising up on either side. She is in the ruins of her city, Kasr Myrak.

‘Shock troops’, they are called, but it seems that all they are doing is falling back from one brief defensive point to another.

Las-bolts stitch the air above her head. She hunkers face down in the rubble. They have dubbed the army of heretics and penal convicts ‘the Unnamed’. It’s better to put a moniker to them. To separate yourself from them. To draw clear lines of distinction. But there are hundreds of thousands of them, and a few hundred are clambering over the barricade Minka abandoned twenty seconds ago, just fifty yards up the remains of Brewhouse Straat.

And she has to kill as many of them as she can, before they kill her.

Above her, to the left, comes the resonant thud-thud of a heavy bolter team, firing through the remains of the eponymous brewhouse. The bass-note rattle dislodges a stream of dust from the loose debris. Brass shells clatter down through the ruins. The stink of alcohol mixes with fyceline and ozone. The rockcrete dust catches in her throat.

Through the smoke and flames, she searches for a target.

She picks a man crossing the intersection. His head is hunched as if he’s running into a storm. So much about him is familiar – scuffed and torn fabric boots, scavenged flak armour, Munitorum-issue overalls. He looks like he spent a past life as factorum labourer. She lines him up in her scope, and he looks up, as if he senses her staring at him. For a moment she looks him in the face and recoils. His face is a mask of horror. She takes it all in – the tattoos, the piercings, his lipless mouth, the scream of hatred.

The salvo strikes true, but the cultist does not falter. He leaps over dead and burning bodies, a bloodstained knife in his fist, powering towards her, spittle flying from the corners of his mouth.

Minka keeps her finger on the trigger till the stream of las-bolts blinds her.

Ten feet from her, he falls. She can hear him cursing and snarling. She wants to finish him off, but there’s no time because another face leers up where he has been. This time the face is of a girl her own age, her scalp crudely shaved, her humanity defaced with heretical symbols carved into her bleeding cheeks.

Wake!

A boot roughly nudges Minka. The voice is muffled and distant, the accent almost unintelligible. Girl, wake! Wake!

The voice is insistent. But it comes to her as if through a layer of ice.

Minka cannot respond. She knows her duty, even in her dreams. In her mind there is a battle to fight. A planet to save. A verdict to overturn. And in her dreams heretic after heretic assails her. Men. Women. Minors.

The fighting becomes so desperate that the battle is reduced to bayonet work – the most terrible form of battle. The fight is all instinct, terror-lent strength, training. Her enemy are mad with battle-stimms. Their dying fingers loosen their grip from about her throat as she drives the blade in. But she is Cadian and drilled, and she fights harder and with discipline. The terror grips just as close, even in a dream, and she twitches and moans under the heavy felt sheets. And then it is all too much, even for her sleeping mind, and for solace it reaches back to before the Black Crusade.

II

Minka is sitting on a hillside, propped up against her backpack. The Black Crusade will not happen for three or more years and this moment is like a soothing balm, a drawn breath, a blessing. But it is more than that: this is a moment of hope and possibility because her team have reached the final and Minka hangs on the instructor’s every word.

His name is Burgozi. War has chewed him up and spat him out again. He’s missing an eye and part of his nose, one hand and two fingers off the other, and his torso is criss-crossed with scars. It looks as though parts of his body have been zipped back together. But he stands before them, hands on hips.

‘This is your first live-round training,’ he calls out through scarred lips. He lifts an autorifle in his hand and disengages the magazine, flicks a hard round out with the stump of his middle finger, and holds it up between thumb and stump. ‘Hard round, ferro-polymer. Twenty-two calibre. If it hits you in the wrong place, this can kill.’

He lets those words sink in. Minka nods. So do the rest of her team as he explains the rules. This is Cadia, everything is serious. But even as she listens and nods, Minka’s young mind wanders. Under her palm she feels the wiry hill grass.

And then the talk is over. Burgozi slips the round back into the magazine, and slams the magazine back into the rifle.

‘Right. Prize goes to the team that get first blood.’

The rival team are from Kasr Batrok. They are confident, assured, patient as they file off down the hill. They have a couple of sniper-trained members, still wearing their camouflage suits of grass and lichen.

‘Think they’re trying to trick us?’ Darage, the lad next to her, says. He’s young, like her, with dark hair. They’ve been on camp for two weeks now, and he has not shaved, and a few strands of fluff jut out from his chin and upper lip.

Minka watches the other team and shakes her head. She doesn’t know if they’re trying to spook them, but she knows that Kasr Batrok is richer, bigger and better-defended than Kasr Myrak – and she feels both the pressure and the sense that they are the underdogs.

‘We’ll show them,’ she tells Darage.

They have till nightfall to play this out. The tension builds as the day wears on. Minka’s leading the flanking team. She’s lying on her front at the base of a tree when she sees something in the mist ahead. She waits, then aims and fires. She doesn’t even consider that she might be about to wound another Cadian. This has been her life, and this is just another form of training.

As soon as her salvo ends, she shifts position.

Just in time. One of the other band returns fire. Minka presses herself down as tracers hiss overhead. Her magazine is still hot from the recent firing. And then there is silence.

Minutes tick by. Minka’s palms are wet. Her body aches. She crawls forward, desperate for a glimpse of her enemy. And then someone punches her in the left leg. It is sudden and unexpected. She spins about, thinking it is that idiot Grazon, but no one is there, and it takes a moment for the understanding to dawn.

She has been shot. She is the first blood.

All the realisations take a moment to process as she closes her eyes. The instructor lifts the whistle and blows a single note.

Then the shock kicks in. A medic crouches over Minka’s leg, cutting away the trouser and exposing the wound. ‘Tell me your name,’ the medic says as she presses a needle into Minka’s thigh. The woman keeps asking her questions as the suppressants take effect.

Minka is too shaken to speak. She gets a first sight of the wound and she feels sick. But nothing makes her as sick as the sight of the Kasr Batrok team standing to congratulate each other.

Minka cannot look her teammates in the eye. The medic sees the pain in her eyes. ‘Next time,’ she tells her.

III

Her dream tips her straight back to the moment the tunnel mines ripped through the curtain walls. ‘Breach!’ the shout goes as fragments of rockcrete fly up into the air. A storm of whistles blow as Minka pushes herself back up, grabs her lasrifle and slings it over her shoulder as she scrambles over the rubble. The earth is breaking as the spiralling teeth of assault drills surface within the wall and assault doors slam down and heretics swarm out.

Minka grasps a length of rebar embedded in the debris and uses it to haul herself forwards. A moment later she’s halfway up a treacherous tumble of rock and scree, and she must get to the top before the swarming heretics. Shrapnel rips through the smoke and dust. Las-bolts hiss through the air. Minka scrambles upwards. Her mouth is full of dust and grit.

Darage is stronger than her. He pushes forward, loses his footing, and sets off an avalanche of debris which buries him alive.

Minka is next. The way to the top lies along a slab of shattered battlements, as long and thick as a cargo-12. She steps upon the slab and it tilts. The rock is so finely balanced that it moves beneath her weight. She can hear the heretics and she is rigid with terror as the rock trembles with her.

You are a coward, she tells herself in disgust. No one is harder on herself. But fear is human, and humanity is what she fights for. And fighting is what she has been raised to do.

A mortar shell lands behind her. There are shouts of impatience and pain and terror. Minka can hear the ragged cries of the Unnamed on the other side of the ruins. She cannot wait. This is a deadly race to reach the ridgeline. She clambers higher as a face looms up from the other side.

She has made it just in time.

Minka fires, point-blank, and sees close up what a las-bolt does to a human face.

IV

Girl, wake! the voice comes again, but Minka cannot leave as her memories funnel her towards Cadia’s final moments. She stands alone, holding up the broken form of Captain Rath Sturm as the world starts to crack, and warp spawn pour through the rents in reality.

The clouds swirl over her head and in the air above, something dreadful is materialising. It is a malevolent form, an apparition of hell, and Minka knows that there is no way she can fight it. Dread flows off it like smoke. Daemonfire flickers up its naked torso.

She reaches for the image of Saint Katherine hanging about her neck as its clawed hands reach out. In the palms are the faces of men and women and children that Minka knows. They are her neighbours, friends, family, and their screaming mouths are filled with flaming maggots that overflow and drip towards her.

The claws are brass brigandine. The scales rattle with the sound of chattering teeth. Of a tossed skull sliding down a bloody heap.

She holds the press-metal image, and shouts back in defiance.

V

A death rattle sounds through the Fang of Fenris, outnumbered as plasma generators strain to keep life-support systems running.

In the debris field of St Josmane’s Hope, a motley picket of armoured frigates and merchantmen lie in ambush. They are deformed by allegiance to the Ruinous Powers, a midnight host of gnarled and pitted battle cruisers, daemonic battle monitors trailing scraps of broken chains and void-embalmed cadavers impaled upon their blighted superstructures.

Each time the Space Wolves cruiser’s lance batteries fire, the corridors and hangars are thrown into darkness. Superheated oxygen burns like promethium, filling corridors with death. Fist-sized globules of molten steel cut through bulkhead and flesh, while the vacuum of space turns those exposed to it, within seconds, into ghastly husks of frozen and dehydrated flesh. Systems fail in sparks and flames, and the heretic fleet surges forward, sensing an easy kill.

It is an unfair match.

The Astartes cruiser is wounded, surrounded and outnumbered, but it smashes through the bleeding wreckage of heretic jackals. It flees for the Mandeville point, plumes of atmosphere and smoke swirling in its wake as survivors are dragged down to the medicae hall.

It is a gloomy space set deep in the heart of the strike cruiser: the lumens light a scene of misery and pain, the stillness broken by the hiss of blood pumps, amputation saws, the crackle of cauterising irons, the moans of the wounded trapped in amniotic dreams. Casualties have long since overflowed the main chamber and the corridors surrounding it, and Medicae Birgir picks his way through them. Their pale faces stare up at him as breath steams from his grille-vents. Here and there he pauses, his augmetics plugging into the data-sockets and case histories scrolling in his ocular feed.

‘Lord medicae!’ a voice calls.

Birgir turns as Chapter-thrall Hallr limps towards him. The failed Space Wolves aspirant is a misshapen lump, his body hunched and muscle-bound, his jutting face malformed with the failed gene-splicing. But there is a keen, angry light in his blue eyes.

‘There is a problem!’ he hisses through fanged teeth.

Birgir has been running on stimms for months. It takes a moment for him to recall the details. Hallr is in charge of the two stowaways. The two Cadians. Brought from the planet by Brother Skarp-Hedin.

Birgir pauses. He is weary beyond belief, but this is how he fights for the Imperium, keeping warriors alive for the next battle.

He nods, and speaks in a voice faint with exhaustion. ‘I will come and see.’

The superstructure groans and buckles as Birgir follows Hallr through the corridors to the magazine. Power has been diverted from the habitable levels to keep the strike cruiser’s shields alive. Only critical life-support systems are still running. The air is thin, their breaths steam in the darkness. The walls gleam with a film of frost, icicles stabbing down from the low metal ceilings, glittering in the darkness of the shell-chamber’s vaulting.

Birgir had never seen the magazine empty before. He stands in wonder, looking about him. The stink of fyceline hangs in the chamber, but there is not a single charge left.

‘This way,’ the Chapter-thrall says and points towards a distant point of light where the two humans from Cadia are lying on a bed of felt mats. They make their way towards them.

Medicae Birgir bends over the first. It is a male. His mechadendrite feels its way across the skull-plate. It finds the data-socket. A spool of medical information floods into Birgir’s data-banks.

Captain Rath Sturm. Formerly 101st Airborne, promoted to 94th Kasrkin.

The medical notes stored within the skull-mounted data-spool are typical for a veteran warrior. There’s all manner of documentary evidence. Sex, name, number, rank, unit, survival assessment rates, and a spool of addenda that have been added by medicaes over the years: minor injuries, organ trouble, a series of precancerous rad-boils that had been removed, biopsied and cauterised.

As Medicae Birgir runs through the information, his shoulder-mounted mechadendrites pull the felt bedding aside and he assesses the captain’s current health. There are numerous cuts, severe bruises and abrasions, laser burns, field-treated impact wounds and three oblique anterior fractures in the lower three sternovertebral ribs.

Nothing life-threatening.

A severe shot of stimms brings the captain suddenly awake. He groans with pain as he takes a breath. He sounds like a drowning man reaching air, gulping in panic.

‘What is your name?’ Birgir asks.

Sturm moans. Birgir repeats his question, but the man clutches Birgir’s arms and sucks in shallow breaths.

‘What is your name, trooper?’ he asks.

There is a long pause before at last the answer comes to him. ‘It is Rath. Rath Sturm. Captain Rath Sturm.’

‘Can you move your arms?’ The medicae’s voice is flat. ‘I need you to answer me. Are you hurt? Is this your blood?’

‘Some of it. That hurts,’ Sturm says with a hiss as Birgir finishes his checks.

‘Understood,’ the medicae replies. ‘This will take your pain.’ A needle slides into Sturm’s arm and administers a direct dose of suppressants, vitamins and nutrients. ‘Well done, captain,’ he says as he moves on to the next bed.

The female is not much more than a girl. She is stiff beneath the sheets. His mechadendrites assess her vital statistics. There is a burn down the middle of her palm, and numerous other cuts, burns, abrasions – but there are no life-threatening injuries. All are healing as expected, except for the fact that her heart is running at a hundred and thirty beats per minute and her blood pressure is dangerously high.

A mechadendrite lifts her eyelid while another shines a light into her eye. No pupillary dilation in either eye. He runs through a series of tests, but there is no response. She twitches and moans.

Chapter-thrall Hallr has spent hours watching her and there is fear in his eyes. ‘Is she possessed?’ he whispers.

The medicae shakes his head. He has seen many things since he left the icy plains of Fenris, but this girl is something of a mystery.

‘Can you wake her?’ Hallr demands.

Birgir is wary of giving her too much, but nothing else works. At last he says, ‘I will give her a short measure.’

The stimms do not take long to kick in. Minka sits bolt upright. Her eyes blink suddenly open, and she sucks in a deep breath, like one surfacing at last from deep, deep water.

‘Girl. What is your name?’

She cannot get enough oxygen into her lungs. The medicae puts a hand to her shoulder and she flinches.

‘I am Medicae Birgir. You are safe. Can you tell me your name?’

Minka’s muscles are tense. She is hyperventilating, her hands flailing.

‘Calm,’ he tells her. ‘You are safe. Tell me your name and rank. Tell me where you fought. Is this your blood?’

She pushes him away.

‘You are aboard the Fang of Fenris,’ he tells her. ‘You are safe. You need to eat and drink. I am Medicae Birgir. You are safe. Can you tell me your name? Calm,’ he repeats. ‘Speak. Tell me your name and rank. Tell me where you fought. Are you bleeding?’

She cannot answer, and Birgir cannot stay.

Time passes. She cannot get enough oxygen into her lungs. Panic rises within her and she starts to moan in shock. There are no words to express what she feels. She remembers and her agony is a dreadful raw, animal sound.

Rath knows exactly how she feels. He drags himself from under the felt matting, and pulls himself across the frozen decking. Her body is stiff and unyielding. He holds her as the waves of shock and grief run through her. He ignores the pain in his ribs as she struggles against him.

‘Breathe slowly,’ he tells her as she starts to retch as the tremors eventually slow. ‘They’re just dreams.’ He holds her close. ‘Hush,’ he says. ‘It’s over.’

‘What’s wrong with me?’ she rasps.

‘It’s the stimms,’ Rath tells her.

‘I feel awful,’ she says. Her teeth rattle as she shivers convulsively. ‘Was he trying to poison me?’

Rath laughs and it makes him wince. ‘He had to bring you back.’

‘Throne!’ she says, and starts to retch again. All that comes out is a thin black bile. She wipes the strands away and spits the taste out. ‘I dare not lie down.’

‘You should.’

She squats down next to him. She is pale and sweating. ‘I had terrible dreams.’

‘They’re just dreams,’ Rath says again. He does not sound like he believes himself. She looks away, and her eyes fall on the misshapen form of Hallr. She looks away again and thinks, Look what the Imperium has done to us all.

She remembers Instructor Burgozi from her Whiteshield days, and what his service had done to him. The missing fingers, the scars, the sense of having failed. She feels tears start to well up. Her throat tightens, her lips press together, and she bites her tongue as she tries to hold them back. She tastes blood but she does not allow those tears to fall. She takes a deep breath and stands up. The truth is she dare not close her eyes because she knows what terrors lie there.

She whispers, ‘We lost, didn’t we?’

His throat is too tight to speak. All he can do is nod. Now, as far as either of them know, they are the only two Cadians left alive, and they have failed their millennia-long trust.

This pain they share is worse than living.

It is a long time before Minka can speak. ‘We should have died.’

He nods slowly.

VI

Minka has been walking for hours. She is in the seventh emptied shell-chamber when the voice speaks to her. It is deep and sonorous, and it reverberates through the dark chamber.

She freezes.

She had thought she was alone, but as she turns, she sees a giant is standing only a few yards from her. He is so large and square that it feels as though a wall has just spoken to her. It seems impossible that someone of such size would move so silently. But he is there.

A Space Marine, not dressed in battleplate, but in a black fabric, studded with metal plugs about his chest and arms and legs. Her eyes pick details out from the darkness. Tall, rangy despite a hyper-developed musculature, an over-large face, beard plaited and twined with beads and bones.

He speaks again. ‘You are recovered.’

She has to shake herself before she can speak. ‘Yes,’ she stutters.

He crouches down. Even so, his face is higher than hers. He has the same monobrow that Hallr has. It gives his deep-set eyes a bestial and serious look. His face is so large, she thinks, it’s like looking at an ogryn.

‘It is I, Skarp-Hedin. You walked straight past me.’

She pauses to consider. So much has happened but the name is familiar, and then she remembers. It is the Space Wolf who brought her and Rath up from the planet.

‘You look well,’ he says.

‘I am.’

He nods slowly. ‘You are Cadian?’

She has always said this with pride, but now she hesitates before answering. ‘Yes. I am. Well, I was.’

‘Was?’

She nods.

‘Either you are Cadian, or you are not.’

She hesitates. ‘But we failed.’

His mouth is closed, but the tips of fangs protrude from under his closed lips. He nods thoughtfully, as if savouring her words. His presence is so awesome she feels compelled to speak just to fill the silence.

‘I find myself doubting everything that I have been told.’

‘And what were you told?’

‘We were the gatekeepers. We held the madness at bay. It was a heavy task, but my forefathers never failed. But now. Cadia. It’s gone.’ She looks at him, doubting her own sanity. ‘It has gone, hasn’t it?’

It is hard to judge how old the Astartes are, but Skarp-Hedin’s ice-blue eyes are old and wise, and there is sadness buried within them. But he does not answer.

‘Cadia – it broke. Yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘So we lost.’

‘Lost?’

‘Yes. The Cadian Gate. All of it,’ she says, as if this were obvious, but then words fail her.

‘“Lost”. I do not know this word.’ He smiles and she realises he is joking, but his smile is a terrifying sight: his oversized mouth opens to a maw of fangs. ‘You have a short life, Cadian. Mine is likely to be a little longer. At night on my world, when I was a boy, I would sit and look up at the night sky, and occasionally there were streaks of light. Stars, falling from the void. The best we can hope for is a short flash of brilliance. Some of us burn a little longer, and brighter, than others. If you think that you have lost, then it will be so.

‘But you are here talking to me! And you are alive, and as long as you can fight, the battle is not over.’

She pauses. At last she says, ‘So… we keep fighting?’

‘Why would you stop?’ he says.

She thinks on this and remembers that day when she was shot in the leg. She remembers the arrogance of the Kasr Batrok Whiteshields. And she remembers the look on the medic’s face as he bandaged her leg. ‘Next time,’ he’d said to her. And he was right. A year later the two teams met again in the final, and this time it was the Kasr Myrak team who won the bout.

Being Cadian, she thinks, is about more than a bloodline or a planet. It is a mindset and a method: to fight and to advance, whatever the odds.

She starts to speak, but he puts up his hand, and sniffs the air. She strains the darkness to try and gauge what he has sensed; feels nothing for a long time, but he is clearly listening to something beyond her.

‘We have reached the Mandeville point, Upsilon Nine,’ he says.

‘And what is that?’

‘It is the point where we transition into the warp.’

‘What is the warp?’

He pauses. ‘It is a way of moving through space. To fold distance.’

She nods as she adds this to her learning. Then she feels the transition in the pit of her stomach and it makes her feel sick.

There is a long pause. Skarp-Hedin closes his eyes. ‘It is done,’ he says at last. ‘They are out there, searching for our souls. Can you feel them?’

She shakes her head.

He looks about. ‘No matter. They are there. They will always be there. As long as there is someone to fight, then there is yet hope for humanity. That grit that allowed your people to defend your home world for ten thousand years. That is your inheritance. You must pass it on.’ He pauses, listening – but not to her – and then stands suddenly. ‘I am needed.’

He turns abruptly and starts to stride away. His footsteps are silent. With each stride he fades into the darkness, and leaves her standing alone.

Minka calls out after him. ‘Space Wolf. Where are we going?’

He does not turn, but his voice comes back to her. ‘I cannot tell you.’

Minka pauses and takes in a deep breath. The stimms are starting to wear off, at last. ‘I suppose there will be another battle to fight.’

His distant voice is a rumble. ‘While you are alive, there is always another battle.’

A flash of understanding runs through her. She is not just the end of a great fighting legacy; she will also be its beginning.

VII

Minka retraces her steps through the cavernous magazines of the strike cruiser. She has been walking for hours. She is deathly tired when she sees the pile of felt mats in the dim light.

Hallr has gone and Rath is alone. He is asleep. She lies down and uses both hands to pull one of the heavy mats on top of her. It is ingrained with grease and the stains of spilt unguents. It’s a distinctively military scent as its weight presses down upon her. It is the odour of quartermasters’ offices and Militarum storage facilities from Fenris to Armageddon, Cadia to the Eastern Fringe. It is a smell that reminds her of Cadia, and her father.

As soon as she closes her eyes, the stink of the mats colours her unconscious. In her dreams she is knee-high in her childhood hab. Her mother cleans each part of her lasrifle and lays them all out on the table. She’s threading the barrel back onto the stock when her father comes home. He is dead tired. His face is pale, his hands and jacket ingrained with military unguents. But he will not rest.

‘Come,’ he tells Minka, and puts out a hand and takes hers in his.

It is a sacred night on Cadia, when the unnamed dead are remembered, where those without graves are honoured. Incinerator bins are burning around the perimeter of the kasr walls, the silhouettes of Cadians standing around them, dark against the flames. Her father leads her to the broad rockcrete stairs, worn into trenches by generations of Cadians before her.

Each bowed step is an effort for one so small, but at last they reach the top and he leads her up onto the broad firing step. She turns and the pillbox habs have all fallen away behind them and she feels the wind against her cheeks.

‘Come here,’ he says, and lifts her up in both hands. She looks up but she does not see falling stars, only the Eye of Terror, a baleful bruise in the night sky, glaring down at her.

‘Tell them!’ her father hisses, and she knows what she has to say. It is the word she learnt from her parents, and they from theirs before, all the way back to the first settlement of the planet.

‘Never!’ her memory-self shouts at the Eye of Terror.

A decade later Cadia will fall, but not Minka. She has bled, but she still stands, and she waits.

For next time.

ANGELS OF DEATH

THE LABYRINTH OF LOST SOULS

GRAHAM MCNEILL

‘You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame. How can you rise anew if you have not first become ashes?’

You chose this. All of it.

An explosion of pain and fire. Mercifully short.

Then blackness, infinite.

I sink, an exhausted swimmer drowning within sight of land. The blackness drags me down, and the ocean welcomes me into its embrace. Voices swirl in the darkness, whispers without source.

Lay down your burdens… You have already given more than enough… Time to die…

I try to shut out the voices, but they are all around me. I scream, but dark water rushes into my throat, pouring into my lungs and filling me with ice. The urge to simply let go is overwhelming, the pain of struggling too much to bear.

But the struggle is all I have.

I have memory and awareness, but I have no shape or form. As a disembodied spirit, I am dead and yet unborn.

Who am I?

Spots of light glow behind the darkness, extending and connecting and glowing like broken shards of a mirror. Each shows a different reality, glimmers of life I do not know. It is a story, vividly told, but fading. Are these my deeds?

The light of the shards begins to fade, time reversing each one from polished glass back to the sand from which it was wrought. If this is my life, then it will go unremembered, for even in the fleeting moments I saw them, I saw the death that surrounded me. I am a locus for violence. I was wrought to bring death, but too often it haunted my steps like a stalking shadow.

I am a death-bringer, this much I know.

The light is extinguished, and I am again in utter darkness. A darkness that is not simply the absence of light, but a state of being that denies that light could ever exist. A time when the first mortals were gifted with the awareness of death.

A curse laid upon them in ancient times, from one immortal being…

I know you…

And then, just as suddenly as the darkness enfolds me with numbness, I feel something. I feel… cold. I feel wetness against my skin.

I have a body!

I have flesh, bone and blood. I feel the fluids of life surging around my body, roaring like a thunderous river. My blood is hot and urgent, afire in a way that sears my veins with every circuit, as though freighted with an electric charge. It ignites my organs, shock-burning them with explosions of sensation and pain.

I will not die here!

With my new-found awareness of my body, I kick to the surface of this ocean as a searing fire burns in my chest. I feel the hammer blows of a double heartbeat, so close together it is like one bellowing scream. The darkness tries to pull me back, unwilling to relinquish its prize, but the furnace within me burns away its shadowed tendrils.

I swim up through the darkness towards the light of a distant star. It grows with every stroke until it is almost too bright to look upon. Yet I cannot look away. It is my beacon to life, and I dare not even blink or the darkness will claim me once more.

And then I break the surface, drawing a vast, sucking breath of air.

The light blinds me, a searing globe of fire. The ocean of death is behind me. A memory or a vision, I do not know. My eyes burn.

Air inflates my lungs, the tissue within slow to respond. I try to take shallow gasps, but my body’s demands overwhelm my conscious thoughts. Huge, shuddering, body-quaking breaths heave through me, my oxygen-starved systems fighting to restore life to my frame.

Where am I?

Awareness of my body slips over me like a corpse-shroud being pulled slowly back to reveal what lies beneath. And with each revealed limb, fresh pain stabs home. The agony of this rebirth is beyond imagining, and I cannot help but scream like a wounded animal caught in a tightening snare.

The fire in the back of my eyes fades enough that I can begin to dimly perceive my surroundings. Somewhere cramped, hard walls to either side of me, cold iron below and above. I try to move, but bolts of agonising pain detonate within my chest and skull, blinding me again and drawing another howl of raw anguish from my parched throat.

My fists clench, my teeth grind together. I force myself to take shallower breaths, controlling my reaction to the pain by sheer force of will. My body fights me. My metabolism is running too fast, consuming itself in an act of unthinking self-cannibalism.

I need to get out, to get up.

The box I lie within, is it a coffin? Does whoever put me in here believe I am dead? Perhaps I was, but I am alive! More than alive, I am vital!

I kick out. My heel strikes iron, but I feel it buckle. A door?

Again, again, again. I kick and kick, the iron bending and twisting with each impact. I sense weakness and concentrate my energies, until whatever lock secures it breaks. Cold air surges into my confinement, at once both sterile and awash with chemicals. I struggle like a wriggling newborn fighting to emerge from its cocoon.

And then I am out.

I fall to the ground, unable to bear my weight on unsteady legs. I lie curled in a foetal position, my body sopping with reeking chemicals that sting my eyes and nose. My lungs heave up a torrent of frothed chemicals and a slew of thin cables. I tear them from my throat, invasive fronds that flicker with light.

Pushing myself onto my haunches, I sit with my back to the wall, blinking in the too-bright light. I lift my arm to shade my eyes, and see its entire length is ravaged by red tracks of sutures. From wrist to elbow, from elbow to shoulder. Across my chest in layered strips. All down my legs and groin. I reach up to find my skull is shaven and likewise seamed with scars.

My naked body has been split from heel to crown. My skin is a zippered bag enclosing a collection of meat and bone and blood. I feel I could pull any part of my body and the canvas of my flesh would unravel and my every organ would spill out in a tidal wash of red.

The roaring in my ears begins to subside, and I hear a confusing, overwhelming rush of sounds. I cannot separate them, just a cacophony of noise: perhaps shouting voices and alarms intermixed.

My earlier suspicion that this place is a prison or a place of torture gains credence as I see the blurred outlines of hulking figures moving towards me. I cannot tell what they are, but the gleam of steel in their hands and the death-mask faces tell me they are hostile.

Rough hands take hold of my shoulders. Light gleams on a blade as it stabs for my neck.

I roar as the furnace in my chest explodes with power. My legs unhinge like coiled springs and I surge to my feet. My fists are wrecking balls as I smash the figures back. One goes down, its white robes now red with blood. I seize another by its arms and tear them from the sockets of its shoulders.

The figure collapses without a sound, and I crash into a previously unseen slab table bearing instruments of excruciation: flensing blades, bone-saws and tools of incision that look like hooked, disembowelling swords. Scraps of wet meat lie in offering bowls, each still fresh with the blood of the bodies from which they were excised.

I snatch a blade with a moulded metal grip, too small for my stitched hands, but good enough.

A prescient sense of danger whips me around.

Just in time, as a buzzing whine slashes past my ear. A winged thing swoops down from the ceiling. It regards me with baleful yellow eyes, screeching as its fanged jaw works up and down in fury. A coiled tail whips beneath its body, droplets of venom oozing from the tip of a stinger needle. I hurl one of the bowls containing the denuded organs at it. Despite the pain in my eyes and the dazzling brightness, my aim is true, and it falls from the air with an ululating screech.

I vault the slab, hammering my heel down on the thing before it can recover. It explodes in a greasy mess of black bone and brain matter, its whipping tail still trying to stab me. I hear another screech, and duck as another of the vile flying things darts towards me. Its speed is astonishing, but my hand snaps out and seizes it by its tail. I swing it like a mace and smash it to splinters on the slab.

My vision is still blurred and filled with blistering light, but I begin to see more of my surroundings. A dark, cavernous space, lit by crimson flames in basket-sconces, dark arches bordered by carvings of intertwined serpents. And looming over all, a leering skull icon, a god of death presiding over its temple to agony.

Venting gas gathers around my ankles, billowing up through the wire-grilled floor. I smell the caustic stink of it, taste the acrid reek of its composite elements in the back of my throat. Images flash in my mind: strange alchemical names I do not recognise, diagrams of molecular bonds I do not know.

What I do know, on a base, instinctual level, is that this gas is designed to incapacitate me. I feel something in my throat constrict, a biological transformation, flesh reshaping itself to protect me. My body rallies to my defence with a speed my captors have clearly not expected.

I sprint for the nearest arch, barrelling past a pale figure with a bladed fist. I spring from the mist before he can raise it and crack his hard skull. He falls, one of his red eyes cracked and flickering with a daemonic light. I hear more voices behind me, garbled and meaningless, a clipped tongue my brain cannot process. Too many explosions of light are firing in my skull, connections reforging themselves in an electrical firestorm of rebirth.

Beyond the torture chamber, the tunnels are a strange mix of steel and stone, vaulted rooms filled with flashing red lights and screeching wails of the damned. I push through them, neither knowing nor caring where I go.

Out, just out.

I see skeletal remains set in the walls, crude shrines to death and the cruel god of the temple to agony. They leer at me with the promise of pain and suffering. I put my fist through every one I see, relishing the sound of cracking bone and buckling iron.

My flesh is limned with light, but I cannot tell if it is the fire in my blood or the fire in my eyes. I have caged lightning in my body, and it burns me from within. The pain is almost unbearable, but I must endure it if I am to escape this abode of the damned.

My bones are like ingots of molten metal in the raw meat of my limbs.

Volcanic light smoulders behind my eyes, and the fire of a sun burns in my chest.

I do not know how much more of this I can stand.

Where am I?

Am I underground, deep within a mountain? The staleness of the air feels wrong; it is old, like it has passed through countless lungs before mine. I taste the age of this place in every breath, laced with the hot undercurrent of beaten metal.

A vision flashes into the forefront of my mind. A memory?

No, not exactly.

A story? Perhaps, though I do not remember how I know it. It is an old story, one first set down in a different age of the world: a tale of a warrior lost within a great labyrinth where dwelt an invincible monster. Only by slaying that monster could the warrior escape and defeat his enemies.

I kneel and place my palm on the iron floor. I feel the thrumming of the mountain’s volcanic heart, a pulsing heartbeat of something vast and ancient.

This is where I must go, to the heart of the labyrinth.

To slay the beast and win my freedom.

I hear them hunting me.

Daemonic figures, hulking and plated in brazen metal. They shout and taunt, their voices echoing from the walls and from fang-mouthed carvings in the walls. They repeat the same name, over and over.

Is it the name of their god?

They cannot catch me, for this labyrinth is expansive and filled with shadows as I make my way to its centre. I fear the light filling me will reveal me, but it seems only I can see it. I see tribal markings, barely visible beyond the glow of the fire in my limbs, inked onto my skin. Did I possess these before my torture or are they new? I cannot say. A winged creature with two heads, rendered monstrous by the bleeding sutures, sits on one shoulder, and I see a silver disc embedded into the flesh of my wrist. It pulses with a light of its own, and I see strange, cuneiform script moving across its surface.

Numbers and letters I cannot yet recognise.

There is relevance to them, something I feel I should know, but every time I think I grasp what they might represent, the meaning slips away from me like smoke. Until now, the light within the silver band has been a pulsing amber colour, but now it flashes bright red. I do not know for sure what it signifies, but my prey-instinct tells me this implant will help my captors locate me. I lift it to my mouth and rip the disc from my wrist with a tearing bite. The taste of blood in my mouth is like a concentrated shot of adrenaline; it focuses my thoughts, hones them to a razor’s edge.

I crush the disc under my heel and press both palms to the walls. The heat and rumble of the beast’s lair is stronger now.

I am close.

I follow the thread of heat and noise ever onwards, moving at speed where I can, with stealth where I have to, and with violence when confronted. My captors are strong, but I am stronger. Their armour may be proof against many things, but against my strength it is useless.

I leave a string of writhing bodies behind me, groaning and incapacitated. I lose the blade I took from the temple of agony, wedged in the armour of one of my pursuers. Others are closing in, and my fists are bloody by the time I reach the beast’s lair.

A wide and cavernous forge of dark iron and blue-hot flames. At its far end, a giant furnace bellows with the power of daemonic fire. Towers wreathed in streamers of coruscating light pulse in time with the heartbeat of this place. More of the death-masked thrall-things toil here, robed in red and gold, multi-limbed with clawed hands and spark-torches that flicker with an evil light in the chamber’s infernal glow.

I see the master of this forge of the damned, a hulking monster of steel and fire. Its armour is a mix of blue and red that blends together in the electric light thrown out from the towers surrounding its forge. It squats before its furnace, surrounded by rivers of molten metal, a giant hammer held in one mighty fist. Hooked chains hang from the high ceiling, some bearing the chassis of wrecked vehicles or damaged suits of armour, others awaiting a fresh machine carcass.

Something in the shape and hue of the armour triggers a flash of recognition, but it is gone before I can process it. A symbol on one shoulder sends a shudder of melancholy through me, a sense of loss that finds only an aching absence within me.

The beast rises and my resolve falters for an instant as I see it is twice my height and half again as broad. It speaks in a voice that grates with its utter inhumanity, the same cursed name that has dogged my every step. I sense confusion in its voice, as though it cannot believe I have come this far.

It steps towards me, its clawed footsteps like peals of thunder.

Again it speaks, but I can barely hear it over the roaring in my skull. The fire within me is all-consuming, my chest a star on the verge of supernova. Whatever happens here, I will not survive this confrontation.

I wrench a sputtering flame torch from one of the thralls and charge towards the beast.

A clawed arm reaches for me. I duck and roll between its legs.

I lash the flame torch across the back of its legs, fusing a knot of cables and pistons. Oily black blood squirts from a ruptured feed line. Sparks fly as I play the flame over exposed wires and gears.

Faster than I thought possible, the beast swivels around and swats me aside with its mighty fist. The blow is ferocious, but I sense not as powerful as it could have been.

Am I so important to my captors that they wish to capture me alive? Who am I? What do I mean to them that they so desire me to live?

My chest burns with the trauma of impact, but the overheating furnace in my chest is the greater threat. I fear it will consume me before I can take this daemon down.

It stomps towards me, dropping its hammer as a series of mechanical limbs unfold from its back. Each is tipped with a grasping claw or crackling spike. They reach for me, but I am too fast, slashing with my makeshift weapon.

My body is consuming me, but in the time I have left, my strength is beyond anything I can comprehend. I leap into the air and swing on one of the empty chains, using my momentum to hammer my feet into the carven plate at the centre of the beast. It rocks back on its clawed feet, staggered by the blow.

I give it no chance to recover and swing around to its back.

The plates of its body are hot to the touch. I take the slack of the chain and hammer the hook down against the metal of its back. Its clawed arms bend back to prise me from its body, but I will not be shaken loose.

Another blow from the hook. Another. Another. Metal deforms under the impact, and I beat the metal until I can wedge the hook deep within the beast’s body.

Finally, I am flung from the thing’s back. I land before the blazing fire of its forge-furnace, feeling its heat burn my skin. Arcs of blue lightning dance over my limbs, tracing the line of my scars.

The beast thrashes on the hook, desperate as a landed fish as yet more of my armoured pursuers enter its lair. Five warriors in armour like the damaged suits hung on the chains above.

They spread out around me. Among them is the white-armoured figure I downed in the temple of agony. His one glitching eye flickers red, and he advances with a long, needle-tipped dagger. The others are wary of me.

Or is it the forge-furnace I stand before…?

The realisation hits me. This is the beating heart of their domain.

I turn from the warriors and hammer my fists against the walls of the furnace. If I can destroy it, this entire abode of the damned will die. The power burning inside me gives me strength enough to destroy metal, and I feel the bones within my fists harden to steel.

One, two, three. Metal plates shatter, the thunder of my blows driven by a power I do not understand. I will never know this power again. Two of the warriors come at me from the sides, and I try to shrug them off.

I will not be stopped!

But they are strong and resilient. I scream against them, but they drag me away from the forge-furnace. With one last surge of fire, my body fills with power, an automatic reaction to danger.

I throw them aside as another draws a long blade of crackling yellow energy. He speaks, his voice cold and hard-edged. I sense its threat, and believe utterly his will to back the words up with lethal violence. Of all my pursuers, he alone appears to have no qualms about killing me.

But even he now hesitates. He barks something – a command?

The two giants hurl themselves at me once more, seeking to pin my arms and drag me away. Singly, I could best them, but together they are simpatico in a way that magnifies their power tenfold. I bellow in fury, fighting against their strength to reach the forge-furnace again. The heat is ferocious, burning my skin and blistering the paint on their armour. It bubbles up on their arms in blue blisters, peeling away from the edges of their shoulders in flakes of green.

My pace falters at the sight, meaning hovering just beyond my grasp.

Their weight and strength bear me to my knees, and I am powerless to resist as they finally drag me from my goal. I scream and rage, thrashing like a madman in their grasp.

The executioner stands over me, sword raised as a warrior steps in front of me.

I do not know him, but I almost wish I did. His bearing is regal, noble even. His armour is elaborate to the point of ceremonial, trimmed in gold and hung with waxen seals. He bears a long staff, held high and obscured by the swirling fumes. His face is hidden behind a golden visor, but his bearing communicates a burden that weighs heavily upon his soul.

A burden of honour I could respect, were he not my enemy.

One of the big warriors grips my neck and forces my head to look at him. He speaks, but I hear nothing over the cataclysmic roaring in my skull.

The sun within me nears its final death throes. My jaw cracks wide as it threatens to spill out.

And then I see what he bears upon the staff.

A battle standard, a billowing rectangle of midnight blue, bordered by deepest jade. At its heart is an ivory symbol set amid a field of stars. Gripping that symbol, a stylised U, is a silver gauntlet emblazoned with a skull. Above it sits a starburst with an ancient numeral set upon it.

I know these symbols… They take my breath away.

In the time it takes to blink, the warrior in white steps in and rams the needle-like spear tip at his gauntlet into my chest. I feel it pump some noxious brew directly into the heart of the exploding sun behind my ribcage.

It should hurt, it should be a mortal wound, but I barely feel it. My attention is fixed upon the scrollwork below the symbol on the banner-bearer’s flag. Words are written there, slowly coming into focus as whatever brew now flows around my body begins to still the raging heat that threatens to consume me.

I know these words…

The lettering is archaic, each High Gothic letter crafted by calligraphers of exquisite skill. The upper starburst bears the number four. The lower scroll bears a single word, a word that throws wide the shutters of my memory.

Ultramarines…

The fleeting scraps of memory that faded in the dark ocean of my waking now blaze like mercury-bright contrails across my mind.

The executioner sees the change in me and speaks. And this time I understand him, his words penetrate the searing corona of fire wreathing my mind. I hear his words, and I understand them. I know he is not my enemy.

He is my staunchest defender.

He is my champion.

And had I not returned to my senses, he would have been my killer.

‘Do you know who I am?’ he asks.

‘You are Petronius Nero,’ I reply.

He nods and lowers his sword, satisfied with my answer.

The others, I know them too; they are the Swords of Calth. Holding me down are Livius Hadrianus and Brutus Cyprian, battle-brothers of such incredible courage and strength that they were able to contain my raging madness without killing me.

Apothecary Selenus kneels before me, the needle tip of his narthecium red with my blood.

‘Look at me,’ he says. ‘You are aboard the Vae Victus, an Adeptus Astartes strike cruiser of the Ultramarines. You have awoken from crossing the Rubicon Primaris. Your body is still rebuilding itself from the many surgeries to effect such transformation. It is no small thing you have done, and every man who returns from that undiscovered country does so in his own way.’

‘I thought I was dying,’ I say between painful gasps.

‘You literally were,’ replies Selenus. ‘The Belisarian Furnace implanted in your chest was locked into a cycle of rampant hyperactivity. It triggered your aggressor response and filled you with enough combat stimms that I think you’d have given Lord Guilliman a run for his money in a fighting cage.’

‘I… I thought you all daemons… that this place was some profane lair of evil.’

Selenus grunted. ‘Well, good to know you’ll be up for the fight when the Indomitus Crusade comes up against such foes. And while Techmarine Harkus is certainly not the most welcoming of souls, I don’t think he quite counts as daemonic.’

I look over to see Ancient Peleus, bearer of the Fourth Company standard, helping the forge-thralls free Techmarine Harkus from the chain I hammered through the upper carapace of his sarcophagus. A notoriously bad-tempered warrior, his interment within a Dreadnought chassis had done nothing to soften his rough edges.

Only time will tell how much ire Harkus will direct my way for the damage I have done to him and his forge.

Peleus still holds the company banner, and my heart fills with pride at the sight of the Chapter symbol.

‘The outer casing of the plasma drive is a testament to how much that belief fuelled your strength,’ continued Selenus, ‘but it was destroying you. Perhaps Cawl has some work yet to do on the Revitaliser’s functionality. We’re just lucky we were able to stop you before you destroyed the ship…’

I nod to the warriors either side of me and say, ‘You can let me go now.’

Hadrianus and Cyprian release me, and I push myself upright. The fire in my chest smoulders like a banked hearth. Its heat is still there, ready to surge back to life, but I will need to learn how to control it.

I have seen, first-hand, how deadly it can be if allowed to blaze unchecked.

‘Thank you,’ I tell them. ‘Thank you for bringing me back.’

These warriors are my brothers.

And I am Uriel Ventris, captain of the Fourth Company of Ultramarines.

I am Primaris.

FAITH IN IRON

CAMERON JOHNSTON

Emergency lighting flickered and died as a corroded servo-arm smashed through the wall in a shower of sparks, the auxiliary limb growling in mechanical pain. Magos Biologis Viridan Shale lurched back in horror as the disease-ravaged servitor tried and failed to push through the opening, babbling corrupted data as it did so. Its flesh was afflicted with leaking boils and suppurating wounds, but the tech-priest’s optics were focused on the rogue servitor’s infected machine implants.

Green and orange moulds caked the servo-arm and oozed from the joins in the servitor’s bionics. Half of its metal skull had been eaten away to reveal sparking components and bare optics dangling from wires. It screeched in agony.

Discoloured patches spotted Viridan’s own metal legs where the flesh and machine joined as one – this was no scrapcode attack, this was a biological infection using her flesh as a vector to corrupt the holy machine parts of her body. The gestation period was non-existent, and the infection rapid and virulent. She cursed the Death Guard putrifiers who had created it, then sent her data recordings shrieking across the local noosphere: a warning that the machine-plague designated Morbus Metallum had been unleashed on the agri world of Dundas II.

The only reply was a corrupted datastream bearing the identifier codes of her research team. The other members were already lost to the infection, leaving the medicae facility as her only hope. It was imperative she fortify that location and summon assistance: the fate of the entire sector hinged on her survival.

Adrenaline and stimulants flooded her organic system, sharpening her senses. Sirens wailed as the magos shunted power to her bionic legs and fled down the corridor. Two more of her research team’s infected servitors blocked access to the heavy vault door securing the medicae facility. Irritated at the delay, she triggered her combat protocols. Lascutters hidden in her mechadendrites sliced them to pieces. She was past their smoking corpses before they fell.

The door’s security systems were extensive – Viridan Shale had put them in place herself, physical machine puzzles and noospheric trickery guarding what was now the most important site on the planet. She entered the facility and triggered a lockdown. The door slammed shut, trapping the magos biologis in the bowels of a capital hive city fallen to the insane forces of Chaos.

It was a suboptimal situation.

The medicae facility was originally of Mechanicus manufacture. A black site for biological testing, it was situated deep in the bowels of the city for ready access to test subjects – undesirable denizens of the underhive such as gangers, criminals and mutants. Operations had been suspended centuries ago, or so the tech-priests on the forge world Patraig VII had thought. Instead, Nurgle-worshipping plague surgeons had repurposed it for their own twisted experiments, reactivating the bio-laboratories and servitor-fabrication wings and decorating them with crudities such as dangling chains and hooks, and human skulls nailed to blood-smeared plasteel. Arcane runes daubed by warp-twisted individuals were still faintly visible on the walls despite two attempts to scour them clean with caustics. The runes were unsettling even to a supremely ordered mind such as Shale’s.

After the Chaos worshippers’ communications had been intercepted, and the following purge by Imperial forces, this facility’s databanks had been mined dry by Viridan Shale’s research team, and all remaining equipment left by the heretek magos in charge had been cleansed and put to work investigating the machine-plague infecting the Albarnan Sector. She had discovered that this very facility was the origin of the Morbus Metallum: a natural strain of subsurface life that fed on corroded metal had mutated inside pools of chem-polluted sewage and then been gene-engineered into a weapon aimed directly at the Adeptus Mechanicus. It spread through weak flesh to corrupt the sacred machine. Her forge world was imperilled and even the most stringent containment and purging protocols had only served to slow the plague’s spread.

And now that mouldering taint was inside her. Her bionics reported searing pain and garbled data, mandating the shutdown of haptic receptors. Her cogitators passed all situational data through tactical subroutines. There was no escape, and soon her cogitators and reasoning would be compromised.

Panic was for lesser beings. Her immediate survival was the primary goal. She took a solitary vial of cloudy yellow liquid from a refrigerated vault and injected it into her flesh. Tests had not been completed. Survival was estimated at forty-five per cent.

Biology rebelled, beyond the ability of her implants to compensate…

She awoke groggy and immediately purged her blood of contaminants to achieve eighty-eight per cent of full operating potential, then reviewed the recorded data and re-enabled haptics. She felt the damage to her prosthetics and implants, but not the burn of infection. The machine-plague had been devoured by a more aggressive, yet benign, strain created from the original. Within her body more of the cure was already being manufactured.

She accessed the vox-array, found main physical lines cut and tertiary data links in the process of being severed. She had time for a single message. The Imperial Guard and Adeptus Mechanicus forces in the area would draw every cultist in the capital. It would be a brutal and protracted battle and since the enemy were already aware of this medicae facility, she calculated a ninety-two point three per cent chance that it would be breached in three days despite her security protocols. Unacceptable. She required a rescue with the precision of a las-scalpel and force of a lascannon.

She sent out the distress call.

Minutes ticked by. More communication links went dark.

Then, a reply bearing Adeptus Astartes authentication codes:

+++Crimson Hammer acknowledges Adeptus Mechanicus Priority Alpha-Iron-Two-One request.+++

+++All available forces rerouted. Complement: one Space Marine with combat servitor.+++

Viridan Shale’s cogitators supplied a low probability of survival. One Space Marine was insufficient to effect her rescue. She was disappointed, a rare emotional response. She wished she had accepted the most extensive of the Mechanicus’ mental pathway architectural enhancements and additional cogitators to eliminate such variances of emotion. Most vexing that her renowned logical inference leaps relied on technological enhancements to her core biology rather than outright replacement.

+++Strike cruiser Crimson Hammer en route.+++

+++Iron Father Rathkugan planetfall in thirty-four standard hours.+++

Her anger terminated as the screen went black. Rathkugan of the Iron Hands was known to the Adeptus Mechanicus. One Space Marine might be enough, assuming he survived the machine-plague.

Ruby beams pierced the grenade smoke, burning through men shambling down the highway towards the Imperial Guard’s makeshift fortification of burnt-out groundcars and haulage vehicles. They were all that stopped crazed cultists from escaping the capital and spreading their filth through the vital farm steadings to the south.

‘Make every shot count, lads!’ Captain Lennox Winters yelled as he drilled a hole through the forehead of another pestilent cultist, burning away the profane symbol carved into her skin. ‘We have to keep them bottled up until reinforcements arrive.’ With their vox jammed his words were more an exercise in maintaining morale than they were spoken with any real expectation of help arriving.

He flexed his crude bionic arm to loosen too-tight joints, shouldered his lasgun and squeezed the trigger. Shoot. Kill. Shoot. Kill. The whine of las-fire set his teeth on edge as the latest wave fell twitching to the highway.

‘Captain!’ Corporal Rikki drew his attention to a burning manufactorum at the edge of the city, just out of firing range. An industrial mining servitor crashed through piled-up groundcars, its body all thick metal plate and whirring drill bits. It was half a ruin already, machine implants covered in glistening green and orange growths. Armed men sheltered behind its metal bulk as it advanced onto the highway, if men those corrupted things could still be called.

Autoguns barked and bullets tinged off the barricade. Winters paid them no heed, trusting his helmet and flak armour against solid rounds. At this range the cultists’ crude weaponry and poor aim was no match for the lasguns of the Guard. His casualties had been solely due to their ever-increasing numbers.

‘Guardsman Crane,’ Winters growled. ‘Light that thing up.’

Crane was a specialist tall enough to give an ogryn pause, for a moment at least. He grinned and hefted his grenade launcher.

The traitors might have been Chaos-worshipping madmen, but they were not stupid. They scattered, but too late to escape the explosion and lethal wave of shrapnel.

A ragged line of cultists using sheets of plasteel as shields advanced through the smoke, followed by a dozen more in gang colours, autoguns chattering as they clambered over the corpses of their brethren. Then came two squads of traitor planetary militia, their Imperial eagles ripped off and replaced with blasphemous symbols. Yells heralded more twisted denizens being drawn to the sound of battle. Winters’ men had carpeted this killing ground in corpses, but the enemy just kept on coming.

After a day and a half of retreat and relentless combat, the ragged and exhausted remnants of his command looked to their captain. He spat towards the enemy and stood tall.

‘The Emperor is watching us, men. He will honour our valiant sacrifice even if our superiors in their command bunker won’t.’ He was lucky there was no Imperial commissar around to hear his words. ‘Best you build me a wall of corpses, lads. That’ll hold the scum back for a while until reinforcements arrive.’

Their laughter was harsh, forced.

‘Aim well,’ he demanded.

Winters squinted through his gunsight and squeezed the trigger. A man died screaming and he quickly shifted his aim to the left and fired again. His men picked off targets as they crawled from broken buildings and sewers, too many to count. Winters knew his command were too few to bottle up the scum here for long, but he had to try – beyond the capital was a planet of sparsely populated farmland that fed the Emperor’s armies, and it would be all too easy to destroy.

A roar from above – a burning star plummeting from the heavens.

The city’s air defences were in the hands of the traitors. They opened up, stitching the sky with fire. The falling star weathered it to shriek over the heads of the embattled Guard towards the outskirts of the city. It smashed into the midst of the Chaos worshippers’ ranks like the fist of the Emperor Himself.

His men gaped. ‘The Emperor protects,’ Guardsman Crane repeated.

Amidst the thick cloud of smoke and dust, the shadows of surviving cultists reeled, coughing and choking. Something far larger and darker loomed above them, reached out for them. Even from afar the crack of bone was sickening as it tossed those smaller shadows aside like broken dolls. A cultist staggered back, the muzzle of his autogun bright and chattering. The looming shadow ignored it, and lashed out with a fist. The headless and broken body of a ganger in colourful rags bounced across the highway and skidded to a stop halfway to the Guard’s crude fortification. The cultists broke and ran. The deep bark and boom of a heavy weapon chased them, cutting them down. Men and women screamed for mercy. None was given.

More cultists and looters had been swarming towards the fight, but now they thought better of it, their scarred faces twisted with terror as they fled down refuse-choked alleyways leading back into the heart of the city.

Silence, save for the shifting of nervous Guardsmen. Then the thud of heavy footsteps approaching.

A huge and imposing figure advanced on them, clad in ornate black power armour chased with silver that bore the emblem of a white hand on its shoulder plate, all scarred and pitted from recent conflict. In his fists a power axe larger than Guardsman Crane thrummed with deadly energy, and on his back were three metal appendages: one with a heavy bolter that swivelled to each of the Guardsmen in turn, a second with a heavy-duty servo-arm, and the third equipped with some sort of claw that crackled with lightning. This was no mere man – this was an angel of the Emperor.

Captain Winters shivered. As a raw recruit he had seen the likes of this newcomer before, during the Kentigern III uprising. This was an Iron Father, a senior Techmarine of the Iron Hands Chapter.

The majority of his men had never seen a Space Marine before: their eyes grew wide and their lips trembled as they took in the looming warrior coming their way.

‘Weapons down and fall in,’ Winters yelled. The Space Marine was terrifying and glorious, the Emperor’s will made manifest. He could kill every one of them in seconds.

The Space Marine approached their makeshift fortification. His servo-arm snaked out, picked up a wreck and tossed it aside. His face was more metal than flesh, ocular implants scanning the Guardsmen assembled before him. The Space Marine’s master-crafted bionics made Winters’ own arm look like it had been made from scrap.

‘Name and designation,’ the Space Marine demanded, voice deep and rumbling like a tank.

Winters stood at attention. ‘Lennox Winters. Captain in the Dundas Seventh, the Grave Gunners.’

‘You have terminated a significant number of hostiles prior to my arrival,’ the Space Marine stated. ‘You are to be commended on your efficiency. You and your remaining combat-capable force will now accompany me into the capital.’

Sweat trickled down the captain’s back. ‘Ah, pardon, my lord?’ He was not corrected as to the correct term of address, and proceeded to get to the point. ‘This highway is the main transport link to the capital hive. If we don’t hold it the outskirts will be overrun.’

‘Irrelevant,’ the Space Marine said. ‘This mission takes priority over all others.’

Winters swallowed. The godly figure looming over him could crush him like an insect, and with as little regret. ‘Under what authority?’ His voice wavered only slightly.

‘I am Iron Father Rathkugan of the Haarmek, Fifth Clan Company of the Iron Hands,’ the Space Marine said. ‘This world’s survival is a secondary goal when the entire Albarnan Sector is on the edge of annihilation.’

Technically, a Space Marine couldn’t command Winters, and if he disobeyed his standing orders he would be facing a commissar’s wrath.

‘I need a good reason to put my men in mortal danger.’

‘We must infiltrate this city and extract a vital agent of the Imperium. The wise would court an Iron Father’s favour rather than his fury.’

Captain Winters’ resistance crumbled. He stiffened and saluted, sweating. ‘Aye, my lord. We are at your disposal. Are we to expect more of you?’

‘No,’ the Iron Father stated. ‘With me.’ He turned and walked towards the city at a speed that had all ten Guardsmen jogging to keep up. A hunchbacked combat servitor with a featureless face of smooth metal detached from the drop pod and flanked him. It was as large as Crane and wearing power armour. One of its arms ended in a blackened meltagun and the other flickered with flame, the distinctive tang of promethium in the air.

Corporal Rikki tilted his scuffed helmet for a better look at their new allies. ‘What are we doing here, cap?’

Winters grimaced. ‘The Emperor’s will.’ He stepped over the charred remnants of a dozen dead traitor militia and scooped up spare power packs as he went. ‘Corporal, secure your helmet strap before I have you up on charges.’

Rikki snorted, but did as he was told.

The industrial sprawl of the southern districts leading up to the soaring towers of the hive itself was populated only by corpses. It was too quiet, the kind of quiet that takes a flamer to a Guardsman’s imagination. They passed a huge manufactorum, on fire and belching smoke, to join the other black columns snaking into the sky from sites all across the city. The distant bark of guns and boom of explosions told a story of loyalist resistance – either that or cultists fighting one another. A Guardsman could pray for both.

Several people screamed inside a distant administration hub. Rathkugan ignored it and kept on towards the hive and its lofty spires, one of which was now burning, a pyre for the rich and powerful of this world. The captain’s men looked to him, but he shook his head, scanning the windows and doorways for threats.

The Space Marine seemed to know exactly where he was going, taking turns without hesitation, leaping rubble or trampling burnt-out civilian vehicles as if they were flimsy toys. The faceless servitor was his constant shadow. He stopped before a supply depot, its fence twisted ruins and the cargo containers plundered. Rathkugan scanned the drab warehouse at the centre of the depot with a handheld device, waiting for the puffing and panting Guardsmen to catch up.

‘Twenty-two heretics occupy the warehouse, armed with a mix of autoguns and lasguns. One wields a meltagun. Engage them.’

Captain Winters looked to the heavy bolter jutting from the metal arm on the Iron Father’s back. That thing could chew through plascrete and the bodies behind it with ease.

The look was not lost on the Space Marine. ‘Ammunition must be conserved. Distract the enemy with a frontal assault.’ He didn’t wait for acknowledgement and slipped down a nearby alleyway with agility belying his armoured bulk. The servitor remained behind, its optics whirring as it stared back at the captain.

‘Beta squad,’ Winters said. ‘Sniping duty.’

Sergeant Napier and his squad moved off to the side and took up position while Winters and his command squad advanced from the front, using steel cargo crates as cover.

Winters spotted two pox-ridden faces at a window. ‘Open fire!’ he shouted, squeezing his trigger. Both fell back, riddled with smoking holes.

Bullets and las-fire tore up the street as the enemy rushed to the windows and responded in kind.

‘Advance!’ Winters shouted, his voice hoarse. Beta squad immediately picked three cultists off, covering the command squad as they rushed forward, zigzagging from cover to cover. He ducked and kept his head down as bullets stitched a line into the crates ahead of him. He signalled his squad to stay out of sight: they had succeeded in drawing the enemy’s attention.

In that moment of maximum distraction, Rathkugan crashed through the rear wall of the building. The cultists firing on the command squad turned and Winters heard terrified screams. A servo-arm smashed through the front wall, oozing a mush of blood, bone and broken meltagun parts. A series of thumps and cracks followed, torn bodies and blood spraying through open windows. It was all over in seconds. Rathkugan kicked the front wall out, flicked gore from his axe and exited, leaving mounds of shattered and severed bodies behind him.

The meltagun had been the only threat to the Space Marine, and it had been immediately eliminated once its wielder was safely distracted. The rest had no chance of penetrating his armour. The Guardsmen stared in awe; they were all hardened veterans, but this was far beyond them. If Rathkugan encountered something he actually needed their help with, it would be something truly terrifying.

‘We can afford no delay,’ the Iron Father said. ‘According to my schematics there is an old supply tunnel below this depot leading down into the underhive. It should save us time by bypassing the marauders above ground.’ He passed through the devastated warehouse and ripped a reinforced hatch from a shaft in the basement, then dropped down, swiftly followed by his faceless servitor.

The Guardsmen thumbed their stab-lights on and climbed down the rusty ladder that led into the dark warren of tunnels and stairwells beyond, ankle deep in a reeking river of sewage and chemical run-off from nearby manufactoria. Captain Winters reckoned there would also be enough joy-juice and head-banger flushed down from the rich hive spires to have them seeing things, though given the state of the city he wasn’t sure if he could tell the difference between hallucination and reality.

Rathkugan was a vast black shadow in their stab-beams. He used no lights nor evidenced any need for them as he led the Guardsmen under the centre of the city, down through tunnels and chambers into a vast metal cavern thrumming and thudding with the movement of the ancient machinery that sustained the hive city above it. The ceiling was a mass of piping and bundles of wire, sagging with stalactites formed of rust and corrosion.

Chanting voices droned from around blazing bonfires in the distance. Bound men and women writhed in the flames, screaming as they roasted. A circle of naked cultists giggled and cavorted and chanted around them, their saggy bodies moist with yellow pus and marred by plague and pox. Winters’ throat burned with bile as clumps of the cultists’ hair sloughed off to reveal bulbous and weeping nodules.

Bulkier figures surrounded them, a melding of flesh and corrupted machine, wires sparking and covered with machine-plague growth. Most were mindless drones bearing bloodstained servo-claws meant for loading crates, but two hunchbacked figures were draped in stained red robes and in metal hands they held pistols glowing with deadly plasma.

The heavy bolter on the Iron Father’s back woke and took aim, his targeting matrix marking the enemy.

‘Tech-priests?’ Captain Winters whispered. ‘What are they doing here?’

The Iron Father readied his axe. ‘Part of a research team stationed here. They have succumbed to the madness of the machine-plague and no longer serve the Omnissiah. Terminate them.’

The screeching din of the cultists’ celebrations masked the loyalists’ approach. Winters signalled his command squad to go left, taking cover behind massive water pipes descending from the ceiling, and Beta squad right to take aim from behind stacks of rusty cargo crates. Rathkugan did not bother – his blessed armour was harder than anything in the cavern.

Crane eyed the ceiling dubiously and switched to his laspistol instead of the grenade launcher. The moment they were ready, Rathkugan broke into a run, his heavy bolter opening up, deafening in the enclosed space. The heavy weapon’s shells exploded through corrupted tech-priests and their servitor thralls. Every shot packed the punch of a small rocket, exploding torsos and liquefying heads.

The Guardsmen fired, ruby beams mowing down naked cultists.

The remaining servitors turned as one and lurched towards the Imperial forces, their data-screech causing Winters to shudder.

Rathkugan growled in response. ‘I will end your blasphemous datastreams.’ His heavy bolter chewed up two more.

A diseased tech-priest rose from the floor, half-dead and leaking bio-fluids along with machine lubricants. The Iron Father leaned to one side and a blue bolt of plasma sizzled past his head to eat a hole through the wall.

Corporal Rikki shot the tech-priest in the face. He roared in triumph, but the man didn’t die and instead lurched upright on tentacular mechadendrites. Guardsman Savarnejad upped the power on his rifle and blew a hole right through its head. He smirked at his corporal, then something on the ceiling caught his eye and he screamed.

Winters yelled a warning and snapped off a shot as rogue repair servitors with mouldering spider legs dropped from the ceiling pipes, claws extended. One fell towards Savarnejad but Crane got in the way, slamming the butt of his launcher into its metal face. The servitor skidded along the floor to Rathkugan, who crushed its head beneath a ceramite boot.

Three men went down, servitor claws cutting flesh as easily as steel. The captain’s gun whined as he tried to shoot them off his men, the servitors’ weeping flesh and corroded metal boiling and burning under relentless las-fire. Napier managed to scramble free with only a bloodied arm.

The Iron Father was besieged by servitors, claws and drill bits biting into his battle-scarred armour. His own combat servitor engaged two, coring them both with its meltagun, and Winters managed to kill another with a headshot.

Rathkugan roared and swung his power axe wide, shearing through three even as his servo-arm caught another and compacted its torso to a thin plate of metal and bone. The claw on his third metal appendage sent ribbons of lightning into the body of another victim. Diseased flesh sizzled and implants popped and burned. The heavy bolter roared and swung around, tearing apart the servitors assaulting Beta squad. He was a one-man army, and with the Guardsmen stopping the enemy from swarming him, unstoppable.

Most of Beta had fallen, one killed by a stray bolter shell that had ended the man along with the servitor attacking him.

The heavy bolter wound down, its barrel glowing with heat. ‘We cannot afford to slow down,’ Rathkugan said as he took his axe to the remaining servitors.

The remaining cultists charged with knives and clubs, but the Guardsmen despatched them with a practised volley of las-fire. Even on a quiet agri world like Dundas II, riots among disaffected civilians were commonplace and suppressed with standard Imperial rigour.

Sudden silence. Three good men lying dead among enemy filth and one slain by the Space Marine. Captain Winters’ surviving men were splattered with blood and bits of the enemy; they shivered and refused to look at the hulking black giant among them, wiping gore from his face and implants.

Winters swallowed and dared to speak up. ‘Lord, are you immune to the machine-plague?’

‘No more immune to the Morbus Metallum than you,’ Rathkugan rumbled. ‘Sacrifices must be made to achieve the goal. We must endure.’

It was not the answer Winters had expected from one of the Emperor’s invincible angels. His eyes fell to his own bionic arm, stained with the blood of infected servitors and already spotted with mould. ‘Damn them. Is this plague a weapon of the heretics?’

‘Indeed,’ Rathkugan replied, impatiently waiting for the merely human Guardsmen to catch their breath. ‘Their blighted souls have turned from the Emperor’s light to embrace disease and decay. The Death Guard desired to turn the agricultural and jungle worlds of the Albarnan Sector into teeming plague factories, but the vermin were driven to the brink of extermination by the mechanised might of three clan companies of the Iron Hands and the Adeptus Mechanicus skitarii legions. They have now unleashed a bio-weapon designed to infect our cybernetics and it has turned the tide of conflict in their favour. That shall not stand while I live. The Imperial agent inside this facility communicated discovery of a cure. It is imperative we recover that agent and verify the report.’ He scanned the tunnels leading into the blood-soaked cavern. ‘We must move. The noise will have alerted other hostiles.’ He strode ahead and the Guardsmen ran to keep up.

Corporal Rikki’s face was pale and drawn, and his leg dark and wet. ‘Just a flesh wound,’ he said. ‘Still faster than Crane. Uh, cap… the Space Marine killed Milton.’

Winters grimaced. ‘Did you not see them burning sacrifices? I’d have blown his brains out myself rather than leave him behind.’ Rikki nodded and accepted the logic of it. Winters wasn’t sure he’d have found it nearly as easy as he had made it sound.

Water gushed through cracks in ancient walls as they moved deeper into this facility, a black torrent swirling through slimy grates into Stygian depths far beyond the range of their stab-lights. The old tunnels twisted noise and carried weird echoes, plaguing them with the data-screech of mad servitors and human wails of agony. The skull-and-cog emblem of the Adeptus Mechanicus appeared on the walls with more frequency, often defiled with hideous runes.

There were no location details or directions stencilled on the walls but the Iron Father could read something hidden from sight, a data-cypher of the tech-priests perhaps.

In awe of the Space Marine as he was, the captain did not trust him to keep them alive. They were now only seven men descending into the bowels of a city riven by plague and infested with traitors, and the Space Marine wouldn’t save any of them if it meant slowing down. The mission was all he cared about.

Captain Winters spent the march stubbornly ignoring the spots of mould spreading across his bionic arm, burning like acid – which should not have been possible, as previously he’d only been able to sense pressure in the finger plates, nothing as advanced as pain. A low-level worry about hallucinations and poison began to bubble away in the back of his mind. Even worse, the infection was also spreading across Rathkugan’s face – the captain didn’t know much about the Space Marine’s Chapter, but he knew they made extensive use of cybernetics. If Winters’ arm hurt then the Iron Hand had to be in agony.

The Iron Father raised his axe in warning. He advanced, slow and steady.

Voices in the dark, the pounding of metal on metal and the hiss of lascutters from a chamber around the next corner.

‘We have reached the target facility,’ Rathkugan whispered. ‘Send your stealthiest scout forward.’

Winters nodded to Savarnejad, who edged to the corner, peered round, then crouched low and slid through sewer sludge.

After a long, tense moment, the Guardsman returned with an ashen face. ‘Thirty plus men with faces like melted boots, and a big ugly ogryn with them. They have construction servitors working on the vault door and they’re almost through. Uh, a Space Marine in armour the colour of mould leads them.’ He glanced at the Iron Father, whose implants were now badly infected by the machine-plague.

‘Death Guard,’ the Iron Father growled. ‘Vile traitors, dealers of plague and pestilence.’

Winters cursed; ogryns could take a hell of a lot of punishment before going down but they were nothing compared to a Space Marine. The advantage provided by Rathkugan had now been negated.

Corporal Rikki palmed his frag grenades. ‘How’s about I send him a little gift?’

Rathkugan scanned the walls and ceiling. ‘Unwise. The support structure has degraded over the centuries and explosions may bring it down. The Imperial agent within must be extracted from Dundas Two at all cost. The traitor’s death is a secondary objective.’

Winters sighed. ‘The old ways, then – fix bayonet and charge. What our lasguns don’t kill gets a blade in the chest.’

Rikki and Crane exchanged glances. ‘Cap, there’s over thirty scum in there…’

‘I am with you,’ Rathkugan said, right cheek twitching as tendrils of infection climbed up metal towards his ocular implant. ‘They cannot withstand me. I will cleave the traitor’s diseased head from his shoulders.’ He readied himself, his mould-spotted servo-arm configured for close-quarters battle.

They all remembered the supply depot and those cultists the Space Marine had slaughtered with ease, and the thought bolstered the loyalists’ morale. They tightened helmet and boot straps, checked their lasguns, swapped in new power packs and fixed bayonets before looking to their captain for the order.

Winters took a moment to offer up a brief prayer to the Emperor, then took a deep breath and held up his hand.

After a count of three they surged around the corner, lasguns discharging into the surprised mass of cultists. Four of the enemy fell with holes burned through them.

Fire roared from the Iron Father’s faceless servitor, sweeping across an entire squad of traitor militia. They rolled in the sludge, trying in vain to extinguish the flames consuming their desecrated uniforms.

Captain Winters had little experience fighting beside Space Marines, but as the Iron Father charged forward like a living tank, trampling men beneath his boots, he quickly adjusted. He and his men used the armoured bulk of the Space Marine as moving cover. They advanced, shooting from the hip, as the terrified enemy fought one another to get out of Rathkugan’s way. Some of the scum managed to avoid being trampled, but it left them wide open to the Guard’s firepower.

The Emperor’s angel stormed into the midst of a panicking enemy, sporadic las-fire and flailing limbs ineffective against his ornate black power armour. The crackling axe reaped skulls left and right as he charged towards the Death Guard commanding from the rear. His servo-arm launched a man screaming through the air to crunch into the far wall beside the Traitor Marine. The heavy bolter on his back roared and spat death, bolter shells exploding across the Death Guard’s armour and killing four more of the enemy, spraying blood and body parts over the rest. A mouldering servitor with a smoking cavity in its metal chest turned its lascutter away from the vault door and came at him, but the Iron Father’s arcing claw snaked out to meet it and a bolt of incandescent lightning fried what was left of the servitor’s mind.

When las-fire proved ineffective, the big ogryn tried a chainsword, swinging the howling weapon into the Iron Father’s forearm, cutting teeth screeching as they chewed through black ceramite. It only served to enrage the Space Marine. One hand let go of his axe to grab the hulking ogryn by the throat and squeeze. If Captain Winters hadn’t seen it with his own eyes he’d never have believed anything could lift an ogryn into the air one-handed. Gleaming metal moved through the rent in the Iron Father’s armour – a bionic arm, prompting the captain to wonder just how much of the original man remained inside that shell.

The ogryn growled and bit the hand that kept him airborne, then lifted his chainsword to cut himself free. A ceramite panel slid back on the Iron Father’s knuckle to unleash a bright las-beam that burned right through the ogryn’s jutting jaw to boil his tiny brain.

Winters dearly wished his own rudimentary metal arm had been blessed with such holy tech – he gritted his teeth at a fresh wave of pain. He was too busy not dying to dwell on the spreading infection. He shot a young soldier with a face like a half-rotted corpse and then rammed his bayonet into the throat to finish him off.

Las-fire criss-crossed the chamber, burning channels through rising dust and steam. The traitors still outnumbered them, and they rallied around their commander. The Death Guard Space Marine was wounded from Rathkugan’s assault, rivulets of yellow pus running down his chestplate from where heavy bolter shells had cracked tainted ceramite. He retreated backwards towards a tunnel, using the bodies of his cultists as a sacrificial shield as he laid down suppressive fire.

Rathkugan took a round to the leg, the explosion causing him to stumble and become entangled with a rogue servitor flailing claws at his face. For a moment Winters knew real fear as he desperately opened fire on the servitor, blowing open a metal elbow joint to leave one claw dangling. The Iron Father rose and roared as he ripped the servitor’s skull and spine free of a body of bone and metal.

Crane took a ricochet to the chest, his armour shattering but keeping him alive. He roared in fury and shot a cultist in the groin.

Corporal Rikki took a las-hit to the shoulder that spun him round and planted him face first on the ground. Napier moved to shield the corporal, screaming as he unleashed laser-fury on the heretics. The Traitor Marine blew a hole right through his chest and he fell atop his friend.

The Iron Hands combat servitor shuddered as bolter rounds and las-fire blasted its black power armour, penetrating it in three places. It stood firm, and unleashed promethium in an incandescent arc. Men screamed and clawed at their burning armour as skin crisped and fell away in sticky sheets. Black smoke boiled across the ceiling, obscuring the enemy commander, who seized the opportunity to retreat down a dark tunnel leaving his remaining men to die. Winters took aim and as a parting gift managed to score a glancing hit on the back of his green helmet. The Traitor Marine did not slow.

Two more loyalist Guardsmen were locked in vicious melee with a knot of the enemy, bayonets and the butts of their lasguns splattered with blood. They fell, taking three cultists down with them. Winters was not insane enough to chase a Traitor Marine down a dark tunnel so he had to settle for blowing out the remainder’s Chaos-addled brains.

Rathkugan rampaged among the remaining enemy, and none were able to withstand his axe and servo-arm. He finished off the last diseased servitor, which was still blindly trying to cut its way through the vault door, then leaned heavily on his power axe, mouth twisted in pain, breath harsh and hissing. The parts of his face no longer flesh were now covered with a thick layer of mould and corrosion as the machine-plague spread throughout his body.

‘What of the commander?’ Winters asked, his gun covering the dark tunnel.

‘Scans indicate he has fled the area,’ Rathkugan answered. ‘For now.’ He grimaced and staggered to the vault door. Mechadendrites snaked out to plug into a panel on the side. Those too bore the sign of systemic infection. Moments later the door shuddered and hissed open.

Winters and his command squad formed up, lasguns ready.

A woman with flame-red hair matching her red tech-priest’s robes – more ornate by far than the others they had seen – walked through jets of steam on metal legs. Her face was fully flesh, without the technological additions commonly seen on her sort. She was attractive in an unsettling sort of way and it took Winters a moment to realise that her features were gene-engineered – too symmetrical, too perfect to be natural. The mechadendrites attached to her back peered over her shoulders, bringing an array of weaponry to bear, which also helped to banish any thought of her being a normal woman.

‘Good day, captain,’ she said. ‘I am Magos Biologis Viridan Shale.’ Then she unleashed a screech of incomprehensible data at Rathkugan, who replied in a similar manner.

‘We have a maximum of three point two-five standard hours to find a secure location away from this facility,’ the Iron Father said, ‘before the plague renders me an unacceptable risk to this mission.’ His human voice cracked over the words ‘unacceptable risk’, revealing a disturbing hint of something inhuman, the sonic shudder of tortured metal putting Winters’ teeth on edge. Something more machine than man was being slowly eaten away, and its fury was terrifying.

‘My lord,’ Winters queried, ‘if there is indeed a cure, would it not be better to have you fighting fit before attempting an extraction?’

Rathkugan shook his head, wincing as he did so. ‘We must first get her to safety before purging my systems of the Morbus Metallum.’

‘It is true then, there is a cure?’ Winters said, looking over at the woman they had recovered. A cure to the machine-plague would change the course of the war for the Albarnan Sector in the Imperium’s favour, if they could disseminate it. No wonder the Space Marine prioritised that over his own survival.

‘I am living proof,’ the magos stated, indicating her metal legs.

Winters examined the pitted metal, proof she had indeed been infected at one point. ‘Aye, my lady, we will guard you with our lives.’ His men had not died in vain. They had given their lives to save the sector, and there was much pride to be had in that.

The facility behind them began to smoke, a warning light strobing.

‘It would be a good idea to depart before all organics within the area are sterilised,’ the tech-priest said, her face devoid of all emotion as she stared unblinking at Captain Winters.

He suppressed his shiver. Her eerily perfect eyes didn’t look at him like he was a person; her gaze was that of a Guardsman contemplating taking his gun apart to enact the rituals of maintenance.

They hastened on through tunnels ringing from the pounding of vast machines and the screeching of infected servitors. A short while later static electricity filled the air, lifting hair. An acrid stink of burned meat filtered through air vents. The wailing of servitors ceased.

‘Run faster. Run. Fasterrr…’ Rathkugan implored, his voice tinny and ticking as he staggered onwards, the infection spreading.

‘Crane,’ Winters barked. ‘Support Corporal Rikki.’ The man’s leg was close to giving out, but with Crane’s help they managed to clear the danger zone and Winters was finally able to locate a secure storage room.

Once inside, Rathkugan fell to his knees, teeth gritted in agony. His servo-arm whined and writhed in mechanical pain. ‘The cure…’

‘Assist me, captain,’ Viridan Shale said. ‘We must remove his armour.’

It felt like heresy to remove the armour of one of the Emperor’s angels, but Winters did as he was told, holding tools and pulling where and when the tech-priest commanded. He wouldn’t have even known where to begin removing those slabs of blessed ceramite.

There was little human left inside the armoured shell; instead Rathkugan’s body was a mass of exquisite shining metal and pulsing energy, scribed all over with golden prayers of purity and inlaid with slivers of bone etched with the names of fallen heroes. The machine-plague had spread through his arm, head and torso, moist fungal growths clustered wherever machine met flesh.

‘It infiltrates the flesh and seeks to attack the cogitators first,’ Viridan Shale explained, a dozen metal fingers flitting to and fro, cutting and unscrewing with bewildering speed. ‘They seek to drive the machine-spirit mad.’

Winters swallowed and acted as her aide as she stripped out components corroded beyond salvaging. ‘This is beyond me,’ he whispered. ‘All I know are lowly lasguns.’

‘The lasgun is a miracle of technology,’ Rathkugan hissed, voice filled with static. ‘There are no moving parts. Never… never jam. Never fail. Logistics… recharged by sunlight or left in a fire. Perfection… never fail… never fail… never fail the Emperor!’

An inoculator needle on a metal arm emerged from inside Viridan Shale’s robes and injected her blood into a pulsing tube in the Space Marine’s chest. Rathkugan convulsed, eyes screwed shut. His servo-arm snapped at the tech-priest’s mechadendrites and the heavy bolter clicked angrily. She crooned a strange data-song to calm their machine-spirits – a hiss holding an almost melodic prayer.

Rathkugan’s eyes reopened. They were clear and filled with cold fury. His faceless servitor approached at some unseen command and its armour cracked open to reveal a nightmare of pincers, mechadendrites and tool-arms. It got to work stripping out its own body parts to replace the Iron Father’s corroded components.

Viridan Shale took over as the servitor began to falter and fail, using the rest of it as spare parts. ‘How is the pain?’ she asked.

‘To be endured,’ Rathkugan replied. ‘The machine must always be subservient to human will, lest we become soulless abominations like the necron.’

Winters had no clue what they were talking about but his own arm was glitching, its joints jerking. The connections sparked and smelled like burning. He held it out to the tech-priest.

‘I don’t suppose you have some more of that cure ready?’

She shook her head. ‘Not yet. Internal production facilities are severely limited.’

Typical, Winters thought. He checked his gun, trying to keep his mind away from shooting his own metal arm off until they were out of this mess. It had taken him months to get even this crude replacement.

The Iron Father’s repair process ceased prematurely at the onset of distant yelling and the din of boots pounding down metal corridors. The Death Guard commander had sent reinforcements to hunt them down.

Rathkugan rose and donned his blessed black armour. ‘The machine-plague is in retreat. I am at eighty per cent of full operational capacity. This servitor has now been rendered operationally useless and its self-destruction routines have been damaged.’ He fished out a small cable and a box with a golden dial on it from the remains of the servitor’s chest cavity, then looked to the prone and groaning form of Corporal Rikki. ‘It can, however, be detonated manually.’

Before Winters could voice his objection, Corporal Rikki spoke up.

‘I’m done running, cap.’ His face was grey and his wounded leg black with blood.

‘Throne!’ Winters cursed. ‘I don’t want to lose another man.’

Rikki shook his head, and fished out his own frag grenades. ‘No time to argue. Let me do this.’

Winters clapped him on the shoulder. ‘May the Emperor guide your soul.’

Savarnejad offered a respectful nod and left, scouting ahead.

‘Rikki,’ Crane said. ‘I–’

‘Get going, big guy,’ the corporal said. ‘I’m going to light this place up so bright the Emperor will see it from Holy fragging Terra.’

Rathkugan nodded. ‘An excellent use of resources.’ He handed the cable and dial to the corporal and began to run, with the tech-priest at his side.

‘I guess that’s a great compliment from his sort,’ Crane said.

Rikki laughed, then gasped and clutched his leg. ‘Move it, soldier.’

They left him behind and returned to the tunnels, following whatever ancient schematics existed in the Space Marine’s data-banks.

Eighty per cent of the Iron Father’s full operational capacity was still a dozen times that of a normal man. Viridan Shale, despite her gene-engineering and bionic legs, struggled to keep to his pace, and the remaining Guardsmen began to flag and fall behind, much to the Space Marine’s obvious irritation.

A distant crump announced that Rikki had detonated the crippled servitor. The corridors shuddered as a gust of acrid hot air billowed through them. Winters spared the time to turn and offer a final salute to a brave man. He hoped the Traitor Marine and his heretics had been standing right next to Rikki as his corporal turned that dial. With any luck he’d brought the tunnel down right on top of them.

They emerged from the access shaft back into the light of day. Rathkugan hauled the magos out and cradled her in his arms like a child; the weight of all those Mechanicus implants were nothing to a Space Marine. He shielded her with his armoured body as a volley of las-bolts burst across his broad back, scoring ceramite and exquisite silver runes. The enemy had been waiting, and the Traitor Marine was with them. A bolt shell staggered the Iron Father, but did not stop him.

The loyalists took to their heels. Winters shouted a warning as a missile corkscrewed through the air towards them. Rathkugan turned, sparking optics zoomed in, and a bolt pistol appeared in his hand. It barked twice and the missile exploded in the air above them.

As they ran, the heavy bolter on the Iron Father’s back roared. Rounds exploded across the highway behind them, scything through the enemy lying in wait and forcing their commander to take cover. The traitor with the launcher was hit, his ammo exploding in a thunderous detonation. Rathkugan’s heavy weapon clicked empty.

Crane stopped, turned and launched a grenade into the advancing enemy, the crump of the impact making him howl with joy.

‘Run faster,’ the Space Marine advised, boots pounding along the highway, bolt pistol bursting the heads of anything along the way that dared raise them. ‘You are now on your own.’

The Guardsmen were only men, and exhausted men at that: they quickly lost sight of the Iron Father. Winters was far from surprised at being abandoned now that Rathkugan’s primary goal had been accomplished, but he was still filled with anger and despair. They limped along the highway, dripping with sweat, their weapons hot and running low, but the howls of savage cultists, mutant sewer-spawn and machine-plagued servitors at their backs spurred them onwards. They took it in turns to pause, turn, and open fire on the enemy in the lead, slowing and tripping them as corpses fell at their feet. Cowardly scum.

Winters stumbled as a shot ripped through his bionic arm, reducing it to shreds of metal and dangling wires. Oddly, it hurt far less than a limb riddled with machine-plague. He laughed and yelled, ‘Cheers, you rotting wretches!’

The enemy were gaining. Crane was on his last legs. Savarnejad fared only a little better. Captain Winters located a defensible location among the burnt-out wrecks littering the highway – he would rather go down bayoneting the scum in the face than be mown down from behind. He was the hunter, not the prey, and he knew his men felt the same.

‘Right, lads,’ he yelled. ‘Take cover and start shooting when you see the yellow of their eyes.’

The Traitor Marine lingered in the back of the horde of pestilent soldiers. For a moment, Winters fantasised about charging in and taking him down personally. Instead he prodded Crane, who took careful aim and launched the last of his grenades. It hit the target and took out a clump of the traitors, but the Death Guard came through it unscathed.

Winters’ cursing turned to a malicious cackle as the vox crackled into life and Viridan Shale’s voice cut through the interference. ‘I have isolated and bypassed the crude jamming signal. Artillery incoming in one minute.’ Then she rattled off coordinates – right on top of them.

‘Throne,’ Winters gasped. ‘Run for your lives!’ He slung the rifle across his back and bolted for safety. He risked one glance back to witness the Death Guard’s shoulder plates shaking with laughter at their apparent cowardice.

It was a heart-pounding scramble south with the very last of their strength. Then the shells hit the highway and the horde behind them: earth-shattering thuds that obliterated everything there and left the Guard sprawled on the ground, deafened and dazed.

Eventually they stirred at the sound of heavy tracks and boots pounding the highway. From the south, an aged Leman Russ tank, an armoured transport and three squads of infantry raced towards them, all proudly displaying the God-Emperor’s blessed eagle. Winters laughed in relief as the tank rumbled past, cannon booming. Two squads advanced with the armour while the transport and the remaining squad drew up in front of them. A bloodied and bandaged Sergeant Howe and his squad snapped off a salute.

Winters was ragged, exhausted, and missing an arm again, but he was alive. Crane and Savarnejad sprawled beside him, covered in gore and shallow wounds, but miraculously intact. It was an Emperor-given miracle any of them had survived that madness.

Rathkugan and the magos were among the reinforcements.

Winters wiped the sweat and dust from his face and grabbed Howe, grinning. ‘With the Space Marine’s help we can drive these scum right back to the city walls and contain them there.’

A gunship roared down from the heavens. It landed in a cloud of dust and lowered its rear ramp. Viridan Shale immediately embarked.

Rathkugan paused and turned to Winters. ‘This planet is no longer a high priority. Fight well, Captain Lennox Winters.’

Seconds later the Thunderhawk blasted debris across the pockmarked highway as it rose up into the sky with both passengers inside.

‘Emperor’s teeth,’ Winters cursed. He should have known it would end up this way. He checked his trusty gun and swapped out his depleted power pack. It was all very awkward with one arm, crude as his bionic had been. ‘That’s the life of a Guardsman, eh?’ He hauled himself over to Crane and booted his leg. ‘Up. No rest for the wicked. The Emperor protects us body and soul, and we can do no less in return.’

His men rose and picked up their weapons. They were exhausted, but the Emperor had sent one of His angels to Dundas II to save their lives, and had entrusted His loyal Guard with the fate of entire worlds. They would be damned before they let Him down – He had faith in them, and they in Him.

Winters felt moderately optimistic as two more squads of Guard jogged up the highway towards them. He spurred his own men back towards to the front line – things couldn’t get much worse than being drawn into a Space Marine’s mission.

The Thunderhawk’s door whispered open to admit Viridan Shale to the hangar deck of the Crimson Hammer. The belly of the strike cruiser had been turned into a medicae facility for two dozen Iron Hands Space Marines and a number of tech-priests, sealed off by plasteel bulkheads sheathed in energy fields. Their bionics were encrusted with machine-plague growth. A stasis field had been set up to slow their degradation, and banks of surgical equipment and human auxiliaries stood ready to obey her commands.

As Rathkugan effortlessly transferred massive crates of machinery and medical supplies from the Thunderhawk to the hangar, she admired his tremendous strength. The Imperium of Man ran like a vast machine, each individual a cog with their own role to play. Some were large and strong, others incredibly precise, and the Iron Hands and Adeptus Mechanicus meshed well together in the heart of that godly machine serving the Omnissiah’s will. Their faith was iron, and in iron, endlessly toiling for a greater goal without any need for thanks. This was war without end in their lifetimes, and while the flesh of man weakened and failed their blessed iron would never falter. As for the Guard, she reflected, they were the millions of minor cogs that kept everything else moving.

‘Do you need anything more?’ Rathkugan asked, transferring schematics and lists of available supplies via the noosphere.

‘Adequate,’ she replied. They lacked the specialised equipment of a Mechanicus facility, but she was nothing if not resourceful. ‘I estimate your battle-brothers will be rid of the Morbus Metallum infection within twelve hours.’

‘Then their degraded bionics will be replaced and they will be battle ready in eighteen,’ the Iron Father stated.

‘The Hand endures,’ Viridan Shale said, the ritual words slipping out before she calculated the wisdom of uttering them. It revealed she knew more about the secretive Iron Hands than she should. There were cabals within cabals inside the Mechanicus, and they kept many dark secrets.

Rathkugan studied her, deep data probing. ‘Until every part of an Iron Hands warrior is destroyed, we shall not fail. We may fall but we will rise again. The flesh is weak, and the Hand endures because it must. We shall now share data.’

Viridan Shale winced. The Iron Father possessed little finesse, and his idea of sharing was a brutal and inelegant process. She studied his data packets and hummed with interest.

‘A requisition request for men of the Dundas Seventh? And an order for advanced bionics and implants. Intriguing.’

‘Unlike many, they did not fail,’ Rathkugan replied. ‘Once enhanced they will serve as superior combat auxiliaries.’

She looked up at the giant of a man and pondered how little he understood of standard human psychology. He thought extensive surgical enhancement, brutal training and a life of relentless warfare a reward.

‘The fall of Dundas Two is inevitable,’ he added. ‘Its militia is inadequate to contain the corruption spreading through their capital. We cannot spare the forces necessary to purge a mere agri world. I will see the Grave Gunners live to aid the greater conflict.’

She considered his words. They were logical, and she disapproved of waste.

‘With our weak flesh purified we now set course to purge the infected forge world of Patraig Seven,’ Rathkugan said. ‘Let our blessed iron bring the Emperor’s wrath to the Death Guard. Never falter, never fail.’

A COIN FOR THE CARRION THIEVES

JOHN FRENCH

‘All wealth begins with possessing what others lack.’

– ancient axiom of commerce

I am called Ctesias. I am a sorcerer. I am a peddler of lies and a breaker of oaths. I am a gene-son of Magnus the Red. I am a brother of fools and a destroyer of kingdoms, and I am old… Not just old in years, though thousands on thousands of years have passed since I was human. No… To be old is to see the universe clearly without the comfort of the falsehoods we drape over reality. The young see hope and possibility, but the old see only foolishness and inevitable ruin. The young see the chance for redemption, for renewal, but the old know that the sins of the past are always with us, sitting on our shoulder, a watching shadow that we can never look at. To be old is to know that the past is irredeemable, and that the future is damned. I know this; I have had it taught to me over and again. Yet still I persist, as I have for all the millennia of my stolen lives. I persist and follow fools, and so make myself the greatest fool of all.

And that is what I did when I chose to stay with Ahriman after the disaster of our return to the Planet of the Sorcerers. We had broken the banishment of Magnus to try and cast the Rubric for a second time. The purpose, just as with the first attempt, was to restore the Thousand Sons to what they had been – free of the mutation and restored to true life. Ahriman had been certain that this endeavour would work and so we, just as we had done the first time, followed him into failure.

We fled from the Planet of the Sorcerers, exiles again. Why the wrath of Magnus did not follow us, I do not know. Perhaps the creature who had once been our teacher and gene-sire had thought that our failure was punishment enough. Perhaps some greater, daemonic will had shackled his hand. This, like many truths, is one that I have no desire to know.

The power and might that Ahriman had assembled and wielded to make his attempt to cast the second Rubric had been vast. We had drawn the scattered exiles of the Thousand Sons to us, bound legions of daemons to us, and dragged with us a horde that wanted nothing more than to feed on the ascendant star of Ahriman’s power. In failure, all fled, save a few. The Circle and many of their vassals remained with a handful of ships. The rest, living and Neverborn alike, vanished. We were a wounded, ragged remnant trying to outrun the storm we feared followed us. I say we, because, like the fool that time has made me, I remained.

We came to rest, at last, beside the Weeping Crones. The laws of reality are not simply broken in the Eye; they are mocked. The Weeping Crones had been stars, each burning at the centre of its own system. Those worlds had once been part of the great and fallen realm of the alien aeldari, but the immaterium and the whims of lost dreams had withered the light of the stars and dragged them from their settings to spiral together. Now they danced together, the pull and clash of their gravities suspended. They wept ghost light, great long streamers of light the colour of pus seeping from a sore. Shapes moved in their pale faces, dead faces formed from curdling plasma and fading light. On the worlds that still circled them, there were tribes of three-eyed druids, who looked up at those blighted suns until they went blind, one eye at a time. While their eyes regrew, they etched accounts of what they had seen onto the shard remains of aeldari cities, which lay in great, flat plains: endless words of revelation in countless languages. All nonsense – take it from me. It was a vile place of slow entropy and pointless despair, but to us, wounded and bleeding and running, it was sanctuary.

+He has summoned you,+ Lycomedes sent. He stood by the entrance to my chambers. Fully armoured, his mind flaring and shifting like a crackling fire. +The Carrion Thieves have come.+

‘Use your voice,’ I replied softly, without looking up from the skull I was turning over in my hands. ‘There are things in here you do not want your thoughts to disturb.’

Smoke rose as the marks burnt into the skull’s surface rewrote themselves. The two daemons bound into it were fighting each other and against their bonds. They wanted to be free. I was not unsympathetic to their instincts.

I felt Lycomedes’ pride flare, the mingling of uncertainty and ambition battling against his control. He was one of Gaumata’s, one of the unclaimed, those whose powers and knowledge were modest at best before Ahriman had cast the Rubric but had somehow been spared the transmutation into Rubricae. Compared to the sorcerers, witches and psykers of other Legions, he was powerful, but amongst us his abilities were those of a child. An ambitious, vicious child, who deep down knew that he would likely never rise high, and so hungered all the more for ascendency. I despised him, and those like him, not because of his ambition, but because he embodied the blindness that had damned us in the first place. That may surprise you – after all, I am a sorcerer whose speciality is the binding and command of daemons, and I have pursued power and knowledge all my long life. I just have never thought it made me anything other than a broken and vile thing. Say what you like about me, and many have, but I rarely lie, even to myself.

‘Ahriman summons you.’

‘And he sent you, Lycomedes? What new sin have I committed that he should punish me so?’

I glanced at Lycomedes. He wore the blue lacquered armour that was common to our kind, and the gorget rose and curled behind his head like the caul of a cobra. Psycho-conductive crystals gleamed on the hood. His face was thin, and had that focused hardness about the brow, mouth and jaw. His eyes were green without white or pupil. Gold sigils wound across his temples. A long-hafted khopesh sat at his back.

‘Tell me,’ I said, still not rising from where I sat. ‘Do you consider it a punishment or an honour to be sent to me like a crow with a message in its beak?’

He did not answer, but another flare of anger and pride rose from his mind. He was not even trying to control the bleed of his thoughts. I felt some of my captives tug at their bindings – they could smell Lycomedes’ soul. A rope of finger bones and human hair rattled on its hook in the ceiling. Coals glowed from red to orange in a brazier in which a pitted bronze dagger sat. Frost formed on the surface of an obsidian mirror lying on a copper plinth. I spoke words in my mind and felt them soothe and lash the daemons in each object back to silence.

‘Careful,’ I said, and whispered more silent-words to the rune-marked skull as I placed it back in its cold-iron box. ‘I know that Gaumata does not value knowledge of the arts of summoning, binding, evocation and dismissal in his disciples, but I would hope that simple self-preservation would make you keep your emotions and thoughts in check.’

‘I do not follow exalted Gaumata,’ he said stiffly, and now I let my mind taste and hear more of the emotion that was spicing the ether around him. Shame – beneath the anger was a pearl of shame, hard and dark in his being.

‘I know,’ I said. ‘He broke your discipleship, and so now you find yourself a messenger without a master.’

I rose and looked around the chamber. It was a storeroom, or laboratory you might say if you wanted to drain it of all poetry. To this day, it is here I keep the Neverborn that I have tricked and trapped: things made from pain, or spite, or sorrow; things that burn and deceive and murder; things that leave parents weeping over small graves; and things that spool the last breath from the mouths of those who want to live. There are Neverborn here who would flay your mind a thought at a time over a thousand years and you would never realise it until your existence is someone you do not know calling a name you do not remember. Of course, it is not where I keep my greatest treasures – those prisons are stronger and far from tangible.

I picked up my staff and walked over to Lycomedes. The parchments pinned to my armour rustled.

‘We should go without more delay,’ I said. ‘I would hate to leave our betters waiting for our presence longer than necessary.’

‘I have delivered the summons,’ said Lycomedes. ‘I am not summoned to attend.’

‘Oh, but you are,’ I said. I think I may have even tried a smile. ‘Will you follow?’ I asked.

After a moment he made his choice and followed.

Ahriman, Lycomedes and I stood in the hangar of the Word of Hermes and watched as a bloated gunship settled onto the deck. Its skin was a patchwork of metals and repair methods worn with what struck me as pride. Behind the gunship, the open doors of the hangar bay framed a school of warships hanging in the void, the view shimmering behind void shield layers. Clouds of dust and debris gathered around their hulls, which gleamed like brushed steel or polished bone. A great swarm of lesser craft spun around them, moving like a murmuration of birds above a watering hole. Or a slaughter field.

Lycomedes stood at my side. His thoughts were controlled now, held in check by caution and uncertainty as to why he was here, beside myself and our ultimate lord, Ahzek Ahriman, to greet our guests.

The gunship’s doors unfolded and spilled a menagerie of metal and flesh into the light. There were towering things, hung with skeins of chain; figures in armour the colour of discoloured bronze; and things that limped, balancing their weight on powerblades taller than they were, things whose nature and provenance I could not divine.

They called themselves the Discordia, or sometimes the Faithful Followers of the False Concordance of All Things, but to all others they were the Carrion Thieves. In the ruthless war for resources in the Eye of Terror, they were scavenger-traders of lost ships, and that calling made them powerful. You see, in the Eye, where dreams can be real, the material is precious. I can sit at the heart of a cyclone of etheric power at the core of a lightless star and push my thoughts and wishes out until they swim through the night like bright fish through clear water. A soul with enough will can conjure cities that spiral between planets, worlds that are ribbons of gold and sunlight, chariots that can cross the gulf between endless false heavens. Some do just that, but these wonders are not real. Like the daemons that swim the Great Ocean, they drown in reality. The warp cannot really make anything. For those that wish to make war, they must have weapons made in cold reality. Such things are hard to come by in the Eye, and so we are all scavengers and wielders of the weapons of the past.

That is what Ahriman needed. We needed supplies. We needed weapons and ore, and metal and bullets, and we needed ships. We had left the Planet of the Sorcerers wounded and weakened, and there would be those who would come after us for vengeance or fortune. That was why we had come to the Weeping Crones: not just because we hoped that their poisonous nature would cloud our scent from anyone pursuing us, but because it was one of the places where the Carrion Thieves gathered and fished the depths of night for the carcasses of the Eye’s eternal wars.

A single figure broke from the herd of creatures and came forwards. It walked on legs of tarnished brass. A great mane of mechanical tentacles writhed from its back. Chains of broken weaponry and machinery hung from it. Bones of all shapes clinked on metal threads. I thought I recognised the lines of Legion warplate in its shape, but it lay so submerged under accretions of detritus that I could not be sure if it was its original form. I kept my will dimmed, but even brushing against its mind I could feel layers of hardened scarring and deliberate thought mutilation that felt like metal thorns. Only one emotion bled from between the cracks: hunger – raw, cold hunger, like the gaping mouth of a void between galaxies. A hooded cloak of scorched metal scales hid the bulk of its body, and it looked down at us with clusters of eye-lenses.

‘Ahriman…’ it said, and I confess I was surprised. The voice was deep, melodious, and almost human. ‘Son of the King Who is Crimson, Exiled and Returned, you have come to our harvesting ground and are welcome. I am called The First to Gather, and Bountiful Lord to those that are of my bond. I say again you are welcome.’

The thing called The First to Gather bowed then, tilting down and spreading its arms. It held the pose. I noticed that the arms were flesh rather than machine, and very long. The nails on the fingers were black and the length of knives.

Ahriman inclined his head.

‘You do us honour, and I see and know that those who are of your bond are right to call you bountiful.’ The First to Gather rose, its arms folding back into itself. ‘As is right for one who comes in friendship, I bring tokens to feed those who have need.’

Further down the hull of the Word of Hermes, cargo hold doors opened. Broken war machines tumbled into the void: the torn shells of Predators, gunships, Rhinos, and with them the corpses of mortals. Fragments of metal, shell casings and severed limbs tumbled over in the weak light of the Weeping Crones.

The First to Gather rose, extending in height as it watched the cascade of war wreckage spread out in the void. Its eyes rotated and lit with inner fire. A single, long-nailed hand appeared from under its cloak and made a sign in the air which set the wards inked on my skin itching.

‘It is well,’ said The First to Gather, compressing its form again. ‘Fresh from death. Still marked with the blood of both sides… A worthy giving.’ It turned and lights flashed in its eyes.

The crowd of creatures at the other side of the deck turned and scuttled into curious huddles. Out in the void I saw hundreds of small craft swarm forwards. Melta torches flared, portioning wreckage. Hooks and cables snagged pieces and hauled them away. Nets dragged through the void, catching fragments and body parts.

‘You may remain as our guests until you wish to resume your path.’ The First to Gather was turning away and scuttling after its companions as Ahriman spoke.

‘We wish for ships,’ he said.

The First to Gather turned back, eye-lenses whirring as they focused.

‘The giving you have made is not sufficient for what you wish,’ it said. ‘The ships you made voyage here aboard could be given, and remade craft given in return. This can be talked of, but for additional ships… the giving must be great.’

‘We have not more of this world to give,’ said Ahriman. ‘I lay before you the dead and broken that we have.’

‘Then there is nothing that you may give to feed those of my kinship and bond,’ said The First to Gather, ‘and nothing to discuss.’

‘Not all that we can give can be held in the hand,’ said Ahriman.

‘Of this there is no doubt, Ahriman of the Paths That are Numbered Nine, but we do not give what we remake in exchange for the ephemera of dreams and sorcery. We value what can be held in the hand, what can be eaten and remade. I do not wish you an enemy, Great Sorcerer Son of the Cyclops, but we have endured the displeasure of great enemies.’

‘You speak truth,’ said Ahriman, ‘but there is still something we may offer that you can touch and hold, and I think you will find it greater than all the broken swords we might lay at your feet.’

The First to Gather turned and moved its head as though trying to see Ahriman from different sides.

‘What giving might you propose?’

Ahriman turned to me then.

+You wish me to dance for them now?+ I sent, not bothering to keep the edge of tiredness from my thought.

+I wish you to help us recover from what has befallen us, brother,+ he replied. His sending was so smooth and controlled – no edge, no command, just balanced reasonableness. That is the thing about Ahriman, his greatest strength is not the power he wields, nor is it his ruthlessness in his pursuit of false hope. No, it is that he is always reasonable. I can think of no better reason to loathe him.

I turned to The First to Gather. I am, as some might call it, a daemonologist. The powers I wield are those of summoning and binding. They are not the tricks of petty conjurers; they are the wielding of damnation by word and will. Still, there are times when a little of the theatrical can help, too.

I took the coin from a pouch at my waist. It was silver and a dead man had minted it in the last hour of his life. A king looked out from one face, a beast in the shape of a half-bull half-man on the other. I tossed it into the air. The coin struck the deck and began to spin, its twin faces flicking around faster and faster, beast and king blurring. Within my mind, I formed the first of a string of formulae. The sounds of syllables from lost languages overlapped in my inner ear. Memories surfaced and arranged like links of a chain.

Some of the Carrion Thieves started forwards as the smell of burning spices and salt filled the air. Guns appeared. Charge coils glowed. Autoloaders cycled.

‘Stillness…’ said The First to Gather, raising a hand but not looking up from the spinning coin. The Carrion Thieves froze.

The coin rose into the air. Smoke coiled from it. Within my mind, the chains of thought pulled the first syllables of a name onto my tongue. Black smoke billowed out from the coin and curdled to fire. An impression of horns and eyes and fangs formed in the cloud. I could taste ashes, gritty in my mouth as I spoke the next pieces of the daemon’s name. The fire within the cloud flared bright. The deck where the coin had struck was melting. A mouth spread wide in the smoke. Teeth of white-hot flame framed a scream that only I could hear. I spoke the last syllable. The fire and smoke exploded outwards, and then rushed back in.

There was a moment of perfect stillness, ringing with ultrasonic shrieks.

A figure hovered in the air. Fire flowed under its skin. Soot and blood fell from it, burning to nothing before it touched the ground. It was lean, a thing of taut predator muscle. Swords of glowing iron hung in its hands, blood dripping from their edges. Spikes of bone projected from its curved spine. A crown of melting brass circled its head between black antlers. It smiled at the world with a mouth of iron needles and furnace fire.

I held my thoughts steady in my mind. The daemon was not moving but I could feel its fury as it thrashed against my will. It was a herald of the one of slaughter. Cruelty in murder was its nature and its parent. It was an impressive thing, but in truth a minor treasure in my collection. Still, it made the point. Behind me, I heard Lycomedes shift as the reek of cooking meat and sulphur washed over us.

The First to Gather circled the daemon, eye-lenses refocusing.

‘Impressive, but this thing will drain away. It is a shade of war, but still only a dream.’

In my mind, occult formulae and prepared cyphers uncoiled and yanked the daemon’s essence back into imprisonment. It billowed up and out, its false substance dissolving as it tried to cling on to reality. Then it contracted, became a black-and-fire-red line and was gone. The coin spun in the air and then fell towards the deck. I caught it, feeling the malice boil inside, and then placed it in Ahriman’s outstretched hand. He held it up between forefinger and thumb.

‘Power held in my hand,’ he said, ‘but this is not the coin I offer you. For what we need the giving must be greater. Not a lesser Neverborn bound to a bauble but something magnificent bound into the greatest of weapons.’

For a second The First to Gather did not answer, and I felt the hunger in that silence. Its machine legs clicked, and its head twitched.

This was the bargain that we… that Ahriman was making: that I would bind a greater daemon into a war engine of the Carrion Thieves, and for that they would give us ships.

‘It is acceptable,’ said The First to Gather.

+Place the teeth according to the Cordula progression,+ I sent.

Lycomedes reached into the amphora with his mind and pulled a cloud of pale teeth into the air. They spread out, forming a flattened disc in the still air of the observatory. I felt the eddies in the Great Ocean flex minutely as his mind formed an image of the required geometry and his will then pushed it into being. The disc of floating teeth formed the pattern, each one tumbling with an individually imparted momentum. It was impressive. Lycomedes might have been an overambitious fool but the telekinetic skills he had learnt as a one-time initiate of the Raptora were considerable.

The teeth settled to the floor. Beneath them, the rayed-skull symbol of the dead Imperium’s new religion looked up at the crystal dome above. It, and the observatory it decorated, were surprisingly well preserved. The ship we stood in had been a warship in the service of the so-called Ecclesiarchy, the cult of the false God-Emperor’s divinity in the Imperium. A catastrophe in the form of a crew mutiny had seen it fail in battle. Wounded, it had bled the last of its atmosphere before tumbling into the Great Ocean. Its crew had become soul feed for lesser Neverborn, and it had fallen and whirled until the currents of the immaterium had vomited it into one of the flotsam drifts within the Eye. The Carrion Thieves had found it and dragged it to their feeding ground in the Weeping Crones. They had patched its wounds with the skin of other wrecks and grafted new reactors into its heart. It was ready to make war again. The Purity of Flame the Imperium had called it, and the Carrion Thieves had kept the name, just as they had left the symbols of the ridiculous religion that had inspired it. I might have suspected that they relished the profanity were they any other group, but in their case I suspected they did not even consider it – the name was just another intact component taken from the midden, like a tattoo on the skin of a corpse, or the shape of a gun barrel.

Lycomedes turned and looked at me as the last tooth spun to stillness on the floor.

+What now?+ he asked. I could feel his resentment at the use I had put him to. For three days, three hours and three minutes we had moved through the empty bowels of the Purity of Flame, marking decks and walls with blood and water and salt. We had scattered the ashes of three hundred and seven mortals. I had spoken words of power aloud and in my mind. He had understood none of it, though he thought he did: another quality that many of Magnus’ gene-sons share – the inability to believe that we are ignorant.

Finally, we had prepared the locus for ritual. At the top of a high minaret on the Purity of Flame’s back, I had traced unseen geometry through the air, geometry that smouldered in the ether. We had scattered the blood of mortals who had died by deceit, lit bowls of oil rendered from the fat of executed monarchs, and set the ground with the teeth of beasts. Each detail aligned and resonated in the immaterium, each act and feature setting up ripples of intent and meaning that added to and altered each other. Now, all that remained was to drop the final stone into the pool.

Lycomedes turned to look at me from where he stood on the other side of the domed chamber. Blue armour, high-crested helm, mind filled with the lore of ages but eyes blind to where he stood or why. As has been proved again and again, we are blind as to our failings and doomed to repeat them.

+Now we begin,+ I sent to him, and struck the stone floor with my staff.

My mind spoke the capstone syllable of the ritual that I had been preparing since before Lycomedes had come to my chambers. Others, even others of my gene-kin, might raise up the Neverborn by ritual, by signs and glyphs and formulae, and think that such things begin and end with the opening of the grimoire and the first sigil marked on the floor. The truth is that everything – every act, every word, every detail – from the moment you set out on such a course is ritual. Everything has significance.

The immaterium blazed. Alignments of objects, words, thoughts and action connected and lit, drawing power to them, feeding each other, until the patterns I had created in the warp were a vast, sculpted inferno. The Purity of Flame screamed. Black ice grew on its bones. Metal glowed cherry red. The echoes of the dead howled through its empty spaces. Up and out in the unseen realm, the fire shone. To the eyes of the Neverborn it was a signal, an invitation, a promise.

Lycomedes juddered as the cyclone of power surrounded him. I could feel his shock, and then the realisation.

+What are you doing?+ he shouted with his mind as he tried to step towards me. Frost was forming on his armour. A servo blew out in his right knee joint as the telekinetic forces holding him tightened.

+There must be an offering in a summoning, Lycomedes,+ I replied. +Unwilling, ignorant if possible, flawed yet powerful. Once, the magi and druids would have burnt princes to bring jinn or angels to their ritual circles. You are no prince, but you are a son of the Crimson King, and so you will serve.+

+You are a betrayer!+ he shouted with all his hatred, and within the immaterium the fire of the ritual caught the truth of his words and leapt higher.

+We are all betrayers in the end,+ I sent to him, and spoke the name that I had prepared for this moment.

Names have power. Some of the ancients believed that everything had a name, from each blade of grass to the birds that flew in the sky above. Incredibly, their belief is true. Everything does have a name, and those names shimmer across the boundary between reality and the immaterium like the ripples in still water. Know a name, speak a name and you are exerting power; you are pulling the truth of that name from the unreal into the real. To the daemons of the warp, their names are everything, a thread that links them with the ideas and dreams of reality that made them. And if you call that name, they must answer.

Lycomedes saw the daemon coming, saw with his inner sight, saw the immaterium fold and coil, saw darkness and paradox rushing down towards him from eternity. His mind hardened, as did his will, and layered him with armour made of spells of protection. They would not stop what was coming, but I confess I was impressed – now, faced with betrayal and oblivion, he was defiant.

The daemon came on, pulling a shape to itself from the fears and hope of mortals across time. Wings of fire opened, feathering the dark, multiplying into a spiral. Claws formed from the starlight of dead galaxies. Lids of night pulled back from eyes with irises of flame. The bow wave of its presence broke over the Purity of Flame. Distances and geometry collapsed, then reversed. In my mind, I could see the towers of great cities and hear the winds blow through their streets as they sank into dust. I could hear the words of prophets and viziers and confessors, a chorus of false promises of friendship and loyalty. I tasted the dry breath of ash blowing through the bones of dead kings, and in my mind I held firm to the last spinning coin of unspent will and intent I had prepared.

The shadow of great wings filled the chamber. The light of the stars beyond the crystal dome vanished.

+You shall burn, Ctesias!+ roared Lycomedes in defiance as the daemon’s presence poured towards him, scattering feathers of golden flame into reality.

‘I will,’ I said aloud. ‘But not yet.’

And I let the final piece of my will go. It tumbled from me. It touched the ritual formation in the immaterium that had brought the daemon, and that vast beacon of invitation became a cage. Cords of imperative and command yanked the daemon away from Lycomedes even as it reached for his soul. It shrieked. Light vanished. The crystal dome shattered. The teeth on the floor became ash, became boiling jelly, became tiny suns of fury. The daemon fought its snare, but nothing can fight its own nature. The cords and bindings already laid into the ritual tightened and hardened as the daemon drained from the warp into the ship.

It flowed through the hull, its calls of rage now the sound of shearing metal and bursting rivets. Reactors lit and coughed blood and plasma through conduits, which were splitting and writhing like fraying rope. Stone and metal flowed together and hardened into new shapes, pillars of golden birds in flight, mirrored floors that would hold no reflection. On the daemon’s essence flowed, like veins threading the yoke of an egg as the embryo within grew. This would never end now: the Purity of Flame would change from instant to instant as the daemon bound within it sought for a way out of its prison, and the more it tried to break free, the deeper its essence would mire itself. It would fight to preserve its prison, too, because without it there would be nothing for the daemon but oblivion. Fire and war could tear the ship’s hull and it would heal. Commanded by one who held its chains, it would seek its own way through the warp like a shark. It was and would now forever be a thing of magnificent terror.

I took a coin from a pouch and touched it to the deck. It was a plain disc of copper that I had smelted myself and kept clean of any other’s touch. The coin glowed with heat and when I picked it up, its surface swam with marks of claws and feathers and a cluster of blinking eyes. I put it in a pouch and moved over to Lycomedes. He was trying to rise from the deck. Claw scratches covered his armour. I saw him turn his head to look at me as I approached and heard the growl of invective in my mind. He had even thought of drawing his sword, of attacking me, but did not.

+Your emotional control is improving,+ I sent.

+You used me as bait for this summoning,+ he lashed back.

+Yes, and consider that your first real lesson – we use others or are used ourselves.+

+I have no need of your lessons,+ he sent, standing.

+I find I am in need of an apprentice,+ I sent, +and you are what I must make do with.+

+An apprentice to you?+ The surprise was almost equal to the contempt in his sending.

+A disappointment I hope I learn to live with.+ I turned away from him, glancing up to see that the shattered dome above had been replaced with a membrane of transparent skin. +Follow, we should not keep our patrons waiting.+

After a second of hesitation he followed.

I placed the copper coin on the deck with a breath of telekinesis. The metal around it was already growing a film of ice. The First to Gather looked at it and then extended a mechanical tentacle to lift it to its eye-lenses. After a long moment, the coin vanished under its cloak.

‘The work is acceptable,’ it said. ‘For this giving you will be granted five greater craft, and nine lesser craft from those we have gathered and made whole.’

‘Your gift of plenty honours us,’ said Ahriman.

The First to Gather bowed again, spreading its dead-flesh arms, and then turning to its horde. They shambled into the mouth of their gunship, which lifted from the hangar and slid back into the void.

I turned to Ahriman.

+Fourteen ships?+ I sent. +That is more than you talked of before. Those are enough vessels to carry a war host.+

+Yes,+ he replied and began to walk away across the hangar.

+We have no such strength of numbers.+

+We shall,+ he sent.

+For what?+

Silence followed, but I did not need an answer; I could see my own answer. As at many times before and since, I wish that I had left then and not looked back. Life in all its forms is woven of regrets.

+What now?+ asked Lycomedes from behind me.

+It seems we are to begin a new war,+ I replied.

THE ALIEN MENACE

DA BIG MOUF

DANIE WARE

Grimdak liked stomping.

It wasn’t that he was big, exactly; the boss was bigger. But Grimdak was smart. Grimdak knew all the best places, all the best scraps and corners and heaps of junk. An’ besides, the boss wasn’t out here, and right now, that made Grimdak the biggest ork there was.

Da biggest ork on da walkway.

That, and his deffgun was the bestest.

Stamping down the rusting, rotting tunnels of the great hulk, his muscled shoulders catching on hanging cables and old supports, his red eyes looking for the shiny, Grimdak liked the weight it gave him. He’d made it himself, because of course he had, scavenging the ruin for some bits, trading what he found for others. Razgog’d even let him use the mekboy workshop, so long as he did some of the welding and cutting. And that meant his deffgun was ginormous. It made him heavier, stronger. And it made his stomping loud, his boots bashing good on the metal.

He liked the echoes, the banging percussion that said:

Da ork is comin’!

Faded lumens flickered at the noise, showering sparks as he passed them; they made shadows jump along the walls, shapes like threats. As his own outline fell ahead of him, he let off a burst of rounds, just because he could. It boomed and roared and deafened him, but he liked it. He liked the spank of the ricochets, the big explosions that bellowed back from the far end of the tunnel. He liked the creaking and the smashing that came after.

They told everything to get outta da bleedin’ way!

Yaaah!

His deffgun was good, turning anything to a greasy smear. Carrying it, Grimdak wasn’t scared of nothing. Not those big scuttlies – fast, but not fast enough. Not those poncy, prancy things with their stupid hair, or those ranks of boring robots. Grimdak’d even seen a Space Marine once, hiding his backside in all that snazzy armour. Hadn’t done him any good – the boss still wore his pauldrons.

Remembering the battle, he snickered round his teeth. That’d been a big one, but Zoldag Legmangla, warboss, had claimed this hulk for the Deathskullz, and he wasn’t giving it up. The Space Marine’s skull, helmet and all, sat atop the warboss’ throne.

And his boyz’d never had it so good.

Two levels down and a big bag of loot later, Grimdak stopped by a ruined control panel. Its screen was shattered, half chewed off; its wires hung loose. They were red and gleaming, spilled like guts, and he knew that colour of metal. Razgog needed it – it was good stuff for fixing busted connections.

Yanking the front off the thing, he poked it with a curious talon, waiting to see if it’d catapult him back down the walkway…

Was slightly disappointed when nothing happened.

In the stomp-free quiet, however, he heard a noise. A noise like boots.

Big boots.

Grimdak stopped. Legmangla’s Skullz owned the hulk, but them was boots, all right. Loud boots, metal boots. Boots that moved all tidy-like. Military boots. Not as big as the Space Marine, but big enough. They were still some distance away, somewhere down by the old genny-rators, he reckoned. But he was sure of one thing…

Them boots weren’t orks.

He frowned, scratching hard at one metal-pierced ear. Bits of snotling were still caught in it, but he wasn’t worried about that now. Fink, he told himself.

The boss’ hulk was called Da Big Mouf and it was bleedin’ huge. It was more than one ship, all smushed together and stuck like that, roaring on though the void. It had lots of different ends and bits, sticking out all over the place, plus the central vortex that had given it its name – something to do with the tangled gravities of the individual ships. The boss’ throne was a way back, on the biggest command deck; the escape pods were used by the mekboyz; and old Skalagrog preached and sparked and ranted his way through the lower tunnels. Even the gunnery decks, used for sleeping and eating and fighting, were–

Them boots were getting closer.

He scratched his ear a bit harder, then inspected his claw and chewed the filth out of it. He was too big to sneak, and, anyhow, that wasn’t the way. He was an ork, the biggest baddest ork on the walkway. With the biggest, baddest deffgun.

Yeah! Da loota wiv da shoota!

Hoiking the thing a bit higher on his shoulder, he folded down the targeter and kicked in the scanners.

I is da big ork!

An’ I is gonna finds ya!

The boots were a level below him, he reckoned, down in the old helot tunnels where some of the mangled servitors still roamed, every one of them mad as a bucket of snotlings. Sometimes, if he needed the really good swag, he went down there after them. The ladder was nearby, and though its rungs were busted, he’d be able to see straight down.

Yeah, like shootin’ humies in a barrel!

Grinning though his snaggled fangs, he stomped that way.

And then, he heard something else.

Arriving back at the warboss’ throne, Grimdak skidded to a stop in a state of almost-panic.

‘Boss!’ He was pointing frenziedly behind him, though the deffgun made it almost impossible for him to turn. ‘We gots trouble! I see’d ’em! Dey’s comin’, an’ dey got boltas, an’ shootas an’ ’eavy fings. An’ fings dat…’

Catching Legmangla’s lava-eyed glare, he shut his mouth. Backed up a prudent step.

Framed by a wealth of trophies, the warboss unfolded to his feet. Zoldag was huge, his shoulders fully big enough to fill the yellow pauldrons, his ears heavy with scavenged metal. Parts of his armour were made from black chitin, and he bore a necklace of mismatched skulls. His filed teeth were tipped in sharpened steel and covered in shreds of Gork-alone-knew-what. And his left arm was fully augmetic, ending in a four-taloned claw bigger than Grimdak’s head.

The claw had come from a Dreadnought. And Grimdak should know – he’d found the bleedin’ thing.

At the warboss’ feet, a twitching gretchin stood ready to run his errands.

‘You wot?’ Legmangla rumbled, a bubbling snarl that started deep in his chest. It echoed round the throne room’s crumbling panels like a rolling boulder.

Words tripping over themselves, Grimdak tried to explain. ‘Dey… dey’s humies, boss, an’ dey gots all the armour. Shiny. Yeah, good. But dey was singin’…’

He got no further. The warboss gave a rippling roar, the noise enough to make the gretchin cower and cover its ears. Grimdak gulped, but refused to let himself flinch. Good thing too, as the boss idly booted the smaller creature and sent it sailing into an upper support. It squeaked in protest, crunched with the impact and crashed to the floor. It didn’t move again.

Stamping down three steps, Legmangla fixed Grimdak with a baleful, scarlet glower. ‘You runned away. You saw da humies, an’ you runned away.’ He bared his fangs, his breath reeking. ‘Is you an ork, or is you a stinkin’, snivellin’ grot?’

‘I is an ork, boss.’ Grimdak backed up another step. ‘I… I jus’ came to tells ya! Bring ya da newz. An’ I gots…’ With his best ingratiating grin, he grabbed a fistful of his captured swag, and held it out.

The boss paused, eyeing the copper wire. On the floor between them, at the foot of his seat, lay his huge pile of scavenged booty – more bits of Space Marine and Dreadnought, the claws of a genestealer, the plume from an aeldari helm. The Apothecary’s narthecium, his proudest possession. It glinted like an evil grin.

Legmangla eyed the wires, then the pile, then rumbled again, apparently thinking. Then he bellowed, loud enough to rattle the ancient glass screens.

‘Baz!’

Grimdak backed up even further, smack into the ork behind him. He jumped, turned.

And there was Bazruk da Stompa, ork nob, casually picking his fangs with a long and dirty spike. He leered down, grinning.

‘Awright, loota?’ His words were easy, dangerous. ‘Wot’s you done now?’

‘Nuffink,’ Grimdak said quickly, scrambling out of the way. Bazruk’s grin grew.

Behind him, more orks tumbled into the chamber, nobz and boyz, weapons in hands. A scatter of gretchin came with them, darting between their feet and trying not to get stomped on. Bazruk snarled at the massed pack, and it scuffled and shoved to quiet, waiting.

Legmangla eyed his troops. ‘Awright,’ he said. ‘Grimdak’s gots us somethin’ speshal.’ He grinned, a mouthful of knives. ‘Dere’s humies in da tunnels, an’ dey gots da good loot. An’ by the teefs of Gork an’ Mork, we’s gonna finds ’em an’ we’s gonna stamp on their ’eads. We’s gonna breaks dem outta dere shells, and squish all dere pink insides.’ The grin grew. ‘An’ I’s gonna gets meself a bran’ new prize.’ He threw a thumb over his shoulder, at the helm that topped the throne. ‘A li’l one, ta go by da big one.’

Orks nudged each other, snickering.

But Legmangla’s grin vanished. Fangs bared, his red gaze moved from ork to ork like a laser sight.

It settled on Grimdak.

‘But,’ he said. ‘Before we gets stuck in, you tell me somethin’.’

Greenskins eyed each other, their boots. Not one of them met the warboss’ gaze.

Still glaring at Grimdak, he said, ‘Oo founds da relic?’

Grimdak blinked. ‘Wot?’

‘Relic?’ Mutters and shuffles; each ork glared at his nearest neighbours. ‘Wot relic?’ Leaning casually on the nearest upright, Bazruk continued to pick his teeth.

Greatly daring, Grimdak answered, ‘We ain’t gots no relics, boss.’ He pointed at the throne, the pile. ‘All da good stuff’s dere. No relics!’

‘Dem singin’ humies, dey always come afta da relics,’ Legmangla said, his tone spelling it out. He fixed Grimdak with a nasty stare, and Grimdak gulped. He had no idea if Legmangla could swallow the deffgun as well as the ork that carried it, and he didn’t want to find out.

After all, look at what’d happened to ol’ Scarmush.

Never mind that now.

Bristling, Legmangla stomped down the last two steps. Still framed by the loot-encrusted throne-back, his pile of swag at his boots, he made a swipe at where Grimdak was standing. The loota jumped out of the way, but Legmangla’s grab had not been aimed at him.

Bazruk cursed as the toothpick was snatched from his hand. ‘’Ere! Dat’s…!’

The boss growled him to silence, examined the spike, then shook it, right in Bazruk’s face. ‘Wot’s dis, den?’ he roared. ‘Da ’and of bleedin’ Mork?’

Faced by the boss, even Bazruk backed up. He looked around him for support, but every other ork in the room was studiously staring elsewhere.

‘I… Uh…’

The boss shook it again. ‘Where’d ya gets dis?’

‘Dere was a coffin?’ Bazruk ventured. ‘Big stone fing? Out near da mouf–’

With a roar, Legmangla lunged. He drove the toothpick, sharp end first, straight through the hollow of Baz’s throat.

Bazruk gawked, startled, then went over backwards with a crash. He gagged, choked, kicked, and was still. Gore seeped out across the slatted metal floor. Orks chuckled and snorted; a few kicked at the downed body, just for good measure.

But Legmangla was not laughing. With a bellow, he brought the boyz to stillness. ‘When you gets da loot, you brings it ’ere!’ One massive boot kicked the glinting pile. ‘You gots that? You don’ts use it ta picks ya teef!’

Bazruk’s toothpick was now stuck straight up in the air like a monument, marking where the nob’s stupidity had ended. Its blunt end, Grimdak realised, was the familiar round hip joint of an ancient, humie thigh bone. And, while he couldn’t read them, the thing was engraved with words, all the way down.

‘Oops,’ he commented, when Legmangla couldn’t hear.

‘WAAAGH!’

Bellowing, bristling with weapons, the boyz surged out of the airlock door, running straight for the main companionway. Grimdak had tried to sidle from the boss’ line of sight, but Legmangla grabbed him by one ear, and dragged him right up the front.

‘You found ’em,’ he said. ‘You go finds ’em again.’

‘Boss.’

In the deffgun, he had a motion detector, of sorts. It was a bit twitchy – picked up the bilge rats sometimes – but it was enough. With Legmangla pounding beside him, and a surge of gleeful greenskins behind, he ran.

We gonna krush dem humies good an’ propa!

At first, however, the hulk seemed empty. Covered in the orks’ garish graffiti, it clanged and bashed and echoed to the sounds of their charge, creaking and groaning. Squeaky things scattered from the orks’ boots; they stamped at them, laughing. Junctions and ladders were daubed with colours and pictures and warnings, with the skull symbols of their tribe and with caricatures of its various members. In other places, old Skalagrog had set up warnings, standing totems of bones and captured booty. Marking the parts of Legmangla’s territory, they said:

Don’t mess wiv da orks!

Skalagrog himself had joined them, though the rest of the tribe were giving him a wide berth. More than one ork had met a sizzle-fried end when ol’ Skalagrog got carried away. They sang as they ran:

‘Mash ’em, bash ’em!

Crunch ’em, munch ’em!

We da boyz, an’ we lives ’ere!

Fite ’em, smite ’em!

Beats ’em, eats ’em!

We da boyz, we gots no fear!’

As they chanted, they pushed and shoved, mocking and jostling. Bazruk’s demise had left a gap, and the biggest of the remaining orks were eager to fill it. At the back, a few voices started raggedly shouting, ‘’Ere we go, ’ere we go, ’ere we go!’

Grimdak, however, didn’t join the fun. His feet bashed to the main rhythm, but he was watching the motion detector in his flip-down eyepiece.

Nuffink.

Occasional, scuttling blips – more rats, and a distance away; there was nothing big enough, or well-ordered enough, to be the force he’d seen. And he could feel the close, watchful rumble of Legmangla’s authority. It said: Don’t get dis wrong, loota.

The tribe continued to chant:

‘Thump ’em, whump ’em!

Crash ’em, bash ’em!

We da boyz, an’ we’s awright!

Tromp ’em, stomp ’em!

Smack ’em, whack ’em!

We da boyz, an’ we can fight!’

Steadily, the companion-route led out into the main body of the hulk. The graffiti faded back to red and gnawing rust, and the lumens grew weaker, casting almost no light. Around them, the space soon opened out into a vast and looming darkness, and their boots rang hollow on the now suspended walkway.

A cold and empty wind began to pluck at them, teasing. It stank of dead stuff.

Here, Grimdak wanted to slow down. He was smart, right; he knew the hulk better than his mates, and he knew that they were heading for the central hub, for the point where the vast ships all collided. He’d seen it many times, all the tunnels that led up and out and away, and at impossibly bonkers angles that just hurt your brain…

And out there, in the middle of it all, was the thing that Legmangla had called the ‘mouf’. It was ever-hungry, the place where everything twisted, round and round, pulling everything down into itself. Grimdak didn’t know where the stuff went, though Razgog had once tried to explain to him. He did know, though, that more than one ork had got too close, trying to prove how scared he wasn’t, and had gone bawling over the railings.

It wasn’t long before they all felt the change, the charge, the sucking greed in the air.

‘Fink you’s big, wiv all dat noize?

Gots news for youz, ’cause we’s DA BOYZ!’

The chant reached its end, bled out into the open darkness. The air was full of sounds: phantom yells, cries that they couldn’t quite hear, the creak and grind of unsettled metal. The orks turned grim, stamping fast and focused, their faces furrowed, fangs bared.

Yeah, Grimdak thought, as they closed on the location of the vortex. Mouf or no mouf, dey wuz ready.

The ambush hit them hard.

Grimdak had not seen motion; there was only the sudden flare of muzzle flash, the boom of heavy weapons, the rip and roar of carbide fusion rounds, cutting through air and flesh and metal.

And singing, the sort of powerful, humie tunes that could only mean one thing.

The loota bellowed a warning, but the noise was lost in the racket. Cries, shrieks, shouts. Detonations, sudden splotches of exploding warmth. Flying flesh. Tumbling bodies. Orks cursing and colliding, the confused bang of their boots and the screeches of crushed gretchin. The whoosh of a handheld flamer. Burning boyz, stumbling into each other or from the walkway’s edge. Falling, flailing sideways as the vortex took them and gobbled them down. The spang of a snapped cable and the walkway lurching, knocking boyz from their feet…

Grimdak stayed upright, his legs splayed apart, riding the slewing metal with knees like gimbals; his motion detector was blipping, movement ahead and behind.

Two, four, six dots.

Six? Dat was all?

But the ambush had been well placed. Here, the bridge was curving through a right angle, avoiding the sick, dark whirl of the mouf, and the boyz were straggled out, all around the curve. Illuminated only by erratic flashes of gunfire, Grimdak could just make out the attackers, a distance back. Three at the front, their ceramite armour gleaming darkly scarlet, their cloaks in black and white, and flapping in the vortex’s wind.

‘WAAAGH!’

Legmangla bawled the command.

Howling, the orks attacked. The bark and roar of weapons fire, the flash of axes in the half-light. Right at the front, Grimdak targeted the deffgun. The boss thundered past him, claw champing, his captured tech-priest choppa ready in his other hand.

With a yell of his own, the loota opened fire.

The weapon boomed, the noise incredible; it crashed back from the metalwork like some vast, steel drumbeat. The red-clad figure in front of him was smaller than the others; he could see the distinctive pattern of its helmet, its bolter held hard in both hands.

His suppression went over the humie as it dropped neatly sideways, then rolled back up, still shooting. Behind it, explosions blossomed, the flames sucked away by the vortex’s pull. The walkway shivered, quaked again. The whirl sucked and crackled and spat. Eager. Starving.

Grimdak roared, bared his teeth. ‘We iz da orks!’

In the bad light, it was almost impossible to see. There were bodies everywhere, orks shooting back, orks falling down. Bolter rounds struck the loota and spanged, repelled by the deffgun’s shoulder-mount. He juddered at the impacts, but he didn’t go over. Sparks burned his cheek.

Shouts were rising now, boots crashing in an upsurge of defiance.

‘We owns da hulk!’

‘We’s gonna krush!’

‘Stompin’ an’ shootin’! Stompin’ an’ shootin’!’

Ahead of Grimdak, Legmangla hurled his full body weight at the central armoured figure, bigger than the other two.

The figure let off a shot with the bolter, then stepped from the warboss’ path. With a tidy throw-and-catch, it reversed its grip on its weapon and slammed the butt sideways into the ork’s face. Snarling, Legmangla lashed out with the choppa, simultaneously slamming the claw into the figure’s chestplate, then opening it out to gouge a screaming hole in the metal. In the flashes, Grimdak could make out the third figure, a flamer in its gauntleted hands.

The singing continued, like knives in Grimdak’s brain.

‘Down!’ he yelled, and the warboss ducked.

The flamer’s gout missed him, and torched the two orks behind. A detonation of ammunition was sucked away by the mouf.

But Grimdak only glanced; he didn’t have time to waste. He heard shouts, crashing, smashing, roaring, shooting, pandemonium. Another cable spanged, the walkway lurched again. He could hear Skalagrog chanting, feel the flicker and flash of his gathering power, fed by the other orks.

Mork alone knew what good that would do…

‘Grim!’ The boss’ command was a bark. ‘Go gets da big shoota!’

‘Boss!’

Understanding, Grimdak dropped back towards the corner. In front of him, Legmangla executed his signature move, stamping sideways on his enemy’s knee, and snapping it clean, armour and all. The figure went over, but still managed to reverse its grip, again, on the weapon and shoot upwards at the boss’ head.

It missed.

The flamer roared again, the wash of its heat enough to crisp the hairs in Grimdak’s nose. The flames, like everything else, were sucked sideways and away. Then a roaring gaggle of boyz broke past him, heading for the attackers, and he was abruptly caught in the centre of the mêlée.

And Mork’s teef, it was a mess.

There were orks everywhere, getting in his way, tripping him over as he tried to move. They were confused, some injured, some dying; the pull of the air was tugging them all towards the walkway’s now-dangling edge. In some places, they fought back, bawling defiance; in others they struggled with the fall, or with each other. Gretchin scampered here and there, some of them trying to fight, others chortling gleefully and looting their downed comrades. One squeaked protest as the hulk’s mouf took him; he was a thrashing silhouette, and then he was gone. Somewhere, Grimdak could hear the roar and whip-crack of their herder, demanding that they ‘Attack da humies!’ Somewhere else, there was still Skalagrog, crackling like a bared wire, now, and ready to throw his bright and unstable energy in all directions…

But hey, it meant that Grimdak could see. Kicking at a grabbing green hand, he turned the corner fully.

And found turmoil.

Three more figures were standing at the back of the ambushed tribe, one with a running chainsword, another with a heavy bolter, aimed from the hip, and all covered in shiny symbols. One part of his brain jumped up and down at the find, desperately wanting to grab the things and get them back to the workshop – the stuffs that Razgog could make! – but the other part was smarter, and could see the devastation that the weapon had made.

Even as he looked, there was a bellow, and four of the biggest nobz charged straight at the attackers.

The one with the heavy weapon dropped back, still firing, then clunked to a halt. The figure swore. The first two orks were caught by the suppression; they shuddered at repeated impacts, skidding to the floor. Another went down to the third figure, a shot going clean through his forehead.

Ragbad, unhurt, surged forwards. But the figure with the chainsword came to meet him, and Grimdak stopped.

Though not as big as the one Legmangla had charged, it moved like pure, tight hostility, smooth and furious. Sneering, Ragbad raised his forearm to block, and the blade just carved straight through, shrieking briefly as it cut the bone. Rag screeched like failing steel, but kept going, trying to leap on the figure and bear it to the ground.

‘Yaaaa! I don’t needs me arm anyhowz!’

The figure stepped back, bringing the chainsword up, two-handed, and cutting him almost clear in half, armour and all.

For a split second, Grimdak stopped, gawking. But Legmangla was still up, still bellowing ‘WAAAGH!’

Belatedly, the loota opened fire; hit all three figures with a full suppression. The heavy weapon was down, changing magazine; he saw his own rounds spark from the thing, flashes of violent orange. They chewed a line across the user’s armour, throwing it backwards.

It screamed at him, savage, rolling back to its feet. ‘Domine! Libra Nos!’

He bellowed back, ‘I iz da bestest ork! Da loota wiv da shoota!’

With a cry like pure rage, the figure with the chainsword came forwards, the weapon still running, sending flicks of Rag’s gore to spatter against the metalwork. Grimdak lowered the muzzle of the deffgun and hit it with a full, directed burst–

The deffgun jammed.

‘Mork’s teef!’ he cursed, backing up fast. More of the tribe surged past him, Skalagrog included. The enemy bolter took out one target, two, then was buried by a pile of green. But Grimdak wasn’t looking, he was trying to unjam the–

Skalagrog struck. A blaze of static energy exploded on the walkway, its lightning slanting towards the vortex. In response, the deffgun crackled and sparked, and the motion detector in his eyepiece went dead.

‘Wot’s you doin’, you–’

The full blaze of Skalagrog’s fury hit the chainsword figure in the chest. The figure stood stock-still for a moment, its armour sputtering, smoking at the shoulders and ablaze with every colour Grimdak could name…

‘Yaaaa!’

Somewhere, Legmangla was still shouting; Grimdak couldn’t turn but he figured the boss was ripping his way through the enemy, breaking legs and heads.

The flamethrower coughed again, a wide arc of fire. Gretchin screamed, fell. Their flesh aflame, they were everywhere and underfoot. More of them were tumbling from the walkway now, being sucked sideways into the vortex.

And the vortex… The mouf was growing.

Grimdak didn’t understand it, and Razgog wasn’t there to ask, but the lightning flashes of old Skalagrog’s energies were being sucked sideways, just like the fallen orks. And the mouf was getting bigger, tugging at hair and pulling flame and smoke and flesh down into its ever-churning belly.

And then, the unthinkable happened. Grimdak didn’t see it, but he heard the noise.

A third spang as another cable snapped, and the walkway lurched again, now swinging dangerously in the vortex’s winds. Impossible corridor angles led away in all directions; they messed with his head, but that didn’t matter.

What mattered was the roar of rage as Legmangla lost his footing.

The walkway itself was twisting, now, screeching in protest; it hurt Grimdak’s eyes to look at it. Then something massive skidded past him, grappling for a hold, and went straight off the walkway’s edge.

With a gawp of disbelief, Grimdak saw Legmangla shoot past him, swearing. But the boss didn’t fall. The Dreadnought claw lashed out, grabbed the railing, and hung on. He swung there, over the drop.

The walkway creaked and groaned at the boss’ massive weight, twisting even further. More and more orks were losing their footing now, shrieking obscenities. Skalagrog was sliding. Grimdak, too. Legmangla hung over the drop, kicking his boots, snarling in outrage.

From the armoured enemy, a barked command. Responding instantly, the heavy weapon opened fire – straight down.

For an instant, Grimdak didn’t realise what they were doing, but he caught himself up as the rounds chewed holes in the metal, and the part the orks were standing on started to come away. The walkway screamed as it tore, the noise cutting at his ears.

His deffgun was too heavy.

Any bleedin’ minute…!

Grimdak had a split second to make a decision. In front of him, the three attackers were now standing on a stable steel platform, its edge cut free. The vortex was growing, reaching out hungrily as more orks slipped towards it. Skalagrog’s lightnings seemed to be feeding it, somehow, making it–

No time, Grimdak told himself. You’s da smart ork. Fink!

To the front, one of the figures was tending to their downed mate; the other one, the small one, was covering, bolter ready. As he glanced, he saw the bolter was aimed at the still-dangling warboss, his claw slammed closed on the creaking railing.

And Legmangla’s huge weight was pulling the whole walkway down. Cut free at its other end, it was starting to hinge like a door…

Grimdak couldn’t back up – the walkway was broken and the heavy weapon would cut him to pieces. He had to go forwards…

Jump!

Legmangla caught his gaze and said something, the words torn away by the vortex. But Grimdak was past caring. There was an old ork saying, he remembered, one that Razgog lived by. Not the biggest ork in the tribe, the mekboy was definitely the smartest – he wasn’t out here, for a start.

‘Bestest way to win when dere’s too many?’ Raz had once said. ‘S’called da Air Gap Teknik.’

‘Wot?’ Grimdak had asked him.

‘Air gap, clunk-brain. Da bigger da betta.’

Fink, Grimdak told himself, again.

Razgog had been right – he knew what to do. And besides, the mekboy was still in the workshop, and Grim knew the hulk – he could circle back around the mouf, back to the warboss’ chambers…

Pick up the relic. The good loot.

Warbosses came and went, but Grim… yeah, he always survived. I iz da smart ork.

Letting off a single, suppressive volley at the three figures, he made them keep their heads down.

Then he jumped, right for their position.

They swore, swinging weapons to cover him, but he was fast, deffgun or not. He broke past the bolter-figure and the crouched one with the flamer, and he just ran for it. As he did so, he heard the massive screeching creak as the railing finally gave way and Legmangla tumbled, howling, towards the vortex.

He didn’t know what had happened to Skalagrog and he didn’t pause to worry. He put his head down, and he ran.

Behind him, the figures were moving. A bolter round whisked past his ear; he heard the cough of the flamer, felt it singe his skin.

Flames chasing him down the tunnel, Grimdak made his escape.

‘Well, Sisters?’

Her armour still crackling, Sister Superior Augusta Santorus switched off the chainsword’s mechanism. Viola, despite the line of dents in her chestplate, was covering the still-whirling vortex; Caia was checking the auspex for anything else incoming. On the far side of the now-fallen walkway, Sister Alcina was down. Melia was on one knee beside her, sanguinator in hand. Akemi covered them both, but her attention was on the fleeing ork with the shoulder-mounted weapon.

‘Permission to go after the greenskin?’ she said.

‘Denied,’ Augusta said. ‘Our priority is the mission. We have one Sister badly injured, and we’re running out of time. We must locate our target. Melia, did you catch it as it fled?’

‘I believe so,’ Melia answered. ‘It wasn’t quite fast enough.’

‘Enough that we’ll know it if we see it again,’ Akemi commented.

‘Agreed,’ Augusta said. ‘I hate to leave a loose ork roaming, and we should move location before it comes back with reinforcements. Caia, do you have a lead on the relic?’

‘Report said it was in the casket on the nose of the Might in Vengeance,’ Caia said. ‘But we know the casket’s empty. I suggest we find the warboss’ hoard. If it’s anywhere…’

‘Agreed,’ Augusta said. ‘Melia, can Alcina be moved?’

‘I can move, Sister.’ Alcina’s voice was hoarse, but determined. ‘But I fear I will not be swift.’

‘Truly, the Emperor is with you, Sister Alcina,’ Augusta commented, a smile in her tone. ‘You are made of His mettle.’

With a groan, the squad’s second came to her feet, staggered, righted herself. The hole in her armour was impressive, but beneath it, Melia’s skills had stopped her bleeding.

‘He is with all of us,’ Alcina answered. ‘Now, if the holy thigh bone of Saint Finiang is here, then we had better regroup, and seek it swiftly.’

WARSPHERE

DARIUS HINKS

Zhain sneers as she approaches, looking at the mess. The trackers are hunkered on the floor, framed by a shaft of green light that slices down from a broken gantry overhead. The doorway we are standing in is constructed in the same style as the rest of the ship – crudely hammered metal that has been twisted and warped to resemble the tendrils of a plant. It feels like we are surrounded by vines or the roots of a vast, metal tree. Zhain toys with her whip as she watches the kroot eat, running a finger over the barbs.

‘Savages.’

I understand her disdain. The kroot are nauseatingly primitive. They are avian, bipedal wretches of extremely limited intellect. They are physically strong, however, and they fight without any trace of fear. It is easy to see how they have carved a place for themselves as hired guns. They have killed another sentry while we lagged behind and, by the time we reach them, they’ve already eaten half the remains. The entrance to the chamber is a mess, draped with innards and splashed with blood.

Eating is all they seem to be interested in and they invest it with an almost holy sense of ritual, screeching prayers as they cram innards into their beaks. I have never encountered a species with such a peculiar, obsessive relationship with food. They cast some pieces aside, spitting curses, then cradle others with reverence, treating them like sacred relics. They take some of the smaller bones and thread them into the quill crests that crown their heads, sniffing them repeatedly as they do so.

There isn’t much left of their prey, but from the carcasses I deduce that they were the same hulking, bestial sentries we encountered in the outer chambers. They must have broken free of restraints to attack the kroot because there are traces of collars and muzzles scattered in the gore. The ship’s guardians are huge, ferocious predators, but the kroot have made short work of them with their rifles, firing the rickety weapons with surprising skill.

Employing the kroot is demeaning. I am as repulsed by them as Zhain. But her bile feels like a criticism of me. I give her a sideways look.

‘Perhaps you think it was a mistake to bring them?’

The rest of the kabal arrive just in time to hear my words. They falter, glancing from me to Zhain, hearing the threat in my tone. They grip glaives and rifles, hunger flickering in their eyes as they sense danger.

Zhain bares her teeth in a cold smile and puts a hand on her hip, twisting her lithe form like a dancer. Light plays across the contours of her tight-fitting bodysuit.

‘Of course not, archon. Their ancestors built this wreck. Employing them as trackers makes perfect sense. Your thinking in this matter is as clear as ever.’

I stare at her, letting a tense silence play out. Every inch of her bodysuit is barbed with poison but it’s her intellect that I have to watch out for; her guile has elevated her through the ranks of her lethal sisterhood. She is dangerous. And wonderful. There is a delicious tension in all our exchanges.

I smile back, relishing the threat in her eyes, then walk on through the doorway and into the main part of the chamber. It is crowded with knotted pipework and cabling. It looks more like the heart of a jungle than the inside of a warp-capable starship. The air is blood-warm. Banks of steam roll between metal boughs, and the bulkheads are coated in rust. The link between the ship and my trackers is obvious. The barbarism of the kroot is writ large in the architecture of the place. The shapes are so ugly and confusing that it takes me a moment to realise we are on an embarkation deck. There are various landing craft picked out in the shafts of emerald light. Most of them are slumped on their sides, hulls and armour plating ripped away, exposing their insides, giving the impression of flayed carcasses. A few are still intact and they are of a peculiar, circular design, like the domed crowns of trees.

‘What did you call it?’ I say, glancing at the kroot called Grekh.

The creature looks up, meat hanging from his beak. ‘What?’ His voice is a harsh caw.

‘What, archon,’ says Zhain, toying with the handle of her whip again.

Grekh stares at her, his eyes blank.

I wave at the huge chamber that surrounds us. ‘What did you call this wreck?’

‘Warsphere. Void-city. It was woven in the highest eyries of Akchan-Kur.’

‘Warsphere.’ I study the convoluted design of the bulkheads. Every inch of the metal has been worked into knots and loops. Columns fan, treelike, to cradle a distant ceiling, and the metal branches have been moulded into totemic shapes. Hawks rise from filigreed flames, feathered gods glare at battlegrounds, talons morph into spear-tipped phalanxes. The images are ugly and crude but I see pride in Grekh’s face as he follows my gaze. He thinks I am impressed.

I almost laugh out loud. It is amazing to me that such species can take pride in anything. They are mites, burrowing through the corpse of our past glories, but they are blind to their insignificance – they think they have created a civilisation. I wonder, idly, how I will dispose of the kroot once they have led us to our goal. My first thought had been to simply gun them down, but perhaps it would be worth taking them home to the Dark City, back through the Thorn Gate. It might be amusing to study them and discern their darkest fears. To find out what would really hurt them.

‘Move!’ snaps Zhain, waving her barbed whip at the far side of the landing deck. ‘The archon has not employed you to eat.’

The kroot look pained by the idea of leaving their meal but they have enough sense not to argue, grabbing their rifles and loping off across the deck. Their quills rattle above their heads as they move and I seem to remember reading the quills are the reason they excel at tracking: they grant the kroot a kind of sixth sense that links with their other senses, making them unusually perceptive. There is a logic to it. Creatures of such poor intelligence could only have survived so long through a quirk of physiology.

I smile as we leave the embarkation deck and hurry down a series of tunnel-like companionways. My warriors rush ahead, splinter rifles trained on the shadows. I think of my enemies back in Commorragh, drunk on intrigues and games, unable to see the bigger picture, lost in the webs of Asdrubael Vect. I know they will be deriding my journey out here to the Western Reaches. They lack ambition. While they content themselves with raids on merchant fleets and trading outposts, I have set my sights on something far greater: a galaxy-wide symphony of pain and torment the likes of which no one has seen before.

Zhain notices my smile and guesses my train of thought. Her tongue plays across her lips. ‘Imagine it. Imagine what we will achieve.’

‘We haven’t found it yet,’ I remind her, but I feel the same thrill of anticipation she does. After all my long centuries of life, I am finally going to stoke the fires of my soul.

The Warsphere is home to a group of alien scholars who have unearthed the location of one of the galaxy’s great mysteries: Vaul’s Anvil. They call it a Blackstone Fortress but I know what it truly is. An implement of death and suffering wrought on a divine scale. A razor that is sharp enough to open the throat of the galaxy. A weapon so powerful that even Vect will have to bend the knee to me. I shall turn Commorragh into my palace. No one will dare speak against me when I am the master of Vaul’s Anvil. The entire galaxy will be my plaything. The possibilities are dizzying.

‘We have to find the scholars first,’ I say.

Zhain nods. ‘It’s a huge ship.’ She peers up into the tortuous metal canopy. ‘Bigger than anything in our fleet.’

‘We need only explore a small section of it. According to the kroot, the scholars inhabit the innermost spindle of the vessel. The old command chambers.’ I call out to Grekh. ‘Isn’t that right?’

He nods back at me. ‘The scholars would die on the surface. So they restarted the Warsphere’s life support. They have hidden here for decades.’ He looks up at the murals on the pipes overhead. ‘But the Warsphere was here long before the scholars came. It must have crashed many hundreds of years ago. The elders say that when it was woven in the lodges of the Nine Peaks, Vawk the Huntress herself emerged from the heavens and–’

‘How far?’ I ask. ‘Until we reach the scholars?’

The kroot stares at me, then he replies in flat tones. ‘If we could travel unhindered, an hour, but when the scholars triggered the life support they also triggered the weapons.’

‘Yes, yes. We will need to circumnavigate some defence systems. There will be a few traps. I understand.’

Grekh nods. ‘The scholars do not wish to share what they have found. They have learned the location of something important. A treasure.’ He gives me an odd look. ‘I guess it is the reason you are here. And you are not the only ones who will come looking for it.’ He waves at a blackened hole in the wall, surrounded by what looks like melted bone. ‘They are trying to flee. They are attempting to repair the Warsphere.’

The kroot look at each other, making odd clicking sounds with their beaks, and I realise that they’re laughing at the idea of someone understanding kroot technology.

I am intrigued, sensing that this might be how I eventually play with these creatures – this misguided pride in their past could be used to torment them. I pick at the idea.

‘Even a race as dull-witted as the mon-keigh should have no difficulty mastering kroot technology.’ I kick at the hole in the wall and one of the totems collapses. Avian deities fall from the bulkhead and land at my feet, their wings in pieces.

One of the kroot croaks in outrage and draws back his rifle to hit me. Despite being over eight feet tall, the kroot are surprisingly nimble, quicker than humans, but they are not aeldari. I step aside easily. The rifle slams against a bulkhead, scattering sparks.

Grekh tries to drag his companion away, but he has barely taken a step before I draw my pistol and shoot. Grekh hisses as his friend slumps in his arms, blood rushing from the wound.

I take aim at Grekh’s face, pressing the pistol’s long barrel against his forehead, wondering if the creature will be foolish enough to try and retaliate.

Grekh makes absurd clicking sounds as he cradles his dead comrade, laying him out on the deck.

I grind the pieces of broken sculpture under my heel. ‘Your culture is as primitive as your technology.’ I wave at the jungle of metal that surrounds us. ‘I’m amazed this vessel ever flew, but I’m not surprised it crashed. I suppose that is why your species only manages to endure as slaves and bondsmen. Even amongst the lower orders of life, you have sunk to the bottom.’ I lean towards him. ‘Which is why I can kill your friend and you are powerless to do anything. You are little more than cattle, Dahyak Grekh.’

Grekh stares at me with his black, featureless eyes. He tries to hide his anger but I see from the set of his shoulders and his fast, shallow breaths that I have touched a nerve. He wants to hurt me. There is definitely fruit there for the picking. I promise myself that I will keep the creature alive so that I can take him back to my pleasure theatres in Commorragh.

‘Quickly,’ I say, waving at the corpse. ‘Leave that mess where it is. We have no time to waste.’

Grekh rises slowly to his feet, gripping his rifle, still watching me. It is vaguely amusing. There’s no real danger, of course. If he tried to turn his rifle on me I could kill him, re-holster my gun and stroll away in the time it took him to take aim. But I’m interested to see what he does next. I sense that there is more to the species than I thought. Perhaps they are not entirely dull.

He turns away and nods. ‘Of course, archon.’

Zhain chuckles as the kroot carries on down the companionway, abandoning his dead comrade. She strokes my cheek with her fingernails. ‘We can have fun with that one.’

We cross a few more chambers, then as we enter a narrow, winding corridor I pause and raise my pistol. Centuries of hunting have honed my senses to a fine point, even by aeldari standards. Zhain feels the danger too, halting at my side and peering into the shadows. Grekh blunders on for a while before finally realising that there is a problem. He leaps back towards us just in time to avoid falling as the floor opens up. Metal roots fall away to reveal a sheer-sided drop into the bowels of the ship.

When the dust has settled, Zhain lashes the kroot to the floor with her whip. Grekh gasps as the barbs fill his skin with agony.

‘I thought you knew how to avoid the traps?’ she whispers as Grekh struggles to breathe.

The kroot shakes his head and manages to stand. He does not cry out. ‘No. I do not know where they are. But I know how to disable them.’

Zhain looks at me in surprise, and I nod. Most creatures would still be screaming after a kiss from Zhain’s lash. Clearly, she had not meant to kill him, but even so, the pain must be horrific.

Grekh plucks something from his armour. It looks like a canker of some kind. He crunches the shell in his beak, then swallows the contents. Then he mutters an oath and limps over to the bulkhead, peering at the shapes scored across the metal. He strokes an image of a talon and it alters as he touches it, rotating with a series of clicks. Then he removes a section of the surface, uncovering a hole. Dust billows out, along with a nauseating stink.

Grekh reaches into the hole. When he takes his hand back out I am surprised to see that he is not holding wires or a control panel; he is holding a bundle of mouldering sticks and rags. It looks like a bird’s nest. He brushes away the dry remains of insects and unrolls a charred animal carcass, wrapped in leaves and scored with various symbols. It looks like the burned remains of a rodent. Grekh snaps off some blackened bone and crunches it in his beak.

Zhain gives me an incredulous look, but I shrug. I have seen kroot navigate terrain that has confounded everyone else who made the attempt.

‘Give him a moment,’ I say. ‘The kroot have a way of digesting knowledge. They learn things from their food.’ I lower my voice. ‘It may be something we could explore in more detail back in the Dark City.’

‘They learn through eating?’ she mutters, grimacing.

‘I do not profess to understand the details. I think they absorb the essence or spirit of their food when they eat. Even the memories, perhaps.’

Grekh finishes chewing on the bone, replaces the bundle in the wall and closes the hole, but he is not quite done. He makes a low coughing sound and spits some of the charcoal into his hand; then he smears it across the image of the claw, tracing the outline. The musky smell intensifies.

‘This way,’ he says, doubling back the way we came and heading down another companionway. We move fast, dashing through chamber after chamber. The deeper we travel into the ship, the more abandoned it seems. The murals fade to shades of brown and red as the rust gets thicker. Our boots kick up ruddy clouds, as though no one has been this way for hundreds of years. Avian statues watch us from overheard, peering through the metal branches, their expressions full of disdain. An hour passes and there is no sign of a living soul, not even the bestial sentries that we encountered in the outer chambers.

‘I risked a lot for this,’ says Zhain as we run.

I glance at her. ‘What have you risked?’

‘I served Dranakh for decades. He was Vect’s favoured instrument of fear. Everyone knows it. If Vect finds out that I was behind Dranakh’s death, he will hunt me down.’

‘Of course he’ll find out. For all his faults, Vect is not a fool. One of the most skilled poisoners in Commorragh disappears on the day her master dies. I’m sure you covered your tracks very well but he will sniff you out eventually.’

She keeps her expression neutral but I can sense her fear. It is intoxicating. I have to warn myself not to be distracted from my purpose.

‘You had better be right about these scholars,’ she drawls, trying to sound unruffled. ‘They had better know the exact location of the Anvil.’

I laugh. ‘Remember, Zhain, it was you who told me about them.’

‘And it was your suggestion that I kill Dranakh before he could head out here and claim the Anvil.’

‘As I recall, you did not need much persuading.’

She glares at the mouldering statues and pipes. ‘This place stinks.’

I smile to myself, then nod at the kroot, racing ahead of us through the ship. ‘His description of the scholars corresponds exactly with the information you stole from Dranakh. That can’t be a coincidence. And why would this wreck be so heavily guarded if it were empty? The kroot have killed dozens of sentries.’

She is about to reply when gunfire rips through the gloom. Some of my warriors fall to the ground, kicked back by the shots, holes punched through their armour. Grekh dives for cover. More shots flicker through the steam as Zhain and I duck behind a statue’s pedestal.

I hear the bark of Grekh’s rifle, then nothing.

Zhain glances at me. I shrug and wave some of my warriors out into the centre of the chamber. They edge out, guns raised, but there is no more gunfire and I can sense no danger, so I march out after them, heading down a colonnade towards the opposite door, my pistol raised as I scour the shadows for signs of our attacker. I’ve almost reached the door when I see Grekh, crouched on his haunches, eating another sentry.

I pistol-whip him, sending him tumbling into one of the columns, blood spraying from his beak.

Grekh calmly wipes the gore from his beak, stares at me, then hurries on through the doorway.

We enter a chamber that is even more crowded than the preceding ones. Every column and bulkhead is covered in vine-like heaps of metal. It must once have been an armoury, but the weapons are so rusted they are only vaguely recognisable as guns. The stench here is even thicker and the air has a stale, damp quality that reminds me of a cave.

‘Are you sure the scholars live down here?’ I say, catching up with Grekh as he leads us across the chamber.

He pauses and nods. Then he reaches out to the wall, opens another compartment and takes out a bundle of rags, dead flies and meat. He flicks away some of the flies and taps the meat.

‘See? The scholars took possession of the Warsphere many lifetimes ago. They have used it to research the treasure they found.’ He chews some of the meat, looking pensive. ‘The scholars in this ship have been waiting for the right moment to leave, but now their hand has been forced. People like you have learned about their discovery so they are racing to leave. They are on the command deck, preparing to launch the Warsphere.’

I look around at the rust-covered wreckage, incredulous. ‘Launch this?’

Something moves overhead. Zhain and I both hear it.

‘Take cover,’ I say, stepping behind a pile of buckled metal.

As we all duck out of sight, the sound grows louder. It is like chains being dragged against chains and, as I peer out from my shelter, I see shapes break free from the canopy above, drifting down through the steam.

I wave for my warriors to scatter and I leap behind a column as hawks cut through the steam, diving straight towards us. They are huge, with a wingspan of nine to twelve feet and beaks longer than my forearm. They trail rust as they fall, pinions screeching. They are not living creatures but pieces of the metalwork that have sprung to life.

We open fire, filling the air with poison shards, but the neurotoxins have no effect on metal automata. They have no nerves to flay. A few of the hawks spin away, their wings damaged by the shots, but most of them crash into my warriors, punching through their armour and slamming them into the floor. The scene descends into chaos as hawks swoop down from every direction. I gun several of them down before I notice Grekh.

Rather than shooting at our attackers he is gazing at them in wonder, shaking his head and mouthing silent words. At first, he seems immune to the attacks, but then one of the hawks singles him out and launches itself in his direction. Grekh is so enraptured that he does not realise until it is almost too late that he is about to die. At the last moment, he dives clear, rolling through the gloom as the bird rights itself and soars back up into the banks of steam.

‘They’re butchering us!’ cries Zhain, grabbing my arm and yelling in my face, as if I am unaware of the massacre taking place.

I shrug her off and sprint over to Grekh, pointing at the next doorway. ‘Are the scholars through there? Is that the command deck?’

Grekh takes a moment to register my question, still staring at the metal hawks; then he nods and dashes across the chamber, waving for us all to follow.

We run through the doorway and enter another narrow companionway. The hawks try to follow but in such a confined space, they are easier to target. They thrash awkwardly and collide with each other, scattering sparks and pieces of metal. My warriors drive them back with a barrage of splinter rounds and, after another minute or so, the attacks cease.

We all pause to catch our breath, and I look around.

‘Twenty guards dead,’ snarls Zhain. ‘That leaves only ten. And half of them are wounded.’

‘How far?’ I demand, glaring at Grekh.

‘Almost there,’ he replies, chewing something. ‘Minutes away.’

I give Zhain a triumphant look and then I wave Grekh on. The corridor traces the shape of a vast ellipse. The Warsphere is a city-sized dome, half buried in the ground, but this is the first time I have had a sense that we are travelling through a circular structure.

‘We are at the centre,’ I say, glancing at Zhain. ‘The kroot is right. This is the central hub of the wheel.’

Hunger glimmers in her eyes, and she shakes her head. ‘Vaul’s Anvil. It’s almost ours.’

She means to betray me, of course. As soon as we locate the scholars and extract the coordinates of Vaul’s Anvil, she intends to poison me. She has no intention of sharing the Blackstone Fortress. She did not betray one master just to serve another. This is her bid for dominance. She has already bribed or threatened every member of my court, thinking they will side with her when she makes her move. My pulse quickens as I look at her. Keeping her at my side is like carrying a beautiful, venomous serpent. I have my own plans, of course. Grekh will ensure that only I learn the coordinates of Vaul’s Anvil. He has been briefed very carefully. He knows what will happen to him if Zhain hears more than I want her to. But even the smallest mistake will see my most potent weapon turned against me.

We have almost reached another bulkhead when Grekh halts and holds up his rifle, warning us that there is another trap. He grabs a piece of debris and tosses it down the passageway. There is a hissing sound as feathered darts shoot from the walls, clattering against the bulkheads. A new smell cuts through the Warsphere’s usual stench – an acrid, chemical tang that drifts towards us from the darts.

Grekh opens a hidden hatch in the bulkhead and takes out another one of the rotten bundles. He rearranges some of the pieces, whispers something, then replaces the bundle and closes the hatch. He waits for a moment, then throws another piece of wreckage. Nothing happens and he edges forwards, scanning the shadows for signs of movement. He rushes towards the next doorway and passes safely through.

‘Is he really using those bits of rotten meat to disable the traps?’ asks Zhain, shaking her head in disbelief.

I signal for everyone else to advance. ‘It doesn’t matter how he does it. Just be glad we have him with us.’

We pass through several chambers and companionways and, each time, Grekh disables traps in the same way, finding hatches that are hidden from everyone else and performing his strange rituals. Sometimes he just rearranges the dried pieces of meat and sometimes he eats parts, but the effect is the same and we make quick progress through the ship. I find myself increasingly intrigued by the kroot. Without him, we would have no way of safely navigating the ship. When I have finished amusing myself with the creature I will definitely order my courtiers to dissect it and see how its sensory apparatus works.

‘Here,’ says Grekh, pausing at a large armour-plated door. ‘The command chamber. The scholars will be on the other side.’ He speaks in the same, rasping monotone he always employs. He has no idea of the significance of what we are doing. He is like a child revealing the location of a lethal sword.

I reach out to turn the handle, but he holds me back. ‘They will be waiting. They will be on the other side.’

I nod and step away from the door, looking back at my warriors. ‘Tear down this door. And anything on the far side.’

Grekh, Zhain and I step aside as they launch a blistering barrage of shots. There are clangs and explosions in the chamber but no return fire. After nearly a minute of sustained fire, I wave my warriors on. They charge through rolling smoke and I race after them, my pistol bucking in my hand and my pulse hammering.

As soon as the smoke clears, I sense that something is wrong. We are on a command deck, but it looks even more abandoned than the other chambers we’ve passed through. Our shots have created points of molten heat, but everything else is layered with mounds of dust. No one has been in here for many years. There are control panels and navigational equipment, but everything is warped and rusted.

‘What is this?’ I demand, looking back at Grekh.

The kroot is not there. He is nowhere in the chamber. I dash back to the doorway and look back down the companionway just in time to see his lanky shape vanishing into the distance. I move to follow him, spitting a curse, but Zhain grabs me.

‘Wait! The traps!’ She grabs a piece of wreckage and tosses it down the corridor. There is a deafening screech as floor-to-ceiling blades scythe across the companionway, cutting through wreckage with ease. ‘Every one of those chambers was the same,’ she says, glaring at me. ‘You’ll be diced if you go back that way.’ She taps me with the handle of her whip. ‘And you will not leave me lost in this place.’

‘You’re right,’ I concede, looking back into the command chamber. ‘We will have to take another route.’

‘Another route to where?’ she spits. ‘That creature has tricked us. It has led us into a trap.’

‘That makes no sense. Why would Grekh bring us here just to lead us to nothing? He thought I was going to pay him handsomely for reaching the scholars.’

‘Maybe not. Maybe he guessed the truth – that you were far more likely to skin him than pay him. He seemed like a wily creature. And we can’t navigate this ship without him. How would we disable those traps?’

I pace around the chamber, shaking my head, refusing to accept that I have been made a fool of. ‘The scholars are here. We know they are. Why would Grekh lead us to the wrong chamber?’

‘There’s no other way out of here,’ says Zhain, looking around. The same green light that illuminated the other chambers is visible here, bleeding up through the deck plating, lighting her face from beneath and giving her a spectral appearance. ‘That is the only door.’ She pads around me, flexing her fingers.

‘We will find a way to disable those traps,’ I say. ‘I will not die in this room.’ I wave some of my courtiers over to the banks of navigational equipment. ‘Activate something. Make those things work. Find some schematics. Or something that will get us out of here.’

They leap to obey, sensing how close I am to violence.

I do not expect them to achieve anything but, after just a few minutes, one of the machines whirrs into life, a weak light spilling from its display screen. Images flicker in a silent loop. It is a fragment of time, just a few moments of footage, showing figures moving in one of the Warsphere’s outer chambers.

‘Several years old,’ I say, noticing the time stamp. ‘Find something more recent.’

‘Wait,’ says Zhain, leaning closer. ‘Look. It’s some of the sentinels that Grekh killed. What are they doing?’

I have only seen the ship’s guardians as butchered corpses, but I realise she is right – the hulking, reptilian beasts caught in the footage are the same monsters that the kroot killed when we entered the vessel. Only, there is something odd about them. They do not move as I would expect. The scaly, bulky carcasses made me think the creatures were wild animals, but the footage tells a different story – they are working carefully at something, fiddling with a mechanical device, and they are moving with a quiet deliberation that speaks of calm intelligence. The image is slashed by lines of static but I can see that the monsters are using mechanical devices – tools and machines that look to be of ingenious manufacture.

‘They are the scholars.’ My breath quickens as the truth hits me. ‘They weren’t just animals left to guard the place, those reptiles were the species we came to find. They were the ones who knew how to reach Vaul’s Anvil.’

Zhain shakes her head. ‘And those idiot kroot killed them thinking they were just the guards.’

A second, dreadful realisation washes through me. ‘No. They didn’t think they were just guards. They knew exactly what they were doing. That’s why they were so keen to eat the carcasses.’ I stare at Zhain. ‘Do you see? Grekh knows about Vaul’s Anvil. And now he will have learned its location. By killing and eating the scholars. He just used us to reach them. Now he’s left us in here to rot. He tricked me.’ My rage at the betrayal is so great that it feels like a physical pain. It takes me a moment to realise that the pain really is physical. I stumble and fall to the floor, feeling my throat crumble and collapse.

My vision blurs as Zhain looms over me, her face contorted by rage, a husk knife in her hand. She is saying something, spitting curses, but my mind is elsewhere.

All I can think of is Grekh’s blank, unreadable eyes.

PATH OF GRIEF

ADRIAN SOUTHIN

The singing spear set before Itheíul had belonged to her brother, Arsan. When her fingers drew near the haft, she could still feel the wisps of his soul imprint.

She hesitated, and pulled back her hand. Other imprints lingered, those who had wielded the weapon in the name of the serpent of Saim-Hann before Arsan. So too could she sense those the spear had brought death upon. Some, by her brother’s hand, she had witnessed personally: the choirmaster of the Glittering Host, the crude ork engineers of Galthakka, the Imperial commander on Perinese. Many more she had not. The countless deaths the weapon had delivered reverberated through its wraithbone surface.

The Path of Grief does not suit you.

The voice echoed, grounded not in the chamber, but both near and impossibly distant, like a song carried over a still lake.

Itheíul knelt alone in the small, oval chamber. The chill of the floor bit through her ash-grey robe, a simple garment devoid of ornamentation. Other than the spear and the deep-green spirit stone placed in front of her, the chamber was bare. A taper of incense suffused the room with the earthy scents of far-off maiden worlds; the thin line of smoke gently twisted about the dark walls to stretch to some unseen height. Only the soft luminescence from the infinity circuit core beyond an archway lit the room. The wraithbone in the Halls of Whispered Lament was charged. It resonated with the energy of millions of whispering aeldari souls. The voices wove into an indecipherable and unpredictable melody, notes balanced on the edge of recognition.

Hunter. Warrior. Artisan. These are what you were known to be. Always in motion. The psychic presence seemed to circle Itheíul, like a hawk judging its prey. Now you are caught in stasis, adrift in the void. You mourn that which you do nothing to prevent. To what end?

Itheíul said nothing. She brought her thumbs and forefingers together into a triangle on her lap, and began to mentally recite the Elegies of Caoinath the Lost. It was not uncommon for the spirits of seers to reach out to those on the Path. Those formerly on the Path of the Witch retained greater consciousness in the infinity circuit and, as in life, they sought to advise and guide, especially when unsolicited. Yet the Mourners were cautioned against prolonged communions. It was unsafe for the living to engage with the dead, lest they be drawn too far from the material world.

When did you last leave these halls? The question was rhetorical, an attempt to goad her to lower her guard. Even the Aspect Warriors leave their shrine and remove their masks between battles.

For all its dangers, the Path of Grief was a necessary one. The anguish of a loved one’s death could overcome any aeldari, and such unchecked emotion presented an ever greater risk. Conducting funerary rites was a small facet of the Path. The Mourners acted as a conduit for the anguish of the entire craftworld. Though loss would still keen in the hearts of those close to the fallen, the burden borne by the disciples allowed the greater whole to carry on.

Why does the spear bring you such trepidation? The spirit pressed nearer.

‘It is but a weapon. Only the enemies of Saim-Hann need fear it,’ Itheíul spoke aloud, although she knew there was no need. Thoughts and emotions were as tangible to the spirit as the walls of the chamber were to her. Her voice was soft, uncertain, the words the first she had spoken in several cycles.

Yet you refuse to even touch it.

Itheíul craned her neck upwards to stare into the dark expanse. ‘What right do I have? It belongs in the hands of a seer.’ For a brief moment she thought she saw a glimmer of golden flame far above her, though she knew there was no source for the light.

Why do you not claim such a destiny? Take the mantle upon yourself, and lead the craftworld through these troubled times.

The light beyond the chamber dimmed, the voices hushed as their attention turned elsewhere. Perhaps a seer conclave had come to seek the circuit’s counsel, or to reanimate a host of wraith constructs from the spirit stones of the craftworld’s fallen warriors, a practice that had become disturbingly more frequent. The calls for Saim-Hann’s aid grew with each passing cycle, and the Wild Host was stretched thin. But the presence’s attention on Itheíul did not waver.

‘Is that to be my fate, then?’ Itheíul eyed the tip of the spear. A soft, emerald light played at the edge of the blade. ‘To direct our kin to further death? To expend their lives against a galaxy that has already doomed our people?’

We fight so there may yet be those who live. There was a time when such fervour burned in your every step. The presence felt incredibly close now, as if hovering right behind Itheíul’s ear. No longer echoing, the words stilled in the air. What of Deniadol?

Deniadol. The Exodite world, once a verdant paradise of clear lakes and coniferous forests, was being consumed. Bilious air stung the skin. Oceans acidified and choked with dead marine life. Soil soured and trees withered. If viewed from orbit, the planet would appear as if its very colours were being siphoned away. With the skin peeled back, the tyranids had begun to feast on the marrow of Deniadol.

The Exodites had fought fiercely for their world, but the swarms quickly devoured any pockets of resistance. Raiding parties were ambushed in their own hunting grounds. Monstrosities of incomprehensible size dwarfed the megadon dragons. The Exodites’ lasblasters, despite their deceptive sophistication, could not fire fast enough to slow the ravenous swarm.

When the Serpent Hosts of Saim-Hann arrived, two days after the tyranids had breached the atmosphere, little of Deniadol remained to be saved. The undertaking was vast. The craftworld’s fleet orchestrated hit-and-run raids targeting spores swollen with tyranid reinforcements and drawing the hive’s attention before darting away. Guardian squads and support batteries established defensive cordons around the shrinking patch of aeldari territory, while scribes administered thousands of refugees flooding to the planet’s webway gate.

The Wild Rider clans rallied in a clearing before the gate. Except for the scouts and Guardians watching the perimeter, and the Aspect Warriors who held no stake in clan politics, the entire host was ringed around two circling aeldari warriors. Both were stripped to their waists and carried simple glaives. Virulent green warpaint daubed their flesh in lieu of the tyranid’s corrosive ichor. Members of clans Tyllach and Morléath whooped and cheered their champions on. Those of other clans remained taciturn, their champions already bested. Small clusters of the Exodites had paused in their migration to watch the duel, the scaled hides draped from their armour marking them as the riders of their own kind. Most of the refugees paid no heed.

‘This display is ridiculous,’ Arsan said.

‘Why? Do you believe you should be out there?’ Itheíul glanced towards her brother.

Arsan exhaled sharply and ground the butt of his singing spear into the wilting grass. The greying strands peeled away in clumps, their roots brittle. Geometric wraithbone intersected the seer’s deep-crimson robes to form runes, which mounted a green waystone. The fur of a lycabeast covered his shoulders. Unlike many of the warriors, who let the weak wind play across their hair, Arsan kept his white helmet donned, the featureless black faceplate doing little to mask his irritation.

The warlock held his chest high. Though he now walked the Path of the Seer, he would always bear the proud posture of his time among the headstrong lancers of the Shrine of the Impaling Star. Itheíul had intended to join her brother at the shrine, but the Impaling Star exarch thought their closeness a liability and refused her. She instead found guidance at the Piercing Gale Shrine of Shining Spears. The siblings spoke little of their respective experiences on the Warrior’s Path.

The Morléath champion, Iylabir, abruptly ceased circling and darted forward with a flurry of blows. Anasariel of Tyllach stepped back and replied with a low sweep that was easily turned aside, before drawing up the momentum of the redirect to strike with the pommel of his glaive.

‘Be patient, Arsan. Anasariel will not lose us the honour of first strike.’

‘There is no honour in bickering over the right to slay the fiend.’ Arsan turned away from the duel and directed his attention to the polluted horizon. ‘Honour would be to end this immediately and strike before further ground is lost. He wastes precious time.’

Itheíul could understand her brother’s ill ease. The Saim-Hann fleet maintained orbital superiority over the gate for now, but the shadows of the bio-ships pressed closer. After the craftworld forces cleared out the initial predators, the swarm had been spawning fresh numbers to reply with overwhelming force. All of the aeldari could feel the pressure of the tyranids’ warp shadow mounting in their minds. For those who had attuned their psychic potential, like Arsan, that pressure must have been agony.

‘This is more than pride at work.’ Itheíul motioned to the assembled host. ‘See the might before us? With each blow they stoke the fires burning in each of us. Are we not drawn into a unity of purpose?’

Arsan did not contest the point further, but Itheíul knew her brother’s frustration was not assuaged. The duel wore on, punctuated by the rhythmic crack of the whirling glaives meeting one another. The champions’ blows were savage, desperate even, yet lacked none of the grace of their people. An outsider might have mistaken the contest for a ritual dance, had neither warrior been out for the other’s blood. Sweat smudged their warpaint, splattering drops of green with each block and riposte.

In truth, the duel’s prize was a bittersweet honour. While the other clans would remain behind to defend the webway gate, the riders of the champion’s clan would strike out to draw the swarm into traps and hunt the synapse creatures that bound the swarm to the hive’s will. The Serpent Host knew there could be no triumph on the battlefield. The clan would be riding into the very maw itself. But their sacrifice, should the gambit succeed, would buy the rest of the eldar time to flee the maiden world. The craftworld’s seers had weighed the fates carefully and deemed this course the least costly.

Anasariel’s misstep was slight, his footwork off by the width of a blade’s edge, but enough for his opponent to press the advantage. Iylabir drove the Tyllach champion to the edge of the ring and knocked his weapon wide. Iylabir lunged forward, and a cheer went up amongst his kin. The cries were cut short – Anasariel held his glaive to his rival’s throat. A bead of hot blood ran the edge of blade. The flat of Iylabir’s weapon was pressed to Anasariel’s side, the wraithbone wetted only by green warpaint.

A clever ploy, but a risky one. In Iylabir’s eagerness to capitalise on his opponent’s mistake, he had failed to notice that each step backwards had been carefully executed to draw him in. Anasariel had never lost control. A sudden shift on the balls of his feet was enough to avoid the lunge and spin his glaive around and upwards. Had he been any less precise, or misjudged his foe’s next steps, however, the blow would have impaled him.

The champion’s kin erupted, Itheíul’s voice among them. The exultation was brief, however. The Horn of the Hunt’s bass call cut through clamour and the clan delayed no further.

The Wild Riders of Tyllach prepared for war.

Where is that fire, Itheíul? The voice brought Itheíul out of the memory-trance. The spirit had sorted through her memories of the planet with ease, forcing her to relive experiences she had tried to lock away. The acidic wind lingered with her for a moment before she took in the dry air of the chamber. She focused on the tranquil incense and waited for her heartbeat to return to resting before she replied.

‘Fervour fuelled by foolishness.’ Itheíul opened her eyes slowly. ‘I was ignorant then of the Great Devourer’s true horror.’

Yet the foe was not invulnerable. Was glory not seized that day?

‘Glory and death. Honour and loss. Bravado begets tragedy. We faced but a claw of the enemy and still could not save that world.’

Itheíul stood and began a slow circuit of the room. She ran her fingers over shallow runes inscribed into the walls. Her sight had become accustomed to the gloom of the halls, and the darkness gave her no trouble in reading the engravings. They told of gods and aeldari long passed into myth: the woes of the War in Heaven and the fall of the House of Eldanesh; the severing of the hand of Morai-Heg, the Crone Goddess of Fate; the verses of the Elthir Corannir Rhiantha, telling of the maiden whose tears for the fallen warriors of Rhidhol became starlight. Lives of the craftworld’s fallen interwove the myths, crafting allusions and informing the recountings. Some were heroes dating back to the Fall, others more recent. She paused before reaching the epitaphs carved by her own hand.

‘A tendril of a splinter killed Deniadol.’ Itheíul winced as more memories of the planet’s death broke through the barriers of her consciousness. Images of a ceaseless sea of ravenous eyes and lipless maws lashed her mind. ‘The whole of the beast will drown the galaxy.’

The Wild Host will not face doom meekly.

‘What hope do we have against such ceaseless terrors while our people dwindle?’

Fighting for survival has ever been the way of Saim-Hann, even in our days of exodus before the Fall. Hope has not seen us through. Bravery in the face of certain death, against foes numerous enough to blot out the stars and hungering for our blood, is how the craftworld lives on.

The Wild Riders crossed the orbitally cleansed badlands between the gate and the renewed tyranid assault in moments. Hundreds of Tyllach jetbikes swept over the craters and canyons rent into the earth by the bombardments. Pennants bearing the clan rune snapped in the wind from the rear of the sleek, dart-like craft. Vyper squadrons were interspersed amongst the smaller bikes, followed by the more heavily armed Engines of Vaul. Had there been anything left alive on the scorched earth below to witness the charge, the clan would have appeared as a bloody meteor shower burning across the sky.

When the horizon before them began to crawl and writhe, the host splintered into smaller kinbands, each striking out in carefully determined directions leagues apart. Potent as the craftworld’s augurs were, against the shadow of the tyranids none could divine where the tyrant would strike, so the net was cast wide. The Tyllach chieftain, Cainasairre, and his closest kin struck out towards a grouping of the largest creatures, where the shadow was thickest, for the honour of the kill was his above all others.

Itheíul rode to the right of Arsan, who led the arrowhead of their kinband. Their cousins completed their squad: Sabareth, on Itheíul’s right, whose jetbike mounted a shuriken cannon, and the ever-competing brothers Múrien and Seoladh on the opposite wing of the formation. The cousins had ridden to battle dozens of times together, their instincts honed as one.

The squad streaked towards the front lines of the tyranids. The wriggling mass resolved into thousands of individual stampeding organisms. Itheíul fought an overwhelming urge to loose her shuriken catapults. The jetbike’s weapons were far out of range, and the barrels would run dry before they could shred even a fraction of the small six-limbed things screening the assault.

And then, in a heartbeat, the windriders were above the horde. Itheíul’s auditory inputs struggled to adjust to the deafening scraping of shell on shell, the squishing of cartilaginous flesh and claws chewing the dirt. The sensors dampened the cacophony. What remained was the dimmed sound of a nest of spiders scuttling over her helmet. The tyranids opened fire without breaking stride. Gobs of corrosive fluid and semi-sentient projectiles shot skyward. The aeldari remained above the short reach of the weapons, weaving easily through the wild streams of shot.

Itheíul spotted a pack of larger tyranids amidst the rolling crush of purple chitin. They loomed above the fodder, at least twice the size of the lesser beings. Spiked crests swept back from their foreheads. They levelled forearm-fused rifles at the jetbikes, and strains of lesser creatures snapped their gazes to the riders, synchronised to the attention of their overlords. With a thought, Itheíul marked the warrior-beasts with a rune of warning on her helmet display and relayed it to her kin.

The tyranids unleashed their salvo and sent the Wild Riders into an abrupt nosedive. The riders corkscrewed through the coordinated counter-fire, and loosed their underslung shuriken catapults with a thought. The monomolecular discs lacerated the warrior-beasts. Just before impact with the ground, the riders pulled up in a parabolic arc that would have incapacitated any pilot of a lesser race. The manoeuvre thrilled Itheíul’s Saim-Hann heart, obscuring her terror with a glimmer of exhilaration.

Again and again the windriders sought out and harried the synapse beasts, and drove the tide into further rages. The swarm brought forth hulking creatures that swayed under the weight of massive cannons in response, better equipped to shoot down the speeding craft, and the riders withdrew further up the canyons. The tyranids hurtled on, too incensed to give up on their prey.

The squad angled back around in time to see plasma-blue detonations atomise the rocky terrain and shoot great plumes of dust into the thinning atmosphere. More explosions erupted over the badlands. The payloads, which the craftworld’s wayward rangers had bored into the earth scant few hours ago, tore open deep sinkholes across the breadth of the swarm.

When the dust settled, however, the sight tightened the muscles of Itheíul’s chest. Múrien gasped and Sabareth cursed through the squad’s communication link. The stampede of tyranids had come to a standstill before the precipice of the chasm. While hundreds of the smaller organisms had been caught in the blast or plummeted into the molten rock hundreds of measures below, the tide behind them had arrested the inertia of the advance in a single-minded reaction. Artillery creatures immediately began to blast at the adjacent terrain from further within the throng. With thundering cracks, the rocks fractured and started a landslide above the fissure. Hulking brutes smashed at the canyon walls like living battering rams. Debris rained from the impact sites until their carapaces snapped open, and their pulverised bodies were hauled to the chasm as further fill. Thousands of sets of eyes fixed upon the windriders, hungry and possessed of an unsettling patience.

The fluid coordination of the tyranids disturbed Itheíul, as did the suppression of survival instinct. The swarm had reacted so quickly, so effortlessly, it was as if the trap were little more than a shallow brook to be waded through.

Itheíul and her brother shared a glance. Such orchestration was beyond the ken of the lesser synapse beasts. The tyrant itself directed the hive’s will here. But faced against the squirming masses of purple and bone white, they could slay millions before finding it.

Arsan withdrew a set of wraithbone runes from a pouch on his waist. He began to chant, barely a whisper at first, words that were ancient even by aeldari reckoning. One at a time, the runes floated up and orbited around his outstretched hand. Itheíul recognised the Arrow of Kurnous – the Seeking Shaft – and the inverse rune of concealment among them. Arsan’s hand began to tremble, agitating the icons. Pain coloured his voice and his posture became rigid.

Agony lashed at the squad’s minds and each of the windriders recoiled. Itheíul felt it most keenly, the empathic link between siblings far eclipsing the typical bonds of their people. The might of Asuryani psionics warred against the staggering curtain of the tyranids’ hive mind. Arsan convulsed now, and the runes spun faster. The roars of an aeons-old sentience echoed in Itheíul’s head and she too fought to stay upright. Seoladh hove closer and reached out a hand to steady the warlock. Itheíul gestured for her cousin to halt and shook her head, although she too had never seen such a reaction. Breaking his concentration could be disastrous, and not just for the seer.

Itheíul looked to the swarm again. The steady erosion of the cliff faces had nearly filled the chasm. tyranids were already scrambling up the ruined wall of the canyon and climbing through the pit, while clouds of winged creatures hung overhead. The obstacle had been overcome in a handful of moments.

Arsan’s chanting abruptly ceased and he slumped in his saddle. Harsh panting crackled in Itheíul’s earpiece. The runes settled back to a slow circuit, all aligned towards a point far into the closing tyranid ranks.

‘There.’ Arsan forced himself back upright. He traced a line with a finger through the chitinous tide. A break in the sea of terrors resolved itself, like a trail through a dense jungle perceptible to only the most able hunter. ‘Between the scales, the soft flesh of the abomination is revealed.’

Where before the barbed limbs and slavering mouths had bled together into a single mass, the tyrant now resolved before Itheíul’s eyes. Illuminated by the faintest witch-light, the overfiend appeared in great clarity despite the distance. She felt it staring back, examining them. Just as Arsan’s runes had divined the tyrant’s position, the flare of psychic power was like a beacon to the hive mind.

‘A precise thrust will see us to the mark,’ Arsan said.

‘Should we not wait for Chieftain Cainasairre?’

‘I have alerted the seers among his retinue. They are en route, yet remain too far. We cannot allow it to move onwards. Our juncture is closing.’ Leaving no more to discussion, Arsan readied his singing spear and descended over the ridge. ‘Fly, my kin. Strike as the Saim!’

Itheíul brushed her thumb over the activation rune of her jet-bike’s handle, her force of will enough to surge her mount forward to keep up with Arsan. She drew her sabre to cut down a winged creature swooping to rip her from the saddle. A volley of shuriken from her trailing kin cut through the rest of the thing’s flight.

Streams of living munitions sprayed skyward and rebounded from the carapace of the jetbikes, while the six-limbed infantry clawed over each other to leap at the aeldari. The Wild Riders swerved through the cresting waves of tyranids, too quick for the grasping fodder intent on wresting them from their saddles. The insectile creatures blurred as the riders threaded their treacherous opening. Other beasts continued on, heedless of the kinband, driven onwards by the singular will of the hive mind.

A trio of warrior-beasts intercepted the riders’ paths. The first leapt at Arsan, throwing open four scythed limbs. The warlock swept through blades, spear humming as it lanced through the alien’s face. A second fiend loosed a volley after Arsan as he swept by. Scores of lesser creatures trailed its gaze and added their own fire to the fusillade. Itheíul swooped low and slashed at a gap between the chitin plates protecting the monster’s spinal cord, sending it seizing and firing wildly into the horde at its feet. Wind ripped the ichor from her sabre in a wide emerald arc. The third spun and lashed out with a toothed whip, but the Wild Rider was long gone. A torrent from Sabareth’s shuriken cannon silenced its frustrated shrieks.

A leviathan of three-foot-thick carapace and massive palpitating cannons waded through the tide into Itheíul’s path, each gargantuan step shaking the earth. As uncaring of the infinitesimal riders as a herd animal was of a gnat, the Bio-Titan’s mind was slaved only to the destruction of the heavy armaments defending the webway gate. Itheíul inverted her flight and manoeuvred through the tangle of its many bladed limbs. More winged tyranids detached themselves from the Titan’s underbelly, but they met only the lingering vapours of afterburn as she regained altitude to pull alongside her kin.

A shaking bellow rose above the clamouring horde moments before a spurt of incandescent flame crashed into the vane of Sabareth’s jetbike and enveloped her. Fire ravaged her body, yet the rider held on to her disintegrating mount. Sabareth unleashed a final bladestorm even as she spiralled into the press of limbs churning the lifeless dirt. She did not scream as she died, but the torment raked against the minds of her companions.

Itheíul wheeled her jetbike around and loosed her catapults at her cousin’s killer. The shuriken tore chunks from the knuckle-walking brute’s dorsal-mounted mortar. Its dripping four-piece jaw parted to bellow, but Itheíul’s salvo struck a sac of swollen flesh and the tyranid erupted into a geyser of flame and bile.

Before Itheíul could descend after Sabareth, she felt Arsan press against her mind.

+There’s no time, Itheíul, bury your grief. She is lost to us.+ The warlock accelerated his jetbike towards the tyrant. +The sacrifice will be avenged a thousandfold.+

Itheíul vowed that it would.

‘We became powerless to the deaths around us. The fallen were many, and so few spirit stones recovered. Each battle diminishes Saim-Hann greatly.’ Itheíul’s fingertips lingered on the glyph of the Cosmic Serpent, which knew all secrets, past and future. Had it foreseen the doom of the aeldari, before She Who Thirsts gorged on its blood?

You speak as if it is the whole you mourn, not one.

‘I grieve on behalf of the entire craftworld, not for myself.’ Itheíul stepped to the centre of the chamber and returned to kneeling, the tops of her bare feet flat against the cold stone floor.

So claim many on the Path.

Itheíul ignored the insinuation. ‘Each death burns like the dying of a star,’ she said. ‘It is blinding to look upon them all, and I cannot bear it.’

Does that not bring you rage? Does it not give you passion to prove the conspiring fates wrong, that the aeldari will survive?

She looked upon the singing spear again, which emitted a faint hum as she fixed her attention to it. The weapon was far taller than her, the broad blade of the spearhead itself nearly as long as her arm. Below the head were three short crossbars, an echo of Suin Daellae, the Wailing Doom, and of the grip of Khaine upon all aeldari. ‘I have no such passion left to me,’ she said at length.

It burns low, battered by the waves of Saim-Hann’s losses, but it is not gone. Find the flames before they are extinguished and you are lost.

‘I cannot.’ Itheíul closed her eyes and tried to shut out the spirit, erecting barriers around her mind, but the presence passed through them easily.

So you will wallow away the ages while the craftworld crumbles around you? You flock to that which is safe, rather than confronting the turmoil inside you. The spirit’s anger bled into reality, a sourceless flash of heat that washed away the chill of the chamber. Are their sacrifices so meaningless?

The Wild Riders punched through a knot of living tanks and fell upon the tyrant.

The behemoth towered over its horde. Barbed carapace clad its gigantic frame, hard-as-bone flesh clinging to its skeletal underbody on the few unarmoured surfaces. A bladed horn extended from its throbbing forehead, the spike nearly as tall as Itheíul, and six toxin-spewing chimneys sprouted from its back. The predator fixed a pulsating cannon at its assailants, and raised a massive chitinous cleaver and a prehensile whip that twitched at the aeldari.

A cadre of six slab-carapaced brutes stamped forward on their knuckles, parting the onrush of infantry creatures. Massive plates protruded from their shoulders, like the shell of a beetle lifted for flight, to form a wall of chitin between the riders and their quarry.

Horror gripped Itheíul by the throat. The monstrosity was not simply hideous on a physical level, but its very presence was an assault on her mind. The tyrant had been waiting for them as they broke through the cover of the swarm, the riders never passing from its inconceivably wide awareness. And yet, the rest of the tide stampeded on, their objective fixed in their collective mind. That such a vast consciousness could exist, and to see it before her, was staggering.

Arsan loosed his shuriken catapults at the tyrant, breaking Itheíul’s daze. The rest of the riders joined their fire to his. The bodyguards closed ranks around their master. Most of the shuriken ricocheted from their shells, but under the sustained bladestorm the razor discs began shredding away chunks of exoskeleton. Two of the guards crashed into the swarm, but if the others even perceived their deaths, they did not show it.

As the riders surged closer, the guards parted for the tyrant to reply with a torrent from its cannon. The projectiles grew rapidly in the air, blossoming barbed tendrils. Itheíul broke right, Seoladh and Múrien to the left, but Arsan continued straight for the synapse beast. The warlock jinked through the volley of grasping missiles and hurled his keening spear. With deceptive agility, one of the living shields reared up to intercept the attack. The blade punctured the brute’s neck and lanced through its back. Arsan accelerated past the guard to catch the weapon’s shaft even as it emerged through the tyranid’s exoskeleton, and barrelled onwards.

Itheíul swept over the head of a bodyguard. She circled back and harried it with bursts of shuriken. The thing stamped and gnashed glistening teeth at the rider as she repeated the tactic, its crushing claws always just out of reach. Her sabre raked across its carapace. With each pass, she drew the creature further from the tyrant’s side, creating openings for Arsan to strike. Seoladh and Múrien worked in tandem to harass the other bodyguards, pulling and twisting them in all directions.

Arsan weaved about the tyrant, slashing and thrusting at exposed joints and tendons. It struggled to keep a bearing on the warlock; even the genetically engineered reflexes of the apex predator offered no match for the velocity of the skyrunner. Each swipe of its cleaver, powerful enough to sunder a grav-tank, fell short. Its pincer-tip tail snapped out at him as he wheeled around its back. Arsan deflected the blow with his weapon’s haft, before skewering the beast’s lash arm with the ringing spear tip.

The overfiend oozed ichor from a dozen places. The squirming ammunition sac of its cannon had been ruptured, and the beast was reduced to swinging the limb like a club. The toothed lash hung limp. The tyrant’s posture had contracted and it slowed now, yet it kept the remaining sword defiantly levelled at the seer. Arsan flew beyond the synapse creature before looping around, spear braced under his shoulder. The warlock accelerated hard and the spear’s song grew in volume. His foe readied its blade, but the ponderous swipe had little chance of catching the seer before he struck.

The tyrant suddenly leapt into the blow, fouling Arsan’s aim and bashing the spear from his grip with its cranial blade. Its whip jerked back into motion to catch the warlock by the throat and rip him from his saddle. The jetbike spun past the beast and crashed into the swarm. Arsan clawed at the lash with one hand, but it coiled tighter to overcome the protection of the seer’s rune armour. Lightning wreathed Arsan’s empty hand and bounded towards his foe. The arcs dissipated as the tyrant roared, as if washed away by the sound waves. The screech raked at Itheíul’s mind; it felt as if something was trying to claw out of her head. The tyrant drew back its blade again, angled to decapitate and charged with the cloying psychic energy of the hive.

Itheíul abandoned her opponent and raced towards her brother. She swung her sabre down at the lash. The blade broke upon the steel-like nerves of the cord, only half-severing the weapon. The torque of the writhing tore the rest of the whip in half, yet still the scourge clung to Arsan, as if possessed of its own desire to throttle the seer. A crack punctuated the screech of Arsan’s rune protection shattering. His neck broke as the whip contracted and its teeth pierced his throat.

Itheíul’s entire being went numb.

The tyrant stood up to its full height and roared again. Gone was its cowed stance, its wounds little more than superficial. The monster barrelled towards Itheíul with staggering speed. The onslaught denied her room to manoeuvre the jetbike; to disengage would have left her dangerously exposed. It was all the windrider could do to steer her mount around its swipes, and she was now forced into desperate pitches and rolls. She fired her shuriken catapults where she could, but they rebounded from the abomination’s hide.

Itheíul spotted her brother’s singing spear beneath the trampling talons of the swarm and chanced a dive at it. She corkscrewed under a swipe of the tyrant’s blade. With her flight still spinning, she reached for the haft. Her fingertips brushed over the wraithbone, just out of reach. And yet, perhaps through sheer will, the spear leapt to her grasp. The shock of the weapon’s psychic presence reopened murderous impulses locked away after her departure from the aspect shrine. The rage of Khaine boiled away the ice in her veins as she righted herself.

The tyrant charged Itheíul again and she pulled up hard. She spiralled above it once, twice, before plummeting towards the beast. Itheíul commanded her jetbike to greater speeds. She stood and leaned forward in the saddle. Arsan’s spear began the mournful peal it was named for. Or perhaps the screaming was Itheíul’s. She did not know, for every piece of her soul was focused into the point of the weapon.

Itheíul vaulted from her jetbike a moment before the tyrant’s blade cleaved through the armoured prow. The spearhead delivered the momentum of her descent into the narrow gap between the tyrant’s misshapen skull and the shell encasing its back. The blade arrested as it bit into ropey nerve clusters, the impact jarring every joint in Itheíul’s body. She spun around on the planted haft and onto her foe’s back as the engines of her jetbike detonated.

The beast spasmed and threw back its head, trying to impale the Wild Rider with its cranial blade. Itheíul braced her feet against the bio-chimneys, just out of reach of the spike, and ducked low as some instinct warned her of the pincered tail snapping up towards her head. She drove the spear down again and again, the keening cry growing louder with each plunge. The tyrant bucked and roared, but still she held on. With a final thrust, Itheíul felt the spinal cord sever and the blade plunge into softer flesh.

The tyrant collapsed, convulsing. Itheíul leapt from the crashing tyranid and rolled as she met the ground. She did not look back to check if the tyrant was dead; the swarm’s sudden disorientation told her enough. The nearest creatures in the chittering wave simply perished from the shock of the synaptic backlash. Others ceased their stampede towards the webway gate and began leaping up at the swooping windriders. The remaining bodyguards, blinded with the tyrant’s death, rampaged and hewed apart anything within reach. Itheíul pushed through the ache in every muscle of her body and, barely keeping balance, sprinted towards the body of her brother.

Itheíul cut down the fodder that lunged towards her, predator after predator rent open by the broad spearhead. The brothers circled around her and shredded anything that sought to take her unawares. With a shout, she ran through a monster that fed on Arsan’s body, and kicked the vermin away.

The warlock’s once proud form now seemed delicate, like the bones of a fallen shimmerwing. Bloody puncture wounds ringed his ruined neck. Itheíul cradled her brother’s fragile body against her, and brought her hand to his spirit stone. Upon her touch, the mounting in the rune armour dilated and she took the gem. The deep-green stone was hot, even through the fingers of her suit. Tears burned her face. She heard voices, her name, and was dimly aware of the tyranids closing in on her. Múrien and Seoladh hovered close now, firing their catapults point-blank.

Flashes of light erupted around Itheíul. Scores of tyranids were cut down by scatter laser and shuriken fire, or were blown apart by Vyper-mounted missile launchers. Itheíul registered the silver-and-blue streaks of Shining Spears charging the largest predators, while windriders attacked the chitinous infantry. Cainasairre, chieftain of Clan Tyllach, had arrived, and those with him were among the finest Wild Riders of Saim-Hann. But to Itheíul, they had come far too late. She screamed her despair and let the world tremble.

The death of Deniadol was marked in fire. The Exodites had erected massive pyres around the webway gate, the timbers of the planet’s last trees laden with the dead. It would be their final mark upon their world, a last statement of claim to their home. The Exodites had extended the honour of their pyres to the fallen Asuryani, Arsan among them. The Asuryani regarded the corpses as little more than emptied vessels, as their souls were preserved in their waystones, but the honour was not lost on the Wild Riders.

It would be a brief time before the hive fleet rebirthed its synapse creatures and restored purpose to the swarm, but reprieve enough for the aeldari to withdraw from the maiden world and sever the webway to Deniadol. The Saim-Hann fleet would attempt to incinerate as many of the hive’s feeder tendrils as they could before withdrawing, but the tyranid swarm would leave the system glutted and regenerated. The seers foresaw its path leading into the Imperium of Man, going on to consume dozens more systems before being snuffed out, but the tendril offered no further threat to the Asuryani.

Perhaps, in another age, free of war and conflict, the Exodites might return to breathe life anew into the planet, reigniting the embers of the World Spirit left to smoulder. But if peace was to be bought at such a price, Itheíul wondered, would any of the aeldari be left to see it?

‘Saim-Hann bled for the lives of many,’ Itheíul said. ‘Yet I do not understand why you had to be first to the beast. The chieftain was so close. Had we delayed our assault–’

Honour is nothing if there is not survival, Arsan interrupted. His anger cooled, the baritone near-voice of his psychic projection settled into a tone of counsel. When I looked upon the skein, fate balanced victory upon our intervention. Cainasairre was destined to fail, and the clan would perish with him. The deaths at the gate would have been many. Such sacrifice was the only path.

‘You knew you would die?’

It was a possibility, just as there were many strands in which we would never even make it to the Devourer. As in all decisions we make, the future can change over the smallest choice. Our kin fight on across a thousand battlefields, battling so the aeldari might yet see that future.

‘Why did you not warn me? I could have acted, I could have stopped–’

I could not turn back from victory, even if such a route might lead to my death. And if that was to be the outcome, I would not let you put my life before your own. Yet now you face another kind of death.

Itheíul opened her mouth to protest, to say that any threat here in the craftworld’s heart would have been met by the entirety of Saim-Hann’s defenders, but she knew this was not the danger of which her brother’s spirit warned her. She looked down to her hands: she had taken on a ghostly complexion. How many cycles had passed since she had last seen the light of the craftworld’s artificial sun? When had she last eaten, or laughed amongst her kin?

Lingering on the Path of Grief is a slow death, but death all the same, Itheíul.

Itheíul nodded, despite the gesture’s redundancy. She leaned forward and lifted her brother’s spirit stone to her chest. Warmth still lingered, and a galaxy of light swirled beneath its glasslike surface. She stood and took the spear in her other hand, a tingle of psychic energy thrumming through her fingers. She stepped forward slowly, into the light of the infinity circuit. It was time to return her brother to the craftworld’s heart, and take the first steps along a new path.

VOICE OF EXPERIENCE

J C STEARNS

I’ve given up trying to get my xenos friends to understand the true size of humanity’s galactic population. When I speak of figures in multiples of quadrillions, there’s always an inevitable breakdown in communication where my listener assumes one of two things: either I have a faulty grasp of mathematics, or one of us has a faulty grasp of the other’s language. I’m not aware of any hive worlds subsumed into the Greater Good thus far, so to my knowledge the t’au have never actually seen the extent of mankind’s fecundity. I, however, have been to many hive worlds, and jostled shoulder to shoulder in crowds so massive that their edges couldn’t be seen by the naked eye. I have a solid grasp of the scope of humanity’s size, and consequently I understand what a monumental honour it is to be counted among the infinitesimally small percentage of that population who have stood within arm’s reach of an ethereal, and been treated as a sure and loyal friend.

‘Gue’vesa’vres,’ he said, and inclined his bald head in my direction in the slightest of bows.

My new title still felt strange to hear. Trusted human helper, translated literally – a reflection of my position on the station, the highest-ranking of the human auxiliaries aboard the Suu’suamyth. Originally the Glory of Argyre, the orbital shipyard had come into t’au possession early in the Fifth Sphere expansion.

I bowed my own head in respect. The other t’au that were present did as well. Aun’song made it easy to respect him. The ethereal was graceful and poised. After a life spent in trenches and foxholes, up to my knees in the blood of my own troops and the dismembered corpses of the enemy, his presence was like something bordering on the divine.

‘Your service to the Greater Good has been nothing less than impeccable, Kalice Arkady.’ The even curve of the low, oblong table suggested no head, but the deference of the other commanders would have made it clear who the leader was even if I hadn’t known his caste. When he spoke, the four other t’au hung on his every word. I’ve never seen anyone in the Imperium given that degree of attention out of respect rather than fear.

‘You honour me, wise one,’ I said. My T’au was clumsy, but I saw El’Ganret, the representative of the water caste, smile and give me a slight nod of encouragement.

The other three were much harder to read, but then most t’au are. They can’t be read by their faces. Their emotions are instead betrayed by secondary clues such as tone, inflection and body language.

There were no bodyguards in the room, which demonstrated a stupendous level of trust in me, although I have no doubt that all four of the representatives – most notably the dour-faced and compactly muscled fire caste commander – would have borne me down and beaten me to death with their bare hands before they allowed their ethereal to come to harm.

‘Your service honours you,’ Aun’song replied, ‘and by turn, honours us.’

In the society of the Imperium, this sort of back and forth would have been so much high-handed jaw-flapping. Honorifics and accolades hadn’t mattered much to me in those days. A campaign medal and a pretty speech from a famed general might mean something to the rank and file, but by the time I’d made lieutenant I already knew what it really amounted to: nothing. Empty words that didn’t cost the lords anything and would keep the grunts on the front lines. The t’au, on the other hand, set great store in their words. It meant something to them that we belonged, that we knew we were as much a part of their empire as they were. That integrity meant more than all the speeches in the galaxy ever could.

‘How then may I honour us further, wise one?’ These conversations, while rewarding, could also go on for a ludicrous length of time if one side didn’t move to business first, and I’d long since learned that the t’au expected a certain degree of impatience among their alien allies. Being able to save face for everyone while still moving the conversation along was one of the many valuable skills I’d developed.

The representatives looked at one another in a scattering of half-glances – the t’au equivalent of uncomfortable fidgeting. There was something that they were clearly uneasy about.

El’Ufafri, the bulky fire caste commander, I knew. His skin showed the grey pebbling along its edges indicative of old age in his people, which wasn’t terribly surprising. I knew he was one of the members of the Fourth Sphere expansion and that he had been transferred to the station to command the fire caste forces here in recognition of his many achievements. Beyond that we’d had precious little interaction, even though I was theoretically his direct subordinate. He avoided my presence and I had begun to think he might harbour ill feelings towards humans in general. Not a surprising attitude for the Fourth Sphere warriors, who had suffered hardships beyond imagining, first in their long sojourn in the warp, then again later in the years of isolation in the Nem’yar Atoll. As a veteran myself, I could hardly bear a grudge against him for the psychological scars of his battles.

The air and earth caste members of the administrative council aboard the station were almost complete mysteries to me. I’d been before the council twice before, which were the only times I’d even seen the air caste representative. Tall and willowy like the rest of her caste, she had a tendency towards brusqueness that would have bordered on rudeness in human society, but she spoke to her peers in the same manner she did to me, so I assumed it was a trait of her culture rather than a reflection of her views towards aliens. The earth caste representative and I had met a handful of times on the station since most of the humans aboard worked as engineering labourers that operated under the earth caste’s jurisdiction.

‘You are familiar with the collapse of the loading ring yesterday?’ Por’el Ganret was by far the most familiar of the advisory council which served, for most purposes, as the ruling body of the space station. I knew there was an ethereal council of indeterminate membership as well, although they rarely interacted with the rest of the facility and only occasionally chose to issue orders to the advisory council. At least, that was the image which was maintained.

‘I am,’ I said. ‘Seven people were killed, unfortunately.’ Six humans and a t’au. I was not only familiar, I’d signed the mortifaction notices for the deceased personally. I could still remember each of their names.

‘A great and sorrowful loss,’ said El’Ganret. I believed him. Like all of the water caste, his face had a much greater range of expression than was usual amongst the other t’au – a trait that made him far more relatable. The sympathy on his features was genuine, which I appreciated. ‘Of even greater sorrow is the truth – it was not seven, but seventeen who perished. A further ten members of the earth caste were immolated when the ring was destroyed.’

I was shocked, but the rest of the council didn’t react. Clearly this was information they were already aware of. Transparency wasn’t a huge virtue for the t’au, which I suspect is a commonality in leaders the galaxy over. Outright falsehoods, however, were comparatively rare and it was enough to take me aback. Surely there was a reasonable explanation.

‘Nor is this the first accident,’ said El’Ganret. ‘The engine failure on the Dawning Eye did not claim an empty ship through an autopilot misfire, as has been publicly reported. There were twenty-two t’au aboard the vessel when it broke from its trajectory and exploded.’

‘You suspect sabotage.’ It wasn’t a question. The pieces were all there. Two accidents were a coincidence, but I immediately began to recall others. ‘The pressure failure last month on deck twenty-one? The air regulation malfunction on the departing cruiser before that?’

El’Ganret nodded gravely. ‘Beginning with the toxicity-driven food shortage two months ago, yes.’

I was troubled that I’d heard nothing and angered that someone had struck out against us in this way, but not horribly surprised. The gue’vesa who had accompanied the Fifth Sphere fleet from the t’au homeland to the Nem’yar Atoll were drawn from many human communities, some of which were recent additions to the T’au Empire. Misguided Throne loyalists were something to be expected: those that were too indoctrinated into the Cult Imperator to accept the Greater Good, but unable to escape before their worlds had joined the empire. Such malcontents often kept their heads down and most eventually saw reason, but they sometimes formed small resistance cells that could prove a nuisance to fleet operations.

‘You suspect humans.’ That wasn’t a question either. The council had reported the human deaths while downplaying the t’au ones. They were refusing to give the terrorists any attention for their actions while doing a damn fine job of making it appear that the sabotage was doing more harm to their own people than to the t’au.

Aun’song gave a slight nod.

‘Quite.’ El’Ganret nodded again, smiling at me as though I were a particularly bright scholam pupil. ‘Given your military background and your position among the humans, we believed it would be in our best interest to have you spearheading the inquiry. If it should come to light that we’re investigating the gue’vesa population, it will ease tensions to have a human trusted by both sides asking the questions.’ He glanced at Aun’song, who nodded again. ‘We also feel that it would do well to show the other species aboard the station that you have our full trust as well. To this end, we’ve authorised jidan protocols for the duration. Your mandate will be in effect until all of the saboteurs have been brought to justice.’

‘Make no mistake, Kalice Arkady, a swift resolution to this matter is required.’ El’Ufafri’s voice was soft and high, at odds with his martial appearance. ‘Each successive attack has escalated in severity. If one of these attacks were to reach a station commander, or one of the ethereals, the effect on station morale and operations would be catastrophic.’

He reached beneath his robes and then leaned across the table to set a pulse pistol in front of me. I nodded, swelling with importance. Jidan, or the bearing of live weapons outside of a military theatre, was an honour rarely accorded to anyone not of the fire caste. This was a tangible, visible reminder of the respect that I was being granted.

‘I am honoured to serve,’ I said.

‘We are honoured by your service,’ El’Ganret replied. He bowed his head. ‘Your liaison will meet you shortly.’

I paused for a moment, then stood and bowed myself, recognising a dismissal when I heard one. I’d never worked with a t’au in a position of equal partnership before. The idea was exciting.

I smiled as I left the administration chamber. Formerly an officer’s lounge, it was positioned high up within the station, elevated above the lower decks. The large windows had been kept phase-tinted when the station was under human control so that the overseers could see the labourers on the assembly bay floor, but not be seen themselves. The t’au, however, kept the windows clear so that those working below could see their leaders hard at work as well.

The small mag-lift up to the chamber had been replaced with a short staircase, which was the source of my constant amusement whenever I was summoned there. Built by earth caste members, the stairs had been designed with ungulate feet in mind which meant the steps were shallow and steep and always left my calves aching. Plantigrade staircases were uncommon in the T’au Empire.

A water caste t’au was waiting for me at the base of the stairs. A small drone, no larger than my hand, hovered over his shoulder.

‘They should be ready for you, friend,’ I said.

He shook his head. ‘No, oru’vesa,’ he said, bowing. ‘They have already seen me. I am to be your liaison.’

I smiled again, processing the information. I had anticipated working with a fire warrior, perhaps even one of the honoured shas’vre, but of course they had paired me with a member of the water caste. This mission was more social than it was military, after all.

I bowed and he extended his hand, giving me a broad grin that was quite uncharacteristic of the t’au. He was on the short side even for a member of the water caste, but as I shook his hand I could feel a compact, wiry strength. He didn’t wear the robes customary among t’au civilians, eschewing them for a pair of pale, loose trousers, a simple tunic and a vest that had been embellished with spiralling beadwork in blues and reds.

‘Captain Kalice Arkady, commander of the Follaxian 113th Irregulars. Order of the Adamant Tread, awarded the Heart of the Crown on Syndythos, bearer of the Crimson Skull.’ I didn’t have to give him a full list of my names and honorifics, but what would seem laughably formal among human society was considered polite to my t’au friends, and I was always willing to take the extra moment to show them that I had a basic grasp of their culture. ‘Arkady to her friends.’

My new partner nodded, his lips pursed. ‘Very excellent. I am Por’ui Fi’rios Kau’kartyr. I am accustomed to being referred to as Kartyr by my human friends.’

‘Kartyr, then. Do you have much experience with this sort of thing?’ His XR-0 drone drifted around me in a loose, slow spiral as I spoke, recording my appearance, voice and other personal details for its records. I stood still to make its task as quick as possible.

‘I have some,’ he said, ‘although I have always before been stationed on worlds where t’au made up the bulk of the population.’ He hesitated. ‘But I am a kar’tyr, a hunter of justice. This will not be my first investigation.’

I nodded. He wasn’t what I’d expected. I knew the t’au had to have some form of law enforcement – military law breeds resentment in civilian populations, after all – still, I had never seen a t’au prison or heard them reference criminal codes. A criminal investigator he might be, but I had no idea what form that would take. He could occupy the same role as an inquisitor for all I knew, or he might be nothing more than the equivalent of a street-level enforcer. There was no telling.

‘I suggest we begin by examining the records in the station’s database and investigate any personnel with a history of disciplinary infractions.’ He gestured towards the hall that would take us to the datacore, but I shook my head.

‘I understand where you’re coming from,’ I said, ‘but that would not be productive. The workers with disciplinary infractions under the Imperium would have been punished for things like duty dereliction, or theft of materials for, say, distilling liquor. At best, the ones prone to fomenting rebellion would have been the citizens most likely to have embraced the t’au.’

‘What would be your suggestion?’ Kartyr smiled in a way I found slightly patronising.

‘The materials used in the sabotage are similar. I think we’ll get a better result if we try to find out where they came from.’ I smiled back, trying to be as diplomatic as possible. ‘If we’re seen to be tracking the materials it’ll look better. If we’re just interrogating humans as our first step it would be ammunition for the saboteurs to convince people that the t’au see humans as problems to be managed, rather than the partners we are.’

‘Ably reasoned, I suppose. I would be honoured to allow you to take the lead, of course.’ He bowed his head to me and I couldn’t help but nod back. The politeness of the water caste was infectious. Rogue traders, planetary governors and even certain inquisitors could be persuaded by their charm. Still, his word choice irked me somewhat. It was possible he was just being overly formal in the way his people tended towards, but I couldn’t shake the possibility that he was intentionally trying to establish which one of us was really in charge.

Kartyr had only recently arrived in the Nem’yar Atoll, and so we made small talk as we wound our way through the station, exchanging news from both of our sides of the galaxy. I made a point of greeting many of the human labourers we passed – it was important to me that we didn’t appear insular or segregated. The more of us seen to be socialising with the t’au, the better. If he was half as perceptive as the water caste was supposed to be, he’d take to heart how much esteem I had from the human population on the station.

The void docks of the Suu’suamyth berthed a sizeable number of vessels – and even more patrolled around us in a bristling net of defence, either awaiting repairs or freshly refitted and awaiting orders – but many of the large segments and components had to be worked on within the massive assembly halls. The bigger bays could accommodate large sections of spacecraft, even small ships in their entirety. In each bay, dun-clad earth caste t’au laboured alongside human work crews to keep the fleets in the Nem’yar Atoll in top shape. The bays were a chaotic mélange of sights and sounds, filled with spitting fountains of sparks from welding drones, the ringing of metallic grinding and hammering and the roar of voices shouting to one another over the din.

‘Where are we headed?’ Kartyr finally asked, as we ventured from one assembly hall to the next.

‘Visiting a friend,’ I replied.

There were any number of areas along the assembly bays that had been vacated when the station had changed hands. Corporal punishment stations for flagging workers, shrines to the Machine-God of the Adeptus Mechanicus, overseer posts – all had been pulled out to make way for more sensible installations when the t’au had taken command.

Treshom’s shop had been a shrine, I was certain of it. Wax stains still crusted the corners of the room, and there was a scent of incense so thick that I didn’t think it would ever be expunged. Even though the trappings of the tech-priests’ worship had been removed, the shop remained a bastion of human culture. Thick chains hung from the ceiling in looping arcs, engineering tools clipped to them in a display of the machinist’s wares. Old engine blocks and gearboxes had been dragged in to serve as makeshift furniture. Half-assembled parts were scattered about the place, many covered in rust or grease.

‘Captain!’ Treshom was leaning over a disassembled clutch drum. He snapped upright and fired off a crisp salute. ‘Fancy seeing you down here.’

During the decades of blood and fyceline, Treshom Lan had been one of my finest sergeants. In the years since, he had discarded the sharp, disciplined image of the Militarum and had slowly returned to the garish, individualistic appearance of Follaxian society. He was lean and knotted, like an adamantine skeleton wrapped in grox jerky. His hair was long, and as filmy with grease as his tawny skin. While his hair was shaggy, his moustache and beard had been oiled and shaped into loose, spiralling curls.

‘Sergeant,’ I said, smiling. I gave him a haphazard salute in return, wondering if Kartyr would find the gesture odd. ‘We wanted to ask you a few questions.’

At that, Treshom noticed Kartyr standing behind me. He didn’t turn aggressive, but I saw his smile stiffen. There was still a sense of vague unease between some members of the human and t’au populations. It was saddening to see Treshom affected so.

‘We?’ he said.

‘I am Por’ui Fi’rios Kau’kartyr,’ my companion said, smiling broadly, ‘although humans call me Kartyr.’

Treshom looked at my companion, then back at me. ‘What can I do for you, captain?’

‘We wanted to know if you had seen anyone come in looking for magnetic decouplers,’ I said. The loading ring collapse had been caused by a faulty decoupler, and the component was vital in creating makeshift plasma bombs, the kind that had claimed the Dawning Eye.

Treshom shook his head. ‘Can’t say I have, captain.’ He cast a sidelong glance at Kartyr. ‘The blues don’t use ’em for anything, so they’re a scrap part, but they’ve got enough palladium in them that the earth caste melt ’em down for their own use.’ He produced a rag from his back pocket and began wiping grease from one of the parts on his workbench.

I frowned. ‘Have you heard anything about someone looking for them?’ Treshom wasn’t looking me in the eye, and his suspicion towards Kartyr was making my hackles rise.

Another head shake. ‘No, captain. Haven’t heard anything.’ He looked up. ‘Do you want me to vox you if I do? Do you need one for something?’

‘Let me know, definitely, if you hear of anyone scrounging them up.’ He was clearly fishing. ‘There’s no cause for alarm, though.’

‘The Bountiful Herald has suffered battle damage to its targeting arrays,’ Kartyr said. ‘There’s a shortage of palladium components to repair them, so we’re just reaching out to anyone who might be able to contribute.’ He smiled. ‘For the Greater Good.’

His deftness was amazing. In one swoop he’d delivered a convincing lie and played himself up as a cow-eyed sycophant, definitely not a threat to any malcontents who may or may not be part of the conversation.

Treshom nodded. ‘Will do, boss, will do. Bet it.’

We thanked him and left, Kartyr following my lead as I circled us around into the unused side halls. The rusted, abandoned segments would be repurposed at some point, but the resources of the Fifth Sphere fleet were limited, and some projects weren’t a top priority.

‘Do all of the gue’vesa refer to you by your human rank?’ asked Kartyr as we walked. An innocuous enough topic for conversation.

‘Only the Follaxian ones,’ I said. ‘There aren’t that many of them on board, though.’

‘Surprising, given how many followed you.’

I’d heard that praise before. It was true enough; when I’d joined the Greater Good I’d taken nearly my entire company with me. Losing one hundred and nine defectors at a stroke had been a huge blow to Follaxian morale, and our arrival had been a massive coup for the t’au forces.

‘Human ranks aren’t given a great deal of priority now,’ I said. ‘But for the Follaxians who followed me, it’s a point of pride. We’ve been through quite a bit with one another, and it’s always good to see a kinsman.’ Unfortunately, the t’au had not kept the 113th together; the company was now scattered across the empire. Their combat expertise made them highly valued assets, but I could count on one hand the number of times I had met my old comrades, especially since crossing to the Nem’yar Atoll.

I stopped. We’d gone far enough. The only sounds this deep in the unused portion of the station were the groans of metal shifting in the void and the plink of fluids dripping from poorly maintained conduits. There were none of the improvements of the t’au here: no rounded corners, no plasticised facades, no low-input track lighting giving a uniform illumination. The halls were a mess of cold, unforgiving steel, pipes winding through one wall and across the grid-work of the ceiling, and the ever-present images of leering skulls and arrogant aquilas on every wall.

‘Is there another contact of yours down here?’ Kartyr asked innocently.

I stared at him, unsure of whether he was being sarcastic or not. Sarcasm wasn’t a typical t’au trait, but I’d seen enough surprising turns of behaviour from the water caste that I couldn’t be certain.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Did that interaction seem odd to you?’

He shook his head. ‘I can’t say that it did. Did it to you?’

‘Definitely,’ I nodded. ‘Treshom is hiding something. You put him on edge just being there, and the minute we started asking pointed questions, he started trying to avoid giving us straight answers.’

Kartyr nodded. ‘I see. Do you wish to have him detained?’

‘Not yet.’ I frowned. Detention without cause was a trait of human law enforcement, and one I’d hoped not to see repeated under the t’au. ‘Treshom’s place has a vox-link in it, and it was never walled over like in most of the t’au-occupied parts of the station. I’d like to see if we can find another vox-unit. If I’m lucky, I might be able to wire it to listen in on Treshom’s shop. It’s a long shot, but I might be able to make it work.’

We set off through the abandoned halls, guided by a map of the station I had requisitioned using one of the small wrist pads that the t’au used for minor data uplinks.

‘Your investigative abilities are to be commended,’ Kartyr said. ‘Did you acquire them in your time with the Inquisition?’

I paused and gave him another look. The question was innocuous and his demeanour didn’t suggest any suspicion or malice, but again, with the water caste one could never tell. He’d clearly read up on me, but if he was trying to work some information loose that I hadn’t previously disclosed he was out of luck. I’d already told the t’au everything I knew.

‘I don’t know where you get your data on me from,’ I said, ‘but it’s got a few errors in it. I never worked for the Inquisition.’

‘My apologies. Your file indicates that you operated as an adjunct of actions ordered by your Inquisition on numerous occasions.’

I nodded and waved my hand uncertainly. ‘Somewhat. You’re right that the Follaxian 113th got sent into action by the Inquisition on more than one occasion, but to my knowledge I’ve never even met an inquisitor. So, to answer your first question, no. By the time my Irregulars and I got our boots on the ground, the investigation was already over and it was time to start shooting things.’ I paused. I didn’t want him to think I was prevaricating. ‘Given how often we fought ’stealers and cultists and the like, I think it’s reasonable to guess that someone in my chain of command was friends with an inquisitor or two, but if there was such a connection, it was way over my head and I never got looped in.’

‘This seems like far enough,’ said Kartyr, as we turned into yet another hallway.

‘We’re still a way from a master vox-unit,’ I said.

The t’au investigator shrugged. ‘True, but we don’t necessarily need it. We already have a listening device in the room.’ I stared at him and he cocked his head as if waiting for me to pick up on some hidden clue. Finally, he smiled smugly. ‘Have you not noticed that my XR-0 drone is no longer with us?’

I scowled. ‘You had your drone hide in the shop? Why the hell didn’t you say something earlier?’

‘We couldn’t very well just sit in front of his door listening to what was transpiring inside the shop, could we?’ He was tuning his own wrist pad, trying to find the XR-0’s frequency. ‘We needed to loop around the halls until we reached a location that was close enough to pick up the drone’s signal but still beyond public view.’

I sighed. It was sensible and a good bit of investigative work. It would have been easy to have the drone slip under a table while we were talking. I was surprised I hadn’t noticed its absence earlier. Still, the t’au habit of withholding information until it was absolutely required was irritating, especially from someone who was supposed to be my partner.

‘Here we are,’ he said, as his wrist pad caught the signal.

‘…not something we need to be concerned about.’ I didn’t recognise the voice.

‘Are you certain?’ Treshom sounded worried. ‘I swear that blue bastard knew more than he was letting on. You should have seen the way he looked at me.’

I glanced at Kartyr. If he was discomfited, he didn’t show it.

‘I’m more worried about your former commander working so closely with them,’ the unknown voice said. ‘I thought you were going to try to work her.’

‘I said I’d try if the opportunity presented itself,’ said Treshom, ‘but it’s not like I can just waltz into the upper levels for a chit-chat. The hoofies don’t let us up there.’

‘Of course not. They want to make sure that they’re never out of sight and never within reach. Always watching but never listening. It’s all part of the design.’

The unknown voice’s words sickened me. None of what he was saying was true. More than the lies and twisted interpretation of facts, it was that he was pouring this poison into the ears of my own comrades that revolted me. What had he already convinced Treshom to do? If they hadn’t been discovered, what more might they have convinced my old friend to do?

‘If they’re on to us, though, we may need to arrange an accident to distract them. The polymer engineers that transferred in from Dalymar would be good dupes. They’re third generation t’au sympathisers, so they’re about as indoctrinated as it gets – we’re never gonna get any of them.’

I held my breath, hoping that Treshom wouldn’t go along with such a grotesque plan.

‘How do you want to do it?’

I ground my teeth in frustration. I had to wonder how long this had been going on.

‘They’ve got hull-side quarters. It’ll just take a single vacuum charge to space the lot of ’em. We plant some heretical icons on them and the blues will chalk it up to deranged humans. The charges are easy enough for anyone to operate. Here, see?’ Whatever device the unknown speaker had activated must have generated some manner of interference, because the audio link to the drone faded out.

I shook my head, my blood running cold. I’d seen more than my fair share of callous battle plans in my day, but seldom with so much malice from one human directed to another.

‘I take it that’s sufficient cause to detain them?’ I asked, my voice husky with grief.

Kartyr shrugged. ‘We’re investigators empowered by the ethereal caste to look into this matter. Our word alone is sufficient cause to detain them.’ His nose slit rippled slightly, an expression I’d come to recognise as a sigh or shrug. ‘If you’re asking if I think my judgement is that we should detain them, then I’d concur with you that we’ve found our primary suspects.’

I started back the way we came, cutting out some of the superfluous turns I’d made on our initial walk. I keyed into the t’au computer system with my wrist pad, instructing the security system to lock down Treshom’s door and alert me if anyone tried to open it. Kartyr tapped his earpiece and requisitioned backup for us.

‘To his credit,’ Kartyr mused as we walked, ‘the malcontent is correct. Our knowledge of the religious sects that the Imperium considers heretical is limited. If we’d found such iconography among the engineers’ voided quarters it would have been mystifying as to how they had been indoctrinated, but the investigation would have completely shifted to their previous associations. We wouldn’t have brought scrutiny back to this station for quite a while.’ He pursed his lips. ‘Quite devious.’

I shook my head. Trust was such a freely given commodity in t’au culture that it was easy for malcontents to prey on. On a human station, such a gambit would only have been a minor distraction for most investigators, easily disproven.

‘Is there any truth to what he said?’ I asked, casting a sidelong glance at Kartyr. ‘Am I unique in my access to the t’au commanders?’ What Treshom and his conspirator had said troubled me. I’d always been given to understand that the officers of the station were willing to hear anyone with a grievance or concern.

Kartyr shook his head. ‘Of course not. There will always be a certain amount of encouragement towards a task hierarchy, of course. Line workers would be expected to speak with their supervisor before addressing a problem directly to their caste administrator, for instance. But in cases of exigency, the administrators would never begrudge someone the opportunity to address a problem to them.’

If the hulking, faceless fire warriors I’d seen guarding the higher levels were any indication, I wondered how open the administrators really seemed to the common labourer. A perception of inaccessibility might be as effective a deterrent as an actual policy of isolation. Even better, because then you could claim there was no official policy preventing the lower workers from addressing their higher-ups.

I narrowed my eyes and dropped my hand to the comforting grip of my pulse pistol. This was exactly the kind of insidious logic that Treshom’s co-conspirator was using to convince people to betray their t’au benefactors. I wasn’t about to fall prey to it.

We swung around a hall and back into the noisy open air of the assembly bay. I nodded towards Treshom’s door. The team of fire warriors we’d called were arrayed outside by ranks, knelt in a ring. They nodded as we approached, their pulse carbines trained on the portal.

‘Here we go,’ I said. ‘They haven’t tried the door yet. You ready?’

Kartyr nodded. ‘Of course.’

I pulled my pistol and checked the safety, then noticed Kartyr’s empty hands.

‘Are you unarmed?’ I asked, incredulous.

‘I don’t ordinarily carry a firearm, oru’vesa,’ said Kartyr.

I tapped the pad to open the door. It hissed upwards, exposing the inhabitants, who gawped at us in surprise. To my own surprise, there wasn’t one additional person inside – there were three. Startled, Treshom stepped back from the workbench he had been leaning on, scattering various documents over the floor. A man in a ragged Astra Militarum uniform stood next to him, his eyes the only visible part of his face above the makeshift cloth mask he wore. Another man was stood to the side, clad in the dun robes that were common in t’au septs, a flat-topped cap pulled low over his face. Lastly, a burly woman shielded them all, by presence if not design. She had been standing with her back to the door when it had gone up and now found herself at the forefront of their group. The mining coveralls she wore were dirty and streaked with grime, but had been augmented with small plates and jack-chains – common additions in prison work-gangs, fringe worlds or anywhere else labourers expected to encounter violence on a daily basis.

The woman turned to stare at us. They all stared.

‘By the authority of the council, the four of you are hereby subject to arrest and detention,’ I said.

Before I could speak another word, the woman dropped to all fours and lunged. I don’t know if it was her sudden shift to a feral posture, or if the fire caste were trying to avoid hitting us with friendly fire, but they didn’t get a single shot off before she bulled her way through Kartyr and me and was on top of them.

I dropped to a knee, trusting the fire warriors implicitly to handle the miner. Treshom stood awkwardly, halfway between putting his hands over his head and looking for a weapon. The robed man pulled two autopistols and I shifted my attention to him.

He tried to move to the side, firing off a stream of shots in my direction, but I didn’t flinch. I’d knelt behind sandbags in the face of bolter-fire from lines of Traitor Marines; his ill-disciplined snap shots were of no concern. I breathed, picked my shot and fired. A single, scintillating pellet of plasma energy streaked out from my pistol, catching him in the upper chest, and the robed man’s run turned into a boneless collapse to the ground. The autopistols skittered away.

I turned back to the workbench in time to see the masked man flying through the air towards me. I swore. I’d assumed he’d duck back or have been forced to come around the bench to get to me. Instead, he’d leaped like a haran-cat and I was forced to throw myself forward in an ungainly roll.

My quick reflexes saved my life and I heard him slam to the decking behind me. I came to my feet and spun, hoping against hope that Treshom had just enough loyalty left in his traitor’s soul that he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to shoot his captain in the back.

The masked man snarled at me in the doorway. Behind him I could see the t’au desperately struggling with the huge miner woman. There was bright blood flying through the air every time she struck, as if she had a bladed implement concealed in her thick work gloves. The fire warriors were splitting up, peeling away to surround her in a killing circle. I had just enough time to see the manoeuvre before my own quarry forced my attention back to him.

He darted towards me, hunched down like a carnisimian, his hands outstretched to grab at me. I battered his grasping fingers away with a crowbar, only mildly surprised that I had picked the implement up in my free hand during my scramble. The dual-wielding fighting style that the Astra Militarum drills into its commanders is a powerful thing. Although the t’au actively discouraged their officers from wielding melee weapons, instinct forced me to default back to the old and the familiar.

He lashed out again, his hands held in an open, clawed position like a swooping raptor. The crowbar was sufficient to keep me at reach and beat away his grubby hands, but I knew I wasn’t going to beat him in a close-quarters fight; that had never been my strength. As he came on, I ducked to the side and fired another pulse shot at his face.

His reflexes were insane. He moved with the speed of a trained assassin, hurling himself down and into a low spin that took him away from me, but spared him the instant death of a plasma round to the mouth. Still, my shot had been on target and he had barely dodged it. As he squared up with me again, I saw that my shot had torn his mask from his face and left a ragged burn on the right side of his head.

‘Oh, Throne!’ yelled Treshom, his voice a wail of abject panic, and I could see why.

The man’s face was a horror. Sloped, angular cheeks fed into a mouth that was brimming with mandibular, insectoid fangs. Chitinous ridges dotted the chin. My eyes narrowed in disgust, I’d seen such monstrosities before.

‘Genestealer,’ I snarled.

He roared in rage and came at me again. All pretence was gone. A second, smaller set of arms tore loose from his tunic and he pressed in on me, ignoring the crowbar and trying to bear me to the ground for a flurry of attacks.

I smashed his grasping claws away, but I was being bent backwards and felt my knees hit the deckplate. I tried to get my pistol up to shoot him in the gut, but he had my wrist in an iron grip. I saw Kartyr’s face appear over the bastard’s shoulder, a heavy spanner hefted overhead. He smashed it down on the genestealer’s back to little effect beyond annoying him. The ’stealer elbowed the t’au, who fell away with an awkward squawk. However, the distraction had loosened my enemy’s grip on my wrist, and I took the opportunity to drain three rounds into his torso.

The genestealer slumped to the side and I staggered to my feet. I had a few small cuts, but nothing life-threatening. I cast a quick glance at Treshom, who was still staring in horror at the revealed face of his xenos ally.

I rushed to Kartyr’s side. The t’au was struggling to get to his feet, woozy from the blow to his head. Blood stained his scalp and he was snorting, trying to clear his nasal slit of fluid.

‘I’m fine,’ he burbled. He pointed towards the door. ‘Help them.’

I rose and lifted my pistol, but by the time I had swung out into the bay the fight was all but over. Two of the fire warriors were lying on the decking, clearly beyond help. Another was slumped against a bulkhead trying to staunch his own bleeding torso. The rest had gained the distance they needed and before I could act, they opened fire. A coruscating fusillade of pulse-rounds tore into the miner, who jerked, suspended in the air by the impacts before finally falling to the ground.

As soon as the last enemy fell, one of the fire caste lowered his weapon and rushed to his injured comrades’ side. The rest spread out, checking the bodies of the fallen to see if their allies could yet be saved and to ensure their enemies were well and truly dead.

A team of earth caste t’au, their shoulders emblazoned with the black patches that signified medical personnel, arrived moments later. The fire warrior medic switched places with the specialists and joined his team in sweeping into the shop. I started to follow them, but two of the medic team flanked me and began inspecting my throat, arms and ribs. The leader took a blood sample from me, immediately testing it with a handheld device, presumably to see if I’d been infected.

The fire warriors emerged moments later with Treshom. The saboteur’s hands were bound to his waist by a restraint belt, but he seemed in no shape to resist. His face was deathly pale, eyes wide with shock. His mouth moved wordlessly, reciting a silent prayer over and over. Kartyr followed, cradling his head with one hand. Dark blue bloodstains covered his face and vest, the latter also streaked with red.

‘Are you okay?’ I asked.

Kartyr grimaced. ‘I am told I have a minor bone injury which offers no significant impairment. I have sustained far worse in my career.’

I felt ashamed. ‘I’m sorry, Kartyr. I should have realised we were dealing with genestealers earlier. You nearly got killed because I didn’t make the connection.’

‘I am also aware of the existence of genestealers, Kalice Arkady.’ He winced. ‘There is no fault here which we do not share equally. To be truthful, I’m surprised you are not more proud.’

I shook my head. ‘Of what?’ I hadn’t done anything especially noteworthy.

‘Within the first two hours of our partnership there has been a firefight, five casualties and I have suffered a skull fracture.’ He grinned. ‘By human standards, that is a very successful first day, no?’

I snorted in laughter, an action my aching throat immediately made me regret.

‘If you’re well enough to be making jokes,’ I said, ‘then I suppose you’re well enough for us to go and report to the council.’

‘Were you able to recover any actionable information from the fallen?’ Aun’song stared at us over steepled fingers. His face was the perpetually impassive mask of the t’au, but Kartyr’s stiffness told me that the ethereal was less pleased than he might have been.

‘No, wise one.’ I’d spent an entire career delivering bad news to superiors, and as far as I knew I’d done nothing less than my best. I had nothing to be ashamed of. ‘The two secondary conspirators, identified in station records as Arna Quayde and Dovindar Senmurtha, were slain. The one that injured Kartyr, Lystronne Weagan-Hulls, survived for another two hours, but died of his wounds before yielding any useful information.’

The ethereal stared at us, then sat back in his chair, nodding. The other commanders leaned over towards him, whispering amongst themselves.

‘We regret the loss of lives,’ said Aun’song after a moment, ‘but commend you on your excellent investigative skills.’ He gave me a curt nod. ‘We would be honoured to have you resume your regular duties.’

I blinked, not quite sure I understood what I was hearing.

‘Honoured one,’ I said, slowly, ‘I’m afraid that the issue isn’t yet resolved.’

Beside me, Kartyr cleared his throat.

‘Do you agree, Ui’Kau’kartyr?’ Aun’song steepled his fingers again.

Kartyr’s legs tensed – a sure sign of apprehension in his people. ‘I do not wish to contradict the wisdom of the honoured Aun’song,’ he said, ‘but, I would be remiss if I did not make certain that I had presented all of the facts for your consideration. Lystronne was the ringleader of this group, according to the human, Treshom. However, he had not even arrived on the station when the food storage facility failed. As we have identified this as the first act of sabotage – and we know he could not have facilitated it – it then logically follows that he could not have been responsible.’

‘On this mal’hui evidence you would question the judgement of the ethereals?’ El’Ganret’s face betrayed a cold anger as he stared at Kartyr.

‘With the utmost respect,’ I interjected, ‘I must concur. The genestealers are, as my comrades in the fire caste tell me, a threat that the T’au Empire has encountered only sporadically at most, and never at the level of a fully embedded cult.’

El’Ufafri looked to Aun’song, who nodded. The fire caste commander returned the gesture before turning back to face me.

‘It is so,’ he said. ‘After our first few devastating encounters our kroot allies quickly learned how to detect them. All fleets now employ dedicated tracker units to ferret out such creatures.’

I bowed. ‘A wise decision, and one the Imperium has yet to implement.’ Meaningless flattery, of course. Even with every kroot on Pech the Imperium could never hope to spread the keen-nosed xenos far enough to root out every ’stealer infestation. ‘The Imperium’s inefficiency is, however, a boon to you now. Because such epidemics are relatively common on human worlds, I have had the opportunity to fight such creatures up close on numerous occasions. If a genestealer brood is acting so openly it is because they have sufficient numbers to begin their sabotage campaigns.’ I hesitated, unsure of how hard to push. ‘As skilled as the kroot sniffers undoubtedly are, if the traitors have a purestrain specimen at their disposal then they may even have infected some of the non-humans aboard.’

Kartyr made a clicking noise that I couldn’t identify. ‘If such a thorough resource is available to us, it would behoove us to heed it. My own recommendation would be that we continue to pursue our investigations into this organisation.’

Aun’song regarded us. I couldn’t tell if he was thinking or merely waiting in order to give the impression he was thinking. The other commanders were giving him their undivided attention, which told me that they didn’t know either.

‘We appreciate your thoroughness,’ Aun’song said, and I could already feel my heart sinking. ‘Your expertise is a great boon to the Greater Good. However, we are confident that this matter has been satisfactorily resolved.’

I was furious, but fought to keep my rage down. How could they be so obtuse? Such wilful ignorance was something I thought I had left behind in the Imperium. Beside me, I was both surprised and gratified to hear Kartyr emit a low, hissing exhalation. Too soft to be heard by anyone behind us, but a certain sign of aggravation among the t’au.

The walk out of the administration office held a different tone for me now. I walked down the shallow staircase, once more feeling the burning in my legs, and I couldn’t help but recall Lystronne’s viperous words. Was the design of the staircase merely an oversight? Or was it instead a subtle message, one intended to remind any human who made the climb that this was a place where they did not belong?

I paused in the upper walkway, my hands on the railing of the catwalk, staring down at the assembly bay below. The t’au and human workers laboured shoulder to shoulder, but I couldn’t shake the thoughts that rose in my mind. Were they truly as harmonious as they seemed? How many of the earth caste supervisors secretly looked down on their gue’vesa allies while they parroted noble sentiments? How many of the humans wished they hadn’t left the Imperium of Man?

‘Did you know?’ I asked, my question brimming with more malice than I’d intended. ‘Did you know they were going to try to shut us down?’

Kartyr shook his head. ‘I was as surprised by their decision as you, oru’vesa.’

I turned to look at him.

‘How could they be so blind?’ I asked. ‘Could the genestealers have infiltrated the council?’

‘Impossible.’ Kartyr snorted, clearly uncomfortable with the line of questioning. ‘The ethereal caste and those who work closely with them are subject to rigorous medical monitoring for contagions or introduced bio-weapons.’

I sighed. Kartyr might have been as aggravated by being shut down as I was, but there were always going to be limits to how far he would suspect his own people. If the ethereals had been corrupted, Kartyr would never be able to see it clearly.

‘Where, then?’ I asked. ‘Where did the infection originate?’

‘I think that when might be an appropriate question as well,’ he replied. ‘Perhaps even the more salient one. Human immigrants to the station are examined thoroughly. How could one have got through the medical screening?’

Aun’song may have indicated his dismissal, but I was relieved that Kartyr seemed no more willing to drop the issue than I was. It seemed that some of the t’au were more willing to believe their allies than others. No sooner had that thought occurred to me when it led me to another.

‘The kroot gain their expertise based on the fallen that they’ve consumed, correct?’

Kartyr nodded, his nasal slit rippling. ‘That is… largely accurate, I believe.’ His discomfort teased a smile out of me, some part of me enjoying watching Kartyr squirm. The cannibalism of their xenos allies was a matter the t’au were never able to assimilate psychologically.

‘But they can’t have eaten everyone,’ I said. ‘The nicassar, for example. Or the anthrazod, or the g’nosh. It’s unlikely the kroot ever had the chance to eat any of them, so they wouldn’t be able to detect an infection, would they?’

Kartyr looked around, making sure no one else was listening. I did the same. The existence of the t’au race’s allies were closely guarded secrets, especially from humanity, so I understood the caution. I wanted to be as specific as possible, however, to remind Kartyr that the fact I knew about such things reflected the degree of trust the t’au had shown me.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Such helpers are rare, even in t’au space. To my knowledge, only the most common of our ally races have come to the Nem’yar Atoll.’

I started walking, Kartyr falling in line behind me. I was onto something here, I was sure. As sophisticated as the kroot might be at examining their prey, if they were the primary line of defence against the genestealers then there had to be ways to circumvent their scrutiny.

‘What about the vespid?’ I asked, stopping. It was rare indeed to see the insectoid aliens, but most t’au space facilities had at least one stingwing squad on hand at any time; the vespid could operate in low gravity and toxic environments, which made them an invaluable resource for repelling boarding actions. The Suu’suamyth had not one unit, but three.

‘The mal’kor have limited contact with the kroot,’ Kartyr admitted. ‘We have learned that when left to their own devices, there is a certain degree of cultural… incompatibility between the two.’

I smiled grimly. Some gaps couldn’t be bridged. ‘And when did the most recent stingwing unit transfer to the station?’

Kartyr consulted his own wrist pad. As a water caste administrator he had different access keys than I did. I’d be willing to bet his status as a kar’tyr gave him access to even more. He bobbed his head, thinking.

‘Strain Leader Zchllchk arrived two months ago.’ His voice was soft and grim. ‘Twelve days before the grain poisoning.’ He started walking, for the first time in the lead. I don’t think I’d ever seen a water caste member so intense before. It appeared that the silver-tongued bureaucrat had the steel soul of a lawman after all. ‘The stingwing unit transferred in from Li’pora.’

‘It’s a shame that the council suspended our orders to investigate the matter,’ I said. The evidence had mounted up, too steep for me to ignore, but I needed to know if Kartyr was going to support me.

‘On the contrary, Kalice Arkady.’ Kartyr smiled back at me. ‘The beloved ethereal Aun’song merely stated that the council considered the matter resolved. Our original mandate was to discover the perpetrators of the sabotage, and we know that Lystronne’s band could not have carried out the grain poisoning. Since Aun’song did not revoke that mandate, I would put to you that we are still duty-bound to continue our investigation until such a culprit has been identified.’

‘Somehow I suspect the rest of the council won’t see it that way,’ I laughed. I was beginning to like my new partner a great deal.

‘If the rest of the council interpreted Aun’song’s words differently then it is a shame they did not communicate as such to me. I am merely a humble servant of the water caste and cannot be faulted for executing the orders of the ethereals to the best of my abilities.’

I grinned and widened my own stride to keep up. With a clear and likely enemy now revealed, much of Kartyr’s pretence dropped away. He tapped orders into his wrist pad before speaking low and swiftly through his earpiece.

He brought us to a halt outside a large steel door marked with hazard labels in four languages. Bay 112-Beta had been a contaminated area of the station when the t’au took over, uninhabitable by oxy-nitro breathers. The t’au had been working on filtering and scrubbing the toxins from it over the past several months, but for the vespid the bay would have been just as comfortable in its poisoned state. A pale-grey member of the air caste was waiting for us, along with a team of fire warriors.

‘Ui’Kau’kartyr.’ The tall, fey frame of the air caste t’au sketched a graceful bow. ‘I received your summons. How may we be of service?’

Kartyr nodded. ‘Honoured El’Yia’sha. We require admittance to this bay to question Strain Leader Zchllchk and his unit.’ I hadn’t realised the bay was sealed, but it made sense that a toxic environment under clean-up would be off limits to everyone but the caste in charge of it and the xenos tenants. El’Yia’sha began tapping security codes into the console by the door.

‘Listen up,’ I said, addressing the strike team. Their shas’ui cocked his head, fixing me with a hard stare, but if he had a problem with me taking charge I wasn’t in the mood to coddle him. ‘We’re almost certainly facing genestealers in here, and depending on who they’ve infected, they may have been tipped off that we’re coming. Don’t trust anyone beyond this point that Kartyr or I don’t specifically tell you to.’

One of the fire warriors mumbled something that I didn’t quite catch. Kartyr snapped his fingers like he was disciplining a dog or an unruly child and the soldier fell silent.

‘If the genestealers have a purestrain with them then they could have infected anyone. I don’t care if it’s your friend, your comrade in arms or your own sainted grandmother – if they’re inside this bay, they’re to be considered hostile.’

‘Even if they wear the face of an ethereal,’ Kartyr added. There was a low, discomfited hiss from the strike team. I hadn’t considered that possibility, but I was glad Kartyr had. Without specific instructions they’d have never put weapons on an ethereal. I still wasn’t sure if they would.

‘By dint of greatest experience facing this particular enemy, especially given the possibility of unknown psychic attack, operational command belongs to Vres’Kalice.’ Kartyr nodded at me. I was stunned and touched. The fire warriors seemed just as surprised, but from his demeanour I gathered that Kartyr had broad authority in assigning resources during the pursuit of criminals.

He turned and keyed an activation into the door panel. Several warning klaxons sounded and the huge bay doors began grinding open. Kartyr reached under his vest as we stood, waiting, and pulled out a snub-nosed pulse pistol.

‘I thought you didn’t ordinarily carry firearms?’ I said.

‘It is not an ordinary day, Arkady.’

Inside, the bay was filled with curling vapour. The mist was vile smelling, but no longer thick enough to be toxic. The walls rose in stair-step tiers, just like the occupied assembly bays above. Side tunnels arched away from those upper levels, lost in the greenish-grey mist. Dim blue lighting did little to dispel the shadows. We moved in formation, the fire warriors stalking behind Kartyr and me, followed by El’Yia’sha. I had been on the battlefield with t’au before, but this was different. The fire caste moved with an assurance and an ease they didn’t show in open warfare.

But this wasn’t warfare, I realised; it was hunting. The task that the fire caste had spent their existence honing and perfecting. I felt a little more comfortable. I had my pulse pistol held ready at my side. In my off hand, I gripped a combat knife like a comfort talisman. The t’au discouraged us from using our chainswords, but most of the former sergeants I knew still carried a small blade with them.

One of the fire warriors examined a handheld scanning device and then cast a glance back at me, speaking in broken Gothic.

‘I have no clear readings, gue’vesa’vres. The mal’kor appear to be in hiding.’

I nodded. ‘We should at least be able to hear them. It would appear that they were indeed alerted to our arrival.’

The fire warriors exchanged nervous glances, several of them directed my way. I should have been the only human who knew what we were about, but none of them wanted to consider the clear truth: one of their own had betrayed them.

My suspicion was confirmed moments later when the first of the cultists stepped out of the mist. He was dressed in the ragged clothing of a refugee, clutching an autogun. Like Lystronne, he wore a mask over his face, and I curled my lip at the thought of whatever malevolent deformities he was concealing. Another cultist followed him, clad in the dun coveralls of an enginarium menial. One after another they emerged, their trap sprung, around a dozen of them surrounding us in a ring of grim stares and makeshift weapons.

‘How are we betrayed?’ one of the fire warriors whispered over the comms net. The cultists continued to stare at us. Here, in their element, many of them had discarded the disguises they donned to pass among humanity. Dangling additional limbs, compound eyes and other, more bizarre vulgarities as they waited for some unseen signal.

‘I should imagine that El’Yia’sha told them,’ Kartyr said. The fire warriors cast paranoid glances back at the air caste commander, snapping their gaze between him and the cultists.

El’Yia’sha chuckled in a very un-t’au-like fashion.

‘How did you realise?’ he asked.

‘It was odd that a t’au of your rank would respond to a simple request for access to a door,’ said Kartyr. ‘When it became apparent that we had been lured into an ambush, the culprit was a matter of simple deduction.’ He raised his pistol, aiming it squarely at the t’au officer. ‘Kor’el Tash’var Yia’sha, you are hereby remanded to detention, pending inquiry into your involvement with the ongoing sabotage of this station.’ I smiled behind my mask, wondering if the formal language was some kind of required official intonation, or if Kartyr just liked being dramatic.

‘Very perceptive, Ui’Kau’kartyr.’ His eyes darkened and the lights to the bay flooded on, revealing the full array of cultists who had surrounded us. The buzzing overhead announced the arrival of the stingwing unit I had expected. El’Yia’sha was the only t’au I saw among them, but the collected human cultists were horrifying to behold. They stood in small knots, still staring at us. Acidic drool dripped from slavering jaws. Claws as large as combat knives gleamed in the harsh light of the bay. There were at least thirty, maybe as many as fifty. I’d seen much, much larger cults in my time with the 113th, but never one that represented such a large portion of the population where they dwelled.

‘You cannot hope to carry on this deception much longer,’ said Kartyr. I suspected he was merely playing for time at this point, but barring a shootout with the entire cult, I couldn’t see a better option. ‘You and the deviants you lead will be discovered and executed. If there is a single shred of devotion to the Greater Good remaining in you, command your followers to submit to us in the hopes that a cure for your condition can be found.’

The air caste traitor shook his head. ‘I am no leader. I am merely the face that our brotherhood thought you would be most receptive to.’ I admired Kartyr’s idealism, of course, but I’d known there was never a chance the ’stealers would come quietly.

‘Lay down your arms,’ said the t’au genestealer. ‘Join your brethren. All of us here believe in uniting mind and spirit within the Greater Good. We can show you greater unity than you ever believed possible, with none of the lies or suppressed malice you know now.’

‘For the Greater Good,’ intoned the cult, their voices in monotone unison. I shuddered.

‘You do not serve the Greater Good.’ Kartyr’s sneer of disgust was a shocking slip of the customary water caste composure.

A woman in a custodial jumpsuit stepped forward, holding an impact hammer in one hand. Her features were almost human, save for an abnormal crease by her temples and her cold, dead eyes, which were the colour of black glass.

‘What is the Unifying Truth of the Greater Good?’ she asked.

‘All is in Life.’ The synchronous reply echoed through the bay. ‘Life is in All.’

El’Yia’sha spread his hands. ‘And what represents the unity of all life more than the Great Devourer?’

Kartyr’s eyes widened. The absolute blasphemy of the cult’s twisted creed was beyond comprehension.

I cleared my throat. The attention of the cultists drifted towards me. The spokesman, like the rest of the cult, seemed at ease. They had us surrounded, after all.

I stepped forward and buried my knife in El’Yia’sha’s chest.

The genestealer stared in shock and horror at the wound in his chest, thin blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth. The entire bay, cultists and fire warriors alike, paused. The notion of an enemy surrounded, outnumbered and outgunned lashing out in this fashion was insanity. It was suicidal.

It was a very, very human thing to do.

I was ducking through the mist, my pulse pistol firing before anyone, ally or enemy, recovered. I managed to pick off two of the closest enemies, a mechanic hefting a stolen pulse rifle and a rail-thin woman with four razor-clawed arms, before anyone else got a shot off.

Screams and roars cut through the bay, answered by the zipping pulse fire of my comrades. The fire warriors acclimated quickly and the nine of us cut through the bay, looking for cover. The shas’ui and half his team swept the air above our heads, prioritising the airborne and highly mobile vespid above all other targets. A stoop-shouldered brute with a gigantic scrap maul came lurching at us through the mist. Kartyr planted his feet in a pyramid stance and shot the ’stealer once in the knee, then again in the head as the enemy dropped.

The genestealers were already recovering. Two of the fire warriors dropped to one knee to stabilise themselves and opened up a blistering wall of pulse-rounds into a charging knot of ’stealers. Clad only in ragged engineer’s jumpsuits and wielding improvised weapons, they went down like grain before the scythe. Another human leapt over the backs of her dying comrades, her powerful legs propelling her into a high somersault.

She landed inside of our line and whirled a long, slender pipe overhead like a staff weapon. She spun it in a scintillating arc, clubbing one of the strike team to the ground and battering us out of formation. I growled and stepped in, and with one steel-capped boot delivered a brutal kick to the top of her knee. I was rewarded with a horrendous, chitinous crunch – the crisp, wet sound of stepping on a bloated insect – and she screamed. Ragged, bloody bones protruded from her ankle. I shot her in the throat and pulled the t’au she had stunned to his feet.

‘Get to cover!’ I yelled. I pointed to a line of sanitation conduit that had been spun out from a spool at some point. The flexible metal pipe was over three feet high and arranged in a loose oval – the perfect firing position. My pulse pistol blazed away as another cluster of mutated humans tried to run in, burning stinking holes through two of them and sending the third surging for shelter.

I scrambled for cover myself, throwing my body over the sanitation conduit and lurching to my feet. Several of the fire warriors were snapping fresh ammo plugs into their weapons. The cult was regrouping outside our position now that we were pinned down, and as I glanced over the conduit I realised how hopeless our situation truly was. Our initial rush had inflicted frightening casualties on the enemy, but we had no way out. I clicked my earpiece on the forlorn chance that I could contact someone, but got nothing but the silence of electronic jamming.

‘They’ll most likely sweep up the sides of the room,’ the shas’ui said. ‘If they’ve got stolen pulse rifles or any other form of long arm, they’ll be able to outrange us.’

‘Sounds like we might need to pressure them,’ I said. ‘If we keep the heat on down here, then if and when they do try to snipe us we can try to make a run for the door.’ It was a desperate plan, and I knew as soon as I said it that it contained only the barest glimmer of hope, but the fire warriors straightened their shoulders anyway. Someone was in charge and they had a confident, reasoned plan. That was enough for the t’au psyche, even if the leader was a human.

As if they had overheard, the cult rejoined their assault. Thrown implements sailed over our barricade. Makeshift pipegun autopistol rounds pinged against the conduit. A crackling beam of green energy knifed through the shadows and cut down one of the fire warriors. The unfortunate casualty wailed and collapsed, his armour folding in on itself, eventually filled with nothing but ash and marred by nothing more than a pinhole burn-scar. Three of the team snapped their carbines upwards and the last of the tainted vespid was cut down in a hail of white gunfire.

The cult roared, almost in unison, and those on the ground rose en masse. This was it. There would be no need for a cunning plan to snipe us from afar; they could bear us down with sheer weight of numbers.

The high whine of a pulse cannon cycling up cut through the darkness. Though it was normally a quiet weapon, the cavernous bay echoed the sound, and cultist and fire warrior alike looked around in horror.

White pulse fire blazed down from the top of a stack of pipes. A deluge of plasma orbs shredded into the cultists. A second and third stream ripped out from separate points. I cheered raggedly, seeing the shrouded silhouette of the stealth suits firing into our foes. Human engineers, their coveralls in flames, ran screaming for shelter, only to find the side halls leading away from the bay home to drifting crisis suits. The boxy, armoured frames unleashed torrent after torrent of flaming chem-spray. The bay had gone from the genestealer cult’s ambush site to a gruesome killing box.

I heard the howl before I saw what had made it – a squealing scream so tortured and wrathful that I first thought a stray shot had penetrated a bulkhead. Kartyr and I turned to see a monstrosity beyond imagining. It was nearly fifteen feet tall, so distended and bloated with excess bulk that the original form of a purestrain genestealer was almost unrecognisable. Lead-grey plates of chitin covered its body, thick enough to turn aside bolter rounds. Its upper arms were grotesquely swollen and tipped with claws the size of chainswords, with a pair of smaller but no less viciously equipped arms accompanying them.

The patriarch – for I knew that was surely what it was – lurched off the ground with an athleticism its bulk should have been incapable of. It grabbed one of the crisis suits by the ankle, plucking its quarry from the air, and smashed the t’au warrior against the deck of the bay. The lesser arms slashed, claws scissoring through the thick XV-8 armour and sending up jets of blood and hydraulic fluids.

A flurry of pulse-rounds peppered the deck around the thing, several of them striking home to little effect. The patriarch raised itself to its full height and roared – the terrible bellow loud enough to shake the deck beneath our feet and laden with telepathic malevolence. The t’au forces in the bay were scattered by the psychic fear. Fire warriors ducked behind cover. Battlesuits drifted away as fast as their jets could take them, gaining altitude or seeking refuge atop piles of boxes and spools of cable. Next to me I could hear Kartyr gibbering, trying to rally himself, his limbs quaking as he fought to stand his ground.

The patriarch turned its depraved gaze to me as if it could somehow sense that I wasn’t affected by its mental attack. Loping forward on its knuckles like a massive ground simian, it came towards me in a roaring charge.

I breathed out, remembering the elemental truths of the ethereals, and centred myself with the Calm of Tides. I would not run or shrink from danger, even if I was the only one still standing.

The monster bulled its way through the bay, its huge clawed hands and feet stomping over ally and enemy alike. Chitin-studded flesh and nanocrystal splintered beneath the thunderous tread.

I levelled my pulse pistol, aiming carefully, this time channelling the Sense of Stone. Frantic fire would do me no good; the thick hide of the patriarch was impervious to even the potent t’au weaponry. I would only get one shot that would matter.

The beast roared again, close enough now that I could smell the dry, acidic stink of it. Tripartite jaws opened wide as it closed in, the one massive arm outstretched in anticipation of rending my flesh.

The Zephyr’s Grace: another elemental invocation. I pulled the trigger.

The shot struck true, hitting the abomination in one of its compound eyes. The thick black orb burst and ichor sprayed as the round blew out the back of the creature’s skull. The patriarch screamed in anguish and lurched upright, impossibly still alive. Hands clutched over its face, the patriarch pulled back and delivered a brutal stomping kick. I tried to dive to the side, but even blind, the monstrosity struck true. The clawed foot crushed down on my hip, smashing me to the ground and throwing me across the floor.

The pain was agonising. I was soaked with blood and couldn’t rise to my feet no matter how hard I tried. The patriarch loomed over me, a gaping, dripping hole where half of its face should have been. Jaws studded with barbed teeth gaped open as it reared to make the kill.

A high-pitched whine screamed through the bay as a small object ricocheted off of the monster’s head. I felt my heart sink, certain someone had thrown a grenade which had failed to detonate. It was only when the disc looped around the patriarch’s head that I realised it was Kartyr’s faithful XR-0 drone. A moment later, the patriarch’s head snapped to the side in a burst of plasma wash. I heard Kartyr reciting mantras of focus as he drilled the beast with his pulse pistol. The massive genestealer backhanded Kartyr, sending him arcing through the air, but it had finally run out of time.

The t’au had rallied, free from whatever psychic malaise the patriarch had unleashed, and two crisis suits landed on either side of the creature. I saw the build-up of energy in the barrels of their plasma rifles, containment coils glowing hot enough to be seen even through the nanocrystal. The brilliant flash of the plasma rifles discharging turned my entire field of vision to pure white, fading slowly to black as I lost consciousness.

I was mildly surprised to find myself waking at all. That when I woke I was in the medical bay, surrounded by the sterile smell of antiseptic and the crisp white uniforms of the earth caste staff, surprised me less.

I rolled my head to the side. The motion felt thick and sluggish, as though moving through tar. More likely, the t’au had my system flooded with enough painkillers to drop a rampaging krootox.

To my left, Kartyr was lying in a bed identical to mine, staring into space with glassy eyes. His right arm was covered in a gelatinous bio-sheath that stretched from his wrist to his neck. His face was a purple almost deep enough to be black, the colour of a hideous bruise on t’au flesh.

‘Looks like you got torn up,’ I slurred. His face lit up with a smile, and he turned to look at me.

‘You are not in much better condition, Kalice Arkady,’ he said. I realised that I also had a regenerative bio-sheath that spread from my left knee all the way to my navel. ‘The earth caste medtechs say that you have suffered comminuted fractures of ridiculous severity in your hip and upper leg.’

A laugh burbled out of my lips. He wasn’t kidding. Beyond simply my leg, I felt as if I’d been run over by a Baneblade. My head throbbed from where I’d hit the floor, there were thick synthplast bandages over my abdomen where the claws had slashed me, and I dimly saw that a smaller bio-sheath encased my right hand where my finger had been broken as the pulse pistol had been yanked away from me.

‘Did we get them all?’ I asked. Kartyr nodded ever so slightly, the movement apparently causing him significant discomfort.

‘The vast majority of the genestealers were eradicated in the bay,’ he said. ‘One or two stragglers have been tracked down in the time since. El’Ufafri has quietly ordered the diversion of multiple bands of kroot to the station to keep a vigilant eye out for any that may have been missed, but I believe all of the cultists have been purged.’

My head lolled back onto the thin cushion that crowned t’au beds, thinking about the crisis suit teams coming to our aid. Just when we had needed them the most, there they were.

‘They believed us after all,’ I said, laughing incredulously. I had always been certain that I still represented the fundamental best of humanity, but I wondered if some of the naivete I saw in my t’au allies had begun to rub off on me.

‘We may have just been under surveillance,’ said Kartyr. ‘Given our assertions, it would have been a prudent measure.’

‘That big of a response? That quickly?’ I shook my head. My grin was mirthful, but there was nothing but bitterness behind it. ‘No, Kartyr. They knew. They knew there was a genestealer cult the whole Throne-damned time. Hell, Li’pora may have discovered it first and alerted them weeks ago.’ I shook my head. ‘But the t’au don’t have a lot of experience with genestealers. Conveniently for them, though, they have a human defector working for them who knows all about the bastards.’

‘You think…’ Kartyr seemed unwilling to voice the thought. ‘You think the council intended for us to stumble into this?’

‘Once we found the cult, they knew I wouldn’t let it go. The humans in the cult, at least the ones familiar with me, would know it too.’ I sighed, laughing again. ‘I’d never let such a danger go unanswered. If you hadn’t backed me I’d have investigated on my own, even against orders. Aun’song didn’t just know it, he counted on it. As soon as the cult knew where we were going they’d have to move to stop us, with unavoidable finality. Aun’song put us on this trail to lure the cult out of hiding so he could cleanse them all at once.’

The medtechs continued to glide past us, content to ignore both me and Kartyr as we sat in silence. That was fine. I think, right then, that he was the only t’au I wanted to talk to.

‘I can’t deny the logic of your claims,’ he said. ‘I know the ethereals are capable of such conduct, and I will try to take comfort in the knowledge that their actions, and our tenacity, saved the lives of many hundreds of people aboard this station.’

I stared into the middle distance. Kartyr had never left his own people. He’d never chosen duty to his comrades over duty to the twisted dictates of a god-thing enthroned on a home world he’d never seen. There were some gaps we would never bridge.

‘I serve the Greater Good,’ I said, ‘and always will. But I don’t appreciate being dangled like a worm on a hook.’

Kartyr nodded sagely. He studiously avoided looking at me, but his voice dropped to a low, conspiratorial whisper.

‘I think, Arkady, that I do not appreciate it either.’

I leaned my head against the cushion. Maybe some gaps could be bridged after all.

ROAD RAGE

MIKE BROOKS

The first indication Ufthak Blackhawk had that something was up was when Nizkwik sailed past him at head height.

‘Someone to see ya, boss!’ the grot wailed, before it collided with a pile of scrap in the corner. Ufthak straightened up from where he had been prodding at his shokk rifle – cautiously, because he wanted to keep all his limbs attached – and turned to face the cave mouth.

Caves. That was part of the problem. Ufthak’s arm of the Tekwaaagh! had landed on this planet in search of interesting gubbinz with which they could make things explode, and had found very little. There weren’t even any impressive, tall buildings: not that the Tekwaaagh! tended to leave much standing in its wake, but tall buildings were useful to take a look around and see what you wanted to stomp flat next. The low, sprawling temple complexes they had seen from orbit turned out to be annoyingly sparse on interesting tek or shiny loot, and somewhat overpopulated with useless frescos and surprisingly lethal traps. Ufthak had resorted to using a cave as his bunker, and newly minted big boss or not, it was hardly the sort of impressive surroundings that would convince the boyz of his right to command.

Especially not, it seemed, the group of orks doing their best to block out the light from the cave mouth. Other species in the galaxy might assume that orks were always threatening, and to be fair, so far as most other species in the galaxy were concerned, that was an accurate assumption. The only reason an ork didn’t want to scrag or blow someone up was if something else was currently a more interesting target.

Ufthak, being an ork himself, was more attuned to the niceties of orkish behaviour and body language. He was a big boss now, after all, one step down from Da Meklord himself. Da Meklord was the warlord of the Tekwaaagh! and possibly the greatest teknikal mind the orks had ever produced: at least, that was what he said, and no one seemed very interested in contradicting him. Ufthak now had a goodly chunk of Da Biggest Big Mek’s authority, and most orks knew better than to give him any lip lest he remove said lips for them, possibly along with their head.

Judging from the puffed chests, squared shoulders and bared fangs currently between him and the outside world, this group of orks were in the minority.

‘Wotcha want?’ Ufthak asked lazily. None of them were close to him in size, which surely meant they weren’t going to be foolish enough to challenge him to a fight. It was not always true that the biggest ork would win scraps over rank, but it was as near a certainty as made no difference. That was why any ork boss worth his name would keep an eye on whether any of his underlings were bulking up as their metabolisms went into overdrive to prepare them for a leadership challenge, and dish out a remedial beating before the upstart got, quite literally, too big for his boots.

‘Wot do we want? Oh ho,’ said the ork at the front, with a hollow laugh. Ufthak frowned. Sarcasm was a concept he had only recently discovered himself – since the bigger an ork got, the smarter he got – and he did not appreciate it being used in his presence when he was not quite sure of its target.

‘Dat’s wot I said,’ he declared, folding his arms and glowering. ‘Get on wiv it.’

‘Why? Are ya busy?’ the head ork sneered at him. He wore the yellow and black of a Bad Moon, but the zag-stripes and the goggles on his forehead marked him out as a Speed Freek. ‘’Cos we ain’t busy, an’ dat’s da problem!’

Ufthak shrugged. ‘Yeah, we killed all da skrawniez an’ dere big monsta-fings. Anuvver win for da boyz ain’t good enuff?’

‘Dat weren’t a win!’ the other ork declared hotly. ‘Dat was barely even a fight!’

The problem was, he had a point. Pointy-eared skrawniez rarely offered a decent fight in any case: the gits hit you and ran away again, possibly doing backflips at the same time, which was somehow more infuriating than an enemy who ran away without fighting at all. However, at least they could make it interesting, if razor-sharp slicey-discs that took your arm straight off, or screaming at you until your spine froze, counted as ‘interesting’.

The skrawniez on this planet, however, hadn’t had any of that fancy stuff. They’d mainly had simple guns, a lot of pointy sticks, and giant, scaly monsters, some of which were larger than even the biggest squiggoths Ufthak had ever seen. It had been a bit of a challenge at first, because your basic shoota wasn’t even going to dent one of those behemoths, but if there was one thing the Tekwaaagh! wasn’t short of, it was dakka. As Ufthak had observed, in a fight between dakka and monster, the monsters came off worse.

With their monsters blown up, out, and generally about, the skrawniez hadn’t stood a chance. There were probably still a few hiding out here and there, but the fighting had finished fairly quickly. That might have suited other species in the galaxy, who had a notion that you should be fighting for a reason, or that winning a fight should get you something in particular, but orks didn’t hold with that nonsense. The point of fighting was to have a fight. Winning was more of a bonus, providing it didn’t happen too quickly.

‘Da gitz here was weedy,’ Ufthak said. ‘It happens. Da next ones’ll be better.’

‘We don’t believe ya,’ the frontmost ork said bluntly. ‘Ya wouldn’t know a good fight if it walked up an’ slapped ya!’

Ufthak laughed despite himself. ‘Ha! Dat’s a good’un! D’ya know who yer talkin’ to, my lad? I’m Ufthak Blackhawk! Ufthak Gargantsmasha! I took down one of da humie Gargants wiv nuffin’ but me hammer an’ a squig!’ He pointed to where the Snazzhammer was resting in the corner, next to the large, red mound of sleeping flesh that was Princess the squig. Admittedly, Nizkwik the grot had been there as well, but it hadn’t been much help. And yes, Mogrot Redtoof had been with Ufthak too, but Mogrot wasn’t here right now, and what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him: which in Mogrot’s case meant he was probably pretty much invulnerable to anything the galaxy could throw at him.

‘Not just a hammer an’ a squig, was it?’ the ork said nastily. ‘Nah, ya had a dragsta too, didn’t ya? A shokkjump dragsta! Or are ya forgettin’ dat part?’

Ufthak blinked, nonplussed. ‘Is dere a reason yer so bovvered about da dragsta?’

The ork’s eyes went so wide Ufthak thought they might pop out of their own accord.

‘It was my zoggin’ dragsta, ya git!’

Ufthak tilted his head to one side and examined the furious Speed Freek. He vaguely remembered clobbering another ork with the Snazzhammer and stealing the shokkjump dragsta he and Mogrot had then used to jump through the Gargant’s force field, but he’d never really thought about it past that. Another ork had something that Ufthak wanted, so he’d taken it. That was how ork society worked.

‘Oi, Nizkwik!’ he bellowed, and was rewarded with a clattering noise as the grot managed to extricate itself from its landing site, where it had remained until now in order to avoid drawing any more unwelcome attention.

‘Yes, boss?’ Nizkwik puffed, hurrying up.

Ufthak pointed at the Speed Freek. ‘D’ya know dat ork?’

Nizkwik squinted, then nodded. ‘Yes, boss, dat’s Riptoof.’

‘Did I nick his dragsta?’

Nizkwik, whose job it had been to shoot the shokk rifle on that very same dragsta prior to Ufthak ripping it off and using it as his personal weapon, and who had stuck around with Ufthak ever since rather than go back to its former boss, nodded again. ‘Yes, boss. An’ a great bit of nickin’ it was too,’ it added loyally.

Ufthak sighed, and glared at Riptoof. ‘So I nicked ya dragsta, used it ta help kill a Gargant, an’ wot? Now ya fink ya gonna start trouble wiv me over it?’

‘Not over dat,’ Riptoof replied, although Ufthak reckoned he was lying. ‘I’m just da one wot’s got da gutz ta come talk to ya. Da boyz ain’t happy. Da Meklord never should’ve made ya big boss. Y’ain’t found us a proppa fight. Ya ain’t got respekt.’

Ufthak looked meaningfully at the Snazzhammer. ‘How about I knock yer head in? Would dat get ya respekt?’

‘Dere’s only one fing Speed Freeks respekt,’ Riptoof retorted, ‘an’ dat’s speed! Yoo an’ me, head-ter-head! Me new ride against da dragsta wot ya nicked!’

‘I ain’t got da dragsta no more,’ Ufthak told him. ‘It sorta fell off da Gargant an’ smashed. I fink,’ he added, ‘I was a bit busy killin’ da Gargant.’

‘Ain’t my problem,’ Riptoof sneered. ‘If ya want da boyz to follow yer orders, yoo’ll be ready to race when da sun comes up tomorrow.’

There were a few enthusiastic ‘Yeah!’s and ‘You tell ’im!’s from the other Speed Freeks, and then the whole posse turned around and left again.

Ufthak considered it. On the one hand, he could go after them and dish out a beating. Orks understood and respected violence. That should reinforce his right to be in charge.

On the other hand, the Kult of Speed made up a sizeable portion of the force under Ufthak’s command, and Speed Freeks were a bit, well, weird. Just knocking some heads together might look, to them, as though Ufthak was scared of taking up the challenge, and that would never do. Besides which, somewhere in the back of Ufthak’s brain was the notion that he had no intention of stopping at big boss. Da Meklord might have an accident one day, or if no convenient accidents occurred, one might have to be arranged; possibly involving a shokk rifle and the Snazzhammer. Accidents could look very deliberate, sometimes. And if, one way or the other, Da Meklord found himself headin’ off to see Gork and Mork before Ufthak did, it would be very useful if a lot of the Tekwaaagh! was already inclined to follow Ufthak’s orders.

And for that, he needed respekt.

‘Nizkwik,’ he said. ‘Go an’ find Da Boffin.’

Some orks might not trust a mekboy who’d replaced his own legs with a gyro-stabilised monowheel, which just showed how lacking in imagination those orks were. Granted, you might not want Da Boffin to improve you, but he zoomed around on a single wheel and never fell over, which was a pretty good indication his teknologikal know-wots were up there with the best.

‘Wot’s it yer after?’ Da Boffin asked, buzzing alongside Ufthak as they walked under clear skies and three moons. ‘Straight-line speed? Cornerin’?’

‘Best have some of each,’ Ufthak said. ‘Riptoof didn’t say wot da race is gonna be, an’ if I show up in somefing dat’s great at one, he’ll probably change it to somefing else. Fink he’s a bit kunnin’ like dat.’

‘An’ ya need it by sunrise,’ Da Boffin mused.

‘Dat’s right.’

The mek did the universal sucking-in-of-breath of an expert in his field giving bad news to one less well educated. ‘Gonna be a tall order.’

‘Ya know I’m good for da teef.’

‘Ain’t teef dat’s da problem, it’s da time,’ Da Boffin said. ‘All da teef in the galaxy can’t buy time.’

‘Ain’t sure about dat,’ Ufthak said. ‘Some of dose tinhead gitz seem to be able to make time speed up for dem, or slow down for us, or somefing like dat.’

Da Boffin’s eyes gleamed in the moonlight. ‘Really?’

‘Yeah, seen it,’ Ufthak confirmed. ‘Didn’t do ’em much good against da weirdboyz, but it was a fancy trick while it lasted. Fink you was fixin’ a Gargant at dat point.’

Da Boffin scribbled something on a piece of squig hide. ‘Well, dat ain’t gonna help us, ’cos I ain’t got somefing wot can do dat. Yet,’ he added. ‘So it’s just gonna be wot me an’ da spannerz can get togevva by mornin’.’

Ufthak nodded. There was no point offering further bribes, let alone threats. Da Boffin would take this as a challenge, and would do his best to make sure that any vehicle Ufthak drove was as good as possible so that the glory of Ufthak’s win would reflect on him. Besides, insofar as any ork trusted any other ork, Ufthak trusted Da Boffin. He and the painboy Dok Drozfang – who had attached Ufthak’s intact head to his old boss’ intact body, thereby giving Ufthak a head (ha ha) start up the ranks of the Tekwaaagh! – had been around Ufthak since the beginning of his rise to power, and knew a good thing when they saw it.

‘Is it just gonna be yoo?’ Da Boffin asked.

Ufthak had given some thought to this. ‘Nah. Gonna have Mogrot ridin’ wiv me.’

Mogrot Redtoof was the only other ork Ufthak might say he trusted, combining as he did the combat skills of an enraged smasha squig with the intelligence of a concussed snotling. Mogrot was just bright enough to know he had no hope of coming up with decent plans himself, but was willing to fight pretty much anything he was pointed at and strong enough to have a decent shot at killing it, which made him the perfect second-in-command.

‘Dat’s extra weight,’ Da Boffin warned.

‘Let me worry about dat,’ Ufthak said confidently. ‘Mogrot’s worf his weight in… Well, he’s worf his weight, an’ let’s leave it at dat.’

The next day dawned with a brooding mass of rain clouds on the horizon, blowing in from the west towards the Waaagh!’s campsite, pressed up against a labyrinth of limestone ridges and ravines. To the south, the land spread out a little: the rock formations became more isolated, and were separated by large expanses of scrubby grassland on which the skrawniez’ massive monsters had grazed.

Riptoof was not alone at the improvised starting line, drawn up by the simple expedient of dragging a big stick through the dirt. A whole bevy of Speed Freeks had decided that if there was a race going down then they wanted in on it, and a motley collection of vehicles on two or more wheels were waiting and revving their engines when Ufthak wandered up.

‘Ain’t ya forgotten somefing?’ Riptoof hollered. Ufthak studied the Speed Freek’s new vehicle for a moment before answering. It wasn’t a shokkjump dragsta – shokka tek wasn’t common, after all – but it had a similar sort of build: low-slung and sleek, although with enough clearance to cope with rough ground, and shiny chrome pipes jutting out at all angles.

Flashy, and fast-looking. Well, Ufthak had expected nothing less.

‘Me ride’s just comin’ now,’ Ufthak told Riptoof.

‘I said “when da sun comes up”,’ Riptoof said warningly, pointing to where the top of the local star had already edged above the horizon and was casting long, stretched shadows across the ground. ‘Yer late.’

Ufthak shrugged. ‘If ya fink ya need to leave now in order to beat me, go ahead.’

He’d pitched his voice to carry over the rumble of idling engines, and the assembled Speed Freeks laughed at his bravado. Even Riptoof gave Ufthak a grin, although it was even teef whether he was genuinely amused by the joke, or just thought Ufthak was so overconfident that his victory was assured. He didn’t take Ufthak up on the offer, though. The Kult of Speed wouldn’t have much respect for a Speed Freek who took a head start to win a race.

As for dirty tricks once the race was underway… Well, that was all fair game. But that was why Ufthak was bringing Mogrot along.

A new roar made itself heard above the general din, and Ufthak stepped back as Da Boffin’s latest creation grumbled its way to the starting line with Mogrot Redtoof behind the wheel. The various orks who had gathered to watch clapped and hooted in appreciation, and the Speed Freeks on the line – at least, those who were not already sweating with the effort of not careering off towards the horizon – gave it a once-over as they tried to work out what they were up against.

It was, to all intents and purposes, a trukk, mainly because that was all Da Boffin had been able to scrounge up at short notice. However, to consider it just a trukk was to consider the Snazzhammer just a hammer: broadly accurate, but lacking an appreciation of nuance that could make the difference between victory and defeat, or indeed life and death. It had chunked-up wheels, on the basis of Da Boffin’s logic that ‘big wheelz means dey don’t have to turn so quick to move you da same distance’, which went beyond Ufthak’s understanding of mathematics but which he was prepared to take at face value, particularly if the alternative was trying to work it out himself. The engine had been replaced with something far larger and more powerful, and the extra weight at the front end was counterbalanced by a pair of jet engines bolted onto the back ‘for when yer goin’ straight for a while’. Ufthak wasn’t sure where Da Boffin had got them from, or indeed whether a fly boy had woken up this morning to find his prized fighta-bomma missing a few critical parts, but that wasn’t important. What was important was winning this race, and Da Boffin had built Ufthak something probably twice as heavy as anything else competing, but with enough muscle to shift a small mountain.

‘Move over,’ Ufthak grunted to Mogrot, who obliged. It was a bit of a tight squeeze for Ufthak to fit behind the wheel, since he was a lot larger than most orks, but he managed it just as an ork with a slugga and a grot holding a black-and-white flag both climbed onto a solitary rock next to the starting line.

‘Alright, listen up!’ the ork bellowed. ‘Dis is da course for da race!’

Ufthak revved his engine, and it responded with a sound like a war god’s coughing fit. He grinned, and looked down the line to where Riptoof sat stony-faced behind the wheel of his own vehicle.

‘Yooz gotta go out dat way, past da big bit of rock wot looks like a big bit of rock,’ the ork announced, pointing south. ‘Ya swing right, past da skrawniez’ place we burned a few days back, den into da gullies. Find yer way froo ’em, an’ da first one back to camp is da winner!’

Ufthak nodded. That sounded simple enough.

‘Ready?’

The grot raised its flag. Two dozen orks hovered their boots over go-pedals, or gripped handlebars.

‘STEADY!’

The grot beamed, anticipating its moment of glory, as the ork readied his slugga to fire the starting gun. One biker, unable to take the strain any longer, accelerated away in a spray of dirt. From the looks of it, he wasn’t even trying to follow the loosely described course of the race, but simply succumbing to the Speed Freeks’ incessant desire to change there into here.

‘GO!’

The flag dropped, mainly because the ork had pulled the trigger on his slugga and shot the grot in the head. The little green body slumped forwards, but no one noticed: partly because it was a grot, and partly because two dozen or so vehicles had slammed pedals, thrust levers or handlebar throttles as far down, up or around as they could go.

The trukk jolted beneath Ufthak, and lurched away with enough power for him to think for a moment that the old stitch scars on his neck were going to rip loose and his head would come clean off. He managed to get his body under control after a moment, just as the trukk hit the first sizeable bump. It jarred into the air, which was a testament to how fast they were already going, given how much it weighed.

‘Arrrgh!’

‘Shneerrrrrk!’

Ufthak had expected a bunch of different noises out of the trukk, but neither of those shrieks fitted the bill. He stole a look over his shoulder, and saw the small, green-skinned form of Nizkwik and the substantially larger, red-skinned shape of Princess thudding back down onto the trukk’s flatbed, which would normally be occupied by a mob of boyz ready to leap out and clobber someone. He looked sideways at Mogrot, who had the roll cage in a death grip, and was either grinning manically or losing the battle between his lips and the headwind.

‘Wot da zog are dey doin’ here?’ Ufthak yelled.

‘Princess goes everywhere with ya, don’t it?’ Mogrot managed. ‘An’ I fort da grot could, y’know, make sure stuff don’t fall off. Or make it fall off, if we need to lose some weight.’

Ufthak glanced backwards again. Nizkwik was indeed clutching a blowtorch. He groaned.

‘Yoo!’ he bellowed at the terrified grot. ‘Don’t touch nuffin’ unless I tells ya to, got it?’ He risked taking one hand off the wheel to point at Mogrot. ‘An’ if yoo gets me squig killed…’

He didn’t finish the sentence. As well as the Snazzhammer, his fancy beakie-made armour and his shokk rifle, Ufthak had got quite attached to Princess the squig. It was always cheerful, never asked annoying questions, and had already eaten three of Mogrot’s hands, which served the dual purpose of keeping Ufthak amused and keeping Dok Drozfang in work transplanting new ones on from ‘donors’. Conquering the galaxy just wouldn’t be the same if Ufthak didn’t have Princess on hand to eat any enemies he’d got bored of.

He forced his attention back to the race. Some of the field had already dropped back or away, plagued by engine trouble, unexpected sabotage, or a lack of sufficient attention span to remember that there was an actual course to follow. However, there were a good dozen vehicles still in the running, one of which was Riptoof’s dragsta. The Speed Freek was in the lead, in fact, but three warbikes were hard on his tail, and a wartrike was keeping pace with them. They’d all had the advantage of acceleration over Ufthak’s trukk, but the massive, snarling engine was starting to muscle its way back up the field now.

‘Use da rokkits! Use da rokkits!’ Mogrot yelled excitedly, but Ufthak shook his head.

‘Not yet. Might need ’em later, an’ we’re gonna be turnin’ soon…’

Sure enough, the rock spire was looming up, easily as big as a Gargant, the eastern side lit by the slanting rays of the early morning sun, and the west still wreathed in darkness. Ufthak watched the line of its shadow getting closer and closer, judging when he was going to have to put the trukk into a skid to take the corner with the least loss of momentum…

A shape appeared on his right, roaring up alongside him. Some git was trying to overtake! Ufthak cast a quick glance at it – a boosta-blasta, complete with burna exhausts – and instantly decided that he was having none of this.

At the speed they were going, small movements had big consequences. Ufthak surreptitiously steered a little to the right, forcing the boosta-blasta a little closer to the rock if it wanted to keep clear of him, then swerved just enough to clip it. The size difference between the two vehicles meant the smaller buggy never had a chance: it careened out of control and went straight into an outcrop, exploding in a shower of parts and flames.

‘Dat’s wot I’m talkin’ about!’ Ufthak yelled in glee, and threw the trukk into the turn. Riptoof was still ahead of him, but the dragsta’s straight-line speed did not translate into being good at cornering. The trike wasn’t doing well either, lacking either the stable base of four wheels, or the ability of the bikers to put their knees down. Ufthak’s trukk, heavy as it was, at least managed to maintain a reasonable amount of traction on the ground, although it came at the expense of some ferocious sideways G-forces which sent Nizkwik and Princess tumbling into the flatbed’s side plates.

Ufthak grinned, and jammed the go-pedal down again. The trukk’s wheels dug into the dirt and it powered out of the skid, cutting into Riptoof’s lead.

‘Right,’ Mogrot puffed, ‘now we go past da skrawniez’ place, an’…’

He tailed off, a confused expression spreading over his face. Which, admittedly, was not an unusual occurrence, but this time there was a good reason for it.

‘Boss… Were dey dere before?’

Ufthak took a moment to realise what Mogrot was on about. Then, as the burned wreckage of the skrawniez’ camp began to disgorge shape after fast-moving shape, he realised what the potential problem was.

Spikiez.

Skrawniez were skrawniez, and they wore all sorts of different colours, presumably to mark out their clans. However, spikiez were a bit different: ‘droo-kar-ee’ instead of ‘ale-dar-ee’, or whatever silly names skrawniez called themselves. Spikiez tended to be pointier, and liked hooks, and hung out with weird, stitched-together creatures which the most experimental painboy might scratch his head at, and used poisons that could make even an ork feel a bit unwell. They loved raiding as much as Freebooterz did, too, although their favourite loot tended to be alive rather than shiny. They still crumpled if you actually managed to hit one, but their amour had a tendency to get caught on your choppa afterwards.

‘Nah, dat’s new,’ Ufthak said, eyeing the approaching swarm. One of their big floaty trukks that often carried a bunch of their boyz, a smaller floaty thing with a big gun, a few zoomy floaty-bikes, and five of those gits what zipped around standing on rokkit packs and thought they were the squiggoth’s knees.

‘Are we gonna scrag ’em?’ Mogrot asked eagerly, producing his slugga and choppa from somewhere.

‘I got a race to win,’ Ufthak said dubiously, refocusing on Riptoof’s dragsta. Of course Mogrot would get distracted, but an ork who wanted to be warboss some day needed to be able to think long term. Win the race, get the Speed Freeks onside, then deal with the spikiez: that was the kind of detailed plan that would take Ufthak to the top.

Of course, spikiez basically never did what you wanted them to, and it looked like that state of affairs was going to continue.

‘Dey’re comin’ right for us!’ Mogrot announced gleefully, as the dark, sharp shapes began to converge on the race like shards of shadow. ‘Looks like dey want a fight!’

Ufthak eyed their nets and hooked chains. ‘Wonder if we ruined dere fun when we scragged all da local skrawniez?’ Other species might be baffled by the complicated politics that covered the alliances and enmities between various sorts of skrawniez, but it seemed simple enough to Ufthak. He was an ork, and he’d happily fight other orks if there was no one else around. Presumably skrawniez and spikiez were the same.

The spikiez’ vehicles closed in, and Ufthak braced himself for the inevitable hail of poisoned pointy bits. However, instead of opening fire, the skimmers weaved their way into and amongst the bikes, buggies and trakks. The largest one veered in front of him, and he looked up to see pale, sharp-featured faces leering down at him.

Then it accelerated away, accompanied by derisive hand gestures.

Ufthak’s eyes went wide with rage. Spikiez shooting at him? Fine, it was better than being bored. Spikiez shoving barbs and hooks into him? Whatever, he did the same to them if he got the chance, although the Snazzhammer was not what you might call a precision instrument. But spikiez butting into a race and showing off? Not even shooting, like the orks were no threat?

This was intolerable.

He snatched his shokk rifle up one-handed, and took aim – which was against his usual instincts, but he was so offended that he didn’t care. Trusting Gork and Mork to sort out who did and did not get hit was all very well most of the time, but this was a zogging insult.

The rifle whined for a moment as its shokk-generator powered up, then the lower right rear side of the spikiez’ vehicle disappeared in an angry flash of light. Presumably that did something to their floaty-motors, or possibly the aerodynamics, because the whole thing began to list off to the side.

‘Dat’s right!’ Ufthak yelled at them, as their jeerings were replaced by expressions of chagrin. ‘Dis is wot ya get when ya mess wiv us!’

‘Boss!’

That was Nizkwik’s shout, and the urgency in the grot’s voice made Ufthak duck instinctively: just in time, because a blade as long as his forearm slashed through where his neck had been, and buried itself into the seat back.

‘Mogrot, take da wheel!’ Ufthak bellowed, and made a grab for the pointy-eared git who had swung the blade in question.

The spiky tried to get its weapon free, but the sharp edge was well and truly stuck, and the floating plank-thing it was standing on might have been excellent for zipping around, but didn’t give much of a solid base from which to tug loose an embedded blade. It hesitated for a moment too long, unwilling to abandon its weapon, and Ufthak’s fist clamped around its throat.

The spiky hissed and lashed out, but although Ufthak wasn’t wearing his beakie armour (too much weight, and he hadn’t been planning on a proper scrap), it would take more than a thrashing pointy-ear to give him trouble. He clenched his fist until he felt the delicate vertebrae snap, then released his hold. The spiky collapsed bonelessly, and tumbled off its floaty-plank. However, its mates were still around, and they bore down on Ufthak out of the sky like vengeance made flesh.

That suited Ufthak just fine. He grabbed his weapons and clambered through the trukk’s roll cage onto the flatbed, leaving Mogrot in charge of the driving. Ignoring a fight in favour of a race was a fine plan, but not when the gits wanted to make it personal.

Combat had been joined in earnest all around, now: the boyz were having none of the spikiez’ attempts to show off, and the spikiez had decided that trying to race against orks without attempting to kill them at the same time was a one-way ticket to getting stomped. Dakkaguns roared, and spiky-rifles spat. Pointy-eared warriors in even pointier armour did backflips off their floating trukk to land perfectly on engine blocks and riddle Speed Freeks with envenomed splinters, or fall backwards to go under the wheels with shattered faceplates from a well-aimed wrench.

And four more screaming flying plank-riders bore down on Ufthak.

One of them stitched a line of white-hot pain across his chest with the weapons of its ride, but Ufthak was used to pain. The spiky in question clearly thought it had already made its kill, because it swooped down with a shout of fierce joy to try to take his head off with a single blow, and instead got swatted out of the air by the Snazzhammer. The next one discovered that even an ork found it hard to miss at point-blank range, and collapsed with most of its torso missing as the shokk rifle bored a warp tunnel straight through it. The third pivoted in mid-air, causing Ufthak to miss his first swing at it, and drew back its blade.

‘Shneerrrrrk!’

The last plank-rider, swooping in on its own attack run, found its board’s momentum suddenly arrested by the jaws and sizeable weight of Princess jumping up to bite it. The rider’s own momentum suffered no such arrest, and it was instead catapulted forward to collide with its companion just before the blow landed. Ufthak barked a laugh, then mashed both their heads with the Snazzhammer before they could sort themselves out.

‘Wow, look at dis!’ Nizkwik shouted, vaulting onto the skyboard Princess had hold of, and pressing things apparently at random.

‘Oi!’ Ufthak shouted. ‘Get off–’

‘AAAAaaaahhh…!’

The skyboard’s motors went to full, and the entire thing took off again to corkscrew through the air with a new cargo of one terrified grot, and a squig determined not to let go of something which was apparently still putting up a fight.

‘Zoggin’ grots,’ Ufthak groaned. ‘You bring me squig back right dis minute!’ he bellowed at the sky.

Nizkwik, unsurprisingly, did not immediately return. However, something did heave into view: the mid-sized spikiez skimmer Ufthak had seen before. One of the masked warriors on the back pointed its big gun at him, and Ufthak braced himself. Without his armour, this was definitely going to sting…

The big gun did not open fire. Instead, the gunner was dealt a swift blow around the head, and a new shape vaulted into the air. It performed a deft front flip and landed effortlessly on the rear of the trukk’s flatbed, despite the distance between the two vehicles and the speed at which they were both travelling.

A tall, many-pointed helm, topped with a crest of dark, flowing hair. A long crystalline blade with an ugly, sneering face worked into the hilt, and a pistol glowing with a darkness that seemed to suck light into itself. Various hooks and chains, and the flayed faces of several different species serving as decoration on its many-plated armour: including, Ufthak noticed, at least three orks.

‘Da Spikiest of da Spikiez,’ he muttered. ‘Alright den, my lad, let’s see if ya can take a hit.’

He raised the shokk rifle, and fired.

The spiky wasn’t there.

The shokk rifle’s reality-chewing blast crackled through where it had been a moment before, and took out the engine of a squigbuggy bringing up the race’s rear. The spiky itself had flowed away with astonishing speed, and was now vaulting off the trukk’s side with its blade aimed at Ufthak’s head.

Ufthak backhanded it out of the air with the fist gripping the Snazzhammer, and the Spikiest Spiky clattered onto the flatbed with, Ufthak liked to imagine, a startled expression behind its obscuring faceplate. However, when he brought the hammerhead down to crush its skull it raised its blade and glanced the blow just far enough off to one side, and vaulted up to its feet before he could try again.

When it attacked this time, it didn’t try to be showy.

Ufthak instantly knew that he was in for the fight of his life, so he dropped the shokk rifle and wielded the Snazzhammer in both hands. Mork damn it, but the thing was quick! Its blade flashed out almost faster than he could see, and only instincts and reflexes allowed him to block its strikes. He jerked aside from the muzzle of its pistol and heard a crump as one of the trukk’s side panels disintegrated, then landed a blow in the midsection with the haft of the Snazzhammer and knocked it back a step, but when he activated the weapon’s power field and swung the axe head at it, the spiky ducked under the blow. Ufthak’s swing took out a grab rail, and he felt ice-sharp pain as his enemy’s blade pierced his ribs.

He kicked out, felt his boot connect with something solid, and spun the Snazzhammer as he turned. There was a clang as the weapon’s head knocked the crystalline blade from the spiky’s grip, and Ufthak reached out to grab it by the throat to hold it still for long enough to mash its head in.

The thing about spikiez was that they always had another blade somewhere, and this one came up fast enough and sharp enough to take Ufthak’s grabbin’ hand off halfway down the forearm.

‘Argh!’ Ufthak yelled, recoiling involuntarily. ‘Dat was me favourite ha–’

The spiky raised its blaster, levelling it directly at his face.

And Princess fell out of the sky, with the happy squealing noise of a squig that could see lunch in its immediate future. The spiky’s reflexes might have been up to dodging Ufthak’s gunfire, but it was not prepared for a ballistic squig which must have weighed as much as it did. Princess took its arm off at the shoulder with one bite, gun and all, leaving nothing but a ragged wound gouting dark blood.

‘Whoo!’ Nizkwik yelled, zooming overhead. ‘Gobbo to da rescue!’

The spiky staggered. Ufthak drew back the Snazzhammer, ready to finish the job…

…and the spiky turned and leaped, recovering its balance and poise immediately despite now lacking an arm. It landed for a moment on top of the trukk’s roll cage, before vaulting through the air back to its transport.

‘Coward!’ Ufthak bellowed at it, but his insults fell on deaf ears. The Spikiest Spiky’s skimmer accelerated away, swerving into the first of the gullies.

The gullies. They were getting close to the end of the race.

‘Follow dat…’ Ufthak yelled at Mogrot, pointing with the Snazzhammer at the skimmer, but found himself lacking in terminology. ‘Wotever it is, just follow it!’

‘Yoo got it, boss!’ Mogrot shouted. He might excel in combat, but Mogrot Redtoof was just as happy driving something really fast.

Ufthak took a quick look around while he waited for his arm to stop bleeding. The attrition of combat had taken its toll, and there were only a handful of vehicles left now: one of the warbikes, a megatrakk scrapjet, Ufthak’s trukk and, still out in front, Riptoof’s dragsta. For the spikiez, the plank-riders were all dead, and their floaty-bikes had bought it as well, one way or another. The skimmer-trukk was still going, although it was a bit wobbly, and their boss’ smaller transport was pulling away ahead. The spikiez might not have even wanted to be a part of the race any longer, but they were now walled in by the sides of the ravine, so they had little choice.

The sides of the ravine…

Ufthak scanned the upcoming terrain, searching for something that would enable him to enact the plan that had just flashed up in his mind. It was only a matter of seconds before he found it: a spur of rock jutting upwards and inwards. He took a moment to judge distances, angles and speed, his brain making connections that it never bothered with when it came to aiming gunfire, and came to his conclusion.

This was going to work. Either that, or it would fail spectacularly, which was nearly as good.

‘Steer for dat!’ he yelled, pointing at the spur. Mogrot obeyed, without irritating questions like ‘Wot’s da plan?’ or ‘Ain’t we gonna crash?’ Ufthak waited one more second, then used the butt of the Snazzhammer to hit the big red button Da Boffin had installed on the dashboard.

Now the rokkits on the back fired, roaring into life and propelling the trukk forward with ludicrous acceleration. Ufthak only just managed to hook the stump of his arm around a bar to prevent himself from being knocked off his feet entirely; Mogrot, flattened in his seat with his arms outstretched holding the wheel in a death grip, just made a wordless noise of jubilation.

They hit the spur of rock.

They went up the spur of rock.

They flew off the spur of rock, and the tremendous thrust granted to them by Da Boffin’s rokkits powered even the trukk’s impressive bulk into the air, in an almost-graceful forward arc.

However, what went up almost always came down again. In this instance the trukk came down right on top of the Spikiest of Spikiez’ transport, which, although it was jinking around to evade fire from a pair of dakkaguns, was in no way prepared for a ton or so of high-velocity ork machinery to drop onto it from out of the zogging sky.

CRUNCH.

The jolt was tremendous, but the trukk’s wheels hadn’t stopped turning, and the rokkits hadn’t stopped roaring: they were off and away, leaving nothing behind them except what had once been a sleek spikiez skimmer but which was now a pile of wreckage, if a pile could be flat. Ufthak stole a look back and saw the one-armed shape of the spikiez’ boss, with a thick tyre track right through where its chest had been.

‘Try dodgin’ dat, ya git,’ Ufthak growled in satisfaction. If the spiky could get up from that, then so far as Ufthak was concerned, it deserved to walk away. ‘Mogrot! Shift yerself!’

Mogrot obligingly shuffled back into his original seat, and Ufthak dropped back behind the wheel. He only had the one hand now, of course, which made steering a bit trickier, but it was worth the effort for the expression on Riptoof’s face as the rokkit-propelled trukk powered past him down the home stretch. Ufthak waved cheerily with his stump, then wrenched on the wheel and brought the trukk around just in time to avoid a rocky demise on the gully wall. One final turn, and the beginnings of the camp were looming up, with a crowd of orks eagerly awaiting the participants, and a finishing line consisting of some unlucky grots chained together.

The rokkits began to sputter and die. Ufthak didn’t look back. It wouldn’t do any good. He just had to hope he had enough of a lead…

Whump!

The trukk’s front bumper smashed into the finishing line, sending blood and small limbs flying, and prompting a massive cheer from the assembled orks. The cheer only rose in volume when the spikiez’ skimmer-trukk, apparently unable or unwilling to change direction, zoomed into the camp hot on the tail of Ufthak and Riptoof, and was immediately deluged in eager orks piling aboard it looking for a fight.

‘UFT-HAK!’

‘UFT-HAK!’

‘UFT-HAK!’

Ufthak grinned as the trukk rolled to a halt. Riptoof looked like a squig that hadn’t been fed for a week, but that particular Speed Freek’s opinion was meaningless now: the rest of the camp had seen Ufthak win the race to which he’d been challenged, and he’d brought back a quick scrap for them as a bonus.

‘Mogrot,’ Ufthak said contentedly. ‘I fink fings are lookin’ up.’

Mogrot obediently tilted his head skywards.

‘Not like dat.’ Ufthak sighed. ‘I meant–’

‘No, boss, yer right!’

Ufthak frowned, then imitated his second-in-command. For a moment he could see nothing other than the incoming thunderheads, still rolling in from the west. Then he saw them: three sleek, dark shapes, diving out of the sky towards the camp.

Flyers. Spikiez flyers, no less.

A wide grin spread across Ufthak’s face.

‘Gitz incomin’!’ he roared, standing up on the trukk’s seat. ‘Get da traktor kannons fired up! Mogrot! Get me armour! Nizkwik! Get off dat zoggin’ fing, an’ tell Dok Drozfang to find me a new hand! Everyone else…’

He pointed at the sky, and every ork face followed his gesture.

‘Waaaagh!’

MAD DOK

NATE CROWLEY

I

Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka, the Prophet of Gork and Mork, who left worlds ablaze in his boot prints, was dead.

There wasn’t much arguing with that, since his body was hanging in a hundred pieces, on a rusty scaffold as high as a Stompa’s chin. But that was all right, as far as Dok Grotsnik was concerned. In fact, he reckoned the human Blackmane had done him a bit of a favour, by removing Ghazghkull’s head. He’d been asking the boss for permission to remove it himself for years, after all, saying that the best way to fix all his wonky bits would be to just… switch him off for a bit, and get ’em all done at once.

But since Ghazghkull’s counter-offer had always been that he should do the same thing to Grotsnik (without the fixing or the putting back together afterwards, mind), the dok had come to terms with the fact it probably wouldn’t ever happen.

But then along had come Blackmane and his mob of beakies – chop, clang, whirr, splat, thud – and here Grotsnik had found himself, with a blank canvas to work on at last. Letting the corners of a rare grin begin to work across his staple-puckered face, the dok looked up at the jungle of chains which bore the bits of the Prophet, and flexed his talons in anticipation of the work ahead.

They were good hands, these new ones: extra-nimble ones from his private stash, which he’d grafted on fresh that morning. And while they were still a bit fuzzy under the talons from barrel-mould, and itchy where his blood was still finding its way through the dead bits, Grotsnik knew they were ready to work wonders.

And what wonders they would work. He had big plans for the rebuilding of the boss. Plans so big, in fact, that he couldn’t see the whole of ’em at once, just bits here and there. Still, the dok was sure inspiration would show him the way, once he’d started cutting. That was how it had always been, during his truly great works.

It was certainly how it had been on the night of his greatest work, all those years ago: the night when he’d first operated on the ork who would go on to become Ghazghkull Thraka. Under the leaky patchwork of that squighide tent, with just that bucket of third-rate tools to work with, Grotsnik had forced the whole galaxy to reconsider what an ork was capable of.

And now? Well. Now he was going to do it again. But bigger. And better. And with much fancier kit.

Inside the ferrocrete dome he’d claimed as his lab, deep down under the big human kafeedral where the boss had been felled, was enough weird machinery to bring anything back to life. Stacks of generators ringed the edge of the vault, exposed coils alive with sizzling blue discharge sparks, while banks of pumps and bioreaktors chugged and hissed and gurgled with every fluid the dok had been able to get his hands on. That was just the start of it: Grotsnik had spent years hoarding machines that looked like they might do interesting things if you attached living things to ’em, and at last he had an excuse to get the whole lot out to play with. And so, every few minutes, a new pile of crates appeared with a bang and a sizzle of dirty yellow light, as they were tellyported down from the belly of his medikal frigate in orbit.

Then there was all the meat-bits. A row of cages held packs upon packs of all the painboy’s staple squig breeds, from bulbous transfusion squigs to saggy-faced skinlender-squigs, as well as a few mobs of hysterical, shrieking snotlings. Beneath them, a second, worse row of cages held a load of captured beakies, with their eyes and jaws and hands taken off so they couldn’t cause trouble. Grotsnik wasn’t certain what he’d actually do with ’em, since their blood was about as much use as piss in an emergency. But at the very least, they’d give him something to drill holes in while he was thinking.

And there, of course – well, everywhere – was Ghazghkull.

With all the bits of the boss suspended around the dome, Grotsnik was reminded of one of those horrereys the human meks made, in service to their pointless obsession with how fast stuff spun round in space. The bits of armoured gristle were like brooding green planets, he reckoned, orbiting the massive slab in the middle of the dome, where Ghazghkull’s head sat looking way angrier than anything dead should’ve been able to.

The dok hobbled over to the slab then, until his torso was level with the dark green cliff of Ghazghkull’s face. He admired the yellowed jags of his tusks, reflected in the glassy surface of the Prophet’s good eye. Then he poked the eye, just because he could. The head retained its bloodied scowl of fury, but nothing happened.

The boss could be as angry as he liked, Grotsnik figured, letting his grin stretch into a great, giddy leer as realisation dawned. Because right now, the boss was dead. More than that though, he was a patient. And patients never got a say in what happened during surgery. Medikal effix, the humans called that. It was one of their rare good ideas.

Grotsnik ran a talon over the web of rope-thick scars covering the patient’s hide, and as he saw how many had been left by his own blades, he snarled with pride. This was his monster. And how well he had done, under the circumstances. Every bolt he’d hammered into the boss over the years, every bloodpipe he’d stapled to another bloodpipe, he’d had to get permission for, from Ghazghkull himself. He’d had to cheat and sneak his way to every creative flourish. And still, he’d created a masterpiece.

Naturally, all the underbosses would’ve said the boss was the work of Gork and Mork. But Grotsnik had never seen either of ’em show up with a spanner. Ghazghkull might have been the design of the gods, sure. The dok would give them that. But Ghazghkull was Grotsnik’s work. All Gork and Mork had ever contributed to their Prophet, for all their holy clamour and barging, had been a beakie-forged bolter shell to the skull. The dok had been left to figure out the rest, and he’d done mirikals. But it had all just been practice, for the work in front of him now. And in the hours to come, he was finally going to show Gork, and his big idiot twin, just how much room he had found to improve on their work.

What new feats might the boss go on to rack up, Grotsnik dared to wonder, now that his creator was free to flex his art muscles without constraint? How many more planets would he swallow up with war, and make fit for orks to thrive on? The dok looked up past the scaffold to the dome of masonry above, and pictured the stars beyond it turning green one by one. A whole galaxy, claimed for orks by Ghazghkull... and by Grotsnik too, if you thought about it properly.

The dok thought about it very properly, until he found it was too big a thought to keep inside his brain. So, since he was grinning anyway, he vented it all in a big, mad roar of a laugh, which filled the dome just as thoroughly as his authority. At last, if only for a little while, his genius was free to burn out of control. No gods, no warlords: just Grotsnik.

That wasn’t a bad note to get started on, the dok thought. So he fished his oldest scalpel from his belt – the tool he’d made the first cut with, the night Ghazghkull was created – and leaned in to begin the operation.

II

Just as Grotsnik’s blade was about to meet flesh, something heavy and wet smacked into the flagstones next to him. A spatter of small, viscous gobbets followed, coating the left-hand side of his body, and as they began to slither down the grooves of his knobbly musculature, his grin shrivelled into a mean, crooked grimace.

‘It was that one what dropped it,’ a voice squawked down, from the top of the scaffold. But Grotsnik’s immediate interest was in what had been dropped. He looked to the floor where, just as he had expected from the sound of the splat, Ghazghkull’s heart lay in several ragged pieces.

It was going to have been Ghazghkull’s heart, anyway.

Alongside the bits of the Prophet’s original body hung around the dome, there were a lot of bits from other orks too. Some, Grotsnik had been saving for years, putting them on ice whenever he’d found himself operating on a patient too thick to notice the lack of a few ribs or a kidney. Others, to the dok’s amazement, had been donated, as word of Ghazghkull’s fall had spread across the trenches of Krongar.

This had been the route by which he had acquired the heart. A titanic but simple-minded Goff known as Got-So-Angry-He-Tried-To-Fight-Himself, had come to Grotsnik’s lab just days before, ducking under the lintel with an expression that made Grotsnik instinctively reach for his chain-scalpel. He had presumed the giant had come to hurry the work, via traditional Goff motivational methods. Instead, the hulk had simply prised a broad slab of armour from the centre of his chest, before reaching into the shell-wound which the carapace had covered, and tearing free his heart with a rubbery snap. For the boss, he had mumbled as he had handed Grotsnik the organ, before slumping to his knees and passing out.

It had been a first-rate heart, Grotsnik thought, as he watched its ruptured mass quivering on the stone – the kind of organ he’d once have sold half his tools to acquire. Now it was just more meat for the squigs, however, and he supposed he’d have to modify the fuel pump off a truck instead. But before Grotsnik could even register the disappointment he felt, it had transmuted itself into anger, and his gaze had snapped to the gantries high above, scanning them for the likely culprit.

He did not have to look long. Awaiting his gaze were a cluster of grots in stained overalls, all frantically jabbing fingers of mute accusation at each other. Behind them, the winch which had been conveying the heart towards its socket swung to and fro forlornly.

Grotsnik found he did not care which of the snivelling things had dropped the organ. He wanted, very much, to shoot the lot of ’em, if only to dodge the tedium of listening to them blame each other. And any other day, he would have done just that. Indeed, his hand was already reaching for the slugga at his hip to do some killing. But a muted boom from beyond the dome above, and a trickle of dust from its apex, checked his arm before he could level the weapon’s sights. Because this was not any other day.

Ghazghkull might have fallen, but the battle wasn’t over. Up there, beyond the dome, hundreds of thousands of orks were still fighting a vicious defence against Blackmane’s Space Wolves. The beakies’ boss had been thoroughly gutted in the process of getting Ghazghkull’s head off, but rather than calling it evens and moving on, his lads had reacted by getting really, really upset.

The orks weren’t winning.

Privately, Grotsnik had even started to wonder if the orks were losing. Ghazghkull’s forces had, by now, been driven entirely into the crypts beneath the kafeedral. They were trapped there. And with every day that went by, they were being driven deeper and deeper, to the makeshift command bunker and the dok’s lab at its centre. Even if it felt ungodsly to think about it, Grotsnik knew that if that load of grey-armoured nutters pushed all the way down before he could get the boss up and running again, they’d be done for.

‘Mightn’t even have that long,’ Grotsnik muttered to himself through his tusks, as he glanced at the heavy blast doors sealing his laboratory off from the rest of the bunker. When he’d set the place up, he had hoped the doors would give him a bit of quiet to fill with the noise of his own work, but he’d soon been disabused of that notion. From the tunnels outside came a constant, discordant racket of bickering and roaring, which grew louder by the hour as more orks were forced down here, and as they got closer and closer to breaking Ghazghkull’s Big Rule, by coming to blows.

From the sounds of the current bout of hollering, Finds-Bullets-He-Has-Not-Lost, the Deathskull lieutenant who was meant to be in charge while the boss was ‘recovering’, was moments away from unleashing his fists on Urzog, the Goff chieftain who considered himself to occupy the exact same role.

The idea of being nominally in charge – like the idea of not fighting whenever you felt like it – was a Ghazghkull thing. Usually, if a boss got so much as mildly brainshot, that was that: he’d be done for, and the next biggest orks would slug it out for the job. It was a testament to the Prophet, Grotsnik supposed grudgingly, that the underbosses were waiting at all for him to recover.

But they wouldn’t wait forever. One way or another, whether by angry humans or angrier orks, this miserable little burrow of theirs was going to get torn apart. Unless, of course, Ghazghkull came back to will it otherwise.

There was too much work to be done, Grotsnik knew, for him to afford a few shot grots. It was a pure case of what he knew as straight-line-thinking, and it made him miserable. He hated it, more than anything, when he was forced to reason himself out of what he knew was the right thing to do. It felt… alien. Made him think of all the bones he’d had cracked in his youth, all the blades he’d taken, for being unorky.

His habit of straight-line-thinking was why they’d called him Mad Dok Grotsnik, back on Urk, and it was why they’d treated him like second-hand squig turds. But eventually, as he’d grown older and nastier, he’d developed a knack for this weird, ungodsly cunning. He’d learned to use it to his own advantage, and soon, the cracked bones had started to belong to other orks.

‘Who you gurner shoot then?’ asked one of the grots on the scaffold, breaking the dismal fog that had settled on Grotsnik’s brain, and prompting him to scowl upwards again.

‘None of yer,’ growled the dok, finding a new ceiling for his already extraordinary hatred of grots, and he drove all thoughts of the burst heart from his mind. ‘Too much work to do. But if I were any of you – and thank Mork I ain’t, you rotten, degenerate gits – I’d set to getting a new zoggin’ heart for the boss fixed up, from anything in the Big Pump Store.’

Grotsnik turned then, with only the quiet splintering of a clenched tusk giving away how much fury he’d made himself swallow, and began stalking back over towards Ghazghkull’s head. He’d just got to wondering why he couldn’t hear the anxious, moist rustling of a pack of grots getting to work, when the question came.

III

‘Is there any real point to it though, boss?’

‘You what?’ Grotsnik said, in a voice like a knife-tip glinting in the dark, and stood stock still.

‘Well… is there any point in working, now?’ repeated the voice. It was reedy and nasal, just south of a full sneer – and worst of all, without a trace of terror in it. Grotsnik spun round to its source, baring his fangs and narrowing his good eye, only to find… another grot. It wasn’t as if he’d ever bothered giving his orderlies proper names, given how long they tended to last, but he’d always thought of this one as Drippa, thanks to the thin strand of mucus which seemed perpetually suspended from its gristled promontory of a nose.

‘You’re going to have to explain your reasoning there, Drippa,’ replied Grotsnik, not doing much to stop his hand reaching for the slugga again.

‘This place is done for sooner or later,’ said the grot, clamping a miserable twist of fungus trimmings between its fangs, and lighting the tip with a sparky-stick. It took a vicious little wheeze, shrugged, and spoke its next words through a thin cloud of rancid brown smoke. ‘And we all know you’re a miracle-doer, ’cos you tell us all the time and all. But… well. Look at ’im, boss.’

With only a waggle of its broken-and-reset jaw, Drippa dipped the tip of its smoke-stick towards the mute immensity of the dismantled Prophet, and grimaced uncertainly.

‘Even if we had a whole year to work,’ said the grot, ‘you honestly reckon the boss is coming back from that?’

The dok wanted to roar that he very much did reckon that. But when he did, he found that his jaw had fallen open in shock, so he just made a noise like something dying from a massive and sudden blow to the abdomen.

The shock hadn’t come from the way Drippa had spoken to him, since basic disrespect from his minions had long been no surprise to the dok. Just as other orks had always looked down on him, grots had never treated him with the same rightful, undiluted terror as they did other orks, no matter how many acts of extreme violence he conducted either in front of them or upon them. It was like they saw him as nothing more than an especially big, strong, nasty grot.

But for all Grotsnik hated that, he was at least used to it. No: the thing which had struck Grotsnik like a mortar barrel across the brow was the fact that Drippa – disrespectfully or not – had made a good point.

Every grot came out of its hole knowing straight-line-thinking. It was natural to them, which was a big part of why it was such a shameful trait for an ork to exhibit. And in that one little question – ‘Is there any real point?’ – Drippa had demonstrated just why proper orks held such common contempt for reason. Because too much straight-line-thinking, if you weren’t careful, could lead to the unorkiest thing of all. It was a concept so wrong, Grotsnik only knew it as a human word: dowt.

And now, to his horror, his brain was awash with it. As his eye flickered over the scattered armour plates, muscle chunks and limb ends that currently made up Ghazghkull Thraka, Warlord of Warlords and Prophet of the Gods, more and more dowt rushed in through it. It was a flood, and the boulder of rage which had been growing in his mind sank down into it, dissolving into nothing. Then, as he carried on staring, slack-jawed, at the suddenly impossible scale of the task, Drippa carried on.

‘S’just not gurner happen, dok. Beakies are at our door, bosses at each other’s throats, and the big boss is in bits. S’no blood in him. No…’ The grot flailed its arms, as if groping for words big enough to describe what it was thinking. ‘No Green in ’im.’

Grotsnik found a spark of rage at that, even in the murk of the dowt. Because even though he considered the gods idiots, that was blasfermy, that was. The Great Green was bigger than gods. It was bigger than every ork and grot and snot and squig stacked together, and nobody but the Prophet had a say in what did and didn’t have the Green in it. Grotsnik didn’t respect much beyond his own abilities, but he respected that.

‘Zoggin’ wretch!’ he barked, lunging a pace forwards and prompting Drippa to skitter three back. ‘Who do you reckon you are, then, to be the sayer of that?’ With his heart thudding, and the seams on his wrists splitting as his hands clenched into killing-claws, Grotsnik felt a reassuring surge of orkiness, and pressed on without questioning it. With every step he took towards Drippa, the shadow of his confidence swelled. Indeed, by the time he gripped the creature by the throat and lifted it, spluttering, into the air, Ghazghkull’s resurrection felt like a near certainty.

‘You don’t know nothing, bin-git!’ hissed the dok, snatching the tattered roll-up from Drippa’s teeth with his spare hand, and taking a vicious drag of his own, before discarding it. ‘You think this is beyond Grotsnik, do yer? Think you’ve seen the extent of what he can do, in the clawful of stinking, cringing years you’ve spent in the world? Have you forgotten, grot, that I’ve brought the boss back from the Great Green once? Never woulda been a Ghazghkull to begin with, if it weren’t for me bringing him back to life, back in that tent on Urk.’

Drippa’s thin lips writhed over its rotten fangs, as it wrestled to draw enough breath to speak. When it did, Grotsnik couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

‘It… wasn’t you though... was it?’ gargled Drippa. ‘You just… killed him, operating. Was... Makari what brought him back to life.’

The only reason Drippa didn’t die then, is because Grotsnik was too distracted hating someone else. Makari. The grot who had dragged bodies for him back on Urk. Or rather, the thing that grot had become, out in Grotsnik’s corpse-yard, as they had tried to prise the adamantium plate from the skull of the dok’s freshest failure. Because while Makari had been the grottiest grot who had ever skulked out of a hole, they’d also been… something else.

Grotsnik didn’t know what that was. Makari had always insisted they were just the Prophet’s banner-waver. But the dok knew better. He knew Makari had been granted visions by Ghazghkull. Visions and secrets, and some weird, unknowable connection with Ghazghkull that should’ve been Grotsnik’s. That little scrap of gristle had always stood between Grotsnik and his creation. And while he couldn’t prove it, he swore Makari talked to Ghazghkull – nudging him here and there, and always keeping Grotsnik from seizing the control which he knew would have made the Prophet unstoppable.

The banner-waver had died at the same time as Ghazghkull, in the scrap with Blackmane up top. But that didn’t do much to reassure Grotsnik. Makari had died plenty of times before now. The dok had even killed them himself, once. But the little turd-scrap came back, every time – even though everyone knew grots were too rubbish to live more than once. Grotsnik couldn’t figure it out in the slightest. And if there was one thing he hated more than grots, it was puzzles he couldn’t think his way through.

‘Makari’s dead,’ barked Grotsnik, throwing Drippa into a bank of sparking capacitors, ‘and so’s their name. They was a thief, is all they was. Got that? It was me what brought Ghazghkull back, and that… chancer just happened to be standing in the right place when it happened.’

‘If you say so, boss,’ croaked Drippa, wincing as it tried to sit upright. Grotsnik lurched towards the little ingrate, intent on giving it a further pasting. But as he did, he became aware of the dozens of watery, beady little eyes fixed on him. The only thing grots enjoyed more than watching their own rise up against their masters was watching them get beat back down, and it seemed that Grotsnik’s entire horde of orderlies had gathered to watch the show.

The dok’s fists itched, and not just because they’d recently been someone else’s. He knew it was right for Drippa to die. But he also knew – somehow – that this was the moment that everything yet to come hinged on. There was another lesson he could teach here, besides the ever-reliable lesson of fists, that might save Ghazghkull, the battle and the whole of the Waaagh! He didn’t know how. He didn’t even know what the lesson was. But the dok trusted his brain well enough to know it wouldn’t have piped up for nothing.

There’d be something there, if he just started talking. If. And that was what it came down to, he supposed. Would he be a proper ork and beat Drippa to mush? Or would he be Mad Dok Grotsnik?

‘Listen up, you puddles of squig-pus!’ shouted Mad Dok Grotsnik, glaring all around him at the grots assembled in the shadow of Ghazghkull’s lifeless bonce. ‘You’re going to work yourselves to squigmeat, every last one of you. You know why? ’Cos I says so. Something’s only impossible, you see, if Grotsnik ain’t done it yet. And since the boss is coming back – and it’s gonna be me who brings him – then this ain’t impossible. Got that?’

There was a faint flicker in the dark, as a swarm of grots looked at each other in frantic incomprehension. But it didn’t matter, because this time, not even Drippa was stupid enough to speak up.

‘But before we get to work,’ added Grotsnik, as his mind finally worked out what the masterplan was, ‘I’m going to tell you a story. It’s not one I’ve ever told anyone. It’s not something anyone ever saw, besides one other ork. And it’s why you’re going to work your snot-green arses off, once I’m done. Because guess what? There was another time Ghazghkull died, after the first. And that time, there was no Makari to get in the way. I brought him back, all by myself. And this is how it happened.’

IV

It happened not long after the boss invaded Armygeddon for the second time. We were down under the ocean, sneakin’ up on Tempestora Hive in a great big fleet of submersibbles. And of course, I know yous lot weren’t even spores back then. But you know what I’m talking about, don’t yer? I’ve seen the little scrawlings you do in places you think I won’t see, in glyphs you think I can’t read. You pass down your little… histreys, and so you know what happened well enough. At least, you think you do.

Oh – and before any of you gits tries to say otherwise... those submersibbles? My idea. Oh yeah, I know very well everyone says it was Orghamek. But who do you think grew all of Orghamek’s brains, eh? And who got ’em to play nicely together? Yeah, that’s right. Grotsnik. So anything he invented counts as my idea, ’cos of intallectual propatee.

Still, it’s not all bad that I don’t get the credit for the subs, ’cos they weren’t exactly our best work of the war. They did their job and didn’t sink, sure. Two-thirds did, anyway. But I swear by Gork’s bloodied boot-nails, you’ve no zoggin’ idea what it was like on board those things.

We’d welded ’em together from scrapped human tankers in the wastes up north, bulked up with armour plate that the voidboys cut off the hulls of the kroozers in orbit, then dropped straight down through atmosphere. It was tough stuff, all right. But it was leaky as a Blood Axe cipher – in the end, we gave up trying to weld all the bullet holes shut, and just packed ’em with scrap metal and squig resin.

Then there was the heat. You’ve not got the know-wots to understand this, but spaceship metal’s meant to work best surrounded by loads of… nothing, yeah? Put it under the sea – ’specially a boiling hot, sludgy sea like Armygeddon’s – then stick one of Nazdreg’s mega-reaktors in the arse end, and you’ve basically made yerself a moving kiln full of thousands and thousands of orks. We was boiling alive in those things – up to our knees in soupy bilge slime wherever we went, blistered all over from the reaktor leaks, and only eating tins of whatever humans we’d managed to round up and render down during the rush to get the Mork-snicked things built.

That’s not even starting on the squigs, neither. See, thanks to a snarl-up with the first landings, half the Goff Dread-mobs the boss had ordered for the Big Boat Attack, ended up halfway across the planet, wonderin’ where the sea was. And what did we get instead? A whole karrier full of Beastsnagga warbands, complete with their stamping, farting, biting squigs. Worse still, ’cos the boss’ sub was the biggest, it ended up with the biggest squigs. So we had this giant barn filling a full third of the hull, packed with tank-sized turd factories. Let’s just say it didn’t help with the smell, right?

Anyway. I’m only telling yous all this, so you can get an idea how... worked up we all was, after what felt like forever chugging along at the bottom of that ’orrible sea. You think you’ve seen orks spoiling for a fight? Not till you’ve seen ’em packed inside a hot tin for days on end, you haven’t.

It was that bad, even Ghazghkull weren’t above it. Dunno whether it was the heat, or the radiation, or the poison I’d been injecting in his neck because I wanted to see how mad he’d go, but his headaches had been getting worse and worse the whole time. It’d got to the point where he wasn’t getting any words at all from the gods during ’em, they were just roaring right into his brain, making him thrash so hard he left dents in the walls. Gork’s grin, though – it got so bad I even laid off the poison in the end, just in case he thrashed so hard he made a hole and sank us.

Before we left, the Prophet had stood up on the battlements of the flagship’s peekin’-spire, and he’d sworn to every ork there that he’d personally lead the charge, once we’d crossed the ocean and beached at Hive Tempestora. The cheer was so zoggin’ loud, after he said that, I wondered if they’d hear us in the bleedin’ hive itself, all the way across the sludge.

But when, at long last, the day of the landings arrived, I went up to Ghazghkull’s throne-chamber to check on him, and found him in the rottenest state I ever saw. He was twitching, and snarling, and he couldn’t seem to go three squeezes of a timer-squig without his whole body going rigid and shaking like a Deff Dread’s drill arm. It was like nothing I’d seen before. I’d definitely gone too hard with the poison, but there was something more than that, too. Like something had grabbed him by the head, and wouldn’t let go.

Now, I’ve never been one to under-esty-mate my own work. Especially a piece of work so killy as Ghazghkull. I knew what kind of punishment the boss could take, ’cos I’d dished enough of it out to his brain, and even taken proper notes. But it looked like here, at last, was the limit. One look at the boss that day told me all I needed to know. He was, in my medikal opinion, proper busted, and there was no way he was gonna be leading any charges at all, unless they was charges face first into the sea.

Naturally, I had a plan. I reckoned I could loosen some of the pressure in Ghazghkull’s skull. Knew I could, in fact, ’cos I always left a few screws overtightened in there, just in case I ever needed an excuse to get in his head for a bit. He’d need a full overhaul of his headmeat, soon enough. But I figured a quick tune-up, finished in time for the boss to give his big pre-fight speech, would be enough to get him through the day. So I told Ghazghkull that I needed to operate.

Didn’t go down well. Lucky for me, he was in such a state that the punch only clipped me, cracking my left arm, and then burying itself two tusklengths into the steel of the chamber wall. Still, I knew I couldn’t let that put me off. I needed to get inside that skull. ’Cos if I didn’t, and Ghazghkull went ahead and led the invasion anyway, it wouldn’t take the underbosses three kidney-beats to realise their Prophet was cooked in the head.

Well… desperate times, yeah? What can you do? Well, this is what I did. After a quick breather to steady myself, I told the boss he was being an idiot, and that he needed the op done there and then.

The second punch didn’t miss me. Or at least, it wouldn’t have done. But Ghazghkull never finished it. He launched himself towards me, all full of murder, then stopped dead halfway with his face gone slack, and fell to the deck like a sack of anvils and steak.

Seeing him lying there, not even twitching… Well, it was almost like I couldn’t see him at all. My eyes was taking him in, all right, but my brain wasn’t having any of it. Dropping flat for no reason? That just... didn’t happen to Ghazghkull. But there he was, dropped flat. Don’t think I could quite grasp what’d happened, to be honest. Same way you lot would lose the plot if, oh I dunno, I paid you, or something.

’Cos of what a mindbuster it was, it was a good long while before I worked up the nerve even to go over and poke the boss. And for all my surgical know-wots, poking was all I could think to do, for a while. Eventually though, I heaved the boss’ face off the floor, and wished I hadn’t. There was blood pouring from his nose, his ears and the corner of his good eye, and even leakin’ out from the edge of his metal skullplate. Now, as an expert in bleeding, that told me all I needed to know. The Prophet’d got so angry, on top of the state his head was in anyway, that some part of his brain had just… burst.

That was just… that. Burst brain. And if he hadn’t been dead when he’d hit the floor, he definitely was by the time I’d worked out what was going on.

The boss was dead. And wouldn’t you know it, at just that moment, the shouting-boxes roared into life all down the inside of the sub, and started blarin’ out a message from the lookouts up top in the peekin’-spire. They’d seen the target, hadn’t they? Just visible through the smog on the horizon, lurking like a git-nest in a marsh, was Hive Tempestora itself.

And that meant that, in the time it’d take you to refill any of those lymph tanks over there, the whole fleet of subs would be ploughing up out of the water, beaching ’emselves on the slag-drifts of the shore, and grinding over any human defences like soil-gits under a boot. When that happened, every ork, on every sub on the fleet, would be waiting in the holds chanting the great war chant, ready to follow the Prophet into battle. Even before that, now that the hive had been sighted, they’d be expecting the boss to show up down in the musterin’ chambers, to give his big pump-up speech.

Only… his brain had burst.

There wasn’t even time to panic. I knew, right then, I needed to snatch up every moment of time I could possibly get my gristly hands on, to have a hope of resussertatin the Prophet before we hit the beaches. That meant someone needed to cover for the boss down below, playing for as much time as possible. And I knew just the someone.

That’s not good, Biter had said, when they’d climbed up through the hatch into the throne-chamber, and clapped eyes on the stone-dead Ghazghkull. Typical Biter.

They’re all zoggin’ weird, the Blood Axes are. But Biter – or Taktikus, as they’d called themself back then – was something else. They’d just become the chief Blood Axe genrul on Armygeddon, after shanking their predecessor during a raid behind human lines, and they was probably the weirdest ork I’ve ever come across. Actually likes being around humans. Fought with ’em once, they says. Still betrayed ’em in the end, mind. But they’re a creepy git however you look at it.

Unfortunately, they’re a clever git and all. And in that moment, they was the only ork on that rotten boat who I reckoned had a chance of seeing Ghazghkull dead, and not completely losing their mind. So in that moment, they was the most precious thing in the world to me. Straight-line-thinking, yeah? Anyway, once they’d got a grip on the situation, I sent them down to where the speech was due to be held, and told them to think up some zoggin’ good reasons for the boss not being there.

So that was one problem dealt with, at least. Later, I found out exactly what Biter had done to keep the troops busy, and I will grudgingly admit it was a masterpiece of a lie. They’d said Ghazghkull had left the sub to fight a sea monster, because he’d got too annoyed with being cooped up below decks. They’d even had mines detonated just outside the hull, so it sounded like there was a fight going on out in the sludge. Bought me a lot of time, Biter did, with that little ruse.

Not enough time, though. Working like a grot trying to wall up a gap in a gnasher-squig pen, I’d opened up the whole of Ghazghkull’s bonce, and laid it out in bits on the floor of his throne-chamber, all the while hoping nobody walked in on me. It was a miserable situation for brain surgery to begin with, what with the dim red emergency lights, and the stench of the squigs and all. But it got worse, fast.

When the subs at the front of the fleet burst through the defensive perimeter of the human sea wall, the hive’s defenders scrambled their bombers, and started filling the sea around us with depth charges. They launched too late to actually cause much damage, mind, since the subs were wrapped up in spaceship metal after all. Think they only managed to sink a couple of dozen boats, if I remember right. But the rocking of the hull, and the constant zoggin’ concussion waves from the blasts, really tested my detail work. For almost every bloodpipe I managed to close up in the boss’ knotted great ball of a brain, it seemed another got tore open when an explosion knocked my hand.

Still, what I lack in precision, I’ve always made up for in speed. I was makin’ progress. And as we passed under the bombardment, I got every rupture in the Prophet’s brain closed up. I even charged it with a few gobfuls of my own genius blood, so it’d have enough juice in it to think with, once I got his hearts started.

And I swear, for all that I hate both of the gits, thank Gork and Mork I managed to get his skull bolted together, with just an instant to spare, before our keel hit the beach.

’Cos when I say beach, I’d be better off saying junkyard. Weren’t a grain of sand to be found there – just piles upon piles of smashed-up human machinery, eaten through with rust, and with all the gaps filled in with jagged chunks of slag from the foundries upcoast. The sound of it, as jags and snags tore through the sub’s belly like squiggoth claws, made it feel like being stuck in the inside of a dakkajet turbine.

As the sub ploughed all the way out of the water and started grinding along under its own weight, I thought we was going to be shook to pieces. And if I hadn’t had the massive dead weight of Ghazghkull to cling onto, I would’ve been smashed to splinters against the walls. It was a grim old ride, that. Sometimes, you know, I wonder how many more mobs might’ve made it out onto the beaches, if we’d thought to put handholds in the troop bays.

I couldn’t believe how long we kept on skidding. But then, I s’pose a ship the size of a small city, sat on a nuclear turbine going at full blast for days, is gonna build up a bit of momentum, isn’t it? Still, gravity’s such a hard old brute that even ork hardware can’t outlast it. In the end we came to a long, rattling halt, and after one last massive groan of metal, and a crack of the central girders for good measure, there was silence.

Gork knows how many of the other subs got shredded to bits on the way out of the sea, or broke in two once they had to take their own weight, but I could see the little red lights on the wall of the boss’ throne-chamber pinging green as the survivors reported landfall, and it looked like it was probably more than half of ’em.

Not bad, I know. Weren’t gonna last, though. Already, the silence’d been broken by the drone of the human bombers, as they wheeled back round out at sea to take another run at us. And this time, we were sitting targets, with no sludge to hide under.

I heard the rattle and crack of the flak turrets on the sub’s tail opening up, but then they stopped again, one by one – no doubt as the gunners took slaps across their heads from their bosses. Why? ’Cos Ghazghkull had said he’d start the attack. That was how it had to go; so far as every last ork in the fleet saw it, that was how the gods were going to give us our win. And if that meant losing a few more subs, while the boss chose the perfect moment to strike? Well, that was just the way things went.

All well and good, only the boss’ heart wouldn’t start. I’d tried squishing it with my hands. I’d tried getting the spare one going first. I’d tried sticking the sparky end of a sliced-through cable into the middle of it. I’ll be honest, I’d even tried battering it with a wrench, just in case. But the zoggin’ thing just sat there between the boss’ ribs, cold and rubbery, refusing even to twitch.

The bombs were falling now, of course. But I had to keep trying. So, with my making-things-bigger goggles on and a glow-squig between my teeth, I pushed my head right inside the Prophet’s chest for a proper look. At least it was a break from the smell of squig turds.

I don’t really know what I expected to find in there. But as it turned out, I was in luck. The problem was stupidly simple, actually. Shining my light through the walls of the boss’ main bloodpipes, I saw the biggest one coming out of his heart was all blocked up. I spent a good while squinting at it, trying to work out what it might have been, when I remembered I’d injected him with molten plastek a few days previously. Supposedly, it’d been a cure for the rashes on his neck – which I’d also caused, with a swab dipped in used reaktor coolant – but really it’d just been a bit of spite on my part. For a moment there, I almost regretted having done it.

Especially when something started cutting its way through the wall.

As soon as I managed to pull my head out of the boss, I saw sparks flying, and I knew that the fierce, white-orange square drawing itself slowly across the inner hull could only mean one thing. We’d taken so long to invade the beaches, that the zoggin’ humans were invadin’ us.

Before that moment, I’d been coming up with a dead elegant plan for clearing the boss’ bloodpipes. But that had to go down the drops sharpish: this was no time for fancy surgery. Knowing I’d have to go with my gut, I stopped any sort of straight-line-thinking, and solved the problem like any good ork.

That’ll do, I thought, spotting a skinny, jagged little banner-pole sticking up from Ghazghkull’s shoulder armour. Twisting it off with a neat little snap, I peered back into the boss’ open chest, poked my tongue between my tusks to make my aim better, and jabbed him right in the ventrikular arteree with the sharp end.

Two things happened at once, then. There was a big, gurgling pop from Ghazghkull’s heart as it unclogged itself and started beating, and a massive hollow clang from behind me, as the cut section of hull fell through. The whole chamber filled with smoke, and I had to use my rivetgun blind to close the incision, accidentally putting two bolts through my hand in the process. But I closed it, and as I swept the worst of the muck from the seal, I could feel the thud of the boss’ heart through the skin.

Which was just as well. Because standing in the hole in the wall were three massive beakies. I’d spent so long in that miserable, dim red light that they were just black outlines against a wall of blinding white. But there’s no mistaking a beaky when you see one – those big pretend shoulders, that tiny little head, those big ridiculous boots: they’re all a dead giveaway. Still, it wasn’t the most welcome sight in the world, right then.

I was squinting down the barrel of one of their chunky guns, I remember, trying to remember how good beakies could see through smoke, when I heard it. The best sound I’d ever heard in my life, even though it was just five words.

‘Move out the way, Grotsnik.’

V

‘Now obviously,’ said Grotsnik, his stitch-riven chest puffed out with pride, ‘there was a lot of fighting still to come, after that. But as far as I’m concerned? That was the moment we won the invasion of Tempestora Hive.’

‘Yeah,’ said Drippa, its face entirely motionless, earning it a scowl from the dok. ‘Great story, boss. Just got one question, though.’

‘Oh, did I miss something?’ hissed Grotsnik, nostrils flaring, as he towered over his nonplussed audience.

‘Just one thing, yeah… the pole.’

‘What pole?’

‘The one you fixed the boss’ heart with. You said it was a banner, right?’

‘I… think you… yeah.’ The dok snorted, taken aback. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘Do you remember what was… on the banner, at all? Like, a picture or sumfink?’

‘Uh?’ grunted the dok, his long, scarred face crunching up in bafflement. But then, as some mean little detail fell into place, deep within the algal folds of his own mind, realisation set in. His lone red eye, furrowed into a smouldering volcanic crack with concentration, flared suddenly in shock, and his mouth gaped in wordless exaggeration, as what had seemed such a trivial detail at the time swelled to monumental importance.

‘Was it that banner?’ asked Drippa, a mean strand of mucus swaying across its sharp little grin, as it extended a claw towards the mountainous shape of Ghazghkull’s torso in the gloom.

There, screwed into a socket high up on the boss’ fortress of a shoulder, and glinting weakly where endless bullet-strikes had hammered and holed it, was indeed a tattered metal banner. And on its lumpy surface, copied faithfully from the copy of a hundred previous copies, was the design that had first been daubed in the Prophet’s own blood, back in the yard behind Grotsnik’s own medical tent.

Makari? Makari? Makari?

The name echoed in Grotsnik’s head, like a drumbeat, coming from every direction at once. Is this it? he thought to himself, as the full misery of the truth continued seeping through his skull like ice water. Am I finally, properly, going mad?

But Grotsnik was not going mad. Or if he was, it had nothing to do with the name he could hear being shouted, over and over again. Because the name, he heard now, was being repeated in the same, unmistakable voice whose bellows and barks had underscored Grotsnik’s work for some time now. It was Bullets, somewhere outside the laboratory’s door. And there was, in fact, a drumbeat underlying it. Something like a drumbeat, anyway: a wet, thudding crack, just a moment or two after each repetition of that hated name.

Makari? Crack! Makari? Crack! Makari? Crack!

Despite the many, many other thoughts clamouring for space in Grotsnik’s mind, then, he could never ignore the evidence of somebody else getting know-wots wrong, and he clicked his tusks in contempt.

‘The zoggin’ moron,’ he muttered. ‘He’s trying to find them, isn’t he? Trying to find a new Makari. Goin’ along a line of grots, I’ll bet, and braining ’em when they don’t respond.’ The dok shook his head mournfully, and absent-mindedly gathered a spanner from his belt. ‘Doesn’t he have the wits to realise it was always the boss’ touch, brought the little bin-git back, not just the name?’

‘We’ve still got the Prophet’s old hands…’ said Drippa, nodding conspiratorially towards a hopper at the back of the dome, stacked with hunks of leathery green flesh. ‘Wonder if they’d still work?’

Grotsnik the ork opened his mouth to roar abuse, with fangs bared and talons arched. But Mad Dok Grotsnik said nothing, because he was doing straight-line-thinking. The grot, for all its attitude, was correct. There was one factor that had been common to both incidents of Ghazghkull’s resurrection, it turned out. And yet, it was absent from this attempt. For all that he hated Makari, he knew that – as a scientist, if not as an ork – it was his duty to suffer them once more.

He took a long look down at Drippa the grot, and narrowed his eye. Was there a similarity there? No. But it didn’t matter: the little sods looked different every time. But the attitude? The spiteful, smug piety? Oh, yes; on that front, Drippa was more than halfway there already. It’d make a perfect test subject.

Drippa had been about to say something, but didn’t get the chance before the ork’s arm swooped down and picked it up bodily by its ragged, greasy ear.

‘Congratulations, Drippa,’ announced Mad Dok Grotsnik, a smirk of triumph finding a foothold on his face again at last. ‘You’re about to pioneer an entirely new field of research with me. I suggest you start thinking godly thoughts.’

He turned, then, to the rest of the lab’s grot workers, who had been beginning to disperse in disappointment, now that it looked like further violence was unlikely.

‘And you lot?’ boomed the dok, his eye gleaming with reflections of arc lightning from the capacitors. ‘Fetch the boss’ old hand, and pulley armature three. We’re going to do a little experiment.’

‘How’s that gonna help?’ screeched a miserable specimen at the back of the crowd, with a feeble shrug. ‘Bringing the Prophet back’s still impossible.’

‘Foolish grot,’ grinned Grotsnik, turning his wild gaze to the ceiling once more, and the green stars which shone, concealed, behind it. ‘Something’s only impossible, you know, if the Great Green ain’t willed it yet.’

KEEPERS OF THE FAITH

HIS WILL

GUY HALEY

They could hear them talking on the other side of the wall panels, but they could not distinguish what was said.

Brother Clydeus was crammed closely against Frater Mathieu. He couldn’t stand to be trapped. The innards of the walls brushed against his face, stuffy with machine heat and the smell of dust and old grease. The metal reinforcements of the relic box dug into his wrists. It was just about light enough to carry on his back with the head strap, but there wasn’t any room for that in the hole. The walls pressed in on him, crushing his soul. He was scared of small places, and he was ashamed of that. But if they were found, they were dead, and that scared him even more.

Frater Mathieu said it was a test of his belief. Clydeus had no wish to fail – that was all that stopped him from weeping – so held the box tight even though his arms shook, and kept his mouth shut.

A few tiny lumens blinked deep in the workings, warning of some overlooked malfunction. Their illumination touched on the skulls of the machina opus embossed on the inside of the panels. All the panels bore the mark of the Machine-God, though no one would ever see them. Clydeus fought his fear by focusing on them. He breathed slowly, inspired by these hidden signs of devotion to draw on his faith. The machine-priests worshipped the Emperor in their own peculiar manner, but they shared a god, so in a way, he told himself, the God-Emperor was looking at him through the hollow eyes of the idolatrous skulls.

It did a little to dampen his terror.

‘Protect us, oh lord of Terra.’

His half-breathed prayer brought a hissed rebuke from Frater Mathieu.

‘Silence.’

Mathieu was staring intently through a crack in the wall, where a buckled plate had opened up the slightest gap. A knife edge of light cut across his eyes. They were steely. He was always so calm, always so brave. Clydeus wished he could be like him, but he wasn’t. The light of the Emperor shone so brightly in Mathieu.

The frater said Clydeus would find his courage, but Clydeus thought him wrong. He had no courage, none at all.

The muffled conversation moved off. He heard Hiven laughing.

‘Master, I cannot bear it in here,’ Clydeus whispered. ‘Let me out.’

‘Be quiet, Clydeus,’ said Mathieu calmly. ‘We will only be in danger a moment longer. You can and shall bear it, in the Emperor’s name.’

‘Yes, frater.’

‘Fear not, Hiven is coming back.’

Familiar footsteps approached, the drag of a ruined foot and the thump of a crutch, very loud; deep noises carried much better through the metal than words. Hiven was alone, that much was clear.

Clydeus whimpered as the wall panel in front of Mathieu was yanked back hard.

‘They’re gone,’ Hiven said. ‘I don’t think they were looking for you, so that’s good news.’

Clydeus fell out of the open wall. Wires tangled him, and he fought them off, almost dropping the precious box. Mathieu stepped free of the priest hole with far more dignity. He rubbed at a long burn on his forearm given him by a heat exchanger pipe. Clydeus looked at him in wonder. Mathieu had not made a sound. The older priest saw him looking and tugged the sleeve of his filthy robe over the wound.

Clydeus was young, not yet in his twenties. His hair was cut in an unflattering bowl through which his ears protruded. Clydeus hated his ears, and his large nose. He did not regard himself as handsome, not that a priest should think about such things, and Clydeus punished himself often for doing so, but he did think about them.

Mathieu, on the other hand, was handsome. He was only a few years older than Clydeus, but infinitely more worldly, and exuded a confidence that made Clydeus feel inferior as much as it comforted him. Clydeus loved and worshipped Mathieu, but he envied him, and sometimes that shaded into hatred.

Both of them wore the robes of the Acronite Mendicants, the cream of the rough fabric so grimy it was almost black after so many months hiding.

‘You are sure they are gone, Brother Hiven?’ said Mathieu.

‘Yes,’ said Hiven. ‘They’re not much to worry about. They’re only doing it for the extra ration. They’re not very diligent.’ He was talking fast, stimulated by the rush of adrenaline. If that made him seem unreliable, it was not so, for Hiven was a good guide and a valued friend. He was pale with lack of sleep and malnutrition, the ugly crop of boils around his lips especially livid, but helping the priests energised him. It kept him alive.

‘What were they doing? It’s a little late for a patrol.’

‘They were sent down by the masters, to make sure we’re not planning anything. Don’t worry. If they suspected you were here, they won’t say.’

‘Do not underestimate the evils men will do for a small advantage,’ Mathieu said.

Hiven rubbed his jaw. ‘Things aren’t so bad yet. The masters won’t come down here themselves. From what the patrol said, they think it’s beneath them,’ said Hiven. He looked about nervously, though the corridor was deserted, and there was no sign of tampering on the ancient metal to indicate the installation of machine spies. ‘I think there aren’t that many of them. We could resist.’

Speaking about the masters was dangerous. Clydeus felt a fresh stab of fear.

‘There’s no way we can fight them. It does not matter if there are ten or a thousand. Even one of them will slaughter us,’ said Mathieu sternly. ‘I want you to put any thoughts like that far from your mind, Brother Hiven. Do you understand me?’

‘I wasn’t talking about–’

‘You were,’ said Mathieu. ‘The reprisals could be terrible. They would kill hundreds of us, cruelly too, as examples to the rest. Fear is their greatest weapon. Do not provoke them into using it.’

Hiven nodded and shifted his crutch under his armpit. He looked away.

‘Yes, frater.’

‘We must merely endure, until the Emperor sees fit to save us from this unclean bondage.’

‘Yes, frater.’

Clydeus peered down the corridor. It ran for half a mile at least, the spots of illumination cast by isolated lumens fading eventually into darkness. He imagined tall, inhuman shapes lumbering down it, and him with nowhere to go, because the corridor was equally featureless and equally long in the other direction. He wished more than anything that Mathieu would command them to move on. He wanted the day to be over, so they could get to whatever hiding place they were due to sleep in that night.

But their duties were not done. The most perilous part still awaited.

He almost gasped with relief when Mathieu said it was time to go. Mathieu put the plate back in place over the priest hole himself, turning the screws at the corners with a piece of sharpened metal that dangled from a cord at his belt.

‘Come,’ he said. ‘The Emperor awaits us.’

He strode ahead, fearless. The Emperor granted Mathieu great energy. Clydeus prayed daily he’d get a share too. As it was, the relic box felt awfully heavy as he reattached the strap’s hooks to the brass handles, slung the pad around his forehead, and trudged after the priest and the guide.

The storeroom Hiven had chosen for the service was tucked well out of the way behind one of the refectories. Its supplies had been dispersed to the others around the kitchens. There was so little food left on board that it could have been gathered together, and most of the rooms left empty, but the local quartermaster kept a well-ordered system, arranging material by type. It was harder to guard, he said, but easier to account for, and the trust he gave his comrades as they watched it kept up their morale. They didn’t do it like that everywhere, but it worked for them. A side benefit was that they could quickly free up space for the church when the priests came to the sector.

Everything had been moved out, shelves, supplies and all. A simple, folding table had been set up as an altar at one end, and covered over with a plain but clean cloth. On top of it stood a statue of the Emperor. It was a little battered, made of cast resin. Nothing fancy, nothing valuable, but to this particular congregation it was a source of great comfort. It would have meant a painful death to whoever was caught with it. The dangers attached to the effigy only increased the people’s reverence, and the quartermaster showed it to Mathieu and Clydeus as proudly as if he had never shown them before.

Clydeus liked him. He was a kind man. He could have abused his position, being one of the last remaining officers, and one with control over the food at that, but he had instead risen to the occasion, making sure everyone was fed, enabling the services, and keeping people safe as they laboured for their new masters.

Mathieu opened the relic box to get out the candles and went to set them up. They carried their own; they were rare things now. There were a few prayer books in there besides the candles, a couple of holy symbols and Mathieu’s inactive servo-skull. If the box had ever held a relic, it was long before Clydeus’ time. He’d tried suggesting they ditch the box and the skull. To Clydeus’ mind, it would have been much easier to carry their appurtenances of worship in a bag. He’d suggested it once.

It was the only time he had seen Mathieu angry.

It was the skull, Clydeus was sure, not the box. He took out the prayer books and it was revealed. Mathieu had fitted the box with padding to fit the skull as best he could, so it stared up out of the bottom with its hollow, horrible eyes, its few augmetics carefully curled about it. A large ‘HV’ was carved into the bone of the forehead. Clydeus set the books down and let his fingers trace the letters.

Not for the first time, he wondered who the skull had belonged to. Its powercell had given out a while ago and would not recharge. It needed proper maintenance. Whoever the skull had been must have been holy indeed for Mathieu to treat it so. He could have discarded it. He probably should have. At the very least, he could have hidden it somewhere. Emperor knew there were a billion potential places. But the frater insisted on carrying it.

He insists that I carry it, Clydeus corrected himself.

‘Clydeus,’ Mathieu said softly. He extinguished his taper and nodded to the doorway. ‘They are here. Be alert.’

Through the door the first of the congregation came, the shuffling masses of the lower ordnance deck reload gangs. They kept filing in, cramming themselves in so tightly they jolted against the altar. They consumed so much of the oxygen, Clydeus became dizzy. The smell coming off them was powerful, the scent of machine oils, burnt fyceline, brass, the sharp tang of the void even, all laid on the barnyard aroma of people doing their best to keep clean without adequate water.

Mathieu watched them with a father’s indulgence, until the room was completely full. More were in the corridor outside. A hush fell on them, so intense it was as if they were willing their hearts to beat more quietly, so they would not miss a single word. Clydeus glanced at the pathetic collection of prayer books he’d unpacked from the box. There was enough for maybe one in twenty people, and no way of passing them out into the crush.

‘Brothers and sisters,’ said Mathieu. He smiled warmly. To many priests, the words were homilies of no real meaning. To him, they were a literal truth; he saw them all as his family. ‘I come to you with words of comfort, on this, the four hundred and seventy-fifth day of the capture of the Macragge’s Honour, flagship of the returned primarch, Roboute Guilliman. May the Emperor watch over His son.’

‘May the Emperor watch over His son,’ the congregation replied.

And so the service started. They all began that way.

Mathieu and Clydeus’ duties ended with the Indulgence of the Innocent, where the sick and frightened asked the priests for their personal intervention with the Emperor. This lasted a long time, as many of the crew wished to speak. Hiven grew more nervous the longer it went, and by the time it was over he was evidently worried. His broken foot rasped over the deck plates as they made their way out of Gunnery Section Seven into Gunnery Section Six. Although he was of little use in the heavy work of the magazine since his accident, he was fast despite his crutch, using it to swing himself forward at a surprising pace, and Clydeus panted trying to keep up with him.

The patrols were more prevalent during the late watches. Although the battleship was in the hands of the Red Corsairs, for the human crew, the routines of their duty had changed little. Their new masters were crueller, the conditions were worse, and so their suffering was greater, but the shipboard rhythms of work, sleep and sustenance ran on as regularly as they ever did. It was not so long ago that the Red Corsairs had been servants of the Emperor themselves, and they had not yet plunged into the erratic habits of some other Heretic Astartes.

The only element of life that had changed was worship. Where it was permitted at all, the crew were herded into grim fanes to give praise to the Dark Gods, but most of the fallen Space Marines seemed to disdain religion of all kinds, and so long as the crew did not openly praise the Emperor they were left alone, and the time meant for devotion was empty.

That was where Clydeus and Mathieu came in. If they were discovered, they would suffer the most terrible of fates. Mathieu spoke of their probable martyrdom as if he were resigned to it, desiring only to do as much good as he could before the end came. Clydeus swung from utter terror to elation at the thought, and secretly clung to the dream that he would be made a saint.

They were on the move constantly. The nooks and crannies they were forced to inhabit as they brought the Emperor’s Word were terrible places, but some were worse than others.

It was too late to make their next contact, so they spent the dark watches in a gap at the centre of a run of pipes. The space was narrow, and the three of them had to sleep in a row, with Clydeus in the middle. His head was by Hiven’s feet, the relic box was heavy on his stomach, and the pipes were not only uncomfortable, but also knocked and gurgled. He spent the night praying.

‘Make me brave, oh Emperor,’ he said to himself, no louder than his breath. ‘Please make me brave.’

When Hiven roused Clydeus, he was groggy and in foul spirits. The corridor he clambered out into was exactly the same as when he had gone to sleep. He could have been asleep for a few moments or a week for all he knew. There was little to mark the passage of time on board the ship, and although he had been born there, and knew nothing else, it still disoriented him.

Hiven went ahead, meeting with the unofficial leader of the next section, a gunnery sergeant. When he returned, they were taken to perform their next service. There was some disagreement over the location. The crew of the section wanted to hold the worship in a chapel between two of their gun batteries. Hiven said that was far too dangerous, and there followed an argument. Clydeus was too tired to care. All he wanted was to be fed. Food was their wages for bringing the Word.

The sergeant backed down. A new place was found. Clydeus and Mathieu were given a meal, far bigger than the rations provided for the locals. They accepted them gratefully.

The service passed off as they all did: cramped, furtive and hot. Finally, it was over, and they were due to find their next resting spot, when a woman hovering by the door plucked up courage to come forward. Clydeus was packing the box with the candles and the books.

‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘Frater, can I talk to you?’

His heart sank. She had the timorous yet determined manner of all their petitioners, and Mathieu never rejected a genuine call for aid. It was going to be a long night.

He scolded himself. His thoughts were unworthy of the God-Emperor. The priests were there for others. Service to Him on Terra was paramount. His life meant nothing.

‘Remember the Emperor’s sacrifice, brother,’ Mathieu had said to him, more than once. ‘It is far greater than yours.’

‘I am no frater, mistress…?’ Clydeus said.

‘Call me Lyasona.’

‘Yes, Mistress Lyasona.’ He found it hard to look her in the eye. Not only his unworthiness was to blame for that; she was unusually pretty, and he was a bashful mess around women. ‘I am an unordained brother. That’s the frater, him who led the service in praise of our lord.’ He made himself look into her eyes when he pointed to Mathieu. The despair in them sped his heart. He swallowed. ‘Do you need something?’

She nodded.

‘Frater,’ he called to Mathieu, already afraid.

Twenty minutes later he found himself hurrying after Mathieu down a crowded, three-storey habway. Tiny cells led off every level. Grey washing hung between the gallery railings, which were so close two people could have leant out and embraced over the gap. Eyes watched suspiciously from half-open slide doors. He heard children crying, those too young to have learned to be silent.

Hiven had gone off to find a new route to their next stop, as the old one had been closed by decompression. The Corsairs weren’t maintaining the ship as well as the Ultramarines, another thing that suggested their numbers were few. Their neglect was as evident on the fabric of the vessel as it was on the faces of its crew. Clydeus walked quickly to keep up with Mathieu and Lyasona. He heard only snatches of their conversation. All he knew was that there was something wrong with the woman’s son.

They stopped at a closed door that was like all the hundreds of others.

‘This is it,’ said Mathieu. He held his hand out to the door. A terrible chill radiated from the metal. He looked back at Clydeus. ‘Can you feel it? The cold?’

He could. ‘It’s not just cold,’ said Clydeus.

‘No,’ said Mathieu. ‘No, it isn’t.’

He looked to Lyasona. She was very frightened.

‘Can you open it for me?’ he asked. ‘It would be better if you did. Your son must be strong to survive this long, and he will let his mother in. The thing that has hold of him will react badly to us, and the door may not open for me.’

She began to cry as she reached for the handle. Mathieu took her hand in his.

‘Do not fear, sister. We shall do what we can. Even here, the minions of evil have no power to defy the Emperor. He stands by us, always, I promise.’

She did not look convinced, but hesitated. ‘Please, be kind, my boy Grent does not look…’ She swallowed. ‘He does not look like himself.’

She opened the door. An icy wash of air spilled out into the corridor. Clydeus shivered. His breath plumed.

The room beyond was very small, the main feature being four bunks so closely spaced one on top of the other that it would be difficult to roll over without brushing the bunk above. A narrow way passed between the beds and the opposite wall, into which was set four lockers. A small table occupied the tiny amount of space remaining. This had a square of cloth on it, a single lit candle, and an effigy of the Emperor on the Throne scratched into a polished sheet of scavenged metal. The etching was crude, the marks blackened with soot.

Although the lumen in the room was on, there was a darkness that swallowed all the light it cast. Only the table was illuminated, as if the effigy held back the dark, yet the image of the Master of Mankind looked troubled, and His eyes were fixed upon the lower bunk.

The room smelled bad, of sickness and vomit, and something else, deep and sweet and tantalising. Clydeus felt a shameful confusion as his mouth watered.

Mathieu crouched down. Clydeus saw that what he had taken for a bundle of bedclothes was actually a small boy. Mathieu rolled him over, exposing a moon-pale face with a crusted mouth. The boy moaned. Clydeus thought he heard something chuckle behind him, and started. More strange noises came and went on the edge of hearing. Hissing, foreign words, weeping, growling. Mathieu ignored them as he inspected the boy.

‘How long has he been like this?’ Mathieu asked.

‘Three days,’ said Lyasona.

‘How did it begin?’

‘With a fever. One shift change he would not wake.’

Mathieu lifted the bedclothes. The boy was stripped to his undergarments. He was horribly thin. Although the awful cold of the room made Clydeus shiver, the boy was damp with sweat. Mathieu touched his forehead. The boy moaned again.

‘Not the sickness. When did all this start?’ He glanced up. ‘The cold, the dark. When, and how?’

The boy’s mother looked confused. She had obviously not been sleeping much. ‘Two days before his fever. There were noises. Like a rasping on the metal. I heard Grent crying one night, then heard him talking. He laughed. I thought I was dreaming.’

‘Any more sudden changes in temperature, knocking, odd noises, anything up to a week or two before?’ Mathieu bent over the boy, put his ear to his chest, then sat up sharply. ‘Here, or elsewhere in this sector?’

The woman nodded. ‘I heard rumours, talk in the laundry and in the metal reclamation foundry where I work. Moving shadows. Bad dreams. I didn’t believe them.’

Mathieu made a thoughtful noise. He reached into his habit, and pulled out the talisman of the Acronite order. He took it from around his neck, wrapped the chain about his fist, and brought it slowly towards the boy.

It had gone barely an inch towards the child when his eyes snapped open. He gave out an inhuman hiss, and scrabbled to the far side of the bed. Mathieu put away his amulet. The boy’s face cleared.

‘Mama?’ he said. He began to cry.

Mathieu stood. ‘Do not fear, little one. We shall help you.’ He turned to Lyasona. ‘It is good that you came to us. He is afflicted and must be dealt with.’

‘Afflicted? You mean the warp madness?’ Now the woman began to cry. ‘But those with the warp madness are–’

‘No. Not like that. I will not give him the Emperor’s final mercy. The Emperor will help us. We must take him to a holy space. The way chapel your people wished us to use. Is it far?’

Lyasona shook her head.

‘Find me four strong men. I will need rope, and pins to tie them to the deck. Be quick!’

The woman rushed off.

‘Warp madness?’ said Clydeus. ‘He is doomed. No one can survive that.’

Mathieu turned to Clydeus. ‘He is not mad. He is possessed.’

‘Possessed? What do you mean?’

‘By a spirit from the warp. A Neverborn,’ Mathieu said quietly. The boy looked at him sharply and growled.

‘A what?’

‘A malevolent supernatural creature.’

‘Like the devils from the scriptures?’ said Clydeus.

‘A little. There is an echo of the truth in some of the parables. The reality is much worse. They are sometimes called warp xenos.’

‘Then it is not warp madness?’

‘You shipborn call it warp madness sometimes, yes,’ said Mathieu. ‘But is it really madness? There are also visions, and strange happenings, aren’t there? Inexplicable things.’

‘That is witchery,’ said Clydeus with a shudder.

‘Of a sort, but from no human agency. These Neverborn find their way into our world through unguarded minds, and usurp the will of those they take. It’s not surprising it’s happened here, in the Maelstrom. I suppose it was inevitable.’

‘I was born on this ship,’ said Clydeus. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ But he did, deep down. Warp madness, witches – these were convenient excuses. Every shipborn had an idea something was out there, if only from the nightmares they had when the ship sailed the warp. There were rumours. You did not speak of them. Those that did vanished.

‘They were a secret, for a long time, even from voidsmen like you. There are many secrets in this Imperium of ours,’ said Mathieu thoughtfully.

‘Then how do you know?’ said Clydeus.

Mathieu gave him a stern look. ‘I know because the Emperor wills it, Clydeus. Now is not the time for questions. We must work fast if we are to save the boy, and everyone else aboard this ship.’

Men arrived with Lyasona, hooded and masked so they would not be recognised. They wrapped the boy tightly in a blanket and carried him from the habitation quarters, up out onto the main gunnery levels. It was quiet up there, few people about. Only the gun masters were present, sleeping in hammocks strung upon the workings of the enormous macrocannons they were responsible for. The area was out of bounds to most of the ship’s inhabitants. But a few quiet words from Mathieu with the sentries standing guard at the junction of each gallery, and they were allowed through. Clydeus sweated at each challenge. The Red Corsairs were not loved by the crew, but like Mathieu had told Hiven, there were always those ready to curry favour.

The chapel was situated between two batteries. From its wide arches, it was possible to see each way down the rows of silent cannons. It was deathly silent. The chapel had been profaned. The statues of the Emperor had been torn out, and the sacred barred Terran ‘I’ gouged off the metal by machine tools, yet despite the efforts of the enemy, it remained sacred, for as soon as they crossed the threshold, the boy began to thrash and moan. The men struggled to hold him, and cursed.

‘Emperor preserve us, we’ll be heard!’ said Clydeus. ‘The heretics themselves patrol these levels.’

‘It will not matter if we don’t deal with this boy,’ said Mathieu. He directed the men to lay the boy out. They used the power tools of their trades to drive pins and hoops into the floor, and they bound the child’s ankles and wrists to them. The boy was shrieking now. When the men let go of him, he floated up, so that there was a clear few inches between his flesh and the deck. They backed away quickly; what was visible of their expressions under their hoods and masks showed they were aghast.

‘Go, get out of here!’ Mathieu commanded them. They gladly obliged, vanishing down access stairs back into the lower decks.

‘Help me, Clydeus,’ said Mathieu, when they had gone.

‘What do I do?’

‘Hold his head. Get the gag into his mouth, then hold his head fast between your knees to stop the thing inside breaking his neck.’

Grent was growling loudly. They heard the few men in the gunnery halls slipping from their posts and leaving. No one wanted any part of what was happening there, and as much as they feared the ship’s new owners, they feared their superstitions more.

What Clydeus witnessed was no superstition. The boy’s eyes were gleaming with awful power. When he went to put the knotted rag Mathieu had made for a gag into the boy’s mouth, his head snapped around, and his teeth sank deep into the flesh of Clydeus’ hand.

‘Terra’s dry bones!’ he cursed, snatching his hand back. He stood, unsure. His fear getting the better of him.

‘Clydeus, get the gag in, or he’ll lose his tongue!’ Mathieu hissed.

Clydeus moved round the top of the boy’s head. Mathieu knelt on his chest, pushing him back down, though the dark power in the child fought back, and Mathieu was forced to exert all his strength to keep the boy on the floor. He struggled with strips of parchment torn from the prayer books, touching them to the boy’s flesh where they blackened and stuck fast.

Clydeus moved in again with the gag. The boy’s head rolled lazily around, the neck bending at an unnatural angle, until the bone popped. He laughed – an evil, awful sound.

‘Clydeus, quickly!’

But the boy’s eyes had locked with Clydeus’, and something looked out from them. Clydeus felt his soul pulled upon, like he was falling head first into dark waters from which there was no escape. Visions of power filled his mind. He would be a cardinal, loved by billions, confidant of the Emperor, desired by women, wealthy beyond the dreams of the greediest lord…

‘Clydeus!’

Clydeus shook his head. That was not service, not to Him. It was service to himself. Shame buried his terror.

‘Emperor shield me,’ he said. He pinned the boy’s head between his knees and forced the gag into his mouth.

‘Good, quickly, put your hands on his chest. Repeat my words. This is an old ritual, but it will work only if our faith is strong. Now.’

Mathieu lifted his head, closed his eyes, then began to recite.

‘Oh Emperor, who sits in judgement of us all.’

‘Oh Emperor, who sits in judgement of us all,’ Clydeus repeated.

‘See this most innocent of your servants, see his suffering, see his utility to you, and in your mercy cast out from his flesh the daemons of the warp.’

Clydeus recited the words.

‘Scour from his mind the unholy touch of the unborn, the not born, the never to be born. Free his soul from their clutches. Lift his mind into the light of your mercy.’

The boy bucked and snarled. The gag began to smoulder. The parchment curled. Clydeus goggled. The boy’s eyes were yellow, alive with hatred, the light they cast painful to see. Now he saw a billion torments, things no man could live through, and yet Clydeus lived to experience them all…

‘The words, Clydeus!’ Mathieu said. ‘Now! Look at me!’

‘I–’

‘Don’t look into his eyes!’

Clydeus tore his gaze away, and repeated the words quickly, his tongue tripping over them. The possessed child writhed.

‘It’s working! It’s working!’ Clydeus said.

‘Concentrate! The holy words only! Cast out this beast!’ Mathieu shouted.

‘Cast out this beast!’ Clydeus repeated.

‘Cast out this beast!’ Mathieu said again.

‘Cast out this beast!’ Clydeus said. They sang their words now, their voices matched in harmony, and a sense of purity grew around them, pushing out from the walls, of the chapel, passing through Clydeus so that he gasped at the touch. The light pressed down, containing the vileness pouring out of the boy, sealing it away, and driving it to extinction.

‘Cast out this…’

The boy’s struggles took on new levels of violence. The daemonhost ripped out one of the pins restraining his arm, punching Mathieu full in the face. The older priest fell back. Grent twisted around, and burst free from his remaining bonds. Small hands grabbed Clydeus’ habit, and with monstrous strength flung him aside.

Clydeus scrambled up in time to see the boy stand, and he was no longer a boy. His back was hunched. His spine rippled under his skin as his shoulders rose up, becoming huge and powerful. His legs grew, his feet warped, until he was stood upon elongated toes, like a canid balancing upon its hind legs. A muzzle pushed out from the face. His ears became huge and pointed, ribbed with nodules of bone. The gag burst into flame and the daemon wolfed down the ashes.

‘You are too late, priest,’ the beast said. ‘I am coming. I clothe myself in flesh. All souls here will be mine. Verily, shall I feast upon the sweetmeats of your spirits until I am sated, and I shall save yours for last.’

A part of Clydeus collapsed then inside. He had no courage, he had no confidence, and he was sure he would run, or fall to his knees and plead for his life.

He did neither of those things. He might have no courage, but he did have faith, and it armoured him, and lifted him up, so that he felt exultant. As parts of his mind fell away into darkness, they left his faith uncovered, a bright and shining pillar of adamantium, strong as a fortress, and he knew then who he was.

He was a servant of the Emperor, and he would suffer no daemon.

‘No!’ he said. ‘No! No! No!’ He drew out his icon from his habit, and advanced on the daemon. It had not yet consolidated its hold on the boy’s body, and the flesh moved uneasily between the new form and the old.

‘By the grace of the Emperor, who protects all men, I command you begone! Leave this child of Terra, back where you came!’ He was making it up as he went, shouting out whatever came into his mind. But the words were not important. His faith was. He felt the God-Emperor at his side. He felt His presence. He saw His light.

Mathieu got to his feet, and he spoke too. Together, they forced the daemon back, as light poured from the very stuff of the air about them. The daemon shrank. Its flesh ran, turning from diabolical beast back to small boy, until with a clap of thunder it was done. A black shape screamed up from Grent and passed out through the hull.

Grent collapsed. But the light did not go out.

Clydeus turned to Mathieu, and fell to his knees at what he saw.

‘Oh, my lord, oh, my Emperor!’ he said, burying his face in his hands, but still he could see.

An aura glowed silver all around Mathieu. A halo of gold surrounded his head. In his mind Clydeus saw a tumult of images, of war, and death, and victory.

He looked up, and had the impression of someone standing behind Mathieu. Clydeus could not see his face. He was a shape in the light. But he saw a hand rest briefly on Mathieu’s shoulder, and with a moan of holy ecstasy the older priest collapsed. Eyes looked from the light as it faded. Words that were not words growled through the fabric of the chapel, making the metal shake, and Clydeus knew what he must do.

With a great boom, the light went out, and Clydeus stood agape.

He heard a hue and cry far off down the halls. Alarms were raised, and voices. He did not have much time.

He went to Mathieu and shook him.

‘Get up, frater! Please wake, you must return the boy.’

‘The Master, the Master of Mankind,’ murmured Mathieu.

‘I pray it was He,’ said Clydeus. ‘Oh, how I hope! Please, master, you must get up.’

Clydeus helped the frater to his feet, then helped him gather up Grent, placing the unconscious child’s arms around Mathieu’s neck.

‘You must leave.’

‘Where are you going?’ said Mathieu.

Clydeus smiled. ‘Nowhere. They are coming.’ He looked down the gallery, to where lights danced in the dark, and the sound of armoured feet rang loudly from the deck.

‘Clydeus, they will kill you.’

‘I know, but you will be saved. Did you hear?’ said Clydeus. He was gripped by ecstasy. ‘Did you hear what He said? Did you hear what He wants you to do?’

The pair of them locked gazes. The approaching footsteps got louder. They were only a few hundred yards away now.

‘I heard what He said,’ said Mathieu. ‘You will die a martyr. I will honour you always. Emperor walk with you, Brother Clydeus.’

‘Oh, He does, Frater Mathieu, He does!’

Mathieu slipped away into the labyrinthine service ways. Clydeus sat down cross-legged in the centre of the chapel as the bobbing suit lights of the Heretic Astartes approached, and he gave thanks for his revelation.

They came for him, and they were cruel indeed. But nothing they could do to him before he died made him talk, nor did it wipe the beatific smile from his face.

Brother Clydeus had found his courage.

Mathieu passed down the hab-block corridor, dragging a chorus of whispered prayers behind him. People came to their doors, and on seeing the boy gave open voice to their faith, hidden for so many months now.

He knocked on the door of the boy’s mother. It opened into the wall and Lyasona let out a small cry at what she saw.

Grent stirred, and rubbed at his eyes. ‘Mama?’ he said. ‘What is happening?’

‘Take him,’ said Mathieu, passing the child to his mother. ‘He is well now. His sickness is gone. The Emperor has touched his soul. Cherish him.’

‘Thank you, frater!’ Lyasona said. ‘What can I do to repay you?’

‘Nothing,’ said Mathieu. ‘Service to the Emperor is its own reward.’

‘Then let me feed you at least.’

‘Another time perhaps,’ he said. He retrieved the relic box, put up his hood, and placed the strap around his forehead. ‘Rejoice, sister, our captivity is nearly done. Soon the Angels of the Emperor will come for the Macragge’s Honour and take it to be with the primarch. Then my real work shall begin. The Emperor has called upon me, and I have much to do.’

So saying, Mathieu returned to the dark, and to his service.

CELESTINE: REVELATION

ANDY CLARK

Machoria burned. The heat of its flames beat against her back. Blood-stink was in her nostrils, the cries of the fearful and wounded in her ears. Ash skirled around her on furnace winds. Celestine flexed her knuckles about the grip of the Ardent Blade. She planted her feet more firmly upon the roadway that led from the city gates and willed away the pain of her wounds.

‘Emperor, give me strength,’ she murmured, drawing comfort from the familiar words. The God-Emperor was always with her. In every war cry, every swing of her blade and every step she took. They had a pact, she and He.

While it endured, so too did that bond.

Still, His presence was hard to feel in this place. Warp fires swallowed the sky all the way to where the Khori Mountains rose like jagged horns on the horizon. Closer to hand, what had once been hydroponic fields had been reduced to blackened bedrock. The crops had been annihilated by the enemy’s bombardment, the waters turned to a steam that mingled with the blood-haze in the air. Corpses rose in tangled mounds before the walls. Some were the bodies of agri-labourers unfortunate enough to be caught outside the gates before they shut. Those were many days old now, barely more than bone. Others, fresher, had been soldiers of the Astra Militarum, brave men and women of the Coskan Minotaurs and the Sarmathian 86th.

All martyrs to the Emperor’s glory, she thought. All alike in death.

Their living comrades occupied trench lines that stretched along the foot of the walls to Celestine’s right and left. Others manned the Machorian battlements, doing their best to keep the city’s guns firing, even as flames licked up from the buildings below. They traded fire with the enemy’s artillery, hurling ordnance towards the foothills of the Khori range. Relentless volleys screamed back at them.

Horns brayed from within the mists. The sound was brazen, a ferocious roar that swelled until Celestine swore her bones vibrated. It droned on and on until she feared it must drive the Imperial soldiery mad.

At last, the horns faded. As they did, the panicked voices of Coskans and Sarmathians became audible from the trenches.

‘Steady, sons and daughters of Sarmathia, steady!’

‘They come again!’

‘No, please, no. Emperor preserve us.’

Gunshots rang out as regimental commissars did their duty.

Celestine wished her Sisters still stood by her side. All had fallen, every one of the Mission whose presence had anchored the Machorian garrison’s faith. Even her Geminae Superia were lost, their deaths more painful to Celestine than any physical wound. The enemy had come again and again, had focused their hate upon the Battle Sisters and spent countless lives to see them fall. Now Celestine was alone amidst the masses, a figurehead to those who remained but as separate from them as a lonely mountaintop was from the ocean floor. In divinity lay isolation.

The beasts come to finish me, and if I fall then all is lost.

She could see them now, insubstantial figures charging through the mists. Their war cries echoed as though across an impossible gulf. Yet their eyes shone fire-bright, hundreds of coals burning through the veil as the foe drew closer.

Daemons.

Celestine saw many-legged fleshmetal monsters lumbering through the enemy ranks, things whose maws blazed like furnaces. Cavalry came on like an avalanche of brass while there, in the centre of the line, strode a towering abomination clad in spiked brass armour. It bore an axe taller than Celestine in each fist. Eight horns crowned the monster’s helm. Braziers blazed atop its shoulders, skulls blackening amidst their flames.

‘Arnokh,’ Celestine growled. Then, in a calculated gesture of contempt, she turned her back upon the advancing horrors. She swept her gaze instead across the soldiers cowering in their trenches and raised her voice to a shout.

‘Soldiers of the Imperium. Men and women of the Emperor’s realm. Our enemies come to test us yet again.’

Servo-skulls hovered low, recording her address with auto-receptors and transmitting it to the thousands of Imperial soldiers still clinging to this city by their fingernails. Celestine felt their desperate need as a weight upon her soul, trying to drag her to her knees.

‘They have assailed us time and again. They have thrown at us all their hate! All their rage! But have we buckled before them? No!’

She could sense the foe getting nearer with every heartbeat, their menace swelling at her back, the ground vibrating beneath her feet.

‘We will never give way to these abominations. Why? Because they are filth, dredged from the darkness to test our faith, and that faith is strong!’

Celestine brandished the Ardent Blade high so that it gleamed like a star in the firelight. Soldiers gripped their lasguns tighter at that sight, stood taller, or so she hoped.

‘The God-Emperor is with us this day! His will is wrought in me, and I shall lead you to victory! Now fight, sons and daughters of the Imperium! Fight with me, and win!’

Celestine spun to face the foe’s onslaught. As she did so, she tried to believe her own words. Yet even as the guns of the Imperial Guard sang their hymn of death, even as daemons were struck down to tatter away in bursts of embers, she could not help but doubt.

The abominations are legion, and our soldiers so weary, she thought. Emperor, I am so weary.

Then the enemy were upon her and there was no more time for thought.

Blood-skinned daemons hissed, hacking at her in a frenzy. Celestine met their wild onslaught with controlled wrath. A parry, warp-forged darkness ringing against adamantium then a sweep that took her assailant’s head. A sidestep, a swing and a second attacker lunged past her with a howl of rage. She cut downward. Slicing the daemon in two, the Ardent Blade passed through the beast’s spine and out through its chest as easily as though Celestine had cut smoke. A third daemon fell to her blade. A fourth. With a thought, she triggered her jump pack, its outstretched wings carrying her clear of the foe.

‘For the God-Emperor!’ she yelled, surging back into the daemons and banishing two more with a mighty swing of her blade. Gore flecked their lips as they battered at her guard. Celestine’s sword sank into the eye socket of another daemon and blew it apart in a cloud of embers.

Keep fighting, she told herself. The Emperor is with you.

Celestine readied herself for a fresh onslaught.

It didn’t come.

The abominations melted back into the mists like wraiths, giving her a glimpse of las-fire blistering the air, of shells raining down upon the daemonic hordes. Wild with terror, soldiers ran from the monsters that hacked their way into the Imperial lines.

A new presence loomed before her. Arnokh the Bloodlord, master of this infernal host. Once he had been a Space Marine of the Emperor’s own Legions. What stood before her now was a charnel horror whose perfidy had burned worlds.

How far they fall…

‘The Emperor’s angel,’ he hissed.

‘The Blood God’s puppet,’ she replied, dropping into a guard stance. Arnokh was thrice her height and many times her stature, an armoured mountain driven by hate. She drowned in the stinking gloom of his shadow.

‘You have fought well for a corpse-worshipper,’ said Arnokh with a mocking chuckle. ‘I will honour your efforts by taking your head myself.’

‘Mightier than you have tried and failed,’ she spat.

‘There are none mightier than Arnokh the Bloodlord,’ he roared, hefting his axes and storming forward.

‘There is the Emperor,’ she replied with a grim smile. ‘There is me.’

Arnokh’s first swing came down like a thunderbolt. Celestine triggered her jump pack and sprang aside, leaving the axe to crater the roadway. One foot touched the ground before she fired her jump pack’s thrusters again and jetted forward, blade levelled at her enemy’s throat. Arnokh swayed aside but his sheer bulk counted against him. The Ardent Blade stabbed deep into his collarbone, giving a hiss like quenched steel as it met his blood. Celestine slammed one foot into Arnokh’s chest, ripping her blade free and firing her jump pack a third time. She twisted in the air, metal wings whirling as she spun away from his return blow. An axe passed so close to Celestine’s face that she could hear the damned souls screaming within the blade.

She landed in a fighting crouch.

Molten gore spilled from the wound in Arnokh’s shoulder. Celestine smiled without mirth, inclining her head.

‘You fight well, for daemon spawn.’

Arnokh bellowed. Celestine’s smile vanished as she felt empyric energies whirling towards her foe. The braziers on Arnokh’s shoulders flared as though someone had flung promethium on their flames. The blood-mist poured into him and his flesh glowed crimson, black veins standing out across his body as it swelled with might. His eyes blazed behind his visor, and suddenly, the blood-mist was thick enough to choke.

‘Blood for the Blood God!’ Arnokh howled. He attacked with redoubled speed, a rushing avalanche of blades. Celestine ducked his first blow, leapt aside from his second and tried to strike out at one of Arnokh’s wrists. If she could sever a hand, lessen the onslaught…

His next swing was aimed not at Celestine’s body, but instead at the right wing of her jump pack. Already committed to her own swing, she could not twist away. Arnokh’s axe carved through the wing and caused the jump pack’s machine-spirit to vomit sparks. Even as shorn metal pinions hit the ground he struck again. Dragged off balance, Celestine could not avoid his axe and was instead forced to parry. It was like trying to stop a speeding tank. The shock of the impact raced up Celestine’s arms, jarred her shoulders. The shockwave jarred her thoughts and as it did, something blossomed behind her eyes.

Pain. A surge of white-hot pain unlike anything Celestine has ever felt. Is she still alive? How can she be? Something has happened to her, hasn’t it? She doesn’t know; it feels as though she is falling faster and faster.

She recalls shells raining down.

Explosions.

Screams.

She recalls the eviscerator’s grip beneath her palms, the roar of its chain teeth as they split flesh and bone. A word comes to her then: Repentia. Celestine feels a surge of shame, a desperate need to atone, and yet also the incredible release of that same weight lifting from her. The pain is a key that unlocks the shackles of her soul.

Searing light blazes, washes through her. Something is changing, something fundamental. She cannot grasp it as it slithers quicksilver through her thoughts.

Celestine feels desperate frustration, the powerlessness of mortality, of work left undone. Atonement is not the same as fulfilment. She registers disbelief as the pain grows worse still, threatening to burn her away like scourging flame, threatening to erase all that she is or has ever been. Yet what is she? What could she be? The light wheels about her then focuses before her, a star, a light leading her onward.

The pain abates.

Reborn.

She is reborn, and this light… can it be? Is this the first time she has endured this? Somehow, she knows it will not be the last. Not until her purpose is done.

Celestine reeled back from Arnokh’s blow. She tried to reconcile the flurry of images dancing behind her eyes with the desperate battle before her.

What was that? A vision? A memory?

It had been so vivid, so tangible.

What do you seek to tell me, God-Emperor?

Had she received such visions before? Celestine thought perhaps she had, but it was hard to know. The mark of divinity was upon her, the Hieromartyr of countless Imperial crusades through Throne alone knew how many lives. Yet at her core she was still mortal. She was both blessed and cursed with a mortal’s mind. Such a vessel was not meant to traverse death’s threshold as many times as she had. Celestine had to fight for every part of herself that endured the crossing, every time.

Things get lost…

All this raced through Celestine’s mind in a heartbeat, yet still the distraction was almost enough to kill her. Arnokh’s axes licked out again. Dragged off balance by her foreshortened jump pack, she smashed them away with increasingly desperate parries.

Her broken wings hung crackling from her shoulders, dead weight. Celestine reached with a shaking hand and hit the uncoupling rune, shedding her jump pack and stepping clear of its mangled remains.

An angel without her wings is an angel still, she thought, but her defiance was tinged with doubt.

No time for this, she thought as Arnokh loomed over her, sought to smash her into the ground with his sheer mass. Freed from the broken jump pack, Celestine weaved aside from his trampling hooves at the last instant. She felt the daemon prince’s axes cut the air above her as he passed.

Her blade sliced a line of white fire across his hip.

Celestine wheeled to face Arnokh again, but he was on her more swiftly than she could have believed. If the wounds she had dealt the daemon prince affected him, he didn’t show it. Axe blows fell like artillery shells. Celestine weaved, cut, stabbed and hacked. Her breath caught upon hooks. The servos of her armour howled as they sought to lend her speed to match that of her foe.

Celestine’s foot slipped in blood. She recovered her balance with preternatural speed. Still too slow. Arnokh’s axe missed her neck but hit her collarbone instead. Bone snapped. Pain rocketed through her mind again and with it came a fresh vision.

Celestine walks alone down stone steps. None may accompany her. This is the Emperor’s will. She knows it as surely as she knows her own name. Statues glower from shadowed alcoves as she passes. A soft play of coloured light falls about her shoulders, starlight filtered through stained glass. She smells incense on the air, feels the rasp of her robe against her skin. Gooseflesh prickles at the subterranean chill of the crypt. The ground is hard, furred with dust beneath every bare footfall.

She is deep within the crypt now. Sanctus Lys carries on somewhere above her, but she is not part of that backwater world. Not here. Celestine is one instead with something sacred, something ancient that exists in a space all its own. The weight of centuries presses down, stilling the air, causing sound to fall dead upon the worn flagstones. She reaches out with a trembling hand and brushes away the dust of ages.

She reads the name chiselled into marble.

Saint Katherine.

Celestine is in the presence of true divinity, and it fills her with such a complex rush of excitement, trepidation and hope that no room remains for the fear. Self-doubt accuses her of presumption. A shrill inner voice bids her flee whatever punishment the Emperor reserves for unworthy pretenders such as she. The awe is stronger, though.

Her eyes meet the stone gaze of the figure carved into the sarcophagus’ lid. Something passes between them in that instant, a feather-touch upon her senses. It feels like permission. She reaches out towards the sarcophagus.

It is the following dawn when Celestine walks the stone steps again. Yet this time she ascends from darkness into light, and she does so clad in the holiest of armoured raiment. Ancient servo-motors purr as though newly installed. Moulded armour plates sit like a second skin against her own, as though the suit had been fashioned for her alone. The Emperor has led her to this gift, and while she wears it, she knows that the spirit of Saint Katherine walks alongside her. The light from the shrine’s stained-glass windows embraces her and she feels the warmth of daylight on her skin. Its radiance haloes her brow.

One second she is ascending the steps, the next her feet leave the ground as the light swells about her. Celestine’s heart thunders. She is borne aloft within a column of radiance and in that instant, she feels the Emperor’s hand upon her soul like never before. Dimly she registers figures within the shrine turning to stare at her, falling to their knees in supplication. They are beyond the light and so in this moment they do not bear upon her reality at all. Celestine rises level with the shrine’s stained armourglass and hears the voices of an invisible choir swelling in praise. Neither means any more to her than the small figures who gaze up from below. Celestine is one with the Emperor. She is one with Saint Katherine, and in sacred trinity they spread their arms wide and throw back their head as the light pours through her.

In that moment, Celestine knows with the absolute certainty of faith that she is the Emperor’s vessel.

She is His blade.

She will be worthy.

Celestine staggered back. Sparks drizzled from the Armour of Saint Katherine where it had known the bite of the daemon prince’s blade. She couldn’t see the wound Arnokh had dealt her for it was too close to her neck, but she could feel blood welling from it like water bubbling up from a blessed spring. Her strength went with it, pattering onto the desecrated ground. She could barely move her sword arm and had to banish a mental image of it hanging from her body by strings of gristle.

Another vision, she thought, desperate to regain focus. Or another memory. Something of His, or something my own? Emperor, help me to find clarity.

Arnokh fell upon her like a storm. Celestine deflected one blow with a scream of effort, sidestepped a second. Perhaps, if she could just–

The daemon prince’s clenched fist, still wrapped around the haft of one axe, hit Celestine in the chest with bone-shattering force. Armour crumpled. Her ribs broke like a bundle of dry twigs trodden underfoot. She hit the ground on her back and her eyes filled with the fires that danced where clouds should be.

Celestine stands in the shadow of the Cathedrum Miraculous on Aspiria and knows she has come too late. Part of her knows also that she has been here before, that this haunted place is one she swore never to set foot inside again. That part can only watch helpless as the Celestine who is here in this moment raises her blade to signal the Battle Sisters at her back.

They have fought for three days and three nights to reach this place. Aspiria’s ruddy sun is even now seeping over the horizon, spreading into the polluted sky like spilled blood staining dirty cloth. Shafts of radiance fall through the cathedrum’s shattered windows and between its cracked arches. They drape Celestine and her Sisters in a molten glow, but they bear little warmth.

Even before she climbs the steps to the cathedrum’s doorway she suspects she knows what she will find. The worst of it is that she and her warriors could have done no more. They could have fought no harder, done no better. Celestine harbours no illusions. They cut a red path of ruin through the heretics, fit to fill the planet’s folklore for centuries to come.

They have brought hope. Her latter self knows they have brought victory, also, for the Word Bearers cast so much strength into her path that Celestine has torn the heart from their invasion.

Still they are too late to bring salvation. At least for those within.

Celestine knows this and yet she climbs the steps anyway. She must see. She must know, remember, for how else will she atone for those who died with prayers for salvation spilling unanswered over blistering lips?

The stench hits her first. There is the reek of promethium, the clag in her throat that speaks to vast quantities of ashes. There is another smell, fainter but inescapable. Burned flesh.

Celestine stands upon the lintel and looks upon the remains of a pyre that must have reached all the way to the cathedrum’s ceiling. She sees gibbets jutting thick as the stumps of a felled forest. They, and the remains lashed to them, are all burned black.

Thousands of Imperial faithful have died here. Priests of the Ecclesiarchy. Sisters Famulous, Dialogous, Hospitaller.

Celestine feels sorrow. She feels guilt. Yet more than either, raging as the fire must have raged, she feels hatred for all those who serve the Dark Gods.

Here beneath the blood-hue of Aspiria’s dawn, Celestine hates the servants of Chaos with a fervour she never knew she possessed. She swears to the Emperor that she will purge every last heretic from His realm if it takes her a thousand lifetimes.

Celestine tried to force her broken body to move. Shells streaked the skies above her. She heard the voice within that told her to move, to crawl if she must, to get away from the monster that was killing her and back to the soldiers in their trenches. Celestine yearned for the tribal companionship that had been a balm to her species since they had huddled together in caves and levelled spears at the darkness without.

She could not go to them. She knew that, really. To see her as human would break their belief in her as the divine avatar of the Emperor’s will. Worse, it might even break their faith in the God-Emperor Himself.

Besides, they cannot help you, not against this foe. All they could do is die.

But still she longed to be safe.

Safe from pain.

Safe from duty.

She felt the agony awaiting her within the broken remains of her mortal shell. Instinctively she shied away. Then, out of nowhere, Celestine felt a hand take hers. Its touch was faint as gossamer.

‘Stay,’ said a small voice, little more than an exhalation of breath against her ear. ‘Don’t go back. They’ll hurt you. Stay. Please.’

‘They need me,’ said Celestine. Distantly she heard the screams of dying soldiers, the gibbering of daemons, the brazen laughter of Arnokh. His shadow loomed above her, one axe raised for the decapitating strike.

‘It will be over quickly,’ said the voice. The touch upon her hand became a tug. ‘Stay.’

Celestine knew that she had met this manifestation many times. She knew also that it was some part of herself. It was the part that wanted to stop fighting, to cast aside the bargain that she had struck with the Emperor, the part desperate to at last be free of the impossible weight of others’ need for her divinity even if it meant giving in.

Giving up.

Yet there was no salvation either in flight or capitulation. She would not fail the men and women of the Imperium who looked to her to be their beacon. She would not fail the Emperor. Not while there was breath left in her body.

‘My purpose,’ said Celestine, as much to herself as to the other presence that haunted the void. ‘My gifts. My hate. My duty. Only I can do this. You know that. They all need me.’

‘I need you.’

Celestine felt something within her break as it had a thousand times before. Into how many shards could someone’s heart shatter before it could never be pieced back together?

And it was their fault, she realised with growing fury. The traitors. The heretics. Their weakness, their cowardice that had set the galaxy aflame and forced her to forever fight the fires they lit. This war would rage until the stars burned out unless the Emperor’s servants found the strength to end it.

Only she could give them that strength.

The touch upon her hand was gone. Celestine surged up through the darkness like a blazing comet and back into her body. The light of the Emperor mingled with her own righteous wrath and seared away the agony of her mortal form. It poured out of her, a starburst that sent Arnokh reeling back with a howl of shock, one arm thrown across his eyes. The daemon prince’s skin blistered black at the touch of the light. Sulphurous smoke rose from his boiling flesh.

Celestine felt herself borne aloft upon the light as she had been on that day so long ago. She looked down in judgement upon her foe. The light pulsed from her and drove the blood-mists away. Daemons went with it, their cries of hatred fading to nothingness. Celestine felt the eyes of the beleaguered defenders upon her and this time she knew with certainty that their hearts soared at the sight of her.

The light pulsed from Celestine a third time, a golden shockwave that sent Arnokh staggering back and hurled more of his daemons into the abyss. In her peripheral vision Celestine caught the shimmer of angelic pinions spreading from her shoulders, framed against the burning skies. She felt strength surge through her limbs, felt herself renewed.

She felt faith, duty, hate.

Celestine’s feet touched the ground and then she was running, the Ardent Blade held low to one side in a double-handed grip. As she pounded across the earth beneath a fiery sky, she screamed a war cry that rang like thunder.

‘For the God-Emperor!’

Blistered, half-blinded, Arnokh swept his axes towards her but Celestine was ready. She leapt. Her blade sliced up and across the daemon prince’s chest, cutting deep before ripping out through his jaw. He staggered and Celestine landed, launching into an immediate flurry of blows. Holy light shone from her, so bright Arnokh could barely look. Gore sluiced from the wounds she dealt him. The braziers upon his shoulders guttered, pouring smoke. He swung for her neck but Celestine evaded the blow and cut another deep slice through the daemon’s midriff. Arnokh bellowed and chopped downwards, seeking to bisect Celestine. She dodged with ease. Her sword licked out and took his hand off at the wrist. More blood fountained.

‘Blood for the Blood God!’ Arnokh swung his axe at her head. Blazing like a star, Celestine brought the Ardent Blade up. This time when the weapons met, they did so in an explosion of sparks. She felt her feet skid across the ground, but both Celestine and her blade held firm.

‘I don’t shed your blood for him,’ she snarled. Servo-motors screaming in her armour, Saint Celestine thrust with all her might and drove Arnokh’s axe aside. Two hands firm upon her weapon’s grip, she thrust the point of the Ardent Blade deep into the daemon prince’s chest.

Arnokh stiffened. His maw yawned in a silent howl, light spilling from it. Radiance burst from his helm and erupted through every chink in his armour. The braziers on his shoulders leapt with golden flames then exploded. His axe hit the ground and shattered.

Arnokh the Bloodlord vanished within the Emperor’s light.

When it faded, all that remained of him was ashes on the wind.

At the daemon prince’s demise, the fires above died. As they flickered out, they gave way to blue skies. As the sun’s light spilled down so Celestine’s own faded, yet even as it did, she heard voices raised in battle hymns. Cheers rang from the trenches. Banners waving, priests at the fore, the Coskan and Sarmathian soldiers ploughed into what remained of the daemon horde.

The city still burns, and many more good souls will be slain before this fight is over, thought Celestine as the weight settled upon her shoulders again. Another enemy waits for me beyond the veil, and my duty is far from done.

But as she watched the cheering Imperial soldiery drive their enemies back, Celestine knew that they would be victorious, and that she had done her part in that. For today, that was enough.

Ardent Blade flashing, Saint Celestine charged in to join the last battle for Machoria.

THE MOON-MINES OF SCIARA LONE

DANIE WARE

Falling to its death, the Heart of Devotion shone.

The freighter tilted, nose down. It tumbled slowly, slowly, silent and serene. It offered no wake, no smoke, no flame, only the reflected gleam of the closest star. Like some great and failing creature, it sank towards the gas giant and the bright clouds of hydrogen below.

If its machine-spirit sang, the Sisters could not hear it.

Watching it from the Arvus, Sister Augusta raised her own voice, the words of the Requiem led by Sister Superior Veradis. The Heart had been taking them home, back to Ophelia VII, but a breach in its hull had proved irreparable. Through its tunnels, hounded by vox-cries and klaxons, by flaring red lumens and by hissing, failing seals, the squad had done everything they could to evacuate the crew. And now they hung still, watching as the Heart finally perished.

Dies irae, dies illa.

Augusta knew they had not evacuated everyone. They had simply not had enough time, enough hands. Many had taken to the saviour pods, many more to the shuttles, but not all… not even nearly. And so she sang, not only for the ship, but for those souls still aboard who would meet His grace, and soon. She prayed that they died with courage, their chins lifted.

‘God-Emperor who sees all,

Who saves those who are to be saved…’

Beside her, Sister Lucienne paused in her hymnal. In a shocked tone, she said, ‘Look!’

Still singing, Augusta followed where her Sister was indicating. The next line of the Requiem came out like an exclamation.

‘Guard us, O fount of courage!’

Out there, across the star-specked void and half hidden by the vast, striped glow of the planet, there rose a single moon. It was big, perfectly round, its curved edge glittering.

‘Once the accursed have been silenced,

Sentenced to acrid flames…’

‘Truly, He has blessed us,’ Veradis said. There was an unusual note in her voice, something Augusta did not quite recognise. ‘Pilot, can you scan the satellite?’

The convoy of shuttles hung poised and waiting.

After a moment, the pilot’s voice came back: ‘Sister Superior, we are saved!’ He seemed amazed, overwhelmed. ‘Truly, this is His design. He has shown us to aid!’

‘The moon has a colony?’

‘Miners, Sister. The data’s incoming now.’ The vox crackled and jumped as the pilot gathered the information. ‘Population estimate in excess of ten thousand. There’s a full city here – a landing pad big enough to handle the shuttles, an artificially generated atmosphere…’ He paused, seemed almost on the edge of weeping. ‘Our prayers have been answered – He is with us, He has guided us. I have coordinates to land!’

‘He is always with us, pilot,’ Veradis said, her tone severe. ‘Please forward all data to my slate.’

‘Yes, Sister Superior.’

The vox cut out, leaving Augusta and Lucienne exchanging a glance, both of them now singing, radiant with faith and thankfulness.

‘Call us thus with the blessed!’

Veradis said nothing further, but took up the hymnal once more. The Sisters’ words chimed out to the convoy of waiting shuttles, to the souls still upon the Heart. Below them now, the huge ship slipped gently between the planet’s clouds. There was no oxygen in the planet’s atmosphere, no detonation, no flare of flame to mark the passing of the great ship’s machine-spirit.

And the Heart of Devotion died without a sound.

‘Maintain your vigilance, Sisters,’ Veradis said. She offered no explanation, just the command.

‘Yes, Sister Superior.’

Augusta, her red armour sealed and her helm back on, moved down the Arvus’ ramp. Around them the landing pad was bleak, all black rock and dark ferrocrete. Great swathes of cables writhed across the floor; control panels gleamed, their lights in glittering colours. As the massive steel doors began to close, dirt rose in brief, angry spirals. It glittered in the overhead lumens, spattering and scraping on the outside of their armour.

And then, at the final, echoing slam, it fell back to the floor.

‘Sister Superior Veradis.’

Striding down the hangar ramp to meet her, his boots ringing from filth-blackened metal, came a lean, rangy man, his face lined, his hair greying and tied back. He wore long boots, a casual jacket and an ingratiating smile. A wide-eyed aide walked with him, and two heavier figures, both armed.

‘Governor Ido.’

Veradis, it seemed, had scanned all the information she’d been sent. She was helm-off, but her arms were folded, her stance wary.

‘Truly, your colony is His blessing.’

‘We’re a way off the main routes, Sister.’ Ido was relaxed, affable. Completely unintimidated – apparently – by five fully armed Adepta Sororitas. Looking out over the shuttles, he said, ‘How many of you?’

‘We lost the saviour pods to the planet’s gravity well,’ Veradis told him, her tone not changing. ‘My squad are five. The crew number seventy-two, many with injuries. They will need quarters, and medical care. And I will need access to your chapel, and to your vox-array or astropath. If you would be so kind.’

It wasn’t a request.

‘Of course, of course.’ Stopping at the ramp’s end, he offered her the sign of the aquila. ‘Ave Imperator, Sisters. Your presence is an honour. We have a fully outfitted hospice here, and we’re very happy to care for your crew.’

Gravely, Veradis returned the salute.

Knowing her Sister Superior, Augusta saw the flicker of stiffness that passed across Veradis’ armoured shoulders. It was more than just wary; she seemed disapproving of the man’s unusually cavalier attitude. Yet her vox was silent and whatever she was thinking, she did not give it voice.

Augusta prayed for guidance, clarity. Show me to the Light.

Matching the governor’s conversational tone, Veradis said, ‘Your colony are miners?’

‘Promethium, Sister.’ Ido waved a glib hand, freely offering the information. ‘Our mine workings are extensive. I’m happy to show you, if you’d like to see His work being done?’

‘I must first offer thanks for our deliverance,’ Veradis told him. ‘And pray for the souls of those we lost. Those with me here are the crew of the Heart of Devotion, and the servants of the Holy Ecclesiarchy. You will give them treatment, and rest.’

‘Of course,’ he said again. ‘Luca’ – he indicated the aide – ‘will see your crew to the hospice. And if you’ll allow me, Sisters, I’ll show you to the chapel myself.’

Behind them, a sudden blare of klaxons announced the crack and rumble of the doors. They parted like an opening maw, jagged teeth on both sides. Beyond them lay the huge, shining curve of the planet, and the hanging silhouette of a waiting shuttle. Dust spat, spinning in angry tornadoes. Landing lights flared, servitors and workers ran to clear the area. The signals officer gestured directions, showing the inward route.

‘The field emitters maintain the atmosphere!’ Shouting over the noise, Ido was gesturing at the guards, one to walk with him, the other with the aide. ‘The traffic is constant, and this is a perilous place to be standing! If you would please follow me?’

Veradis gave him a curt nod and the squad fell into double file, the Sister Superior at their head, Emlyn and Leona behind her, Augusta and Lucienne at the rear. The aide, Luca, fell back to speak to the crew.

Still murmuring her prayer, Augusta paused, her gaze on the incoming vessel. The Heart’s shuttles were still moving, lifting off the pads to leave the space for any incoming traffic. The arriving vehicle was an Aquila, black and trimmed in silver; it was a planet-lit outline, carrying no insignia that she could see. Carefully, it hovered, turned, then settled in the nearest circle of lights.

She eyed it for a moment. It seemed wrong, and she couldn’t work out why.

‘Sister,’ Lucienne said across the squad vox. ‘You must keep up.’

Conscious of her lapse in discipline, she ran up the ramp. At its top, the doorway was an open arch of stone, leading out to a plain, rocky corridor. Neat lines of lumens were joined by tidy wires, and signs offered directions – entrances and exits, numerous landing pads, areas for security or processing.

How big was this place?

But the governor was still talking, expansively and cordially. The planet was Sciara Lone, he told them, the only one in the system, and it only had this one moon. Thanks to an orbital peculiarity, the moon was almost always hidden by Sciara’s shadow; it played havoc with incoming navigation. At this, he chuckled, adding, ‘We’re a difficult find, and never by accident. Your presence must be His will, Sister Superior.’

Veradis answered him, her tone flat, ‘Everything is His will, governor.’

‘Of course.’ Still smooth, he gestured at a left-hand junction, a sign that read Exitus Primaria. ‘From here, we’ll head out into the city proper. The streets can be rough, though warning you, frankly, seems unnecessary.’

‘He is with us,’ Veradis told him, with the faintest hint of disdain.

‘Of course,’ the governor said again.

Outside the port, the colony appeared immense – a sprawling mass of twisting streets, of clusters of low, stone buildings, all crammed in tight together, a thousand yellow window-lights shining.

Augusta had never visited promethium mines, but she had heard the tales. They were supposed to be places of darkness and dust and pollution, of despair and grief and hopelessness. Her Sisters Hospitaller tended to the wounded and the broken, those injured in mind and body. Many miners perished. Many more became servitors and menials, their half-healed brains built into constructs and machinery, to continue their work, in His name.

But not here. The pilot had been right – this was a city.

Still at the rear of the squad, her hand on her bolter, she made a conscious effort not to stare. But… by the Throne!

Leaving the port complex, the Sisters had paused at an upper exit, and at the top of a long set of steps. And there, rising massive above the tangle of roadways, was a titanic central mine-head, its top silhouetted perfectly by Sciara’s bright crescent. Stunned, Augusta turned her exclamation into an unspoken prayer.

By His holy name!

‘Our central mineshaft and ore processor,’ the governor told them. By his tone, he was aware of its impact. ‘There are others, but this is the largest.’

Pipes wove like wires, immense and glinting. Great stone-arched bridges carried water, or ore, or molten metals. Huge machines pounded and thundered, shaking the very air. Wheels turned, hoppers rumbled. Railways rattled, though Augusta could not see them. Vent steam hissed, harsh white breaths against the half-dark.

‘You have quite the city,’ Veradis commented, echoing Augusta’s thought.

‘Mines require more than just miners,’ the governor answered easily. ‘The moon-caps’ ice is thawed for water, so we’re entirely self-sustaining. We’re also rather… out of the way, so we need to handle our own administration.’

‘So I see.’

Crowding about the mine-head’s feet, the maze of streets seemed hewn straight from the moon’s bedrock. The buildings were low and black, tight and narrow – crammed in round the mine’s base like worshippers of its power.

Augusta had never seen – never imagined – anything like this.

‘Please,’ the governor said. ‘Our chapel is this way.’

They descended the steps, still moving in the same formation. Soon, they started to see people – traders and dealers, most staying in groups. Their skins were filthy with the ever-blowing dirt; it was ingrained in their pores, their clothes, their fingers. In places, small crowds lingered under dark stone arches, or drifted at the edges of open market squares. Light shone from doorways. Voices called and bartered; people spilled from noisy bars, shouting and shoving. Augusta even saw children, darting through the crowds and as grimy as all the rest.

Ten thousand people, the pilot had said.

Out here? She wondered what they ate, where it came from. She found herself compelled by the place, by the sheer impossibility of it. Her studies… her studies had never covered anything like this. She could not believe that the schola would omit such a thing deliberately – did they not know that such places existed? Was that why Veradis was so wary? The young Sister wanted to speak to her Superior, but Veradis had commanded them only to follow her. So Augusta obeyed the order, watching around her with an increasing holy awe.

That your grace can exist, even in such places!

The people paused as the Sisters came past. Some just stared, their gazes hard and cold. Others went to call out, were nudged by their companions. Many stood with their mouths open, riveted by disbelief. At one corner, a female voice called for someone to come out and see, to come out and see now.

But Veradis walked with her chin up, ignoring them all.

Beside Augusta and still at the rear, Lucienne said softly, ‘I have never seen a colony like this.’

‘Nor I,’ Augusta answered her.

‘It’s not much further, Sisters,’ the governor said, from the front. ‘You will be able to rest and pray.’

‘Stay close,’ Veradis growled.

She sounded almost like she expected an ambush, but still, the Sisters had seen no soldiers, no organised guard force of any kind. Not a single regulation uniform.

‘And here we are,’ the governor said, as they turned a last corner. ‘The doors are always open, and you may rest and pray for as long as you wish. Ave Imperator, Sisters.’

‘I will need to use your communications,’ Veradis told him. ‘The Heart’s astropath was able to send the message of its fall, but I must reach Ophelia VII, and my canoness.’

‘Of course.’ The governor repeated his mantra, genial as ever. ‘I’ll leave Argo with you.’ He indicated the guard. ‘When you need my help, he can find me.’

The chapel, Augusta soon saw, was shockingly unkempt.

The floor was clean, as if some servitor had hurriedly swept the place, and new electro-candles had been placed in the sconces, each one shining like fresh hope. But if there had ever been pews or a pulpit, then they were long gone, the Sol-facing window was thick with dirt, and the altar bore neither cloth nor hanging. The transepts stood empty, cleaner squares on the walls where paintings or prayer-banners had been taken away.

Looking at it, Augusta caught her breath. That His very home should be left in such disrepair!

Ordering the guard to stay outside, Veradis stalked up the aisle, her black-and-white robe snapping and fluttering. Emlyn and Leona flanked her like angry scarlet icons. The dirt had blown into the joints of their armour, and they crunched as they walked. Every step sounded furious.

‘Close the doors.’

Augusta and Lucienne turned to obey, but the huge steel doors were rusted into place. Power armour or no, they were absolutely stuck fast.

‘I fear they will not move, Sister,’ Lucienne said, after struggling. ‘It must have been many years since…’

The end of the sentence hung unsaid, too terrible to contemplate.

Veradis gave a snort, sceptical and irritated. ‘Very well, then. Sisters, attend. We must offer Him thanks for our deliverance and consider our next actions very carefully.’

Stopping at the foot of the altar steps, she knelt to the unseen image in the window. The others joined her, all five Sisters kneeling in a line. Augusta found His absence deeply–

No, not absence, she corrected herself, for you know that He is here, as He is everywhere. But this, this was a travesty. Shivers of heresy stole down her forearms, and she raised her voice, harmonising with her Sisters.

‘Through storm, war and bloodshed, we stand fast,

Awaiting the moment of Your call.’

‘Blessed be their memories,’ Veradis said, as the hymn came to an end.

The squad echoed her, the prayer for those they had lost. After a moment, the Sister Superior came back to her feet.

‘Very well’, she said. ‘Our prayers have cleared my heart. He has shown me lucidity, and how we will proceed. Leona and Emlyn, you will stand guard at the hospice. Augusta and Lucienne, you will return to the port and secure the shuttles. I will utilise the moon’s communications, and send a message to the Order. This place unsettles me, and yet…’ She paused, as if thinking. ‘Yet I feel no taint, no witch, no overt threat. No xenos invasion, nor loitering, ancient foe. Until His path is revealed fully to us, we will proceed with both vigilance and caution.’

Augusta wanted answers, a full briefing as to her Sister Superior’s suspicions, but Veradis’ expression was closed, dark as thundercloud.

‘Walk in His grace, Sisters, and maintain vox-contact. Attend to your duties, and I will know everything you learn.’

At the port, the flotilla of the Heart’s Arvus shuttles had been parked away from the landing pads, the line of them now back against the rearing dark stone of the wall. There was little illumination, but both Sisters could see technical crew, each one bearing a pin-light and many with attachments that glinted as they worked.

Augusta strode down the metal ramp but was stopped by a heavily built man, both hands ending in arrays of augmetic tools.

‘The shuttles sustained some damage, Sisters,’ he said. ‘We’re happy to help, do anything we can. In His name.’

‘Then you will get out of my way,’ she told him, emulating Veradis’ absolute certainty.

The man grinned briefly, gold tooth flashing. ‘There’s no need for you to be concerned. They’re in good hands, here.’

Lucienne was beside her. ‘That was not a request.’

The man raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re giving us orders, now?’

Augusta’s temper flared. ‘You will stand away, and you will stand away now. We are the Adepta Sororitas, and we go where He bids.’

The man gave a jerk of his chin, and several more figures surrounded them. They were all heavily built, but still bore no uniforms, no marks of rank, nothing.

‘You should stay in your chapel, Sisters. Your shuttles are in good hands.’

This was intolerable. Augusta might be young, but she had never seen people react this way. Kneel, yes; plead for absolution, yes; be overcome with awe and religious wonder, yes. But this, this defiance… Everything in her wanted to raise her bolter. With an effort, she held her rage down. The Sister Superior had said ‘caution’.

Instead, she stepped forward, fearless. Closing one red-armoured gauntlet in the front of the man’s battered, grox-leather jacket, she propelled him smack into the railing, bending him over the drop.

‘Are you deficient?’ The words were a snarl. ‘I said, “You will stand away.” My orders are to secure our shuttles and that is exactly what I will do, in His name. Do I make myself clear?’

The man bared his teeth, something between a grimace and a sneer. He seemed more angry than scared. Lucienne was glaring at the rest of them, one hand on her bolter. They had spread out, surrounding her completely.

Why were these men not afraid? If they started trouble, Lucienne would break all four of them like so many jabbering grots. Why did they have no insignia, no rank or identification?

Strangling her confusion, she tried to think. By Your grace and mercy, show me to the Light!

Shaking the man until his teeth rattled, she repeated, ‘We will see our shuttles. Now.’

The man had been watching her, studying her face. He drew in a breath, and calmed his expression. Then he met her eyes and said, very deliberately, ‘Your shuttles are being repaired, Sisters. They are in good hands. Please understand that we can’t have people wandering loose in the hangar, there are too many opportunities for accidents.’

A gesture, and the others fell back.

Augusta gripped the man harder. ‘Do not lie to me.’

‘I wouldn’t dare.’ He was emphatic and his gaze did not leave hers. His eyes were dark, apparently sincere. ‘My commands come straight from the governor himself. Surely, you can see the sense of the ruling?’

His gaze was clear, the reason in his voice sounded real.

In His name! What was going on here?

Across the vox, Veradis’ voice reported success: she had sent a message to the Order. By her tone, she was surprised, almost as if she had expected the governor to do… what?

Again, Augusta prayed for clarity. She did not understand this, yet the disquiet in her heart was growing. The Sister Superior had said to be cautious, but about what? If there was no enemy here, then why had the chapel been abandoned?

But Veradis was still speaking. ‘Sisters, report. Emlyn, Leona, have you located our injured crew? Augusta, are our shuttles secure?’

Across the hangar, the doors gave a crack and a growl, splitting down their centre. Rumbling, they began to roll back. Dust flew. Flood-lumens played on the black-and-silver Aquila as it rose and turned. Again, that sense of unease: what was it about that shuttle that was bothering her?

And then, there it was. As the light of the planet’s crescent gleamed through the doors, so it brought the flare of His wisdom, His light in the dirt and the darkness. Thanks filled her heart like a threnody – that He could touch her, even here!

Like the guards, the shuttle bore no insignia. No blessings, no prayers. There had not been a single image of Him, a single devotion, not anywhere. And the chapel!

It was like a shock, a jab of true and holy realisation. Every world, every moon, every city, every planet of the Imperium – it bore His likeness. His honour and faith and loyalty. Some of those likenesses may be ancient, or interpreted by the planet’s people, but still – He was always there.

Within your heart and without, He is ever-present!

Her pulse thundering now, Augusta still had one red fist in the man’s jacket. Four more of them yet surrounded the Sisters; everything seemed frozen, caught in the glare of her sudden understanding.

It was absence beyond words. Loud as a shout, empty as a vacuum. Amid her thanks, Augusta offered penitence for not realising this before – how had she missed it? Something so fundamental? Had she permitted herself to be overcome by the moon’s strangeness? Or the fall of the Heart? Such a lapse was unforgiveable.

But now, the planet-light of the Heart’s fall had shown His very will.

‘Sister…’ the man said.

She released him and stepped back, watched the Aquila as it headed slowly for the airlock. His face, His image, should have been upon those doors. It should have been upon the overhead mine, the shining tower that spiked at the planet as if to pierce its curve and deflate it, leaving liquid light spilling downwards through the streets…

But no, it had carried no banners, no lore, no rituals. No shrines, no Mechanicus delineations, no diagnostic screens nor offerings to the Omnissiah. Even the control panels in here… they bore no prayers, no words of sanctification or of blessed and holy ritual.

Veradis had been wary from the beginning, but the forces here were not corrupted. There was no sign of the Ancient Foe. They were just…

Thugs.

The word came with a touch of amazement: she had read about places like this, she had studied them on her slates! Her tutors had told her that they existed, but she had found the idea almost incredible – the places in the Imperium that dared duck His law. Enemies, she understood – heretics, cultists, xenos… But this!

Something in her said, They have fallen from His grace. They should be purged.

From the lightning and the tempest…

Over the vox, the Sister Superior was still speaking. ‘Sisters! What is your delay? Report!’

Augusta said, ‘The shuttles are being repaired, Sisters. But…’ She had intended to ask if Veradis wished her to check them more closely, but Emlyn’s voice cut across her own.

‘Sis… prior! Cr… issing, …peat, crew …ing! We are–’

The channel cut dead, leaving Augusta and Lucienne standing there, staring at each other, wondering what had just happened.

Veradis barked, ‘Sisters. All of you to my location…’

But Augusta and Lucienne were surrounded.

‘Sorry,’ the man said. ‘Change of plans.’

Released, he had shifted attitude completely. No longer trying for sincerity, he was brash, smirking. The tools on his hands had whirred to threat and life, to edges and sparkle and teeth. More of the figures were closing, now – ten, fifteen. Some carried bolt pistols, but most had mêlée weapons, a crackling, jingling assortment of chains and blades and gauntlets.

‘You cannot fight us,’ Lucienne said, incredulous.

Over the vox, Augusta said, ‘Sister Superior, we are assailed.’ She was angry with herself: the man had lied to her, and she had been on the edge of believing him. ‘I fear… I fear our shuttles may be compromised.’ The words felt like a confession.

‘Understood,’ Veradis said. ‘Deal with any resistance and convene on my location.’

The leader barked an order and the ring of heavies closed. Not drawing her bolter, Augusta dropped to a combat crouch, watching them as they ranged around her. A fist went for her visor, a whirling blade for her chest; both struck her armour with force, but they could not break the ceramite.

She backhanded the first one, sending him sprawling; kneed the second in the groin. This was ludicrous, how could these thugs even hope to take on two fully armoured Sisters of Battle? Lucienne headbutted a third, sending him backwards with his legs weak and his face split open.

Our Emperor, deliver us! The Litany came from them in words of pure, holy elation.

But the thugs just pressed closer, still apparently unworried by the Sisters’ fighting prowess. Their eyes shone, hard and cold. Had they been taking something? Stimms, or worse?

It didn’t matter. She blocked another strike, breaking the arm and hammering the woman face first into the dirt. Lucienne took out another, lifting him bodily and throwing him over the railing.

He hit the floor, didn’t move again.

But there, a resting shuttle was starting its engines. It was a big vehicle, heavy and unfamiliar. And, unlike either the Arvus or the Aquila, it was carrying enough ordnance to put a hole in a planet.

They wouldn’t. Not on top of a promethium mine…

She wasn’t going to take the chance. Shouting to Lucienne, ‘With me!’ she broke past two of the circling thugs and leapt the railing cleanly, landing hard but rolling easily, her armour taking the impact. She heard Lucienne come after her, but did not turn; she was racing for the shuttle, catching sight of its pilot through the front viewport. The woman was a local, dirt-skinned and angry, her face twisted by a long scar.

She was absolutely going to aim her arsenal at the ramp.

‘Shit!’ the thug leader bawled. ‘Move!’

Not that it would do them any good.

Veradis’ voice barked in the vox; Augusta could hear sounds of combat. Emlyn, too, her signal still breaking. It seemed that the game was up. The governor had tried to play them, and failed. He had lied about the shuttles, may well have misled the Sister Superior over her vox-message – the missing crew, however, was not something he could conceal.

And where had they gone?

Augusta did not have time. She offered a prayer for their safety, the Litany still blazing from her as she threw herself at the lifting shuttle.

From the scourge of the Kraken!

Catching the base of the still-open door, she swung by her hands for a moment, the servos in her armour whirring. Then she hauled herself up and over and straight into the face of the woman in the pilot seat.

Below her, Lucienne was dealing with the rest of the thugs – several of them had leapt the railing after the Sister. She seemed to be enjoying herself, singing in glorious, righteous rage and hammering them down, one after another.

Our Emperor…!

Augusta had been right about one thing – weapons or not, they were no match for a fully armoured Adepta Sororitas.

But the shuttle was coming about.

No time. She grabbed the pilot, snagged the edge of her leather and yanked. The pilot had not belted herself in, and she toppled sideways out of the chair. The shuttle swung and slewed, sending them both tumbling. The woman had a knife and was trying to shove the point in the joints of Augusta’s armour – for all the good that would do. Grabbing her, Augusta dragged her bodily across the floor of the cockpit and towards the door. The woman clung on, spitting and swearing, but a boot in her face knocked her cold. She lost her grip, and out she fell.

Grabbing the joystick, praying for His wisdom and for the machine-spirit of the shuttle, Augusta tried to bring it under control.

But she had no idea what she was doing.

Only one thing for it. Roaring a warning at Lucienne, she hurled herself from the cockpit, scrambled to get away. And the machine tumbled, crashing nose first even as the Heart had done.

Augusta came up from darkness like she had come up from the Font’s immersion. A circle of light became a hospice illumination, and then a medical bed. Beside her, Lucienne was praying, her helm off and her gauntleted hands clasped before her. As Augusta moved, she looked up.

‘Sister! By His grace, you’re awake!’

Augusta’s head ached terribly, but she ground herself into proper focus and sat up.

In your grace and mercy…

She seemed uninjured.

‘Don’t move,’ Lucienne said. ‘When the shuttle detonated, it knocked you cold.’ She grinned. ‘The pirates didn’t fare so well.’

‘We’re still…?’

‘Yes, we’re still here. Though Veradis has taken command until a ship can reach us. She executed the governor, along with his senior staff. And Emlyn found our crew in the mine lift, being taken down to the tunnels. She and Leona have taken them to the chapel, where they have been put to cleaning.’

Augusta’s expression must have given her confusion about what had transpired away, because her Sister chuckled.

‘It’s a rogue outpost, Sister. Not an overt enemy of the Imperium, but definitely not paying its tithes. And it’s not promethium, either. The mines are precious metals, gold and silver, being quietly traded to the wealthy and influential, all across the void. The amassed fortune will be supervised by the Ecclesiarchy.’

‘So…’ Amid the pounding in her skull, it took a moment to coalesce. ‘That’s why they couldn’t let us leave?’

‘They needed to delay us, put us at ease, and then try and take us down. The idea was to sabotage the shuttles, send us back into orbit and then – boom! – to the Throne.’ She spread both hands in a gesture of explosion. ‘But Veradis knew, right from the beginning, that there was–’

‘Something wrong, Sisters.’ The Sister Superior was at the doorway, her helm off but full armour still on. Her face was a study of stern disapproval. ‘Once again, Sister Augusta, you manage to tangle yourself in some unlikely exploit. They do seem to follow you, do they not?’

‘Yes, Sister.’

Augusta tried to sit up, but the Sister Superior waved a hand. ‘Stay where you are. It is His blessing that you survived at all, and I want you back to fighting fitness as soon as possible. Taking your consciousness, Sister’ – she raised an acerbic eyebrow – ‘was His way of preserving your life. And you will thank Him for this gift.’ The eyebrow stayed as she contemplated Augusta’s supine form. ‘It seems He has larger plans for you, Augusta Santorus.’

‘Yes, Sister.’ She felt herself flushing. ‘I will pray.’

‘I should think so.’ Moving into the room, Veradis examined both Sisters with a critical eye. ‘So, tell me. What made you think that we were endangered? You did not examine the shuttles closely?’

‘No, Sister,’ Augusta said.

A hospice orderly bustled over, checking screens, and Augusta took time to think about her answer, phrasing it carefully.

‘He… sent a sign, Sister,’ she said at last. ‘An Aquila, black and silver but unmarked by blessing or prayer. And when it caught Sciara’s light it… it was a key, unlocking both truth and understanding. It is to my shame that I did not perceive the situation earlier.’ Her cheeks warmed further and she lowered her gaze.

‘This is outside your experience, Sisters, both of you. Such places as these – they exist, but you are young, you will not have seen such things before. Your perceptions do you credit.’

Augusta and Lucienne spoke almost in unison. ‘Thank you, Sister.’

‘The galaxy is wide,’ Veradis said. ‘And our tests many. In His name, we slay the foes of the light – the Great Enemy, the xenos, the witch, the heretic. These foes are distinct. They are easy to spot, and to eliminate.’ She stopped, eyeing the orderly until the young woman scuttled out. ‘But there are times when foes may take a different form, subtle and pernicious. Here, we must work with wit and perception, not just the fire of our weapons. He presents us with many trials, Sisters – and such times test our patience, and our discipline. They may even be the most trying times of all.’

‘Yes, Sister,’ they said again, in unison.

Her gaze passing from face to face, Veradis nodded. ‘Good. Now, as it may be some days before we can return to Ophelia VII, I have retrieved a data-slate from our shuttle. Sister Augusta, you will study the Thorn Treatise, and pray for the courage and wisdom of Mina herself. And you, Sister Lucienne, you will accompany me. This moon is still riddled with corruption and we have work yet to do.’

MARTYR’S END

ALEC WORLEY

It was like dancing with a wild animal. Her partner was a beast of noise and steel almost as tall as she. Its whizzing fangs were a hurricane. The purity seals stamped from tip to pommel were medals from a lifetime of shared adventure.

She twirled the colossal weapon, savouring its thunder. A brief snarl as it cleaved another sapling of meat and bone, then on again it roared, spitting blood and smoke. She spiralled after it, her armoured body sweeping perilously close to those whirring teeth, fearless as she guided the blade towards its next meal. Where the weapon led, she followed, breathless with delight.

Her streamlined power armour made the Eviscerator feel absurdly light in her hands. The bodyglove of servo-muscle and sensor relays she wore beneath her ceramite lent her a strength that felt like an everlasting miracle. Another xenos savage lunged at her, its serrated beak snapping at her face. She swept her attacker in half, and on she whirled. In days past, back when she was armoured in nothing but the crimson rags of the penitent, the shuddering weight of her chainsword would stitch agony into her shoulders. How she had welcomed that torment, let it feed her rage the way kindling fuels a fire. She had let her foes scream on her behalf.

Another spindly reptilian spun to face her, yellow eyes glaring, hair a thicket of rattling quills. She coiled, tightening like a spring, as the xenos threw out its spindly rifle in the futile hope of halting its execution. The chainsword came down in a guillotine stroke. She paused to let the blade feed. Dark green blood churned, washing her gauntlets up to the elbows, warming her cheeks. Nothing else moved in her periphery as she spun back into a ready position. The monster in her hands growled like an empty belly.

Blood dripped from Sister Adamanthea’s lashes as she sought another foe. She saw nothing left but a harvest of limbs and strewn viscera glistening along the shallow canyon. The sun strained to see through a haze of dust and ash, the miasma veiling a distant, glowing pattern of blue and yellow tracer fire. The endless volleys sounded like the burble of insects from up here, though the canyon still trembled with the boom of munitions. The tremors shook the banks of ash either side of the gulley until the air smoked with powder.

Adamanthea’s synthetic roar reverberated through the laud hailer fitted to her gorget, the device plugged into the augmetics that replaced her ruined larynx:

‘Is that all you have for us?’

Though her metallic voice rang like drawn steel, her words sounded more like a plea. Her surviving Dominions looked up at her, startled. She felt her body sag once more inside her armour, until it felt as though it were the only thing keeping her standing. The baking air stifled her once again.

She snorted and spat a wad of blackened phlegm at the xenos’ remains. They had descended like startled bats, a tide pouring over a shelf of black rock. Their ferocious ambush was a welcome change from the tactics of their masters, scurrying xenos cowards who favoured punishing volleys of plasma from as far away as possible. They had robbed Adamanthea of at least twenty Dominions in the past ten days alone. White-blue bolts would strike out of nowhere, lancing the lenses in their visors or joints in their armour, blowing skulls and bodies apart. And those damned drones. God-Emperor curse those blasphemous automatons, which seemed to throw themselves into the path of every volley, denying Adamanthea her prey.

Canoness Lydia had assured her that it would take only a few days to purge the colony. Adamanthea had been leading hunting missions for over thirty days now, endless sorties prowling the flanks in search of xenos walkers. Since undergoing the Rites of Restitution, her arms, armour and name officially restored, she had carried out the Emperor’s will across several warzones. Those missions had resulted in swift, exultant victories, the troops inspired by her presence. For was she not a Viventem Miraculum, a living symbol of the Emperor’s will? Was she not the Repentia who had achieved the impossible by surviving her penance and earning forgiveness?

Adamanthea grimaced.

Iron clanked upon ceramite as her Dominions regrouped, hefting their meltas, visors clamped shut against the airborne ash. There were eight of them left. One of them kneeled to bestow a swift obsequy over their only loss. A more dignified end than most are afforded, thought Adamanthea. These past few weeks had been a carnival of blood and shredded flesh, of bodies blown inside out by molten plasma, every casualty offering some fresh variety of horror. Broken fingers, coils of offal, staring faces, all trodden underfoot.

The canoness had apologised for assigning her a squad so young for a mission of such importance. Though trained from girlhood and selected as Dominions for their bullish aggression, none among them had spent more than a year out of the convent. She reminded Adamanthea that the smell of the battlefield alone had a way of demoralising the inexperienced. The Viventem Miraculum must set them an inspirational example.

Adamanthea raised her Eviscerator in awkward salute.

‘We are His blade.’ Her metallic voice trembled. ‘We are His will.’

The Battle Sisters responded in perfect synch, voices bright with obedience. ‘And we shall not suffer the xenos to live! Whatever the cost, we shall afford it!’

Adamanthea turned away, leaning on her chainsword. Her leg still burned from the plasma blast that had breached her armour a week ago. A punishing rotation of missions left little time for flesh to heal. Not that her nightmares allowed her much sleep. Indeed, they had begun to follow her into the waking world. Familiar faces would smile up at her from among the dead, memories of a sin so mortal it defied forgiveness.

She found herself glaring at the severed head of one of the xenos fighters. A purple tongue protruded like a vast slug from its shattered beak. She felt her stomach tighten at the thought of such ugliness polluting His pristine galaxy.

I shall not suffer the xenos to live. I shall strike it from Thy sight.

As a little girl at the schola progenium she had been taught to think of that mantra as a nail in her skull. Every repetition was a hammer blow that would drive the Emperor’s wisdom deeper into her brain, extinguishing every doubt.

Whatever the cost, I shall afford it.

The creature’s skull burst beneath her ceramite boot. This was her duty, to obliterate any such filth before it could offend His sight. She felt a rush of hatred so intense it left her dizzy. She tried to steady her mind with prayer, but her attention drifted like smoke. She felt hollow, a wraith haunting a suit of black armour, steering it into the next mission and the next, chasing the forgiveness that would finally lay it to rest.

‘Get down!’

A cry brought Adamanthea out of her trance. Her Dominions were scrambling for the cover of the eastern slope. Sister Marianne was running towards her, her visor open, screaming. She crashed into Adamanthea, driving the Dominion Superior to the ground just as a pair of searing projectiles criss-crossed overhead with a vicious snap. Adamanthea heard the delayed thump of rifles firing. The snipers were close, surely closer than was wise. She grinned as she and Marianne scrambled to join the others huddled along the ridge.

There was fear in Marianne’s eyes as she nestled beside her commander. Adamanthea had fallen into helpless laughter. Filtered through her hailer, it sounded like a blade sawing through metal.

‘Reverend Mother?’

Adamanthea gritted her teeth. Her heart pounded. ‘Thank you, Marianne.’

The girl’s face brightened as if she had just received a blessing.

‘They’re retreating out of range,’ someone called. It was Sister Iris, auspex in hand.

Those skirmishers were likely protecting the snipers’ position, thought Adamanthea. And they must have expected their guardians to prevail. For only now were they retreating, pausing momentarily to take a shot of opportunity at Adamanthea as she stood gawping like a simpleton.

‘Sister Iris,’ she said. ‘Patch me their position. Tell me the little bastards are still in range. Tell me!’

As she spoke, a familiar voice addressed her through her vox-bead. Adamanthea winced in annoyance. It was Canoness Lydia.

‘Sister Adamanthea. Your status, please.’

‘Still ascending east into the hills, Reverend Canoness. Taking sniper fire, but have it under control.’

She heard the canoness splutter in disbelief. ‘You were supposed to have secured your position over an hour ago, Sister!’

Adamanthea was studying a miniature hololith that had sprung to life on her gauntlet, auspex coordinates received from Sister Iris. A green wireframe described the terrain overlooking their position, a rocky hill crowned with towers of gnarled stone. The image shrank and revolved, focusing upon a cluster of dots flashing in retreat. They were following the base of the nearest column of rock, heading for the safety of the other side of the hill. A xenos sniper and its drones, all well within melta-range and moving tantalisingly slow.

‘Have you forgotten you are hunting their commander, Adamanthea? Its death could end this battle within days.’

‘I have not forgotten, Reverend Canoness.’ Adamanthea signalled the others to follow as she hunkered further along the canyon wall. ‘Their artillery overturned our Rhino. We were forced to advance on foot.’

Guided by the hololith at her wrist, Adamanthea was heading towards a break in the ridge. She could already see a slope of rocks and sand high enough to climb up onto the hill above.

‘Yet field reports tell me that you have been deviating from your assigned objective.’

Adamanthea smirked. She had indeed led her Dominions on a minor detour from their route since crawling from the wreckage of the transport. They had blindsided a squad of xenos rats. The action had cost four of her squad, but they had routed the enemy entirely. Adamanthea recalled shearing three of the fleeing creatures in half at a single stroke, sending ruptured limbs cartwheeling like fireworks. How the air had glittered with blood.

‘Target of opportunity, Reverend Canoness,’ she said, her voice a breathless wheeze.

‘Casualties?’

Adamanthea glanced back at the eight Battle Sisters lumbering behind her.

‘Acceptable,’ said Adamanthea, feeling the squad’s faith in her radiating like heat. She imagined the fleeing xenos sniper glancing at its own scanner, watching a queue of blips quickly drawing alongside its position.

‘I hope so, Sister,’ said the canoness. ‘We need a full squad intercepting that battlesuit. If the xenos abomination is allowed to penetrate our flank, it could tear a line straight across the field.’

Adamanthea fancied she could sense the sniper’s alien heart palpitating in terror, knowing it was moments away from suffering the Emperor’s wrath.

She reached the slope and signalled for the others to halt. She dispelled the map, having committed its features to memory. There was minimal cover up there, just a few ridges of brittle rock. Their targets would open fire the second they advanced. This action would cost her. But what did it matter? Was this not the sacred purpose for which He had spared her? She knew as well as He that she was a Repentia still, that some sins were beyond forgiveness. The God-Emperor had granted her clemency only that she might know how unworthy she was to bear it. True forgiveness resided only in death. So why else would He have granted her a squad if not for them to join her in glorious martyrdom?

‘I’m patching you a revised interception point, Adamanthea.’

She felt almost weightless, her hunger for combat wrenching her from the mire of exhaustion in which she had languished for weeks. A headlong run at a xenos sniper was surely suicide, but the Emperor had preserved her against far greater odds. She was His living miracle, after all. She was part of a plan more infinite than any battlefield skirmish. She was His sacred executioner, the bane of all xenos. Why else had He spared her life, if not to carry out His will – perhaps even His alone?

The canyon shook again, casting grit into her eyes.

‘Your new objective is ten minutes from your current location, Adamanthea. I expect you to reach it within five, is that clear?’

‘Yes, Reverend Canoness.’

I shall not suffer the xenos to live, she thought. I shall strike it from Thy sight.

‘I am instructing you to secure that location and intercept their commander, not swat every xenos insect that buzzes your way, is that also clear?’

‘Yes, Reverend Canoness.’

Whatever the cost, she thought, I shall afford it.

‘Temper your aggression and honour your objective, Sister Adamanthea. The Throne’s gaze is upon you.’

Adamanthea looked up at the white eye of the sun peering down at this world through the grey fog.

‘Ave Imperator,’ she said. Canoness Lydia signed off.

Adamanthea turned to her Dominions. Most of them now had their visors raised, eyes tight and gleaming, ready to spend themselves at her command. She caught an adoring look from Sister Marianne, before the girl glanced away, snapping down her visor as if to hide her embarrassment. Adamanthea heard herself speak, startled by the ease with which the words came.

‘Your Emperor wants that sniper dead.’

Spears of plasma fire beheaded two of the Battle Sisters as they raced up the slope, meltas thrumming. The headless bodies knelt and fell as the others returned fire, filling the air with a shimmering radius of heat. Dazzling white beams lanced the target zone, melting rock and liquifying one of the drones in mid-air. A patch of rock rippled beside it, spitting a flashing dart that demolished another skull.

Adamanthea triggered her Eviscerator as she bounded ahead of the advancing gunline. One of the Dominions cried out behind her.

‘Blessed are we to die in the shadows of the saints!’

Another probing volley of melta fire reduced another drone to molten ruin. Adamanthea ran, eyes locked upon a ripple sliding across the rocks, like something worming its way beneath the blanket of reality. She would not allow this xenos vermin to scurry back to its masters, regale them with stories of escaping the Emperor’s blade.

The air spat sparks just ahead of her as a cloaking device failed. The last of the drones revealed itself. One of its stabilising fins fluttered, spurting plasma left and right, its targeting sensors clearly damaged.

Adamanthea ran at it. The drone fired, almost blinding her as plasma sizzled past her ear. She registered a sliver of disbelief that she was still alive before flinging the chainsword end over end. She heard the weapon shear through sparking metal as she shouldered past the xenos’ abandoned console.

She could see the iridescent outline of the sniper stumbling just ahead of her. It jumped down into a fissure in the rock. Without hesitation she leapt after it, down a steep but shallow crevice, landing on top of the fleeing xenos like a pouncing tiger. The cloaking device peeled back, revealing her struggling prey, a stocky humanoid wearing the domed helm and armour of the xenos foe.

The creature grunted as she threw it back against the wall. She withdrew, giving it time to recover. It stood wavering, momentarily dazed, the lens in its helm glinting. She let it fumble with the pistol at its hip then smacked it away. It unsheathed a long silver knife, which she twisted from its grip and discarded before slamming the xenos back against the sheet of rock. She felt the creature shrink in her grip as she bellowed down at it, her hailer on full blast.

‘Is that all you have for me?’

She had sought glorious martyrdom and now faced only this pitiful challenge? She tore off the xenos’ helm, as if demanding an answer. A gaunt, powder-blue face stared up at her. Dark blood bubbled from the nasal slit between its black eyes. The creature frowned and spat in her face.

She seized it by the throat, hauling the creature up off its feet, its shoulder plates grinding against the wall. It pawed at her gauntlets, kicked at her like a child. Adamanthea relished the weight of its body, an entire life struggling and choking in her grip. This xenos soldier belonged to her now, its very existence hers to preserve or extinguish as she saw fit. Its sour breath fanned her face, huge black eyes now wide in entreaty. It was weaponless, helpless, alone.

She felt her grip loosen about its throat. This was no death for a soldier, she thought. Not even xenos.

The obscenity of this notion dawned on her, staggered her. Heresy had encroached upon her mind, triggering a single line of scripture that now screamed in her head.

I shall not suffer the xenos to live.

Black spots blistered her vision. Blood roared in her ears.

I shall strike it from Thy sight. I shall strike it from Thy sight. I shall strike it from Thy sight.

‘Reverend Mother?’

She looked up in surprise. One of her Dominions stood above her at the edge of the fissure. Adamanthea had no idea how long she had been pinning the xenos’ body to the wall. It now hung limp in her hands, throat crushed to a stalk. She dropped the carcass. It clattered at her feet. Adamanthea steadied herself, wondering for a moment where she was. The clamour of one battlefield sounded so very much like another.

The Dominion raised her visor. It was Sister Iris, frowning with concern. ‘Are you wounded?’

Adamanthea yearned to rest among these crags, a pile of ash for a pillow, sleep until the weariness finally left her bones. She shooed the Battle Sister away and glanced at the broken body of the xenos sniper. Alone and unmourned, it would provide a feast for whatever vile scavengers roamed these Throne-forsaken rocks.

I shall not suffer the xenos to live.

She scrambled up the rocks to rejoin the others. Another of her Dominions had retrieved her Eviscerator and presented the weapon to Adamanthea hilt first. She snatched it and mag-locked it to her back, wishing the girl would stop staring at her.

Only four of her Dominions remained. Four troopers against the lethal robotic monster they had been sent to destroy. To fail in this duty would cost a thousand Imperial lives.

Whatever the cost, I shall afford it.

She halted, reeling on the spot. A Battle Sister lay sprawled upon the rocks a short distance from where Adamanthea had flung her Eviscerator at the final drone. The dead woman’s torso was a crater of molten ceramite. Adamanthea could smell her innards roasting. The girl’s visor was up. It was Sister Marianne. Her eyes gazed into bliss, lips parted as if beholding some ineffable wonder, as if she had just received a blessing.

‘She broke from the gunline,’ said Sister Iris. ‘Followed your charge.’

Marianne’s melta lay beside her, steaming and spent. The drone’s threat protocols must have deemed her the priority target. Once again, the girl had saved Adamanthea’s life.

‘Blessed are we to die in the shadows of the saints,’ said Iris, commencing a line of prayer. ‘Praise unto the martyrs. By their strength shall we be guided.’ Adamanthea felt something twist in her gut, like a fish flopping in her belly. Shadows rumbled in the sky. Las-fire flashed.

‘Enough,’ said Adamanthea. She stumbled past Marianne’s body, snatching an envious glance at those dead eyes.

‘Reverend Mother, are you all right?’

An explosion bloomed above them, rattling Adamanthea’s armour. She turned to issue an order, but none came to mind. All she could see was Marianne’s eyes, wide open and clotted with dirt. Her grateful smile. That reeking wound, blackened insides still sizzling with heat. A sudden wind lashed Adamanthea’s cheeks with grit, winding her tabard about her legs.

The remaining Dominions glanced at each other, uncertain. Sister Iris approached.

‘Reverend Mother, we need to find cover.’

Something above them roared, fast approaching. Adamanthea stood swaying as she watched coils of dust play about the rocks. Sister Iris took her arm. ‘Reverend Mother, we need to leave.’

Adamanthea remembered the interception point, their revised objective lost in a void of lies and madness. She nodded to Iris, motioning the others to follow before hurrying away. More detonations bubbled overhead. Jets screamed.

Adamanthea fumbled with the map on her gauntlet, struggling to decipher its meaning as she headed for the slope that led back into the canyon. Her route was marked by the bodies of the other three Battle Sisters.

Blessed are we to die in the shadows of the saints.

A sob rose in Adamanthea’s chest like vomit. In the course of seeking her own death, the Viventem Miraculum had led these women to their own.

The air tightened, whizzing ash almost blinding Adamanthea as she broke into a stumbling run, every step taking her further into a nightmare of her own creation. Scarce bootsteps crunched in her wake. A voice was screaming in her head. Too late!

Adamanthea realised it was Canoness Lydia calling through the vox-bead.

‘Adamanthea! Their commander has already launched! You’re too late! Fall back!’

A dying monster fell from the sky, its wings torn and burning. The ruined Valkyrie careened overhead bleeding smoke and flames. Something had stabbed a line of plasma across its flank, obliterating one of its engines. The aircraft thundered into a pillar of rock, smashing it in half. The concussive tremor threw the Battle Sisters off their feet as a cloud of dust engulfed them.

Adamanthea scrambled towards the figures she could see blundering through the fog. A shuddering column of white-blue fire hammered the ground from above. The figures scattered through the murk. A melta-beam shot skywards in reply, probing the grey blizzard for a target. Another flurry of plasma fire drilled down, filling the air with screams. Adamanthea roared through the storm, calling to her squad. Sister Iris stumbled into view with the last two Dominions at her back.

‘Reverend Mother?’

‘Fall back to the canyon.’

Iris looked confused. ‘But–’

‘We cannot make a worthy stand with only three guns, Iris.’

A bulky, hovering figure fired a stuttering line of plasma through the thinning dust, driving them back. One of the Dominions replied with a snap shot from her melta. Adamanthea pulled her out of the way as another furious volley tore at the ground, spraying the retreating Battle Sisters with shards of scorched rock.

‘Over here,’ Adamanthea yelled as she shoved each of them behind a ridge in the earth. The shooting ceased, the wind clearing the air of dust and smoke. The xenos war machine hovered some distance away, a hulk of white and crimson, jets humming on its back as an immense burst cannon whirred to a halt beneath its fist. It surveyed its surroundings with the majesty of an angel. Two stout drones with twin sensor vanes attended it, a king and his equerry lingering in the smoke above the conquered Valkyrie.

‘Fall back, all of you.’ Adamanthea’s words wheezed through her hailer. ‘Return to command. Iris, you will deliver a full report of this mission’s failure.’

Iris watched her commander unhook the Eviscerator from her back. ‘Reverend Mother, we swore oaths that we would die by your side.’

‘Save your pledges for a commander worthy of them, Iris.’

The xenos battlesuit turned to gaze into the distance, its sensors no doubt capable of penetrating the miasma of ash that veiled the battle raging below. Perhaps it was contemplating the havoc it was about to wreak upon the Imperium.

‘This ruination is of my making. Now go!’ Adamanthea shoved Iris back towards the canyon, but the young Dominion caught her arm.

‘You are the living miracle,’ she said, imploring. ‘We cannot let you die alone.’

The other two Dominions raised their visors, nodding in accord, eyes gleaming with zeal. Adamanthea could feel their conviction, their huddled bodies seeming to close in on her, to cling to her like children. She felt a surge of revulsion, her mouth dry as she spoke.

‘I am the mother of calamity, an exhausted madwoman unfit to lead you. I shall spend no more lives in pursuit of ending my own.’

Adamanthea stood.

‘Now honour my final order and spare yourselves. Retreat. All of you!’

Iris closed her visor, shutting away a scowl of frustration. Adamanthea heard them depart as she stepped from cover, her Eviscerator heavy across her shoulders. The two drones swivelled, then the battlesuit itself deigned to face her. It hung suspended several feet above the ground as it watched her approach. The drones floated behind it, humming furiously. Adamanthea felt the air buzz with static as she sauntered towards the xenos war machine. She looked up at the sun and bellowed an entreaty.

‘God-Emperor! What else would you have me do?’

The battlesuit’s little red box of a head peered down over its chest as Adamanthea circled it, ranting as she tested the air with her dormant chainsword.

‘You know I seek forgiveness still, my lord! You know I seek death!’

The battlesuit flexed its jets, rudders flaring as it adjusted its position, intent on the curious spectacle unfolding before it.

‘Yet by allowing me to live you have made me a paragon, your living miracle.’ She laughed bitterly. ‘Would you have a madwoman inspire the Adepta Sororitas to throw their lives away on her account?’

She gripped the Eviscerator in both hands and locked the trigger. The weapon roared and the battlesuit edged away, jets purring, its huge cloven feet already a good yard out of Adamanthea’s reach. Its lens gleamed as it adjusted focus, absorbed in its examination of this specimen. It watched Adamanthea pause to take the helmet from her hip.

‘God-Emperor, forgive me. Weariness has bested me today, driven me to this madness.’

She fastened the helm over her head. Targeting runes skittered and settled about her vision.

‘But would you have me live to wreak such havoc again?’

The battlesuit straightened, its curiosity evidently satisfied. Adamanthea swung her chainsword into a ready stance as the war machine levelled its burst cannon at her face, its quad-barrels already spinning.

As Adamanthea braced herself for the charge, the battlesuit spun in the air and fired a burst of plasma at something behind it.

Three streams of melta fire answered its volley. The searing white beams stopped short of the battlesuit, flaring against a semi-sphere shield of energy that materialised before it. Adamanthea screamed at her three Dominions as they hunkered towards the battlesuit.

‘In Lucia’s name! Get back!’

They ignored her, the intensity of their weapons relentless, their wielders heedless of the risk of overheating. The beams lashed the shield-sphere encasing the battlesuit and its drones, shoving them towards looming crags that thwarted any immediate hope of escape. It returned fire, ripping one of the Battle Sisters in half at the waist, dowsing one of the three melta-beams. The plasma volley caught another Dominion, almost tearing off her arm at the shoulder. She sagged in agony, but thundered on.

‘Get back, I said!’ Adamanthea drew her bolt pistol and fired at one of the humming drones. It ignored her, each round sparking harmlessly off its shields. She howled in frustration as her lenses darkened, shielding her eyes as the Dominions’ volley intensified, pressing the battlesuit’s shield to breaking point. One of the drones erupted into sparks and smoke, its generators driven into meltdown. The shield-sphere faltered. A melta-beam obliterated the last drone and another caught the battlesuit in its side. One of its jets shrivelled into a glowing mess before it could spin away and right itself. The war machine wavered in the air, the stabilising fin on its surviving thruster buckled by the superheated blast.

Adamanthea watched, helpless, as the battlesuit ran a line of blue fire across the last two Dominions, as briskly as if it were striking a quill through a line of misspelt script. Dust swirled over three armoured corpses.

The battlesuit eventually staggered onto the ground, plumes of smoke churning behind it like useless wings. Adamanthea charged, her targeting runes shrinking onto the xenos’ burst cannon. But she knew too well how fast those limbs could move. It would shoot her before she could exact her vengeance upon it. The battlesuit faced her, raising its cannon. She squeezed the Eviscerator’s brake, halting the blade. Stabbing the chainsword into the dirt, she used it to launch herself into the air as her enemy opened fire. Her feet cleared the blinding volley and landed on the war machine’s chest with a boom.

She had hoped her armoured weight would shove the thing onto its back, but it shuffled quickly to support her. The machine rose to its full height, and her feet threatened to slip as she clung to its collar. Hefting her chainsword single-handed, she tried to reach the trigger, hoping to stab the whirring tip through the viewing slit in its chest. A robotic hand snatched the blade before it could activate, wrenching the weapon from her grip and flinging it to the ground.

Its other hand went to grab her, but she managed to kick it away and scramble over the battlesuit’s shoulder. It seized her ankle, almost crushing her foot as it dragged her back. Her fingers caught a ridge in the war machine’s armour, stalling her long enough to unholster her bolt pistol. Fired in rapid succession at point-blank range, her bolts blew ragged holes in metal arms and hands, scattering enough fingers to pull herself free.

She dropped the pistol the second it clicked dry, grabbing the battlesuit’s head as she boosted herself up and over its shoulder. A pair of shredded hands came after her as she hung down its back, using her weight to pull its head backwards. The machine staggered several paces, wearing her like a cloak. She was blinded by the smoke still churning from the melted engine beside her. The glowing metal of its back felt soft as wet sand beneath her knees and boots as she struggled for purchase. She felt the head give at the throat, its socket no doubt warped by the melta-blast. It was scrabbling at her gauntlets with its broken fingers as it lurched violently from side to side. Adamanthea managed to plant first one foot, then another in the small of its back and pulled, determined to rip the battlesuit’s head from its shoulders.

Warning runes flashed crimson in her visor display. The battlesuit had ceased thrashing. She realised veins of energy were now coursing over her gauntlets, slithering up her arms. The xenos war machine had deployed some kind of anti-personnel charge, reserved for discouraging infantry and saboteurs. Adamanthea knew her power armour was not like that of the Adeptus Astartes and would provide only limited insulation. Already she could feel her bodyglove overheating.

She ignored it and kept pulling at the battlesuit’s head, encouraged by the strain she could feel in its mechanical throat. The electricity hummed through her armour, intolerable heat burrowing into the servo-muscles beneath, searing her flesh. Something blistered against her ribs, a bundle of overheated nanofibres erupting under pressure. She yelled in surprise more than pain, and a foot slid out from under her as the machine bucked again.

She maintained her grip on the battlesuit’s head, her fingers clinging to its hood. Her lenses obscured with smoke as the smell of roasting flesh filled her helm. She could see nothing outside but white flashes that snapped like a swarm of carnivorous fish, seconds from eating her alive. The last of her warning runes shivered and vanished.

Whatever the cost, I shall afford it.

The agony in her ribs screamed at her to let go, but the deeper the pain seared, the tighter her grip became. A single invading snap of electricity sent a shiver of lightning through her nervous system. Her body spasmed, hot blood bursting in her mouth as she bit her tongue. But she held on, clinging through the chaos, determined to put an end to the madness she had created. She welcomed the agony as a blessing and gave the head a savage twist. It finally came free, tethered by a length of sparking wires.

The web of lightning sheathing the battlesuit’s body abruptly vanished into smoke. The xenos war machine staggered forward, groping blindly. Adamanthea crawled onto its shoulders and unclasped her helmet, releasing smoke from within as she gasped. The battlesuit shuddered beneath her as a section of its chest shunted forward at an awkward angle, smoke escaping. Tortured mechanisms screamed within. Something had jammed. Had the pilot attempted to eject?

She punched her gauntlet through the aperture where the battlesuit’s head had once sat, thrusting her arm down to her pauldron. She felt something squirming inside. Hands. A blade jabbing at her gauntlet. She swatted it aside and caught something else. A head. Her fingers crawled into a pair of eyes and muffled screams suddenly rose from within. The sight of her valiant Dominions sprawled in the dust nearby purged Adamanthea of pity. She squeezed, wishing she could drag the xenos’ commander up through the neck of its battlesuit. If only she could hurl the creature into the dirt, leave it blind and dying amid the devastation they had wrought together.

The battlesuit shuddered and froze in place as Adamanthea extinguished its heart. She withdrew her dripping hand, wondered at it a moment, then slipped and fell with a crash at the statue’s feet.

She gathered herself, crawling and wheezing through the dust as she retrieved her Eviscerator. She clung to its hilt for a moment, hugging it like a child. The sun peered down. Her synthesised voice was cracked.

‘What else would you have me do, my lord?’

She paused, awaiting an answer.

Someone groaned nearby.

One of her Dominions stirred. She was struggling to sit up, a row of wounds punched across her chest. Adamanthea wrenched open the girl’s visor. Sister Iris coughed. Her eyes blinked into a smile.

Darts of plasma fire sailed overhead. Several more followed. Adamanthea scooped up Iris’ melta and fired at the nearest target: a drone armed with two guns, one of several now rising from among the rocks on the eastern side of the hill. Adamanthea dragged Iris into cover behind the battlesuit’s armoured legs. The wounded Dominion grunted, blood drooling from a hole in her breast-plate. Adamanthea touched her vox-bead.

‘Reverend Canoness, the target is down. Repeat, target down.’

‘Understood, Sister Adamanthea. Aerial support confirm xenos infantry closing on your position. Fall back immediately. I’ll send a flyer to cover your retreat.’

Adamanthea hesitated in her reply. She could see xenos helmets bobbing among the rocks to the east, hear the clatter of their rifles. Her fingers strayed to the trigger of her Eviscerator.

‘Forgive me, Reverend Mother,’ Iris whispered. ‘But I would follow you as though you were Celestine herself.’

Adamanthea shuddered. Mention of that name stirred a swarm of evil memories.

Iris gripped Adamanthea’s armour, her stare unblinking, pleading. ‘Has the Emperor not spared me so that I might follow you into martyrdom?’

Plasma bolts whizzed, ricocheted off the battlesuit’s sturdy armoured legs.

‘I would follow you anywhere, Viventem Miraculum.’

‘I am glad to hear it,’ said Adamanthea, slinging the girl’s arm over her shoulder. ‘Then you will have no objection to my leading you home.’

The two women clung to each other as they retreated into the canyon, leaving the dead behind them.

SERVANTS OF THE THRONE

GHOSTS OF IRON

MARC COLLINS

The dream of Mars was dead.

The thought haunted Calliope as they fled across the desert, clawing at her as they braved the storm. The wind and oxide grit could scour her implants and sully her robes, but the thought lingered. It harried her as surely as the hereteks. She did not know, as it cycled with memetic frequency, whether it was truly hers or not. The sky had birthed horror, misrule and unreason before. Why should this be any different?

She attempted to still her mind, looking instead to the storm that surrounded them. Dust plumes leapt and broke apart in impossible patterns of crimson and ochre, tinted through with the hell-light of the Rift. Her entire life she had been spared the indignity of choking in dried chemical effluent, sheltered beneath the great void shields of Forge Avarna. Those shields no longer burned in their silent majesty, and now swathes of forge-complexes were steadily being reclaimed by the caustic tides of the dying world.

Focus, she thought. The mission demands it.

The crackle of binharic communion broke her from her mournful reverie, and she turned to see her companions stumble out of the haze. Their normally sure-footed passage was marred by battle damage, their crimson raiment torn and dirtied. She offered a canted prayer, but knew the comfort was cold.

<Be at peace in the service of the Omnissiah, for you serve the great design in your every forward step.>

Tyr 4-2 nodded curtly as he finally matched Calliope’s pace. His right arm was a shredded ruin, silvered circuitry alive with erratic discharge. The crackle of electricity lit the pale green bionics that replaced his eyes, and the respirator sutured to his lower face.

<You honour us, Magos Vartothex. Mission parameters hold. We yet serve the true course of the Omnissiah.>

For how long? The poison data circled in her mind through feedback loops of doubt and strife. She had pared away much in her own Quest for Knowledge, ridding herself of her flesh weakness. With the sky torn open she felt frail in ways she had long since thought consigned to memory. She stretched, her internal reactor whining as her four legs braced against the storm. Her trifold occularis rotated, clicked and realigned, till she could see Kappa-Ix drawing closer through the gale. The last skitarius of their number stumbled through the dunes, dragging the heavy bulk of his radium carbine. He stopped periodically, jerking and spasming, before continuing his tortured march.

As a magos domina, in more civilised times, she would have rendered him down for parts and protein. In this desecrated epoch she was loath to part with any advantage or protection. They were the last now, after all. The last of her cell, perhaps the last loyal souls upon Sareme. Her hand brushed the data-repository that hung from her robes, iron against silver, and past philtres of oils and unguents. That they lived meant that their allies had not died in vain. They yet had purpose.

<Do you endure, Kappa-Ix?> Tyr 4-2 canted, watching as his fellow drew nearer.

<I. ENDURE.> The binharic was coarse, forced through stuttering relays. <AWAITING. ORDERS.>

This war will break us. Yet we still fight. We still resist. Iron, in the service of the Machine-God.

Their destination leered out of the gloom, like some ancient pagan fane. There was defiance in its grim countenance, a Warlord unbroken by the storm winds. Static discharge whipped and cracked like lightning, framing the cyclopean monolith of its being, picking out the kill-marks upon its fluttering banners. FURORE MARTIS, it proclaimed, Fury of Mars.

<Omnissiah’s bounty.> The utterance slid from her as a prayer and a curse, her head bowed reverently. She cross-referenced her own inloaded data with the markings of the Titan. Confirmation runes flickered green. <We have found it. But a little further – the Machine-God provides.>

There was no motion from the machine, no signs of life. She looked down as they passed, her feet nudging at debris that the dust had coated. They were bodies. The lifeless bodies of secutarii, blanketing the ground around the stationary Titan. Dead eyes stared up, transfixed upon the roiling heavens, and Calliope did not allow herself to share their morbid sight.

They pushed on haltingly, uncertain, into the shadow of the great engine until they found an access hatch. Calliope hunched over, sheltering the panels from the wind and dust as she began to interface with the Titan’s subsystems, mechadendrites coiling as they extruded into the waiting ports. Chill crept along her iron spine as her reactor bled power and awakened the mechanisms. Her life was being siphoned, moment by moment, essence sacrificed that their mission might yet be fulfilled. Her prayers were low and soft, soothing the machine-spirits as they woke from pain and dormancy.

The door hissed open, creaking with hydraulic effort as they forced their way into the gloom. Around them the bastion fane was still and silent, dust slowly being displaced by the creeping dirt they had trailed in with them. Even the lumens were dead.

<Let there be illumination,> her binary whispered out, and the shoulder-mounted stablights of the skitarii flickered on in answer.

The base of the leg was as much temple as fortress, gateway and guardhouse. The walls were inscribed, laser-etched with the binary rotes of victories. When the crew marched into Fury of Mars, they looked upon these walls, dwelt upon its history and basked in its glory; but for their small band the weight of the place felt curdled, their own failings an insult to the vaunted past.

<Area secure, magos.> Tyr 4-2 had moved up and ahead of her, hoisting his sword in his working hand as he scanned the room. Kappa-Ix lumbered further back, a glacial presence of whining feedback. Their lights split the darkness in crisscrossing arcs, picking out the disarray of the once pristine chamber. Oily runoff streaked the walls, tarnishing the recorded battles with the wear and the rot of the abandoned. There were burn marks, faded, yet speaking of the urgency of battle. She imbibed the air, atmosphere processors hissing in her chest as they analysed.

Rust. Rot. Burnt flesh. Stagnation and death.

It is a refuge. She allowed herself the thought. The Machine-God works by strange circumlocution, but it yet orders the universe. There was opportunity here, to tend their wounds and to consecrate anew the spirit of the great engine.

<We are safe, for the moment. Our trials have been many, but necessary for the fulfilment of our mission. We failed at Avarna. Archmagos Groal, Magos Vaznek, so many others dead that we might live. That we may still make a difference. We push on, so purity might endure, even here. Even now.>

Behind her, Kappa-Ix pushed the door back into place, dislodging the piling sand as he heaved it shut. Darkness closed in around their islands of light. The dream of Mars might be dead, she thought, but we are not.

In the close darkness of the chamber, their lights played over another great door, inlaid with the crown-and-cog symbol of the Legio Arconis, the Iron Kings of Sareme. It was broad enough that two Kastelan war automata could march shoulder to shoulder through it, and a full three feet taller. She walked past the barricades and pressed her fingers to the metal, as though will alone could force it open.

<Hypothesis – the Titan is abandoned, magos. Advise defensive pattern until such time as you might appease the machine-spirits and disengage the locking mechanism.> The binharic medium did not parse resignation well, but Calliope could tell by Tyr’s slumped aspect that the skitarius had expected more. Brothers at his back, perhaps, or the Titan’s wrath to be kindled against the foe. That had always been the outlying probability, however. She had known that when she had accepted the mission from Archmagos Groal’s ailing hands.

‘If it cannot serve the will of the Machine-God, then it must be denied to the enemy. There is no greater insult than the despoliation of such a weapon.’

The archmagos would be dead now, with the rest of them. She did not like to think of those who had been left behind, their fate to join the choir of the crucified, their binharic suffering echoing out across the wastes.

<We cannot be sure that Fury of Mars is indeed abandoned, Tyr 4-2. Though the signs are poor, there are variables we cannot account for. Battle damage disrupting communications, reactor venting necessitating shutdown of primary systems, a tank-bound princeps devoid of bridge crew. We must consider every possibility, lest we fall into error. Errant data is disservice to the universal equations of the Omnissiah.>

<And purity of information is validated in the actions it generates,> Tyr finished. He had drawn level with her before the door, and Calliope allowed herself to scrutinise his damage. The arm would never function again, though he maintained an acceptable level of combat efficiency. There were no other major defects, unlike Kappa-Ix. She turned, watching as the stockier skitarius hefted his carbine and trained it upon an exterior hatch. Tremors rattled through him, the calculations of his hypothetical accuracy shifted incessantly across her vision. 65%. 60%. 62%. She moved towards him, holding out a hand as though in benediction.

<We shall soon have the opportunity for maintenance, Kappa-Ix. Your stalwart service shall be rewarded. You held the hereteks back, at great cost to yourself. We would not have escaped the breaking yards if not for your defiance.>

<DEF-DEFIANCE IS. IS. SERVICE.> He shook himself to dismiss the cascading errors. <I DO. MY DUTY.>

<Indeed you do. Know that the Machine-God watches over you, and such actions are judged worthy in His great calculus.>

A whine drew her attention. A minor thing, a shift in the environmental conditions. The air pressure had changed, but there was something else beneath that, like the slow beating of an arrhythmic heart.

<Something has changed.>

The chamber’s lights flickered, their illumination fitful and diffuse. Calliope turned back towards the door, one hand around the haft of her axe and the other locked on her phosphor serpenta. Loath as she was to unleash such killing fury within these holy halls, not least for fear of damaging the Titan and insulting its machine-spirit, she had to be prepared for what might lie beyond. Kappa-Ix stood to her left, carbine trembling, while on her right Tyr engaged his powerblade with a whisper of blue-white fields.

Artfully crafted locks spun and clicked in the door, cog becoming crown becoming cog again. There was a growl of redistributing pressure, and the door began to slide sideways to reveal…

Nothing.

The path ahead was empty, a set of stairs leading steadily up and towards the body proper of the Titan. Each tier was engraved with litanies of war, lessons imparted with every step of the ascent. Calliope crossed the threshold, tentatively, and her clawed feet clattered on the iron-rimmed steps.

No one. No allies in welcome, nor enemies poised to strike. What, then, opened the way?

The base of her axe tapped against the stairs, again and again. She stilled her agitation, almost surprised that she had not noticed it. The air had drawn in around her, hot and close, and she felt what remained of her flesh-self shudder.

This was a sign, though she knew in her core that it was a contrary one.

She drew herself up to her full height, and canted on every frequency of which she was capable. <I am Magos Domina Calliope Vartothex, bearing the express missive and authority of Archmagos Groal of Forge Avarna. The strength of the Great Enemy grows daily, their works despoil and infect the once unimpeachable purity of Sareme. Servants of the Legio, holy warriors of the Iron Kings and the Collegia Titanica, I beseech thee for aid. Let true disciples of the Omnissiah be in concord, and face the foe together.>

Only silence greeted her. Not even the background radiation of the Titan altered at her pronouncement. She turned back towards her companions, nodded, and then moved up the stairway. Tyr was already at her back, a familiar rattle at his approach. Kappa-Ix advanced slowly, almost gingerly, as he hefted his weapon and stoically forced himself forward. They were ahead of him when they heard the whine of the door servos engaging, and turned just in time to see him look up.

<MAGOS–>

The door slammed, so suddenly that even her augmented vision struggled to keep up. It moved too fast for Kappa-Ix to avoid, or even to reach out. There was a crash as it drove him into its workings, the crunch of armour as it yielded, and the rush of co-mingled fluids. There was only a smear of blood and oil remaining, like an afterthought.

<By the Omnissiah!> Tyr had rushed forward, canting a continual stream of agonised binary. It seemed to her that he was caught in his own tortured cycle, pinned and ruined in his own way. He scrabbled at the door, impotently, his sword forgotten.

<Tyr 4-2.> Her hand lay on his shoulder, and he stiffened, his struggles ceasing. <Whether by accident or design, we cannot linger. Seek clarity, seek vengeance. By either equation only our forward progress will deliver answers. He has died as he lived, in stalwart service to the God of All Machines.>

Tyr’s hand pressed flat against the door, before he clenched it into a fist and drew it back against his chest. He turned back to her, nodded once, and then strode past her and up the stairs. Too eagerly. Too angrily. She watched him go impassively. Even the greatest gifts of the Omnissiah could not always still the extremes of mortal emotion.

This serves a purpose. We must believe that.

The gilt and glory of the stairway faded into metal gantries, strung around the great machinery which facilitated the leg’s movement. They lay quiet and neglected. The corridors were not alive with the hydraulic song of motion, the thunder of war, the cogitator’s subtle click. It pained her to see it; to watch a grand edifice of the Machine-God’s might fall into ruin. They deserved so much better than this. To walk the galaxy again and fight for their Imperium, not to moulder forgotten and neglected.

She quickened her pace. The Titan had proven itself an uncaring, even malicious host. Their path wound upward, the platforms ringing with the sound of metal on metal, but no doors barred their way. None threatened them with sudden death. Tyr’s blade was held ahead of them, casting its pale light. His fingers were locked around the hilt, instincts sharpened by loss and hatred.

When they finally emerged it was into an austere chamber, the gantries rising into the centre of a room that was bare and functional. They had passed from the storied past of the Titan into the present of its bellicose heart. One that was set against them. Lumens flickered at their approach, as though a blossoming awareness moved through them. She knelt, allowing herself a moment of prayer and rest.

<Almighty Lord of Machines, vouchsafe your noble servants who serve in motive function and those who have moved beyond disrepair.>

<Kappa-Ix served well, magos. Why would the great engine take such affront at his presence? Have we displeased the machine-spirit? Has madness claimed it, in the storm and chaos?> Tyr had knelt with her, but there was none of the peace of prayer. His body trembled with constant agitation. The fingers of his remaining hand clenched and unclenched. His optics struggled to retain focus.

<I cannot say. Perhaps the enemy is already within. We must–>

She paused. Pressed this close to the metal floor she could feel the tension building, the slow shudder as it rose from within the core of the vast machine. It spoke in the slow growl of the kindling engine as it struggled to engage, and then found its voice in the bellow of the Titan’s war-horns. She braced herself, fully expecting the world around her to lurch with sudden motion; for all the clamour of war to crash in around her. But it did not. The reactor snarled and grumbled, and fell silent. Chastened it seemed, like an unruly child.

She let her sensorium roam free, tasting the electromagnetic spectra of the air with a thousand subtle tongues. The Titan had not simply given voice with its horns, but with every broadcast medium at its disposal.

<The bridge!> Her hissed binary drove Tyr up again, his sword raised. <If we do not wrest control of the situation, then we are lost. This will draw attention, even through the storm.> Her left hand was locked on the data-repository at her waist, protecting the precious knowledge held within as a mother guards her progeny. Questing data-conductors slithered from her wrist and adhered to the communion ports, and she let the purity of data flow through her.

Her mind whirred with the inload of information, a tide of uncorrupted data that invigorated her synapses and circuits. It was an almost narcotic rush, and she understood how frail unaugmented biology could succumb to the innumerable vices which plagued them. We can excise every last iota of flesh, and our weakness will still find new places to hide. Again, the voice of poisoned logic tried to resurface, but it was nothing against the sanctified understanding in which she basked. She remembered more coherent times, when she had truly served as a magos domina. The prospect of war had been glorious then, and she had been lauded for her service to the Omnissiah-Destroyer. Not this anaemic guerrilla war, this base resistance. She could lose herself in the flow of uncorrupted data, free from the half-life existence which had been forced upon her.

Calliope tore herself away, reluctantly, the Titan’s exact schematics now fully present within her mind. A simple thought illustrated the most efficient route to the command levels within the engine’s skull and overlaid across her visual display.

<We must trust in the Omnissiah, as the dead of Forge Avarna have trusted in us. Salvation or destruction, our cause is just.>

She led the way deeper into the Titan, through iron-rimmed doorways whose edges were engraved with the cog, crown and crossed spears. The warlike apertures seemed to gape at her like consuming mouths, or like the open ends of veins. It was as though they were truly in the viscera of some great beast; that the holy technology of the Legio had become a profaned and living thing. Unnatural, like the horrors of the Great Devourer, or the excesses of the Archenemy.

They were beyond fear. They were consecrated for the moment, shaped for this by their entire existence. Sareme was not a kind world, and neither of them had shirked from the service of war. Each step forward, each clang of her axe against the floor, was another token of defiance in the name of duty.

Other noises rose in the half-light of the interior. The Titan groaned in odd ways, the sounds echoing throughout it. Every part of it seemed to clench and flex. Behind that, though, were different utterances. Something wet and gelid, moaning like a wounded beast. Tyr drew nearer to her, protectively. They both knew the truth. They were not alone.

They turned a corner, the sound growing louder about them, and something crunched under their feet. Calliope looked down, and saw the floor littered with debris. Graceful, priceless bionics were strewn on the ground – each one gleaming with greasy discharge. They were scattered haphazardly, spread out amongst robes and uniforms. Discarded. No. Extruded. She shuddered to look upon it, to think of the implants being forced from the flesh of the crew.

Something snuffled like a beast at the end of the hallway, presiding over the crew’s leavings. It tore at something wet and meaty, body hunched over it. It pricked up as they tentatively approached, and turned to reveal its horrific bulk in full.

It had been human once; it had been the crew. Flesh had run like wax, pooling together and reforming. It was a thing of flux, the worst excesses of the flesh, and it glared at them with too many eyes. Each of them seemed a different colour, like an echo of the diseased skies above. When it moved it was with surprising speed, like something of the deep oceans or void-born. Split tongues slithered from its mouth, coiling around mismatched teeth; some blunt pegs, others sharpened canines.

It lunged for them, and Calliope spun about, her axe before her. She canted her prayers loud and fearless as the ignition rune depressed and the chamber was bathed in the light of her axe’s power field. The mutant clattered against the haft, driving it back against her body even as Tyr pivoted to stab at its flank. Blood and other fluids ran, stinking and unidentifiable. Its eyes flared and it lashed out with a fleshy barb, knocking the skitarius against the wall.

Calliope drove forward and her rear legs braced as she drove the axe down towards the creature’s broad, undulating back. The thing surged up, pseudopods coiling about the axe’s grip; the vague impression of hands roiled within it, clinging and pushing even as the blade pierced it. It screamed, a hideously mingled shriek of multiple voices, and drew back. Bony spurs flashed as it retreated, scraping at her augmented form.

She slammed one of her iron-shod feet into its trailing skin, and it reared forward, desperate to dislodge her. It screeched in its warbling tongue, teeth flashing and eyes wide as it dragged itself along the floor with barely formed claws. She pushed down on it with her weight, servos burring as they stabilised. She brought the axe down squarely on what passed for a head, and the thing came apart in a rush of bone and ichor. For a moment she contemplated unholstering her serpenta, but such a discharge would be dangerous to the Titan’s machine-spirit. She yanked the blade from the creature and looked up at Tyr.

<The crew?> Disgust coloured his cant. He could barely look at the thing before them as it slowly mouldered. <What could have done this so quickly?>

<The Archenemy’s works are the works of discord and entropy. Madness. In the great forges it came for their minds. Here it has come for their flesh. They are denied union with the machine or noble service to their god-engine. There can be no greater schism than the flesh rampant – denied surety of form and purpose.>

<Flesh is clay in the forge of the god-machine, yet it must be shaped.>

<Control must be as iron.> She reached out for Tyr and he helped to steady her as she rose from the midst of the corpse. <As must we.>

More growls echoed through the corridors, and they moved swiftly away from them.

<This way!> Calliope canted, directing them into a side chamber. Tyr drove his shoulder against the door, forcing the stalled mechanisms till the room was sealed.

They were in a secondary data node, the walls lined with conduit fibres and piping, bundled like human muscle. In a series of alcoves, servitors waited. They stared with dead eyes, jaws locked in the rictus of bio-feedback. They had died in whatever pain their lobotomised forms could experience, as their minds burned out from within. Tyr tapped his sword against the half-metal skull of one, then stopped at Calliope’s fixed stare, and her low cant of disapproval.

<Irreverent.>

<Forgive me, magos. Situational security demanded it.> Tyr bowed, and she turned away to place her hand upon the towering machinery before her.

<If we do not honour the Omnissiah in all things, even the smallest of considerations, are we any different to the scavengers, hereteks and degenerate cultures who have gone before us?> Her artificial lungs wheezed in what could have been a sigh. <We have lost so much, Tyr 4-2.>

<We shall rebuild, magos. Even if we do not endure, the Mechanicus will reclaim this world. New gods of iron shall walk it. New forges shall ring out their obeisance. The Omnissiah does not forsake, nor forget, loyal servants. In data are all things sanctified, and ordered in the great design of the universe.>

In data…

She looked at the processing conduits and her fingers trailed down the exterior. In a system as complex as a Warlord, there were many redundancies. Here there was one: a port which would allow limited access to the Titan’s systems. If she could engage with them, she could attain some control over their environment.

<Tyr. I will require your protection.>

<Magos?>

<I will interface with the Titan directly. I will apprise myself of the situation in the local datasphere and I shall force open the way, if necessary.>

<Forgive me, magos, but is that wise? You are not schooled in the sacred mysteries of the Collegia Titanica. If Fury of Mars’ soul is set against us, what hope have you of survival, let alone triumph?>

<The alternative is to do nothing. The crew are lost. If I do not risk this, then we risk everything.> She moved her hand up from the repository and tugged at her sleeve. Her fingers closed around the questing tendrils of her own data-conductors. <Only I have communed with the data Archmagos Groal provided. In the end only I will save or destroy this holy engine. Thus must I attempt all avenues provided to me. Should I fail…> She paused. <Then I trust you will do what is needful.>

The spiked conductors met with the ports. Her occularis whirred, and her head tilted upwards as though in religious awe. There was a moment of configuration, of communion, and then she was–

Elsewhere, elsewhen, everything in motion like the tug of immense gravity. She was falling, drowning, borne aloft, burning, dying, truly alive for the first time in her existence. Understanding as a god understands, and yet surviving. Too much. Too much. Tearing her apart and knitting her together again. She screamed, and it was the thunder of horns that roared from her. She felt the scrutiny of the infinite fall upon her, like the attention of binary suns. Forces tugged at her, in one direction and then the next. Caught between the inferno and the abyss. With all her might she forced herself forward, out of their competing grips. The rush abated, became vacuum, and then there was a new sensation. The world opened, yawned before her as the vast tide receded. She could see light, the sky, she could see Sareme. She could see as Fury of Mars saw. Remember. Oh, Omnissiah, no.

The sky was burning.

Torn open and falling in around them, it gaped like a vast eye, a maw ripped in the surface of creation. The death plumes of stars glistened sharply there, red with the blood of empire. The engine stared into the heart of oblivion, and insanity stared back, until the great booming of the war-horns became a tortured binharic scream. Digital fear and machine desperation crested her in a new wave, driving her back from the inferno of the Rift, forcing her out of the datasphere as–

Reality reasserted itself with a cold shudder and the stench of burning augmetics. One hand had locked, caught in rictus about the console, her other arm hanging useless at her side. Half of her optical array was crazed by static, and the inconstant readouts informed her that a neural logic grid had burned out from the trauma of communion.

There was no time for silence as the memory faded. Calliope allowed her senses to realign, and realised too late that the situation within the chamber had changed.

Emergency lighting had rendered everything down to an arterial smear, and she struggled to focus even as a silhouette stumbled forward. The servitor had been lifeless, but now it moved with some infernal purpose. The light of the Maledictum glimmered in its eye-lenses, inhabiting and infecting its simple purity. A twisted puppet. Another two grappled with Tyr, boxing him into the corner as he slashed with his blade. His efforts had likely spared her their infernal attention.

She reached for her axe with a palsied hand, forcing it to move from where it had seized, but she was too slow to stop the puppet’s advance. With what little motive force remained, she lashed out with her mechadendrites, coiling them about its neck. The construct gave a screech of effort, struggling against her already weak hold. It reached for her with corroded hands, scrabbling against her robes. She pushed again, swinging the haft of her axe round inelegantly and forcing the servitor back with a clatter. It protested in a burble of rasping scrapcode. She winced to hear this incarnate corruption, the coherent blasphemy.

<By the Omnissiah, you shall not claim me. I am a true servant. I have stood before the end of all things. I have not been found wanting.>

The cant rang with a strength she did not feel, yet the ruinous thing did not falter. It did not even acknowledge her communication. It simply clawed at her, dumbly, its movements spasmodic.

Her axe came up and round, the chamber lit blue by its actinic ignition. She braced herself and channelled her remaining strength into a single blow. The thing came apart in a welter of oily blood and machine parts. Calliope slumped down before it. She struggled to breathe, her atmospheric processing units heaving to siphon oxygen into her body.

We cannot despair. Not now.

She rose, forcing herself to move. One of the servitors fell back, gouting congealed fluids from a sword wound, as the other pushed past Tyr’s guard and locked a claw around his throat. The thing jerked and sparked, and for a moment she thought of Kappa-Ix in his agonies. Like a cruel mirror. Like a shade, returned to claim a loyal soul. She swung at it, though her aim was unsteady, and the thing burbled with corruption. Nonsense utterances poured from it as she drew back and struck again and again. Its claws trailed their way down Tyr’s chest as it slumped and finally died.

Calliope collapsed to her knees. She lowered her trembling hand to one of the philtres at her waist and dipped into it reverently. Her iron fingers trailed sacred oil beneath her augmetic eyes, tears of ritual mourning she could no longer shed.

<It knows we are here.>

<Magos?>

<The Titan. Fury of Mars. It knows we are here. I touched its mind, and the mind came for us.> Her cant was a whisper of binary, almost a babble of confused data. <It stared into the opening of the Rift. It saw the infinite, the abyss. The Titan knows us. It hates us. It hates. It is still fighting, still at war, and it is losing. I felt their struggle, their tumult. The Rift has poured into this vessel. The crew warped quickly, but the engine itself does not yield so easily.>

Tyr hesitated. The sheer blasphemy of it seemed to overwhelm him, and for once the noble skitarius seemed to diminish. He suddenly seemed to feel all of his battle damage and war-weariness. <What can we do?>

<The bridge is a lost cause. The princeps and moderati will be dead, or degenerated. Were they capable, they would already have marched the Titan into treachery. The enginarium is the key now. There we will be able to force a reactor overload, and purify it in death. It must be denied to the enemy.>

Tyr nodded, and then stopped. The bestial growls had faded and instead there were new noises. The Titan shook with the sound of engines, with the clatter of metal against metal. There was a breathy rush of air as the interior pressure of the Titan altered, as though a great many doors had opened.

<Intruders,> Calliope broadcast knowingly. <The engine has drawn attention, and now they come for us. The hereteks will not rest until it serves darker designs.> She placed her hand upon his shoulder. <Come with me, Tyr 4-2. Let us end this with some semblance of honour.>

Her visual display glitched several times as they followed the programmed pathway. The trail was ephemeral, drifting in and out of focus or spasming with static. She had run self-diagnostics as they made their way deeper into the innards of the Titan, but they had been inconclusive. The damage within her was subtle, but extensive. Without maintenance, she had no doubt that her vital function would cease. She realised that this prospect did not faze her, as once it might. If I die, I die with my duty done. I have given my all to the Machine-God.

<Beyond the next chamber, we should enter the primary enginarium. There we will find what we require,> Calliope canted as she passed into the chamber, and then stopped. This was not as it should be. <Strange. This is not correct. There must be some error in the schemata.> She thought to reach again for the data-repository, but stopped. It could not have lied to her, its purity was beyond suspicion.

What, then? Could she no longer trust her own mind?

She froze as she considered it. The warring spirits of the datasphere had touched her mind as surely as she had touched theirs. Logic loops blossomed and died within her skull, circuitry ablaze with the very consideration of it. She was so lost in her addled thoughts, so riven by doubt and suspicion, that she did not even notice the low hiss.

Tyr looked up, and hurled himself forwards. He turned, and pushed Calliope back, so that the magos stumbled. Her legs shot out to brace herself, her head snapping up ready to blurt remonstrance. Yet when she looked up, she was face to face with the heavy steel-faced door of the chamber, with its window of hardened armourglass.

Tyr’s free hand pressed against the window, and his pale face stared out from it. There was no fear in his demeanour. He seemed calm. Focused, where she was disordered.

<Magos.> He spoke, and the door could not stop their binharic communion. <Forgive me for my trespass, magos. There was precious little time.> He looked around him, and hung his head. <Mine grows shorter still.>

<Tyr 4-2. What have you done?>

<This chamber’s ambient radiation has altered substantially since we arrived. I detected an uptick as soon as you entered. It is being subjected to coolant venting.>

<How much longer?>

<I anticipate that the venting will commence in the next few minutes. Not even my construction could survive exposure. It matters not. My contribution to the Omnissiah’s great works is concluded. I have served in war and peace. I have done so with faith and fidelity to my code. You though, Magos Vartothex, yet have services to perform.>

<I wish this could have been otherwise, Tyr. You have given your all that I might survive. You have been as steel. We have lost so much, we have had so much taken from us. I do not know if it will make any difference.>

<It must, magos.> Fitful light built at the corners of the room. There was a constant hiss, a building wind. Tyr tried in vain to lift his ruined arm, and to form the holy cog symbol with his fingers. Calliope reached out, and let her own iron digits complete the pattern.

<Go into the light of purity everlasting, for no data ever ceases to be. The Omnissiah knows all. The Omnissiah is all.>

There was a pulse of heat and light as the chamber flooded. The burning fluid struck Tyr, driving him against the armourglass. Cracks spiderwebbed it, his fingers scrabbled and clawed at it. The cog lost cohesion, and then Tyr’s body followed suit. There was the clatter of his armour against the ground, and then nothing. Calliope sagged against the door, her orisons fading, unable to look up at the spiteful light beyond the glass.

She was ailing as she shuffled into the enginarium. Calliope no longer trusted the data within her own mind; she second-guessed her every action, and idled at every doorway as though it might lead inexorably to doom. Her vision continued to stutter, or to flash with damage notifications. She was broken, within and without. She was the intruder, and the Titan’s fracturing mind had set to destroying her. It could not work her from the flesh like a shard of metal or glass, and so instead it would crush her. Devour her. Kappa-Ix and Tyr had sacrificed themselves so that she might get this far, but so too had they primed the thing against her as surely as a biologis’ inoculant.

The Titan rang with noise. She heard the scrape of scaffold and the burr of plasma cutters. Doors were being found, tried and forced throughout the superstructure. From below she could detect the burbling scrapcode of their communication. She felt soiled simply from being aware of it.

<Do you know what comes for you?> she asked the machine that surrounded her. <Do you no longer care? You fought me as though I were a violation.>

She was not sure if Fury of Mars could hear her but canted regardless, pausing only to interface with another panel. She felt the cold in her bones again, haemorrhaging power more acutely each time she had to force a door. The war had finally caught up with her.

<I know your heart. I know your dreams and memories. Do not abandon the Machine-God now.>

The silence was its only reply. There was the hiss of disengaging seals, and she heaved the door open, struggling like an invalid. She paused as she stepped through, half across the threshold. There was a scrabbling click somewhere behind her, and she turned just in time to see her attacker lunging.

It was a lithe thing, pared down to sleek steel bones and mangled flesh. Its eye-lenses flickered crimson, and it jerked its head from side to side as if caught in some mania. Ruined black robes hung from its emaciated body, and it was scarred where implants had been removed or crudely jammed into place. Its charnel stink preceded it, and she barely had time to stagger into the enginarium chamber than it was upon her. A mouth full of corroded needle-teeth snapped against her shoulder, tearing at her robe and scraping across armoured plates. She forced it back, her hand grasping at the thing’s flailing head. She scarcely had the strength to lash out with her axe, but pushed it up and against the thing anyway. Her finger found the ignition rune, and she depressed it.

There was a flash of light and the stink of burning flesh as the thing was hurled backwards, its face a seared ruin. Calliope grabbed the door handles and pulled it shut, and the locks engaged again. She looked at the panel on her side, and brought her axe down till it burst apart. That would buy her time.

The enginarium seemed cavernous, the ribbed chamber framing the heart of the Titan, enfolding it beneath a silvered dome. In motion it would have rung with litanies of true service and smooth operation. Now it was hollow, silent and dead like an abandoned cathedral. She eased herself down the central walkway and stood before the primary ignition console. The cogitator keys were thick with long-congealed unguents and dust, and she brushed them away reverently.

You will serve again. Even if it is for the last time.

Outside she could hear the scratch of tools against the door. Sparks flared in the corner of her vision as they began to cut into the chamber. Her hands moved swiftly, as though the rites were ingrained in her. As though she had been forged for this task alone. She pushed the last runic key, and pulled a lever. The overload should begin now. Soon all would be light and sound and fury. Then peace. She allowed her vision to idle, as the whirr of the caged sun built up around her.

And failed.

Calliope stared at the console as readouts streamed and repeated. Failure. She could not bring herself to believe it. She had double-checked the rituals. The logic was sound and self-contained. There was nothing that ought to be able to interfere with the process, beyond–

<The machine-spirit itself.> The realisation breathed from her, and she forced her palsied hand against the console. <At this last juncture? After all I have suffered to bring you but a modicum of honour? How dare you.> She closed her hand into a fist and slammed it against the console.

Only one solution presented itself.

She let the conduits flow from her wrist again, and found the waiting ports on the console. The Machine-God works by strange circumlocution. She had thought that once before, and felt the hand of destiny heavy upon her. There is no other way. There was the bite of communion again, her spirit caught in the sudden gravity of the Titan’s warlike essence. She resisted as she braced herself, primed herself, for the inevitable surrender. And then the great soul of the war engine enfolded her, and its will became her world.

<WALK>

The utterance rattled through their iron bones, pulsing with the thrum of an ancient engine heart. It was the command that drove the great machine on through the aeons. From the fires of Strife, to the lightless depths of the Heresy. They had strode the galaxy, waged holy war in Mars’ name, and they felt the weight of every century of service. The inferno of their machine soul radiated outwards, more indomitable than the adamantium of their skin or the furious rhythm of their reactor.

This was how it felt to walk as a god.

They bestrode the battlefield, not in the symbiotic struggle of princeps and war engine, but yoked to the glory of the moment. Logic pathways burned anew, seared open by the pure might of the god-machine. Perceptions bled into it, even as their memories ran together, molten and ecstatic.

Greenskins died by their thousand upon an icy world, not deserving of a name. They screamed with the war-horns as they advanced, shattering bestial lines, tearing down savage defences. Even the xenos’ stunted engines could not harm them. But she sees something, lurking behind their lines, the hulking shadow, like a bleak reflection. If she focused, she could almost see, almost know–

A different war. The sleek machines of the aeldari slid past them, outpacing their guns with sinuous grace. They moved like living things, like flesh dancers instead of ponderous sculptures of sacred metal. Missiles screamed, las-blasts split the ceaseless night, and still they moved on. Mocking, they would–

<DIE>

The great cadence rose from the maelstrom of memory, and they were one in its ascension. Not one. She was drowning in its mind. She saw the shadow again, and it loomed forward, the aeldari gone like lesser shadows. It was not dark, she realised. It burned with its own curdled light. It was Fury of Mars, broken beyond comprehension and rendered monstrous. Blasphemous runes burned on its hull. She quailed before it.

<Remember,> she begged. <Remember what you fight for!>

She remembered her fear and desperation as the world burned and friend became foe. She relived watching as Magos Vaznek was carved apart by the horrors her priesthood had become, the black-robed fiends chittering with laughter as they took him to pieces. Her hand as it lay upon Archmagos Groal’s, trembling with the effort of mass-processing so much data through his bulk. Not with fear, though. Never with fear. They had all faced death with zeal.

<You are the Fury of Mars.> She felt her fist clench, her arm aflame, and heard the now familiar whine as the volcano cannon blazed hot. When she screamed her rage, the Titan bellowed with her. Light and sound crossed the tormented fractal of the memory datascape, a bolt of pure energy that seared through the pretender Titan’s armour. Black filth poured from the wound, daemonic shapes writhing in the pollution, and the simulation shuddered with their immaterial agony.

Ghost images rushed at them in their remembrance, and they fired again. The sleek phantom engines of the aeldari broke apart like ice. The greenskins’ grinning idols burst in showers of pig iron and offal. She watched Magos Vaznek pull at the pin of a grenade, a canticle on his lips as his sacrifice tore apart the hereteks who would lay him low.

<There is still a way! We can fight, we can have our victory!> The memories were collapsing now, forced together unto breaking point. She could feel the Titan in her mind, and knew but a fraction of a princeps’ peace. Fragile unity held as understanding blossomed, like calling to like. They knew each other. They understood. There was nothing else but the tranquillity of defiance; war’s serenity.

It fractured. Information subsumed her like floodwaters, and she was pushed from the collapsing construct. Not as it would evict an intruder, but as it would safeguard a child.

She returned to the physical with a rush of contradictory sensations that seemed adjacent to agony. She could sense burning flesh, and the warning runes upon her visual display flashed unceasingly. Everything was tainted sanguine, but she did not care. There was a new strength in her core, the mingled understanding of tech-priest and Titan. I thought I understood war before. I was a mere novice.

The door blew in with a rush of air and the babble of the corrupt and insane. A gaggle of hereteks slipped into the chamber, the low light seeming to bend around their darkness. They had crowned themselves with the scraps of butchered machines, and their robes were hung with grisly trophies from the meagre flesh of adepts. One of them grinned, his teeth shards of broken data-crystal, and spoke with his flesh voice in a wet rush of toxic words.

‘No god-talker, you. Alone, lost, running from glory. We are the storm, and we are the change supernal, and we will bow to no iron priest. Rejoice, sister, for we bring illumination. The false Omnissiah’s light has gone out in the galaxy. Mars is a dream, dead now. The truth has killed it.’

<The dream of Mars? It is not dead. I know that now.> She pushed against the console till she left indents, forcing herself up to look upon them. She would not die cowed and broken. <The dream of Mars is war. War to preserve knowledge, war to safeguard what we have remembered. It is the war that built the iron skeleton of the Imperium, around the forges which burned through the darkness of Strife. It is carried in the heart of every magos, and every war engine.> Behind her every utterance was the growl of Fury of Mars.

Her hands moved as deftly as they could. She pulled the lever again, and twisted dials. The reactor crackled and spat behind her, aglow with lambent energy. The hereteks were moving too slowly, brazenly opening fire in the heart of the great machine, not caring what their casual idolatry would break.

Too late, anyway.

The power of the Titan’s core was directed at her command. Motive force flooded back through the engine, and it moved, breaking its frozen stride. She cut the power, though it pained her to do so, and the engine lurched. Everything shook, but she was prepared, braced against the console and the decking while the foe tumbled. The light was blinding behind her now, the wail of alarms deafening. Her arm was locked upwards, serpenta ready, and she fired without hesitation. The heretek leader was caught in the inferno of her shot, his body detonating in a shower of offal that coated his already panicked devotees.

<Behold the Omnissiah’s fury!> Calliope spat. <He is judgement and He is glory. He is a bulwark of cold iron against those who break faith.> She dropped the serpenta and took up her axe. The light of its ignition was a cleansing thing, at one with the building detonation behind them. She swept it before her even as the heathen tide descended. She felt black blood and oil on her face as she hewed them apart. Knives nicked her skin, but she felt only elation.

<So die in service those who serve Him! So die in purity those who do not forsake Him!> The war-horns and the alarms were one with her, defiant.

Beyond the Titan’s iron skin, the scaffolds of the hereteks fell away, dislodged by the great engine’s sound and fury. For one glorious second, Fury of Mars roared louder than the gale. The light pouring from its smoking armour drove back the storm, and eclipsed the flickering madness of the Rift-light. The Titan gloried in its own destruction, and no natural force or unnatural power could stand against it.

The hereteks dragged Calliope down, even as she lashed out with nothing but her fists. The light was everything, absolute. As they looked up, the walls caught fire and tore apart, blown out by the shockwave that knocked them sprawling. The roaring of the horns became the birth cry of a newborn sun. The enemy host had no time to disperse, and could only be consumed in the final fury of the Titan. Meagre vehicles were fused to glass and cinders, hereteks in their multitudes atomised in the rush of purifying flame.

Calliope was still fighting, even as her mission was fulfilled in fire, and the explosion freed them both.

LAST FLIGHT

EDOARDO ALBERT

‘And having completed the attack run, return on the opposite bearing. The fleet will be steaming to meet you.’

Baruch Neriah, pilot commander of Marauder Spirit of St Pascale, glanced round the rest of the flight crews in the briefing room. Wasn’t anyone going to ask the obvious question? But they were all studiedly staring ahead at the tacticae simulation that the briefing officer was standing beside. The air in the room was heavy with what had not been voiced.

‘If that is all, gentlemen…’ The briefing officer bent over the desk and began to gather together the tactical readouts.

Neriah held his hand up.

The briefing officer paused.

Neriah raised his hand further.

The briefing officer straightened. ‘Yes?’ He peered across the brightly lit briefing room, squinting to see the name tag. ‘Pilot Commander Neriah?’

‘Sir, range to target is seven thousand miles.’

‘Current intelligence tells us that is correct.’

Neriah did not need to look round to feel the tension in the room.

‘Maximum range in my Marauder is ten thousand.’

‘The fleet will be making full speed towards you. Simulations suggest that the lead vessels should be coming into range just in time for your return.’

‘The carriers?’

‘They will be following.’

‘So we’ll be ditching.’

The briefing officer paused. ‘That is a possibility.’

‘I hope you all know how to swim, boys.’

The laughter that filled the briefing room was loud, and brittle. Pilot Commander Baruch Neriah watched the briefing officer gather his papers. Behind him, the tacticae screens were showing the pictures that had led the fleet commander to authorise the mission: the heretic carrier fleet. To escape the hurricane that was turning the great northern ocean into a deathtrap, they had had to steam south. Within range of a flight of Marauders.

Well, within range so long as you weren’t too bothered about the Marauders getting back again. But, so far as the fleet commander was concerned, the risk of losing a squadron of Marauders was worth it for the chance to attack the enemy carrier fleet. Sink them, and the long struggle for Sagaraya would be all but won.

Winning the war was worth a sacrifice.

Baruch Neriah looked around the briefing room at the silent crews slowly absorbing the knowledge that they were the sacrifice.

The briefing officer stepped back to the lectern. ‘If you do have to ditch, use your life rafts. They have all been fitted with transponders. We will find you.’

Neriah held up his hand again. ‘Have you seen the things that live in the sea?’

‘We will find you.’

‘Hopefully before they do.’

The world was water.

There had been cases, during the war for Sagaraya, of pilots losing themselves in the endless heave and shift, and flying on, in a wave-induced trance, until their fuel tanks were exhausted and their planes slid down from the sky to be embraced by the ocean. It was mainly a problem for the fighter boys, the single-seat jockeys, but Neriah had heard of Valkyries getting lost in the big blue, and there was a rumour that even a couple of Marauders had gone missing, flying on until they disappeared.

Pilot Commander Baruch Neriah pulled his focus back from the horizon. Under the respirator, he licked his lips. He had lost himself in the blue. His eyes flicked to the mission-time clock. He had been lost for at least ten minutes. And if he had been lost, then so were the rest of the crew – any comms talk would have snapped him out of his reverie.

Neriah glanced to his left, to his co-pilot and navigator, Mehem Radin, and saw the long stare and still face that told of a soul slowly flowing into the blue.

‘Mehem.’

As the name sounded, Radin’s face shifted, the co-pilot waking from his distant daze. He looked round, eyes still stupid with the sea, and saw Neriah looking at him.

‘Sorry. Got a bit lost there.’

‘The forever stare.’

‘Not so much,’ said Radin. ‘I… I knew the crew of Wind Bird well.’

Neriah stared ahead. Losing one of the craft on take-off was not a good start to the mission. Wind Bird, burdened with the fuel drop tanks needed to extend its range, had failed to gain height from the carrier flight launch, instead scything into the sea in a welter of fracturing debris. Even with Spirit, who had always been a light-flying bird, Neriah had had to push the control stick forward on clearing the deck of the carrier to pick up enough speed for lift before he could haul the labouring plane upwards, and for a moment he had thought that he had overcooked it, and the wave ridges were going to trip the Marauder up and send it tumbling into the sea.

‘They sent out recovery craft.’

‘Didn’t look like much to recover.’

Neriah, never one to let silence fester, keyed the comm open. If he had gone into the blue, others might have too.

‘Crew, report status.’

As the comm began to squawk into life, Radin turned to his navigation panel.

‘Shivkin reporting, pilot commander. All well.’ The bombardier. During the approach run, he would be down in the blister below the fuselage – the glasshouse, they all called it – lining up the torpedo slung under Spirit of St Pascale’s belly. The torpedo was designed to run ten feet below the water’s surface. The enemy carrier, the size of an island, had barely noticed the munitions dropped from the sky on the very few occasions it had come within range of Imperial forces: the carrier’s decks and forecastles were heavily reinforced and had shrugged off the bombs that had managed to pierce the vessel’s fighter screen.

But the sea of Sagaraya was restless and hungry: give it a breach and it would push it open and wide, flooding in and pulling the vessel down into its dark deeps. The torpedo each Marauder carried was designed to do exactly that.

‘Gasko, pilot commander. Nothing to report.’ Eitan Gasko, nose turret gunner.

‘Pilot commander, Salk reporting.’ Tsvi Salk was the top turret gunner, the sky sight.

Neriah waited. He waited a beat longer. Then he sighed.

‘Plotnik. Are you still with us?’

Pinye Plotnik was the tail gunner. Like all tail gunners, he existed within a separate world, all but cut off from the rest of the crew, to whom he sometimes reported, normally only to tell of the downing of some approaching enemy craft.

‘…five…’

Neriah sighed again. ‘Plotnik, report.’

‘…six… seven, eight… nine, ten.’

Plotnik was not one to disappear into the blue.

‘Are you reporting a contact, Pinye?’

‘I’m counting,’ said Plotnik.

Neriah glanced at Radin, who raised his eyes and shook his head – a familiar response to one of Plotnik’s whimsies. But the man was the best tail gunner in the Circus, the Third Air Fleet, with an uncanny ability to down enemy aircraft – he had even taken out at least six locked-on air-to-air missiles, which was four more than any other gunner in the Circus.

‘Counting what, Pinye?’

‘Drop tanks. They make a nice splash. Some even float for a minute – until the sharks get them.’

‘They’re not sharks,’ interrupted Radin, who when in his cups had been known to take an aviator aside and explain to him, with all the truthful sincerity of a man who would remember nothing of what he said in the morning, that the only reason he had joined the Navy was to see something other than the hive of his birth. ‘They appear to be aquatic reptiles that returned to the water when the ocean covered all the land of Sagaraya.’

‘They’ve got teeth and they’re in the sea – they’re sharks.’

‘We’ll leave aside questions of xenobiology for the moment,’ Neriah said. ‘Give me a visual check on the flight, Plotnik and Salk.’ With the mission flying in vox silence, the tail and top turret gunners had the best visual for the other two Marauders in Neriah’s flight.

‘Glory Two, check,’ said Salk.

‘Glory Three, check,’ said Plotnik.

‘Waymark four,’ Radin added.

‘Noted,’ said Neriah. ‘Is it time to descend?’

The navigator checked then rechecked the distance readings before looking to the auspex.

‘On the mark, descend to flight level one – three, two, one, mark.’

Neriah gently eased the control stick forward, bringing the nose of Spirit of St Pascale down. Rolling blue filled the world beyond the cockpit canopy.

The ramjets, set for maximum fuel economy during the approach, were quiet – it would have been possible to speak to Radin without comms.

‘Salk, Plotnik, check that Glory Two and Glory Three are following us down to flight level one.’

Neriah heard the confirmation as he concentrated on bringing Spirit down to the correct altitude. The ramjets, appreciative of the richer air, struck up a deeper, more full-throated note.

‘Listen to the music,’ Radin called out.

‘Just got to make sure I don’t choke it,’ said Neriah.

Flight level one was wave tops plus three hundred feet. But on this world of water, waves exceeding three hundred feet were not uncommon, even far from storm zones. On a previous mission, Neriah had been flying at flight level two – wave apex plus sixteen hundred feet – when a water wall had come at him from the horizon, the meeting of sky and sea, that had him hauling back Spirit’s control stick and keying the afterburners for every pound of additional thrust they could give him, and still spray had rung like las-rounds on the underside of the plane.

Flight level one took them down below reliable auspex coverage. At that level, they could get in close to the enemy carrier. Even overflying fighter patrols would have difficulty picking out the Marauders moving that low over the wave tops. But flying at that altitude meant that Neriah, as pilot commander, was going to earn his stripes.

‘Time to go surface,’ said Neriah, a grin of concentration on his face. This was what flying was about. Yes, you could throw a Lightning around over the water banks, letting it ride the rollers and surf the breakers, but to keep a Marauder touching the wave tops – and then to bring it down to flight level zero for the attack run, using the wave troughs as protection and cover until close enough to let the torpedo run – that was real flying. This was what the war on Sagaraya had taught him, and he had learned the lessons of the water world well.

Eyes slit against the glitter glare that splintered through the filters of his goggles, Neriah read the water as much as the air – for he had learned that the two obeyed many of the same laws.

‘ETA to final waymark?’

Radin checked the navigation console. ‘Fifteen minutes, thirty seconds.’

‘Did you hear that, Shivkin?’

‘Loud and clear.’

‘Torpedo ready to release?’

‘Primed and ready.’

‘Say again – when we make our run, I’ll give the signal when I’ve got as close in as I can. Drop the torpedo as soon as the track is clear.’

‘Understood, pilot commander.’

‘Gunners, keep watch. We can expect hostile fighters from here on in.’

Gasko, Salk and Plotnik chorused their readiness.

‘Crew, we are at flight station amber. Flight station red expected in– Radin?’

‘Ten minutes and five seconds.’

‘You all heard that. We’re going to make those traitor scum drink seawater.’

Neriah, while keeping both hands on the control stick and his eyes scanning the blue, keyed voice-to-voice to Radin. ‘Listen on the vox-channel. Wrath Flight should be making their run soon. Let me know if you hear anything.’

They flew on in silent concentration until, from the slight tremor Neriah saw with his peripheral vision, he knew that Radin had heard something.

‘What’s happening?’ he asked over his direct channel. ‘They’re supposed to be keeping vox silence.’

‘Doesn’t sound good,’ said Radin.

‘Patch it through.’

‘…size of that thing… Contacts, twelve o’clock… Torpedo running… miss… Can’t lose them…’

‘I’ve heard enough,’ said Neriah. Squinting ahead, where blue met blue, was that…?

It looked like land.

‘Auspex,’ he said to the navigator.

‘Contacts,’ said Radin. He stared at his screen. ‘No, contact. It’s the size of a city.’

Rising up on the horizon, battlemented, turreted, prowed and proud, was the carrier. It was the size of a floating island, tended and surrounded by a flotilla of craft that, in comparison, looked no more than rowing boats, but were themselves cruiser- or even battleship-class. Next to the carrier, they seemed but toys.

‘Flight station red.’ Neriah adjusted the mask over his face.

‘It’s buzzing like a rockmite mound over there,’ said Radin, his face lit orange by the auspex streaks.

‘I always liked poking them when I was a kid,’ said Neriah, ‘and running away before they could catch me. Time to do it again.’ He took a breath. ‘Going to flight level zero.’

‘Glory Two and Glory Three following.’ The report was from Plotnik.

Neriah banked beside a mile-long wave, running its ridge, the exhaust from the ramjets sending up trailing water spumes that would look, to any carrier deck observers, as if the wave were cresting.

Hiding behind the wall of water, even the vast bulk of the Chaos carrier was out of sight. More importantly, Spirit of St Pascale, with Glory Two and Glory Three following close in its wake, was invisible to the carrier and its surrounding convoy, the heretics distracted by the attacks coming in from the first two flights.

Neriah glanced left, saw his wing tip all but slicing the water, and eased the control stick over.

‘Bane Flight attacking,’ Radin reported.

‘Acknowledged.’ Neriah’s glance flicked to the altimeter, then back to the blue. According to the instrument, he was running below sea level. Neriah grinned. He continued shooting the wave trough, using it as the attack channel, and pulling Glory Two and Glory Three along behind him, the water flattened out by the ramjet wake.

‘Bane Two reports hit,’ said Radin.

‘Acknowledged.’

‘Bane Three down.’

Neriah said nothing. He glanced at the auspex trace. The wave trough was beginning to lead him away. He was going to have to rise above wave height and vector towards the target.

‘Contact! Five o’clock.’ The signal was from Plotnik.

‘Contact. Hell Blades. Nine o’clock.’ Salk, the top turret gunner.

‘Engage.’ Neriah had his gaze fixed on the blue, his peripheral vision tracking the auspex reading of the carrier and its fleet, while another part of his mind, working in the pilot’s cold calm of vector space, calculated angles of approach and attack runs.

‘Shivkin, you ready?’ he asked.

‘Torpedo ready, pilot commander.’

Even as he heard the answer, Neriah felt the percussive thump of heavy bolter fire. Salk had opened up. A moment later, the counterpoint judder of the tail gunner. The water in front of Spirit suddenly thrashed, fountaining in a diagonal stream, as a burst of fire raked just clear of the plane’s nose, the spray rattling against the canopy like talons.

Radin ducked, despite himself, but Neriah barely blinked, his focus so tight on the wave tops that he hardly registered the spray.

The guns fired again, the tenor thrum of the nose lascannons constant under the baritone and bass of the top and tail heavy bolters. Spirit of St Pascale resonated with them, the note different according to where in the fuselage they were located.

Together, the three turrets formed a choir. They sang, their music making a bass threnody to the high-pitched chatter of the Chaos Hell Blades’ autocannons. It was a familiar melody, and one that allowed Neriah to concentrate on what he had to do: fly the plane to the target.

‘Call the vector.’ With the pursuit so close, Neriah had to keep Spirit flying low over the water.

‘Vector three-thirty degrees, on my mark. Three, two, one, mark.’

Neriah caressed the control stick to the left, floating Spirit up to the top of the wave that they had been running alongside. As they reached the crest, they saw it. Radin gasped. Gasko swore. Neriah rode the plane down the rolling level, hiding it in another trough.

Now, within visual, they could see what they were attacking: a fortress island, rising from the sea.

How could you sink something like that?

He began vectoring north-east across the line of travel, waiting for the final moment to turn for the approach run. Then, they would be running perpendicular to the wave front, flying over the top of the waves, a target for the full brunt of the anti-aircraft fire from the Chaos carrier.

The brief glimpse over the wave tops had shown that the hits claimed by Wrath and Bane Flights had barely damaged the carrier. It was steaming onwards, as inexorable as a tsunami, bringing the full weight of its thousand aircraft to the battle for the southern ocean. It was their job to stop it.

Seeing it, Neriah realised why the fleet commander was willing to sacrifice a flight of Marauders for the chance of stopping its progress. Any sacrifice would be worth making to send it under the sea. The Imperial Navy had nothing on Sagaraya to match this behemoth.

It had to be stopped.

Neriah scanned the auspex. The carrier appeared on it as a monstrosity, a blight in the orange-and-black world of the screens, with minor traces scurrying around it. Glory Two and Glory Three were still with him, riding along the wave troughs, their progress covered by Plotnik’s and Salk’s gun turrets.

The bolter music thrummed again, the whole body of Spirit resonating in harmony with the twin heavy bolters in the tail and on top of the plane. Through the comm, Neriah could hear the steady stream of curses that Plotnik spat at the Chaos aircraft: the pilot commander had sometimes wondered if the curses were as effective as the bolter shells in bringing down the enemy, for otherwise it was hard to explain the extraordinary tally of downed aircraft that Plotnik had claimed. Salk remained wreathed in the song of his own weapons, speaking only to claim a hit.

‘Three.’

Neriah had missed the first two.

He glimpsed, in peripheral vision to starboard, the cartwheeling impact of a Hell Blade plunging into the sea.

The pilot commander keyed the comm live. There was no point maintaining vox silence any longer.

‘Glory One to Glory Two and Glory Three – prepare for attack run.’ Neriah glanced at Radin, whose eyes were flicking to his screens. ‘Call the vector, Mehem.’

‘Vector three hundred degrees on my mark. Three, two, one… mark.’

Neriah pulled the control stick left. At the same moment he engaged the ramjets’ afterburners. The twin engines kicked Spirit up and over the wave crest, taking the plane to flight level one.

There it was. An island rising from the sea, with cliffs and promontories and headlands, forested not with trees but gun emplacements. Its flanks were bristling with weaponry. Above the carrier, the air was abuzz with planes, moving like a hive swarm. From their movement, however, Neriah could tell that the attacks launched by Wrath and Bane Flights had exhausted the fuel reserves of the carrier’s fighter cover: most of the hastily scrambled birds were returning to the roost. How far before Shivkin could let the torpedo run?

The size of the thing made it impossible to judge distance by eye.

‘Range?’

‘Thirty miles. It can’t avoid. We could release now.’

Neriah looked ahead, over the wave caps, and saw, looking like upended triangles, the upturned hulls of at least five ships around the Chaos island carrier. While the carrier was unable to manoeuvre to avoid being struck, its flotilla of fast protective destroyers and cruisers was able and willing to interpose itself between the bombers’ torpedoes and their target. Already, five ships were sinking, taking their crew down into the black below the blue, so that the carrier might sail on.

The only way to ensure that his torpedo was not blocked was to get in close, past the screen of destroyers and cruisers. Right in under the cliff walls of the island carrier.

‘Negative. Shivkin, release at half a mile. Glory Two, Glory Three, Glory One going in.’ Neriah keyed the channel to Gasko, the nose gunner. ‘Clear a path for me, Eitan.’

‘We will.’

Neriah felt Spirit judder as the lascannons in the nose turret ate into their powercells, the electric thrum building and falling with each shot as he lifted the plane over a wave crest. Ahead, a light vessel disintegrated, the sea bursting in through the gaping holes the lascannons had left in its hull.

Over the vox, crackling in through the scrapcode jamming from the island carrier, Glory Two announced he was starting his attack run.

‘Range?’ Neriah asked Radin.

‘Twenty-five miles. One minute to target.’

‘Release at ten seconds.’

‘Order acknowledged, pilot commander,’ said Shivkin, like all good bombardiers a stickler for protocol.

‘Fifty seconds,’ counted off Radin.

The island carrier was looming ahead, bigger than a mountain. From its cliff sides spat red lines of tracer fire, lacing over the blue, kicking waves into spindrift. But Neriah held Spirit level and true at flight level one. Coming straight in, low and fast, they were a tiny target. Even the best gunner would be hard put to catch them, but the barrage was frothing the ocean all around – any stray shot might be fatal.

Spirit of St Pascale lurched and heeled left, the movement all but simultaneous with the sound of autocannon rounds ripping into plasteel. The wing tip cut into and caught in the blue. Neriah fought with the control stick, trying to haul the wing back out of the water’s friction grip before it pulled the nose down and into the wave top. Acting without thought but with the experience of ten thousand hours of flight, Neriah throttled back the twin ramjets on the right wing and gunned those on the left, adding engine torque to the yaw and roll he was imparting with control stick and rudder.

It was the engine torque that did it, the thousands of pounds of thrust from the twin ramjets pushing the wing tip out of the water’s grip. But, with the drag on Spirit suddenly ended, the plane yawed violently and pitched vertically upwards, its belly suddenly open in an exposed crucifix to the tracking gun turrets on the carrier island.

Autocannon rounds, las-beams and bolter fire ripped through the air, while Neriah fought to push Spirit’s nose down again as he gunned the starboard jets to maximum.

‘Hang on!’

Neriah pushed the control stick hard over, going with the plane’s motion rather than fighting it, rolling the forty-ton bomber through the sort of barrel roll manoeuvre that she was never designed to carry out. Neriah felt the wings straining under the pressure, like limbs being pulled from their sockets, the strain transmitting through the metal substance of the plane and to his fingers, locked on the controls.

‘Come on, come on, you can do it.’

The worlds of blue, sea and sky, inverted, held, then returned to their proper positions. But the evasive action had turned them round: the traitor carrier was now off the port side and vectoring away. They had missed their attack run.

‘Glory Two, releasing torpedo.’

The vox message was almost inaudible amid the screech of jamming scrapcode, but Plotnik confirmed.

‘Fish running.’

‘Glory Two, get out of here.’

A burst of scrapcode ate any acknowledgement.

‘Hit!’ Radin shouted, turning to the pilot commander. ‘The torpedo hit.’

Neriah began to haul Spirit round and saw the last settling of the water from where the torpedo had struck.

‘We’re hit, we’re hit.’ Glory Three, on fire, streaking low over the sea, her progress marked by streams of las-fire.

A Hell Blade, little more than a blur of movement, flashed overhead, stitching the waves with a stream of autocannon fire as it went after Glory Three, only to jerk sideways as it was hit by wild las-fire from the carrier, before a targeted burst from Spirit’s lascannons punched it into a shower of flying wreckage.

‘Got it.’ The voice was Eitan’s, from the nose turret.

Neriah pushed Spirit’s nose back down, sending her to the wave tops, and engaged the afterburners on all four ramjets.

‘Shivkin, we’re following Glory Three in – aim for where they hit.’

If he were flying a burning coffin, knowing that he was about to die, Neriah knew that he would try to take some of the heretic filth out with him. Pilot Commander Mar Rossoff of Glory Three was an old friend: Neriah could picture him nursing the controls, squinting through the smoke at the looming bulk of the enemy carrier and singing through the litany of flight that he might keep Glory Three, Soul of the Valiant, in the air long enough to finish his attack run in person.

And Neriah would follow in behind it, using the distraction of the enemy gunners to make his own renewed attack run.

But it meant that Neriah, and Radin, and Gasko in the nose turret, saw the slow death of Soul of the Valiant, its turrets disintegrating into shards of armourglass, its wings peppered with multiplying holes, trailing fire and glory.

‘How is it still flying?’

Neriah heard Radin’s question but he could not answer it. The Marauder was little more than fire and fragments, yet there was still purpose at the heart of the flames, a purpose and striving that overcame even the clutch of gravity and the increasingly frantic fire from the cliff turrets of the carrier island.

Soul of the Valiant struck the enemy carrier just above the waterline. For a fractured moment, it seemed as if the plane had exhausted itself in getting so far. Then the explosion came. The torpedo, still clutched to the belly of the Marauder, followed by the fuel tanks and all the remaining munitions. The side of the enemy carrier was torn asunder, cracks sending gun emplacements tumbling into the seething water.

Neriah, following after Glory Three, holding Spirit down to the wave tops, called for the mark from Radin then keyed Shivkin on comms. ‘Send our torpedo into that hole. Radin, mark at five seconds.’

‘Five seconds.’ Radin licked his lips. That would give them almost no time to pull out before smacking into the side of the carrier themselves.

‘Count it,’ said Neriah.

The walls of the enemy carrier were higher than he could see now, an endless expanse of metal and plasteel carved into obscene, stomach-churning shapes.

‘On my mark,’ said Radin. ‘Release in five… four… three… two… one – mark!’

‘Torpedo running!’

Even as Shivkin released the torpedo, Neriah was hauling the control stick starboard, his foot hard down on the rudder, gunning the port engines.

‘Come on, come on.’

Spirit’s nose was coming round, autocannon and bolter fire flashing past, but they were so close and travelling so fast that none of the gunners could traverse their guns quickly enough to keep up with the Marauder.

‘Hit! Hit!’

The yells came in two voices, Plotnik’s and Salk’s, but Neriah was too busy fighting with Spirit’s controls to do more than barely register what they said, as he slowly brought Spirit back level before engaging all four afterburners. The safest place was as near the enemy carrier as he dared.

He glanced to his left. The wing tip was all but scraping the blur of gun emplacements. He would run the length of the island carrier before turning – any of the screening flotilla trying to get a lock on them would risk shooting their own vessel.

Then, he felt it. A judder and ripple. The cliff wall of the carrier island jerked forward, and Neriah had to roll Spirit hard to starboard. From above, falling in cascading streams, came gun turrets and munitions and gantries and, among them, flailing, tumbling figures.

Then the carrier island juddered again.

They heard it this time. Over the roar of the ramjets, a low, gathering rumble, interspersed with metal screams, that built to a physical crescendo of sound which shoved the forty tons of the Marauder sideways through the air.

‘By the Emperor’s grace,’ said Plotnik – and Neriah knew that something extraordinary must have happened, for never before had he heard the tail gunner use anything but an expletive as an exclamation.

Still riding Spirit on the leading edge of the explosion, and with the carrier now directly to the rear, Neriah could only see the front edge of the blast wave rocking and overturning the vessels in the flotilla.

‘What’s happening?’ he yelled into the comm.

‘It’s… it’s like the end of the world,’ said Plotnik. ‘The carrier – fire, erupting, splitting it open.’

Neriah turned Spirit through sixty degrees so he could see. He saw the heretic carrier erupt into fingers of fire, ammo and fuel stores catching, bursting, paring open its innards to the sky. He saw the sea seethe, and react, as things beneath the waves swarmed to feast on drowning heretics.

Neriah turned away. ‘Radin, what’s our heading?’

The navigator started. He had also been caught up with watching the end of the leviathan. ‘Set course to one-seventy degrees.’

‘Check.’ Neriah brought Spirit round to the return bearing. ‘Fuel?’

Radin leaned forward. He tapped the gauge. He tapped it again. Then he looked to his pilot commander. ‘Fifteen per cent. One of the tanks must have been hit.’

Neriah nodded. ‘She’s a good girl. She’ll get us there.’ He keyed open the comm. ‘Crew, shut down every system that doesn’t directly keep us in the air.’ He looked to Radin. ‘Get rid of everything. We killed that thing. Now we’re going to make it back alive.’

While Radin closed down the systems, Neriah gentled Spirit higher. Sea level provided the richest air mixture for the ramjets, but had the highest resistance. Normal cruising altitude would require the oxygen circulation systems to be restored. In the end, Neriah decided on five thousand feet as the best altitude: low enough to allow both jets and crew to breathe, high enough to reduce drag a small but significant amount – and, with a glide ratio of 20:1, the height would provide a further twenty miles of travel when the fuel tanks ran dry.

As Neriah coaxed Spirit further on her heading south, feeling for any thermal and updraught he could find, Radin unstrapped himself and began stripping the cockpit of everything that could be moved. From further down the plane, Neriah could hear thumps and banging and dragging as everything detachable was moved to the hatches.

In the middle of shutting down systems, Radin stopped. ‘What about the auspex?’ he asked. ‘If I shut that off, we won’t be able to see if we’re anywhere near the fleet.’

‘Shut it off,’ said Neriah. ‘We’ll try firing it up when the juice runs out – there should still be something left in the batteries to run it.’

The orange displays flared and died. As Radin headed down the aircraft, Neriah looked around. The cockpit looked different without the constant ruddy glow. Colder. More dead.

‘You’ll make it, old girl,’ whispered Neriah, patting the control panel. ‘You’ll make it.’ But the control panel was dead too. He was, he realised, slowly killing the machine that had brought him back alive from over two hundred and fifty sorties.

He drew his hand back from the control panel. There was nothing else to say.

Pilot Commander Baruch Neriah looked to the horizon, searching for the distant flecks that might tell of the approaching fleet. But there was only blue.

There was only blue.

In her final service to them, Spirit of St Pascale, fuel exhausted and systems dead, had settled upon the ocean with the gentleness of a seabird. Safely evacuated into the life raft, Baruch Neriah, Mehem Radin, Mark Shivkin, Eitan Gasko, Tsvi Salk and Pinye Plotnik watched in silence as the plane – their home, their protection and their refuge – slowly sank.

The auspex, fired up during the long glide downwards, had shown not a single trace. If any of the other planes from the mission had survived, they were out of range – as was the fleet. From the altitude at which the always temperamental auspex had finally restarted – three thousand feet – its effective range was only ten miles.

Sitting in the life raft, ten miles seemed a long way away.

Pinye Plotnik took off his flight helmet. He tossed it from hand to hand. ‘Catch, anyone?’

Neriah shook his gaze away from the blank patch of water that had surged over his last glimpse of Spirit of St Pascale. It had been her tail fin, raised as if in final farewell.

‘We paddle.’

Plotnik opened his mouth as if to make one of his usual smart comments then, catching sight of Neriah’s expression, he closed it again.

‘Yes, pilot commander.’

They paddled. The life raft had two paddles, and Neriah assigned the men shifts, while the rest took shelter from the fierce sun under the shade that they rigged over half the raft.

There were emergency rations for ten days, water for two. Water took much more storage space than rations.

Along with the emergency rations, the raft was supplied with five flares and an emergency transponder, with an effective battery life of twenty-four hours. Calculating, in his head, the likely range to the vanguard of the approaching fleet, Neriah decided that they should paddle south for a full day before activating the transponder.

But he did not get the chance.

The rip of a flare launching pulled Neriah from his doze.

‘Plane, plane!’

He stared around, still stupid from sleep, and saw the flare trailing orange into the sky. He heard the rumble-thrum of jets approaching, the sound catching and springing off the waves. Salk and Shivkin were on their feet, waving; the others were shouting, while Neriah looked round, trying to locate the sound. He saw Radin loading another flare.

He knocked the flare gun from Radin’s hand. ‘Get down!’ he yelled, pulling Salk and Shivkin off their feet.

‘What are you doing?’ yelled Radin, scrabbling in the bottom of the life raft for the flare gun. ‘They’ll miss us.’

‘It’s coming from the north. It’s coming from the wrong direction.’

At that, the men in the life raft fell silent.

The flare trail hung in the sky, pointing down at them like a finger.

And, following the mark from the north, came a red bird, crouched and hooked and barbed. The Valkyrie was covered in foul heretic sigils, its autocannons held in silent readiness as its ramjets cycled to hover and the great red death bird settled above the sea a hundred yards away from them, the water beneath its jets turning to fume.

With the island carrier drowned, the crew of the remaining Chaos aircraft had nothing left but the search for vengeance before it was their turn to drown.

The pilot vectored his Valkyrie closer. The downdraught rocked the raft.

‘What’re they doing?’ asked Radin. ‘Why don’t they just finish us?’

‘They want to watch the kill,’ said Neriah. ‘They want to unman us.’

‘Well, frag that,’ said Pinye Plotnik, standing, determined to die on his feet telling the heretics exactly what he thought of them. And Radin got up next to him, and Gasko, and Salk and Shivkin, copying Plotnik, yelling and cursing and screaming at the enemy. Neriah, picking up the flare gun, levelled it at the cockpit of the traitor Valkyrie. It was a pop-gun against the heavily armoured craft.

The flare bounced off the armourglass. The pilot, hidden beneath the heretical symbols sprawled over the viewport, manoeuvred their craft in closer and lower.

He really wanted to watch them die.

Neriah stared into the multi-laser. He would not close his eyes. He would stare death in the face. Beside him, the crew of Spirit of St Pascale screamed defiance.

Then the sea opened.

It thrust up a mouth, a hand, a forest – Neriah could not make sense of the monstrous shapes he saw – and seized the aircraft hanging so low above it, dragging it down into the blue.

‘Yes, yes!’

They were all screaming triumph as death disappeared beneath the waves.

Then death, impersonal and implacable, came back for them.

The sea opened again, a sucking void made by the sudden descent of whatever vast creature had plucked the Valkyrie from the sky, and the edge of the life raft began to slip downwards into the vortex.

‘Get out! Jump!’

Neriah tumbled into the water. It closed over his head. He looked down, with water-blurred eyes, and saw Radin reaching up to him, reaching…

Fingers touched.

Radin was jerked downwards, into the blue dark, eyes wide and staring, a bubble trail streaming up to the surface.

Neriah broke, gasping, into the air and light. He looked round, wildly, searching for his crew. Items from the life raft – a paddle, ration packs, a life vest – were bobbing on the surface, but no men. He pushed his face under the water again, searching, looking. But all he could see was the blue, fading to the black of the abyss.

The last surviving member of the flight crew of Spirit of St Pascale floated on the ocean, bobbing up and down with the motion of the waves, an orange speck in an endless expanse of blue. The sun burned down on him from a cloudless sky. Floating in a world of water, Neriah felt his lips begin to crack with thirst. A plane flew past, high above, and he yelled and waved but, of course, it did not see him. Another went past, to the west.

They were searching, quartering the sea, looking for survivors.

But with no transponder and no life raft, he was invisible.

Day slid down to dusk, then night. The stars came out, the livid scar of the Great Rift cutting across the sky. Around him, the sea began to glow in drifts of pulsing, living colour. Phosphorescent plankton, cool blue on the night black.

Neriah stirred the light into shapes, and words. He wrote his name in lingering light.

Then he heard the plane. The thrum of jet wash over water.

It was coming in low and slow. Heading back to the fleet now, but still looking for survivors.

Neriah looked at the shapes of light he had drawn on the water.

He drew another.

The shape of a double-headed eagle.

The downwash of the jets stirred away the pictures of light.

Baruch Neriah raised his arms in praise and thanks and guilt as the winchman descended and raised him from the sea.

NIGHT SHRIEKERS

JUSTIN WOOLLEY

Dark shapes circled in the distant sky, twenty or more silhouettes against the yellow-orange dusk. From where she stood on the airbase’s hardstand, Marina Maranova watched the way the creatures effortlessly floated, borne aloft by warm updraughts under their leathery wings. They were nocturnadons, the apex predator on Raskova. In an hour, maybe less, when the landscape was plunged into the pitch-black of the Raskovan night, the graceful circles of the nocturnadons would become ferocious dives, their immense eyes guiding them down to pluck unwary prey from the ground.

Nocturnadons only hunted at night, and it was only at night that you could hear their calls. The darkness would fill with the banshee-like screams that gave the beasts their more colloquial name, night shriekers.

Marina Maranova smiled – today she would be joining those magnificent beasts. She was finally a member of the 2,588th Imperial Navy Fighter Wing, the ‘Night Shriekers’. Maranova waited with a dozen other recruits to the elite unit, all pilots fresh from Thunderbolt conversion training. The recruits were all women, just as all the pilots, ground-crew and support staff of the wing were women. It was only female night shriekers that hunted, and so it was with the unit that bore their name.

Maranova felt the jab of an elbow in her ribs. Beside her, fellow recruit Alena Nazoya gestured with her head. Coming in low over the rugged terrain to the south was a formation of six aircraft. At the low centre were two Valkyrie assault carriers, easily identifiable by their negative-slanted wings and their high cross-boom tails. Flying escort formation for the Valkyries, two on either side, were the unmistakable blunt-nosed shapes of Thunderbolt fighters.

Maranova leaned close to Nazoya. ‘Two rations says I get to fly a Thunderbolt first.’

‘Double it says I will,’ Nazoya whispered back.

Nazoya and Maranova had grown up together in the labyrinthine tunnels of Undermine Primus on the other side of Raskova. For everyone who lived in those pitiful depths, life was little more than a struggle for survival, but the two young girls had bonded over dreams of the sky they so rarely saw and the heroic Raskovan flying aces whose faces adorned the omnipresent Imperial Navy recruitment posters. They soon developed a friendly rivalry and pushed each other to climb from the depths all the way to the sky. They had been selected together, trained together and now accepted into the fabled Night Shriekers together.

As the formation of six aircraft flew in to Lipka Airbase, the two Valkyries broke from formation and slowed to land on a pad a short distance away. The Thunderbolts continued in a low flyby. The lead aircraft gave a small wing waggle and Maranova saw the black nocturnadon emblem on the tail, wings spread and curled talons at the ready. Night Shriekers. All Maranova had wanted these last five years was to fly with the Night Shriekers and join the fight against the t’au. For many years Raskova had produced the finest pilots in the sector, if not the whole segmentum, but now it was their own world they were forced to defend.

A woman in a stiffly pressed Imperial Navy uniform walked across the hardstand towards them. Maranova recognised her from the picts she’d seen: Wing Commander Tamara Groneva, commanding officer of the 2,588th. The recruits snapped to attention.

‘Good evening, recruits,’ Groneva said, her voice quiet yet commanding. ‘I apologise for keeping you waiting.’ She wiped her forehead with a white handkerchief, clearing away the sweat – the Raskovan heat was still punishing, despite it being dusk. ‘Welcome to the Night Shriekers. Each of you has been selected for the aptitude shown during your training. We have taken heavy losses of late as the t’au push towards the capital. We need all the reinforcements we can get.’

Groneva looked to the side as a pilot approached, one of the recently landed Night Shriekers. She was removing her black balaclava and letting her mess of blonde curls fall free.

‘Ladies,’ Groneva said, ‘let me introduce you to Squadron Leader Nina Yakleva. It takes five kills for a pilot to be declared an ace. Most pilots manage at best one or two kills before they get smoked. Squadron Leader Yakleva has thirteen. She’ll be evaluating you in a series of initial training sorties.’

Maranova stared at Squadron Leader Yakleva. She was just like the aces on the recruitment posters, helmet tucked under her arm, hair fluttering in the warm breeze.

Yakleva ran her eyes along the line of recruits. She didn’t seem impressed. ‘Am I taking some up now?’ she asked.

Groneva nodded. ‘Prepare yourselves for your first flight as Night Shriekers, recruits. Your birds are prepped and ready to fly. You’re all capable pilots already, but we’ll take you from pilots to predators.’

‘We’re flying a sortie now, ma’am?’ Nazoya asked.

The wing commander turned her attention to Nazoya. ‘You’re in a war zone now, recruit. The nocturnadons sit facing into the wind, always ready to spread their wings and soar, so must we always be ready. I’ll leave you with Squadron Leader Yakleva and will be awaiting her evaluation. The Emperor protects.’

Yakleva snapped to attention as the wing commander left and then turned back to the recruits. She unzipped a pocket on her flight suit and removed a dataslate, staring at it for a few moments before looking up. ‘Maranova and Nazoya,’ she said.

‘Yes, ma’am,’ the friends answered in unison.

‘You two supposedly finished top of your training squadron so you’ll be first. We’ll see what chaff they’ve sent us this time. Maranova, you’ll be my wingman. Nazoya, you’ll fly with Flight Lieutenant Zina Matlova. Get yourselves suited up and to your birds. We’re airborne in thirty minutes.’

Yakleva turned and walked away without waiting for their acknowledgement. Maranova and Nazoya turned to look at each other, unable to keep the smiles off their faces.

‘I suppose this means it’s a tie for those ration sticks,’ Nazoya said.

Maranova smirked. ‘Four rations says I get the first training kill, then.’

‘Double it says I will.’

Maranova shifted in the seat of her Thunderbolt. The servitor had secured her harness tighter than she liked and it dug into her shoulders through her flight suit. She looked at the Thunderbolt on the hardstand beside her. Squadron Leader Nina Yakleva was stencilled just below the canopy, and beneath that the word Rocklilly had been added, along with a decorative white flower and a line of red crosses, thirteen so far. An aircraft blessed with a name by Navy high command, an honour only bestowed on a verified ace.

Both aircraft still had their canopies open and Maranova saw Yakleva reach forward and insert a white flower, just like that painted on her fuselage, into the space between her instrument panel and the heads-up display. Yakleva was supposed to be the toughest ace in the Night Shriekers – did she think flowers could inspire fear in the enemies of mankind? When Maranova was an ace, her aircraft would be named for some vicious predator, not a flower.

Maranova’s ground fitter stepped back from the aircraft and gave her a thumbs up. Maranova returned the signal and flicked the switch on her instrument panel to lower her aircraft’s canopy. When the canopy sealed shut, the roaring engines, shouts and squealing tyres of the airbase all vanished.

Maranova was alone. Despite the chatter of vox traffic through her helmet and the surrounding activity of the airbase, there was a sense of isolation in the cockpit. The troopers of the Imperial Guard, even the fearless Adeptus Astartes, stood side by side with each other as they fought. Fighter pilots, even if they were in formation with a hundred other aircraft, were always alone in the cockpit, reliant on themselves and their machines. They were the Emperor’s loneliest warriors.

‘Shrieker Two, this is Lipka Tower, vox check.’

Maranova thumbed her vox-control. ‘Lipka Tower, Shrieker Two. Five by five.’

‘Confirmed. You are cleared for take-off, runway four-seven right. Climb and maintain flight level two five zero. The Emperor protects.’

‘Acknowledged, Lipka Tower. The Emperor protects.’

Maranova taxied her Thunderbolt onto the runway and stopped, running her eyes over the instrument panel for a series of final checks. All indicators were green. She pushed the throttle forward, activated rocket assist and was immediately planted into her seat. She pulled back on the stick, instinctively clenching the muscles in her legs and abdomen, breathing in short, sharp breaths as she climbed hard. The G-force piled onto her like rockcrete blocks laid on her chest.

When she reached twenty-five thousand feet, Maranova levelled her aircraft off and turned to link up with Yakleva’s Thunderbolt, taking the wingman position. Though they were moving at just over five hundred and fifty miles an hour, the blue-grey aircraft beside her seemed to float motionless against the burnt orange of the Raskovan sky.

Below them the landscape of Raskova stretched away, an endless vista of rust-orange rock criss-crossed with immense canyons and deep crevasses.

The people of Raskova inhabited cities clinging to the sides of these vast canyons, living in the cool shadows away from the blazing heat of the surface. Most of the population worked in mines deep inside the immense tears in the rock, extracting rich deposits of rare silicate minerals.

Years ago, the t’au had approached the planetary government offering to share advanced mining technology in exchange for a share of the planet’s silicate. They were refused. When they returned a decade later they didn’t bother asking and the planet was plunged into war. Because of its largely impassable geography, widespread movement over the planet was only possible by air, and so the battle for this world would be decided by pilots like the Night Shriekers.

‘Shrieker Two, Shrieker One,’ Yakleva’s calm voice crackled over Maranova’s vox, ‘switch to private.’

‘Shrieker One, confirm.’

Maranova reached forward and adjusted the vox-channel dial, switching to the private link between her aircraft and Yakleva’s.

‘All right, Maranova,’ Yakleva said. ‘This might be a training engagement, but I want you to treat it as if it were real. We’ll use all the sky but keep inside the designated training AO.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

Somewhere ahead of them Flight Lieutenant Matlova and Nazoya were also in the air. This was to be a simulated combat, two against two, where the more senior pilots could put the rookies through their paces.

‘Two enemy aircraft bearing zero-eight-three, altitude ten thousand. Do you have them on auspex?’

‘Confirmation,’ Maranova replied. ‘I have them.’

‘Maintain speed. Turn right, zero-nine-zero to intercept. Find altitude twelve thousand.’

‘Confirm.’

Maranova maintained formation with Yakleva as they rolled, turning their aircraft towards the fight, both Thunderbolts trailing white condensation in twirling vortices off their wing tips. Maranova was itching to get into combat – even mock combat – and prove herself.

‘They’re turning,’ she reported, glancing down at her auspex.

‘Prepare for a head-to-head pass,’ Yakleva said. ‘We’ll put them on our left. On my mark, high-G turn left with hard brake. We’ll try to get inside them.’

Maranova watched the auspex. At a closing speed of nearly twelve hundred miles an hour, the distance between them was rapidly shrinking. Maranova looked up to search the sky for the two aircraft coming towards them.

‘I have visual,’ Yakleva said.

Maranova strained her eyes against the Raskovan sky. She’d always had good eyes for spotting enemy aircraft but despite scanning ahead she couldn’t see any movement. It took another few seconds but then two black dots resolved themselves in the distance at her two o’clock. ‘Confirming visual now.’

Matlova and Nazoya’s aircraft grew. At their extreme head-to-head closing speed the two black dots rapidly became the recognisable chunky-ended shapes of Thunderbolt fighters, and seemingly the next second they roared past as a blur of colour. Maranova immediately whipped her head around as far as she could to maintain visual, but they’d vanished past her sight arc into her blind zone.

‘Mark,’ Yakleva called over the vox and Maranova immediately jammed her stick over and planted her foot hard on the rudder pedal, throwing her aircraft into an extreme turn left. She pulled the throttle back and hit the speed brakes – sacrificing airspeed to turn in a sharper radius. The G-force pinned her back in the seat, her flight suit instantly contracting around her legs to keep the blood from being pulled from her brain as she suddenly weighed eight times more than normal.

As Maranova’s Thunderbolt came around in its tight turn, she caught sight of Matlova and Nazoya’s aircraft again. They had banked hard in the same direction so that the two pairs of fighters were heading towards each other again, this time around the circumference of the same circle. Matlova and Nazoya had attempted the same manoeuvre, neither pair managing to out-turn the other.

‘On my mark, come straight and level,’ Yakleva said. ‘They’ll overshoot and correct to get on our six.’

‘I know you’re the ace but isn’t having them behind us what we’re trying to avoid here?’

‘I’ll split high and come down behind them. You just keep flying straight long enough for me to get a solid tone. Ready,’ Yakleva paused, ‘now.’

Maranova levelled out of the turn. Yakleva did the same and, just as she’d predicted, Matlova and Nazoya, continuing their tight turn, shot past behind them. As soon as they did, Yakleva pulled up, splitting away from her formation with Maranova. Maranova watched on auspex as Matlova and Nazoya turned back to come around behind her. She was sure she could out-manoeuvre them this time and get in behind for a shot. Disobeying Yakleva’s instructions was her chance to prove she belonged here, that she was the best. Maranova turned hard.

‘I’ll get in behind one and you get the other,’ she said.

Yakleva’s response came back over the all-channels vox. ‘Operations, this is Shrieker One. I’m scrubbing the sortie.’

‘Shrieker One, Operations. Confirmed. Contact Lipka Tower on approach, the pattern is clear.’

‘What?’ Maranova said. ‘Why are we going back?’

‘Shrieker Three and Four,’ Yakleva said, ignoring Maranova, ‘return to base.’

‘Confirmed.’

Yakleva’s Thunderbolt came back to take position off Maranova’s wing. Maranova turned to look into the other Thunderbolt’s cockpit. Yakleva’s helmeted face was looking back at her.

‘Ma’am?’ Maranova asked again. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I gave you an order. You disobeyed me.’

‘Squadron leader, if I could explain–’

‘You don’t explain to me, pilot officer. You do as I tell you.’

‘Ma’am, I–’

‘You graduated top of your training squadron and for a moment I actually had high hopes for you. Turns out you’re just another arrogant hotshot. Get this through your skull, rookie. You are a warrior of the Emperor, a professional, you never let your ego take the stick of that Thunderbolt, you understand?’

Maranova swallowed against the rock that seemed to have become lodged in her throat.

‘I said, do you understand?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Too many pilots think they’re the God-Emperor’s gift to the air,’ Yakleva said. ‘We’re flying against Barracudas up here. They’re better armed, they turn faster, they get a lock on you and you’re dead. You keep your head on your shoulders and listen to me, and maybe you’ll live longer than five minutes, clear?’

Matlova’s voice broke through before Maranova could reply. ‘Two unidentified aircraft on auspex, north, thirteen miles.’

Maranova looked down at her auspex and saw the same thing, two blips on the screen, two aircraft that hadn’t been there before. At first Maranova thought they must have been aircraft sent in to complicate the training sortie, but this assumption was broken when Yakleva next spoke.

‘Operations, this is Shrieker One, we have two unidentified aircraft incoming fast. Confirm friendly.’

‘Shrieker One, this is Operations, negative. No friendly birds in the air.’

‘Shrieker Flight, this is Shrieker One,’ Yakleva said. ‘Shrieker Two and Four, continue to base. Shrieker Three, on my wing, prepare to intercept. We’ll hold them up. Operations, scramble ready fighters.’

Matlova turned to form up with Yakleva.

‘Shrieker One, this is Operations, confirmed. Six ready fighters away, inbound eight minutes. Auspex signature confirmation, two enemy Barracudas.’

‘Ma’am,’ Maranova said, ‘those Barracudas are less than thirty seconds away, backup is eight minutes out – don’t send us back to base. Four on two is better than two on two.’

‘Turn and burn for home,’ Yakleva said. ‘Get back within the Lipka air-defence perimeter.’

‘Ma’am, I’m your wingman. Let me stay with you.’

‘You’re not ready. You’ve already shown that. Turn and burn, Shrieker Two. Get to the safe zone.’

Maranova was weighing up whether to argue further when Nazoya’s voice came over the vox. She’d turned wide when she’d broken off from Matlova to return to base and was further north than the rest of the Thunderbolts, closer to the incoming enemies. ‘Enemy aircraft coming hard onto my six o’clock,’ she called over the vox. To an outsider her voice may have seemed calm, but to another combat pilot the panic was clear.

‘Turn left, bearing zero-nine-zero,’ Yakleva said. ‘We’re coming.’

Without hesitation, Maranova turned her aircraft to stay with Yakleva and Matlova as they flew on a course to bring them around behind the t’au Barracudas. With their unfettered use of blasphemous technology, the xenos’ aircraft were a world away from the Imperial Thunderbolts. The sleek fighters were thin triangles against the sky, and Maranova was barely able to make out their cockpits. Despite the dreaded guns of the t’au, Maranova knew the pilots of the Imperium had something the filthy xenos never would – the blessing of the God-Emperor.

‘Maranova,’ Yakleva barked over the vox, ‘get your arse back to base.’

‘I’m spiked,’ Nazoya’s voice broke in before Maranova could reply. ‘Holy Throne, I’m already painted.’

‘Go full evasive now,’ Yakleva replied. ‘We’ll turn onto the targets in ten seconds.’

‘That’s my best friend,’ Maranova said. ‘Let me help.’

There was a moment of silence before Yakleva replied. ‘This will have consequences, pilot officer. For now, you are on flight defence, drop back to cover rear angles.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Come around on attack angle now,’ Yakleva said. The three Thunderbolts turned in formation to swing around behind the Barracudas. Nazoya’s aircraft weaved left and right, turning away from the enemy and then cutting aggressively back across in front of them, limiting the time they had to establish a targeting lock. But the Barracudas were agile. They followed Nazoya’s evasive twists, turns and rolls closer than any pursuit aircraft Maranova had ever seen.

‘I can’t shake them,’ Nazoya called.

‘Hold them off for another couple of seconds and we’ll split them,’ Yakleva said.

Even as Yakleva said this, Maranova saw the flashes of blue as the Barracuda’s auto-targeting burst cannons fired. Nazoya rolled hard but a spray of sparks and sheared metal exploded from her right wing tip.

‘I’m hit. I’m hit.’

‘Weapons free,’ Yakleva called.

The other three Thunderbolts had finally come around behind the Barracudas, but the t’au aircraft swerved through the air as they chased Nazoya and the Imperial fighters struggled to gain a targeting lock. Maranova planted her thumb down on the fire stud anyway, hearing the wind up and eruption of the four autocannons in the nose of her Thunderbolt. The hail of shells sprayed out ahead of her, tracer rounds lighting phosphorous gashes across the yellow sky. She watched similar lines of fire spew forth from Yakleva and Matlova’s aircraft. A sleek white disc ejected from the rear of one of the Barracudas and, with a haze-like shimmer, both t’au aircraft momentarily vanished. Then, just as quickly, they reappeared. One had already split left, the other had pulled vertically upwards.

‘What was that?’ Maranova asked.

‘Disruptor drone,’ Yakleva answered quickly. ‘Enemy in defensive split. I’ll take the leader. Two, stay with Nazoya, escort her in. Three, break for enemy wingman. Mark.’

Yakleva pulled up, splitting off their formation to chase the Barracuda that had gone vertical. Matlova turned to chase the second aircraft. Maranova flew up beside Nazoya’s wounded fighter. White smoke trailed like an air show display from her eviscerated wing tip and Maranova could see the shudder in the top sheet of her wing, the metal ready to peel off like the lid of an Imperial Navy ration tin.

‘Okay, Nazoya,’ Maranova said, ‘how’s your bird feeling?’

‘I’ve got a mean shimmy in my damaged wing. Flight surfaces seem responsive but sluggish.’

‘You’re all right,’ Maranova said. ‘Hey, four ration sticks says I get you home.’

‘Double it.’

‘Are you betting against yourself?’ Maranova said.

‘Seems reasonable at the moment.’

‘Come on, Naz,’ Maranova said, ‘you’ll get through this. I’m with you.’

Maranova let Nazoya turn first, dropping back into a more defensive position and watching as her aircraft banked. It might still have ailerons intact but the ruined wing tip caused an extreme amount of drag that tried constantly to yaw the aircraft off course. Nazoya’s turn radius was very wide as Maranova followed her to head for home.

‘Shrieker Two and Four, lateral attack incoming, break low.’ Matlova’s voice came over the vox. The Barracuda she’d pursued had come around and was turning to intercept Nazoya and Maranova from their left side: not an optimal attack trajectory but dangerous nonetheless. Maranova turned to look towards the approaching enemy; the red-and-yellow Barracuda was banked over hard. Matlova’s Thunderbolt was in the same banked turn, trying unsuccessfully to get behind it. Maranova spotted the other Barracuda peeling down from above and recognised what they’d done – the attack run on Maranova and Nazoya was a feint to bring Matlova into a position to be targeted.

‘Shrieker Three,’ Maranova said, ‘enemy on your eight o’clock high, break.’

Matlova turned, avoiding the Barracuda diving from above. Simultaneously, Maranova and Nazoya dived, Nazoya pushing her damaged Thunderbolt the best she could. The Barracuda roared over the top of them, barely thirty feet above.

All through training it had been drilled into Maranova: the true skill of a combat pilot was not the technical ability to fly an aircraft. Mastery of the air came from situational awareness and rapid decision making. In the split second Maranova looked up and saw the yellow underside of the enemy Barracuda flash over her, she made her snap judgement. Matlova had peeled off; the Barracuda that had dropped in from above followed her, Yakleva on its tail. That left the other Barracuda isolated and in position for Maranova to attack. She banged her stick over, hit the rudder hard and turned after it.

‘Marina,’ Nazoya said, ‘where are you going?’

‘Stay on course,’ Maranova replied. ‘I can take it.’

Maranova heard Yakleva’s voice. ‘Emperor damn it, Shrieker Two. I told you to stay with her.’

But it was too late, Maranova was committed. Her hard turn brought her around behind the Barracuda. She quickly flicked the weapons selection to lascannons. She’d have one shot here and needed maximum damage output. She watched the target reticule on her heads-up display converge on the Barracuda. It locked green. This was it, she had it. Her first kill.

‘Got a lock,’ Maranova declared. ‘Firing.’

She punched down the fire button and twin streaks of glorious las-fire burst out from the nose of her Thunderbolt. The Barracuda pitched up so energetically that for a moment its nose was vertical while it still moved forward, pushing belly first through the sky, but then it disappeared upwards. Maranova’s lascannon fire streaked away, hitting nothing but the wide Raskovan sky.

‘Holy Throne,’ Maranova said, ‘negative damage. God-Emperor, it was just gone.’

Maranova strained her neck to look upwards, searching above her. Through the bright glare on the canopy she saw the Barracuda. It backflipped tail over nose so that it ended up pointing the same direction as her. She felt a recurrence of her awe at this enemy machine: it was like it didn’t obey the same laws of aerodynamics. Perhaps it didn’t – who knew what foul heretical forces the xenos might be entangled with? Her first instinct was that the Barracuda was dropping in behind her, but she soon saw it wasn’t targeting her, it was going after Nazoya. It would take out the damaged Thunderbolt first, picking off the easy prey. Maranova banked hard, skidding her aircraft through the air to pursue the enemy.

The Barracuda moved into position to target Nazoya. Maranova was flying an almost parallel course to the enemy Barracuda now, though she was at least a third of a mile away. She jammed her throttle forward and felt the rumble as the nozzles on her engines expanded, fuel dumping into the open jet stream to give full afterburner thrust. Nazoya was making small, quick turns to keep out of the Barracuda’s crosshairs, but the damage to her wing affected her ability to evade.

‘Naz,’ Maranova said over the vox. ‘Turn hard left, bring the Barracuda into my sights. I can get them.’

‘Negative,’ Nazoya replied. ‘I’m pulling too hard to the right. If I hold a left turn they’ll have me.’

‘I only need two seconds to get into position,’ Maranova said. ‘We can get this alien bastard. We can make this kill.’

‘Marina,’ Nazoya said, using her name as an almost pleading rebuke.

‘Naz, trust me. I’ve got this kill. Just bring the bogey across my line.’

After a moment, Maranova watched Nazoya’s Thunderbolt bank over to the left, beginning the turn to assist Maranova to get into a good attacking position. Nazoya was right, her rate of turn was low, the aircraft fighting against the pull of its damaged wing.

‘Keep coming,’ Maranova muttered to herself. ‘Keep coming.’

Just as she was planning whether to strafe the Barracuda with a lateral attack or try to get in on its six o’clock again, the Barracuda dramatically increased its rate of turn. It levelled out and Nazoya’s Thunderbolt flew straight across in front of it.

‘Naz!’

Maranova screamed into the vox but her warning was too late. The white-blue glow of an ion blast spewed forth from the Barracuda’s massive cannon. The high-energy beam struck the nose of Nazoya’s Thunderbolt and tracked in a diagonal line over the fuselage. Maranova watched as Nazoya’s entire aircraft was sheared in two.

Through a garbled vox communication she heard fragmented words from Nazoya. ‘I’m bailing. I say again, Shrieker Four ejecting.’

The canopy of Nazoya’s Thunderbolt burst free and Maranova watched the flash as Nazoya’s ejection seat was punched with eyeball-squeezing acceleration up and out of her doomed aircraft. Moments later a white parachute inflated, drifting away on the hot breeze.

Maranova’s cold horror morphed into hot rage. She banged her speed brakes and barrel-rolled her aircraft over hard, bringing her guns to bear on the t’au fighter. A lateral attack might not be effective but she flicked her weapons selector to autocannons and sprayed wildly across the Barracuda’s path. A series of flashes appeared over the Barracuda’s fuselage and a shower of sparks told Maranova she’d scored a hit. The Barracuda pulled up in a half-loop and rolled over to reverse direction, trailing streaks of smoke.

‘Two,’ Matlova’s voice came over the vox. ‘You’ve got an enemy on your six closing fast.’

Maranova looked down at her auspex. Two aircraft were coming up behind her, the second enemy Barracuda followed by Yakleva. Matlova was coming in at an acute angle.

Yakleva’s voice came next. ‘Two, set for break. Break left. Break left.’

She did, unconsciously obeying a call to evade from an ally. She stretched her neck to see behind her. The Barracuda was still back there. She banked hard to the left and then turned back right. Throughout her evasive manoeuvring the enemy aircraft stuck with her. Her cogitator began beeping at her and then gave off the dreaded solid tone of an enemy weapons lock.

‘They’ve got me locked,’ she called.

‘Hold on,’ Matlova called over the vox. ‘I’m on intercept.’

In her peripheral vision, Maranova saw Matlova’s Thunderbolt coming straight towards her. Matlova rolled her plane and flew straight behind her, in between Maranova’s Thunderbolt and the Barracuda that had her targeted.

‘Matlova, don’t!’ Yakleva shouted.

The Barracuda fired its ion cannon. Maranova braced but there was no impact. Matlova’s Thunderbolt was in a spin, her aircraft breaking apart and spewing a plume of thick black smoke, completely out of control and tumbling towards the rocky Raskovan ground. She had taken the enemy fire that would have destroyed Maranova.

For a moment Maranova watched the carnage, praying to the God-Emperor she’d see Matlova’s ejection seat rocket out just as Nazoya’s had, but that hope was dashed in a rush of cold horror as Matlova’s Thunderbolt exploded in a bright fireball of fuel.

‘The Barracudas are bugging out,’ Yakleva said. ‘Operations, this is Shrieker One. Enemy aircraft are retreating. We have two birds down: Shrieker Three is KIA, Shrieker Four has bailed out. Request search and rescue scramble. Shrieker One and Two returning to base.’

‘Shrieker One, this is Operations, roger that. Come home, you two.’

‘Squadron leader,’ Maranova said, ‘I’m sorry. I–’

‘You heard them,’ Yakleva said, interrupting, ‘get on my wing, Maranova. We’re returning to base.’

Once out of the cockpit, Maranova wordlessly handed her helmet to the nearest aircraft fitter.

‘Ah, ma’am, I’m not a servitor,’ the fitter replied but Maranova was already walking away, her mind so distant it might as well have been drifting in the warp.

Her oldest friend was lost out on the harsh terrain of Raskova as night was falling, and it was her fault. And as if that weren’t enough, she was responsible for the death of Matlova too. The senior pilot had sacrificed herself to protect Maranova. All this because Maranova so badly wanted to claim that first enemy kill.

‘Come with me.’

Maranova looked up from the tarmac between her boots. She’d stopped in the middle of the hardstand without even realising. Yakleva was standing in front of her.

‘Ma’am, I…’ Maranova’s voice died in her throat. ‘I’m sorry.’

Yakleva began walking away.

‘Aren’t you going to say something?’ Maranova said, her desperation coming through. ‘Emperor’s Throne, my best friend bailed out and we’ve lost a Night Shrieker because of me. Aren’t you going to tell me everything I did wrong?’

Yakleva stopped. Her shoulders rose and fell as she took a deep breath. She turned to look back at Maranova. ‘You already know what you did.’

Maranova nodded. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Stop it,’ Yakleva said. ‘Stop apologising.’

‘It’s my fault though,’ Maranova said. ‘Matlova is dead. Nazoya is lost. I’m sor–’

Yakleva interrupted her with an open-handed slap across the face, hard enough that Maranova’s face bloomed red and stung viciously.

‘In the name of the God-Emperor, stop your whining.’ Yakleva reached out and grabbed the front of Maranova’s flight suit, pulling her in close. ‘You listen to me. I’d rather you be an arrogant hotshot who thinks you’re blessed by all that is holy than this blubbering worm. You are an Imperial Navy combat pilot, start acting like it.’

Yakleva’s face was stern, her lips tight, and her eyes locked on to Maranova’s like a Thunderbolt’s targeting system.

‘You disobeyed my orders. For that I will tear shreds off you, but you are not some mindless Astra Militarum grunt, you are a pilot – you made the decision to chase that enemy so in the name of Holy Terra and the God-Emperor Himself, you look me in the eye and back up that choice. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Well?’

Maranova stared directly back at the squadron leader. ‘I saw an opportunity to kill the enemy and I took it.’

‘Damn right,’ Yakleva said, finally shoving her away. ‘Matlova’s death was not your fault. She chose to fly that Divine Shield manoeuvre and block the Barracuda’s fire. As for Nazoya, you made the choice to leave her to engage the enemy when I told you not to. Part of not second-guessing decisions is living with the consequences when you’re wrong. Now come, we’ve been called to the ops room for debrief. Maybe throw a prayer to the God-Emperor just to be safe.’

‘Two more birds lost, Matlova KIA and Nazoya on the ground. All this on an Emperor-damned training mission too.’ Wing Commander Groneva was leaning forward, head down, propping herself up with both hands on her desk. ‘They’ve never pushed this close to our anti-aircraft emplacements before. Never risked coming this close to Lipka.’ The wing commander looked up to address Yakleva and Maranova, who stood stiffly at attention in her office. ‘Why didn’t you retreat into the safe zone? What happened up there?’

‘Ma’am,’ Yakleva said, ‘I ordered the two rookie pilots to turn for base and get within the air-defence perimeter. I decided that Flight Lieutenant Matlova and I would engage the hostiles and stay defensive until the scramble fighters arrived. I believed the enemy pair were a reconnaissance patrol and would bug out when they detected the incoming fighters.’

Groneva examined the fighter ace. ‘If that was the plan then why were Pilot Officers Nazoya and Maranova in the fight?’

‘Ma’am,’ Maranova spoke, her voice catching a little, ‘I can explain, that was my–’

The door to Groneva’s office swung open so hard that it slammed back into the wall. Colonel Henrik Rathven of the Ignis VII Second Mechanised Imperial Guard Regiment, commander of the entire Raskova campaign, came into the room like a clap of thunder. The man, shorter than both Maranova and Yakleva but significantly wider, squeezed between them without as much as acknowledging their presence. His long, neatly trimmed moustache billowed out as he addressed the wing commander, making him look like a walrus strapped inside a highly decorated and freshly starched uniform.

‘Groneva,’ he said, ‘what’s this I hear about you authorising a search and rescue dispatch for the downed pilot?’

‘Sir,’ Groneva said evenly, ‘Pilot Officer Nazoya is down beyond the safe zone. We’re going to rescue her.’

‘Beyond the safe zone is the operative phrase there, wing commander,’ the colonel said. ‘That pilot’s flight path took her outside the designated area of operations. We are not sending Valkyries and troops into a hot zone for one pilot. A significant ground force of t’au are mobilising through the area. We’ll be sending a mechanised platoon to engage them. You know as well as I do the xenos have been deploying their pathfinder and stealth suits more regularly and they’ve been dealing crippling blows to low-level assault aircraft. The enemy appear to be making a push to take Lipka. The Imperial Guard will meet them on the ground and the Navy will be ready to defend this base, not risking aircraft for one rookie pilot.’

‘Sir,’ Yakleva said, ‘surely we can move in ahead of the t’au to pick her up?’

Rathven turned. ‘Squadron Leader Yakleva, you may be an ace in the air but do not for a moment overestimate your part in this conversation. In fact,’ he turned back to Groneva, ‘this is not even a conversation. The rescue mission is scrubbed.’

‘Sir,’ Groneva said, ‘we are losing too many pilots. We need to rescue all those we can.’

‘That’s right, wing commander,’ Rathven said, ‘you are losing too many pilots in this conflict. The Imperial Guard will engage the t’au on the ground without air support. The Navy will keep out of the way.’ And without further comment, he turned and left the office.

Groneva stared at the open doorway. ‘Crotchety old bastard,’ she said. ‘He’s just frustrated because the Guard are essentially neutered in this campaign. His pride is what’s really keeping this battle on the ground, and trying to fight on Raskova without air support is stupidity.’

‘Ma’am,’ Maranova said, ‘permission to speak freely.’

‘Oh please,’ Groneva said, ‘spit it out.’

‘Matlova died protecting me. It’s my fault Nazoya ejected. I don’t want to be responsible for another KIA, especially not my friend.’

‘You heard the colonel,’ Groneva said, sitting in the high-backed chair behind her desk, ‘the mission is scrubbed. We will not be rescuing Nazoya. There’s nothing I can do.’ She picked up a dataslate from her desk and began reading.

‘That’s right, ma’am. There’s nothing you can do.’ Maranova looked at Yakleva, who was watching her carefully. ‘Perhaps there’s something we can do.’

Groneva lowered the dataslate. ‘What are you suggesting, pilot officer?’

‘Ma’am,’ Maranova said. ‘Nazoya is expecting a Valkyrie to come and pick her up. Perhaps we can,’ she thought carefully about how to phrase her words, ‘ensure one arrives.’

Groneva leaned forward in her chair and made solid eye contact with Maranova. ‘Are you telling me you’d like to steal a Valkyrie, pilot officer?’

‘No, ma’am.’

‘Good.’

‘We’d only be borrowing it.’

Groneva’s mouth twisted in contemplation. ‘It has been a while since the base garrison had an attack drill. They’re probably due for one, especially if an enemy attack could be imminent. Still, you understand I have to order you not to do this?’

‘That’s fine, ma’am,’ Yakleva said. ‘She’s not particularly good at following orders.’

Raskova had no moon and that, together with the density of dust in the atmosphere, meant the nights were incredibly dark. The enormous eyes of the nocturnadons were perfectly adapted to the low light; they could spot movement on the ground even from high above and swoop down before their prey even knew they were there. And just like a true night shrieker, Maranova would use the darkness to her advantage. When she’d returned to her barracks, she’d found a note left discreetly in her footlocker. It had stated only a time.

Maranova waited beside a Munitorum warehouse. From there she could see the hardstand where the lines of Valkyries waited. The front row were plugged into power carts, engines already primed, ready for the scramble call to protect the airbase. Maranova crouched and waited for the heavy sun to sink below the horizon.

When darkness came the lumen towers around the airbase lit up, but the dusty air meant light diffused quickly. The Valkyrie hardstand sat between two towers and there were plenty of shadows to move through.

Maranova was sure she could make it to an aircraft and climb in undetected – of course, that would change once she fired up the engines. She’d never flown a Valkyrie and had to hope she could get airborne and away before the base’s garrison of Imperial Guard decided to shoot her out of the sky.

Two hours after the fall of night, when the skies of Raskova had well and truly been given over to the nocturnadons, the wing commander’s distraction was revealed. Vox-casters mounted high on towers around the airbase began to blast a rising and falling siren, and then an announcement. ‘Alert – all active troopers to sector west three – alert.’

Maranova watched the Guardsmen ambling along the line of Valkyries look at each other and jog away.

As soon as they had left, Maranova made to move forward, but a sudden grip on her arm stopped her. She started and turned to see Yakleva.

‘Wait,’ the squadron leader said. ‘This is a response drill. They know it’s not a real attack and the troops won’t be in a rush.’

‘Ma’am,’ Maranova said, ‘what are you doing here?’

Yakleva cocked an eyebrow. ‘You think the wing commander only sent you that message? Please, rookie. If we’re doing this, I’m flying the damn Valkyrie.’

‘Ma’am,’ Maranova said, ‘you are far more important to the war effort than I am. You shouldn’t be doing this.’

‘I’ve made my decision, pilot officer, and I won’t be second guessing it.’

Maranova smiled. ‘I didn’t think you had it in you to be reckless, ma’am.’

‘You think this is reckless?’

‘We’re about to steal an Imperial Guard Valkyrie so we can disobey orders and rescue a downed pilot out from between two converging ground forces. That seems reckless to me.’

‘There’s a difference between being reckless and being daring,’ Yakleva said. ‘That difference is the reason I have shot down thirteen t’au aircraft and lived. Air combat is a balance between daring and control, Maranova. Too many pilots come in hot-headed and get themselves killed. You’re a good pilot, but so is everyone who flies a Thunderbolt. If you want to be great, you need to learn when to be restrained and when not to be. The reckless thing is not stealing this Valkyrie – the reckless thing would be letting you do it alone. Come on.’

The pair of them kept low, Maranova following Yakleva’s lead as she moved across to the hardstand, keeping to the darkness as much as possible. They slid in between two of the aircraft and crouched down. Yakleva peered out to check their surroundings.

‘Those troopers will be debriefed after responding to the drill but they won’t stay gone for long. I’ll get prepped, get the power cart going for air-start.’

Maranova checked the thick cable coming from the starter cart to the side of the Valkyrie and switched it on. She looked up and saw Yakleva through the canopy. The squadron leader strapped herself into the pilot’s seat and threw a thumbs up. Maranova returned it. The Valkyrie’s turbojets began to spin. With a loud pop the combustion chambers burst to life, puffs of black smoke shot from the exhausts and the engines began to roar. Maranova pulled the starter cable out from the connection in the fuselage and slammed the hatch shut. She climbed in the open side door and moved through the troop compartment to head for the co-pilot’s seat. Even over the turbojets spooling up to full power, Maranova could hear shouting, people alerted by the sound.

She was going to take the co-pilot’s spot but Yakleva waved her back as she pushed up the throttle. ‘Get on a door gun,’ Yakleva said. ‘Last reports are the t’au are close to Nazoya’s position. We might need the cover.’

Maranova stumbled as the Valkyrie lurched, the vertical vector thrust forcing the aircraft up into the air. Maranova grabbed on to the nearest floor-mounted heavy bolter to catch her balance. The Valkyrie rose high enough that Maranova saw Imperial Guard troopers and Imperial Navy ground crew pounding down the runway towards them. Yakleva rotated the Valkyrie’s engines for forward flight and rolled the aircraft deftly as its forward momentum took over. They roared away from Lipka Airbase, and those on the ground could do nothing but watch them go.

Yakleva flew the Valkyrie fast and low over the rough terrain. Sitting in the open side door, even at such low altitudes, Maranova could barely make out the ground. It flashed by as a greyscale blur broken only by some lighter sections of raised rock and the deeper darkness of crevasses and canyons.

‘I’ve got a strong lock on Nazoya’s tracking beacon, thirty seconds out.’ Yakleva’s voice came through the headset Maranova had grabbed off the wall; it was hardwired into the Valkyrie’s internal vox-system for crew-to-crew communication. ‘She’s moving fast. I’ve also got massed movement on the sensors – the t’au ground force is nearly on her. We’re coming up on the friendly Astra Militarum force now.’

Ahead, with their lumens bright to guide them over the dark and treacherous terrain, close to thirty Chimera transports and a dozen battle tanks tore over the ground in an extended Aquila formation, long plumes of dust billowing out behind them. Maranova leaned out of the door to look down at them as they approached.

‘Unidentified Valkyrie, this is Operations. You are ordered to deviate your flight path and return to base.’ Maranova heard the all-channels vox transmission over her headset and knew Yakleva would be hearing it in the cockpit, as would the Imperial Guard units thundering along below them.

‘Unidentified Valkyrie, this is Operations, respond or you will be declared rogue.’

Yakleva did not reply.

‘Astra Militarum Strike Force Defiance, this is Operations, you are cleared to engage unidentified Valkyrie.’

‘What? They’re actually going to fire on us!’ Maranova said. ‘So much for friendly.’

‘Hold on,’ Yakleva said from the cockpit, ‘they’ve got Hydra flak tanks. This is going to get bumpy.’

The Valkyrie roared over the Imperial Guard forces and Yakleva immediately banked hard, Maranova grabbing on to the handrail to keep from being thrown out the open door.

True to their orders, the Hydra flak tanks spun their roof-mounted autocannon turrets and began firing. The air around the Valkyrie erupted with bursting anti-aircraft shells.

Maranova was almost thrown from the Valkyrie again as they began plummeting towards the ground. ‘Are we hit?’ Maranova yelled over the rushing wind and bursting flak fire.

‘Negative. I’m taking us into that ravine to get us cover. We’ll come up near Nazoya.’

‘You’re going into a ravine?’

‘Yes.’

‘At night?’

‘We are Night Shriekers, Maranova, this is when we hunt. It looks like Nazoya is deviating from the path of the t’au force. When I bring us up, hit the searchlights and get ready on the gun just in case.’

The Valkyrie turned as it dived, descending towards the barely visible landscape, dropping below the eruptions of fire from the Hydra tanks. Maranova felt a flutter of fear as they plunged towards the dark ground but had to remind herself that Yakleva, with the instruments in the cockpit, would be well equipped to avoid collision with the rocky ground. Through the side door Maranova saw the horizon and the sky disappear, replaced by the dark wall of a ravine whipping past at frightening velocity. She was about to call out and ask if Yakleva could see where she was going but stopped herself. She had to trust; besides it might be better if she didn’t know.

But Maranova had little to fear. She may have been piloting an unfamiliar aircraft but Yakleva expertly manoeuvred the Valkyrie along the twists and turns between the narrow walls of the ravine.

‘Auspex shows the two forces are just about on each other,’ Yakleva said over the vox. ‘They’re going to meet either side of the ravine. Stand by. We’re approaching Nazoya’s location.’

Maranova felt the Valkyrie slow. Yakleva rotated the engines vertically and brought the Valkyrie to a hover in the ravine. Now that the wall was no longer whipping by, Maranova could see the sheer face of it broken up by cracks and occasional rocky ledges. It was closer than she’d imagined. Yakleva really was a hell of a pilot.

Maranova could hear the reverberating boom of the battle cannons on the Astra Militarum’s Leman Russ tanks. They had engaged the enemy. The darkness of the night was lit up with flashes like horizontal lightning and it was clear the t’au were firing back.

‘Tracking beacon is approaching. Ready?’ Yakleva asked.

‘I’m ready.’

Maranova leaned to the wall beside her and flicked a switch. Intense lumen lamps on the Valkyrie’s fuselage ignited and the darkness of the ravine wall was suddenly illuminated. The bright light momentarily overwhelmed Maranova’s vision; she felt the upward acceleration of the Valkyrie, and as her eyes adjusted, the rock wall disappeared as they flew up and out of the ravine. Through the purple afterimages across her vision, Maranova saw the dry, flat plain beyond.

In the middle distance she could see the approaching t’au ground forces. Hammerhead tanks skimmed across the ground using the t’au’s accursed technology, firing bright beams from their ion cannons. Devilfish armoured personnel carriers roared along with them, constantly changing direction, making it difficult for the Leman Russ tanks to score direct hits. Columns of rock and dust exploded into the air as a Devilfish slid sideways with movement impossible for a tracked vehicle like those of the Imperial forces.

‘Do you see her?’ Yakleva shouted over the vox.

Maranova pulled her eyes away from the battle taking place in front of them and searched the ground. Then she saw Nazoya, appearing at the edge of the light, sprinting at full speed towards them. And as if she’d known all along that a Valkyrie would rise like a blessing from the Emperor out of the canyon, she didn’t even break stride. She continued to run for the edge of the ravine.

‘I see her,’ Maranova called back.

Nazoya had managed to avoid the main conflict and the enemy appeared not to have noticed the single Valkyrie that had flown in under cover of the ravine to pick her up. Maranova silently cursed Colonel Rathven and the Imperial Guard brass. They would have left Nazoya out here to die. They’d just proven there was little risk in a search and rescue mission.

As Nazoya approached, Maranova’s attention was drawn to movement in her peripheral vision, something in the rocky darkness just beyond the Valkyrie’s searchlight, but when she glanced over there was nothing. Nazoya was almost to the ravine and yet a feeling of unease was growing in Maranova’s chest – a feeling that proved well founded when the air at the edge of the searchlight shimmered, almost like heat haze. Maranova had seen this before in the fight against the Barracudas. The air itself seemed to solidify, and then suddenly there were three t’au stealth battlesuits standing in a row, facing the hovering Valkyrie. The red lenses in their bulbous helmets glowed eerily as the elite warriors lifted the enormous burst cannons fitted to their arms and levelled them at the assault carrier.

‘Throne!’ Maranova called as the multi-barrelled burst cannons opened fire and the night was lit up by the blue-white glow of superheated plasma. Maranova took cover, the blasts causing the metal of the fuselage to bubble and evaporate away. One shot hit an engine nacelle and melted it. A second shot penetrated the engine itself and the Valkyrie lurched; flames shot in an orange tail from the exhaust until Yakleva shut down the engine. The Valkyrie dropped dangerously close to the ravine floor as the single remaining engine fought to keep it aloft.

Maranova grabbed the cocking handle on the side of the heavy bolter and pulled it back. Grabbing the dual handles, she pivoted the weapon to aim at the stealth suits and squeezed the trigger. The bolter erupted with a deafening chatter of fire as it sprayed mass-reactive rounds across the t’au troops. The recoil of every round reverberated with an intense kick through Maranova’s arms, her vision bouncing with each shot, but she kept her finger planted down on the trigger. The gun chewed through chain-guided rounds like a hungry beast.

As Maranova tracked the weapon across the t’au they ceased firing, the air around them shimmered again, and the active camouflage of their stealth suits caused them to vanish. Dirt and rock chips flew into the air as heavy bolter rounds slammed into nothing but the ground.

Maranova ceased firing. Nazoya had dropped to the rocky floor when the stealth suits had opened fire but she took the opportunity to clamber to her feet again and sprint for the Valkyrie. She reached the edge of the ravine and was preparing to jump for the open doorway when shimmering air announced the reappearance of the stealth suits.

Maranova flinched as a plasma shot struck the internal roof. She swung the heavy bolter back towards the repositioned t’au but she was too slow. As Nazoya took her final steps before throwing herself over the edge of the ravine, a burst cannon shot tore through one of her legs. Her leap towards the Valkyrie became a stumbling fall and she dropped off the edge of the ravine.

‘Naz!’ Maranova leaned forward to look down. A short distance away she saw Nazoya, lying on her side on one of the rocky ledges protruding from the cliff face. She was rolling from side to side, gripping the leg that had been all but sheared off. She was still alive but her ruined leg was creating an ever-growing pool of blood around her.

The t’au battlesuits continued to pepper the Valkyrie with burst cannon rounds. It was an extraordinary amount of firepower to be unloaded by just three enemy troops.

‘We can’t stay here!’ Yakleva yelled from the cockpit.

‘I can get her,’ Maranova replied.

‘I have to pull us out!’

‘No!’ Maranova replied. ‘I’m not leaving her!’

‘Five seconds and I’m flying us out of this shit.’

Maranova scrambled across the Valkyrie, trying to avoid the continued enemy fire. She reached up and pulled a standard-issue Imperial Guard medical kit from the wall and tore it open, ignoring the supplies that spilled across the floor. She only needed the tourniquet. She took it and shoved it into her pocket before sliding back across the compartment and grabbing a rope from a nearby hook. She tied it off to a load ring on the floor before, estimating how much she’d need, wrapping the other end several times around her waist. Tying the makeshift harness off as tightly and securely as she could, she moved out from cover into the doorway and, without hesitation, she jumped.

Maranova landed on the rocky ledge beside Nazoya. She hurried to where her friend lay groaning and clutching her leg. Maranova pulled the tourniquet out and wrapped it around Nazoya’s thigh; when she pulled the pin it instantly inflated, immediately slowing the flow of blood.

Maranova wrapped her arms around Nazoya’s body, clasping her in a tight bear hug. A second later the roaring engines of the Valkyrie increased in pitch. The rope between Maranova and the aircraft grew taut and, for a terrifying moment, the loops around her waist slid up before catching under her arms and hoisting her into the air by her armpits. Carrying the wounded Nazoya with her, Maranova silently prayed to the God-Emperor to protect them as burst cannon rounds flew past them. The Valkyrie turned, Maranova forcing her arms to stay clamped around Nazoya against the swinging pendulum motion of the rope as they retreated to the other side of the ravine and out of range of the firing t’au.

Once beyond the edge of the battle Yakleva descended the Valkyrie until Maranova could get her feet on the ground. Undoing the rope from around her waist, she helped Nazoya up and into the troop compartment as Yakleva brought the Valkyrie into an even lower hover, before clambering up and in after her.

The Valkyrie rose into the air but instead of turning directly for home, Yakleva turned towards the battle still raging between the Imperial and t’au ground forces.

Maranova grabbed the vox-headset and slipped it back on. ‘Ma’am, what are you doing?’

‘There’s incoming enemy aircraft on the auspex,’ Yakleva replied.

‘You’re not in a Thunderbolt, ma’am, and we’ve got Nazoya, that’s what we came for.’

‘Yes,’ Yakleva replied, ‘but the Guard down there need some air support. We’ll hit them with a strafing run on our way out.’

Maranova looked in the direction of the battle; it didn’t seem to be going well for the Astra Militarum. Guardsmen had disembarked from their Chimeras and were locked in a desperate fight with t’au fire warriors. Multiple Chimeras had been left as smoking wrecks and several Leman Russ tanks appeared disabled.

‘All right,’ Maranova said, positioning herself behind the heavy bolter in the door. ‘Let’s be reckless.’

‘All stations,’ Yakleva transmitted over the vox, ‘this is Squadron Leader Yakleva. I am piloting the unidentified Valkyrie. We have recovered the downed Night Shrieker pilot but Strike Force Defiance requires immediate air support. I am engaging t’au forces to assist and request immediate scramble of Thunderbolt fighters and Valkyrie gunships.’

Yakleva flew over the friendly forces and then continued fast and low towards the enemy Hammerhead tanks. Yakleva picked out one tank and two Hellstrike missiles erupted from under the wings of her craft. They slammed into the hovering Hammerhead, penetrating the outer armour on initial impact before the high explosive warheads detonated. The front of the tank burst open in a spray of metallic debris and it ploughed into the ground.

‘They’ve got anti-air,’ Yakleva said over the vox. ‘We’re spiked.’

Even from the back of the Valkyrie, Maranova could hear the scream of alarms as t’au Skyrays sitting in protection of the Hammerhead tanks locked on to the aircraft and loosed seeker missiles.

Yakleva turned one way and then back the other, jinking the Valkyrie, but she could not shake the missiles. As the first drew in close, she punched the flare release and banked so hard that Maranova thought the aircraft was going to turn inside out. The spray of hot bright flares shot from the back of the aircraft and the first missile diligently followed, streaking away into the sky.

The second missile stubbornly maintained lock on the Valkyrie and was rapidly gaining.

‘Hold on!’

Yakleva pulled up hard and then nosed over in a stomach-lurching manoeuvre that sent them diving back down towards the ground. The Valkyrie plunged into the darkness of a canyon once again and, as it grew increasingly thin, Yakleva pulled up hard, each of the Valkyrie’s wing tips scraping the walls of the ravine. She turned hard into a branch off the main canyon and then pulled back up into the clear air. Below them, in the depths of the ravine, the missile exploded in a blast of flame and rock as it speared into the cliff wall. Yakleva turned for home.

‘Valkyrie, this is Strike Force Defiance, nice flying and thanks for the assist. Get your cargo home, we’ve word of incoming air support. We can hold out.’

‘Confirmed, Defiance, the Emperor protects,’ Yakleva replied.

‘The Emperor protects.’

Maranova dropped to the floor of the Valkyrie, exhaling with adrenal exhaustion. Beside her, Nazoya was pale but her breathing was steady and the tourniquet was holding around her butchered leg.

‘I’ve got something for you,’ Maranova said as she unzipped her flight jacket and reached inside. She pulled out eight ration sticks. ‘Here, this is what I owe for not getting you home.’

Nazoya smiled weakly at her friend. ‘Keep them,’ she said. ‘You might have taken your time, but you’ve kept your word.’

Pilot Officer Marina Maranova sat in the cockpit of her Thunderbolt, ready to fly her first official combat mission following six weeks of disciplinary grounding. In the aircraft beside her was recently demoted Flight Lieutenant Nina Yakleva, also freshly restored to flight status. Considering Colonel Rathven had pushed for execution, six weeks grounded and a demotion for Yakleva was a minimal punishment for the pair. Someone had petitioned the high ranks of the Imperial Navy to step in and ensure the best pilots in the Night Shriekers could continue the fight in the skies over Raskova.

‘Lipka Tower, this is Shrieker Flight requesting take-off.’

It had been more than a month since Imperial forces had narrowly prevented the t’au from capturing this airbase and today they launched the counter-offensive. Maranova looked over at Yakleva, who shot her a thumbs up. Maranova smiled and returned the signal. They would make the enemy fear the Night Shriekers.

THE SHAPERS OF SCARS

MARC COLLINS

‘Three things shape a man’s scars: the foe, time, and the healer’s rites.’

– Fenrisian proverb

The old woman sits in the chill of the apothecarion, but she does not feel the bite of the cold. Long ago she passed beyond such things, in the way that only a life lived beneath slate-grey skies with the scent of salt and ice as constant companion can bless her with. She realises, on some soul-deep level, that she carries the world of her birth with her. Bound to her as surely as an oath. She sits, and she watches, and she waits. She is the eye of the storm, a rare ocean of calm, as others hustle and rush about her.

Before them a queen lies dying.

The old woman, the gothi, Bodil, spares her queen a look. A glance of recognition. A nod of respect. Her long pale fingers close around a bone tile, and she raises it to her face, pinning the fates in place, bound by rite. Worn gums draw back from her teeth, her pallid skin crinkles around scars and tattoos; she does not hide her age, nor the weight that this undertaking places upon her. Her blue eyes focus, pale as spring ice, as she reads the tile and curses.

‘Skitja!’

One of the medicae thralls lets his eyes drift to her, giving her an askance look. She laughs, and bares her teeth.

‘Oh, do I offend your sensibilities? If you have not the patience for me then get away from her! I would not trust half of you to calve a grox, let alone minister to our jarl!’ The thrall’s jaw flaps, noiselessly. Bodil snorts as she leans forward to look again at her queen.

At Katla Helvintr.

The jarl’s eyes, those sea-storm-blue eyes – a huntress’ eyes – are closed, locked so by the balms of the medicae and the venoms of the beast. Her auburn hair, like a crown of fire and glory, is matted with blood and sweat where it is not seared away by the acid’s bite. In her weakness, she has never looked more mighty. More deserving of ascension to the Allfather’s side.

She is called jarl, for she has carved out a hall and a hearth amidst the stars, as her line has for generations. She is called the Huntress Queen, for she has harried the enemies of the Allfather from their lairs, and made trophies of them. Here in the cold light of the apothecarion, Bodil thinks of such things with a wry smile. She cannot see the mighty void-ivory that adorns much of the ship, but knowing it is there is a comfort. And comfort is needed here today, as she casts the runes over the nicked thread of a valiant warrior.

‘If you die, my queen,’ the old woman says almost idly, ‘then the halls of the slain shall be the lesser for your lack. We each carry our red snow with us, for it is cold in the shadow of Morkai, is it not? Perhaps that is why they raised their mountain so high, the Sky Warriors, that they might ever be in His light.’ She laughs, dry and cracked. Forced. She shakes her head. ‘But what would I know? I am only the gothi.’

Bodil checks the runes again, and scowls as she snaps up the tiles and drums them against the steel table she leans over. ‘It will be close, this thing,’ she whispers. ‘She is strong, but there are few stronger than the pull of their wyrd.’ She shakes her head. ‘The wyrm is her fate. It will cut her thread one day, perhaps not this day…’

Her eyes drift to the knife that sits beside the worn leather pouch of runes, gleaming alongside the long, thin needles of bone and the bowls of pigment. She does not reach for it. She will not countenance it as inevitable.

‘It will be the wyrm that ends her, but it is the hand of a loved one that will take her life. Not in betrayal, but with love.’

And through it all, Katla sleeps. She stirs fitfully, with the slow bite of pain. Venom and acid claw at her, gnawing at mind and muscle. She twitches, every breath forced from her through the iron ministrations of machines and the tubes which crowd her throat.

Katla suffers, and she dreams.

‘I want it found,’ Katla hisses. ‘The beast is near. I can all but smell it. Bring us about. Weapons readied. It cannot have got far.’ She sits upon the edge of her command throne, watching the silent void pass by as a tumble of rock and ice intrudes, but it does not dominate her attention. Her eyes are always in motion. Always seeking advantage against her enemies. She runs a hand through her hair, before checking again that she is still armed – that she is ready.

Twin axes are sheathed at her hips. Simple and direct. They have no names. Along the back of the throne lies her spear, its length gilded and marked with the runes of the world of Winter and War. It is called Fimbulgeir. It sits as a symbol of her authority, as a crystallisation of what it means to be jarl, to bear her Warrant of Trade. To stand as a queen.

Not of a ship, or a people, but as a symbol of something greater.

It has been many years since Katla claimed the rule of the Davamir Compact, ascended as queen amongst her peers in the other dynasties. It is a fleeting honour, and in time it will pass to another name. The dour and warlike Lamertines, perhaps. Or the addled ranks of the Radrexxus.

‘Spare me,’ she mutters, ‘from the joyless and the joy-curdled.’

‘Jarl?’ asks a voice from an augur-station, and she waves it off with a smile.

‘Nothing,’ she says, and stands. She stretches, muscles flexing with the need of the hunt. It is primal, this urge. It has kept mankind fed and safe, and standing between the teeming masses and the hungry dark. Where there have been beasts, there have been hunters. That is the lesson of Fenris. The wisdom her ancestors carried to the stars, and enshrined in the iron bones of her vessel, the Wyrmslayer Queen.

‘No auspex returns,’ the voice says again. This time she looks at the master of the auspex station. He is young. Eager. He is called Svend. She knows every man and woman upon her bridge. She knows, and understands, and judges. ‘They said it would be here. One last hive ship wounded and alone. Damn the Navy, and their–’

‘Peace, Svend,’ she laughs. ‘They will not have robbed us of glory. Its spoor is on the wind. It will give itself away before ever we have to search for it.’

‘How can you be sure, jarl?’ He asks the question innocently. She wonders if she was ever so starved for knowledge and experience, in her father’s time of rule.

‘I know,’ she says. ‘How often have we hunted together, Svend? I have led the wild hunt across the Allfather’s dominions for decades without rest, before ever you came into my service.’

The man bows his head, and looks away. She does not mean to shame him, but it is unavoidable. As certain as bloodshed.

‘I want my prize,’ she says, to a chorus of affirmations.

They will not fail her. The very thought of it is poison.

She looks away, just in time to see something flicker in the darkness of the abyss. Something moves amidst the ice and rock, its movements slow and languid in one moment – before it springs to sudden, writhing life.

A monstrous thing of chitin and muscle, and animal rage. The Imperial Navy had fought it, harried it from its fellows, wounded it. Yet now the beast returns, its fury kindled.

‘There it is,’ she says, and grins. ‘Did I not tell you? The void speaks to me. It speaks to all of the blood Helvintr. The Emperor’s hunters.’ She laughs. ‘Bring us around. Show it our teeth.’

The engines strain against the darkness and the cold, burning hot as the blood of worlds. Below them the gun-crews are about their work – readying the vessel’s great killing implements. Shells slide home and the macrocannons seal and arm with peals of vast thunder. Lance batteries crackle with bound fury. Great void-harpoons ratchet into place, they bare them like fangs. The older, bestial name for such implements has been long lost to them, but the claws will find their mark regardless.

‘Fire!’ she roars. The guns cut across the void with light and a fury that echoes her own as the blackness is streaked by sudden flame. Red against the darkness. For a moment they can see every detail of the creature – its ice-rimed hide and questing tendrils. Maws glimmering wetly, edged with razor teeth. Detonations blossom from its skin as it forges on, plunging, diving, jaws yawning in the eternal silence of the night.

The first boarding spores are already racing towards the ship, behind the questing nest of feeder tendrils. The thing has the audacity to think itself a predator.

But beneath the eye of the Wyrmslayer Queen it can be nothing more than prey.

Katla bucks and writhes upon the table as phantom pain racks her. Her ship was violated, then her flesh, and she remembers. She relives it, moment by moment, even as Bodil watches and the surgeons pore over their charge. There are more tubes now, and the relentless motion of knives. They are opening her, as surely as any action of the enemy. Bodil leans closer, sniffs the air.

‘She cannot be allowed to die,’ she whispers. The medicae do not look to her, set upon their task. ‘It is more than her body that must be healed, it is her spirit. She must be braced in her soul, rune-marked and warded.’ She reaches for the first needle, testing its weight as though judging its soul. ‘They will claw at you, my queen, these wights of the Underverse. They wish to pull you down beneath the thick ice, amongst the dead ships and drowned men. Yet even spirits may be made to fear.’

She takes the needle, and gently dips it into the first of the pigments, smearing its end black. She moves, and the medicae flinch away from her. They see her as a spectre in her own right, something ghoulish that has no place in a realm of healing.

She ignores them all as she brings the needle to skin, and begins to tap the ink into her queen’s wounded skin. Katla bucks and shudders, her body convulsing at the violation. Bodil places one gnarled hand on Katla’s shoulder, forcing her down against the table.

‘This is not where you die, my queen,’ she whispers. The medicae work faster at her words, spurred on to test their magic against hers. ‘I will ensure that you are strong.’

There are so many. She has long since lost count. The auspex dings and whirls with their onslaught. Pods, missiles, spores that bear living ruin and plasmic destruction.

She laughs from her high seat, and thinks her hall inviolate. The ship rings, sings, sighs, screams with alarm and siren. ‘Örlendr!’ someone cries. Alien! Their iron skin has been ruptured and breached, the minions of the enemy swarm upon them and within them. Somewhere, someone has sent up the signal, or the ship’s own bellicose machine-spirit has scented their spoor.

‘Spears!’ she cries. The ship responds. The crew move at their stations, swift as prowling beasts. The Queen comes about, shows the monster her flank, and fires.

The great harpoons cross the gap, almost faster than the eye can follow but thrown with a hunter’s precision, driving themselves into the beast’s great thorax. Ichor stains the void in great boiling gouts. Kaleidoscopic bursts of alien chemicals, spurting into the war-scarred void. It struggles and squirms, suddenly and brutally aware of its own wounding, of its binding. Tight as any bond from story or legend, a chain made of the impossible. To cage abominations, and leave them readied for the killing blow.

It lashes out, and a great feeder tendril scours its way across the Queen’s rune-marked hull. Air rushes from it like blood, and the entire ship shakes. Katla grasps at her throne, cursing even through her savage grin.

This is what it means to be a queen.

They are locked together. Ship and kraken, man and beast. The harpoons wind on their chains, drawing it ever closer. Still they wrack it with fire, carving into it as though it were already dead. Merely meat. Yet it struggles, and thrashes. Prey never truly comprehends its fate. There is always the dream of escape; even the lowest of beasts understands that. If they can merely fight, or chew through a limb, then there is hope.

Hope is the first casualty of the hunt. It is what must be stripped from the prey.

Fire whips across the beast’s flanks again, sending it into another fit of savage convulsions. Parasite vanguard organisms stir across its plates, close enough now that they can hurl themselves at the iron ramparts of the ship. Countless of them are annihilated against the void shields, or burst apart under the attentions of point defence cannons.

Some make it through, some always make it through. That is the allure of warfare, the song that has kept mankind sharp as spear points down the long millennia of its rule.

‘With me!’ she cries, and the crew look to her with fearful longing. Her huscarls peel from the chamber’s edges, flowing into place around her – as smoothly as armour clicking into place. ‘There are beasts below!’ she insists, a heady grin upon her face. Her joy is infectious. Her second, Eirik, smiles back.

‘They are no match for us, jarl!’

‘Let us hope not,’ she laughs. ‘We have yet to find a beast or monster that is a match for the Helvintr!’

She pauses at the great doorway of the bridge, and turns to regard her warriors and her crew.

‘My friends, we have hunted the length and breadth of the Imperium, chasing the rumours of sailors and the reports of the Navy. We ride where others dare not, and fight those things that lesser men would shirk from facing, do we not?’ They cheer with her. Fists pound at console casings, upon breastplates, against shields. ‘You are my chosen! The Allfather’s favoured! Always seeking the most glorious of prey! The most deadly of hunts! All for these moments, when victory lies upon the blade’s edge!’

Beyond the viewscreens, the beast struggles in their grasp, lashing out with all the wounded fury it can muster. If they do not act soon, though, it will be the poison in their veins that undoes them.

‘With me!’ she cries, and they share her savage joy. They almost rush to outpace her, but she turns them back with a grin and the flat of the spear – reminding them of place and primacy. There can be no mistakes in facing an enemy such as this.

A tide of snapping, screeching bodies. The rushing puppet-horde of the hive mind. To test themselves against such an army, to best them on the field of battle – even if that field was bounded by iron, and the uncaring void…

She thinks of these things, and they do not slow her. If anything, her progress into the deeps of the ship is all the quicker, all the more yearning.

The work is intricate, delicate. Bodil marks her queen again and again, blood and ink running down the ruin that has become half of her face. She smooths away the layers of fluid, revealing the work beneath as the needle taps and probes and shapes. Others may come after, with their clever knotwork and steadier hands – but it is she who has marked her queen, and made her. She works runes into the art, signs of binding and deliverance. Marks of aversion, and assurances of oaths.

‘When they see you, they will think that you are a talisman come to life to be so rune-marked.’ The old woman laughs as she speaks.

The medicae give her such looks. This is, after all, their domain, and she is an intruder. They understand, but they fear. A gothi is a figure of the spirits, and the whisper of the Underverse, and perhaps they are afraid that she is here to see their jarl’s spirit off. Perhaps it is because she speaks, even if her charge cannot hear her.

‘And perhaps you are, my queen, perhaps you are a talisman. Symbols are stronger than men, and they cut sharper than a blade.’

The slumbering jarl does not stir. The drugs and unguents of the healers are strong, just as the one they must subdue. The work of the medicae is thorough and methodical, stemming her bleeding and bracing bones. Paring away the skin that is too ravaged to save. She is a ruin, and they are restoring her as ably as any shipwright would restore a vessel. Surgery is a battlefield all its own, where there are inevitably casualties.

‘Sleep, my queen,’ Bodil whispers. ‘Sleep, and dream of the glory that you have won, and of the glories yet to come. There is an Imperium waiting for you, beyond your bed of blood and memories.’

The lesser beasts die in their droves, hewn apart by gunfire and blade. Katla strides into the heart of it, her spear tearing through chitin with every swing and thrust. They are everywhere, in such numbers that there is no need to aim. They are a crimson wave of motion – hooves and bladed limbs stamp and stab at the decking, jaws thrash with needle fangs or flailing nests of tendrils.

She does not care about their monstrous variety. They are prey!

‘Into them!’ she screams, and her warriors charge. Every battle is a vindication. Pride in her men, in her culture, in her rule. It is not a soulless pursuit as the Lamertines might have it. Nor the pretentious flailing of a Radrexxus war effort. It is beautiful – war as it should be, sanctified in the Allfather’s sight. Men throw themselves forward, mail clinking over their void-armour. Axes and swords clatter against shields, even as blasts from laslocks cut across the corridor. The first wave of monstrosities goes down in a rush of ichor and fragments of bursting plate. The lesser monstrosities are easy prey, no real challenge for her warriors.

They have fought such things before. In the void and upon savage worlds beyond count. The hive fleet’s spoor are amongst their favourite prey, but they have fought the savage greenskins and the duplicitous aeldari, and a dozen joyless human cultures with the same bladed enthusiasm as they bring to this battle.

Katla casts Fimbulgeir across the field of battle, and watches as it impales a brain-bloated psyker beast. The thing’s whipping tail flails in the air, and the deck rimes itself with ice as it loses control of its power. Fire bleeds along the wound, and the thing bursts with a shriek of resonant psy-feedback. Katla cheers, and her men bellow their approval.

‘The spear is cast!’ she howls, drawing her axes. The weight of them is reassuring, their black blades grinning like old friends. She hacks at whatever gaunts dare to come near, their charge already rendered erratic without the guiding light of their synapse beast.

The snapping creatures throw themselves against the shields, only to be beaten down. Axe blades open skulls, puncture throats, gouge out eyes. They are cast down like the chaff they are. Slowly, the line of men pushes onwards. One of the beasts turns, a warrior-form, and fires. Acid and writhing maggot-like projectiles slap heavily against the face of one of her huscarls, and the man falls. Screaming, clawing at his face. She spits to one side. It is no fate for a warrior. She holsters an axe, and draws her sidearm – her glory. Wrathspitter. It is ancient, a relic of a bygone age. Even as a pistol, a volkite is potent. One of the greatest instruments of destruction ever constructed by mankind’s forgotten weaponsmiths. She fires, and the warrior-form ceases to be. It detonates, caught for a moment in the deflagrating power of the beam.

Her warriors surge forward, eager for their own revenge. Claws meet blades, or bury themselves in shields. She takes up her axes again, swinging one in each hand as she fights her way towards her spear with a flurry of strikes. Replacing the axes with the spear, once more, thrusting through another screeching maw in a burst of ichor.

She is complete. The huntress queen.

The decking shakes, as though to challenge the legend they are crafting. The source of the noise surges, faster than it has any right to move, through the ranks of lesser beings. They bristle, muscles bunching more readily, focus colouring their glaring dead eyes. It is vast, a king of monsters – a thing bred as a living siege engine. Its plate is thick. Its weapons mighty. Vents upon its back spew toxic vapours, and acid oozes from swollen cyst-nodes. It shudders, and gouts a great stream of acid into their ranks.

Katla dives to one side. Others are not as swift. She hears screams, and scents the chemically cooking flesh. She roars her hate at the monster before her. She hurls herself into the fray.

‘Hold her!’ Bodil screams, and the medicae obey without thinking, rushing to their jarl’s aid. When a spirit-talker commands, you listen. Their hands hold Katla to the steel of the table, even as the needle bites her skin once more. Bodil draws back, sucking her breath in through her teeth, her focus absolute. ‘Her spirit is strong. See how she fights? She will fight forever, that one. When they try to cut her thread, she will fight and they will wish they had never made the attempt.’ She reaches for the bag of runes once more, picks it up, and shakes it experimentally.

Everything stinks of blood and cauterised flesh. She casts the runes to the table with a clatter, and allows herself to move from her queen’s side. ‘Hmm…’ she whispers; her fingers gnarl around one of the tiles, and she allows herself the faintest of smiles. ‘That’s better.’

It lumbers forward, and she moves to meet it. It is slow, and she is swift. A great scythe of bone sweeps over her head, so close that she can feel the rush of displaced air. She thrusts her spear up, the powered blade gouging into the thing’s flank. She laughs at it, almost face to face with the alien monstrosity.

Las-fire and solid shot impacts along its armoured bulk, and it writhes in the rain of ordnance. Another great weapon-limb shudders, spasms, and vomits liquid death into their ranks. Her huscarls try to hide behind their shields, or raise their weapons in meek acts of aversion. It does nothing. Their skin bubbles, boils, sloughs away. They cease to be men, reduced to mere pools of flesh and shattered bones.

The bladed limb swings around again, catching her hard across her armoured chestplate. She spits blood, and reaches for her axes. The spear is lodged in the monster’s side. She grits her teeth, lashes out again. Her blades find one of the heaving, tumorous poison sacs, hooking at it, slashing until it bursts. The beast rears back, screeching in alien agony. The rush of acid and ichorous blood washes over her, drowning her left side in the searing wrath of the monster. The vengeance of the monster is calculated, a trap for her hunter’s ways. She drove for the heart, and that heart has proven to be bitter between her teeth. She drops the axe in her left hand, fingers opening and closing as the agony washes over her.

Other spears find it now, cast from amongst the ranks of her faithful. It whips around to face them, screaming even as her remaining axe slams into its side. Again, and again. Bullets and spears transfix it, but the last thing it will know – what she will carve upon its very flesh – is that it was the jarl of Helvintr who will end it.

She is still striking, still clawing at it, when it tumbles to the ground, and consciousness finally fails her, and bears her down with it.

The first breath that returns to her is a long, gasping one. Katla practically throws herself up from the steel bench on which she reclines. Her fingers claw at the metal, and she writhes like a pinned beast. Her eyes are wild, and she feels pain radiate through every facet of her being. The medicae bay is almost empty, devoid of the practitioners of the art of healing.

She flinches.

‘Ah, my queen.’ The voice is weary, tired and worn down by constant effort, and by worry. The old gothi looks at her, reverent and adoring. ‘They did not think that you would survive, but they are merely priests of the flesh. What do they know of such things?’

‘I live?’ Katla asks unsteadily, and the old woman simply laughs.

‘Of course you live, my queen! This would be a poor Underverse, the merest echo of the eternal. A fine ship, but a poor hall in which to dwell.’

‘My men?’

‘Many were lost to the ravages of the wyrm, but our strength endures. Eirik lives. He is strong, that one, you ought to take heed of that more. You are not alone, in all this.’

‘No,’ Katla says, with a small smile. Even that motion is full of pain. ‘I have you.’

‘Always, my queen.’ Bodil nods. ‘They have worked upon your flesh, while I girded your soul.’ She reaches out, picks up the gleaming glass of a mirror. ‘Would you like to see, my queen, what you have become?’

Katla takes the glass. Most of her auburn hair is gone. Her left side is a pitted, scarred ruin. Counterseptics and alkali still streaks her, along with the ink and blood of her remaking. She has become, under Bodil’s art, and healer’s rites. The ink flows and dances across the scarring, the left side of her face rendered into the snarl of a lupine skull. It is beautiful work, etched with love, and all the skill that desperation’s fugue can impart. It is void-black, and yet riven through with gold and ochre. Bronze glimmers upon her skin as intricate and sacred as any electoo of the Iron Priesthoods. The winding knotwork covers the scars – drowning them in the bestial half-mask of Bodil’s devotion. There are runes etched there. Oaths, too. The eye of the wolf, the lightning of the Allfather’s unity. They are marked into her very skin. Burned into her soul.

She has become a promise.

‘Well?’ Bodil asks. She bows her head, and does not look at her queen, her jarl.

Katla stares at the mirror, letting her eyes drift across every detail of her rebirth. Many others would shirk from such a thing. It would drive a lesser man mad. Katla does not wish to howl, or beat at the walls. She will not break upon fate’s anvil. She will shape it, as she is shaped by it, and so she takes the only course left to her. The only thing she can do.

Katla Helvintr smiles.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Edoardo Albert is a writer and historian specialising in the Dark Ages. He finds that the wars and cultures of the early Medieval period map very well on to the events of the 40th and 41st millenniums. Silent Hunters was his first novel for Black Library and he has since followed up with Kasrkin. He has also written the short stories ‘Green and Grey’, ‘Last Flight’, ‘Born of the Storm’, and the novella Lords of the Storm.

Mike Brooks is a science fiction and fantasy author who lives in Nottingham, UK. His work for Black Library includes the Horus Heresy Primarchs novel Alpharius: Head of the Hydra, the Warhammer 40,000 novels Rites of Passage, Warboss and Brutal Kunnin, the Necromunda novel Road to Redemption and the novellas Wanted: Dead and Da Gobbo’s Revenge. When not writing, he plays guitar and sings in a punk band, and DJs wherever anyone will tolerate him.

Andy Clark has written the Warhammer 40,000 novels Fist of the Imperium, Kingsblade, Knightsblade and Shroud of Night, as well as the Dawn of Fire novel The Gate of Bones and the novella Crusade. He has also written the novels Gloomspite and Blacktalon: First Mark for Warhammer Age of Sigmar, and the Warhammer Quest Silver Tower novella Labyrinth of the Lost. He lives in Nottingham, UK.

Marc Collins is a speculative fiction author living and working in Glasgow, Scotland. He is the writer of the Warhammer Crime novel Grim Repast, as well as the short story ‘Cold Cases’, which featured in the anthology No Good Men. For Warhammer 40,000 he has written the novel Void King and a number of short stories. When not dreaming of the far future he works in Pathology with the NHS.

Nate Crowley is an SFF author and games journalist who lives in Walsall with his wife, daughter, and a cat he insists on calling Turkey Boy. He loves going to the zoo, playing needlessly complicated strategy games, and cooking incredible stews. His work for Black Library includes the Twice-Dead King duology, the novel Ghazghkull Thraka: Prophet of the Waaagh!, the novella Severed and the short stories ‘Empra’ and ‘The Enemy of My Enemy’.

Steven B Fischer is a resident physician living in the US Pacific Northwest. When he’s not too busy cracking open a textbook, he can be found exploring the Cascade Mountains by bike, boat, or boot. Steven’s work for Black Library includes the novel Witchbringer and the short story ‘The Emperor’s Wrath’, which featured in Inferno! Volume 1.

John French is the author of several Horus Heresy stories including the novels The Solar War, Mortis, Praetorian of Dorn, Tallarn and Slaves to Darkness, the novella The Crimson Fist, and the audio dramas Dark Compliance, Templar and Warmaster. For Warhammer 40,000 he has written Resurrection, Incarnation and Divination for The Horusian Wars and three tie-in audio dramas – the Scribe Award-winning Agent of the Throne: Blood and Lies, as well as Agent of the Throne: Truth and Dreams and Agent of the Throne: Ashes and Oaths. John has also written the Ahriman series and many short stories.

Guy Haley is the author of the Siege of Terra novel The Lost and the Damned, as well as the Horus Heresy novels Titandeath, Wolfsbane and Pharos, and the Primarchs novels Konrad Curze: The Night Haunter, Corax: Lord of Shadows and Perturabo: The Hammer of Olympia. He has also written many Warhammer 40,000 novels, including the Dawn of Fire books Avenging Son and Throne of Light, as well as Belisarius Cawl: The Great Work, the Dark Imperium trilogy, The Devastation of Baal, Dante, Darkness in the Blood and Astorath: Angel of Mercy. He has also written stories set in the Age of Sigmar, included in War Storm, Ghal Maraz and Call of Archaon. He lives in Yorkshire with his wife and son.

Maria Haskins is a Swedish-Canadian writer and translator. She was born in Sweden and debuted as a writer there, but currently lives just outside Vancouver on the Pacific west coast with her husband, two kids, several noisy budgies, and a very large black dog. Her speculative fiction has appeared in Interzone, Black Static, Fireside, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and elsewhere. ‘The Jagged Edge’ is Maria’s first story for Black Library.

Award-winning author Rob J Hayes has been a student, a banker, a marine research assistant, a chef, and a keyboard monkey more times than he cares to count, but eventually his love of fantasy and reading drew him to the life of a writer. He is the author of the Warhammer 40,000 short story ‘Anarchy’s End’.

Justin D Hill is the author of the Warhammer 40,000 novels Cadia Stands, Cadian Honour and Traitor Rock. He has also written the Necromunda novel Terminal Overkill, the Space Marine Battles novel Storm of Damocles, as well as the Warhammer Horror novel The Bookkeeper’s Skull. His novels have won a number of prizes, as well as being Washington Post and Sunday Times Books of the Year. He lives ten miles uphill from York, where he is indoctrinating his four children in the 40K lore.

Darius Hinks is the author of the Warhammer 40,000 novels Blackstone Fortress, Blackstone Fortress: Ascension and the accompanying audio drama The Beast Inside. He also wrote three novels in the Mephiston series: Blood of Sanguinius, Revenant Crusade and City of Light, as well as the Space Marine Battles novella Sanctus. His work for Age of Sigmar includes Dominion, Hammers of Sigmar, Warqueen and the Gotrek Gurnisson novels Ghoulslayer, Gitslayer and Soulslayer. For Warhammer, he wrote Warrior Priest, which won the David Gemmel Morningstar Award for best newcomer, as well as the Orion trilogy, Sigvald and several novellas.

Cameron Johnston is the British Fantasy Award and Dragon Awards nominated author of grimdark fantasy novels The Traitor God and God of Broken Things. He is a swordsman, a gamer, and an enthusiast of archaeology, history and mythology. ‘Faith in Iron’ is his first story for Black Library.

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

Graham McNeill has written many titles for The Horus Heresy, including the Siege of Terra novellas Sons of the Selenar and Fury of Magnus, the novels The Crimson King and Vengeful Spirit, and the New York Times bestselling A Thousand Sons and The Reflection Crack’d, the latter of which featured in The Primarchs anthology. Graham’s Ultramarines series, featuring Captain Uriel Ventris, is now seven novels long, and has close links to his Iron Warriors stories, the novel Storm of Iron being a perennial favourite with Black Library fans. He has also written the Forges of Mars trilogy, featuring the Adeptus Mechanicus, and the Warhammer Horror novella The Colonel’s Monograph. For Warhammer, he has written the Warhammer Chronicles trilogy The Legend of Sigmar, the second volume of which won the 2010 David Gemmell Legend Award.

Matt Smith has written several Warhammer 40,000 short stories for Black Library, including ‘In Service Eternal’, ‘The Twisted Runes’, ‘City of Blood’ and ‘The Price of Duty’. He is based in Norwich and spends his spare time working on his Raven Guard army and training in martial arts.

Adrian Southin lives with his black cat familiar Ringo in Vancouver, Canada where he can live out the illusion of being an aelven wanderer, write poetry and never finish painting his many, many armies. After twenty years of writing Warhammer fiction in exercise books, ‘Path of Grief’ is his first story for Black Library.

J C Stearns is a writer who lives in a swamp in Illinois with his wife and son, as well as more animals than is reasonable. He started writing for Black Library in 2016 and is the author of the Warhammer Horror novel The Oubliette. He has also written the short stories ‘Turn of the Adder’ and ‘Blackout’ which have featured in various volumes of the anthology Inferno!, and ‘The Marauder Lives’ in the Horror anthology Maledictions. He plays Salamanders, Dark Eldar, Sylvaneth, and as soon as he figures out how to paint lightning bolts, Night Lords.

Danie Ware is the author of the novel The Triumph of Saint Katherine, the novellas The Bloodied Rose, Wreck and Ruin, The Rose in Anger and several short stories all featuring the Sisters of Battle. She lives in Carshalton, South London, with her son and two cats, and has long-held interests in role-playing, re-enactment, vinyl art toys and personal fitness.

Justin Woolley hails from the bottom of the world in Tasmania, Australia and is an author of science fiction and fantasy. In his other life Justin has been an engineer, a teacher, and at one stage even a magician. A long-time fan of Warhammer 40,000, he has written the novella Prisoners of Waaagh! and the short stories ‘Redemption Through Sacrifice’ and ‘Night Shriekers’ for Black Library.

Alec Worley is a well-known comics and science fiction and fantasy author with numerous publications to his name. He is an avid fan of Warhammer 40,000 and is the writer of the short stories ‘Stormseeker’, ‘Whispers’ and ‘Repentia’, as well as the Warhammer Crime audio drama Dredge Runners. He has also forayed into Black Library Horror with the audio drama Perdition’s Flame and his novella The Nothings, which featured in the anthology Maledictions. He lives and works in London.

An extract from Dawn of Fire: Avenging Son.

‘I was there at the Siege of Terra,’ Vitrian Messinius would say in his later years.

‘I was there…’ he would add to himself, his words never meant for ears but his own. ‘I was there the day the Imperium died.’

But that was yet to come.

‘To the walls! To the walls! The enemy is coming!’ Captain Messinius, as he was then, led his Space Marines across the Penitent’s Square high up on the Lion’s Gate. ‘Another attack! Repel them! Send them back to the warp!’

Thousands of red-skinned monsters born of fear and sin scaled the outer ramparts, fury and murder incarnate. The mortals they faced quailed. It took the heart of a Space Marine to stand against them without fear, and the Angels of Death were in short supply.

‘Another attack, move, move! To the walls!’

They came in the days after the Avenging Son returned, emerging from nothing, eight legions strong, bringing the bulk of their numbers to bear against the chief entrance to the Imperial Palace. A decapitation strike like no other, and it came perilously close to success.

Messinius’ Space Marines ran to the parapet edging the Penitent’s Square. On many worlds, the square would have been a plaza fit to adorn the centre of any great city. Not on Terra. On the immensity of the Lion’s Gate, it was nothing, one of hundreds of similarly huge spaces. The word ‘gate’ did not suit the scale of the cityscape. The Lion’s Gate’s bulk marched up into the sky, step by titanic step, until it rose far higher than the mountains it had supplanted. The gate had been built by the Emperor Himself, they said. Myths detailed the improbable supernatural feats required to raise it. They were lies, all of them, and belittled the true effort needed to build such an edifice. Though the Lion’s Gate was made to His design and by His command, the soaring monument had been constructed by mortals, with mortal hands and mortal tools. Messinius wished that had been remembered. For men to build this was far more impressive than any godly act of creation. If men could remember that, he believed, then perhaps they would remember their own strength.

The uncanny may not have built the gate, but it threatened to bring it down. Messinius looked over the rampart lip, down to the lower levels thousands of feet below and the spread of the Anterior Barbican.

Upon the stepped fortifications of the Lion’s Gate was armour of every colour and the blood of every loyal primarch. Dozens of regiments stood alongside them. Aircraft filled the sky. Guns boomed from every quarter. In the churning redness on the great roads, processional ways so huge they were akin to prairies cast in rockcrete, were flashes of gold where the Emperor’s Custodian Guard battled. The might of the Imperium was gathered there, in the palace where He dwelt.

There seemed moments on that day when it might not be enough.

The outer ramparts were carpeted in red bodies that writhed and heaved, obscuring the great statues adorning the defences and covering over the guns, an invasive cancer consuming reality. The enemy were legion. There were too many foes to defeat by plan and ruse. Only guns, and will, would see the day won, but the defenders were so pitifully few.

Messinius called a wordless halt, clenched fist raised, seeking the best place to deploy his mixed company, veterans all of the Terran Crusade. Gunships and fighters sped overhead, unleashing deadly light and streams of bombs into the packed daemonic masses. There were innumerable cannons crammed onto the gate, and they all fired, rippling the structure with false earthquakes. Soon the many ships and orbital defences of Terra would add their guns, targeting the very world they were meant to guard, but the attack had come so suddenly; as yet they had had no time to react.

The noise was horrendous. Messinius’ audio dampers were at maximum and still the roar of ordnance stung his ears. Those humans that survived today would be rendered deaf. But he would have welcomed more guns, and louder still, for all the defensive fury of the assailed palace could not drown out the hideous noise of the daemons – their sighing hisses, a billion serpents strong, and chittering, screaming wails. It was not only heard but sensed within the soul, the realms of spirit and of matter were so intertwined. Messinius’ being would be forever stained by it.

Tactical information scrolled down his helmplate, near environs only. He had little strategic overview of the situation. The vox-channels were choked with a hellish screaming that made communication impossible. The noosphere was disrupted by etheric backwash spilling from the immaterial rifts the daemons poured through. Messinius was used to operating on his own. Small-scale, surgical actions were the way of the Adeptus Astartes, but in a battle of this scale, a lack of central coordination would lead inevitably to defeat. This was not like the first Siege, where his kind had fought in Legions.

He called up a company-wide vox-cast and spoke to his warriors. They were not his Chapter-kin, but they would listen. The primarch himself had commanded that they do so.

‘Reinforce the mortals,’ he said. ‘Their morale is wavering. Position yourselves every fifty yards. Cover the whole of the south-facing front. Let them see you.’ He directed his warriors by chopping at the air with his left hand. His right, bearing an inactive power fist, hung heavily at his side. ‘Assault Squad Antiocles, back forty yards, single firing line. Prepare to engage enemy breakthroughs only on my mark. Devastators, split to demi-squads and take up high ground, sergeant and sub-squad prime’s discretion as to positioning and target. Remember our objective, heavy infliction of casualties. We kill as many as we can, we retreat, then hold at the Penitent’s Arch until further notice. Command squad, with me.’

Command squad was too grand a title for the mismatched crew Messinius had gathered around himself. His own officers were light years away, if they still lived.

‘Doveskamor, Tidominus,’ he said to the two Aurora Marines with him. ‘Take the left.’

‘Yes, captain,’ they voxed, and jogged away, their green armour glinting orange in the hell-light of the invasion.

The rest of his scratch squad was comprised of a communications specialist from the Death Spectres, an Omega Marine with a penchant for plasma weaponry, and a Raptor holding an ancient standard he’d taken from a dusty display.

‘Why did you take that, Brother Kryvesh?’ Messinius asked, as they moved forward.

‘The palace is full of such relics,’ said the Raptor. ‘It seems only right to put them to use. No one else wanted it.’

Messinius stared at him.

‘What? If the gate falls, we’ll have more to worry about than my minor indiscretion. It’ll be good for morale.’

The squads were splitting to join the standard humans. Such was the noise many of the men on the wall had not noticed their arrival, and a ripple of surprise went along the line as they appeared at their sides. Messinius was glad to see they seemed more firm when they turned their eyes back outwards.

‘Anzigus,’ he said to the Death Spectre. ‘Hold back, facilitate communication within the company. Maximum signal gain. This interference will only get worse. See if you can get us patched in to wider theatre command. I’ll take a hardline if you can find one.’

‘Yes, captain,’ said Anzigus. He bowed a helm that was bulbous with additional equipment. He already had the access flap of the bulky vox-unit on his arm open. He withdrew, the aerials on his power plant extending. He headed towards a systems nexus on the far wall of the plaza, where soaring buttresses pushed back against the immense weight bearing down upon them.

Messinius watched him go. He knew next to nothing about Anzigus. He spoke little, and when he did, his voice was funereal. His Chapter was mysterious, but the same lack of familiarity held true for many of these warriors, thrown together by miraculous events. Over their years lost wandering in the warp, Messinius had come to see some as friends as well as comrades, others he hardly knew, and none he knew so well as his own Chapter brothers. But they would stand together. They were Space Marines. They had fought by the returned primarch’s side, and in that they shared a bond. They would not stint in their duty now.

Messinius chose a spot on the wall, directing his other veterans to left and right. Kryvesh he sent to the mortal officer’s side. He looked down again, out past the enemy and over the outer palace. Spires stretched away in every direction. Smoke rose from all over the landscape. Some of it was new, the work of the daemon horde, but Terra had been burning for weeks. The Astronomican had failed. The galaxy was split in two. Behind them in the sky turned the great palace gyre, its deep eye marking out the throne room of the Emperor Himself.

‘Sir!’ A member of the Palatine Guard shouted over the din. He pointed downwards, to the left. Messinius followed his wavering finger. Three hundred feet below, daemons were climbing. They came upwards in a triangle tipped by a brute with a double rack of horns. It clambered hand over hand, far faster than should be possible, flying upwards, as if it touched the side of the towering gate only as a concession to reality. A Space Marine with claw locks could not have climbed that fast.

‘Soldiers of the Imperium! The enemy is upon us!’

He looked to the mortals. Their faces were blanched with fear. Their weapons shook. Their bravery was commendable nonetheless. Not one of them attempted to run, though a wave of terror preceded the unnatural things clambering up towards them.

‘We shall not turn away from our duty, no matter how fearful the foe, or how dire our fates may be,’ he said. ‘Behind us is the Sanctum of the Emperor Himself. As He has watched over you, now it is your turn to stand in guardianship over Him.’

The creatures were drawing closer. Through a sliding, magnified window on his display, Messinius looked into the yellow and cunning eyes of their leader. A long tongue lolled permanently from the thing’s mouth, licking at the wall, tasting the terror of the beings it protected.

Boltgun actions clicked. His men leaned over the parapet, towering over the mortals as the Lion’s Gate towered over the Ultimate Wall. A wealth of targeting data was exchanged, warrior to warrior, as each chose a unique mark. No bolt would be wasted in the opening fusillade. They could hear the creatures’ individual shrieks and growls, all wordless, but their meaning was clear: blood, blood, blood. Blood and skulls.

Messinius sneered at them. He ignited his power fist with a swift jerk. He always preferred the visceral thrill of manual activation. Motors came to full life. Lightning crackled around it. He aimed downwards with his bolt pistol. A reticule danced over diabolical faces, each a copy of all the others. These things were not real. They were not alive. They were projections of a false god. The Librarian Atramo had named them maladies. A spiritual sickness wearing ersatz flesh.

He reminded himself to be wary. Contempt was as thick as any armour, but these things were deadly, for all their unreality.

He knew. He had fought the Neverborn many times before.

‘While He lives,’ Messinius shouted, boosting his voxmitter gain to maximal, ‘we stand!’

‘For He of Terra!’ the humans shouted, their battle cry loud enough to be heard over the booming of guns.

‘For He of Terra,’ said Messinius. ‘Fire!’ he shouted.

The Space Marines fired first. Boltguns spoke, spitting spikes of rocket flare into the foe. Bolts slammed into daemon bodies, bursting them apart. Black viscera exploded away. Black ichor showered those coming after. The daemons’ false souls screamed back whence they came, though their bones and offal tumbled down like those of any truly living foe.

Las-beams speared next, and the space between the wall top and the scaling party filled with violence. The daemons were unnaturally resilient, protected from death by the energies of the warp, and though many were felled, others weathered the fire, and clambered up still, unharmed and uncaring of their dead. Messinius no longer needed his helm’s magnification to see into the daemon champion’s eyes. It stared at him, its smile a promise of death. The terror that preceded them was replaced by the urge to violence, and that gripped them all, foe and friend. The baseline humans began to lose their discipline. A man turned and shot his comrade, and was shot down in turn. Kryvesh banged the foot of his borrowed banner and called them back into line. Elsewhere, his warriors sang; not their Chapter warsongs, but battle hymns known to all. Wavering human voices joined them. The feelings of violence abated, just enough.

Then the things were over the parapet and on them. Messinius saw Tidominus carried down by a group of daemons, his unit signum replaced by a mortis rune in his helm. The enemy champion was racing at him. Messinius emptied his bolt pistol into its face, blowing half of it away into a fine mist of daemonic ichor. Still it leapt, hurling itself twenty feet over the parapet. Messinius fell back, keeping the creature in sight, targeting skating over his helmplate as the machine-spirit tried to maintain a target lock. Threat indicators trilled, shifting up their priority spectrum.

The daemon held up its enormous gnarled hands. Smoke whirled in the space between, coalescing into a two-handed sword almost as tall as Messinius. By the time its hoofed feet cracked the paving slabs of the square, the creature’s weapon was solid. Vapour streaming from its ruined face, it pointed the broadsword at Messinius and hissed a wordless challenge.

‘Accepted,’ said Messinius, and moved in to attack.

The creature was fast, and punishingly strong. Messinius parried its first strike with an outward push of his palm, fingers spread. Energy crackled. The boom generated by the meeting of human technology and the sorceries of the warp was loud enough to out-compete the guns, but though the impact sent pain lancing up Messinius’ arm, the daemon was not staggered, and pressed in a follow-up attack, swinging the massive sword around its head as if it weighed nothing.

Messinius countered more aggressively this time, punching in to the strike. Another thunderous detonation. Disruption fields shattered matter, but the daemon was not wholly real, and the effect upon it was lesser than it would be upon a natural foe. Nevertheless, this time it was thrown backwards by the blow. Smoke poured from the edge of its blade. It licked black blood from its arm and snarled. Messinius was ready when it leapt: opening his fist, ignoring the sword as it clashed against his pauldron and sheared off a peeling of ceramite, he grabbed the beast about its middle.

The Bloodletters of Khorne were rangy things, all bone and ropey muscle, no space within them for organs. The false god of war had no need for them to eat or breathe, or to give the semblance of being able to do so. They were made only to kill, and to strike fear in the hearts of those they faced. Their waists were solid, and slender, and easily encompassed by Messinius’ power fist. It squirmed in his grip, throwing Messinius’ arm about. Servo motors in his joints locked, supplementary muscle fibres strained, but the White Consul stood firm.

‘Tell your master he is not welcome on Terra,’ he said. His words were calm, a deliberate defiance of the waves of rage pulsing off the daemon.

He closed his hand.

The daemon’s midriff exploded. The top half fell down, still hissing and thrashing. Its sword clanged off the paving and broke into shards, brittle now it was separated from its wielder. They were pieces of the same thing, sword and beast. Apart, the weapon could not survive long.

Messinius cast down the lower portion of the daemon. There were dozens of the things atop the wall, battling with his warriors and the human soldiery. In the second he paused he saw Doveskamor hacked down as he stood over the body of his brother, pieces of armour bouncing across the ground. He saw a group of Palatine Sentinels corner a daemon with their bayonets. He saw a dozen humans cut down by eldritch swords.

Where the humans kept their distance, their ranged weapons took a toll upon the Neverborn. Where the daemons got among them, they triumphed more often than not, even against his Space Marines. Support fire rained down sporadically from above, its usefulness restricted by the difficulty of picking targets from the swirling melee. At the western edge of the line, the heavy weapons were more telling, knocking daemons off the wall before they crested the parapet and preventing them from circling around the back of the Imperial forces. Only his equipment allowed Messinius to see this. Without the helm feeds of his warriors and the limited access he had to the Lion Gate’s auspectoria, he would have been blind, lost in the immediate clash of arms and sprays of blood. He would have remained where he was, fighting. He would not have seen that there were more groups of daemons pouring upwards. He would not have given his order, and then he would have died.

‘Squad Antiocles, engage,’ he said. He smashed a charging daemon into fragments, yanked another back the instant before it gutted a mortal soldier, and stamped its skull flat, while switching again to his company vox-net. ‘All units, fall back to the Penitent’s Arch. Take the mortals with you.’

His assault squad fell from the sky on burning jets, kicking daemons down and shooting them with their plasma and bolt pistols. A roar of promethium from a flamer blasted three bloodletters to ash.

‘Fall back! Fall back!’ Messinius commanded, his words beating time with his blows. ‘Assault Squad Antiocles to cover. Devastators maintain overhead fire.’

Squad Antiocles drove the enemy back. Tactical Space Marines were retreating from the parapet, dragging human soldiers with them. An Ultramarine walked backwards past him, firing his bolter one-handed, a wounded member of the Palatine Guard draped over his right shoulder.

‘Fall back! Fall back!’ Messinius roared. He grabbed a human by the arm and yanked him hard away from the monster trying to slay him, almost throwing him across the square. He pivoted and punched, slamming the man’s opponent in the face with a crackling bang that catapulted its broken corpse over the wall edge. ‘Fall back!’

Mortal soldiers broke and ran while Squad Antiocles held off the foe. Telling to begin with, in moments the assault squad’s momentum was broken, and again more bloodletters were leaping over the edge of the rampart. The Space Marines fired in retreat, covering each other in pairs as they crossed the square diagonally to the Penitent’s Arch. The mortals were getting the idea, running between the Adeptus Astartes and mostly staying out of their fire corridor. With the fight now concentrated around Squad Antiocles, the Devastators were more effective, blasting down the daemons before they could bring their weight of numbers to bear upon Antiocles. Sporadic bursts of fire from the retreating Tactical Marines added to the effect, and for a short period the number of daemons entering the square did not increase.

Messinius tarried a moment, rounding up more of the humans who were either too embattled or deaf to his orders to get out. He reached three still firing over the parapet’s edge and pulled them away. A daemon reared over the parapet and he crushed its skull, but a second leapt up and cleaved hard into his fist, and power fled the weapon. Messinius pumped three bolts into its neck, decapitating it. He moved back.

His power fist was ruined. The daemon’s cut had sliced right through the ceramite, breaking the power field generator and most of the weapon’s strength-boosting apparatus, making it a dead weight. He said a quick thanks to the machine’s departed spirit and smashed the top of his bolt pistol against the quick seal release, at the same time disengaging the power feeds by way of neural link. The clamps holding the power fist to his upper arm came loose and it slid to the floor with a clang, leaving his right arm clad in his standard ceramite gauntlet. A century together. A fine weapon. He had no time to mourn it.

‘Fall back!’ he shouted. ‘Fall back to the Penitent’s Arch!’

He slammed a fresh clip into his bolt pistol. Squad Antiocles were being pushed back. The Devastators walked their fire closer in to the combat. A heavy bolter blasted half a dozen daemons into stinking meat. A missile blew, lifting more into the air. Messinius fell back himself now, leaving it to the last moment before ordering the Assault Marines to leap from the fray. Their jets ignited, driving back the daemons with washes of flame, and they lifted up over his head, leaving four of their brothers dead on the ground. Devastator fire hammered down from above. Anti-personnel weapons set into casemates and swivel turrets on the walls joined in, but the daemons mounted higher and higher in a wave of red that flooded over the parapet.

‘Run!’ he shouted at the straggling human soldiery. ‘Run and survive! Your service is not yet done!’

The Penitent’s Arch led from the square onto a wall walk that curved around to another layer of defences. His Space Marines were already making a firing line across the entrance. A gate could be extended across the arch, sealing the walk from the square, but Messinius refrained from requesting it be closed, as the humans were still streaming past the Adeptus Astartes. Kryvesh waved the banner, whirling it through the air to attract the terrified mortals. The Space Marines fired constantly into the mass of daemons sprinting after them, exhausting their ammunition supplies. Shattered false bodies tumbled down, shot from the front and above, yet still they came, overtaking and dismembering the last warriors fleeing away from the parapet.

Squad Antiocles roared through the arch, landing behind their brethren. Messinius passed between them. For a moment he surveyed the tide of coming fury. Endless red-skinned monsters filling the square like a lake of spilled blood, washing over a score of brightly armoured Space Marine corpses left behind in the retreat. Several hundred humans lay alongside them.

He opened a vox-channel to Gate Command.

‘Wall batteries three-seven-three through three-seven-six, target sector nine five eighty-three, Penitent’s Square, western edge. Five-minute bombardment.’

‘On whose order?’

‘Captain Vitrian Messinius, White Consuls Chapter, Tenth Company. I have the primarch’s authority.’ As he dealt with gunnery control, he was also datapulsing a request for resupply, and checking through layered data screeds.

‘Voice print and signum ident match. Transponder codes valid. We obey.’

The far side of the square erupted in a wall of flame. Heavy cannon shells detonated in a string along the rampart. High-energy beams sliced into the square, turning stone and metal instantly to superheated gas. The approaching daemons were annihilated. A few bolt-rounds cracked off as the last daemons nearing the Space Marine line were put down.

‘Company, cease fire. Conserve ammunition.’ Nobody heard him. Nobody could. He re-sent the order via vox-script. The boltguns cut out.

Penitent’s Square was a cauldron of fire so intense he could feel the heat through his battleplate’s ceramite. The ground shook under his feet and he considered the possibility that the wall would give way. The noise was so all-consuming the idea of speech lost relevance. For five minutes the Lion’s Gate tore madly at its own hide, ripping out chunks of itself in a bid to scrape free the parasites infesting its fabric, then, as suddenly as it had begun, the bombardment ceased.

Where the Penitent’s Square had been, a twisted mass of black metal and shattered stone remained. So formidable were the defences of the Lion’s Gate that the structure beneath had not been penetrated, but it was like this, in small bursts of destruction, that they could lose this war.

Messinius accessed the gate’s noosphere. No daemons had as yet rounded the projecting Penitent’s Spur to come up against their new position. When the attack came again, which it would, it would come from the front.

An ammunition train raced down the walkway from the fortress interior and came to a squealing stop fifty yards away. Medicae personnel jumped down. A Space Marine Apothecary came with them. Human peons rushed about with heavy sack bags full of bolter magazines, passing them out to the transhumans. Spent magazines clattered to the floor. New ones were slammed home. Messinius contacted his squad leaders, taking a quick census of his surviving men, not trusting the digits that read ‘Company Casualties 23%’ blinking in the upper right of his visual field.

Through the smoke given off by burning metal on the far side of the ruined square, he saw movement. Auspex returns tripped his armour’s machine-spirit, and it blinked warnings in his helm.

<threat detected.>

‘They’re coming again,’ he said.

‘My lord?’ A soft voice, one that did not belong in that moment. He ignored it.

‘Engage at fifty-yard range. Make every shot count.’

The ammunition train was hurriedly relieved of their allotted supplies, and sped off, bearing the worst-wounded, to aid whichever beleaguered unit needed it next.

‘Stand ready.’

‘My lord?’ The voice became more insistent.

The voidships in orbit were beginning to fire. Their targeting systems were perturbed by the boiling warp energy and the vortex in constant motion over the Imperial Palace, and many shots went wide, crashing down into the Anterior Barbican, a few falling as far out as Magnifican.

Red monsters bounded towards them, as numerous as before, as if their efforts to thin them had been for naught.

‘Fire,’ he said coldly.

‘My lord, your duty rotation begins in half an hour. You told me to wake you.’

This time he heard. Bolters boomed. Messinius froze them with a thought, and with another he shut down the hypnomat entirely.

Vitrian Messinius awoke groggily.

‘My lord,’ his servant said. Selwin, he was called. ‘You are returned from your recollections?’

‘I am awake, Selwin, yes,’ Messinius said irritably. His mouth was dry. He wanted to be left alone.

‘Shall I?’ Selwin gestured to the hypnomat.

Messinius nodded and rubbed his face. It felt numb. Selwin flicked a number of toggles on the hypnomat and it powered down, the steady glow of its innards fading to nothing and winking out, taking the immediacy of Messinius’ memories with it.

‘The wall again?’ Selwin asked.

The hypnomat’s primary use was to instil knowledge without active learning on the subject’s part, but it could reawaken memories to be lived again. Full immersion in the hypnomat required cooperation from Messinius’ catalepsean node, and coming out of the half-sleep was never as easy as true waking. Reliving past events dulled his wits. Messinius reminded himself to be guarded. He forgot sometimes that he was not on Sabatine any more. The local saying ‘This is Terra’ encompassed a multitude of sins. Spying was among them.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Personal debriefing.’ He shook his head and unplugged the hypnomat’s input cables from the neural ports set into his arms and neck. ‘Nothing new learned.’

Selwin nodded, then hesitantly said, ‘If I may be so bold as to ask, why do it, my lord, if you expect to learn nothing?’

‘Because I can always be wrong,’ Messinius said. He pointed at the hypnomat. It was a bulky machine set on a trolley, but not too big for an unaltered man to move. ‘Take that away. Inform my armourer I will be with him in a few minutes.’

Selwin bowed. ‘Already done, my lord.’

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