Datasets:

512duncanl

/

wh40k_novels

like 0

laxy the most dreadful killing machines of all: the Astartes. How ironic it was that Grammaticus's current task was to broker cooperation with one of those fearsome Astartes Legions. Gahet had once remarked to Grammaticus that the Emperor was the only human who would have ever made a viable addition to the Cabal's inner circle. 'He sees the long picture of it,' Gahet had said. 'He understands the vast, slow cycle, and is content to allow it to run its course. He appreciates the epochal dynamic of true and thorough change.' 'Have you ever met him?' Grammaticus had asked. 'No, John, I haven't.' 'Then you have no idea what a bloodthirsty bastard he really is.' Gahet had smiled. 'That's as may be, but he understands that the Primordial Annihilator is the true enemy of everything, so perhaps we need a bloodthirsty bastard on our side?' 'Konig?' 'I'm sorry, uxor,' Grammaticus said. Rukhsana smiled down the table at him. 'You were quite lost in thought.' 'I was. I apologise. Where was I? Uhm, it is my belief that the extraplanetary harbour was built by some xenos kind several hundred years before this world was colonised by the original human out-ships. As far as the Nurthene are concerned, it has always been here.' 'So it is an intriguing aside, and not pertinent to our combat evaluation?' 'Indeed not. But for all their parochial mindset, the Nurthene have an appreciation of extraplanetary matters. They have lived in fear of first contact, of discovery by beings from other worlds. In their doctrine, our arrival proves to them the universal presence of evil. There is no dealing with them.' 'None at all?' 'No, uxor.' He wanted to tell her that they were dealing with a human culture that had succumbed to the corruption of the Primordial Annihilator, but he knew she simply wouldn't understand what Chaos meant. Very few humans did. Grammaticus did, because he had shared the Cabal's Acuity. He had a feeling, deep in his gut, that the Emperor knew all too well. So why hadn't he told any of his children? Why hadn't he forewarned them about the deathless abomination they would encounter if they ventured out into the stars? The briefing turned to matters of fortification and placement. Grammaticus had brought the plans he had carefully hand drawn. Discussion began on the best practice of attack on Mon Lo. Tuvi surprised him by suggesting the most perceptive tactical solutions. She would be a full uxor soon, with a pack of aides of her own. Rukhsana let her lead the plotting, nodding contentedly at her stepdaughter's excellence. As the talk went to and fro, Grammaticus decided, wilfully, it was time to switch places. He put himself behind Rukhsana's eyes - she was far too preoccupied to resist or even notice - and looked back down the table at himself. He saw what she saw: a well-made man of mature years, strong in the back and arms, with a very handsome face and grey hair. The man wore a scarlet dress coat with ornate double hogging down the front, and he was perspiring very slightly. Not bad, thought John Grammaticus, not bad at all. It wasn't the body he'd been born with, but at least it pretended to be from the Caucasus, which was where the first John Grammaticus had been born, towards the end of the Twenty-Ninth Millennium. 'If we are going to commit to an attack,' Tuvi was saying, 'we need to know more about the enemy disposition in these lines, and along the north wall here, and here.' 'I wasn't able to collect data,' Grammaticus replied, 'but you're right. I'll be going in again tomorrow. In three days, I should have the information you need.' 'Good,' said Rukhsana. She paused. 'You're going inside again?' 'I think it's necessary, uxor.' 'Then may the Emperor protect you,' Tuvi said, and several of the aides echoed her. Oh, I'm quite sure he won't, Grammaticus thought. 'That's all for today,' Rukhsana told her aides. 'Be off with you. I'll finish the brief myself.' Grammaticus sensed annoyance and disappointment as the aides filed out. The door closed behind them. There was a long silence. 'Where were we?' Uxor Rukhsana asked. 'You were about to undress,' he said in demotic Scythian. 'Was I indeed?' she laughed, answering in the same language. 'I had no idea you were fluent in my native tongue, or knew me to be of Scythian extraction. You're very clever, Konig.' You don't know the half of it, he thought. I'm fluent, instantly, in every tongue, every language I encounter. It's my particular talent, and my curse. 'I'm sorry to be forward,' he said, again in Scythian, 'but I've seen the way you look at me.' 'And I've seen the way you look at me, sir.' 'Is it so bad?' Rukhsana smiled. 'No, Konig, it's flattering. But I'm no aide-cadre hussy. I'm not about to disrobe for some sordid little tryst in this briefing room. I'm not sure I'm going to disrobe for you at all.' Grammaticus allowed a smile to cross Heniker's face. 'My dear uxor,' he said, 'the simple doubt expressed in that sentence is all I could ever ask for.' IN THE OLD times, in the time of inchoation, races built their fastnesses in places of safety, and left the darker places unexplored. It had been the primitive instinct of man to behave this way. It had kept him safe from the wolf and the sabre-cat. Grammaticus wished his species had kept hold of this instinct, and not forsaken it. The darker places were darker places for a reason. He was fairly certain it was the eternal influence of the Emperor that had quashed that particular taboo. He thought of Terra's old maps, with their quaintly phrased notations of warning, here be dragons. That had always been a shorthand motto of man's ignorance of the darker places of his universe. 'What did you say?' Rukhsana asked, rolling over sleepily. 'Nothing,' he replied. 'You said something about dragons, Konig.' 'I may have.' 'There are no dragons, Konig.' It was late afternoon. The palace compound had sweltered out another day, so close to the sea everyone could smell it, yet so far away its cooling influence did not reach. The sex had been exceptional. The emotional intimacy had almost reduced him to tears. He hated allowing himself to get so close. Seven hundred years was a long time, long enough for him to forget the consequences of proper connection. He had felt her hunger, her appetite to prove she was still something of significance even though her uxorhood was sloughing away like dead skin. He had allowed himself to love her, and allowed her to reciprocate, and now he faced up to the consequences of that decision. 'Konig?' She didn't even know his real name. He wanted to tell her. 'Do you have to go back in?' she asked, rolling over and lying sidelong. Her lithe, naked body made him stir, but he resisted the temptation. 'Yes.' 'I'm sure we can do the rest of the tactical plan with drone spotters and the fleet appraisal.' 'You can't. You need me in there.' John. 'Oh no.' 'Oh no, what?' she asked, sitting up. He rose to his feet. 'Nothing, my love.' 'My love. That sounds very serious.' John. Not now. 'You've gone quite pale, Kon. Are you all right?' He paced away from the bed, bare-foot, towards the wash room. 'I'm fine. Absolutely fine. I just need a sip of water.' Rukhsana rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. 'Don't be long,' she called. Grammaticus entered the wash room, closed the door behind him, and paused for a moment, head down, leaning his hands on the edges of the stone basin. 'Not now, really not now,' he moaned softly. The stone was cool under his palms. He poured some water into it from the jug. All the while, he could feel the old, chipped mirror hanging on the wall behind him. He turned around. Gahet looked out at him from the mirror's cloudy surface. You have taken a wrong step, John Grammaticus. The intimate bond you have made with this female is impairing your mission. 'Go away.' John, you are risking everything. You know what's at stake. What are you doing? 'Being human for a change,' Grammaticus replied. John, we have eliminated agents for less. 'I'm sure you have, not in the old days, but in these latter days. I'm sure you have.' I am not threatening you, John. 'Yes, you actually are,' he told the mirror. The galaxy must live. 'Right, right, and can't I be allowed to live in it a little?' Gahet's face faded slowly. Grammaticus rinsed his face in cold water from the stone basin. 'Bastards,' he spat. BEFORE DAWN, IN a cool, mauve twilight, the escort arrived to take Grammaticus back to the insertion point. He had already been up for an hour, ritually packing and re-packing his small bag. He told the escort to wait with the vehicle, and finished his chores, sipping tepid black caffeine and eating some preserved fruits and spelt bread left over from the night before. She surprised him by waking up. 'Were you planning on leaving without a goodbye?' 'No,' he lied. 'Good.' Rukhsana brushed a strand of long, blonde hair off her face and looked him up and down. He had dressed in a simple desert suit of soft brown kid-skin, with Army-issue boots and a canvas jacket. 'You don't look much like a native.' 'That part comes later.' All she was wearing was the sheet from the bed. 'Well, goodbye, then. The Emperor protects.' 'Let's hope so,' he agreed. 'Try to come back,' Rukhsana said. 'I'd like to see you again.' 'I'll come back,' he replied, not lying this time, 'because I want to see you again.' Uxor Rukhsana smiled and tilted her head slightly to one side, regarding him. 'There's something about you, Konig. It's as if you see right into me.' 'That's because I do,' he said. THE ESCORT, A young geno company bashaw and three sleepy troopers, were waiting for him in the rear yard of the palace compound. The ride was a light speeder, the hull of which had been sand-blasted back to bare metal by the environment. 'Sir,' the bashaw saluted as Grammaticus walked out of the lit doorway into the darkness of the yard

tilted her head slightly to one side, regarding him. 'There's something about you, Konig. It's as if you see right into me.' 'That's because I do,' he said. THE ESCORT, A young geno company bashaw and three sleepy troopers, were waiting for him in the rear yard of the palace compound. The ride was a light speeder, the hull of which had been sand-blasted back to bare metal by the environment. 'Sir,' the bashaw saluted as Grammaticus walked out of the lit doorway into the darkness of the yard with his bag over his shoulder. It took a second to place the man's background accent... Yndonesia, Purwakarta Administrative District, perhaps one of the Cianjur hives. 'What's your unit?' Grammaticus asked in Bahasa Malay. The bashaw blinked in surprise and smiled. 'Arachne, sir,' he replied. 'I didn't know you were a Pan-Pac, sir.' 'I'm not. I'm from all over.' They got in and rode out of the yard, and through the descending levels of the ancient desert palace, via checkpoints, gateways and night-watch barricades where sentries lurked beside sputtering braziers, their rifles hooked through their folded arms. Papers and biometrics were routinely checked. The Nurthene had a subversive streak. Experience had taught the Imperial Army that the Nurthene had spies of their own, saboteurs too. It felt odd to be a spy checked on the way out. Outside the palace perimeter, the speeder picked up velocity and coasted along the bombed-out avenues and dust-dressed streets of the township surrounding the compound. The sun was threatening to rise behind the passing ruins. Grammaticus sat back in the rear seat, trying to relax, trying to compose his focus into identity immersion, feeling the breeze of motion against his face. He began to regret making a connection with the young bashaw. The officer, sitting up front, kept leaning around and talking to Grammaticus about places in Cianjur that Grammaticus had never visited, nor had any wish to visit. Grammaticus had been in Cianjur once, long ago. He'd been there as part of an army that had burned the place down, five hundred years before the hive the bashaw had grown up in had even been planned. He closed his eyes and thought of Rukhsana. It's as if you see right into me. There was too much truth in that. His mind saw into everything. It made him think of the thing he tried never to think about: that day, long ago, meeting the Emperor, shaking his hand, tasting the power, and seeing, behind the glamour of that handsome, noble, healthy face, seeing... Just for a nanosecond. Seeing... 'Are you quite well, sir?' the bashaw asked. 'You went rather pale all of a sudden. Is it motion sickness?' 'No. I'm fine. Absolutely fine,' Grammaticus replied. THEY CAME UP out of the ruins, and followed the rutted dispersal tracks around the back of the dug-in Imperial lines. The sun was rising, crisping the lower edge of the sky. In the lea of the earthworks, for kilometre after kilometre, gun emplacements made sulking silhouettes against the dawn, and millions of bivouac tents covered the ground like blisters, breakfast fires glowing. They passed standards and banners hanging limp in the slowly heating air. 'That's my lot,' the bashaw called out as they shot past a particular standard. Grammaticus turned his head to look, and saw Arachne, a mousy but surprisingly large bosomed girl, if the banner's image was any guide, weaving her complex web of fate and destiny. THE INSERTION POINT was an outfall of the city's antique sewer system some eighteen kilometres west of the palace. It had been exposed by shelling about three months earlier, and was well guarded. Apart from the geno sentries, automated gun-servitors watched it, unblinking, day and night. The Nurthene guarded the other end just as proficiently, but Grammaticus wasn't going all the way to the other end. The bashaw introduced him to the point officer, a ruddy-faced hetman called Maryno. Maryno wanded the servitors to default/passive, and stood watching with the bashaw as Grammaticus slithered down the shattered embankment into the maw of the outfall. Darkness, as had so often been the case in his life, embraced him. TEN KILOMETRES AND ninety minutes later, he pulled himself out of a run-off vent not far from the rising walls and banked towers of Mon Lo Harbour. He had already switched off his lamp, and left it in the bag, along with his canvas jacket and army boots, stuffed behind the loose bricks of a culvert. His journey along the dark chute had provided him with almost enough time to complete his identity immersion. He was no longer Konig Heniker. He was D'sal Huulta. In all, he had taken very few real measures to disguise himself: a wrap of pink silk over his desert suit, felt shoes in place of the army boots, a desert shawl expertly pulled around his head. His skin was tanned, though not as dark as the average Nurthene, and a strict Nurthene observer of the Pa'khel would have worn his hair tied in a net under his shawl, and anointed his scalp, armpits, groin and belly with scented oil. Grammaticus never went to such extremes, even though his Imperial spymasters recommended he should. He knew that his mind was more than capable of smoothing over most epistemological blemishes. Besides, the anointing oils smacked of a ritual offering to the Primordial Annihilator, something he was not prepared to undertake. He fastened the hooked knife worn by all Nurthene to his under-belt, then strapped on the broad over-belt with its three pouches for fluid, mineral salt and currency. He washed his hands in the trackside dust to blacken his fingernails. Apart from the knife, he carried no weapon, except, of course, for the ring. The sun was crawling up into the sky, having revealed itself during his trek through the dank underworld. He felt its searing heat on his head and shoulders, but he was near the sea, close enough to both feel and smell it. Fresh winds came in from the harbour shore, snaking in across the desert outland. He sniffed moisture. He began to walk towards the banked towers and enamelled walls of the port city. Others were doing the same. War or no war, life went on. Straggles of traders and merchants, some with trains of pack animals, were heading into Mon Lo from the hinterland, hoping to do business at the city markets. Migrant workers were walking to the port in search of employment. Refugees and displaced citizens were coming to the gates, fleeing the Imperial advance. Grammaticus fell in with them. As he walked, Grammaticus began the psychic litany in his head, the final progression towards immersion in another dialect and culture base. I am John Grammaticus. I am John Grammaticus. I am John Grammaticus pretending to be Konig Heniker. I am Konig Heniker. I am Konig Heniker pretending to be D'sal Huulta. I am D'sal Huulta. I chey D'sal Huulta lem pretending. El-chey D'sal samman Huulta lem tanay ek. El'chey D'sal samman Huulta lem tanay ek... 'Who are you, fellow?' one of the echvehnurth warriors at the city gate asked as he approached. The echvehnurth had been resting his falx against his silver breastplate, but now he raised it. Some of his companions did likewise. Others were stopping and searching some water merchants heading in out of the desert through the ancient arch. 'I am D'sal Huulta,' Grammaticus replied in Demotic Nurthene, making the obeisance of all-the-sunlight to the echvehnurth. 'I am a merchant.' Falx held ready across the left shoulder to strike, the echvehnurth stared at Grammaticus. 'Show me your palms, your face, and your brands.' Grammaticus made as if to do so. I'm safe and you've seen all you need to reassure you, he sent at the same moment. The echvehnurth nodded, and waved him into the city, already sweeping the incomers for his next subject. Grammaticus had shown him nothing. MON LO WAS waking up. As a city girded to the expectation of assault, it never truly slept, but its habits followed a circadian ebb and flow. The outer walls were well defended by squadrons of echvehnurth, by iron mortars and bombasts, and by platoons of the regular nurthadtre ground troops. They loitered in unruly, spitting gatherings around the heavy steps of the city's thick walls, or stood on the wall's fighting platforms, watching the distant, unmoving enemy through spyglasses. Deeper in the city, the rhythmic pulse of life was easier to discern. Markets woke up. Merchants announced their wares. Morning devotions were declaimed by strong-lunged priests. Water-carriers called their services as they wandered the plazas and the winding, cobbled streets and lanes. Grammaticus retraced his steps, trying to recall the specific layout of the place as he had experienced it the first time. Passing merchants and elders nodded and made the all-the-sunlight gesture to him as they acknowledged his status. He made the gesture back. Grammaticus wanted to get into the northern suburb, an area called Kurnaul, so he could get a good look at the city's north wall. Tuvi would appreciate his efforts. lie stood aside to let a grox-cart trundle past. Street washers cleaned the cobbles with bristle brooms and pails of water, using spades for the animal dung. They sang as they worked. The faience tiled walls of the port city glimmered around him in the morning sun, showing reeds and reptiles in mosaic. The Nurthene had no street names, just pictorial emblems. He looked at a particular symbol, a great monitor lizard delineated in cherry red tiles, and knew, with a trained certainty, that he had never seen it before. He'd made a wrong turn. Mon Lo was so complex, so interwoven, it was hard to recall the specific plan. It was like Arachne's web; mousy, big-bosomed Arachne. He was the needle, he fancied, her needle, moving through the net of fate. He halted and took a moment to consider. His internal compass was out. He checked with the rising sun and established where east was. He slowed his breathing, and allowed h

d in cherry red tiles, and knew, with a trained certainty, that he had never seen it before. He'd made a wrong turn. Mon Lo was so complex, so interwoven, it was hard to recall the specific plan. It was like Arachne's web; mousy, big-bosomed Arachne. He was the needle, he fancied, her needle, moving through the net of fate. He halted and took a moment to consider. His internal compass was out. He checked with the rising sun and established where east was. He slowed his breathing, and allowed himself to perspire for a minute, just to stabilise his body. He had his bearings again. He'd just gone a street too far west, that was all. Kurnaul district was over to his left. Except it wasn't. He halted again, refusing to allow panic to dig in. A water-carrier came up to him and offered a ladle of water. 'No, thank you,' Grammaticus said. 'God love you anyway,' the carrier replied, moving on. Grammaticus shuddered. What the water-carrier had actually said literally translated as, The Primordial Annihilator immolate your living soul. What's wrong with me, Grammaticus thought? Last time I was here, I slipped easily from street to street. This time, I'm behaving like an amateur. My head is swimming. This is... this is stupid. He crossed through two more busy streets, looking for familiar landmarks. It felt as if Kurnaul district was further away than ever. It was as if something was distracting him, baffling his abilities. On impulse, he reached into the bag of mineral salts hooked to his broad over-belt, and closed his fingers around the memeseed hidden in the salt inside. The seed was the size of an earlobe, set into a small silver clasp. Gahet had given it to him. The seeds, fruited from some xenotype tree on a world somewhere in the Cabal's range of influence, were psychically sensitive. If they grew warm, or desiccated in any way, it was a sign that psychic activity was close by. Grammaticus looked at the memeseed. It was always a little warm and dry, because it reacted to his own talents. In his hand, the seed was positively hot, like a burning coal. It had shrivelled in its setting. He was in trouble. The memeseed screamed a warning that something was nearby, perhaps something hunting him. 'D'sal? D'sal Huulta?' Grammaticus looked over his shoulder and saw a portly merchant waving to him. The man had been standing in conversation with a group of his brethren on the steps of a counting house, but he left them to hurry over. Grammaticus quickly put the memeseed away. What is his name? His name? You've met him before. 'D'sal, my good fellow,' the portly merchant declared, making the all-the-sunlight gesture and adding a bow. 'I have missed your face at the market these last few days. What news of the fire-brick deal we sketched out on our last meeting? Has your supplier delivered?' H'dek. H'dek Rootun. That was his name. 'H'dek, my good fellow, I am pained to respond that my supplier has become a goat's maw,' Grammaticus answered politely, 'taking more than it gives. It turns out I can't deliver on that fire-brick deal. I apologise.' H'dek waved his pudgy hand. 'Oh, don't worry! I quite understand. In these times of hardship and oppression, with the alien siege at our door, things like this happen.' He looked at Grammaticus more earnestly. 'You have my fetish, my gene-print? Yes? Good, we can deal in future! I look forward to receiving your envoy.' 'I am always your servant, H'dek,' Grammaticus mumbled. He made the sign of all-the-sunlight, and added the gesture of the moons-entire as he ended the meeting. He strode on down the length of the street feeling as uneasy and lost as before. Then he hurried into an open square, where the foot traffic was lighter, hoping the freedom of the space would give him room to clear his head, and perhaps even identify the source of the psychic activity the seed had detected. Clarity obstinately refused to come. Grammaticus paused, and slowly raised his eyes. He was standing in the Pa'khel Awan Nurth, the square of the pre-eminent temple in Mon Lo. High above him on the temple's tympanum, a bas-relief frieze showed the four properties of the Primordial Annihilator: death, ecstasy, mortality and mutability, blending together into one, huge, ghastly symbol of unity. What gross mistake had led his feet here, what clumsy mis-turn? This was the last place in the city he would have visited voluntarily. The tympanum symbol seemed to pulse, to throb, pressing his eyeballs back into their sockets. Sunlight flared and buzzed. He gagged, and forced hot reflux back down into his gut. His previous visit hadn't been anything like this. It was as if the city had become aware of him, and his role as an intruder, and had become a web, spun to trap him. Someone, something, was playing with him. The vomit wasn't going to stay down. He hurried off into an alley away from the temple precinct, and bent over in the shadows to release the acid liquid. It rushed out of him in a geyser. He barely had time to drag his head shawl off. He sank to his knees, trembling and spitting. Two figures, two men who were just dark shadows, were moving down the alley towards him. They weren't rushing, but there was a purposeful, urgent stride to their gait. Grammaticus got to his feet and made off in the opposite direction, with equal purpose, not quite running. Three more figures rounded the opposite end of the long, winding alley, and came towards him. What were they? Militia? Echvehnurth? Agents of the Pa'khel Awan, the temple's zealous doctrinal clerics? The alley had a couple of side turnings along its length. Grammaticus took the first, and broke into a run as soon as he was out of sight of the figures closing in on him. He reached a dead end, a closed courtyard behind some tall, fine town houses. He heard footsteps approaching behind him. He tried the doors, and found all of them bolted, except a heavy gate of painted wood, where green reptiles intercoiled and made helical patterns. Grammaticus pushed the gate open and ducked into the blessed cool and darkness of the room beyond it. He closed the gate, and drew the bolt across to hold it. He waited, listening to the muffled footsteps and voices outside. A gigantic hand, gloved in steel, reached out of the darkness and picked him up by the neck. It turned him around and slammed him back against the wall, holding him by the throat. Grammaticus was being throttled, his feet kicking off the ground. The steel hand pressed him back against the wall. Terracotta brickwork ground into his back. 'I have a suspicion,' a deep voice said, coming out of the darkness, 'you've been looking for me, John Grammaticus.' It knew his name. 'Th-that's possible,' Grammaticus gasped, 'though it m-might depend upon who you are.' 'My name? You know my name, you treacherous bastard. My name is Alpharius.' FOUR House of the Hydra, Mon Lo Harbour, Nurth, continuous THE POUNDING BLOOD vessels in Grammaticus's head felt as if they were about to burst. His windpipe had closed. Let me go, he sent, desperately. The steel-gloved hand released its grip, and Grammaticus fell awkwardly onto the tiled floor. Hurt and dazed, he forced his mind to work fast. His eyes were becoming accustomed to the cold blue darkness of the chamber. He could see the giant shadow of his captor, and the hot, red glow of a visor, but he could not read a mind. Something was screening it. Nevertheless, his urgent commands were getting through. Step back, and keep your hands away from your weapons. The giant shadow above him took a step backwards. 'Stop him doing that,' the shadow's deep voice growled. There was someone else in the room, in this bolt-hole that had not been safe at all. Grammaticus saw the second person as a hooded figure, though he could not actually see the man with his eyes. The figure was hooded in his mind. Grammaticus tried to rise. A piercing liquid squeal, like a wet finger sliding on glass, stabbed into his neocortex. Pain fired through his autonomic nervous system and sizzled down his spine. He grunted and fell back against the wall. 'He is fierce. Strong and well protected,' the hooded figure said out loud. 'Too much for you?' asked the giant shadow. 'No.' 'Then keep him down.' The squeal increased in power. Grammaticus convulsed. 'We're going to have a conversation, John,' the giant shadow said, bending down and looming close. 'I want some truth out of you, or so help me, I'll simply crush your psyk-cursed skull. Yes? Are we clear?' Grammaticus nodded. The agony was immense. He could feel blood running out of his nose and over his top lip. 'Good. Shere is going to release you. That will be nice, won't it? When Shere releases you, no mind tricks. Are we still clear?' 'Yes,' Grammaticus hissed, his throat bruised and sore. 'Let him go, Shere,' the giant commanded. The squeal went away and took the worst of the pain with it. Grammaticus slumped forwards onto his hands, gasping. 'Lights,' the giant's voice ordered. There was a brief pulse of telekinetic effect, and several dozen wax candles arranged around the room spontaneously lit, a decent pyrokinetic display. The light from the candles was soft and yellow. It showed Grammaticus a shuttered greeting room, typical of Nurthene houses, with a faience tiled floor and mosaic walls that snagged the candlelight like water. It also showed him his antagonists: an armoured trans-human giant and a standard human in black whose face Grammaticus couldn't see, even though the man wore no physical mask or hood. 'Your name is John Grammaticus?' the giant asked. 'If you say so.' 'I can get Shere to start again, if you prefer.' Grammaticus shook his head. Spots of his blood dappled the tiles around him. "Yes, my name is John Grammaticus. You already knew that.' 'Look at me,' the giant commanded. Grammaticus looked up. The giant was clad in power armour, the metal and ceramic wargear of an Imperial Astartes.

lack whose face Grammaticus couldn't see, even though the man wore no physical mask or hood. 'Your name is John Grammaticus?' the giant asked. 'If you say so.' 'I can get Shere to start again, if you prefer.' Grammaticus shook his head. Spots of his blood dappled the tiles around him. "Yes, my name is John Grammaticus. You already knew that.' 'Look at me,' the giant commanded. Grammaticus looked up. The giant was clad in power armour, the metal and ceramic wargear of an Imperial Astartes. The armour was a rich purple with silver edging. Green heraldry had been marked on the shoulder plates. The helm was the very latest, baleen-snout version. Dull red light shone inside the visor slit. To the left of the towering Astartes stood the mind-hooded figure, small by comparison. 'No, me,' said the Astartes. 'Look at me. Ignore my psyker. Better.' 'I-' Grammaticus began. 'Quiet,' said the Astartes, raising a massive index finger. 'You're going to tell me what I want to know, not what you want to say.' Grammaticus nodded. 'You've been looking for me. That's why you keep coming into this city. You knew I'd be here.' Grammaticus nodded again. 'How did you know that?' 'Because we invited you here,' Grammaticus replied. 'You invited me here? Who's "we"?' 'The Cabal I work for.' The Astartes turned to look at the hooded figure. 'Once again,' he said. The squeal speared into Grammaticus's head and made him shriek. 'What is the Cabal?' the Astartes asked. Grammaticus sobbed. He could barely answer. 'They... I don't know... they are eternal and... and they...' 'That's not really very good,' said the Astartes. 'Maybe I should just shoot you.' 'The Cabal is... the Cabal is the only hope!' Grammaticus pleaded. 'Go on.' 'Please!' 'Stop it now, Shere,' the giant instructed. The squeal died back. 'Whose only hope?' asked the Astartes. 'Mine. Yours. Mankind's,' Grammaticus sighed. 'You're talking about the Imperium?' Grammaticus shook his head. 'Broader than that. The species.' 'The Imperium is the species,' the giant replied. 'You don't really believe that, do you?' Grammaticus asked. 'The worlds you've seen, the worlds you've been obliged to bring to compliance... worlds like this one, sapling shoots of human culture, cuttings from the root plant. The human race is far, far more than the militant tribe that is spilling out from Terra to accomplish the Emperor's vision.' The Astartes drew his boltgun. Grammaticus did not actually see it happen. One moment, the hefty weapon was holstered at the giant's hip, the next it was in his steel fist, aimed at Grammaticus's head. 'Are you insane?' the giant asked. 'Are you blind? Look at me. I am an Astartes warrior, oathed to this moment and sworn to serve the Emperor. Why would you say something that sounds so perilously close to treason?' 'I apologise if that's how it sounded. I meant no disrespect.' The boltgun remained aimed at him. 'You said this Cabal of yours invited us here. Explain that.' Grammaticus swallowed. 'Of all the Astartes Legions, the Cabal believes the Alpha Legion to be most receptive to its message.' 'Why?' 'In all truth, sir, I do not know. I am simply a go-between. The Cabal wanted the Alpha Legion to become involved in the compliance war here on Nurth, so that it could see the evidence for itself.' 'See what, John?' Grammaticus straightened slightly and looked boldly at the muzzle of the gun aimed at his face. 'What was at stake. The real enemy. Not the Nurthene, but the Primordial Annihilator that holds sway over them.' The Astartes slowly lowered his weapon. 'You're talking about their warp-magick?' 'It's not-' Grammaticus began. 'May I stand, sir? This floor is cold.' The snouted helm nodded. Grammaticus rose to his feet. The Astartes still towered over him. 'It's not magick. It's not some fanciful trickery. It's the visible manifestation of a deep power - a universal, pervasive abomination.' 'Chaos,' the Astartes replied. 'If that is what your masters wanted us to see, they have wasted your errand. We already know of Chaos, and have numbered it in the litany of xenos hazards.' Grammaticus shook his head sadly. 'The simplest name for it is Chaos. You've numbered it in the litany of xenos hazards, have you? Then you know it only as a child knows the world. It has always been and will always be, and compared to it, nothing - not mankind, not the Imperium, not the Emperor's mighty design - is of any consequence. Unchecked, it will poison and stagnate the galaxy. Fuelled and driven, it will destroy everything. The Cabal wanted you to see it properly, to see it with your own eyes, so that you would take its message seriously.' He paused. 'And it needed you to see it quickly.' 'Why?' asked the giant. 'Because a great war is coming.' 'A war against what?' 'Against yourselves,' said Grammaticus. The giant Astartes stared at Grammaticus for a moment. Grammaticus heard the dull click of his helmet vox operating. A private conversation was taking place. Grammaticus waited. The candle flames trembled. A tiny green house lizard scuttled across the tiled floor and up a wall. The giant turned back to look at Grammaticus. 'What is the message your Cabal wants us to take so seriously?' he asked. 'I don't know. I was simply sent here to propose a dialogue.' The Astartes looked over at the mind-hooded man. 'I am called for,' he said. 'Take him to the parlour and stay with him. Do not allow him to play any tricks.' The psyker nodded. The Astartes went over to the wooden gate, unbolted it, and stepped out into the sunlight. Just before the gate closed, Grammaticus saw that the intercoiled green reptiles painted on the wood were dragons, each one with three serpentine heads. Hydras. 'This way,' said the psyker to Grammaticus. HE FOLLOWED THE psyker through the rooms of the house, rambling chambers and hallways that followed no more logical a scheme than the streets of Mon Lo. All the rooms were dark and shuttered, and dust sheets covered the few pieces of furniture. This was a place of convenience, Grammaticus decided, a safe house. He had been meant to open that painted gate all along. The psyker led the way with a single fluttering candle. 'You contrived to bring me here?' Grammaticus asked. 'You baffled my mind and got me lost, so I could be directed to this house?' 'Not on my own,' the hooded man replied. 'You are a powerful being. We've been aware of you, these last few weeks, operating here, shadowing us, watching us. We thought it was time to ask why.' 'You're not Astartes.' The man turned and looked back at him but, despite the candlelight, Grammaticus could still not resolve his face. 'The Alpha Legion uses any and all instruments to get its work done. I am honoured to serve them.' The psyker took Grammaticus into a dark sitting room where several low couches and upholstered stools had been brought into use, their dust sheets folded and put away. A golden ewer of Nurthene wine, some small silver-dished mazers, and an earthenware bowl of preserved fruit stood on an inlaid table. The psyker nodded slightly and the many candles arranged around the room's surfaces spontaneously lit. The sudden light made a couple of little house lizards skitter into the shadows. 'I do hate lumen and glow-globe light,' the psyker said. 'It kills the darkness. Candles illuminate it.' 'And darkness is just another instrument of the Alpha Legion?' asked Grammaticus. Though he could not see the man's face, Grammaticus understood that the psyker was smiling. 'You really have been watching us carefully, haven't you?' the psyker said. 'It's my job,' Grammaticus replied. 'Help yourself to wine, to a bite of food,' the psyker offered, sitting down on a couch and putting the candle he was carrying down on a low table. Grammaticus poured some wine into one of the silver drinking bowls. He needed something to wash his mouth with, but would have preferred water. As he sipped from the mazer, he focused his limbic system to negate the effects of the alcohol. He took a seat opposite the psyker. 'You're called Shere, right?' 'Yes.' 'You're a gifted pyrokine. It's a technique that never manifested in me.' Shere shrugged. 'You get what you get, John. I'm far more impressed by your particular talent. Logokinetic skill. That's rare.' 'You can read that in me?' 'Of course,' said Shere, 'but I can't understand it. Is it any language, or just specific groups?' 'I've never encountered a tongue I couldn't master.' 'Including xenos?' Grammaticus smiled. 'They're not so hard. It depends on the organ they use for speech. I can understand some, but am unable to respond in kind because I lack the necessary biology to manufacture reciprocal sounds. And some are just abstruse. The eldar have a particular verb form that always trips me up.' 'And you can tell where a person is from, just by their speech?' Shere asked, deftly switching from Low Gothic to Sinhala. 'Nice try,' said Grammaticus in fluent Sinhala, 'but your palatal voicing gives you away. You are speaking Sinhala well, but I read Farsi vowels underneath, and something else. You are Uzbek or Azerbaijani.' 'Uzbek.' 'And the something else, the long diphthongs, that's a trace of Mars, isn't it?' 'I spent eight years growing up in the habitats of Ipluvian Maximal. You're very good. I presume, as a result, you are very good at reading the truth?' Grammaticus nodded. 'I am. It is particularly hard to lie to me, a fact which I hope you'll mention to your masters when you report this conversation back to them. I excel at recognising truth, so I am not unwittingly conveying someone else's lies to the ears of the Alpha Legion.' Shere chuckled. 'You may recognise the truth, John. We have no guarantee you are transmitting it.' 'That's a decent point, I suppose,' Grammaticus replied, taking another sip from the mazer cradled in his fingers. 'How did you invite them?' Shere asked. 'They'll want

lie to me, a fact which I hope you'll mention to your masters when you report this conversation back to them. I excel at recognising truth, so I am not unwittingly conveying someone else's lies to the ears of the Alpha Legion.' Shere chuckled. 'You may recognise the truth, John. We have no guarantee you are transmitting it.' 'That's a decent point, I suppose,' Grammaticus replied, taking another sip from the mazer cradled in his fingers. 'How did you invite them?' Shere asked. 'They'll want to know.' 'It's taken about a decade,' said Grammaticus. 'Agents like me have been planting seeds and suggestions for a while now. Using Imperial codes and cyphers, we've logged reports and bulletins into the Crusade's data-architecture, certain things that we thought would tantalise the Alpha Legion. We diverted a few orders, reversed a few command communiques. Little by little, we made sure that when the time came for the 670th Expedition to request assistance in prosecuting the Nurthene campaign, it would be the Alpha Legion that responded to Lord Commander Namatjira's plea.' 'Great Terra,' Shere breathed, 'that's astonishing. The level of influence, of access... the strategy, the patience. Incredible! Such subtle manipulation!' 'That's the Cabal's way, Shere,' Grammaticus replied, 'strategy, subtle influence, the long view. They're very good at it. They've always been very good at it.' 'They could have simply asked.' Grammaticus laughed. It hurt his bruised throat. 'That's not their way! Besides, would the Alpha Legion have said yes?' 'Not in a thousand years,' Shere agreed. 'Look, I'd be careful how I explained that to them, if I were you. The Alpha Legion prides itself on knowing everything. They prize knowledge above all things, and hate the idea of anyone knowing more than they do. That's how they win their battles. In fact, the only thing they hate more is the idea that they're being manipulated.' 'So noted, thank you. I had already foreseen that as a stumbling block.' Grammaticus put the empty mazer down on the tray by the ewer. 'You're no slouches when it comes to manipulation, though. You got me, today. From the moment I entered Mon Lo, you were misleading me, clouding my mind, pulling me to where you wanted me to be.' 'Well, not quite,' said Shere. 'Don't be so modest, you admitted it to me just now.' Shere looked up at Grammaticus in the candlelight. His lack of a coherent face was hard to look at, but Grammaticus could read alarm. 'John, I'm not being modest. Yes, we led you here, but only once we had located and identified you. That was just before you entered the temple square, on Red Monitor Street. Before that, we weren't aware of you at all.' 'No,' said Grammaticus, 'it was before that. I-' Shere got up. 'John, are you telling me that you were being influenced from the moment you entered the city today?' 'I-' 'This is important, John! Was something on to you right from your point of entry?' Grammaticus swallowed. His guts suddenly felt as if they were full of ice. 'Yes,' he said. 'Damn,' Shere murmured. 'That wasn't us. That wasn't us. They made you.' 'Shere, I-' 'Be quiet, please. We may have just been seriously compromised.' Shere walked over to the parlour door and bent his head, talking urgently into a vox microbead. Grammaticus waited, his head spinning slightly. An awful creep of realisation was coming over him. The Cabal and the Alpha Legion had not been the only forces playing games that morning. Shere looked over at Grammaticus, his conversation over. 'We're moving,' he said. 'We're getting out of here.' 'What's going on?' 'It's as bad as I feared. The city's gone quiet. The Nurthene identified you and used you as a lure to draw us out.' 'I'm so sorry,' Grammaticus said. 'Your apology hardly counts for anything. Come on.' Footsteps were thumping up the hallway outside. The door opened and three men came in. Two were standard humans, dressed in mail sleeves and head shawls, carrying crude pattern lascarbines. The third, attired identically to the other two, was a gene-big beast lugging a bolter. 'We're quitting the house,' the gene-giant told Shere. 'Is this the wretch who blew our operation?' Without waiting for confirmation, the gene-giant turned and advanced towards Grammaticus. 'Leave him, Herzog! Please, sir!' Shere called out. 'He's valuable. Pech told me to watch him and keep him safe.' 'Shame the rodent couldn't do the same for us,' the gene-giant growled. 'All right, let's head out. Double time.' They flanked Grammaticus and hurried him down the hall. Scared as he was, Grammaticus sorted the data that had just come his way. The gene-giant was called Herzog, apparently. Grammaticus could smell the whiff of Astartes about him. The other two, the mail-sleeved standard humans, suggested to Grammaticus that the Alpha Legion used all sorts of non-Astartes operatives to accomplish their missions, not just specialists like the psyker Shere. What had Shere said? The Alpha Legion uses any and all instruments to get its work done. Grammaticus risked a quick surface read of the men's minds, and saw they were soldiers of the Imperial Army, though there was something definitely non-standard about the biological samples he was getting. He dared not risk a deeper probe. And that other thing Shere had said: Pech told me to watch him and keep him safe. He could only have meant the armoured giant, but the giant had identified himself as Alpharius. Was that another lie? How did the names connect? They reached the ground floor of the house. Herzog raised a hand to activate his link. The shutters opened. They banged aside, one by one, opening each window in turn, spilling hot, hard daylight into the closed house. Grammaticus flinched at each opening, feeling the residual pulse of the telekinetic power responsible. A trio of minute green house lizards danced in over an open sill. 'Damn,' Herzog murmured. More lizards skittered in, running like water over the sills, some falling onto the floor with little plips. Inside five seconds, they were pouring in like a flood, thousands of them, rushing over the window ledges and under the doors, flowing as if dumped out of handcarts. 'Back up! Upstairs!' Herzog ordered. They thumped back up the staircase. The tide of lizards behind them quickly covered the tiled floor of the hall and began to pour, like green water disobeying gravity, up the stairs. Grammaticus could feel a malevolence in the air, a pervading touch of cloying heat and rage, the trademark of an angry, potent psyker. 'We're in trouble,' he whispered. The others ignored him, except for Shere, who glanced in his direction. For a brief second, Grammaticus saw Shere's face, the face of a startled young man with fine features. Shere was so unnerved he was letting his psyk-hood slip. Rivers of pattering lizards were pouring in through the upper windows too. The shutters on the first floor had been yanked open. Tiny, sinuous green shapes rippled across sheet-wrapped furniture and spilled along the tiled flooring. 'Oh hell's teeth,' one of the mail-sleeved operatives gasped. 'Second floor!' Herzog ordered. 'Make for the bridge!' Herzog's mind was unguarded by distraction. Grammaticus skimmed its surface and saw that the bridge was a brick walkway linking the house to its neighbour. He started to run. They all started to run. Behind them, the swarming lizards filled the hallways, making no sound except for the plick-plack of their billion sticky feet. The running men, led by the Astartes, reached the second floor. The torrent of lizards was running up the walls, coating the ceiling with a carpet of scurrying bodies. 'Arkus! Delay them!' Herzog yelled out. 'Why me?' one of the mail-sleeved operatives wailed. 'Just do it. Broad burn!' The operative turned, adjusting his lascarbine to the widest emission setting. He started to fire, blasting unfocused washes of energy back down the stairs, singeing and crisping the wriggling mat of advancing lizards. Tiny, smouldering bodies dropped off the ceiling and walls. The hand-painted wallpaper crisped. Arkus kept firing, cooking thousands of squirming shapes, adjusting his aim rapidly to check each front of the swarming plague in turn. It wasn't enough. It was never going to be enough. They reached him, and he screamed and jiggled as they rushed up his legs and his body, covering him. He started to flail wildly, enveloped by tiny, biting, snapping green shapes. He lost his footing and fell, crashing down the staircase into the main body of the green torrent. In seconds, his form was lost from view, submerged in the writhing flow. Ignoring the grim demise of his operative, Herzog ran down the hallway, his moving weight creaking the old floorboards. He reached a door, and halted, preparing to kick it in. Before he could, the door splintered in towards him, throwing him backwards. A snout, two metres long, shoved its way through the shattered opening. Shere yelped. The crocodilian was a massive thing, the sort of creature that simply had no business existing on the second floor of a domestic house. It rammed its way forwards, its colossal skull swinging left and right as it came on. Its huge, scuted body and immense tail trailed back across the bridge into the neighbouring building. The house shook under its gigantic mass as it moved. Herzog tried to drag himself back out of its path. Shere retreated, slipping over on the scurrying house lizards that were darting underfoot. Grammaticus grabbed him and hauled him to his feet, smacking the wriggling, biting things off Shere's robe with his bare hands. The remaining operative fired twice at the advancing monster. The crocodilian lunged forwards, extending its white-scaled neck, and took the operative like a grazer at a waterhole, snatching him up in a huge V of jaws. The man tore open, screeching, as the jaws shook him apart like a straw doll. Herzog, on his back, fired

ng house lizards that were darting underfoot. Grammaticus grabbed him and hauled him to his feet, smacking the wriggling, biting things off Shere's robe with his bare hands. The remaining operative fired twice at the advancing monster. The crocodilian lunged forwards, extending its white-scaled neck, and took the operative like a grazer at a waterhole, snatching him up in a huge V of jaws. The man tore open, screeching, as the jaws shook him apart like a straw doll. Herzog, on his back, fired his boltgun, and blew out one of the crocodilian's eyes. It thrashed in pain, slamming its vast body to and fro into the walls of the bridge and the corridor, shattering plaster and shaking the building. The mangled corpse of the operative tumbled out of its jaws and it snapped forwards, seizing Herzog by the leg. Mail rings cracked and pinged away as the gigantic teeth bit down. Herzog roared. Grammaticus had never heard an Astartes cry in pain before. He decided he never wanted to hear the sound again. He pushed Shere aside against the moving wall of lizards and adjusted his ring. It was an Old Kind digital weapon, a gift from Gahet. He triggered it. An incandescent blue beam lanced out from it and exploded the crocodilian's braincase in a wet blast of meat, bone and tissue. 'Come on!' Grammaticus yelled. Herzog pulled his leg free of the ruptured jaws, and got to his feet. Limping, he led Grammaticus and Shere across the bridge. They had to clamber over the apparently endless bulk of the dead crocodilian. It was still twitching. They reached the stairs of the neighbouring house and headed down. Herzog's leg was badly lacerated from the bite, and he was faltering. Behind them, they could hear the advancing patter of the lizard tide. The first few green shapes were appearing above them, scurrying out across the ceiling, some falling like drops of water down the stairwell around them. 'Where did you get that?' Herzog yelled at Grammaticus. 'What?' 'That weapon!' 'Does it matter?' 'You could have used it on us earlier,' Shere said, scrambling down the stairs beside Grammaticus. 'The fact that I didn't might persuade you that I'm serious,' Grammaticus replied. They snatched open the main street door of the house, and came out into bright sunlight, and into the middle of a gun battle. Two Astartes warriors in purple power armour - one of them, Grammaticus was certain, the giant who had questioned him earlier - were exchanging shots along the dusty, sunlit street with gangs of nurthadtre ground troops. Crowds of braying Nurthene civilians were urging the nurthadtre on, hurling cobbles and other missiles. Half a dozen mail-sleeved operatives, anonymous in their desert shawls, were supporting the outnumbered Astartes. Las-rounds and ballistic loads streaked up and down the narrow thoroughfare. 'Pech?' Herzog called out. The armoured giant glanced around. So, not Alpharius then, Grammaticus thought, unless 'Pech' was some nickname or surname unknown to the Cabal. 'Get out, Thias!' the giant yelled. 'We'll hold them here and rendezvous as soon as we can!' 'For the Emperor, Pech!' Herzog shouted, pausing to add his bolter fire to the fight for a moment. 'Let's go!' he declared, turning to face Shere and Grammaticus. They began to run again, covering the sun-heated cobbles, the sounds of the firefight behind them echoing along the overhanging walls. 'Where to?' Grammaticus found the courage to ask. 'To wherever is safe,' Herzog replied. He was still limping badly. 'I don't think there's anywhere safe for us in this town,' Shere grunted. 'No, neither do I,' agreed Herzog, 'thanks to him.' He glared at Grammaticus. 'This was not my doing,' Grammaticus insisted as he ran. He checked his stride suddenly, flinching as he sensed the stomach-churning ripple of psyker activity again. Shere had felt it too. 'What-' he began. The street ahead of them split as if torn open by a fierce earthquake. The road surface burst upwards, and cobblestones flew like hail. A vast monitor hauled itself up out of the ground in front of them, pulling its bulk free of the cloven street and the earth beneath. Cobblestones, hardcore and soil spilled out around it as it emerged. Its skull alone was the size of a lifepod. Its tongue, long, dry and forked, flickered in and out of its extravagantly massive maw. The tongue was as pink as Nurthene silk. The monitor was covered in cherry-red scales. They could smell the carrion stink of its jaws, feel the tremor of its advancing steps. 'Here be dragons,' Grammaticus whispered. 'What?' Shere yelled. Here be dragons. It was no longer a quaintly phrased notation of warning, no longer the shorthand motto of man's ignorance of the darker places of his universe. Dragons were real, not ambiguous scrawls on fading maps. Grammaticus could see into it, past the giganticised body it wore, past the scale and flesh and muscle of the varanidae-genus form it had chosen, or been instructed, to take. He could see the absolute fury of its daemon heart. Herzog began to fire, slamming bolt after bolt into the red monster's head. Blood splattered from the snout, and two or three teeth were blown out of their sockets. The dragon lunged. Shere screamed and lashed out with his pyrokinetic talent, and flames swirled along the reptile's back and flanks in wild, flaring streams. The immense beast began to thrash as its scales scorched. Flames travelled down its length, engulfing it in a molten inferno too bright to look at. Its whipping, burning body and tail convulsed furiously and smashed into the surrounding buildings, bringing down their facades in thunderous torrents of brick and dry mortar. Dust rose in solid, gagging walls. Grammaticus lost sight of Herzog and Shere. He began to run. Behind him, the death throes of the burning dragon sounded as though they were demolishing the entire city. Grammaticus kept running. He didn't look back. FIVE Mon Lo Harbour, three days later 'WHY IS THE city screaming?' asked Namatjira. No one had an answer for him, nor had they an answer to his next question, which was, 'Why is this offensive turning into a total farce? Anybody? Anybody?' They shifted uncomfortably, the high officers of the Imperial Army regiments at the Mon Lo front. Namatjira had summoned them to attend him in the largest meeting hall of the terracotta palace, and they were wary of his displeasure. Lord Commander Namatjira had a famously choleric temper. He also had one of the finest martial records of any Army commander in the Great Crusade: one hundred and three successful campaigns of compliance, the last twenty-four of which had been achieved as commander of the 670th Expedition Fleet. Nurth was to have been the expedition's twenty-fifth, making it officially Six-Seventy Twenty-Five, or the twenty-fifth world brought to terms by the 670th Fleet. That achievement now looked to be in serious jeopardy. Namatjira was a tall, dismayingly handsome man, with heroic features like the noblest classical statue, and skin so black it possessed a smoky sheen. He wore a frock coat of chrome plate armour over a deepwater blue uniform, and black riding boots with ornate chrome spurs. A floor-length cloak of painted silk hung off one of his shoulders, and a soldier standing to his left carried his fur shako with the reverence ordinarily accorded to a holy relic. The soldier was a veteran of the feared Lucifer Blacks, so-called because of their coal-dust velvet coats and jet body plate. The Lucifers, an Ischian-raised elite brigade as old and celebrated as the Byzant Janizars or the Sidthu Barat, were all but extinct. Most of their strength had been depleted in the last years of the Unification Wars and, lacking the structural resilience of the Geno Chiliad, they had never rebuilt. During the Crusade, they had served a ceremonial role, providing companion retinues for distinguished commanders like Namatjira. Five other Lucifers stood behind the Lord Commander, their hands on the pommels of their sabres. One carried a standard from which dangled the many laurels and sun disks, all stamped out of sheet gold, that enumerated Namatjira's triumphs. Another held the golden lead of the Lord Commander's pet thylacene, a regal, lithe beast with a dappled and striped mahogany pelt. 'Anybody?' Namatjira asked. There were almost a hundred high officers and uxors in the chamber, the senior unit commanders of the serried forces deployed at Mon Lo, some three-quarters of a million men. The two dozen uxors represented the Geno Five-Two, and stood solemnly amongst various dress-uniformed officers of the Zanzibari Hort, the Crescent-Sind Sixth Torrent, the Regnault Thorns, the Outremars, and a clutch of support and auxiliary detachments. No one seemed especially willing to risk framing a response. Towards the rear of the gathering, Honen Mu watched the Lord Commander carefully. She had only arrived in Mon Lo the day before, bringing with her the geno forces freed up by the conclusion of the Tel Utan offensive. She'd arrived in time to see the dispiriting disaster Mon Lo was turning into, and was therefore thankful that Namatjira could not direct his wrath at her. What was happening at Mon Lo had not occurred on her watch. She pitied Nitin Dev. A major general in the Zanzibari Hort, and a damn fine warrior in Mu's experience, Dev held overall field command of the Mon Lo theatre. Namatjira looked directly at Dev. 'Major general?' he asked. 'Anything to say?' There was a pause. Lord Commander Teng Namatjira seldom toured a fighting zone in person, except to join the victory celebrations at the end of a compliance war. He preferred to orchestrate his campaigns from orbit. For him to make the drop to the surface, to risk exposure by visiting the sharp end of things, was a very big, very telling detail. 'No, my lord,' said Dev. 'I haven't.' 'Really?' 'Yes, my lord. I cannot add anything to what you already know.' Honen

he asked. 'Anything to say?' There was a pause. Lord Commander Teng Namatjira seldom toured a fighting zone in person, except to join the victory celebrations at the end of a compliance war. He preferred to orchestrate his campaigns from orbit. For him to make the drop to the surface, to risk exposure by visiting the sharp end of things, was a very big, very telling detail. 'No, my lord,' said Dev. 'I haven't.' 'Really?' 'Yes, my lord. I cannot add anything to what you already know.' Honen Mu narrowed her eyes in admiration. The major general had balls of steel. Many times, she'd seen officers whine and dissemble and make excuses when brought to task by their superiors. Dev was making no attempt to wriggle out of this. He was taking it face on. Namatjira gazed at the major general. Dev stood stiff and straight-backed, his eyes as glossy and black as the tight folds of the durband that secured his spiked helm to his head. Without expression, Dev half-drew his sabre with his right hand, his left hand clutching the top of the scabbard, and waited. Dev was showing he was prepared, at a simple nod from the Lord Commander, to snap his sword blade against the braced scabbard, to symbolise his disgrace and discharge, forfeiting forever his rank and rights. It was a brave offer. 'Perhaps later, Major General Dev,' Namatjira said, mildly. Dev resheathed his sword. The Lord Commander stepped forwards and the gathered officers parted to let him through. He strode down the chamber through the midst of them, heading towards the windows at the far end. His Lucifers followed him. The thylacene padded with them, lean as a coursing hound, its tongue lolling from its long, rapacious jaws. 'Eight months,' Namatjira said as he walked, 'eight months we've had to slog at this world, and still the sorcerous bastards confound us. I thought we'd finally broken the deadlock when Tel Utan fell. I thought we were about to prise victory from their dead hands at last. But now this, this nonsense. It's as if we've taken a backwards step. No, a dozen backwards steps. It feels like this bloody war is only just getting started and, Terra knows, it's cost us enough already. It's cost us blood, it's cost us men, it's cost us time. They're barbarians! This should have been over and done inside two weeks!' He stopped in his tracks halfway down the chamber. The Lucifers halted smartly and stood with him, eyes front. The thylacene pulled up sharp on the golden lead and sat. Namatjira turned slowly, running his gaze across the gathered commanders on either side of him. 'It has been my recent privilege,' he said solemnly, 'to have shared communication with the First Primarch. Do any of you know where Lord Horus is, just now?' No one answered. 'I'll tell you,' said Namatjira. 'Great Lupercal is fighting on a rock called Ullanor. He stands at the Emperor's side, at our most glorious Emperor's side, and together, for the benefit of our future, they are making war upon the greenskins. The bestial monsters have gathered in unprecedented numbers, and the Emperor has met their attack head on. Can you imagine that? Ullanor may prove to be the single most important combat in the history of our new Imperium. We may, in time, regard Ullanor as the defining victory of the Crusade, the moment mankind confirmed his mastery of the void, the moment our xenos adversaries turned tail and fled forever.' Namatjira hesitated before continuing. He was still turning slowly, watching them all, his eyes shining with passion. 'And in the thick of it, the First Primarch finds enough time to contact the Crusade commanders, to check on their progress and encourage their efforts. What do I tell him? What? Do I tell him, Good luck with the greenskin horde, we're having a terrible problem with a bunch of subhuman peasants?' He let the words hang. He raised his hand and gestured towards the ceiling with outstretched fingers. 'Out there, immortal combats are being waged in the name of humanity. The stars are quaking with the Emperor's might. Yet this is the best we can do?' He started walking again, and reached the window. The chamber was high up in the palace, and afforded a good view out towards the city of Mon Lo. The officers and uxors gathered in behind him. There was no doubt, even from that distance, that the city was screaming. ACCORDING TO HONEN Mu's sources, the port city had started its eerie screaming during the early morning, three days previously. Within half an hour, the besieging forces had realised something momentous was afoot. Dark clouds, like the stain of vapour from a slumbering volcano, had spread above Mon Lo, and a wind had picked up. Oddly, despite the wind, the cloud cover in the broad sky above had slowed down, as if the planet had become retrograde on its spin. All of the astrotelepathic resources of the fleet had gone blind, or suffered sudden trauma shock. Word was, a powerful psychic force had been born in Mon Lo, the last bastion of the Nurthene. The city had begun to emit a howling scream, a scream audible to both the regular soldiery camped outside, and the minds of the fleet's wounded sensitives. The screaming, both acoustic and psychic, sounded like the anguish of the damned. The uxors and their aides had suffered particular discomfort, but everyone had been affected. Vox links had been impaired, and many Army units had been rendered nervous and undisciplined. Assuming that some calamity had stricken the city, Major General Dev had ordered an immediate attack to take advantage of the situation. The attack had stalled when significant portions of the besieging force had simply refused to advance. Other stories had surfaced: plagues of lizards and frogs had been seen around the city's sewer outfalls, and petals of sloughed snakeskin had blown into the Imperial lines on the wind. Forward observers claimed to have seen giant things, great saurian shapes, moving around in the dust storms that had whipped up outside the city walls. Orbital scans revealed that the basin of Mon Lo harbour had turned pink overnight, perhaps due to algae infection, and that the pink stain was spreading out of the harbour area into the open sea. Still, through it all, the plangent screaming had continued. QUITTING THE MAIN chamber, Namatjira retired to his private quarters. He left one of his Lucifer Blacks to announce a list of the persons he wished to meet with personally. 'Attend! Major General Nitin Dev,' the Lucifer called out in his thick, Ischian accent, 'Colonel Sinhal Manesh, Colonel Iday Pria, Princeps Amon Jeveth, Uxor Rukhsana Saiid, Uxor Honen Mu.' Honen Mu froze. What? 'DO YOU KNOW what this is about?' Honen Mu asked Rukhsana as they walked briskly along the hall to the Lord Commander's quarters. They didn't know one another especially well, having served in different theatres during their careers. Honen was much younger and much shorter than the long-limbed Rukhsana. She was also much stronger, perceptively, and rather despised Rukhsana, though she didn't mean to. The older uxor was in the last days of her command, and her 'cept powers were eroded. To Honen Mu, Rukhsana embodied the inevitable frailty that awaited all uxors. 'I have no idea, Mu,' Rukhsana replied. 'This is a mess, though, isn't it?' Honen Mu replied, scampering her little feet to keep pace with Rukhsana. 'Oh, quite a mess indeed. I understand you had some success, though. Tel Utan?' Honen Mu shrugged. 'I was lucky.' 'Define luck, sister.' Honen Mu glanced up at Rukhsana. Rukhsana's strong features were almost entirely veiled by her long, blonde hair. 'That is, I'm afraid, confidential,' Honen replied. They had left their respective bands of aides waiting in distant anterooms. At the end of the corridor, a stern Lucifer opened a door and let them into the Lord General's suite. Namatjira sat on a low couch, with data-slates and furls of reports scattered around him. The thylacene lay at his feet, and he scrunched at its scalp and neck with his fingers, making it tilt its head back and purr. Major General Dev lurked in the background like a reprimanded schoolboy. Lucifer Blacks flanked the room. Princeps Amon Jeveth was leaving as the uxors arrived, heading back to his Titan legio with a fierce scowl on his face. Colonels Manesh and Pria were standing to attention as they weathered Namatjira's abuse. 'Not good enough,' Namatjira was saying. 'Not good enough, sirs. Your forces baulked and refused to obey a direct order. I want to see some damn discipline!' 'Yes, sir,' they mumbled. 'Proper damn discipline! You hear me? You hear me? I aim to bring this compliance to a swift and brutal end, and when that end comes, I want your men in at the kill, no questions. I tell you to advance, you advance! Do not fail me the way you did Dev.' 'Yes, sir.' 'Get out of my sight.' The officers hurried away. The thylacene opened its huge jaws and yawned languidly. Namatjira studied a data-slate one of the Lucifers handed to him, and then looked up. 'Uxors,' he smiled. 'Come close.' They came forwards, side by side. 'First of all,' he said, 'I want to build the full picture here. Rukhsana, I'm told you were responsible for reconnaissance and scouting at Mon Lo?' 'That was my role, sir.' 'You had agents in the field?' 'I did, Lord Commander,' Rukhsana said. 'Most of them were long-range observers and spotters.' Namatjira consulted the data-slate. 'But you had at least one intelligence officer inside Mon Lo the morning this hubbub began?' He waved his hand distractedly in the direction of the window. Rukhsana pursed her lips and looked down. 'Yes, sir, I did. Konig Heniker.' 'Heniker? Yes, I know him. He's a reliable man. What happened to him?' 'He had entered the city covertly once already, sir, and briefed me afterwards. His intelligence was of good quality. He inserted that morning, very early, intending to collect data on the Kurnaul and north wall areas. He never c

nce officer inside Mon Lo the morning this hubbub began?' He waved his hand distractedly in the direction of the window. Rukhsana pursed her lips and looked down. 'Yes, sir, I did. Konig Heniker.' 'Heniker? Yes, I know him. He's a reliable man. What happened to him?' 'He had entered the city covertly once already, sir, and briefed me afterwards. His intelligence was of good quality. He inserted that morning, very early, intending to collect data on the Kurnaul and north wall areas. He never came back.' 'Ah, I see,' the Lord Commander sighed. 'Thank you, Uxor Rukhsana.' Honen Mu stiffened. The 'cept link between uxors was never that strong, especially between a fading veteran and a blossoming youngster, but Honen Mu could feel it all the same, a cloying dampness in the mind. Rukhsana was lying or, if not lying, shielding some truth. She looked at Rukhsana. The other woman did not meet her eyes. She turned to go. 'You might as well stay, Uxor Rukhsana,' Namatjira told her. 'You'll hear of this soon enough.' He looked at Honen Mu. 'Uxor Honen. My compliments. You, of course, know something these others do not. Tell them, because it's about to become common knowledge.' Honen Mu cleared her throat. 'Tel Utan was taken thanks to the secret contrivance of the Astartes Alpha Legion,' she said. Major General Dev's mouth dropped open. Rukhsana blinked. 'That's right, the Astartes have sent forces to assist us,' Namatjira said. 'Not before time. Lord Alpharius has committed units to help us break this struggle. We will meet with him tomorrow, openly.' Namatjira rose to his feet and looked at them. 'In his messages to me, the Lord Alpharius has confided that the First Primarch personally urged the Alpha Legion to assist with this compliance. Furthermore, he has recognised that there is something about Nurth that defies conventional attack, and claims to possess special techniques that will remediate the Nurthene's ghastly wizardry. Those techniques seemed to work at Tel Utan, as Uxor Honen will testify. Let's hope they work here too.' Namatjira looked around at Major General Dev. 'So it's all right, Dev,' he smirked, 'the Astartes are coming to rescue your reputation.' 'I'll take care of my own reputation, thank you, sir,' Dev replied. 'Good man, well spoken. Mu? You're the only one of us who has dealt with the Legion face to face. What do you make of them?' 'I have found them to be highly effective, sir,' Honen replied. 'They are Astartes, after all.' Namatjira nodded, but seemed unconvinced. 'I cannot help wishing,' he remarked, 'that it was a different Legion coming to our side. One of the first, the old breed. Lord Alpharius and his warriors are comparative newcomers, with only a few decades' experience. I know, I know, they're Astartes, and our beloved Emperor does not found a Legion without full confidence in its abilities, but still...' 'What is it that troubles you particularly, sir?' Honen asked. Namatjira frowned. 'They're not like the other Legions. They don't fight like the other Legions. They practise war in the most insidious way. Guilliman has said to me, on more than one occasion, that he finds their methods underhand and discreditable. They are sly and devious, and unnecessarily opaque.' 'Perhaps,' Dev ventured, 'that is why Lord Horus thought them ideally suited to this devilish war?' Namatjira nodded. 'Perhaps. All I know is, they were already operating here, undisclosed, before I knew anything about it. Name me one Lord Commander who would be pleased to discover other men fighting his wars for him, without invitation, consultation, or consent?' 'It certainly lacks respect,' replied Dev, 'for them to have got involved without your knowledge, sir.' 'Respect be damned!' said Namatjira. 'What about strategy? How can I properly orchestrate a war if I don't know what a part of my force is up to? The potential for contradiction and misunderstanding is unacceptable. It amounts to manipulation, and that's the Alpha Legion's trademark. I do not appreciate being played.' He sat back down and stared thoughtfully at his pet. 'It makes me wonder about this present fiasco. I do hope it's not significant that the moment the Alpha Legion embroils itself in my affairs, things go to hell in a land speeder.' THERE WERE PREPARATIONS to be made. The Lord Commander dismissed them, and Major General Dev left the room with the two uxors. 'Dinas?' Namatjira called when the door had closed behind them. One of the Lucifer Blacks moved quickly to his side. The Blacks did not walk, they padded, as silently and fluidly as cats. As if recognising an alpha male, the thylacene got up and moved out of the man's way. 'Uxor Rukhsana?' the Black asked. Namatjira grinned. 'You noticed it too?' Dinas Chayne looked identical to the other Lucifer Blacks in the room. The brigade made no great show of rank or duty markings. Only an expert in Late Strife Era regimental ephemera would have recognised the trio of embossings on his left shoulder plate that identified him as a bajolur-captain. 'It was obvious in her body language, sir,' Chayne said. 'The set of her head, the position of her feet.' 'Hiding something?' 'Undoubtedly.' Namatjira nodded. 'Yes, I thought that. Place her under scrutiny. These are depressing times, Dinas, when we have to watch our own shadows.' 'There are shadows in our shadows, sir,' Chayne replied, citing an old Ischian proverb. 'This war has become a business of counterfeit and duplicity. We manipulate, and are in turn manipulated.' The Lord Commander shook his head sadly. 'It is the latter I seek to avoid. Place her under scrutiny.' 'UXOR?' Rukhsana stopped in her tracks and looked back. The palace hallway was busy with mustering troops and servants hurrying with platters of food. A servitor was lighting the night lamps. Honen Mu stood a few steps behind Rukhsana, staring at her. 'Was there something else, Mu?' Rukhsana asked. 'I'm sorry you lost your agent,' Mu said. 'So am I.' 'Is... is everything all right?' Honen Mu asked. 'What do you mean?' The tiny girl shrugged. 'I don't know you, uxor, but I am your friend. I sensed a tension in you back there.' Rukhsana combed her long, straight hair back behind her ears with her fingers. 'We were called to attend an angry Lord Commander, uxor. I think tension may have been inevitable.' Mu nodded. 'Are you accusing me of something?' Rukhsana asked. 'Of course not. I was simply offering my support, uxor to uxor. If support were necessary.' 'It's not. But, thank you.' They nodded to each other. 'Tomorrow, then.' 'Tomorrow.' Honen Mu stood and watched Rukhsana walk away until she was lost in the crowd. Then she turned and went to locate her waiting aides. They rose like hungry fledglings as she entered the anteroom, snapping and yabbering all at once. 'Settle!' Mu ordered. 'What's happening?' Nefferti asked. 'What did the Lord Commander say?'Jhani wanted to know. 'Settle!' she repeated, snapping with her 'cept. They fell quiet. 'Tiphaine?' Mu said. The oldest of her blonde aides looked up brightly. 'Yes, uxor?' 'Go and find Boone for me.' 'Boone? Really, uxor?' 'Just go and do it, girl,' Mu snapped. Tiphaine darted away, slamming the anteroom door behind her. The other aides began whispering and chattering to one another. I will not see the Chiliad disgraced, Mu thought to herself, I simply will not permit it. If there is canker in our ranks, I will root it out before it comes to light. The Geno Chiliad, worthy Old Hundred, will clean its own house. I will not leave it to others to purify us of contamination. 'Uxor?' Jhani called. 'What?' 'There is a hetman waiting to take audience with you. He has been waiting three hours.' 'A hetman? Which hetman?' Mu asked. 'Soneka of the Dancers,' Jhani replied. MU WALKED INTO the side room where her aides had left Soneka waiting. Rush lights flamed in the wall brackets, and myrrh had been left burning in small scoop bowls. The shutters had been lifted, so that the cold and clear night air could be admitted. Through the window, Mu could see the distant outline of Mon Lo, shimmering in the darkness. The dull echo of its screaming came in on the wind. 'Peto,' she said. He rose to his feet from a low couch. He had been cleaned up a little, but there was no disguising the fact that he was thin and unshaven. His clothes were ragged and ill-used, and he had been given a non-issue canvas jacket to wear. 'Uxor,' he nodded. She went straight over to him, and hugged him, her small embrace barely encircling his upper arms. 'Oh, I thought you were dead!' she cried into his chest. 'So did I,' he admitted. She stepped back to look at him. 'I was told Tel Khat was a massacre! A surprise attack... they said no one made it out of the Nurthene ambush.' 'Virtually no one did,' he replied. 'I got lucky. With Lon and Shah and about a dozen others, I fought my way out. It was a terrible day. We were...' he paused. 'We were almost dead, every step of the way. We fled into the hills behind the Tel, and laid low in the cave pools for a day and a night. When the place went quiet, we dared to come out. The Nurthene had gone. Everyone we found had been butchered. So we trekked across country, made it to CR668, and picked up a transport there.' Mu sat down on one of the couches and reached out with her 'cept. Nefferti came in immediately. 'Food and wine, girl, right now,' Mu ordered. Nefferti ran off to do her uxor's bidding. 'They've brought me food and wine already, Honen,' Soneka said, sitting down on the couch opposite her. 'You're starved. You need more,' she replied. 'You say Lon made it? Shah?' He nodded. 'Both of them, eight other troopers. We lost Attix, Gahz, all the other bashaws. It was a slaughter.' He wiped his good hand across his mouth. A faltering smile appeared from under it, as if by some conjuring trick. 'The Dancers have danced their last, I'm afraid, uxor.' She hung her he

r uxor's bidding. 'They've brought me food and wine already, Honen,' Soneka said, sitting down on the couch opposite her. 'You're starved. You need more,' she replied. 'You say Lon made it? Shah?' He nodded. 'Both of them, eight other troopers. We lost Attix, Gahz, all the other bashaws. It was a slaughter.' He wiped his good hand across his mouth. A faltering smile appeared from under it, as if by some conjuring trick. 'The Dancers have danced their last, I'm afraid, uxor.' She hung her head. 'At least you're alive.' 'At least that.' He drew a breath and stared at her. 'What happened about the body, Honen?' he asked quietly. 'About the what?' 'The body.' She hesitated. 'I don't know what you mean, Peto.' He frowned at her. 'Yes, you do. The thing Bronzi voxed you about from CR345.' 'Voxed? When was this?' His eyes grew narrower. 'About a week ago, the day before the massacre. Bronzi spoke to you on encrypt for several minutes.' Honen Mu returned his look cautiously. 'I swear on the Emperor's life, Peto, I have no idea what you're talking about. I took no call from Hurtado.' She looked at him as if he were slightly mad. Peto Soneka felt an odd sensation, as if the world were gently swallowing him up. The last five days had been little short of hell, but he'd weathered everything by focusing on one thought. Bronzi's words. My ace in the hole. 'Where's Bronzi?' Soneka asked. 'Look,' said Honen Mu. 'There seems to have been an unfortunate lapse in the channels of communication. Why don't you start from the beginning, Peto?' There's been no lapse, Soneka thought. We spoke to you. I heard your voice on the vox set. You were the only one who knew. And the next day Tel Khat was annihilated. Oh shit, you're part of it. The chamber door opened behind Mu. 'Uxor? You sent for me?' Mu looked around. Franco Boone stepped into the room. He ambled forwards, smiling at Mu, then blinked in surprise as he recognised Soneka. 'Dancer het? God's grace have me, I thought you were dead, man!' 'Apparently not,' Soneka said, forcing a smile onto his face. Franco Boone, the genewhip? What the hell is he doing here? Unless... he's part of it too. 'We were just talking,' Mu said. 'Peto was telling me how he'd survived the ambush.' 'I'd like to hear that myself,' Boone grinned. 'Juicy stuff, I bet. What happened, Soneka? I heard it was bloody.' He sat down on the couch beside the uxor, looking at Soneka eagerly. Boone was a powerfully built man, with a nose like an axe's blade and a small tuft of black beard on his chin. He was uterine, but his abnormally high IQ, an atavistic aspect that was occasionally generated by the Chiliad's gene pool, had qualified him for the special role of genewhip. Genewhips were the strict regulators of the Chiliad's ethos, specially empowered to maintain levels of conduct and morale, and to enforce discipline and punishment. In another age, Boone might have been called a political officer. Peto Soneka decided it was time to shut up. 'It was bloody, sir. But I've been out in the desert a long time,' he said, 'and I fear a lack of food has addled my brain, not to mention the wine the uxor's aides have been plying me with. Forgive me, I am all out of sorts. I'll tell you the story some other time.' 'Peto?' Mu said. 'What was that other matter? Something about Bronzi and a body?' Soneka shook his head. 'I'm sorry. I think I may be slightly delirious. I keep doing that. Lon'll tell you. I keep talking about dreams as if they're real. It's the fatigue. Forgive me, uxor, I need sleep.' He rose to his feet. 'I'll find a billet and dream this off. Tomorrow, you may get more sense out of me.' 'Peto? Are you sure you're all right?' she asked. 'Good rest to you, uxor,' he said, and closed the door behind him. Soneka strode away down the hall. He was perfectly wide awake. His world was unravelling from a point he didn't think it could possibly unravel from. Just for the time being, he realised, there was no one he could trust. 'WOULD YOU LIKE to explain that curious moment?' Boone asked, once Soneka had gone. Boone helped himself to a cup of wine from the tray Nefferti had just brought in. 'I'm not sure I can,' said Honen Mu. 'I think Soneka was a little too tired for his own good. He was saying something about Bronzi.' Boone smiled. 'And a body, as I heard it.' 'I know. It makes no sense. The poor man, he must be so strung out.' 'Soneka wasn't why you summoned me, then?' Boone asked, leaning back and sipping his wine. 'Not at all.' 'So why am I here, exactly?' Mu told him of her encounter with Uxor Rukhsana. 'She was clouding something with her 'cept,' Mu said. 'Something she didn't want the Lord Commander to know. If there's treachery within the Chiliad, we have to deal with it ourselves, for the sake of our regimental honour. This must not become an exterior issue.' Boone nodded. 'You don't seem surprised, Franco.' 'Someone's been playing games with us since we arrived on this damn planet,' Boone said. 'I've been aware of it, all the genewhips have. Insurgency. The enemy is trying to pick us apart from within, by means of guile and subterfuge. Subterfuge is like an iceberg. All the real weight is hidden under the surface. Let me look into it. I'll find out what Uxor Rukhsana is hiding.' RUKHSANA ENTERED HER quarters and bolted the door behind her. She went into the bedchamber and froze. John Grammaticus slowly lowered the laspistol he had been aiming at her. 'Terra's sake!' she mumbled. 'Sorry.' 'I'm going out on a limb for you here, Kon.' 'I know. You didn't tell anyone?' She made a face at him. 'No.' 'No one knows I'm here?' 'No!' He nodded and sat down on the end of the bed, the pistol across his lap. 'I'm sorry, Rukhsana,' he said. He'd been saying that a lot, ever since he'd sneaked back into her chambers two nights previously. The man she knew as Konig Heniker had been dirty and dishevelled, and clearly distracted by an experience he didn't want to discuss. He'd told her, briefly, that things had gone wrong in Mon Lo, and that he'd had to extricate himself quickly. He hadn't been willing to add much more, except to say that his cover had been compromised and he didn't know who he could trust besides her. 'I believe I've been quite patient, Kon,' she said. He looked up at her. 'You have. You certainly have.' Rukhsana shrugged. 'This feels more and more like something I shouldn't be doing. Concealing you here, denying all knowledge of you... it feels like treason.' 'I suppose it might.' Grammaticus knew that he was asking a lot of her, and he was uncomfortably aware that she was only his ally because of the intimacy they had shared. She was now risking her career. She was risking execution. He had never meant for her to become involved in his business. The bond between them had grown out of honest attraction. He had not courted her just to use her. But you're quite prepared to use her now, aren't you, he thought to himself, and despised his own weakness. Almost all of his instincts screamed at him to get out, to get off Nurth and fade into the background, to segue back through the fleet from one false identity to the next, the way he'd got in. But that would mean abandoning the mission, and he simply couldn't bring himself to do that, because he knew how vital it was. A chance remained. He was still ideally placed, despite the set-backs, to accomplish the goal. With time, the sort of time he might buy from a sympathetic uxor, he could broker the contact and put the Cabal's scheme into play. It would require sacrifices. Grammaticus wanted to make certain Rukhsana wasn't one of them. He owed her that much. Which meant he had three choices: abort and get out, use her cruelly, or bring her in on the truth. 'I can't hide you much longer, Kon,' she said. 'I know.' 'Why don't you go to the Lord Commander?' 'I can't.' 'When are you going to tell me what this is about?' Rukhsana asked. Grammaticus rose to his feet, stared at her, and carefully considered his choices. SIX Mon Lo Harbour, Nurth, the next day THE SKY WAS sapphire, the dusty earth cinnamon. Under the alien sun, the expedition's Imperial Army forces formed a corridor. To one side, the Geno Chiliad, the Zanzibari Hort; to the other, the Outremars, the Sixth Torrent, the Thorns. Ranks of armoured warriors stood ready, ninety deep, their banners and standards fluttering in the wind. Battle tanks and armoured speeders elevated their weapon mounts in salute. Horns bawled into the morning. Kettle drums clattered incessantly. Amon Jeveth's Titans formed a towering backdrop, backlit by the scalding Nurthene sun. Overhead, the slow skies turned. The wind made a reptilian hiss, and the noise of the drums almost drowned out the sounds of screaming coming from the city ten kilometres away. Namatjira was wearing gold plate armour, with a fan of ostrich feathers around his head, and a ten-metre cape of peacock eyes held out behind him by his slaves. Liquid gold had been delicately painted onto his face by his cosmeticians, and it had dried to form a tissue-thin mask. He held a silver Mughal mace in one hand, the sunlight glinting off its many jewels, and a golden ritual saintie in the other. The torso of his armour was engineered with two extra pairs of cybernetic limbs, and these spread to clutch a pair of daggers and a pair of sabres. Six arms extended, Namatjira resembled the death goddess of ancient Sind myth. The Lucifer Black companions surrounded him, swords drawn, holding stiff, ritual poses of defence. The thylacene lay at Namatjira's feet in the dust, licking its coat. A marsupial tiger from Taprobane, it was one of the many lost species back-ginered from DNA samples during the Unification Era. Namatjira's pet was called Serendip. It gazed out at the day's heat with hooded, disinterested eyes. Major General Dev stood at Namatjira's right hand in bronze battle armour, his durband crimson an

th. The Lucifer Black companions surrounded him, swords drawn, holding stiff, ritual poses of defence. The thylacene lay at Namatjira's feet in the dust, licking its coat. A marsupial tiger from Taprobane, it was one of the many lost species back-ginered from DNA samples during the Unification Era. Namatjira's pet was called Serendip. It gazed out at the day's heat with hooded, disinterested eyes. Major General Dev stood at Namatjira's right hand in bronze battle armour, his durband crimson and his spiked helm silver. Dev carried a gurz and a long-handled sword. Next to him stood Lord Wilde of the Torrent, his platinum wargear glittering with rubies and emeralds. Lord Wilde's augmetic eyes were glowing green slits in his white ceramic face mask. He personally carried the vexil-standard of the Torrent, a four-metre golden pole surmounted with a diamond-checked tail and the gilt crest of the Pontus Euxinus. Third in line was General Karsh of the Regnault Thorns, his ritual chrome armour so thwart with spikes and recurve barbs that he seemed more the embodiment of a vicious trap than a person. To Namatjira's left stood Khedive Ismail Sherard of the Outremars, a congenital dwarf dressed in graphite grey robes and a brow-circlet of titanium. His stature belied his level of influence in the Army and the hierarchies of Terra. Though the Outremars had supplied just five thousand foot soldiers to Namatjira's expedition, far fewer than the Chiliad, the Torrent or the Thorns, they were the backbone of the Imperial Army, accounting for almost seven per cent of the Army's overall numbers. Outremar troops served in almost all expeditions and martial hosts, and their khedives, all dwarfs of the same blood dynasty as Sherard, were famed for their tactical insight and discipline. The Grand Khedive, Sherard's great uncle, was one of the Emperor's foremost advisors and confidants. Khedive Sherard stood on a small grav disk, suspended half a metre above the sand. The train of his grey robe, cut with a batwing edge, was held out behind him by eunuchoid slaves, each slave pulling taut a point of the batwing so that it seemed as if Sherard was spreading great pinions to ascend into the sky. Beside him stood Sri Vedt, who held the rank of Uxor Primus of the Geno Five-Two units attached to the expedition. She was sheathed in a red burqua, and escorted by thirteen of her most senior uxors, including Honen Mu and Rukhsana Saiid. Forty burnished servitors held long poles supporting billowing white canopies above the expedition commanders, shielding them from the sun's bite. A transatmospheric craft slid down out of the blue, roared over the assembled multitude, and settled with a whine of dampers at the end of the long troop corridor. The drums stopped playing. The horns stopped braying. There was silence apart from the crack of the canopy sheets and the distant screaming of Mon Lo. A figure emerged from the craft and began to walk down the corridor towards the waiting commanders. Namatjira nodded and, as one, the vast host of men dropped to their knees. Banners, flags and standards sloped forwards in deference. The lone figure came closer, trudging down the sand of the corridor, nodding in respect to the men bowed down on either side of him. The figure wore silver-edged purple power armour. He was fully a third taller than the tallest geno warrior in the muster. There was an awed hush. It took almost eight minutes for the Astartes to walk down the entire corridor to Namatjira. In that eternity, the only things that moved were the wind-caught banners, the slow-turning clouds, and the Astartes himself. Ten metres short of Namatjira and his commanders, the Astartes stopped. Slowly and deliberately, he removed his left gauntlet and dropped it onto the hot sand. Then he unlocked his helm, drew it up over his face, and dropped that as well. His head, revealed, was noble: hairless, powerful, copper-skinned. His eyes were as bright as the sapphire sky. He drew his gladius with his right hand, and sliced its edge across the palm of his bared left hand. Tossing the short sword aside, he knelt, holding out his left hand to Namatjira. Blood dripped from the deep palm wound onto the sand. 'Respected lord,' he said, his head on his chest, 'worthy and appointed master of the Six Hundred and Seventieth Expedition, I pledge my forces and my allegiance to you, recognising you as the proxy of our beloved Emperor in this theatre. It is my honour to add the Alpha Legion's strength to your fighting force. United, may we annihilate our common foe. To this end, I offer tribute in blood.' Namatjira spread all six of his arms and allowed the Lucifers to take his weapons from him. One of them also removed the golden glove sheathing Namatjira's real left hand. Namatjira stepped forwards, his slaves releasing his long cape of peacock eyes so that it floated out behind him on the breeze. He stroked his bare left hand down one of the spikes of Karsh's armour, then held it out, dripping, to meet the proffered hand of the kneeling Astartes. Their bloody palms pressed together and gripped tightly. 'I receive your tribute,' Namatjira replied, 'and respond with my own blood. The expedition rejoices that you have joined us. Welcome. I am Namatjira and this is my pledge. For the Emperor.' The hands parted. The Astartes rose to his feet. He towered over the Lord Commander. 'I am Alpharius. For the Emperor, my lord.' 'REALLY? ARE YOU?' Grammaticus murmured to himself. Two kilometres away, he was observing the great meeting through a high-power scope from the flat roof of the terracotta palace's kitchen block. He kept low, carefully avoiding the eyesight range of the palace sentries, the jamming module attached to his belt non-invasively blocking the field sensors and the stationed gun servitors. His scope was a quality piece, an eldar long-gun sight, another gift from the Cabal. It resonated the images back into his eye, almost as though he was standing at Namatjira's shoulder. He could not hear their words from that distance, of course, but he read lips as well as any high-function logokine. I am Alpharius. For the Emperor, my lord. Grammaticus's perception was so acute and specialised that he could even lip-read accents. 'Alpharius' was speaking in common Low Gothic, with a rising spur on the middle syllables of Alpharius and Emperor that hinted at a Gedrosian or Cyrenaican basal slant. But the cursal lip motions suggested something akin to Mars hivecant, or even Odrometiccan. The Cabal had briefed him well, but the problem was that virtually nothing was known about the Last Primarch. Unlike all the other primarchs, Alpharius had never publicly identified his homeworld. Furthermore, no definitive portraits of him were extant. The Cabal had procured many images, but they were clearly contradictory. It was as if Alpharius had many heads. The face Grammaticus was watching through the powerful viewer agreed, at least, with a few of the historical portraits. There was a certain likeness in the cast of features to both Horus Lupercal and the face the Emperor wore, which made sense if the gene-legacy theory was true. Even from a distance, Grammaticus could accurately gauge height and mass. The being he was observing was substantially larger than either Herzog or Pech, the bona fide Alphas Grammaticus had encountered in Mon Lo. Maybe, maybe this was the genuine article. The thought of Mon Lo washed angst back into him, unbidden. His hands began to fidget and shake. The dragon had been in his mind, and in his dreams, ever since his escape. Of course, he wasn't afraid of it because it was a dragon or, at least, he was no more afraid of dragons than any rational human being might be. The real, deep fear that chilled his soul was knowing what the dragon represented. He dulled his mind as he felt another psychic pass. Shere was still alive, out there, scanning for him from time to time like a passing spy drone. Grammaticus curled his mind away like an armadillo every time one of Shere's probes came close. The sun beat down. In the distance, he could hear the screaming. This was no life for a thousand year-old man. Grammaticus was beginning to think he had been a fool to accept the Cabal's gift of reincarnation. He began to wish, honestly and absolutely, that his first death had been his only death. I wish you'd left me there, bleeding out on the asphalt at Anatol Hive. Why did you bring me back, and sleeve me in new flesh? Why? For this? The Cabal made no answer. They had made no approach to him at all since his return from Mon Lo. From the moment he'd stolen his way back into Uxor Rukhsana's quarters, he'd spent hours gazing into mirrors and dishes of water, waiting for Gahet, or one of the others, to contact him via fleet conduit. They had not come to him. My life has been long, he considered, but it is too short for this. He trained the scope back towards the distant meeting. SILENT IN THE hard sunlight, Dinas Chayne scaled the terracotta wall and slipped his black armoured form over the parapet onto the roof of the kitchen block. The most recent sensor sweep of the area had picked something up. Or rather, it hadn't. There are shadows in our shadows, sir. He remembered his own words. Chayne had been on his way to search Uxor Rukhsana's quarters while she was out attending the great meeting when the security post had flagged the anomaly. The sensor sweep had revealed a vague blank on the roof of the kitchen block, a dead spot that the sensors seemed unable to read or probe. The adepts manning the security post had dismissed it as an imaging artefact, but Chayne had not been so quick to judge. In his opinion, the reading suggested someone or something well-veiled, a presence announced by its very absence. Dinas Chayne was a wary man. He had been a soldier longer than he had been an adult. Born on Zous, one of Terra's myriad lost colonies, a plan

had revealed a vague blank on the roof of the kitchen block, a dead spot that the sensors seemed unable to read or probe. The adepts manning the security post had dismissed it as an imaging artefact, but Chayne had not been so quick to judge. In his opinion, the reading suggested someone or something well-veiled, a presence announced by its very absence. Dinas Chayne was a wary man. He had been a soldier longer than he had been an adult. Born on Zous, one of Terra's myriad lost colonies, a planet that had been locked in a brutal global war for almost a century, Chayne had grown up on the losing side. Its economy bankrupted by the war effort, its industry shattered by saturation bombing, its menfolk decimated, his birth-nation had begun to turn, in desperation, to its remaining assets. It conscripted its womenfolk and its children. Aged eleven, Chayne had found himself wearing the uniform of the National Youth, carrying an autorifle, and en route to a border outpost to fight. The youngest soldier in his company had been seven. The troop leader had been a boy of fourteen. They had held the outpost for twenty-six months. The troop leader had been killed after three weeks, two days shy of his fifteenth birthday. Perhaps seeing something only children could see, the troop turned to Chayne for leadership. Barely twelve years old, Chayne had taken command. By the time he turned thirteen, he had killed sixteen men in open combat, and was a hardened, emotionally extinct veteran of that hopeless conflict. Then the fleet of the Imperial expedition had arrived in close orbit. The war was crushed out in six days, and Zous itself brought to compliance in six weeks. It was one of Namatjira's earliest actions. The brutalised child soldiers were gradually rounded up during the subsequent cleansing campaign, and the fiercest of them paraded before Namatjira for his amusement. The Lord Commander had always said that there had been something in Chayne's face that had marked him out from the other pugnacious, filthy war-urchins. Dinas Chayne wasn't quite sure what that meant, but he had been placed in the ward of a Lucifer Black officer, to be raised as his surrogate son. Aged eighteen, Chayne had joined the Lucifers. Twenty years later, he served as the bajolur of Namatjira's companion bodyguard, and was one of the most decorated and respected warriors in the regiment. Namatjira had a good eye for natural born warriors. Chayne crouched low, drawing his short, curved sword of folded Toledo steel. The palace sensors were feeding directly into his visor, conjuring subtle green tactical displays in front of his eyes. There was the blank, the absence. Twenty metres left, at the rim of the roof. He coiled like a cat, and pounced. The rim of the roof was vacant. There was no one there. Nothing. No, not nothing. On the low parapet, there was a scrap of paper, held down by a small white stone. The scrap read: Better luck next time. 'HEY, WE'RE MISSING everything,' said Lon, nudging him. Soneka woke. 'What?' 'We're late. It's started. We should get out there, het. The regiments have assembled to greet the Astartes.' Soneka sat up. He was in the hospital wing of the terracotta palace, where he'd taken a cot to be with the last of his men, the last ten Dancers. The wing was sweltering hot and smelled of stale urine. 'You all right, het?' asked Shah. 'Yes, I'm fine.' 'We may not be a company any more,' said Lon, 'but I say we go out there and stand in the line like men. Like Dancers.' 'Yeah!' agreed Gin. 'You got the flag?' asked Lon. Shah nodded. He'd been carrying the Dancers' tattered standard like a bedroll since Visages. 'Good,' said Lon. 'Let's go. You coming, het?' Soneka was busy getting dressed. He was sweating. He couldn't find his socks. 'Yes, I'm coming, all right?' 'The Astartes have already landed,' said Sallom, gazing out of the chamber window. 'Hell, there's an awful lot of flag waving and how d'ye do going on out there.' 'Well, it's Astartes, isn't it?' said Shah. 'What do you expect?' Soneka reached his good hand under his stained pillow in search of his socks. His fingers struck something hard. 'Did one of you put this here?' he asked. 'Put what where?' asked Lon. Soneka held up a small, diorite head, one of the many hundreds of thousands that had given Visages its name. The last of the Dancers all shrugged. 'Must have been me, then,' Soneka decided. HE ALREADY REGRETTED the note. The note had been stupid. Cocky. Yes, cocky was the word. Gahet had forever been reproving Grammaticus for his arrogance and his over-confidence in his logokine powers. A Cabal agent should never bait the killers stalking him, especially if those killers were good at their job. Grammaticus knew enough about the Lucifer Blacks to realise they were terribly good at their job. He'd been a fool to taunt them like that. What had he been thinking? That I'm immortal and nothing can kill me? Mon Lo had shown him how spurious that assumption was. You just can't resist it, can you, John? That's all it is. You can't resist showing off? They're not that good, Grammaticus thought. Not compared to me. 'You can't come in,' the aide was insisting. 'Uxor Rukhsana is away at the Grand Welcome. Her quarters are private.' Grammaticus stepped back into the shadows of the colonnade and listened. He had been slipping his way back to the sanctuary of Rukhsana's private quarters, the only place he felt safe. The palace was quiet, with almost everyone outside for the arrival of the Alpha Legion. Coming back along the hallway, he'd heard the voices ahead. Three cowled and robed men stood at the door of Rukhsana's quarters, confronting the aide. Their leader was saying, 'You don't understand, aide. I am Tinkas, surveyor of fabric for the expedition fleet. It's my duty to systematically assess and evaluate all properties captured or commandeered by the expedition. I am in the process of surveying this palace. The work must be done, by order of the Fleet Master.' He showed the aide some kind of paperwork. Don't let them in, Tuvi, Grammaticus willed. The girl wavered. 'This really isn't a good time, sir. My uxor's privacy is-' 'I simply need a moment to scan and assess. It's quite un-invasive. A measurement or two. We're not interested in the contents of the chambers. We will be discreet.' Tuvi, they're not who they say they are. Be cautious! I've met Tinkas, and he doesn't wear a robe nor is he anywhere close to that height. You're being deceived. 'Well, I suppose,' Tuvi said. Damn it, Tuvi! Grammaticus began to move. As the hooded men shuffled into the uxor's quarters past the aide, Grammaticus headed back down the colonnade and climbed out through the last archway. He clambered up onto the roof, and crossed the tiles, running low, heading for the far side of the block. 'Give us a moment,' the surveyor of fabric told Tuvi, and she nodded, waiting outside. The door pulled shut behind her. Franco Boone pulled back his cowl. 'Two minutes,' he told his fellow genewhips. 'Two minutes before that little bitch suspects something. Quick and clean, no messing about.' The men, Roke and Pharon, spread out and began to search the apartment area. 'Boone!' one of them hissed. Boone hurried into the bedchamber. Pharon was holding up a canvas jacket, soiled and dirty. 'Since when does an uxor wear something like this?' 'Bag it and hide it under your robe,' Boone replied. 'We'll test it for gene elements.' 'Here!' the other genewhip called urgently. Boone went into the dressing room, and found Roke staring at a dresser top crowded with bowls and dishes of water. 'What the hell is this about?' Roke asked. 'Is that you, Rukhsana?' Grammaticus called, walking out of the wash room into the bedchamber, naked. He froze at the sight of Boone and his men, and grabbed at the bedspread to cover himself. 'Who are you?' Grammaticus yelped. Boone hesitated, startled. 'Uhm, surveyor of fabric, we-' 'Genewhip Boone? Is that you?' Grammaticus growled. 'Do I know you, sir?' Boone asked, quite taken aback. 'I should think so!' Grammaticus snapped. 'Kaido Pius!' 'Oh, good grief! Yes! Sorry, Hetman Pius,' Boone stumbled. 'Sorry, sorry, didn't recognise you with your clothes off.' 'What the hell are you doing in my uxor's chambers, Genewhip? Sniffing around?' 'We had a lead, a lead about a-' 'A what?' Boone paused. He smiled. 'All right, you got me, het. My hands go up. I wanted to check on Uxor Rukhsana because of information received.' 'What sort of information?' 'That she might be carrying on.' 'She is,' smiled Grammaticus. 'With me. It isn't just the aides who like to put it about, you know?' 'Shouldn't you be out at the Great Welcome, het?' Pharon ventured. 'Yes, I should,' Grammaticus grinned. 'But it's much more fun being in here. Shouldn't you be out at the Great Welcome?' The genewhip looked at his feet. 'Well, I believe we've just embarrassed each other,' Grammaticus said. 'Me being here and you... coming in here unauthorised. So what say we forget this ever happened?' Boone nodded. 'That's a splendid notion, het.' 'Is that my jacket?' Grammaticus asked. 'Toss it over here. I've been looking for that.' Pharon threw the jacket to him. 'All good?' Grammaticus asked. 'All good,' Boone nodded. 'Good. Now get the hell out of here and I'll forget you ever tried this.' 'You won't tell the uxor?' Boone asked. 'Would I?' Boone and his men left fast. Grammaticus sighed and sat down on the bed. In looks and build, he was nothing like Kaido Pius, het of the Carnivales. It was amazing what a confident, clear tone of voice could do. Such was the strength of a logokine. A logokine's voice could tell you what you were seeing in defiance of your eyes and your better judgement. But it had cost him. Exhausted, Grammaticus flopped back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. He knew a blackout was coming. He embraced it, even though he knew there woul

Grammaticus sighed and sat down on the bed. In looks and build, he was nothing like Kaido Pius, het of the Carnivales. It was amazing what a confident, clear tone of voice could do. Such was the strength of a logokine. A logokine's voice could tell you what you were seeing in defiance of your eyes and your better judgement. But it had cost him. Exhausted, Grammaticus flopped back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. He knew a blackout was coming. He embraced it, even though he knew there would be dragons in it. OUTSIDE, THE GREAT Welcome was dispersing. Namatjira, with all ceremony, was leading Alpharius and the senior commanders towards his pavilion to discuss forward planning. The vast troop marshals were spilling back towards their billets and positions. Coming out into the sunlight, Franco Boone paused. Walking back through the palace, he'd had a mind to find Uxor Mu and remonstrate with her for sending him on a fool's errand. How clumsy to have embarrassed a distinguished het like that! Now he was in the open, a mist of doubt filled his head. The encounter in the uxor's quarters took on a disquieting, dream-like gloss. He found he could barely remember the actual exchange. 'Something the matter?' asked Roke, walking at his side. 'Kaido Pius, right?' Boone asked. Roke nodded. 'Bare-assed. Takes all sorts, I suppose.' 'Rukhsana is a tempting prospect,' put in Pharon, the other genewhip. Boone nodded. There wasn't a man in the Chiliad who'd disagree with Pharon's appraisal. 'But it was Pius, wasn't it?' Roke and Pharon looked at the senior genewhip and laughed. 'Are you getting peck that's stronger than we get?' Roke chuckled. 'The question stands,' said Boone. 'Was that Kaido Pius?' 'Yes, Franco!' Pharon laughed. 'Then explain that to me, would you?' Boone asked, pointing. Through the crowds of dispersing troopers, a hundred metres away, the Chiliad company of Carnivales was breaking ranks to head for their station. Pikes and banners had lowered, the men moving in easy groups, chatting, laughing, taking pinches of peck from their golden boxes. In the midst of the huddle, joking with his bashaws, was Kaido Pius. 'PETO? PETO!' KAIDO Pius cried in delight. He pushed past his bashaws to embrace Soneka. 'Good to see you,' Soneka gasped, clenched in a serious bear hug. 'Good to see you? Good to see you, he says!' Pius cried to the bashaws. 'We thought you were dead!' Soneka smiled, and embraced each of the bashaws in turn. 'I very nearly was,' he said. 'You got out of Visages, then?' Pius asked. Soneka nodded. 'I did. Just.' 'Where have you been hiding yourself?' 'The hospital wing. I'm staying there with Lon and the others. Hey, Lon, Shah! Come over here!' Pius shook his head. 'Shameful, that's what it was. When we heard about Visages, we were shocked. My boys have drunk to the Dancers' memory several times.' 'Thanks for that, Kai,' said Soneka. 'Glory, it's good to see you.' Pius looked at Soneka. 'Come back with us to our billet. We'll drink and talk of old times.' 'Later, Kai, I'll come and find you. Where are you posted?' 'Line fifteen north, under Uxor Sanzi's 'cept.' 'I'll join you later, all right?' 'We'll look out for you, Peto!' Pius cried, already disappearing in the moving mass. Soneka was pushing on, through the shambling ranks, past the banners of the Threshers and the Arachne. He could see another banner, up ahead, above the moving tide of troopers. The Jokers. Soneka pushed his way forwards until he reached the ranks of the Jokers. He had a terrible, queasy feeling. 'Hurtado?' he whispered. Fifty metres away, through the flowing throng, Bronzi turned and looked back at him. The Jokers' het was flanked by Tche and Leng, his massive bashaws. For a moment, through the moving crowd, their eyes locked. Soneka and Bronzi. 'Hurt? You're alive! For Terra's sake! Hurt!' Bronzi frowned. Then he turned away and was lost in the tide of bodies. 'Hurt?' Soneka stood still, as the river of soldiers flowed around him. He wondered if he should follow Bronzi. He decided that was probably a very bad idea. SEVEN Mon Lo Harbour, Nurth, the evening of the day DINAS CHAYNE HAD been intent on scouring the palace for the author of the insolent, provocative note. He had not risen to its bait, or allowed himself the distraction of anger, but it had usefully focused his mind. Chayne held a frightening grip over his emotions, a skill he'd mastered between the ages of twelve and thirteen. He did not allow emotions to rule his behaviour, ever. Instead, he channelled them as fuel for his actions. He returned to the security post to review all the feeds from the palace's sensor lattice, but one of the adepts had brought him a coded message from the Lord Commander, summoning him with immediate effect. The Lord Commander was holding his first meeting with the Master of the Alpha Legion in his pavilion, and wanted the Lucifer Black bajolur to witness and observe the proceedings. 'Have this run through full gene and biometric testing,' he told the adept, handing him the note. 'Report to me, directly on my link. Misplace this evidence, and I'll have you shot.' The adept hurried off to do Chayne's bidding, a sick and anxious expression on his face. Chayne made his way to the pavilion. A vast edifice of void-shielded silk marquees, it had been erected on a low tel south of the palace precinct. The first streaks of evening were discolouring the sky, and the shadows had gone soft and long, as if they were melting. Thousands of filament lights, in crystal shades, had been strung like climbing ivy around the structure of the pavilion, and they twinkled in the dusk like the lights of a distant hive. They reminded Chayne of the god-walls of the Imperial Palace on Terra, the mountainside bastions and soaring ramparts illuminated by billions of slit windows, and the great beacons of light that sent vast beams of radiance into the top of the sky. That was a monument no man could see without experiencing an emotional response, not even Chayne. In the older days, it was said that the antique Great Wall of Zhongguo could be seen from near orbit. The Imperial Palace could be seen from Mars. Chayne entered the pavilion via the security portal, and submitted himself for checking and searches. On Sameranth, two years earlier, a security detail at the pavilion portal had waved him through, not wishing to interfere with a Lucifer Black. Chayne had ordered the detail's immediate execution. A Lucifer Black uniform could be stolen or copied. No one could be given access to the Lord Commander until he had proved he was who he appeared to be. Chayne paused briefly in one of the outer tents to converse with Eiman and Belloc, two of his most trusted Lucifers. He explained the business of the note to them, and told them to return to the palace and continue the search. Their conversation, to an outsider, would have seemed odd. There was nothing convivial or comradely about it. Brief statements and instructions were exchanged or given. Lucifer Blacks related to one another in a dry, utilitarian shorthand, dealing only in facts. They expected one another to fill in any speculative blanks, and make their own conjectures. Chayne had already decided what the note meant, and was fully confident that Eiman and Belloc had grasped the implications too, from the bare facts he had relayed. As had been suspected, a process of espial was active at Mon Lo, within the weave of the Imperial fortifications. The spies were good, able, intelligent and well equipped. Their loyalties were unclear. Chayne had suspected the Nurthene, but no Nurthene would have left a note in Low Gothic, unless the Imperials had massively underestimated the enemy's capacity for psychological warfare. The note meant many things, but most of all it meant over-confidence, and that was a fatal weakness in any person. A weakness of emotion. It was quite a feat to be able to sneak out from under the piercingly vigilant lattice of an Imperial security system, but it was altogether something else to acknowledge that you had been there, to leave a trace, a signature, a calling card. Why evade detection, seamlessly in this particular case, if you then admit that evasion by taking credit for it? Two motives occurred to Chayne: someone wanted to goad him and play games with him, or someone was so sure of himself, the gamesmanship was part of the sport. Either way, over-confidence. A fatal flaw. The note itself, that little scrap of paper, would tell him everything he needed: the choice of language, the use of language, the phraseology, the psychology of meaning, the pen weight, the handwriting, the paper source, the type of stylus, the ink residue, the gene residue, the fibre trace, the note's position, the type and origin of the stone left to weigh it down. The spy, Chayne's prey, had betrayed himself in a hundred different ways, simply by being cocky. And that cockiness was the biggest lead of all. Chayne removed his black helmet, slid it under his arm, and entered the main chamber of the glowing pavilion. Inside, lords of mankind were speaking with demigods. 'KON, MY LOVE?' the dragon crooned, and licked his forehead with its red tongue. John Grammaticus forced his way out of the dragon's biting jaws and woke up. Rukhsana smiled down at him, stroking his cheek. 'Damn. What time is it?' he asked. 'Night has fallen, Kon. Lord Alpharius is dining in the pavilion tent with the Lord Commander.' Grammaticus sat up quickly, blinking. 'Damn! I have to go. I have to be there.' 'Be here with me instead, Kon.' 'I wish I could.' He began to get dressed. She sat back, sullen and rebuffed. She glanced around. 'I think someone's been in here,' Rukhsana observed. 'Yes. The genewhips,' he said, nodding. 'Terra!' she asked. What were they looking for?' 'Me,' he smiled. A SLOW SMILE extended across Namatjira's lips. 'I'm no expert,' he said, 'but you can't all be

tent with the Lord Commander.' Grammaticus sat up quickly, blinking. 'Damn! I have to go. I have to be there.' 'Be here with me instead, Kon.' 'I wish I could.' He began to get dressed. She sat back, sullen and rebuffed. She glanced around. 'I think someone's been in here,' Rukhsana observed. 'Yes. The genewhips,' he said, nodding. 'Terra!' she asked. What were they looking for?' 'Me,' he smiled. A SLOW SMILE extended across Namatjira's lips. 'I'm no expert,' he said, 'but you can't all be Alpharius.' Alpharius, or at least the giant who had presented himself as Alpharius to the Lord Commander at the Great Welcome, tipped back his head and laughed. 'Of course not, lord. My Legion is one body, and we share everything. Identity can be used as a weapon, so we turn one face against the enemy. However, we are friends here.' Surrounded by his Lucifer Black companions, Namatjira stood at one end of the tented chamber, the senior commanders of the expedition grouped around him in a crescent. The filament lamps covered the pavilion ceiling like stars, and lumen banks underlit the tent walls. Striped and spotted animal pelts had been laid out across the floor as rugs, overlapping and luxurious. Serendip, Namatjira's thylacene, had laid itself down on a speckled hide at the end of its slack, gold lead. Facing them were four Astartes in purple plate. Foremost, Alpharius, his helmet still doffed, his copper skin lustrous in the golden light. The other three had joined him for the meeting, though no one, as Chayne would later discover to his consternation, could say from where. Chayne slipped in through a flap at the rear of the chamber, behind Namatjira's entourage. Through a slit in the folds of the pavilion's walls, he could see gangs of liveried servants awaiting the order to hurry in with trays of sweetmeats, wine and fruit. Chamberlains were holding them at the ready. 'I am Alpharius,' said the copper-skinned giant, repeated the pledge-claim he had made at the Great Welcome. 'I have brought with me Ingo Pech and Thias Herzog, my first and second captains.' Two of the Astartes behind him stepped forwards, removed their helmets with a click-hiss of collar locks, and bowed. They were shaven headed and copper-skinned too. A simple human glance would have read all three as identical triplets. Chayne did not make a human glance. He appraised them, quickly and efficiently. Not identical triplets, not non-identical triplets, or even uterine brothers. The immediate similarities were strong but superficial. Alpharius was considerably taller than both of his captains. What was more, there was an evident ethnic derivation in the build of his cranium, a slope of the forehead, a mass of the brow. Chayne had been in the presence of Horus Lupercal, and he'd seen that distinctive physiognomy before. There was something about the eyes too. Alpharius's eyes were cold blue, and shone with an arctic intelligence that made Chayne shudder slightly. Of the other two, Herzog was ever so slightly the taller. Chayne gauged their heights using the angles of the guy wires and sheet planes of the pavilion behind them. Herzog and Pech were not related either. Chayne counted eighteen points of dissimilarity between the comparative angles of their skulls, their eyes, their lips, the structure of their cheeks, the muscles of their necks, their noses and, most especially, the fingerprint-precise lobes of their ears. Herzog was older by twenty years. Pech was smaller, but stronger and smarter. There was a very slight but telling shadow around Herzog's scalp that suggested his hair was of a darker natural colour, and that he shaved his head to resemble his primarch and his fellow captain. Herzog's eyes were blue, like his primarch's, but Pech's were gold-flecked brown. 'Welcome, captains,' Namatjira said. The Astartes nodded. 'And the other?' Namatjira asked. The fourth Astartes had remained at the back of the group, his helmet in place. 'That is one of my common troopers,' Alpharius said. 'He is simply here as an escort. His name is Omegon.' The warrior bowed, without removing his helmet. The first lie, Chayne thought. Omegon is no common trooper. Chayne estimated Omegon's stature, once again using the geometries of the tent structure as a scale. The Astartes was at least as big as the primarch himself. Who are you, Chayne wondered? What are you pretending to be? 'Let us talk of Nurth, my lord,' said Pech, 'and of how we finish this war.' Namatjira smiled. 'This compliance,' he corrected. 'It is a war, sir,' Pech replied, 'as I'm sure the stalwart soldiers of the Imperial Army would attest. Let us not dress it up in political terms. Let us not skip over their sacrifices.' Major General Dev and Lord Wilde of the Torrent coughed to suggest their gratitude at Pech's acknowledgement of their efforts. Some of their huscarls and high officers clacked their swords against their shields in approval. Namatjira snapped up a hand quickly for silence. 'Of course it's a war, sir,' the Lord Commander said, acid in his tone. 'Men die. My men die. But this is still an Action of Compliance, or are you questioning the Emperor's design?' Pech shook his head. 'No, lord. I appreciate that the Emperor upholds a teleological scheme for the future of man, and I will endeavour to uphold it.' 'He chases a Utopian ideal,' Herzog put in. 'He wishes to unify and perfect humanity through the intense application of martial violence,' said Pech. 'We have no quarrel with that approach,' said Herzog. 'It is the only proven way man's destiny has ever been advanced.' 'Even if Utopian goals are ultimately counterintuitive to species survival,' Pech added quickly. 'Any political ambition that is inherently impossible to achieve is ultimately corrupting,' said Herzog. 'You cannot engender, or force to be engendered, a state of perfection,' said Pech. 'That line of action leads only to disaster, because perfection is an absolute that cannot be attained by an imperfect species.' 'Utopia is a dangerous myth,' said Herzog, 'and only a fool would chase it.' 'It is better to manage and maintain the flaws of man on an ongoing basis,' said Pech. 'We say this only to recognise the blood debt of the Imperial Army, that suffers and dies, resolutely, in the pursuit of that goal,' said Herzog. There was a long silence, just as the blades began to batter the shields again, Alpharius said, 'I encourage my men to explore the philosophy of bloodshed, lord. I like them to understand the intellectual structure that informs their killing. The Emperor, my love and my life, seeks to set mankind in place as the uppermost species of the galaxy. I will not dispute that ambition, neither will my captains. We simply recognise the pro-crustean methods with which he enforces that dream. A Utopian ideal is a fine thing to chase, and to measure one's achievements against. But it cannot, ultimately, be achieved.' 'Are you suggesting the Emperor's design is... wrong?' Namatjira asked. 'Not in the slightest,' replied Alpharius. 'My Lord Alpharius,' said Lord Wilde in his piercing, blade-keen voice, 'how do we combat the Nurthene... magick?' 'My Lord Wilde,' said Alpharius, 'we don't. We extinguish it.' THE TRAYS OF food were heavy. There was no telling how much longer they'd be forced to stand there in the tented wings of the main pavilion space. The worst of it was, he simply couldn't hear. The voices in the main tent were muffled. Grammaticus realised he should have brought a listening aid. He thought he'd be close enough to hear the proceedings for himself. He needed a revised plan quickly, or the significant risk he was taking would be for nothing. 'Sir?' he whispered. One of the chamberlains came down the line to him. 'What's the matter, boy?' the chamberlain asked. Some of the other platter-laden servants in the line looked around. 'How much longer, sir?' Grammaticus asked. 'As long as it damn well takes,' the chamberlain replied. 'Sir,' said Grammaticus, 'this sauce is curdling. It needs to be set on the heat again, or it will spoil. I dare not, for my life, serve bad food to the Lord Commander and his guests.' The liveried chamberlain nodded. 'Back to the kitchens with it. Be quick. They'll be calling for us soon.' 'Yes, sir,' said Grammaticus, and left the line, running with his platter towards the back flap of the tent's service entrance. Outside, in the dark, he paused, and dumped the platter and its contents into a spoil bin. No one noticed him. Outremar guards were distantly patrolling the edge of the pavilion's perimeter. He slipped into the dark blue shadows of the desert night. Grammaticus pulled off the servant's tabard and discarded it. He hadn't disguised himself as one of the feast servants in any detailed way, trusting his logokine to get him by. But knowing he would be under scrutiny for several minutes, he had stolen a tabard to wear over his tight, armoured bodyglove to reinforce his logokine disguise. He took a pair of low-light goggles from his thigh pouch and put them on. The world around him was instantly rendered in fuzzy, caustic shades of red and ochre light. He read the rows of taut cables that stretched from the side of the pavilion like millipede legs, anchoring it to the ground. Between these physical lines, he made out the web of intangible ones: the sensor beams and harmonic tripwires that protected the skirts of the great tent. Invisible to the naked eye, these thin beams would set off a multitude of alarms if tripped. Grammaticus adjusted his goggles to pick them up, tuning them to a harmonic value he'd cribbed from Rukhsana's code book without her knowledge or permission. He skirted forwards, along the flank of the pavilion, looking for another way in, ducking under and stepping over the rigid cables and the ghost beams alike. In several places he had to stoop or even crawl to avoid breaking the luminous strands. Most projecte

o the naked eye, these thin beams would set off a multitude of alarms if tripped. Grammaticus adjusted his goggles to pick them up, tuning them to a harmonic value he'd cribbed from Rukhsana's code book without her knowledge or permission. He skirted forwards, along the flank of the pavilion, looking for another way in, ducking under and stepping over the rigid cables and the ghost beams alike. In several places he had to stoop or even crawl to avoid breaking the luminous strands. Most projected diagonally down from small emitters attached to the lip of the tent's roof, but others followed the ground, or ran parallel to the pavilion, snaking between emitters spiked in the sand. The goggles guided him. This endeavour was a great deal more demanding than evading the field security lattice on the kitchen block roof. The beams were active and live. Three times, he froze, realising he was about to interrupt a beam with a leg or a shoulder. There was no obvious vent or egress. Grammaticus found an open spot and knelt down. He put his ear against the skin of the tent, using its taut acoustics to bring the voices inside to him. He could hear voices in conference. Lord Namatjira's tone was easy to detect, as was Lord Wilde's. Grammaticus identified the voice that had to belong to Alpharius, and listened to the way it sounded for the first time. There was a quality to it that was quite distinctive. They were talking about the Nurthene magick and how to combat it. It both amused and distressed Grammaticus to hear the condescension in the primarch's tone as he explained the notion of Chaos to the Lord Commander and his retinue. What he was saying was such an over-simplification. The Alpha Legion barely understood the nature of Chaos, yet here was its leader presuming to teach even less well-informed souls about it. The Alpha Legion were the ones who had to learn, and soon. Grammaticus was concentrating so hard on listening that he detected the Lucifer Black behind him with only seconds to spare. Grammaticus stood up and turned. The Lucifer, who had come up behind him quite silently, was raising his sabre to strike. 'Fool!' Grammaticus hissed. 'It's me!' The Lucifer stopped in his tracks, and quickly lowered his sword. 'Chayne?' he asked. 'Sir?' 'Yes!' Grammaticus snapped. 'Return to your patrol.' Chayne. Grammaticus logged the name in his memory for future reference. 'Apologies,' the Lucifer replied. 'I obey.' The Lucifer turned to melt away into the night. He hesitated. Shit, thought Grammaticus. His logokine skills had wrong-footed the Lucifer Black for a moment, but only a moment. Clearly, the elite companions possessed iron-willed, unsuggestible minds. The Lucifer had already questioned the encounter, and realised he had been tricked. The Lucifer Black was armoured. Grammaticus was not. Grammaticus couldn't count on landing a clean, quick kill-blow, nor could he risk using his digital ring-weapon. The energy flare would set off every alarm within ten metres. As the Lucifer turned back, Grammaticus threw a wolf-paw jab that crushed the vox-hub bulge on the side of the Lucifer's jet-black helmet, preventing him from signalling an alert. The Lucifer began to shout, but his voice was muffled by the helmet's padded snout. Grammaticus rammed another jab in under the chin of the helm and crushed the man's larynx, rendering him mute. Grammaticus briefly hoped that the larynx punch might also prove to be a killing strike, but the Lucifer was made of stronger stuff. His sabre was still drawn, and he slashed at Grammaticus. Grammaticus blocked the blade with the adamantium strips woven into the forearm sleeves of his bodyglove, and drove the palm of his right hand flat into the Lucifer's breastplate, a tension-reflexive strike that the eldar called the ilthrad-taic or breathless touch. The Lucifer lurched, his breastplate cracking. As he stumbled backwards, Grammaticus looped his left hand around the Lucifer's right wrist, and whip-snapped it, forcing the sabre out of the man's grip. It landed on the sand, a bare centimetre short of one of the ground level sensor beams. The Lucifer was not yet done. Grammaticus had been forced to close tightly, and the Lucifer headbutted him. Grammaticus lurched backwards, pain engulfing the centre of his face as the helm crunched into him. He staggered, and barely avoided an overhead beam. The Lucifer fumbled and drew his sidearm, his broken right wrist forcing him to use his left hand, across his body. As soon as the laspistol came clear of its holster, Grammaticus threw a spin kick that sent it skidding away into the night beyond the tent. He flinched as the tumbling weapon passed between two strands of the invisible security web. This had to end, fast, before something got tripped. They were so tightly boxed in it was like fighting inside a spider's web, and any wrong move would bring the spider pouncing down on them. The Lucifer threw a steel-shod fist at Grammaticus, who ducked left, and chopped a passing body-blow into the Lucifer's ribs. Grammaticus's hands, trained and subcutaneously strengthened though they were, were already sore and bloody from punching armour. Grammaticus tried to get behind the Lucifer, but the Lucifer caught him and clenched him in a choke hold. It would have finished the fight, except that the Lucifer was struggling with just one working hand. Grammaticus grunted and corded his neck muscles to ward against the Lucifer's choke. Training and experience told him there was one clean way out of the hold, a body throw that would hurl his opponent up and over him. But his goggles saw a sensor beam running right in front of them. If he threw the Lucifer, his opponent's body would land across the beam. He kicked back hard instead, and the back of the Lucifer's head struck against one of the taut, diagonal guy wires of the pavilion. The impact snapped the Lucifer's head forward, and he involuntarily butted the back of Grammaticus's skull. Grammaticus winced, but the choke-hold broke. He swung around, dazed by the blow, and shot out a straight-fingered jab. The middle and index fingers of John Grammaticus's right hand punched through the left lens of the Lucifer's helmet and popped the eye behind it. The Lucifer, gurgling through his useless throat, fell backwards against the tent side and slid down in a heap. Grammaticus paused, crouching low, ready to sprint away if the impact raised an alarm. No alarm came. Grammaticus began to straighten up. The Lucifer flopped forwards, matter dripping like glue from his ruptured eye socket, and began to crawl across the sand. Grammaticus realised the Lucifer was dragging himself towards one of the ground level beams, his armoured hand clawing out to break it. He threw himself onto the Lucifer's back, grappling with him, trying to pull the arm back. The Lucifer was monstrously strong. He dragged Grammaticus with him as he crawled across the sand, straining to reach the harmonic tripwire. Vicing an elbow around the reaching, straining arm of the man underneath him, forcing it to pull short, Grammaticus drove another jab into the man's spine. Something cracked. Still, the Lucifer heaved himself forwards, ten centimetres from the beam, five, the outstretched fingers shaking as they groped for the invisible cord. Grammaticus saw the Lucifer's discarded sabre lying on the sand beside them. He grabbed it, simultaneously wrenching the man's reaching arm back and up with all of his strength. He hacked with the sabre, and took the Lucifer's limb off mid forearm. The Lucifer convulsed under him. He reached out towards the beam with his stump, but he was well short of touching it. Grammaticus hastily clamped his left palm around the severed stump and compressed to stop the jetting arterial spray from hitting the beam and accomplishing what the Lucifer's outstretched hand had not. The armoured body under him went into spasm. Grammaticus pinned it down with his legs and kept the stump clenched tight. He felt the hot blood surging against his palm. 'I'm sorry,' he whispered. The Lucifer trembled. Grammaticus put the tip of the sabre against the nape of his neck, in the tiny gap between helmet lip and collar armour, and pushed. The blade slid clean through the neck and bit deep into the sand beneath. The Lucifer went still. Grammaticus waited until the pressure pulse against his palm finally ebbed away, and then let go of the stump. The truncated arm flopped onto the sand. Grammaticus rose to his feet. The stench of blood in the night air was overpowering. Some of it, a little of it, was his own. His fists were swollen and mangled. Blood seeped from his battered face, and pain made him see double. His skull throbbed from the blows it had taken. He was sure his nose was broken. He tried to steady himself. He felt sick. There was no chance of him continuing with his surveillance now. The Lucifer would be missed soon enough. Grammaticus had to get away, fast. He moved away from the body, stepping over the tracery of sensor beams his goggles revealed, and stumbled away into the desert and the enfolding night. DINAS CHAYNE PAUSED. Alpharius was busy talking to Namatjira and the assembled lords about 'warding countermeasures'. Chayne wasn't listening any more. A signal light was flashing on the jet-black cuff of his suit. He slipped back behind the gathering and made his exit through the service tent. Outside, under the Nurthene stars, he put his helmet back on and triggered the vox. 'Chayne. You signalled?' 'Vital trace from Zeydus lost.' 'Report his last position.' 'West side of the pavilion, twenty metres north of the West Porch.' 'Route two men to that position. From the reserve, not the ones stationed with the Lord Commander.' 'I obey.' Chayne moved off down the west side of the huge pavilion, carefully stepping over and around the light-beams his visor showed to him. He drew his sabre. 'Trouble?' a voi

ene stars, he put his helmet back on and triggered the vox. 'Chayne. You signalled?' 'Vital trace from Zeydus lost.' 'Report his last position.' 'West side of the pavilion, twenty metres north of the West Porch.' 'Route two men to that position. From the reserve, not the ones stationed with the Lord Commander.' 'I obey.' Chayne moved off down the west side of the huge pavilion, carefully stepping over and around the light-beams his visor showed to him. He drew his sabre. 'Trouble?' a voice asked from behind him. Chayne whirled. The tip of his blade made a tiny ching as it grazed against the chest plate of the Astartes who had appeared, miraculously, behind him. The huge armoured warrior looked down at the sabre tip pressing against his chest armour. 'Nice,' he said. 'Very quick. Dinas Chayne, isn't it?' 'You know me?' Chayne asked. 'The Legion likes to know everyone.' 'You're Omegon.' The Alpha chuckled, his laughter carried oddly by his helmet speaker. 'You're good, Dinas Chayne. We heard this about you. Yes, I'm Omegon. I saw you leave the tent in a hurry.' 'You saw me?' 'I was watching you. You, you were watching me. Don't pretend you weren't now.' 'I won't.' 'We love the same things, I think, Dinas.' 'Such as?' 'Caution. Secrecy. Stealth.' 'How do you know my name?' Chayne asked. 'The names of the Lucifers are never published.' 'Oh, come on, Dinas. Do we look like amateurs to you?' 'No.' 'You can put that away, I think,' said Omegon. Chayne withdrew his sabre. The tip had actually buried itself in the Astartes's chest plate and it took a tug to remove it. 'Any other man I'd have killed for less,' said Omegon, looking down at the dent, 'and, by the way, that's all you get.' Chayne shrugged. 'Why did you leave the pavilion in such a hurry?' 'One of my men is down.' 'Let's see, shall we?' The Alpha legionnaire led the way. Chayne realised, with alarm, that the Astartes was cheerfully striding through the serried sensor beams, breaking them without setting any of them off. Chayne followed, hopping and stepping over the harmonic tags. 'Something on your mind?' Omegon called over his shoulder. 'You are invisible to our security lattice,' Chayne replied. 'Like I said, Dinas, do we look like amateurs to you?' He paused. Two men were approaching, the two Lucifers Chayne had sent for. Chayne raised a hand to indicate they should stay back. Omegon crouched down. 'Is this your man?' he asked. Zeydus lay face down beside the tent wall in a patch of blood-stained sand. His left arm had been severed above the wrist, and he had been pinned to the ground with his own sword. The hilt of it was almost flat to the nape of Zeydus's neck. 'Yes,' said Chayne. He bent down beside the Astartes. 'Quite a fight,' said Omegon, pointing idly. 'His assailant crippled his vox to mute him. Right wrist is snapped, probably a disarming move.' Omegon wrenched the sabre out and rolled the corpse. 'Muted him too, larynx punch. The eye's gone as well. Spine's snapped, between the third and fourth vertebrae. See? Someone did a good job here.' Chayne nodded. Zeydus had been one of his best. 'I thought you Lucifers were meant to be tough?' Chayne bridled. The Astartes laughed. 'Relax. I know you're tough. I just meant, whoever did this, he did it with his bare hands.' 'What?' 'That blood there, on the vox bulge. That's the assailant's. He crushed it with his fist.' 'You can read that?' 'Rudimentary typing via optics. Yes, I can read that. We should take a sample for proper gene analysis. But on first look, I'd say your man was taken out by an unarmoured human.' Chayne straightened up. 'Tell me, Dinas,' said Omegon, looking up at him, 'who do you know that could do a thing like that?' 'No one,' Chayne replied. His reply was honest, but he had his suspicions. ALL ALONG THE earthwork of the Imperial fortifications, huge watch fires crackled, and a million campfires twinkled between them. Overhead, a cloud-scudded night sky turned slowly, retrograde. The night air was hot. Around their campfire, under their lank banner, the Carnivales were laughing, and passing the bottle. 'So Lon made it?' Kaido Pius asked. Peto Soneka took a swig from the bottle that came by and nodded. 'He did, like I said.' 'Good old Lon,' laughed Tinq, one of Pius's bashaws. 'Nothin'll ever kill Lon.' Soneka nodded, took another pull from the bottle, and handed it on. Behind him somewhere, men were playing loud Gnawa on hand drums and ghimbris. Someone had thrown incense flakes into the camp-fires, and sweetened the smoke. 'Ah, but it's good to see you, Peto,' Puis said, taking a swig of liquor and then belching triumphantly. 'You too, Kai,' Soneka laughed. 'What will you do?' asked Bashaw Jenz. Soneka shrugged. 'I dunno. Find another outfit that can use a few officers? I'm not worried about myself. I just want to make sure Lon and the others get placed all right.' 'Room for you all here,' said Pius. Soneka shook his head. 'No room for two hets like me and you in this outfit, Kai,' he chuckled. 'We'd end up fighting to the death.' 'Maybe,' admitted Kaido Pius. 'You know it.' 'Maybe.' 'You know it, Kai. Terra, you're a good friend and generous to a fault. I thank you for that. But I'm gonna hold out, maybe rebuild the company, maybe petition the uxors for a new one. Fug, what is this we're drinking?' 'Jenz's homebrew,' Pius replied, regarding the bottle he was clutching groggily. 'It's basically pure alcohol-' 'With a secret mix of herbs and spices,' Jenz added. 'My gene-da's special recipe!' 'You gene-da clearly had sanity issues,' Soneka told him. Pius snorted. 'I've been meaning to catch up with Hurt,' said Soneka. 'I haven't seen him since I got here. He's around right? The Jokers are here?' Pius nodded. 'Yes, Bronzi's here.' 'The Jokers are camped at line ten south, I think,' said one of the bashaws. 'What about Dimi Shiban?' Soneka asked, trying to make the question sound natural. 'You seen him?' No one had. Despite the liquor in his system and the blazing fires, Soneka felt cold. 'Well, my friends,' he said, getting to his feet unsteadily. 'I have to drain now, secret mix or no secret mix.' Pius and his men laughed and booed Soneka as he meandered away from the campfires in search of the latrine trench. The raucous Maghrebi rhythms of the Gnawa fell away behind him, and the hot, scented smoke thinned into cold, spare desert air. 'That's Soneka,' said Roke, passing the night-vision scope to Boone. Boone took a look for himself, training the scope down the embankment towards the field of campfires. 'Yup. So he's hanging out with Pius, is he?' 'He's got no one else to hang out with,' said Roke sourly. 'All of his Dancers are bones in the desert.' 'We should have ourselves a word with Peto Soneka, I think,' said Boone. 'Why?' Roke asked. 'We're watching Pius, aren't we? Pius is the one you've got the twitch about.' Boone shrugged. 'I know. But Soneka was acting real funny last time I saw him, and now he turns up here, breaking bread with the very man we're watching. I got a twitch, all right, Roke. Come on.' Boone signalled to Pharon, and the three genewhips moved off quietly down the slope. SONEKA STOOD ON the clapboards over the latrine pit, undoing his fly with his one good hand, wrinkling his nose at the rising stink of ammonia. He swayed as he urinated. Behind him, the Carnivales huddled around the crackling fires laughing and shouting. Amber smoke hazed up into the soft darkness of the backwards sky. Something made Soneka look around. He buttoned up quickly, dearly wishing he could clear his swimming head. A man was walking towards him along the edge of the latrine gutter, a silhouette backlit by the dancing campfires of the billet behind them. 'Who's that?' Soneka called out. 'Who is that?' He hoped Kaido would hear him, but the men around the campfires were making too much noise. 'How's it going, Soneka?' the man asked. The man was in shadow, but his teeth glinted in the distant firelight as he smiled. Soneka knew him. Pharon, one of the genewhip's bulls. 'I'm fine,' said Soneka. He turned to walk away in the opposite direction and found Roke blocking his path. 'What is this?' Soneka asked, though he was sure he knew all too well. He began to sober up very quickly. 'You and Pius, you're tight?' asked Roke. 'Of course,' said Soneka warily. 'We've known each other a long time.' 'You know him well, then?' 'Yes,' said Soneka. The line of questioning was not going where he had expected it would. He braced himself for whatever verbal trap they were trying to lead him into. 'So you know about him and Uxor Rukhsana, then?' asked Pharon. 'What about them?' 'You know,' Roke leered. 'Kai and Rukhsana?' That almost made Soneka laugh. 'You've got that wrong. If they were carrying on, we'd all know about it.' 'Why?' asked Roke. 'Because... because if Kaido Pius had nailed a piece of ass that fine, he'd be bragging about it to everyone.' 'Maybe Kaido Pius isn't who he seems,' Pharon said, coming in closer behind Soneka. 'We met Kaido Pius earlier today, at least, we think we did.' 'I don't know what you're talking about,' said Soneka. 'Have you boys been at the homebrew tonight?' 'What's going on with Pius?' Roke asked, unamused. 'What's he into?' asked Pharon. 'You know him. What's he got involved in? Are you involved too? Is that why you're being so evasive?' 'I'm... I'm not.' 'What's the story, Soneka? How come you survived Visages when every other bastard there got cut to ribbons? Someone looking out for you? Someone tip you off?' 'Listen, you-' Soneka began. 'What's all this stuff about a body?' Roke asked. Soneka sank his shoulders, as if about to cave and confess to something. As Roke leaned in, Soneka caught him by the arm and pushed him into the latrine pit. There was a splash followed by furious, spluttered curses. Pharon lunged at Soneka, and took Soneka's le

hat's the story, Soneka? How come you survived Visages when every other bastard there got cut to ribbons? Someone looking out for you? Someone tip you off?' 'Listen, you-' Soneka began. 'What's all this stuff about a body?' Roke asked. Soneka sank his shoulders, as if about to cave and confess to something. As Roke leaned in, Soneka caught him by the arm and pushed him into the latrine pit. There was a splash followed by furious, spluttered curses. Pharon lunged at Soneka, and took Soneka's left elbow in the teeth for his trouble. Soneka began to run. Pharon came after him, hurling as much abuse as his floundering partner down in the pit. Soneka scrambled up the embankment in the dark, and found the billet road. Torch beams chased him. 'Stay right there, Soneka!' a voice called out. Soneka knew it. Genewhip Boone. He started to run away from the beams and heard the crack of a laspistol. A bright puff of dust lit up the ground near his feet. 'Next one goes in your head, Soneka!' Boone yelled. 'Stay right where you are!' Soneka didn't slow down. He sprinted along the billet road, looking for cover. Blazing lights suddenly came on and blinded him. He skidded to a halt, shielding his eyes against the glare. He heard the rumble of a turbine engine. A door opened. 'Get in!' a voice yelled. Soneka blinked. Behind the headlights, he saw Bronzi glaring at him from behind the wheel of a battered staff speeder. 'Just get in, Peto,' Bronzi repeated, 'for fug's sake.' Soneka got in and the speeder ripped away into the darkness, leaving the pursuing genewhips far behind. EIGHT Mon Lo Harbour, Nurth, continuous 'WHERE ARE WE going?' asked Soneka after a while. Bronzi was driving in silence, steering away from the Army billets and out along a crude track that ran into the scrubland south of the terracotta palace. 'Bronzi?' 'Don't ask questions, Peto,' Bronzi replied. 'I think I will. This-' 'Is bigger than you, Soneka, so shut the fug up. You're supposed to be dead.' 'You don't seem too delighted to discover I'm not.' 'Of course I am,' said Bronzi. 'You're my tightest friend. Of course I'm pleased you're not dead. But this complicates things.' 'What things?' 'Just shut up, all right? Just consider this to be your old mate rescuing you from the unpleasant attentions of the genewhips.' 'How did you know they were onto me?' 'Because I've been shadowing you all day.' They left the established track, and went cross country, following dry watercourses between the dusty tels. Bronzi ramped up the speeder's lift. The vehicle's main lamps picked out the thorn scrub and dunes in their path in a frosty glare. The further they got from the lights and fires of the vast Imperial encampment, the bigger and blacker the night sky became, and the lonelier it felt. After twenty minutes, Bronzi decelerated, and aimed the speeder along a deep wadi. At the end of an arid creek stood an old ruin, a place that might have once been a temple or, just as easily, a bier for livestock. Someone had lit a fire inside. Bronzi stopped the speeder and killed the drive. 'Get out,' he said. 'Follow me. Don't be an idiot. I can protect you, but only so far. Please bear that in mind.' 'What are you saying?' 'I'm saying they wanted to kill you to keep things tidy. I asked them to give you a chance. So this is my reputation on the line, along with your life. Don't fug this up for either of us by being stupid.' They walked across the sand from the speeder to the ruin. Soneka could smell fuel bricks burning. The flame light inside the place flickered and danced the shadows. They went inside. A small fire of fuel bricks and dry thorn sheaves was blazing in the middle of the baked earthen floor. A man sat beside the fire on a lump of tumbled stone, cleaning his fingernails with a dagger. 'This is Thaner,' said Bronzi. Thaner looked up at them, his face expressing very little interest towards either of them. He wore the uniform of a bajolur in the Outremars. His face was blemished down the left side by an old las burn. Even without the burn, his face would have been mean and tight. 'You took your sweet time,' he said. 'Yes, well, I got it done,' Bronzi replied. 'You're Soneka?' the man asked, still fiddling the tip of his blade along his fingernails. 'Yes.' 'You came out of Visages alive?' 'Yes.' The man pursed his lips. 'That makes you either tough as a bastard or very lucky.' 'Little of both, maybe.' Thaner rose to his feet and sheathed his dagger. He brushed dust off the front of his uniform. 'I'm going to ask you a few questions,' he told Soneka. 'You give me the right answers, things will be thoroughly civilised. You give me the wrong ones, no amount of tough bastardy or luck is going to see you out of here.' Soneka smiled. 'Did they change the rules? I don't remember there ever being a time when an Outremar bajolur got to threaten a geno het like that.' 'Yes, they changed the rules, all right,' said Thaner. 'Trust me.' 'I have no reason to trust you,' Soneka replied. 'Yes, you do,' said Bronzi. 'Me.' The fire crackled. 'I'm waiting,' said Soneka. 'Who have you told?' Thaner asked. 'About the body at CR345?' 'No one.' 'Come on, you're not fooling me. Who have you told?' 'No one,' Soneka insisted. 'Not even my men, the ones I got out of Visages with. Bronzi knew. I knew. Everyone else who knew about it died at Visages. Except Dimi Shiban, and I don't know what happened to him.' Soneka looked at Bronzi. 'What happened to Dimi, Hurt? You'd be the one to know that. What happened to him?' Bronzi stared at the floor and didn't answer. 'So you haven't told anyone, that's what you're saying?' asked Thaner. Soneka nodded. 'What about Uxor Mu?' Soneka shrugged. 'All right, yes. I spoke to her about it when I got in yesterday. But she already knew.' 'Did she?' 'Bronzi and I voxed her from CR345 and-' 'When you told her,' Thaner cut in, 'did she act like she knew about it?' 'No.' 'No,' Thaner nodded. Soneka cleared his throat. The flickering fire was beginning to play tricks on him. He kept tensing, as if seeing things out of the corner of his eyes, shadows in the shadows around the edges of the ruin. There was something - someone - out there. 'Look,' he said, 'I don't know why she decided to deny it. I assumed she was confused, or had her own agenda. I-' 'She denied it because she didn't know about it,' said Thaner. 'But Bronzi spoke to her. I heard her voice.' 'No, you didn't,' said Thaner. 'I did!' 'You really didn't,' said Bronzi quietly. He put his hand on Soneka's arm. 'It was an intercept. We weren't speaking to Mu at all.' 'That's not possible,' said Soneka. 'She used the codes, the encrypts, all the-' 'They're way ahead of us,' said Bronzi. 'Peto, they know all the codes. They listen to us.' Soneka turned to look at Bronzi. 'Who's "they", Hurt? What the hell is this?' Bronzi glanced at Thaner. Thaner shook his head. 'One of you had better start making sense,' Soneka growled. 'Peto...' Bronzi warned. 'I'm serious with this, Hurt! Someone explain this now. What happened to the body? Did you deliver it?' 'Yes,' said Bronzi. 'I made the rendezvous. I handed the body back to the people who'd made it.' 'I don't know what that means,' snapped Soneka. 'I don't know what the fug that means, Bronzi. What happened to Shiban? Where is he? Is he dead?' Bronzi stared at Soneka. There was a hard look in his eyes. 'He was dead before he got on the transport,' he said. 'I don't know what that means either,' Soneka growled. 'That wound he took, the shrapnel wound here,' Bronzi said, gesturing towards his throat. 'Some of it was bone, Nurthene bone.' 'I know. That happens,' said Soneka. 'You don't know, Peto,' said Bronzi, uncomfortable. 'It was in him. It was in him and it was just a matter of time before it turned him. They knew that. They shot him. They would have had to anyway.' 'You keep saying they. Who the fug is they?' 'We don't have to tell you anything we don't w-' Thaner began to say. Peto Soneka had always been quick. The snub-nosed laspistol was in his hand and aimed at Thaner before either he or Bronzi had a chance to react. 'Start explaining this mess now,' Soneka ordered. 'Right now.' 'Oh, Peto, come on-' Bronzi moaned. 'You shut up. Don't think I won't aim this at you too.' 'Put it away,' said Thaner. 'I want answers first,' said Soneka. Thaner sighed. Keeping his hands clearly open, so Soneka could follow what he was doing, he reached down to his midriff and untucked his tunic. He pulled the garment up, along with the vest beneath, and exposed the corded muscle of his right hip. Soneka could see the brand mark quite clearly. 'Oh... shit,' Soneka murmured. 'The body was one of our people,' said Thaner, lowering his tunic. 'It got recovered from the field before our retrieval teams could locate it. We needed it back.' 'It was dressed as one of my men,' said Soneka. 'It was a Hort sergeant called Lyel Wilk,' said Thaner, matter-of-factly. 'He was operating as one of your men.' Soneka had a million questions, and knew every single one of them had an ugly answer. None of the questions would form in his mouth. He was struck dumb by the sensation of the universe as he knew it grinding out of joint around him. Since that bloody dawn when Visages had been sacked, and most especially since his meeting with Honen Mu the night before, total dislocation had been looming. Now everything he trusted tore away and revealed nothing: no answers, no explanations, no single thing he could trust or recognise. Simple panic seized him. He aimed the pistol at Thaner's head and squeezed the trigger. Something crunched into him from the side and the shot went wild as he fell. The something was Bronzi. Bronzi had punched him. Before Soneka could begin to process that information, Thaner had kicked the pistol out of his hand. It skittered away into the crawling shadows. Thaner put a second kick into Son

re away and revealed nothing: no answers, no explanations, no single thing he could trust or recognise. Simple panic seized him. He aimed the pistol at Thaner's head and squeezed the trigger. Something crunched into him from the side and the shot went wild as he fell. The something was Bronzi. Bronzi had punched him. Before Soneka could begin to process that information, Thaner had kicked the pistol out of his hand. It skittered away into the crawling shadows. Thaner put a second kick into Soneka's gut to keep him down. It was a brutal blow. The air crashed out of Soneka's lungs and he felt a deep, internal pain that could only be organs rupturing. 'He's no use to us,' Soneka heard Thaner tell Bronzi. Thaner drew his dagger. 'Don't!' Bronzi warned. 'He's a liability. We can't use him.' Gasping, agonised, Soneka writhed. He saw Thaner coming towards him, dagger held low for the old jab and twist. 'We've taken him this far,' said a voice. 'Why don't we show him the rest? If he still objects, you can put that in his heart, Thaner.' Soneka's lungs began to work. He sucked in air, choking, tears streaming down his cheeks. 'Peto?' Bronzi was calling. 'Peto, look at me. Peto?' Soneka looked up. Bronzi had pulled up his own shirt. His right hip was a good deal more upholstered in flesh than Thaner's, but the brand was exactly the same. 'Oh glory,' Soneka wheezed. 'No... not you too, Hurt...' 'It's the mark of the hydra,' the voice said. 'It's the mark we bestow upon our friends, the friends we can trust.' Soneka heard heavy footsteps crunch across the hard-baked floor towards him. A shadow fell across him, blocking out the light of the fire. Even in silhouette, Soneka recognised it. An Astartes in full plate. 'Alpha Legion...' Soneka whispered. 'Exactly.' The Alpha legionnaire knelt down over Soneka. 'I believe you're a good man, Peto - honest and trustworthy. I think we could be friends. I have no wish to kill you, but I will, without compunction, if you maintain this stance of resistance.' 'Then stop lying to me,' Soneka moaned, his voice shrunk by pain. 'I'm not, Peto.' 'What's your name?' 'Alpharius.' Peto Soneka started to laughed. It was a ragged, painful sound. 'Lies, lies, more lies. I know for a fact that Lord Alpharius is in the grand pavilion right now, meeting with Lord Commander Namatjira. You're lying to me, so you might as well kill me now and get it over with.' 'Give me your blade, Thaner,' said the Astartes. 'FOR THE PROSECUTION of Mon Lo, I will require full access to, and use of, your astrotelepaths, sir,' said Alpharius. 'Why?' asked Lord Namatjira. The assembly was seated at the low couches, as servants brought in the feast. Namatjira marvelled at the nimble finesse with which the Astartes manoeuvred food into their mouths using their huge gauntlets. Despite their bulk and crude size, these beings were dextrous and refined. 'Psychic power is a key weapon in denying the Nurthene menace,' said Pech. 'This menace...' Namatjira said. 'You have spoken already of this force of Chaos, but I fear it sounds like dark age nonsense and superstition.' Alpharius smiled, expertly shucking a piece of shellfish that was dwarfed by his motorised glove. He slid the pink flesh into his mouth. 'You have seen it at work, my lord. How do you account for it? Lord Wilde insists on referring to it as magick.' 'It's not magick,' said Herzog. 'And yet it is,' said Pech. 'It is the very quantity that mankind has called magick since the very start of his history.' 'What Ingo and Thias mean,' said Alpharius, 'is that there is a primal power in our galaxy that defies comprehension. It is foul and it is powerful, and it exists sidelong to our frame of reference. It resides in the warp.' 'And this, you say, is Chaos?' asked Namatjira. 'We use the word Chaos, but that term is very imprecise. It is a primordial force, and may be used by those who have fallen under its influence.' 'You've seen it before?' 'Yes, my lord, once or twice. It is a cosmic bane, a toxic effect that flows freely in some places. It subverts the mind and the will, it corrupts.' 'Will it corrupt us?' asked Namatjira. 'Of course not!' Alpharius laughed, shelling another piece of seafood. 'It is not some kind of plague. But it is deeply ingrown in the Nurthene society. It gives them access to many skills that we would consider occult. Psykers are our best defence against Chaos. They will allow us to extinguish the enemy's advantage here. For the same reason, I would like the Geno Chiliad to be deployed at the front of our assault when it comes.' 'For what same reason?' asked Namatjira. 'The Chiliad uxors are rudimentary psykers. That will lend us an advantage.' 'So be it,' said Namatjira. He looked at Alpharius. 'I'm trusting you, lord primarch. I'm trusting you to make a clean fist of this debacle.' 'Your trust is not misplaced, sir,' replied Alpharius. Dinas Chayne appeared behind Lord Namatjira, and whispered in his ear. Namatjira nodded. 'My apologies, lord primarch. Much as I find this conversation fascinating, I must withdraw now. There are matters to attend to.' Alpharius nodded. 'I understand. I too, must go. Omegon has signalled me. Thank you for this feast, sir. It was a true and warm welcome.' They rose. A hush fell. 'Everyone,' Namatjira called out, 'everyone, please continue to enjoy this evening. Let nothing spoil your hard-won relaxation. My Lord Alpharius and I must withdraw to consider the days ahead. Eat and drink to your surfeit!' Approval ran around the vast tent. 'It has been my pleasure to meet you all,' said Alpharius. 'I am convinced that, together, we will finish this compliance in under a week. Ladies, gentlemen, feast well.' He raised his cup and drank deeply. A servant took Alpharius's empty cup from him. 'Lord Commander?' Alpharius nodded graciously to Namatjira. 'I have learned a great deal tonight, Lord Alpharius. My view of the cosmic order has been altered. I hope we may speak further on this subject.' 'Of course.' 'Terra rest you and the Emperor protect you,' said Namatjira. They left the pavilion in opposite directions. The carousing continued behind them. By the south porch, Namatjira exited into the cold night. His Lucifers were waiting for him. 'Report,' said Namatjira. 'Have you uncovered anything on Uxor Rukhsana?' 'No,' said Chayne. 'But there is definitely a foreign agent at work in our midst. The spy has slain one of my men, right outside the pavilion. He's too close and too good. We need to purge our ranks at once.' Namatjira nodded. 'See to it. You have my full sanction. By the way, what did you make of the Astartes, Dinas?' Dinas Chayne looked back at his lord and commander coldly. 'Every single one of them was lying,' he said. AT THE WEST porch, Alpharius, Pech and Herzog strode out into the night. Omegon was waiting for them. He had dismissed the perimeter guards so they could be alone. The four hulking armoured figures fell into step and began to cross the open dunes towards their lander in the cool, violet darkness. 'How was I?' asked the Astartes who had played the role of Alpharius all night. 'Imperial,' Pech replied. 'Masterful,' said Herzog. 'But then, you do have a certain advantage, Omegon. Besides, I think you enjoy playing the part of primarch.' 'Don't we all?' chuckled Pech. 'So, Sheed,' said Omegon, glancing at the Astartes who had worn the name Omegon in his place that evening. What's the story?' Sheed Ranko, master of the Alpha's Terminator elite, was an especially large Astartes, who doubled well for both Omegon and Lord Alpharius in diplomatic circumstances. He shrugged his massive, plated shoulders. 'Grammaticus was here, trying to spy on the meeting. He took out a Lucifer Black.' 'He's good, then?' asked Omegon. 'He's very good,' Herzog assured. 'But he's hurt,' said Ranko, 'busted up. I typed his blood.' 'Get a match?' asked Pech. 'Yes. Konig Heniker. Apparently, one of the Army spies. Deep cover agent, specialist.' 'He's Grammaticus?' Ranko nodded. 'I think so. He's a sly one, and very capable. The Lucifers are scared of him, and very little scares those wily bastards. We have to find him, and before they do. I've told Shere to hunt for him.' 'What are we waiting for?' asked Herzog. 'Where's Alpharius?' Omegon asked. 'Out in the dune wastes,' Sheed Ranko replied. 'Tidying up another loose end.' NINE Mon Lo Harbour, Nurth, just before the evening dawn the next day BY SHEER STRENGTH of will and the straining muscle power of his arms, John Grammaticus forced open the jaws of the dragon that was swallowing him and tumbled out of its furnace maw onto the cold sand. He was too weak to fight any more, but that was all right. The dragon had gone away, as all dream things do when a person wakes. Grammaticus lay shivering for a while in the basin behind the lonely tel. The injuries he'd taken the night before were worse than he had realised. His hands were torn raw, and most of his fingers refused to bend, either because they were too swollen, or because they were broken. His forearms were striped with blue bruises from deflecting the Lucifer's sabre blows, despite his sleeve armour. His face was sore and throbbing, swelling out around the bridge of his shattered nose and half shutting his eyes. His nostrils were black with caked blood and the back of his head was a contusion too tender to be touched. He'd been in pain the night before, but he'd also been warm, and fuelled by adrenaline. Sleeping rough had reduced his core temperature and robbed him of every sensation except nausea and aching hurt. After his confrontation with the Lucifer, Grammaticus had fled into the desert. There had been no sense or safety in heading for the terracotta palace. Grammaticus knew he was now being hunted by at least two formidable enemies, the Alpha Legion and the Lord Commander's companion retinue. He'd found a place to shelter out in the

e, but he'd also been warm, and fuelled by adrenaline. Sleeping rough had reduced his core temperature and robbed him of every sensation except nausea and aching hurt. After his confrontation with the Lucifer, Grammaticus had fled into the desert. There had been no sense or safety in heading for the terracotta palace. Grammaticus knew he was now being hunted by at least two formidable enemies, the Alpha Legion and the Lord Commander's companion retinue. He'd found a place to shelter out in the dune sea, and had gone to sleep speculating on how best to resume his mission. However, in the freezing dawn, shivering and hurt, Grammaticus was starting to believe his mission was no longer viable. What little chance there might have been to redeem himself and finish his work had probably vanished. He feared he was too hurt and too compromised to risk continuing. Perhaps it was time to abandon the mission and get out. The Cabal would just have to find another way of accomplishing its designs. He got up, unsteadily. Thin light was beginning to pour over the horizon as dawn sliced its way into the sky. It would be bone-chill for another hour or so, then the sun would rise fully, like a bleach spot on pink blotting paper, and the land would bake. And then he would be dead. But John Grammaticus had not fled blindly into the empty desert quarter. He read charts as well as he read lips. Before immersing himself in the Mon Lo offensive, he'd spent three days reconnoitring the desert edge twenty kilometres south of the palace. He'd methodically dug in contingency bolt holes, each one ready to play its part in whatever exit strategy he might be forced to use. Yes, he decided, it was time to go now, more than time. He'd done his best, and he'd failed. He'd been a fool to stay on as long as he had, especially after the business with the dragon. His expectations had reduced to three, simple possibilities. He could escape, alive, and attempt to persuade the Cabal his failure on Nurth was not an eliminating offence. He could escape, and hide from the Cabal for as long as his wits held out. Or he could die in the desert. The Cabal was not the forgiving master it may have once been, but the first option seemed the best, nevertheless. He prayed he was still useful enough as a toy to be spared. He walked west for a kilometre, glanding a little boost to wake himself up and sharpen his senses. The chemical boost helped numb the throb in his arms, his knuckles and his skull. As his mind cleared, he took stock, and verified his position using landmarks that he had patiently memorised during his reconnoitre: a pile of six, flat stones; a pronghorn skull, decades old; a patch of scrub that looked like a map of the Crimea. In just under fifteen minutes, he found the pool. It lay at the bottom of an especially deep wadi, a slick of left-over winter rain that the long summer had not yet quite evaporated. The pool was less than a metre deep at its centre, and the water had reduced down to a brackish, brown silt. It was unpotable, but pure enough to clean himself with. He winced as the mineral salts in the water burned and sterilised his wounds. He groaned through gritted teeth as he sluiced the liquid against the back of his skull with his wounded hands. The first rays of the rising sun began to stab into the cold blackness of the gulley like laser spears. Grammaticus gingerly traced the wadi wall around to a place marked with two lumps of onyx. He dug the sand away clumsily with his damaged hands and pulled out the kitbag he'd buried there. It was a standard Army clip-lock satchel, woven from waterproof canvas. Inside were two litre bottles of rehydration fluid, a pack of ration bars which he began to eat immediately, a medicae capsule, a collapsible knife, a laspistol with two spare charge clips, three chemical flares, an autolocator, a clean bodyglove, rolled up around a plastek-wrapped sheaf of documents, and a write-enabled data-slate. He sat down, munching on one of the ration bars and taking the odd swig of fluid from one of the bottles. He sorted through the documents: two pre-prepared alternate identities, along with two sets of blanks that he could make up quickly using the gene traces loaded into the data-slate. He ran through one of his exit strategies. The food and fluid would get him as far as his next cache of supplies, eight kilometres south. Then he'd use the autolocator to call in a rescue ship from the fleet. The flares would help the ship find him. They'd be all too keen to pick up a precious Geno Five-Two hetman lost in the desert edge, and that was precisely what one of his pre-prepared documents said he was. He'd been careful to make up a set using the ident of a het missing and lost during the last few weeks. Peto Albari Soneka, het of the Dancers, missing in action since the CR345 raid. Grammaticus idly practised a Feodosiyac accent. He could carry that off, no problem. By the time anyone realised he wasn't Peto Soneka, he'd have vanished behind two or three other stolen identities and become lost in the data labyrinth of the fleet. Then, what? A berth on a supply vessel heading towards the core regions? Something simple. Something unfussy. A hundred ships came and went every day, servicing and supplying the huge demands of the advancing 670th Fleet. He'd be gone on one of them before anyone knew it, and on some backwater colony, ninety light years away, he'd step off and disappear forever. Forever. He thought about using the medicae capsule to tend his injuries, then considered that dirty wounds would reinforce any survivor story he attempted to weave. Grammaticus sighed and began to repack his bag. He tried not to think about Rukhsana Saiid any more. Gahet, that old bastard, had been quite right. That had been a wrong step. It hadn't impaired his mission so much as it had impaired her chances of survival. It was likely that she would pay the price for his disappearance. Once again, he despised his own weakness. He had used her so badly, so knowingly, and yet the sad truth of it was that he had genuine feelings for her. Perhaps, once he was back in the fleet and functioning under a new identity, he might arrange to have her recalled. He'd get her out and take her with him. Of course, that risked exposure... perhaps too much exposure. 'I am a coward,' he told the desert out loud, tears on his cheeks. 'You are,' the desert replied. Grammaticus leapt to his feet, his heart pounding. He fought to get his broken fingers to take hold of the laspistol, and aimed it. At nothing. He snatched around, chasing the source of the voice, the pistol braced. Show yourself! he sent. 'I'm right here, John.' He looked down at the stained pool. The Cabal was using it as a fleet. It wasn't Gahet this time. This time, they'd sent Slau Dha. 'You've been quiet a long time,' Grammaticus said boldly, despite the fact that the vision of Slau Dha terrified him. 'I called for you, and no one answered. Now you come?' Slau Dha nodded. His reflection was extraordinarily pure, like a hologram cast up from the pool's water. The autarch gazed at Grammaticus through the slits of his glinting, bone-white helm. He was as slender as he was tall. The white feathers of his giant wings caught the advancing light. A few metres in front of the towering white figure stood G'Latrro, Slau Dha's little Xshesian interpolator. 'What do you want, lord?' Grammaticus asked. Slau Dha murmured something. 'He wants to know why you're giving up, when we're so close to our goal,' G'Latrro translated into Common Gothic, quite unnecessarily. Grammaticus spoke the eldar tongue well enough. 'I'm compromised. You must understand that. I can't get any closer. I can't do what you want me to do.' Slau Dha did not reply. He continued to stare at Grammaticus. 'You are terminating your mission?' asked the little Xshesian in Gothic. Grammaticus switched to the eldar tongue, ignoring the hunched insectoid and looking directly at the autarch. 'I said, I can't-' 'He knows what you said, John,' said G'Latrro. The Xshesian had to move its mouthparts rapidly and nimbly to approximate human speech sounds. 'He thought the Cabal had trained you well. Briefed you fully. Shared its Acuity with you.' 'You did, but-' 'He thought you understood how vital this gambit was.' 'I do, but-' 'Why are you giving up, John?' Grammaticus shook his head and tossed the laspistol back onto his pack. 'I'm no good to you. This situation is no longer viable. I've tried to get close to the Alpha Legion, and I can't. They're too wary. You should deploy another agent, and try elsewhere. Another Legion, perhaps?' 'Are you planning for us now, John Grammaticus?' G'Latrro chose not to translate Slau Dha's question. Instead, he relayed it straight. The question was simple, but framed in the eldar accusative form, it felt like a death threat. 'I would not presume, lord,' said Grammaticus, shuddering. 'Two years, sidereal, that's all we have before it starts,' G'Latrro said, relaying Slau Dha's whispers. 'A decade, maximum, before it ends. This is our window. Our one chance to turn your reckless race into an instrument of good.' 'You've never liked humans much, have you, "honoured lord"?' Grammaticus asked. 'Mon-keigh,' the autarch said, contemptuously. 'You are weed-species, afterbirth, runts,' the Xshesian glossed. 'No, tell me what you really think,' Grammaticus said. Slua Dha muttered. 'You are the blight of the galaxy, and you will be its doom or its deliverer,' G'Latrro relayed. 'I do so love our conversations,' Grammaticus smiled. 'It's so rewarding to speak to a being who perceives my entire species as a momentary aberration in the galaxy's evolution.' 'Aren't you, just?' asked Slau Dha, in thickly accented Low Gothic. 'You know what? Fug you, you uptight eldar bastard. Piss off and hide in whatever corner of the cosmos you deem safe. Leave me alone. Stop fleeting up and ab

are the blight of the galaxy, and you will be its doom or its deliverer,' G'Latrro relayed. 'I do so love our conversations,' Grammaticus smiled. 'It's so rewarding to speak to a being who perceives my entire species as a momentary aberration in the galaxy's evolution.' 'Aren't you, just?' asked Slau Dha, in thickly accented Low Gothic. 'You know what? Fug you, you uptight eldar bastard. Piss off and hide in whatever corner of the cosmos you deem safe. Leave me alone. Stop fleeting up and abusing me.' Grammaticus spat. His spittle landed in the pool and caused a ripple that spread out and broke around Slau Dha's armoured shins. 'John?' asked G'Latrro. 'Whatever made you think he was fleeting himself here?' Grammaticus backed away quickly, stammering. 'No, no... no!' The autarch took a step towards him, past the cowed Xshesian, roiling the pool's sediment with his feet. Grammaticus lunged for his pack, but the eldar, as had been the case since the start of time, was far too fast. A blur of white, it reached him in a second and seized him by the throat. Long, bone-armoured fingers bit into Grammaticus's neck and pinned him down. 'Please! Please! Aghh!' Slau Dha tightened his grip on Grammaticus's throat. 'Do not plead, mon-keigh.' 'Ghnn! You came... you came here in person?' 'Yes, John,' said G'Latrro, coming up behind them. 'Lord Slau Dha came here in person because it is that important.' 'TWO YEARS, THAT'S all we have,' said the insectoid, relaying the white giant's almost inaudible whispers. 'Two years, John. The Cabal has seen this clearly, compounding our farseer and visionist talents. Even the Drahendra have seen this, and you know how slowly they move.' Grammaticus nodded. The Drahendra was the most silent and inscrutable faction represented in the Cabal. Sentient, energised dust, virtually extinct, the last of them existed as membrane skins around dying gas giants. Even they perceived the rapid reshaping of universal destiny. 'We're all going to die. Only mon-keigh kind can alter the pattern.' 'I wish he'd stop calling us that,' Grammaticus told G'Latrro, rubbing his bruised throat. 'It will be called a heresy,' Slau Dha replied through his interpolator. The insectoid's mouthparts twirled feverishly. 'It will halt your species' growth in its tracks. Even your glorious Emperor will be lost in it.' 'Lost?' 'He will die, John.' 'Oh glory. You're sure?' 'It has been farseen. He will die forever. And his eternal death is the one thing we wish to prevent. Tiny thing though he is, you Emperor is a pivotal player in this.' 'And Horus?' 'A monster. Not yet, but soon. A monster to engulf all monsters.' 'Can't you stop it? Engage with another Legion, perhaps?' 'John, we have tested them all, one by one. The Dark Angels first, centuries ago. There is too much inherent corruption in them. The gene-seed weakness in all of the older Legions has been exacerbated by the need to keep them up to strength for the Great Crusade. They have all, one way or another, weakened themselves. They are vulnerable. But the Alpha Legion, the last, the latest... they are still pure enough. Green, receptive to change.' 'Surely...?' 'John, listen to him,' said G'Latrro. 'He let the Cabal into the Black Library, so they could read this truth. He broke all the ancient edicts to make that happen. It is predetermined. The Cabal has exhausted hundreds of other agents trying to recruit the Astartes.' 'Human agents?' 'Yes, John. Human agents. Agents of all species. John, the Alpha Legion is our last hope. They are latecomers. Their gene-seed has not been diluted by the Terran and Alien Wars. John, we must-' Slau Dha spoke, cutting his interpolator off. 'Your first death,' he said, speaking in the eldar tongue, knowing Grammaticus had no need of an interpreter. 'My first death,' Grammaticus answered in kind. 'Anatol Hive. I never asked you to save me, autarch. You chose to do that, remember? You chose to re-sleeve me in flesh and make me your agent. Don't you dare start calling in favours that I never asked for.' There was a long silence. 'I must, John,' Slau Dha replied. He began to whisper again. 'This is no longer about the mission,' G'Latrro translated. 'The mission is still vital, but another factor has entered the scheme, an unpredicted one.' 'What?' asked Grammaticus. 'It is something previously invisible to the Cabal's Acuity. The Cabal chose Nurth as an ideal opportunity to demonstrate the effects of the Primordial Annihilator to the Alpha Legion. It turns out it is, perhaps, too much of a demonstration.' 'I don't understand,' said Grammaticus. 'What do you mean?' 'This is why I have come in person,' said Slau Dha quietly. 'We have lately discovered,' said G'Latrro, 'that the Nurthene possess a Black Cube.' TEN Mon Lo Harbour, Nurth, later that morning CHASED BY HER aides, Honen Mu strode out into the bright sunlight that was bleaching one of the terracotta palace's wide inner yards. She walked like she always walked, as if she was late for something important and nothing would stop her. Other uxors, along with senior hets, were gathering in the yard, chatting in small groups or reading data reports. The morning briefing with Sri Vedt and Major General Dev was due to start in half an hour, and expectations were high. With the full strength of an Astartes taskforce now in play, commanded by the Legion's primarch, no less, everyone anticipated a swift escalation in operations, a major assault, most likely, and soon. It was common knowledge that the Lord Commander was entirely pissed off with the Mon Lo theatre, and expected the Alpha Legion to take it quickly and cleanly, and so end his troubles. Her aides were all gabbling at her. The day was bright, but cold, thanks to a blustery wind blowing in off the desert. The sky seemed to be moving backwards even more slowly than before. The vapour stain above Mon Lo was as dark and immobile as ever, but the screaming seemed to have diminished a little, or had at least been baffled by the desert wind. The sound lurked at the edge of hearing, like tinnitus. Honen Mu came to a halt. 'Shut up,' she snapped with her 'cept, and her aides shut up. 'One at a time now,' she instructed. 'Two attempted incursions along the earthwork overnight,' said Tiphaine. 'One at CR412 around midnight, repulsed by a contingent of the Outremars after a patchy firefight, the other at CR416, seen off quickly by the Knaves Company.' 'Losses?' 'None on either occasion, uxor,' said Jhani. 'Force estimations?' Mu asked. 'Both incursions were made by nurthadtre raiders,' Leeli said, 'numbering no more than thirty individuals. Lightly armed skiritai units, desert rogues, each force probably led by an echvehnurth elite. They melted back into the desert as quickly as they could.' 'They are testing our lines, probing for weaknesses,' said Jhani. Honen Mu looked at the girl snidely. Jhani hung her head. 'Which, of course, you had already appreciated, uxor,' she murmured. 'Anything else?' asked Mu. 'There are sketchy reports that a spy was driven away from the pavilion last night,' said Tiphaine. 'Define "driven away",' said Mu. 'An insurgent agent got close to the pavilion during the Lord Commander's meeting with the Astartes,' said Nefferti. 'He was discovered, and fled, probably into the desert.' 'This is unconfirmed?' asked Mu. 'It is simply a rumour. The Lord Commander's staff seem unwilling to admit that such an outrage occurred.' 'No wonder, an agent getting that close...' said Mu. 'The rumour also suggests that said agent may have taken out a Lucifer Black,' said Erikah. Honen Mu redirected her gaze at Erikah. The girl did not shy away from Mu's hard stare. Mu liked Erikah's strength. Far younger than Tiphaine, Mu's senior aide, the youngest of them all, Erikah showed great promise. She reminded Mu of herself: unabashed, strong, wilful. 'The enemy agent killed a Lucifer?' Mu asked. Erikah nodded. 'Right outside the tent wall and no one inside heard anything. Of course, the Lord Commander's staff is denying this, but you know how word gets around.' 'I happen to know a bajolur in the Outremars who said he saw the body being whisked away,' said Leeli. I can imagine how you happen to 'know' the bajolur, thought Mu. 'Shit,' she whispered. 'A Lucifer got burned?' 'Though the Lord Commander's staff has refused to comment on the rumour,' said Tiphaine, 'operational security has been beefed up to Code Order Six as of midnight last night.' Mu nodded. Code Order Six was the highest of the standing security impositions. 'We have learned that the Lord Commander has authorised the Lucifer Black companions to conduct a full security purge on all Army units,' said Jhani. 'Everyone should make themselves available for interrogation by the companions at short notice. The Lord Commander is clearly keen to root out the spy in our midst before any assault begins.' 'That's exactly what I would do,' Mu sighed. I need to clear things up before that happens, she thought. I need to clean the Chiliad ranks quickly and effectively, before the damn Lucifers find our regiment wanting. I know in my bones that a weakness resides within us. Rukhsana, Rukhsana, that silly bitch, she's hiding something, and I will find it before our entire Old Hundred is shamed and disgraced. She looked up at the sky, and watched it slide back on itself, slowly and unnaturally, like a pict feed of ice collapsing into melt water played in reverse. The desert wind tugged at their cloaks. 'Uxor?' asked Nefferti. 'Wait here, please,' Mu said, and strode off across the yard. Her aides lingered where they had been told to linger, whispering and nattering. 'Genewhip,' Mu said. Franco Boone looked around at her. He had been standing in conversation with uxor Sanzi and her aides. 'Uxor,' he nodded. 'I was just about to come looking for you.' 'A word,' said Mu. They walked away from the gathering throng, to t

o melt water played in reverse. The desert wind tugged at their cloaks. 'Uxor?' asked Nefferti. 'Wait here, please,' Mu said, and strode off across the yard. Her aides lingered where they had been told to linger, whispering and nattering. 'Genewhip,' Mu said. Franco Boone looked around at her. He had been standing in conversation with uxor Sanzi and her aides. 'Uxor,' he nodded. 'I was just about to come looking for you.' 'A word,' said Mu. They walked away from the gathering throng, to the south side of the yard, under the shade of the colonnade. 'Something stinks,' said Boone, keeping his voice low. 'Go on,' she replied. 'Let me ask you this,' said Boone. 'Uxor Rukhsana? You told me she was covering something. Could it be an affair with Het Pius?' Mu gazed at him. 'Maybe, I don't know why she'd hide it. Who would care?' Boone shrugged. He took hold of the golden box hanging around his neck and took a pinch of peck. 'The thing is,' he said, sniffing, 'we went to scope out Rukhsana's lodgings, to follow up on your lead. We found Het Pius there, bold as brass and twice as naked.' Mu laughed. She felt relieved. If that was all it was, if that explained Rukhsana's behaviour, then she had been worrying for nothing. 'There's your answer,' she said. 'I apologise for putting you to such trouble,' Boone's dark look had not gone away. 'The trouble's only just started, uxor,' he said. 'As it turns out, it couldn't have been Pius, unless Pius can be in two places at once. Whoever it was, they fooled me and two of my best bulls good and proper,' 'I don't understand,' said Mu. Suddenly, despite her cloak, she felt how cold the wind was and shivered. 'Neither do I, lady,' said Boone. 'I spent last night surveilling Pius. Guess who I saw with him?' Boone scratched the tip of his axe-blade nose, and gave her a significant look. 'You'll have to tell me, Franco,' she replied. 'Soneka.' She stared at the genewhip. 'Well, of course. They're old friends.' Boone shook his head. 'Soneka's got suspicious written all over him, Mu. He got out of Tel Khat alive, and came to you with stories, what was it? About a "body" and Hurt Bronzi? Soneka, Pius, the pieces don't fit.' 'I'm sure they do,' she assured him. Boone shook his head again. 'Not in any way I feel comfortable with, uxor.' Mu pursed her lips and glanced up at the slow sky, squinting at the light. 'Peto's story was a fabulation,' she said, 'he admitted it himself. He was delirious after his ordeal and-' 'We approached him for a quiet word,' Boone cut in. 'Just a quiet word. He fought us off and fled.' Mu didn't reply. 'He's hiding something,' said Boone. 'Soneka's in league with Pius, or whoever it is that's pretending to be Pius. I'd laugh it off, but we're in the deep and stinky here. The companions are closing us down. A purge. If they dig up any real dirt, our heads will roll, literally. You know how forgiving Namatjira can be. He'd merrily eviscerate the geno if it meant making an example of a traitor.' Mu looked at Boone so directly that he was forced to avert his gaze. 'Franco, Peto Soneka is not the problem. He's a good man, a damn good man, who's been through hell these past weeks. He was shaken and delirious when we spoke to him. He's no spy. He ran because you scared him. I'd stake my life on it.' Boone finally found the bottle to look straight back at her. 'He ran, Mu. He fought us off and ran. He vanished, and as of this morning, Bronzi's missing too. His bashaws don't know where he is. They haven't seen hide nor hair of him since dawn yesterday. He's dropped off the scope. I swear, they're in it together, Mu... Soneka, Pius and Bronzi, three of our best hets. We're not talking junior gee-tards here. They're encrypt-eared hets; they know the Army's entire playbook. If it turns out they've gone over, the scandal will finish the regiment.' Honen Mu pulled her cloak around her to fend off the worst of the wind. 'Franco, would you please come with me?' she asked. She led him along the colonnade to a shadowy stone stairwell that led up onto the flat roof of one of the buildings overlooking the yard. Up on the roof, the wind was stronger and the light brighter. Two men were waiting for them at the edge of the roof space. They got to their feet as Mu and Boone approached. Boone blinked in consternation and drew his sidearm. 'Hurtado Bronzi, Peto Soneka... consider yourselves under detention and-' 'Put that away, Franco,' said Mu. 'They're here under their own recognisance. They asked me to arrange this meeting, so that they could speak to you directly.' Boone lowered his gun, but did not put it away. 'I'm waiting,' he said. 'Genewhip,' Bronzi said, making a casual but respectful namaste in Boone's direction. 'My old friend Peto has an apology to make to you. Haven't you, Peto?' Soneka nodded. 'I was a fool to run last night, really, a complete fool. I was a little bit crazy. My mind was all over the place. I'm sorry for that, Genewhip Boone.' 'Not good enough,' said Boone. 'He's telling the truth,' said Bronzi. He fished out a sheaf of documents from his belt pouch. 'Look, see? Medicae reports. They signed off on him this morning after an exam. Combat fatigue.' 'Likely story,' Boone snorted, bringing up his sidearm again. 'Look, I spent the last day and a half looking for him,' said Bronzi, 'because he's my best friend and I didn't want to see him swinging in the wind. He's messed up, that's all.' 'Really?' asked Boone. 'His company got hammered at Tel Utan. Then the remnants of them were slaughtered at Tel Khat. It's no surprise Peto's suffering from combat fatigue,' said Mu. 'That kind of trauma would make anyone run if genewhips started pressing the wrong buttons,' Bronzi added. 'Your men were suggesting that the Tel Khat Massacre was all his fault.' Boone lowered his weapon. 'I suppose...' he began. He snatched the papers out of Bronzi's hand and skimmed them. The sheets flapped in the wind. 'I don't want Bronzi or my uxor making any excuses for me,' said Soneka. 'I can stand on my own two feet. I'm sorry I cut rough with your bulls, genewhip. Terra, I really am.' 'I didn't want to see Peto hang when he hadn't done a thing, Boone,' said Bronzi. 'Like I said, I spent the whole of yesterday out looking for him, and when I found him, I persuaded him to turn himself in, to make peace with you and smooth this trouble out.' 'With my full sanction,' said Mu. 'Hurtado brought the matter to me early this morning, and explained the facts.' 'Hurt convinced me that it was better to turn myself in and face you,' said Soneka. 'I realise I should never, ever have run. That made me look guilty as hell.' Boone holstered his weapon. He glared at all three of them, and thrust the paperwork back into Bronzi's hands. 'All right. All right, but I'm still not happy' 'Of course you're not,' said Soneka. 'That's why we'd like to offer you something in return,' said Bronzi, 'by way of recompense for your trouble, and in gratitude for your understanding.' 'Like what?' asked Boone sourly. 'Kaido Pius,' said Soneka. 'Hurt and I are his oldest friends. We can get stuff out of him that you genewhips would never manage, about him, Uxor Rukhsana, whatever dirt there is.' 'Just give us a day or two,' said Bronzi. 'We'll report back and give you everything we've found.' Boone looked at Uxor Mu. 'I don't trust either of them.' 'I trust them with my life,' Mu said. 'They are two of my best hets. Let them loose, Franco. They'll find the canker in our midst. If they play us for fools, I'll kill them myself.' 'She would,' said Soneka. 'She really would,' Bronzi agreed. Boone grinned. 'No doubt of that, but if you two bastards are tight with Pius like you say, why would you sell him out?' 'If Kaido's betrayed the Chiliad,' said Soneka, 'it wouldn't matter if he was my brother. I'd skin him alive.' 'Company first, Imperium second,' said Bronzi. 'Geno before gene.' 'All right,' said Boone. Two days, then I bring hell down on your heads.' 'That's fair,' said Bronzi. 'Totally fair,' Soneka agreed. Boone turned to leave, and then turned back. 'Soneka? I'm truly sorry for your anguish. A company is a hard thing to lose.' 'Indeed it is, genewhip,' Soneka replied. BOONE LEFT THEM on the roof and returned to the yard. Honen Mu regarded the two hets. She brushed windblown hair out of her eyes. 'I have to go to the briefing,' she said. They nodded. 'Thank you for doing this,' said Soneka. 'An uxor looks out for all her charges,' she replied, and then paused. 'Don't let me down. Don't make me regret sticking my neck out today.' 'We won't, Honen,' said Bronzi. 'All right,' she said. 'I want the Chiliad's house swept clean in twenty-four hours, before the companions start picking at our loose threads. Start with Rukhsana. Like I said, she's covering something. That's why I sent Boone after her in the first place.' 'If we find anything, you'll be the first to know,' said Soneka. 'And we can all go and tell Boone together,' smiled Bronzi. 'As a matter of interest, do you think Pius is compromised?' Mu asked. 'Kaido?' asked Bronzi. 'Not for a moment.' 'And Rukhsana?' Bronzi shrugged. Mu turned to go. 'Oh, Peto,' she said, 'your medicae papers not withstanding, are you fit for posting?' 'We only got the papers to convince Boone,' said Soneka. 'I'd actually rather be working.' She nodded. 'With Shiban gone, the Clowns need an acting het, especially if we're about to go in. I'll get the warrants drawn up, a temporary assignment for you and your bashaws until I can bring in a permanent new het. Maybe you can go up the line and make an overture later today? They desperately need licking into shape before we go hot. There's-' 'Fugging Strabo,' said Soneka, nodding. 'I know.' She smiled. 'Good. Excellent. Well, carry on.' She walked away, her heels clacking on the cinder roof, and disappeared down the stairwell. Bronzi looked over at Soneka and grinne

out to go in. I'll get the warrants drawn up, a temporary assignment for you and your bashaws until I can bring in a permanent new het. Maybe you can go up the line and make an overture later today? They desperately need licking into shape before we go hot. There's-' 'Fugging Strabo,' said Soneka, nodding. 'I know.' She smiled. 'Good. Excellent. Well, carry on.' She walked away, her heels clacking on the cinder roof, and disappeared down the stairwell. Bronzi looked over at Soneka and grinned. 'Shiban's mob. That's-' 'Ironic,' Soneka finished. Bronzi chuckled and stroked his belly. He looked out from the roof at the distant, hadean vista of Mon Lo. 'You think we fooled them?' asked Soneka. Bronzi held up his hand. The middle and index fingers were crossed. 'I mean, I'm new to all this,' said Soneka. 'I'm hardly a veteran,' Bronzi replied, 'but, yes, I think we're good. We'd better get on with it.' He turned to go. Soneka put out a hand to stop him. It was his ruined, truncated hand, and for some reason, Bronzi found this terribly telling. 'I'm not prepared to countenance anything that betrays the geno,' Soneka said, 'and absolutely nothing that would hurt Mu.' 'Then we're on the same page, aren't we, Peto?' said Bronzi. 'Let's get on with it.' IN THE SHUTTERED darkness of his private cell, Dinas Chayne sat in meditation. The cell, deep in the subterranean layers of the palace, was damp and cold, but Chayne had not lit the small iron firebasket, nor any of the tapers. He liked the cold. The cold had been his friend on Zous as a child warrior, especially during the last, long, hard winter of his thirteenth year. The cold had sharpened his wits, and forced him to steel himself. The cold was a tool that a man, or a boy, could use to temper himself. Breathing slowly, Chayne took apart the facts, and built them back up one by one. Uxor Saiid. The Alpha Legion. Omegon. The note. His dead Lucifer. The astonishing skill of the elusive spy. The astonishing arrogance of the elusive spy. There, the arrogance suggested that the spy was confident in his cover. Where does a spy hide? In plain sight. How does he operate? Without drawing attention to himself, by being what he is naturally, to avoid question and comment. The best way of doing that was to be exactly what you claimed to be. It made the cover story so much easier to run. The best cover a spy could have was to be a spy. Chayne had already decided to pay a visit to Uxor Saiid. He'd had his men watching her since the Lord Commander's order, to no great result. Now that Namatjira had sanctioned a security purge, Chayne felt duty bound to stop being reactive and bring her in for interrogation. The morning briefing would end in thirty minutes. She'd be on her way back to her quarters. He would meet her there in person, and show no mercy. She was the key, somehow. She'd covered something during her meeting with the Lord Commander. She'd covered for someone. Chayne had photographic recall. Breathing ever more slowly, his heart rate down to an inhuman level, he replayed the moments of the meeting. 'Rukhsana,' Namatjira had said. 'I'm told you were responsible for reconnaissance and scouting at Mon Lo?' 'That was my role, sir.' 'You had agents in the field?' 'I did, Lord Commander,' Rukhsana had replied. 'Most of them were long range observers and spotters.' Namatjira had consulted the data-slate. 'But you had at least one intelligence officer inside Mon Lo the morning this hubbub began?' He had waved his hand distractedly in the direction of the window. Rukhsana had pursed her lips and looked down. 'Yes, sir, I did. Konig Heniker.' 'Heniker? Yes, I know him. He's a reliable man. What happened to him?' 'He had entered the city covertly once already, sir, and briefed me afterwards. His intelligence was of good quality. He inserted that morning, very early, intending to collect data on the Kurnaul and north wall areas. He never came back.' 'Ah, I see,' the Lord Commander had sighed. 'Thank you, Uxor Rukhsana.' Dinas Chayne opened his eyes in the dark. It was so obvious, so obvious! He'd been a fool to miss it. The best cover a spy could have was to be a spy. There was a knock at the door behind him. He ignored it. His men knew better than to disturb him during meditation. Another knock came. The alert cursor on the cuff of his armour, stacked on the floor in front of him, began to wink. 'Who is it?' Chayne called. 'Eiman, sir. We have something.' 'Wait.' It took forty-six seconds for Dinas Chayne to fully clothe himself in his jet-black armour. He opened the door. Eiman was outside, along with Treece. They were fully armoured, and stood flanking a nervous young man, the adept from the security post that Chayne had handed the note to the night before. The adept was clearly terrified at the thought of disturbing a Lucifer Black. 'Tell me,' said Chayne. 'Sir, I have completed the tests you ordered. I have run a comparison check on the handwriting base of all expedition personnel. I have a match, sir. It's-' 'Konig Heniker,' said Chayne. The adept blinked in astonishment. 'Yes. How could you possibly know that?' Chayne pushed the adept out of his way and began to stride along the corridor. Eiman and Treece fell in behind him. 'Instructions?' snapped Eiman. 'Eight men,' said Chayne. 'Close down Uxor Saiid's quarters and bring her to me. Her spy is our spy.' THEY CROSSED THE upper courts of the palace, through bustling streams of servants carrying sacks of manioc and blondleaf to the kitchens, past a marching band rehearsing on a small quad, past a group of artillery officers being briefed on a sunlit terrace. They hurried up the stairs to Rukhsana's quarters. The day's heat was building, and the warmth was beginning to ooze from the brickwork. Slaves were soaking the reed window screens with water. They knocked sharply at the door of Rukhsana's accommodation. An aide answered the door, and called for her uxor as soon as she saw who it was. Uxor Rukhsana came at once. 'What's this about?' she asked, puzzled. 'So sorry to disturb you, uxor,' said Soneka. 'I think there's been some kind of clerical glitch. I've just been issued temporary command of the Clowns, and I'm on my way up the line to meet with them. The thing is, there's a been screw up. The warrants I've been given say that the Clowns have been transferred to your purview.' 'That's not right,' Rukhsana said. The Clowns come under Honen Mu's 'cept.' 'I know, I know,' said Soneka, shrugging, 'but she's off somewhere, and I need to get this sorted urgently. If you wouldn't mind accompanying me, you could authorise the warrants, and I could get on with my job.' Rukhsana frowned. 'Soneka isn't it?' 'That's right, uxor.' 'And Bronzi?' 'Good day to you, uxor,' Bronzi smiled. 'Something's obviously gone very wrong,' she said. 'Would you mind?' Soneka asked. 'Of course not,' she said. She fetched a long desert shawl from the anteroom and told her aides to wait. 'I'll be back shortly,' she said to Tuvi. The hets escorted Rukhsana along the upper colonnade of the palace, overlooking the terraced yards. The sun was biting through the slow, unwinding clouds. 'So much confusion these days,' she said, pulling on her shawl. 'Oh, it's terrible,' Bronzi agreed. 'It's the scale of the operation, I suppose,' Rukhsana said. 'I sometimes wonder if Tactical and Provisional is entirely on top of the job.' 'Must be a nightmare, logistically,' Soneka said pleasantly. 'Look, I really do appreciate this, uxor.' 'I heard about the Dancers, het,' she said. 'I am truly sorry. They were a great company.' 'War happens,' Soneka replied, with an appreciative nod. 'I'm just glad to be getting back on the horse. Gives me a sense of purpose. Besides, we're going to need every unit on top form in these coming days, and without Shiban, the Clowns are unravelling.' 'Peto will whip them into shape,' Bronzi grinned. She hesitated. 'Forgive me, Het Bronzi, I'm not entirely sure why you're here?' 'Moral support,' Bronzi said, making a polite namaste. 'Peto was anxious about disturbing you this morning.' She looked at Bronzi, as if not entirely convinced. 'Strange,' she began, 'he doesn't look like the sort to lack-' She fell silent. Something had caught her eye. She pushed past them both, went to the stone rail of the colonnade, and gazed down into the terraced yards below. 'What's going on down there?' she asked quietly. They joined her at the rail, and looked down. Below them, on the far side of the upper yard, eight figures in black armour were hurrying up the staircase to the summit levels, rushing like shadows in the shade of the tiled mantle roof. 'Some nonsense, I'll be bound,' said Bronzi. 'Those are Lucifer Blacks,' she said. 'Yes, I think they are,' said Soneka. 'Sorry, could we get along? My driver's waiting.' 'They're heading towards my quarters,' she said. 'I don't think so,' Bronzi replied confidently. 'They're probably responding to an alert from the watch station up in the tower.' 'No,' she said, firmly. She turned to stride back the way they'd come. Soneka was blocking her, a calm, reassuring smile on his face. 'It's nothing, uxor. Let's go, shall we?' he said. She glanced to her right. Bronzi had closed in too. 'What is this?' she asked, realising that she was trapped between two very capable geno hets. Soneka looked at Bronzi. Bronzi nodded quickly. 'What the hell is this?' she demanded. 'Heniker,' said Soneka. Rukhsana froze. 'Heniker sent us,' said Bronzi. 'The companions are on to you. He sent us to get you out.' 'Please,' said Soneka. 'There's very little time.' She stared at them both. 'Heniker?' she asked. Bronzi nodded. Without hesitation, she allowed them to lead her away down the colonnade. The three of them began to run. TUVI AND THE other girls flinched as the doors to the chamber flew open. Lucifer Blacks burst in, training their weapons. 'I demand t

e demanded. 'Heniker,' said Soneka. Rukhsana froze. 'Heniker sent us,' said Bronzi. 'The companions are on to you. He sent us to get you out.' 'Please,' said Soneka. 'There's very little time.' She stared at them both. 'Heniker?' she asked. Bronzi nodded. Without hesitation, she allowed them to lead her away down the colonnade. The three of them began to run. TUVI AND THE other girls flinched as the doors to the chamber flew open. Lucifer Blacks burst in, training their weapons. 'I demand to know-' Tuvi began. 'Shut up,' said one of the companions, pointing his weapon directly at her. Dinas Chayne entered the room, moving forwards between his braced and aimed men. 'Rukhsana?' he asked, his voice issuing from his grim helmet's loudspeaker. The aides cowered in terror. The youngest of them whimpered. 'Where?' Chayne hissed. They were all too scared to reply. Chayne made a quick gesture, and four of the companions broke forwards to search the adjoining rooms. Chayne looked directly at Tuvi, who was comforting the youngest aide, a girl, barely thirteen years old. 'You are the leader. Where is your uxor?' he asked. Tuvi swallowed and returned his gaze defiantly. 'She's not here,' Tuvi said. 'She was called away on geno business.' 'Called away?' asked Chayne, taking a step towards her and lowering his weapon. 'A het came. A het who needed her authorisation or something,' Tuvi replied. 'Which het?' 'I'm not sure,' said Tuvi. 'It may have been two hets,' said one of the other girls. 'It may have been,' said Tuvi, 'I didn't really see.' Tuvi was an ambitious girl, but she was also careful. Until she understood exactly what was going on, she didn't want to give out any more information than necessary. Despite her youth and her hunger for command, she also firmly believed in the adage Company first, Imperium second, geno before gene. She had been raised that way. Chayne reached out with his left hand, and took hold of her face. She moaned quietly and closed her eyes. It looked as gentle as a lover's touch, but the compression pain he was exerting was immense. 'How long ago?' he asked quietly. 'Ten minutes. N-no more than ten.' 'Who did she go with?' The grip had made Tuvi quickly re-evaluate her priorities. 'S-Soneka,' she said. AT GROUND LEVEL, to the east of the palace sprawl, Army pioneers had excavated a deep ramp, and removed the side wall of a giant ceremonial chamber to provide a vast depot for vehicles. The excised wall section had been replaced by load-bearing, pneumolithic girders, and fortified with flakboard and ballistic pumice. Trucks and transports toiled in and out along the ramp all day long in a haze of dust, under the direction of artificer banksmen and other security personnel. The engine fumes gathered in the roof space, slowly sucked away by powerful vent systems that had been bolted under the vaults. Lumen rigs hung from brackets all the way down the chamber. The place echoed with rivet guns and pressure drivers. 'That one,' said Bronzi, hurrying back to them. Soneka and Rukhsana came out from behind a turreted trans-trak painted in Thorn livery, and crossed with him to an armoured scurrier dressed in desert pink. Bronzi popped the hatch and they climbed in. Bronzi clambered forwards into the tight cockpit space. Bronzi had checked the vehicle out for use at the depot station. If he'd used his own biometric key, or Soneka's, or even the uxor's, klaxons would have been sounding already. Instead, he'd used the key they had given him. Soneka closed the hatch behind them, and strapped in beside Rukhsana. She was pale with panic, but containing her agitation. 'Go, Hurt,' Soneka said. Bronzi gunned the engines and brought the scurrier to life. It rose on its twenty sets of calliper legs and spurred forwards, leg units running in syncopation, racing it across the earth floor like a giant centipede. They passed out under the gate. A banksman flashed their biometric signature, and waved them enthusiastically on with his luminous wand. They ran up the ramp, followed the rampart wall to the west exit, and headed out into the desert. THE SCURRIER'S MODE of ambulation provided a soft, rolling sensation of travel, despite the high speeds Bronzi was making across the dunes. The wind was raising a spume of fine dust from the crest of every slope. Bronzi checked the navigation display. It was only a kilometre or two. Not far, not far at all... 'Is Konig all right?' Rukhsana asked Soneka. 'Konig?' 'Heniker,' she said. 'Oh, sorry. I only really know him as Heniker.' 'Is he all right?' 'Yes, he's fine.' 'Really fine?' 'Yes.' She thought about that. He could tell she didn't trust him at all. 'How are you involved?' she asked. 'I can't tell you.' 'I think you can,' she insisted. 'I can't, really' he said. 'I'm sorry, uxor, it's an Army intelligence thing.' She stared at him hard. 'Army intelligence? Is that so?' 'Yes.' 'But-' 'But what, uxor?' It wasn't an Army intelligence thing. It was a Cabal thing. She realised that she was going somewhere to die. She tried to swallow the dry knot in her throat. 'I'm only doing this because I love him,' she said. 'Heniker?' 'Yes, Heniker.' 'I didn't realise,' Soneka said. He looked bothered and uncomfortable. 'I'm sorry, I really didn't. Look, we-' he began. 'Get set, we're there!' Bronzi called out. The scurrier rippled down a bank of soft sand into a deep wadi, and came to a halt. The sun was at its zenith, burning like a low-set las. The light was hard and there were no shadows. 'What were you saying to me?' asked Rukhsana. 'I'm sorry,' said Soneka, 'that's all. There's no time to say anything else. We're out of time.' 'So am I, I think,' she replied. He watched her as she unbuckled and got up. 'I never meant to hurt you, Rukhsana,' he said. 'Please, this is for the best.' 'I hope so.' She smiled at him, a brave, intoxicating smile despite the shadow of terror in her expression. 'But I don't hold out much hope,' she added. Bronzi opened the hatch, and they climbed out into the baking hole of the wadi basin. There was no one around. Bright sunlight burned the sand and the tops of their heads. 'Come on,' said Bronzi, glancing around impatiently. 'While we're waiting,' said Rukhsana, 'why don't you explain that lie you sold me? As a last favour, so to speak. I'd like to know what I'm getting into. Tell me about Konig. How do you know Konig?' 'It's like I said,' Bronzi replied, awkward and unsettled. 'Oh, Hurtado, please credit me with some intelligence,' she said. 'It's nothing like you said.' There was a soft, sifting sound, the sound of sand pouring away onto sand. Four Astartes, concealed beneath the dunes around them, rose to their feet, the sand sliding off the contours of their armour as if they were rising up out of concealed trap doors. 'Is this her?' asked one. 'Yes, lord,' Bronzi replied. Soneka realised that Rukhsana had begun to tremble badly. 'We'll take her from here,' said another of the Astartes. 'Oh, glory,' Rukhsana whispered. 'Please...' 'It's all right,' Soneka told her urgently. He looked at the giant warriors coming towards them. 'It will be all right, won't it?' 'You've done your job, friend,' one of them told him, 'and we thank you for it. We'll take it from here.' 'But-' Soneka began. 'We'll take it from here, operative,' the giant reassured him. The Astartes put out a huge paw around Rukhsana's tiny shoulders, and led her away across the sand. She looked back, once. 'Peto!' she called. 'I'm sorry. I-' he called out. But she was gone in the deep shadows of the wadi's base. One of the Alpha legionnaires strode over to them. 'Good work,' he said. Bronzi nodded. 'Will she be all right?' Soneka asked. 'Of course,' the Astartes said, his voice deep. 'She's with us.' 'That's not what I was asking,' Soneka said. 'Will we be all right?' Bronzi asked, looking up at the giant. 'Did you do what we told you to do?' 'Yes.' 'Did you use the biometric?' 'Yes,' said Soneka. 'Then stick to the story, and it will be fine,' replied the legionnaire. 'Trust me, and thank you.' He turned to go, and then looked back, his huge form stark in the sunlight. 'You did the right thing. If things turn bad, we'll get you out. You're us now.' He walked away. In under two minutes, the Alpha legionnaires had vanished into the desert, leaving no trace. Bronzi looked at Soneka. He grinned, but Soneka could tell the grin was forced. 'Scary bastards, right?' 'Scary bastards,' Soneka agreed. They began to trudge back to the scurrier. 'Something on your mind?' Bronzi added. Soneka shook his head. 'You don't like this, do you?' 'Of course I don't,' Soneka said. THEY GOT BACK into the scurrier and headed back towards the palace. Half a kilometre from the west exit, a shadow flickered across them, and the scurrier's target alarms started to ping. 'Scurrier, scurrier,' the vox crackled. 'Come to a halt and open hatches. We have you at weapons lock.' Bronzi threw the leg brakes and killed the spinal drive. The scurrier rocked to a standstill. 'Get out. On the deck. Now!' the vox demanded. Bronzi looked at Soneka. 'Sure you know how to play this?' he asked. Soneka nodded. They unlocked the hatch and got out, falling on their faces in the glaring sunlight, a few metres from the vehicle with their hands behind their heads. A blizzard of sand was being kicked up around them by a circling Jackal gunship. A second gunship settled nearby on roaring turbofans, like a giant skeletal raven. Its occupants ran towards them. 'Get up!' Soneka and Bronzi got up, hands locked behind their necks in submission. Lucifer Blacks surrounded them, weapons aimed. The air was so thick with winnowing dust from the hovering gunship that Bronzi and Soneka were coughing hard. 'Het Hurtado Bronzi and Het Peto Soneka?' the nearest Lucifer demanded. They nodded, hands knotted behind their heads. 'You are under arrest, by orde

gunship settled nearby on roaring turbofans, like a giant skeletal raven. Its occupants ran towards them. 'Get up!' Soneka and Bronzi got up, hands locked behind their necks in submission. Lucifer Blacks surrounded them, weapons aimed. The air was so thick with winnowing dust from the hovering gunship that Bronzi and Soneka were coughing hard. 'Het Hurtado Bronzi and Het Peto Soneka?' the nearest Lucifer demanded. They nodded, hands knotted behind their heads. 'You are under arrest, by order of the Lord Commander.' 'Is this about Uxor Rukhsana?' Bronzi shouted, above the wash of the gunships. 'Of course it is.' 'Then can you tell me,' Bronzi yelled back as the companions started to herd them towards the gunship, 'where the fug has she gone?' ELEVEN Mon Lo Harbour, Nurth, that evening 'SO?' ASKED NAMATJIRA, looking up from his desk. 'We've let them both go, sir,' said Dinas Chayne. 'Why?' 'Their story checks out. The hets went looking for Uxor Rukhsana, chasing the same suspicions as us. They got her into a vehicle, to take her away from the palace for private interrogation. The geno like to protect their own, sir.' Namatjira put the quill he had been using back into its power well, and rose to his feet, tapping his left index finger against his pursed lips. It was a modest gesture, designed to give the impression that he was pondering, but Chayne knew it was a mechanism the Lord Commander employed to curb his temper. He watched as Namatjira wandered towards the chamber window, into the pool of soft light cast by the setting sun. The light made his long, gold-embroidered robe glow. 'But the vehicle,' Namatjira asked, 'wasn't it swiped out on a blank biometric? To avoid detection?' Chayne shook his head. 'The biometric was Bronzi's. For some reason, it didn't read cleanly in the scanner. I am advised that this is occurring quite often, scanning glitches, caused by the pervasive dust. Now we've checked it, it evidently was Bronzi's.' 'And Rukhsana?' Namatjira asked. He patted his thigh, and his thylacene got up from the rug and trotted over to him. 'What about her?' 'She broke free and fled into the dunes.' 'She broke free from two frontline hets?' 'I believe they underestimated her resolve, sir,' said Chayne. 'When we questioned them, the hets both seemed frankly embarrassed that she had escaped. They were searching for her when we found them.' 'Do you believe any of this, Dinas?' 'I have no reason not to, lord. The facts match up perfectly. I wever, I will admit that I am uneasy whenever that happens.' 'You have them under scrutiny?' 'Yes, lord.' Namatjira sank down into a crouch, and tenderly scrunched the thylacene's ears with both hands. It closed its eyes in pleasure. 'What about Rukhsana?' 'We're questioning her aides, but they don't seem to have been aware of any indiscretion, and we're searching for the uxor, obviously.' 'Can she survive in the desert?' 'Without supplies or protective clothing, no, not more than a day. I expect all we'll find of her is her bones.' BRONZI POURED ZNAPS into two glass cups and handed one to Soneka. Bronzi held out his glass to clink, and Soneka did so reluctantly. 'Here's to the skin of our fugging teeth,' said Bronzi, trying to make light of it. He'd been trying to make light of it for a long time. Soneka's mood was low, and Bronzi hated that. 'Here's to Rukhsana,' Soneka replied. 'May some power protect her from the fate we delivered her into.' Bronzi shrugged, and drank to that instead. 'They'll treat her well enough, Peto,' he said. 'They only want answers.' 'They are not sentimental creatures, Hurt,' Soneka replied. 'They use any means they can to achieve their goals. They let my Dancers get slaughtered, just to throw the enemy off guard. What on Terra makes you think they'll use Rukhsana any less clinically?' Bronzi couldn't come up with an answer. Soneka took another sip and regarded his glass. 'This comes so easily to you, doesn't it, Hurt? Why is that?' Bronzi sniffed. 'I don't know. It's the Astartes, I suppose. To be chosen by them, to be singled out by them for service, that's an honour in my book. The Astartes are the image of the Emperor, whom I adore, and to whose work I have devoted my life. To serve them is to serve Him. There is no finer duty.' 'Whatever happened,' Soneka asked, 'to Company first, Imperium second, geno before gene?' Bronzi made a sour face, and lifted his meaty shoulders. 'That's just something we say, isn't it?' 'I thought it was something we believed,' Soneka replied. Bronzi finished his drink and poured another. 'The Emperor is the Emperor,' he said, 'and the Astartes are his chosen, the brightest and the best. I'm comfortable working for them.' 'Provided they're on our side,' said Soneka. Bronzi snorted. 'What does that mean?' Soneka shook his head. 'Nothing. I have a gut dislike of this sordid intrigue, Hurt. I'm a soldier, not a spy, and lately I've been wondering which of those words best describes the Alpha Legion.' Bronzi shook his head and decided it was high time to change the subject. He looked Soneka up and down, approvingly. 'Formal looks good,' he said. 'Been a while,' Soneka replied, adjusting the cuff of his dress uniform. 'When are you off?' 'Ten, fifteen minutes.' 'The Clowns are lucky to have you,' said Bronzi. The chamber door behind them opened without any knock. Mu marched in, followed by Franco Boone. 'Drink?' Bronzi asked lightly. She glared at them both. Boone walked past Mu and helped himself. 'That was your idea of delicate, was it?' Mu asked. 'Well, we proved she was up to something, didn't we?' Bronzi answered. 'You were arrested and interrogated by the Lucifers,' Mu growled. 'Who, please remember, let us go without charge,' Bronzi countered. 'How did Rukhsana escape?' Mu asked. 'How would you have escaped us, Honen?' Bronzi asked playfully. 'Because, you know you would have.' Mu hesitated. 'Uxors can be quite tenacious when they want to be,' Bronzi continued, taking the bottle out of Boone's hand and pouring himself another drink. 'Have you come to arrest me?' Soneka asked the genewhip, 'Or can I go meet my new unit?' 'You're all right,' Boone said. 'I'd have liked a cleaner end to this matter, but it's worked out decently. Rukhsana was a bad seed, but the Chiliad has saved face.' 'How?' asked Mu, in a mocking tone. 'These two were caught in the art of chasing her,' Boone said levelly, knocking back his drink, 'clear proof that we were trying to clean our own house and root out corruption. In the circumstances, their arrest was probably the best thing that could have happened. It may have been by accident or downright incompetence, but Bronzi and Soneka have protected our regimental reputation.' 'Company first, Imperium second, geno before gene,' Bronzi chuckled. Soneka shot him a hard look. 'What?' asked Bronzi. Soneka put down his glass and lifted his pack. 'I have to go,' he said. 'I'll walk you down,' Mu said. 'March in fortune, Peto, and take the Clowns with you,' said Bronzi. Soneka nodded, and left the chamber with Mu. 'Fancy another?' Bronzi asked Boone. Boone stared back at the het, hard-eyed. 'Pius? He's clean?' 'As the proverbial,' Bronzi replied. 'Whoever Rukhsana was in bed with, he was playing games with you. A subliminal veil, a mind trick, maybe? I don't know. Pius is solid.' Bronzi waggled the bottle. 'So?' 'Go on then,' said Boone. THEY WALKED DOWN into a lower courtyard where the last of the Dancers were waiting beside a fat-wheeled transport in what remained of the daylight. Soneka nodded to Lon, and let Shah take his bag and stow it in the transport's panniers. The driver started up the truck's engine. 'Is there anything you're not telling me, Peto?' Mu asked, looking up into his face. 'Like what?' She shrugged. 'Hurtado is a rogue, and I wouldn't put anything past him, but you, het, you're as straight as a die. You always have been. I don't believe you're capable of subterfuge. If you are, it must come with effort, so spare yourself that effort. Is there anything?' 'No. No, not at all.' She nodded. 'Good. Get on your way. Whip the Clowns into shape, and march in fortune. I'll look for your preliminary report tomorrow.' 'Yes, uxor.' 'If they give you any grief, call me in to straighten them out.' 'Thank you. It won't be necessary.' 'Don't let the Dancers haunt you, Peto,' she said. 'You're not carrying some curse that will infect the Clowns too. New start, fresh page. Get the Old Hundred fit, and ready for the hell that's about to break.' 'I will.' Mu smiled. She paused, and then stood up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. 'I know you will,' she said. Soneka climbed into the transport, and it rolled away down the yard towards the gate. The tiny, childlike figure of Honen Mu stood in the lengthening shadows and watched until it was out of sight. 'SO WE'RE CLOWNS now, are we?' asked Lon over the grumble of the transport's engine. 'Seems so,' said Soneka. They rocked in their seats as the vehicle lurched along the uneven track. 'You all right there, het?' asked Shah. 'Yes,' said Soneka. 'Why?' 'You keep rubbing at your hip. You got a sweat sore or a dust blister?' 'No,' Soneka said, shaking his head. 'It's just this damn formal jacket chafing.' Soneka turned aside and looked out of the dirty window vent at the passing desert, which was staining with a startling maroon hue as the sun finally slipped out of the sky. The hydra brand on his hip was still raw and fresh. THE CAVE WAS cool, and remarkably angular. Rukhsana presumed it had been cut out of the rock with meltas or some kind of precision drill. It was a cube, ten metres by ten, lit by a series of lumen orbs placed around the base of the walls. The light they gave out splashed up the dark walls and made her feel as if she was under water or on some airless moon. The air smelled of dust and cold stone. The air smelled of hopelessness. She was shiveri

he hydra brand on his hip was still raw and fresh. THE CAVE WAS cool, and remarkably angular. Rukhsana presumed it had been cut out of the rock with meltas or some kind of precision drill. It was a cube, ten metres by ten, lit by a series of lumen orbs placed around the base of the walls. The light they gave out splashed up the dark walls and made her feel as if she was under water or on some airless moon. The air smelled of dust and cold stone. The air smelled of hopelessness. She was shivering and terrified, and the terror magnified her body's reactions, reinforcing the drop in its core temperature. She tried to slow her breathing. They had seated her on a wooden stool, her hands cuffed behind her back, in the middle of the cave. Then they had left her alone. It felt as if hours had passed, but she suspected that it was merely a few minutes. A figure came in through the cave's only egress. He was larger than it was possible for any regular human male, a giant: an Astartes giant. He was dressed in a simple dark bodyglove that somehow emphasised his huge build and muscular strength more pointedly than any suit of power armour could have. His head was bare, noble, hairless, powerful, copper-skinned. His eyes were as bright as a sapphire sky. He came across the cave floor slowly, and stood in front of her. She looked up at him. 'Uxor Rukhsana Saiid?' he asked. The sound of his voice made her think of slow, glowing embers. His words issued as gently as honey dripping from a spoon. 'Yes.' 'I am Alpharius, Primarch of the Alpha Legion.' 'I know who Alpharius is,' she replied, feeling a tremor of panic in her chest that she could barely control. 'Do you know why you're here?' he asked. She nodded. 'Say why, please.' 'Konig Heniker,' she said. 'You're looking for Konig Heniker, and you think I know where he is.' 'Do you, uxor?' She shook her head, dearly wishing her hands were free so that she could press them against her chest and persuade her heart to slow down. 'We'll see. Do you know what Konig Heniker's real name is?' Rukhsana looked up at the giant sharply. 'I see you do not. No one could fake a response like that. Your beloved Konig's real name is John Grammaticus.' 'John?' 'Grammaticus. John Grammaticus. What about the Cabal, uxor? What do you know of the Cabal?' 'I don't know what that is,' she replied. 'I see you do. Just as you couldn't have faked the first response, you couldn't conceal the second. You know about the Cabal.' Rukhsana bit her lip. 'He mentioned it, that's all.' Alpharius stared down at her. His expression was almost benign. 'Help me help you, uxor. Where is Konig Heniker?' 'I don't know, I really don't. He was with me for a while, but he vanished, yesterday, just after the Grand Welcome. I don't know where he is.' 'We'll see,' said Alpharius. He nodded. A much smaller, robed figure entered the chamber and came to stand at the primarch's side. Rukhsana blinked and tried to focus. Though she could see the robed figure plainly, she could not resolve its face. 'This is Shere,' said Alpharius. 'He will help you exorcise your doubts.' 'Brace yourself,' he added. THE CENTRAL SECURITY centre of the terracotta palace was a large, low ceilinged chamber filled with whirring and flashing cogitators, and bustling adepts. The heat-stink of the machines was acrid and harsh. Cooling systems had been rigged along the walls. At nightfall, the duty rotated. Adepts arrived in their russet cloaks, and took over from the rostered operators on duty, signing in their biometrics as they took over machine stations. He sat down at his appointed machine, his biometric accepted. The departing operator he was replacing bade him goodnight. 'Salutation, Adept Ahrum,' the screen display read. That was good. That's who he was. Adept Ahrum typed in his access codes. Data flowed in a sudden gush across his lithographic screen. He pulled his russet robe closer, and leaned in to study the graphics. 'Attend!' the senior adept on the chamber's central dais cried out, and all the operators stiffened. 'Carry on,' said Dinas Chayne as he walked into the room and went to join the senior. Adept Ahrum risked a glance over his shoulder. Chayne stood in quiet discussion with the senior adept on the dais. He was barely five metres away. Adept Ahrum decided to continue with his work. He typed quickly, using his stolen biometric clearance to pull up confidential material. Uxor Rukhsana... official scrutiny... actions of the Lucifer Blacks in the last fifteen hours... Oh Rukhsana... oh, my love, what have I done to you? 'You,' said a voice at his shoulder. Adept Ahrum looked up quickly. Dinas Chayne was standing over him. 'Sir?' Ahrum asked. 'Why are you accessing this material?' Chayne asked. 'I was told to, sir, by my superior. It is a request from the Uxor Primus of the Geno Chiliad.' 'Trying to clean house, I suppose,' said Chayne. 'I imagine something like that. The Chiliad are very conscious of the fact that they have been found with a traitor in their ranks.' Chayne nodded. 'All right. Carry on. Process your findings to the Uxor Primus, but copy me the details first.' 'Sir?' 'That's an order.' 'Yes, my lord.' Chayne turned away and went to resume his conversation with the senior adept. Adept Ahrum continued to type. He pulled up the interrogation report submitted by the companions that afternoon. There were two names. He depressed his station key and rose to his feet. Both the senior adept and Dinas Chayne looked over at him. 'Adept?' the senior adept asked. 'Request permission to access the docket archive.' 'On you go, Ahrum,' nodded the senior adept, and turned to continue his conversation. Adept Ahrum left the chamber. In the hallway outside, he threw off his russet robe and ditched his biometric. John Grammaticus tucked them away in an alcove out of sight and walked away down the corridor in the lamplight. Two names. Soneka. Bronzi. DINAS CHAYNE CUT the senior adept off suddenly. 'That man. That station,' he said, pointing to the vacated cogitator. 'Ahrum, sir?' asked the senior adept. 'He's a sound fellow, good at his work. What is your problem, sir?' 'Something about him. Something familiar,' murmured Chayne. 'Sir?' 'I'll be right back,' said Chayne, and left the station. Outside, the hallway was empty. TWELVE Mon Lo Harbour, Nurth, black dawn THE FIRST PERSON to realise that something was terribly wrong was a subahdar in the Zanzibari Hon called Lec Tanha. Tanha had woken early, before first light, with a sore head and an ardent wish to continue sleeping. A solid sort, dependable, he had pulled on his boots and his cape, and climbed the bank of the earthwork from the camp to oversee the watch change. He took a restorative pinch of peck. It was an eerie time of day, with the first daylight milking into the sky. A loose wind was blowing, scudding the land between the vast earthwork and the besieged city with a spectral fog that moved like crop smoke. Tanha checked his sidearm, took another little furtive pinch, and conversed with two of the duty officers. He entered the observation redoubt, a fortified platform on the lip of the earthwork. The redoubt was open to the sky, and the wind riffled Tanha's hair. He took out a set of field glasses, and aimed them at Mon Lo. 'What's that?' he asked, sniffing. 'What's what?' replied the redoubt's vox-officer. The distant, wind baffled screaming still sounded like tinnitus. There was a scent on the wind that smelled like wormwood. 'That smell,' Tanha said. 'Damned infidels are burning something,' said the vox officer. 'Incense?' 'No,' said Tanha. 'Something else.' He looked up and listened into the windy air. A distant sound was mingling with the tinnitus. Tanha put his hand against the sand-bagged edge of the redoubt's parapet. He felt a deep, ominous trembling. 'Get the major general on the vox,' he said quickly. 'What,' the vox-officer replied. 'At this hour?' 'Get Dev on the line now!' Tanha ordered. The vox-officer scrambled to his set. Tanha raised his field glasses again and looked down into the wreathing fog bank. Subahdar Lec Tanha saw what was coming towards them. He managed to speak, in a desperate, fearful stammer, the first two syllables of his wife's name. Then he died. A KILOMETRE TO the west, and exactly thirty seconds later, Dynast Cherikar, a senior commander of the Regnault Thorns Second Division, turned sharply to his tribune, Lofar. 'Can we usually hear the sea from here?' he asked. The tribune shook his head. 'No, sir.' 'But you heard that? A wave striking a beach?' Lofar looked dubious. 'I heard something,' he conceded. They were walking the top of the earthwork, on a standard morning patrol. Cherikar turned and looked towards the east. A great cloud, like mist or spray vapour, had enveloped the top of the earthwork a kilometre away. It was hanging in the air, like a pale hill that had not been there before. 'What is that?' Cherikar asked. Lofar did not reply. The duckboards under their feet had begun to shake. The dynast and his tribune instinctively raised the spikes of their armour, barbing themselves with the psycho-receptive steel quills that gave their regiment its name. Studded all over with lethal blades, they drew their weapons, and turned to meet the onslaught. The beautiful, mechanised blade systems of their ancient warsuits did not save them, nor did the weapons in their hands. 'GET UP!' TCHE roared. 'Get up now!' 'Go away or I shall kill you,' Bronzi told his bashaw, and turned over in his bed roll. Tche kicked his hetman squarely in the arse, which was presenting a reasonably generous target area. 'Get up!' Tche shouted. Bronzi got to his feet, rubbing his offended backside, blinking in the half-light of the frame tent. His mind was addled, trying numbly to distinguish bits of memory that were real from pieces of dream that were not. He was reasonably sure

nds. 'GET UP!' TCHE roared. 'Get up now!' 'Go away or I shall kill you,' Bronzi told his bashaw, and turned over in his bed roll. Tche kicked his hetman squarely in the arse, which was presenting a reasonably generous target area. 'Get up!' Tche shouted. Bronzi got to his feet, rubbing his offended backside, blinking in the half-light of the frame tent. His mind was addled, trying numbly to distinguish bits of memory that were real from pieces of dream that were not. He was reasonably sure that geno bashaws didn't usually wake their hets with a boot in the seat of the pants. 'What?' Bronzi asked. Tche stared at him. There was a token of anxiety in the bashaw's eyes, the sort of look that no man as big and well-muscled as Tche should ever have the need to display. 'Get up, het,' Tche repeated. Bronzi was already heading for the tent flap, hopping as he tried to run and put on his boots simultaneously. He could already hear it, plain as day. The murmur. From a distance, war made a particular sound. The quake of the ground, the throb of engines, the rattle of weapons, the thump of detonations, the holler of voices; it all blended together into a kind of ominous murmuring, the feral grumbling of a monster waking over the next hill. Hurtado Bronzi had heard the murmur dozens of times in his life. It had always augured days that he was lucky to live through, or hours that he could never forget. Outside, first light was on them. Commotion ran through the camp as the Jokers scrambled to readiness. Bronzi looked up at the sky. The slowly turning clouds were staining pink, like blood in water or Nurthene silk. He could smell wormwood on the wind's bad breath. To the east, what looked like a vast, slowly creeping dust storm had shrouded the Army lines, obscuring even the dark shoulder of the earthwork. Bronzi pushed through his swarming men, yelling out orders, and calling for a vox. Bashaws spread out from him like shrapnel from a grenade, conducting and relaying those orders in unequivocal tones, putting rigidity and structure into a company caught on the back foot. Still calling for a vox, Bronzi hauled himself up the ladder of one of the observation derricks. Halfway up, he looked down at Tche, and called his name. Tche tossed his scope up to him. Bronzi caught it one-handed, uncapped it, and scanned east. Adjacent to the Jokers' encampment, an Outremar infantry group was assembling from its tents and billets with the same kind of mad scramble that beset the geno. Beyond that, yes, now he saw it. Veiled by the dust, the sporadic flash-flash-flash of explosions looked like someone flicking a signal lamp behind a dust shawl. The blasts were ripping off as quickly and frenetically as firecrackers. He could hear heavy weapons chattering and the bass drum beat of artillery positions waking up. Drums too, real drums, beat wild and rapid tattoos. A few seconds later, las-batteries in reboubts to the south-east began spitting incandescent shooting stars north into the dust cloud, adding their squeals to the communal murmur. Bronzi saw movement in the filmy edges of the advancing dust storm, and resolved it into shapes, figures. 'Holy fug,' he whispered. Once, during his childhood in Edessa, Bronzi had witnessed a blight swarm on the move. For centuries, great tracts of Osroene and the Mesop Delta had been seeded with gene cereals as part of the Emperor's program to improve food yield for the regenerating world, and surge years of insect over-breeding were triggered every few decades by over-abundant harvests. The swarm had darkened the sky, turning day to night, a dense river of locusts seventy kilometres long. He had never forgotten the sound of a trillion wings, a purring noise like the murmur of war. He had never forgotten the sight. He was reminded of it forcibly. The Nurthene were spilling out of the roiling haze in huge numbers, a blight swarm of charging infantry and racing cavalry sweeping in over the earthwork and down across the Imperial lines like an avalanche. Echvehnurth warriors led the host, their whirling falxes glittering in the curiously dull light. A tide of nurthadtre followed them. Through the dust and broken light, their pink silks looked black, like the bodies of milling, teeming locusts. Bronzi saw swaying standards of reeds and crocodilia, banners of lizard skin trailing like friable green metal, nodding totem staves depicting scale, tooth and biforked tongue. There was no regimentation, no order of battle. Nurthene cavalry charged along in the midst of the massed foot troops. He saw individual lancers, whooping and howling, mounted on galloping monitors the size of grox. Giant caimans, dull as coal, their scutes and teeth plated in gold, trudged forwards, bearing howdahs full of echvehnurth archers on their broad backs. Primitive gunpowder rockets whooped out of the host like fireworks, exploding amongst the Army encampments. Fletched darts fell like rain. The murmur was no longer a murmur. It had become a roar. Bronzi leapt off the derrick ladder and landed amongst his men. Whichever Army component had been camped east of the Outremar infantry group's billet had already been swallowed up by the Nurthene storm, and Bronzi had seen enough to know that the Outremars were falling in droves, falling like gene crops beneath a hungry blight swarm, as the storm swept on across their position. Bronzi reckoned that he had less than five minutes before the Nurthene assault reached him. 'Akkad formation!' he bellowed to his bashaws. 'Six lines, cannons to the front! Mortars to the ridge there! Relay this! Relay it!' The Jokers moved like an intricate mechanism, forming structures across the land south of the earthwork. Two lines of alternating pike and carbine rifle solidified along the northern edge, behind the livestock corrals and the latrines. Cannon crews grimaced as they struggled to heave their heavy weapons, ammo crates and tripods to new positions. Men ran past him, lugging the iron tubes of mortars across their shoulders. 'Forwards! Forwards!' Bronzi yelled at the rifle cadres. He was waving his sabre above his head. Tche appeared, and passed Bronzi a vox-horn. 'Jokers, Jokers, Jokers!' Bronzi yelled. 'Mass incursion at CR88 and eastwards. Reporting mass assault at this time! We are preparing to resist! Support requested!' 'Joker lord, we are aware,' the vox replied. 'Stand ready. March in fortune. We are redeploying strengths to your position.' 'Standing by,' Bronzi snapped. He tossed the vox-horn back to Tche. 'Get the fugging banner aloft!' Bronzi looked back at the doom rushing to engulf them. He realised it wasn't the crowing enemy forces that he really feared, despite their numbers, but the slow dust cloud that came with them and disgorged them, towering ten times higher than the earthwork ramp. It was like a mountain about to fall on him. THE CHAMBER OF the terracotta palace secured for central operations had turned into an undignified scrum of shouting, gesticulating personnel. A crowd of uxors and senior officers had invaded the place, demanding information as they jostled to get a look at the main strategy display, a hololithic chart table that dominated the centre of the room. Some of them were half-dressed, their eyes puffy with sleep; some were still buttoning tunics or fastening robes. Around the chamber walls, the vox adepts of Tactical and Provisional called out reports from their cogitator stations in voices that overlapped the queries of the crowd. 'Incursion reports CR88 and eastwards!' 'Massive numbers!' 'Support stations engaging! We have-' 'No response from CR89 and CR90!' 'Get a station report from the 4th Hussars!' 'Reporting losses at CR91 and-' 'Say that again! Again!' 'Losing your feed, CR90-' 'CR93 reports contact!' 'Silence!' Major General Dev entered through the west door. 'Take your places and behave according to your ranks,' he snarled. Uxors and officers alike, cowed by his tone and his authority, fell silent and straightened respectfully. Dev's adjutant took the major general's helm and sword from him, and Dev stepped forwards to the table, peering at it. 'They took us by surprise?' he asked. 'Completely, sir,' said the senior adept. 'Assessment?' the major general asked, leaning on the edge of the chart table and peering down. The glow from its surface underlit his face. 'We're still waiting for orbital appraisal,' the senior adept replied. 'There is an atmospheric peculiarity that-' 'I'm not waiting for orbitals,' said Dev sharply. 'Someone give me a decent assessment!' 'A major incursion has breached the earthwork in an eleven-kilometre line between CR88 and CR96, Wadi Ghez, so-called the Little Sink,' said Sri Vedt, the Uxor Primus, tracing her finger across the hololithic chart. 'I cannot appreciate precise numbers, but it feels like tens of thousands.' 'I would concur with the Primus,' said Uxor Bhaneja. 'Their forces struck eight minutes ago, and overwhelmed the earthwork by sheer dint of numbers.' 'And took us by surprise?' asked Dev. 'A force that size? They just sneaked up a division of warriors and dropped them on us? Doesn't that seem unlikely?' 'They are cloaked by a vapour cloud,' said Uxor Sanzi. 'That must surely be more than the dust produced by their movements. The cloud struck the earthwork first, with a kinetic force akin to a tsunami.' 'More air magick?' suggested a Torrent officer. 'Do not,' said Dev, raising a finger to him, 'do not let the Lord Commander hear you utter those words.' The Torrent officer made a quick namaste and backed away. Dev glanced towards the uxors around the table. 'Thank you for your frank appraisal, uxors. How accurate should I consider them to be?' 'Our 'cepts are sharp,' said Uxor Sanzi. 'We feel this,' added Uxor Bhaneja. 'I have a Company at CR90, the Jacks. I 'cept that they are already dead.' Dev nodded. 'I am sorry for your loss, Uxor Bhaneja.' Bhan

Dev, raising a finger to him, 'do not let the Lord Commander hear you utter those words.' The Torrent officer made a quick namaste and backed away. Dev glanced towards the uxors around the table. 'Thank you for your frank appraisal, uxors. How accurate should I consider them to be?' 'Our 'cepts are sharp,' said Uxor Sanzi. 'We feel this,' added Uxor Bhaneja. 'I have a Company at CR90, the Jacks. I 'cept that they are already dead.' Dev nodded. 'I am sorry for your loss, Uxor Bhaneja.' Bhaneja nodded back and, tearful, accepted Sri Vedt's consoling embrace. 'Everyone will be mourning losses before the day is out sir,' said Sri Vedt. 'We are mobilising the armoured cavalry at CR713,' Dynast Kheel of the Thorns announced, 'and the Outremar reserves at Tel Sherak.' 'Sri Vedt has directed four geno companies to move along the line to support the forces at CR88,' said Honen Mu. 'More are needed, in my opinion.' 'Provided they bring their armour support,' put in a Hort officer. 'Armour's what we need-' 'Armour will not suffice,' Mu responded. 'A muscular infantry riposte will be quicker to deliver. These are low tech warriors with blades and black powder bombs, and-' 'Stop wasting time with debate!' Kheel growled, rounding on the tiny uxor. 'This is a shambles! There is no unification of command!' Honen Mu looked Kheel straight in the eyes, or at least what she could see of them beneath the bulging thorns of his visor. 'I believe, Dynast,' she said levelly, 'that Major General Dev is in charge.' 'That was my understanding too, Kheel, so stand down and bite your tongue,' said Dev with a brush of his hand. 'Senior, where are the nearest Titans?' 'Princeps Jeveth has already ordered the three Titans closest to the incursion forward to engage,' the senior adept replied. 'Bless that old goat for not waiting for an order,' Dev nodded. 'We need to bring the weight of the Hort and Torrent forces in to dam this flood.' He began to track deployment lines across the glowing chart, conferring with the adepts and officers. Sri Vedt watched, approving of his decisions, gently correcting any detail she 'cepted as unwise. Mu wondered if it was complacency that had cost them. Besieging forces often suffered from that flaw. The expedition had bested an entire world, and driven the last of its resistance back into one city to die. No one had expected the Nurthene to go back on the offensive. No, it wasn't complacency, she decided. She reminded herself that the Nurthene did not think the way Imperial humans did. Their actions were determined by values quite alien to Mu and her kind. Driven to the brink of defeat, the Nurthene had not resigned themselves to an inevitable fate. They had fought back, the way any cornered beast would. We have underestimated the creatures of this world too many times in this campaign already, Mu thought. Please, let us not be about to do that again. THE STINK OF wormwood was oppressively strong, and the roar of the approaching host had become so great that Bronzi could no longer hear the voices of the men around him raised in prayer. He glanced left and right, surveying his lines. The Jokers had done him every credit. Despite the extremity of the moment, and the haste with which they'd been obliged to assemble, the company had formed up perfectly. They were ready, pikes and carbines held at their shoulders. Bronzi was prepared to bet that the Jokers were going to be the first Army unit to meet the enemy assault that morning with any kind of coordination or discipline. How the Jokers gave account of themselves in the next thirty minutes would therefore be critical. There was no possibility of the geno company men defeating the assault, but if they delayed it, or slowed it down, it would most likely decide how the rest of that damnable day would go. A full company of Outremar regulars, flying the Samarkand banner, had rushed up into position on the Jokers' right flank, taking up a line across the billet road and a broad valley to the south that faced the desert. A second Outremar unit, smaller, but armed with weapon servitors, was moving up behind them, and the vox said that a Sixth Torrent armour unit with infantry support was a minute or two behind the Jokers. The Jokers' left flank was the earthwork wall. Skilful placing by Bronzi and his trusted bashaws had spread the Jokers along the higher banks and mounds of the uneven terrain in the billet grounds. They were getting decent tactical instruction over the vox, and the 'cept was with them. Bronzi could see how his men were tightening and adjusting their structures slightly as Mu's wisdom touched them. Bronzi nodded to himself. His company was as ready as it would ever be. He raised his sabre and held it aloft. There was a sharp crackle of gunlocks releasing. The tidal wave of enemy warriors was less than a quarter of a kilometre away, the dust storm rolling with it. Dozens of Outremar soldiers fled before it, chased out of their overrun position. They ran frantically towards the geno line, past rows of abandoned tents and empty dug outs. The poor fools were doomed, Bronzi realised. They were in the line of fire, and he could not afford to stay his men for long enough to allow the Outremars to reach safety. War forced choices on a man, unpleasant choices. At Tel Utan, the Alpha Legion had demonstrated how clinically such choices should be made. Compassion was a liberal folly that spared a life so that a hundred others might die as a consequence. Bronzi looked up at the company banner, hanging limp and heavy in the dry air. He studied the figure on the banner, the cosmic joker, the trickster god Trisumagister, capering in his motley, a belled wand in one hand, a spillglass in the other. The Joker god knew all too well how wanton and feckless fortune could be, and how quickly time ran out for those who dallied with her affections. Bronzi believed he knew Dame Fortune just as well. You paid for her time, and took her service, and knew that she would be with another man the moment the fancy took her. The sky overhead had darkened so much that it had turned the colour of arterial blood. 'Geno!' he yelled. Full-throated, the men echoed the word. The time was on them. Bronzi rotated his sabre in the air, making quick, cutting sweeps. The first signal. On the low ridge to his right, the company mortar teams began to drop shells into their angled tubes and step back, heads turned aside. A plosive, hollow plunk-plunk racket began. Mortar bombs whizzed up and over onto the enemy formation, expertly ranged. Bronzi observed the thumps and flashes as they struck with a nod of satisfaction. Each blast cast up white smoke and flailing bodies. He sawed his raised sabre back and forth. The second signal. The tripod-mounted cannons and crew-served weapons began to chatter and pulse tracer and blinding las at the oncoming foe. Sections of the leading ranks were demolished. Smoke and bloody steam furled back across the Nurthene press and chunks of shredded meat rained down on them. Bronzi saw echvehnurth elite judder and disintegrate as the heavy fire ripped through them. He saw a galloping monitor tumble over, disembowelled, crushing its rider under its rolling back. Bronzi chopped his sabre straight down. The third signal. The rifle lines opened fire. The lingering peal of muzzle cracks sounded like snapping twigs. Firing row by row, coordinated by the yelling bashaws and Mu's 'cept, the ranks of riflemen aimed, fired, re-aimed, fired. The effect was devastating. Five hundred Anatolian lascarbines, hefty pulse repeaters developed from the ubiquitous Urak-1020 combat gun that had been the workhorse of every Strife-Age warlord's army, trained and fired by professional soldiers drilled to perfection, blazed at the Nurthene. The Jokers were especially famed for the quality of their marksmanship, a fact that Bronzi took a great deal of personal pride in. Every Joker rifleman was a crack shot by Army standards. There wasn't a damn one amongst them who couldn't hit a moving gamebird at nine hundred metres. Bronzi regularly fielded requests from other regiments asking for the loan of a rifleman or two to conduct training programmes. He bitterly regretted that Giano Faben and Zerico Munzer, his two best marksmen, were not at his side that morning. He'd loaned them as tutors to a Gedrosian regiment on Salkizor fifteen months earlier. The last he'd heard, they were en route back to him by pack ship, training tour over. Giano and Rico were missing all of the fun, the lucky bastards. The fusillades expertly slaughtered the first eight ranks of the Nurthene host, bringing down infantry and reptile riders alike. Though a handful of the fleeing Outremars had been clipped too, Bronzi was gratified to see that his men's vaunted skill had spared most. Frantic Outremar survivors were dashing into the geno lines, weeping and screaming for sanctuary. Tche looked at his het. 'Keep them firing,' Bronzi mouthed over the din. 'Sustain order until there is no distance left.' Tche nodded. Bronzi lifted his sabre and held it out straight in front of him at head height. The fourth signal. The pikemen, laced in between the rows of rifles, took a step forwards with their left feet, and declined their weapons into a murderous fence. Strengthened by sheathes of gravimetric force, the telescopic pikes extended until each one was ten metres long. The pike-men kept the arches of their right feet braced over the grav counterweights in the spikes at the bases of their hafts. The las-spines on the tips of the pike blades began to sizzle with cising power. Run onto that, you bastards, Bronzi thought, then you'll discover how badly a geno company can maul you. As if obeying his will, the Nurthene host did exactly that. The front edge of the vast blight swarm spilled across the last few metres of open ground, losing men to the sustained rifle volleys at every step. Ten

of their right feet braced over the grav counterweights in the spikes at the bases of their hafts. The las-spines on the tips of the pike blades began to sizzle with cising power. Run onto that, you bastards, Bronzi thought, then you'll discover how badly a geno company can maul you. As if obeying his will, the Nurthene host did exactly that. The front edge of the vast blight swarm spilled across the last few metres of open ground, losing men to the sustained rifle volleys at every step. Ten metres, five, two, and still they came, despite their losses. For every Nurthene casualty, there were two more men behind to take his place, and die in turn, and be replaced by four. The Nurthene reached the pike fence. The first of them were split apart, sectioned and chopped. The next waves became impaled, bodies skewering onto pike blades like living souvlaki. The geno pikemen leaned into the weight and multiple impacts, some grunting as their elongated poles hoisted whole bodies off the ground, writhing like speared fish, others struggling and collapsing as the crude mass of corpses pulled their pikes down. Gravitic counterweights shorted out under the demands put on them, and hafts splintered as the gravimetric sheathes supporting their outlandish lengths evaporated. Pikemen started to use broken sections of their weapons to jab and flay at the pressing tide. Now we're in it, Bronzi thought. The concussion of the Nurthene charge meeting the geno line sent a ripple of shock back through Bronzi's ordered files. For a moment, the Jokers held, like a dam before floodwaters, but the pressure built rapidly. The Nurthene piled in, hundreds upon hundreds of them, packing tighter and tighter against the geno barrier. In the gaps where the pike fence had broken, Nurthene warriors lunged and shoved and stabbed. Jokers fell down, cut open by whirring falxes, or toppled against the rows behind them. Carbines fired, point blank and scattershot. Pressed back by the layer of the dead and dying in the buffer of the front ranks, the lokers tried to maintain structure. The dead of both sides formed a ghastly ridge, which the Nurthene urgently scrambled over. 'Blades, blades!' Bronzi yelled. Bashaw Fho, one of his senior men, turned to relay the order. An iron dart punctured his head and he dropped on his face. Nurthene arrows were suddenly coming down like torrential rain. Every man in Bronzi's field of vision was struck by a dart. Bronzi felt one slice his right thigh and another embed itself in his left boot. He roared and threw himself forwards, sabre in one hand, Parthian revolver in the other. Sense departed. Instinct took over. He fired his pistol, and saw an echvehnurth's head spray apart. He stroked with his sword, and took the top off a skull. Something hit him in the gut. Winded, he wheeled, and eviscerated a Nurthene with his blade. He shouldered another aside with his bulk, and shot the devil in the head to make it count. Turning, he stabbed another through the chest, and had to twist hard to pull his sword free. Twenty seconds in and his gun was out. He threw it at a Nurthene and snorted as it bounced off the man's skull. He drew his other sidearm, a shot-loaded backup piece with a pepperpot snout of six barrels. The Nurthene cavalry came crashing through the dense forest of fighting bodies with an indiscriminate momentum that trampled both Nurthene and Imperial underfoot. The reptile riders bucked and lurched above the heads of the infantry, like horsemen driving their steeds across a swollen river. Pikes caught some, hooking them out of their saddles, and the riderless beasts ploughed on, snapping and thrashing. More iron darts whizzed down out of the haze, dropping men by the dozen. The churned soil bristled with embedded arrows as if it was sprouting some strange new crop. The first of the monstrous caimans lumbered into view out of the swirling vapour. Bronzi had never seen animals so enormous: dull-eyed heads the size of ground speeders, bodies the bulk of Imperial tanks. Their tails seemed to go on forever. From the ornate howdahs and fighting platforms on their massive backs, Nurthene archers in blue silks and silver mail fired salvo after salvo of iron darts from small, double-curved bows. The caimans were inexorable. Their black scales shrugged off small-arms fire and snapped pike hafts, and they simply ran over anything that got in their way. Bronzi sheathed his sabre, and took aim with his pepperpot. The clothes on his back felt heavy, and he knew it was due to the weight of the blood soaking into them. He lined up on the howdah of the nearest crocodilian, and discharged all six barrels at once. Bronzi made up his own cartridges, tight packing them with twists of monofilament wire, adamantium shot and pebbles of xygnite putty. Six of them were enough to explode and shred the howdah and everything in it. Flying shot and wire injured the animal too. It rocked, and shifted its slow bulk in a slovenly pain response. Bronzi broke open his pepperpot, the smoking cases ejecting automatically, and rammed in six more with shaking fingers. The caiman was turning towards him, flicking men into the air with its vast snout. Bronzi clacked the stockless weapon shut and re-aimed, the ball of his right thumb wedged into his cheek. He fired again, and the tiny, lethal debris of his rounds blew out the creature's throat and right shoulder in a shower of meat and blood. It crashed over, its snout gouging into the ground like a ploughshare and its hindquarters kicked out in spasm. The tail whipped around and three dozen bodies, caught in its stroke, flew into the air. He was about to reload, but there was no opportunity. Two echvehnurth came at him with their falxes. He managed to block the first swipe with his spent weapon and then let go of it to wrestle with the Nurthene. The man was screaming at him, but Bronzi had hold of his falx, and jerked him close to dish out a head butt that crushed the man's nose. The Nurthene became more pliant and Bronzi used his grip on the falx to heave the warrior around as a shield. The other echvehnurth had committed a swing of his falx at Bronzi, and the blade cut through his kin's back instead. The falx belonged to Bronzi suddenly. He pulled it out of the dead fingers, rotated it, and thrust it at the second echvehnurth. The long blade plunged in through the man's left cheek, and the tip came out of the back of his head. Bronzi jerked the unfamiliar weapon free, and slashed wildly at a third echvehnurth who was closing to his left. The blow missed, but the echvehnurth toppled over dead anyway. Tche grabbed Bronzi by the shoulder. His pistol shot had slain the enemy warrior. 'Back, het!' Tche yelled. "We have to get back!' Bronzi knew Tche was right. It was turmoil. All semblance of row and order had vanished, and the Jokers were being broken up into melee units as the Nurthene poured in. The mortar positions had been abandoned and overrun, and over to the right flank, the Outremars seemed to have collapsed entirely. The rolling wall of dust that came in with the Nurthene like a shroud was washing softly in across the Jokers' stand. They had done all they could. It felt to Hurtado Bronzi that they had been fighting for thirty or forty minutes, but in fact it had been little more than ten. The 'cept was urging the geno fighting men to fall back and reposition. 'Do it!' Bronzi yelled to his bashaw. 'Disengage and fall back!' He was nursing a fancy that his men could pull away and regroup as skirmishers to harry the Nurthene flanks. But the dust was enveloping them, and there were Nurthene warriors everywhere. He realised that they would be lucky to get away alive. THERE WAS NO sign at all of Lord Namatjira's infamous rage. He patiently studied the minute by minute reports Tactical was providing in a composed, reflective manner. It was a curious trait, one that had undoubtedly contributed positively to Namatjira's ascent to the highest military rank. In the grip of a genuine crisis, a glacial calm surrounded him. Lord Namatjira had no time or energy to waste on tirades or recriminations. Those would come later, after the fact. In the heat of open war, a cold, analytical focus was required. 'Our first line of resistance, which included the Jokers geno company, has been smothered,' Major General Dev told him. 'Outremar 234, Outremar 3667 and the Hort Eighteenth have all been lost or put to rout.' Namatjira nodded. Major General Dev and the senior offices waited for him to speak. From all sides came the low murmur of the adepts and the hum of cogitators. 'The Titans?' Namatjira asked. 'Six minutes from contact,' Lord Wilde replied. 'They should turn this around.' Namatjira turned and strode out of the chamber. His retinue followed him. Chayne paused, and nodded to Dev, indicating that he should follow. Bounding with the vitality of a much younger man, Namatjira took the stairs up to the observation deck two at a time, holding up the skirts of his rakematiz robes. His Lucifers jogged double time to keep up. They came out into the open air, into the curdled dawn. A large, low-walled terrace in the upper part of the palace precinct had been turned over to distance observation. Heavy scopes and detection grids had been erected along the parapet, and tall clusters of vox masts stood like pollarded trees in the centre of the terrace area. The observation crews made respectful namastes as the Lord Commander appeared. 'Carry on', he told them, with a solemn nod that seemed almost respectful. He walked across to the east-facing section of the parapet, and two adepts bowed and stood aside from a high-gain optical scope mounted on a tripod servitor. 'I wanted to see for myself,' Namatjira said quietly as Dev joined him. 'Yes, lord.' Namatjira peered into the scope's viewer, and carefully adjusted the resonance as he turned it slowly from left to right. The crest of the e

stes as the Lord Commander appeared. 'Carry on', he told them, with a solemn nod that seemed almost respectful. He walked across to the east-facing section of the parapet, and two adepts bowed and stood aside from a high-gain optical scope mounted on a tripod servitor. 'I wanted to see for myself,' Namatjira said quietly as Dev joined him. 'Yes, lord.' Namatjira peered into the scope's viewer, and carefully adjusted the resonance as he turned it slowly from left to right. The crest of the earthwork rampart filled the skyline to the north-east. To the south, in the broad road gully that Imperial pioneers had constructed beyond the palace walls, a steady line of transports and tanks were churning east along the track, heading into the incoming storm. A flock of Jackals whined overhead in tight formation, and turned south-east to begin strafing passes. Despite the scope's powerful resolution, Namatjira couldn't see the enemy, but he could see the vast veil of rolling vapour that mantled them and filled the sky. 'Extraordinary,' said Namatjira, straightening up. He looked at Dev. His eyes were bright, almost excited. 'When a man finds war commonplace, it is time for him to retire from service,' said Namatjira. 'This reminds me why I am content to serve the Emperor for a while longer.' 'Sir?' asked Dev. 'Why is that?' 'Because it's a challenge, Dev, a revelation. The enemy has done the unexpected, and that tests us. In all of the predictive scenarios, did we ever consider that the enemy might launch a full-scale counter-offensive?' 'No, sir. Petty raids and line assaults, perhaps, harrying attacks along our picket, but nothing like this. We didn't realise they had the manpower left.' 'They have taught us a lesson about expectation,' said Namatjira. 'We have them besieged, we have them outnumbered, and we hold a clear advantage in technology. Yet they have invaded us.' 'An act of desperation,' suggested Dev. 'We are about to take their world from them. This is a last stand, perhaps, a last effort to drive us out.' 'And a brave one,' Namatjira replied, 'yet it plays to our advantage.' Dev hesitated. 'Our advantage, sir?' 'They have broken the siege. They have come out into the open and demanded a pitched battle. We will give them that. We will annihilate them. Nurth will be an Imperial dominion by nightfall. After months of grinding, nuisance war, they have handed us a swift and comprehensive final victory.' Dev nodded. Namatjira glanced up at the slow-turning sky. 'It's almost as if that is their intention,' he mused. 'For all the losses we may take, initially, to their brute assault, they must know our superior firepower will ultimately slaughter them. It is almost as if they are committing suicide as a race. It is almost as if they want to die, in one last firestorm, rather than linger on to ignominious defeat.' Namatjira turned back towards the stairs. 'Commit the Hort and the Torrent in full order to follow the Titans in and crush the enemy. No quarter, major general.' He paused. 'By the way, where are the Alpha Legion?' 'I... I don't know, sir,' said Dev. 'Signal them, major general,' said Namatjira. For a second, a tiny flash of his carefully suppressed rage showed itself. 'Inquire as to their status and ask, respectfully, if they intend to join us.' THERE WAS A distinct possibility that Hurt was already dead. Soneka stood on the brow of a dune hill eight kilometres west of the battle, and felt the presentiment sink in. He felt it in his marrow. Hurt was dead. Tactical had informed him that the lokers had been caught right in the path of the enemy onslaught. He had twice requested permission to draw the Clowns in along the southern service track to support the front line, but had been denied both times. The Clowns were to hold their position. 'At this time, we do not know if the enemy will attempt to penetrate our line in other locations.' Soneka knew that made sense. The Army had to maintain a defence formation right along the earthwork wall, or be guilty of the most basic military sin. Besides, at the rate the dust cloud was creeping in, the Clowns would be in it too, in no more than an hour. Yet he dearly wished he could go to his friend's aid. He'd had less than eight hours to get to know his new command. The transport had delivered Soneka and his bashaws to the Clown billet long after dark the night before. The Clowns had already begun their fireside revels, and had welcomed their temporary commander with vocal enthusiasm. It had turned into a late night under the stars, fuelled by the Clowns' bottomless supply of znaps. Soneka had spent two hours talking with Strabo, fugging Strabo, who turned out to be a far more competent and likeable man than Dimi Shiban had suggested. Strabo had done his best to keep the company functioning and viable in the absence of a senior gene het. By the end of their chat, Soneka had felt a grudging admiration for the bashaw, who had evidently been holding the Clowns together with a glue composed of charisma and coercion. They spoke of Shiban, and Soneka related some of the things that had passed between him and Dimi at Tel Khat. He chose not to tell Strabo the truth of Shiban's demise. How could a man explain that a fine officer like Dimiter Shiban had been executed by the Alpha Legion, and not have it sound like treason? Soneka stared out across the dawn landscape. Where the sun should have risen, the ominous pall of vapour hung across the skyline. The sky had congealed into a slick of brown and amber clouds, all wandering slowly against the wind and common sense. The vapour was brighter than the sky, a creamy mass like a deep desert dune caught in noon sunlight. Soneka could smell something on the wind, a resiny smell like myrrh or wormwood. He had been thinking about Shiban a lot in the last few days. Should he have noticed some change in him, some tell-tale sign that Shiban was not himself? How did one detect the trace of Chaos? The Alpha Legion, if they were to be believed, had some infallible method. If they were to be believed. Soneka tutted to himself. After all this, and I'm still not inclined to trust them. Drinking with Strabo the night before, Soneka had remembered an idle conversation he'd had with Shiban at Visages. It had meant nothing at the time, but in hindsight, Soneka wondered if it was some kind of sign or symptom. 'I have been dreaming lately,' Dimi had said. 'In my dreams, I hear a verse.' 'A verse, huh?' Soneka had replied. 'I'll tell you how it goes, shall I?' 'You remember it, then?' 'Don't you remember your dreams word for word?' Shiban had asked. 'Never,' Soneka had said. Shiban had shrugged. 'Fancy that.' 'This verse?' Soneka had prompted. That? Oh, that goes- From the hagg and hungrie goblin That into raggs would rend ye, And the spirit that stands by the naked man, In the Book of Moones defend ye!' 'I know that,' Soneka had said. 'You do?' Shiban had replied. 'Really?' 'My mother used to sing it to me when I was a boy. She called it the Bedlame Song. There were other verses that I now forget.' 'Really? What does it mean?' Soneka had shrugged. 'I have no idea.' He still had no idea, except for the awful feeling that it had been the shards of Nurthene bone lodged in Dimi Shiban's throat shaping the words, and not Dimi Shiban at all. Those shards of bone had been polluting his friend, corrupting him. The Alpha legionnaires had seen it instantly, and turned their weapons on him. Chaos had laced its poison claws into Dimi Shiban's soul. If that was true, why did Soneka know the verse? Why had his mother known it to sing it to him? 'Sir?' Soneka snapped out of his thoughts and looked to his left. Lon was approaching, carbine swinging from its long strap. 'Any news?' Soneka asked. Lon shook his head. 'Command repeats its instruction to hold here. Two units of Outremars are moving in from the east to cement this as a rearguard defence position.' Soneka nodded. 'Thank you. Let's make ready to slot them in.' 'Oh, and Strabo wants you, sir,' Lon added. Soneka looked back along the ridge of the dune. The Clowns were assembled in file order, facing the gauzy-wound in the dust cloud where the sun should have been climbing. Their shouldered pikes glinted in the toxic light, and the company banners hung like moribund kite sails. Strabo was picking his way up the cinnamon dust of the dune towards them, followed by two riflemen, and a tall man wearing the uniform of a geno het. Soneka did not recognise the het. 'Sir,' said Strabo, arriving and saluting. 'This het has just reached our position and requests a moment of your time.' 'His name?' 'Uhm-' Strabo began. 'Shon Fikal,' the het said, sticking out his hand. Soneka took it and shook it. The name meant nothing. 'Could we have a word in private?' Fikal requested. Soneka nodded. He looked back at Lon. 'Have the Clowns present,' he ordered, 'Akkad formation, with Lycad reserve lines. When they get here, draw the Outremar forces around to the south, and have them draw in along our left flank. Then we'll meet with their officers. Relay that to all, especially-' 'Fugging Strabo?' Strabo asked. Soneka grinned. 'Yes, especially him.' Lon and Strabo laughed, and turned back down the hill to the waiting company. 'Shon Fikal?' asked Soneka, drawing the het aside, 'and what company does Shon Fikal serve?' The het shrugged. 'You may know me better by another name, sir,' he said. 'Konig Heniker.' Soneka stared at him. His hand began to move towards his holstered sidearm. 'No need for that,' said Heniker. He looked Soneka in the face. 'My real name is John Grammaticus, and I need to get a message to the Alpha Legion. It's my understanding that you can arrange that.' 'Your understanding?' 'Don't be coy. Is it true or not?' 'Possibly,' Soneka replied carefully. 'Let's hope so. And quickly. This is the Black Dawn, and we have very little time left.' BR

sir,' he said. 'Konig Heniker.' Soneka stared at him. His hand began to move towards his holstered sidearm. 'No need for that,' said Heniker. He looked Soneka in the face. 'My real name is John Grammaticus, and I need to get a message to the Alpha Legion. It's my understanding that you can arrange that.' 'Your understanding?' 'Don't be coy. Is it true or not?' 'Possibly,' Soneka replied carefully. 'Let's hope so. And quickly. This is the Black Dawn, and we have very little time left.' BRONZI REACHED A tel two kilometres south of the fighting line with about half of his company. They were all exhausted and caked in dust. It had taken thirty minutes of brutal skirmishing to break through the edges of the host pouring across them. Their heads were ringing from the demented melee, and Bronzi knew he wasn't the only one who couldn't clear his mind or stop his hands from shaking. Two Outremar units had made it to the tel, fragments of demolished strengths, along with a score of Torrent gunners who had been forced to abandon their artillery and flee. Bronzi took charge of the lot of them, reporting numbers and position to Command. He had his bashaws check that the bewildered gunners were armed, even if it was simply with a knife or a broken wheel spoke. Through his scope, Bronzi could see a long fan of Imperial armour drawing up across the desert from the west, trailing individual wakes of dust from their churning tracks. They were Zanzibari Hort, in full force, pushing up from the marshalling fields at Wadi Suhn. He wondered why they seemed to be hanging back. It was Major General Dev's habit to plunge his fast armour into enemy infantry cohorts like heavy cavalry, and they were certainly gathering in significant enough numbers to make a difference, but they seemed to be dawdling a kilometre or so west of the enemy rush. The explanation appeared. Dull giants loomed out of the west through the ochre dust, trudging slowly up out of the great Ahn Aket wadi. They rose into view out of the desert sink, burnished monsters that walked like gods. Jeveth's Titans had reached the fighting line. There were three of them. The driving dust was such that their distant shapes were obscured from view several times, despite their scale. Bronzi could hear the occasional metal creak or squeal of their vast, lumbering chassis. They strode through the waiting formations of Hort armour at a relentless pace dwarfing the heavy tanks and gun platforms and, line abreast, advanced on the Nurthene host. The first of them began to fire. Bronzi winced and lowered his scope. The pulsing flashes of the Titan's limb mounts were dazzling bright, and left a neon after-image on his retinas. 'Great Terra,' he murmured. Fat beams of luminous energy began to rake out of their cannons, and were quickly supported by huge, pumping bolts of light like shooting stars, and sooty blurs of hard ordnance. The Titans seemed to smoke from head to foot, but it was just dust coming off them. The sustained recoil vibration of their weapon arrays was so great that the dust and sand accumulated during their trek to the front was shaking off their vast, plated forms in powdery swathes. Bronzi could hear the shriek and wail of their las weapons, and the brisk thunder of their machine cannons. The sounds rolled to him, out of synch with the flashes and light bursts. He'd seen Titans at war before, and the sight never failed to fill him with awe. He was always unprepared for the astonishing rapidity of their rate of fire, the zipping, torrential pulse and spit of green, amber and white light that unloaded from their forearms and shoulders. The ground ahead of their slow advance began to ripple and distort as it sprouted sudden forests of blooming dust, thrown-up earth and writhing fireballs. A juddering, flickering carpet of destruction spread out before them, billowing dark smoke and vaporised sand back into the edges of the pale fog that the Nurthene had brought with them. Bronzi could feel the relentless plosive concussion of the onslaught quaking his viscera. The ground was shaking. The men around him started to cheer and bellow, but Bronzi could feel their dismay. It was not a scent that a man could witness without an involuntary shiver of fear. He wondered how many of the screaming enemy had perished in the first second, how many in the second, or the third. It was impossible to see, even with his scope. He could resolve nothing except the churning smoke, the serried flicker of furious impacts, the sudden chains of fireballs, igniting and expanding and overlapping. For a split second, he glimpsed a dark shape that had to be a giant caiman rise up out of the flurry of detonations, and then crash back like the hull of a sinking ship. The smell of wormwood had gone. In its place was the reek of superheated gases, of fycelene, of molten, vitrified sand and of burning flesh. The Titans ploughed on, stepping through the seething, burning devastation they had wrought, like men walking through low mist. Their bombardment did not relent. Behind them, the Hort armour began to spur forwards, and Bronzi heard the distant slap and howl of tank guns beginning to hammer. The Titans reached the edge of the Nurthene storm cloud, and waded into its pale fog. For the first time since dawn, that ominous pall began to recoil and fold back on itself, as if the three huge war machines were a fresh breeze out of the desert, slowly blowing the stain away. SONEKA LED HENIKER, or whatever his name was, down the wadi to where the company's support vehicles sat. He felt a deep unease, as if he was embarking on some unconscionable betrayal. He also knew it was far too late to consider such niceties. He'd made a choice, and he had to live with it. 'They're looking for you,' he said. 'Who is?' asked Heniker. 'Everyone,' Soneka replied. 'I know. I also know who I want to be found by.' 'The Astartes?' Heniker nodded. 'Why?' asked Soneka. 'It's complicated. The simple answer is that I believe they will listen to me. Your masters in the Imperial Army would simply execute me as the Nurthene agent they believe I am.' Heniker looked at Soneka with a strange smile. 'Except, they're not your masters, are they?' he asked. 'Not any more. I mean, you don't answer to them first, do you?' Soneka did not reply. 'How did that happen?' Heniker asked. 'Have you been an operative for a long time, or was it a recent thing? Did they co-opt you or coerce you?' 'That's enough.' 'I'm simply interested, interested in how they work, how their mechanism functions.' 'You're not asking the right man,' Soneka told him. 'Just wait here.' Heniker nodded and remained where he was. Soneka walked over to an open-topped staff-track, and told the driver to go for a walk. 'Sir?' 'I need to use the vox,' said Soneka. 'Clearance only.' 'Yes, sir,' the man said, and jumped out of the cab. He wandered away in the direction of a group of drivers sitting in the shade of a transport. Soneka switched on the track's vox unit and let it warm up. He kept glancing over at Heniker, but the man showed no sign of disappearing. When the vox was up to power, Soneka reached into his pocket and took out his biometric. He looked at it for a moment. It would be an easy thing to slot it in, contact Mu, and make a report. An easy thing, Company first, Imperium second, geno before gene. Was it really too late for that now? He sighed, put the biometric down on the top of the set, and typed a seven digit channel code into it instead. The vox whispered for a moment, and then a voice answered. 'Speak and identify.' 'Lernaean 841,' said Soneka. The vox murmured. As Soneka watched, the encryption lights on its display lit up, one by one. 'Speak.' 'Is this link secure?' Soneka asked. 'You can see that for yourself.' 'Is this link secure?' 'Yes, Peto. Be assured of it. Do you have information for us?' Soneka swallowed. 'I have Konig Heniker.' There was a pause. 'Repeat, Peto.' 'I have Konig Heniker,' Soneka said. 'In your custody?' asked the vox. 'In my company. He surrendered himself to me ten minutes ago. He says he has a message for you, vital, apparently.' There was another pause. 'What is your location, Peto?' Soneka read out his chart referent. 'Bring him to us.' 'I can't just-' 'Bring him to us.' 'Listen to me, I am on active station. My company is in the field. Have you seen what's going on out there?' 'We have.' 'I can't just leave my post, I have a duty-' 'Yes, you have,' the vox said. There is no alternative. Trust us. Bring Heniker to CR583 immediately. We will cover you.' 'I-' Soneka began. 'Is that understood?' 'Look, it's not as if I can-' 'Is that understood?' 'Yes,' said Soneka quietly. 'Please confirm that this is understood.' 'Yes, it is,' said Soneka. 'Please confirm the chart referent.' 'CR583.' The link went dead. The encryption lights faded out, one by one. Soneka sat back and exhaled hard. He keyed off the set, retrieved his biometric, and got out of the track. 'Well?' asked Heniker. 'You look unhappy.' 'Don't talk to me. Just shut up and follow me.' They slogged back up the soft drift sand of the wadi, and Soneka made Heniker wait while he called to Lon. 'What's up?' Lon asked, jogging over. 'I've got to go.' 'What?' Lon laughed. 'Go? Go where?' 'I can't explain. It's... it's classified.' Lon stared at him. 'Classified? What are you talking about, het? Are you Army Intelligence all of a sudden?' 'Something like that.' Soneka jerked his head in Heniker's direction. 'Listen, Lon, I think this guy's got information,' he whispered. 'I think he might even be one of the spies everyone's gossiping about.' 'What?' 'Just listen. I need to deliver him to the genewhips or someone.' 'How long are you going to be?' asked Lon. 'Half an hour. I don't know. You're in charge. Tell Strabo you're in charge, my authority.' 'You've only been with the Clowns a few hours,' Lon b

igence all of a sudden?' 'Something like that.' Soneka jerked his head in Heniker's direction. 'Listen, Lon, I think this guy's got information,' he whispered. 'I think he might even be one of the spies everyone's gossiping about.' 'What?' 'Just listen. I need to deliver him to the genewhips or someone.' 'How long are you going to be?' asked Lon. 'Half an hour. I don't know. You're in charge. Tell Strabo you're in charge, my authority.' 'You've only been with the Clowns a few hours,' Lon began. 'Then they're not going to miss me much, are they?' Soneka replied. 'This is important. I'll be back as quickly as I can.' The bashaw looked unhappy. Finally, he shrugged his heavy, heterosis-magnified shoulders. 'Whatever you think best, sir,' he said. 'Thank you.' 'Does Uxor Mu know about this?' Lon asked. Soneka shook his head. 'I can't trust the vox, not even encrypted.' 'And if she asks for you? If Command asks for you?' 'Tell them to stand by. Tell them I have left my station to deal with a critical matter, and that I will report to her as soon as I can.' Lon nodded. 'March in fortune,' Soneka said. 'You too, het.' SONEKA REQUISITIONED A light atav from the supply line, and they headed south-west across a patch of open desert that resembled a dried seabed. The daylight had taken on an even more unsettling cast, and the sky had turned the colour of beaten copper. 'It's not getting any lighter,' muttered Soneka as he drove. 'You noticed that?' Heniker replied. 'What's going on? What's a "black dawn"?' 'Something unexpected. Something vile. The Nurthenes' last gift to you.' 'To me personally?' Heniker laughed. 'To the Imperial expedition.' 'Interesting choice of words,' Soneka replied, fighting with the wheel as they shook over the uneven crust. 'It implies you are not Imperial.' 'I'm not.' Soneka risked a glance at him. 'What the hell are you, then?' 'I'm human. At least, human enough for your needs. I'm not the enemy, you have to understand that. I'm fighting for the same cause as you.' 'Which is?' 'The survival of the species. My one wish is to save the human race from the slow and tormenting death that is about to overtake it.' 'It would be great if you started dealing in specifics,' said Soneka. 'There's a war coming,' said Heniker. 'We're at war all the time. It's the natural state of mankind in this era.' Heniker looked out at the desert scrub flashing past. 'This is a special kind of war. It will make all others seem futile and small. The Imperium is simply not prepared for it.' Soneka checked the chart display, and turned them a few points west, along the edge of a great sink, where the wind was lifting white sand off the rim like steam. 'Can I ask you a question?' Heniker said. 'You can try.' 'Is Rukhsana alive?' Soneka hesitated before answering. 'Yes, I think so. She was when I last saw her.' 'The Astartes got you to deliver her to them, didn't they?' 'Yes,' said Soneka, 'for her own safety.' 'If that's what they said,' Heniker remarked, 'it must be true.' 'She-' Soneka began. 'I'm sorry. I was reluctant to bring her to them, and I have regretted it since. Army Intelligence was close to taking her. They had discovered the link between you and her.' Heniker nodded. 'Peto Soneka-' he said. 'What?' 'Nothing. It's funny. Not long ago, I'd almost decided to be you.' 'What does that mean?' asked Soneka. 'I'm talking about borrowing identities from the dead. But it turns out you're not dead.' CR583 WAS A ruined Nurthene bastion on a sandstone crag overlooking a wide dune sea. The crag ran north in jutting steps, and joined the lip of the continental shelf where it dropped away into the Mon Lo coast-lands. The dimpled expanse of the dune sea stretched away to the south, and had turned silver grey in the malevolent light, like a sheet of chainmail spread out and stretched as far as the eye could see. There was no heat, just a cold, restless wind. Soneka brought the atav up under the shadows of the crag, and they dismounted. The bastion was one of a chain of ancient Nurthene watchtowers that had once guarded the threshold of the open desert, but it had been abandoned and left to ruin centuries before the expedition arrived. It was built of large hardstone blocks, sagging and crumbling in places. The upper levels were gone, and blank spyholes looked out over the dunes like empty eye sockets. They clambered up the slopes of weathered scree and jumbled boulders. Many of the larger fragments were blocks from the tower that time had pulled down. The place was full of chilly echoes. As their boots disturbed loose pebbles and stones, the clatters repeated around them, spectral and hollow. 'This feels wrong,' said Soneka, drawing his pistol. 'They're just not taking any chances with me,' Heniker told him. Soneka looked up at the crude walls of the bastion above them. He didn't seem convinced. They clambered up a little further, to the foot of the bastion. 'There, you see?' said Heniker. This is the right place.' He pointed. A small but distinct mark had been heat-scored into the face of a loose block just ahead. The symbol matched the one branded on Soneka's flesh. 'Another house of the hydra,' Heniker muttered. 'What?' Heniker pushed past him, and climbed up a bank of sand silt to the tower's open gateway. As he passed the marked block, he touched it. 'Still warm,' he called back. 'They haven't been here long.' They walked under the heavy stone lintel of the gate and entered the tower. Its internal floors and staircases had gone, leaving an empty sleeve of stone open to the sky. It took a moment for their eyes to grow accustomed to the gloom. Through the window slots and open roof, they could see patches of cold, dull sky. 'Hello,' said Heniker. 'Hello, John.' Two Astartes stood in the darkness, waiting for them. They were in full war plate, but their helmets were off. In the half-light, Soneka realised that he couldn't tell them apart. They were like twins. 'Herzog, Pech,' Heniker said, nodding to them. 'How-' Soneka began. 'John Grammaticus is a marvellously perceptive being,' said a deep voice behind them. A third Astartes came out of the shadows. 'Alpharius,' said Heniker. Soneka heard the confidence slip slightly from the spy's voice. 'Can you be certain?' asked the third Astartes. Heniker recovered his composure slightly. 'Yes. I have heard your voice before, at the pavilion. I never forget a vocal pattern, and your build is appreciably larger than that of your captains. You are the Primarch Alpharius. Lord, it has taken a great deal of time, effort and trouble to meet you.' 'From the way you have evaded us, John, it would seem that you were keen to postpone that moment,' Alpharius observed. 'Things have changed,' said John Grammaticus. 'More than ever, I need to speak to you, and you need to listen.' 'Then let us withdraw and speak,' said Alpharius. The two towering captains stepped forwards and flanked Heniker, leading him towards the tower's doorway. Heniker looked back over his shoulder at Soneka. 'Thanks,' he said. Soneka shrugged. The Astartes led Heniker out of the tower. 'Well done, Peto,' said the armoured giant. Soneka holstered his gun, and made a solemn namaste. 'I must return to my unit, lord,' he said. The quicker I can resume my duties, the-' 'No, Peto. I'm sorry. You can't.' 'Why not?' Soneka asked. 'Peto, there is a question you haven't asked yourself.' 'And that is?' Soneka replied. 'How did Konig Heniker know that you were an operative of the Alpha Legion? How did he know how to find you?' THIRTEEN The last day on Nurth IT WAS COLD underground. Soneka had believed the deserts of Nurth to be arid and waterless, but deep in the rock cisterns and chutes, moisture gathered on the walls and dripped off the ceiling like black saliva. The tunnels they followed were fresh cut, no more than a few weeks old. The walls and floor displayed the tell-tale marks of fusion borers and rock cutters. How long had the Alpha Legion been here, Soneka wondered, and just how much careful preparation had they made before revealing themselves formally? Quite suddenly, as it seemed to Soneka, they left the darkness of the tunnels and the echoes of their footsteps behind, and came out into the open air. He looked around, blinking. They had emerged into a deeply scooped bowl of rock. A crown of fossil-dry cliffs rose all around. Overhead, the copper clouds bloated and knotted into tumorous shapes, and there was a foul reek on the wind. Even the Astartes seemed to notice the way the climate was rapidly deteriorating, as if the planet was sick and distempered. 'This world is unravelling,' remarked Grammaticus. Alpharius cast him a look. It was Soneka's first opportunity to see the primarch's features in daylight. His face was handsome and strong, his scalp clean shaven. In the strange light, his dark skin appeared greenish grey and his eyes hard tungsten. John Grammaticus was busy studying the details of their surroundings. He could not see Shere or any of the Alpha Legion's pet psykers, but he could feel at least two of them close by, watching him, ready to shut him down if he ventured so much as a millimetre outside his own skull. In the rock bowl below, Grammaticus saw twenty Alpha legionnaires, the most he had seen in one place. They were armouring into their plate, checking their bolters, and uncasing support weapons from steel drop canisters. A dozen or so regular humans moved amongst them, assisting with the armour fittings, or fetching munition packs and tools. Most of the regulars were dressed in Army uniforms of various kinds, but some wore the shawls and robes of local desert costume. None of the Astartes or the operatives looked up as the party emerged from the cliff tunnel. On the far side of the deep bowl, a heavy drop-ship crouched on thick claw-footed stanchions under dense camouflage netting. The drop-ship was of a nonsta

A dozen or so regular humans moved amongst them, assisting with the armour fittings, or fetching munition packs and tools. Most of the regulars were dressed in Army uniforms of various kinds, but some wore the shawls and robes of local desert costume. None of the Astartes or the operatives looked up as the party emerged from the cliff tunnel. On the far side of the deep bowl, a heavy drop-ship crouched on thick claw-footed stanchions under dense camouflage netting. The drop-ship was of a nonstandard pattern, or at least no pattern Grammaticus was familiar with. John Grammaticus could feel the low throb and warble of powerful vox transmitters. He could smell communication all around him: encrypted flows, eddies of communication, estuaries of data flowing into information seas. The Alpha Legion was on a war footing, and this place had to be just one of many bolt-hole reserves preparing to mobilise. Time was running out... 'My lord primarch-' Grammaticus began. Ingo Pech shot him a hard look, and Grammaticus fell silent. Alpharius turned and walked away from them, down the stone litter of the slope to the floor of the basin where his warriors were making ready. One of them rose, half-armoured, and began to speak with him. Grammaticus watched with mounting interest. They were too far away for him to overhear, and the angle was wrong for him to lip read, but he could discern their body language. Moreover, he could compare them. The warrior Alpharius had gone to talk to was big, even by the standards of hybrid vigour exhibited by Astartes. He matched the primarch in every dimension. Their body language duplicated, down to the slightest gesture. And their faces... they were like twins. Grammaticus wondered if he had been wrong, or deliberately misled, in his identification. Who was the primarch here? Who was Alpharius? How many layers of deception had the Legion woven about themselves? 'Who is that?' he asked Pech. 'Who do you mean?' the first captain replied sullenly. 'The brother speaking with Alpharius.' Pech looked at Herzog, who shrugged. 'Omegon,' Pech said. 'Omegon?' Grammaticus echoed. 'Commander of the stealth squad,' Herzog said. He and Pech laughed, as if at a private joke. Grammaticus realised he knew what it was. His eyes widened. He knew he had to test this. He reached out with his mind. A telekinetic scream tore into his head and blew the roof off his skull. He squealed, and fell on his face. No, you don't, said a voice. The voice belonged to Shere. Soneka started forwards in alarm. Heniker had suddenly convulsed and collapsed. 'It's all right, Peto,' said Pech calmly. 'He just got a little too inquisitive.' 'I don't understand,' said Soneka. 'He didn't do anything.' 'Nothing you could see,' Herzog advised. Heniker lay on his face in the dust, twitching and moaning. Blood leaked out of his ears. 'Have you killed him somehow?' Soneka asked. 'It'll take more than that to finish the likes of him,' said Herzog. He raised his heavy bolter in a manner that suggested he knew at least one reliable alternative. Soneka pushed past the massive second captain and bent down beside Heniker. Herzog laughed at the affront, and glanced at Pech. 'Het's got some balls.' 'That's why I picked him,' Pech replied. Soneka rolled Heniker over into the recovery position, and made sure his airway was clear. Froth drooled from the corner of the downed man's chewing mouth. 'Just breathe, Heniker,' he said. 'Just breathe slowly' 'I know...' the man gurgled. 'Shush.' 'I know,' Heniker insisted, in a wet voice. 'I know how to recover from a psychic attack. Give me a moment.' He opened his eyes. One had become very bloodshot. 'It's John, sir.' 'What?' 'My name, my real name, it's John. It always has been.' Soneka nodded. Alpharius and the warrior he had been talking with were walking up the slope towards them. 'Time to talk, then, John Grammaticus,' said Alpharius. 'He's hurt,' Soneka protested. 'He's sound enough,' said the Astartes at Alpharius's side. Alpharius raised a hand. 'Your sympathy does you credit, Peto. Thank you.' With Soneka's assistance, John Grammaticus rolled over and sat upright, wiping his mouth and looking up at the towering figures. 'You're so alike,' he said. 'It plays to our strength,' said Alpharius. 'Anonymity in shared identity. We all make an effort to look alike.' Grammaticus chuckled and coughed. 'That's not what I meant.' 'To the eyes of non-heterosic humans, all Astartes look alike,' Herzog said. 'You cannot read our features, or distinguish our dissimilarities,' said Pech. 'To you, we are inhuman things stamped out of a single mould.' Grammaticus shook his head. 'That's not what I meant either.' Leaning on Soneka, he rose to his feet. 'You're too alike. More alike than the rest. Face, voice, build, mannerisms. Like twins.' 'You cannot possibly read or distinguish the subtle differences in-' Alpharius began. 'No, I can. I really can. That's what I do,' said Grammaticus. 'Yes, you all look alike, to simple human eyes. They look alike to you, don't they, Peto?' 'Every one of them.' Soneka replied. Grammaticus nodded. 'You look the same to Peto, but I can see. Him, he's three, maybe three and a half centimetres taller than the man beside him. He has heavier cheek bones. He has a thicker neck, and a propensity to grow hair. Those two are alike, except around the eyes, where it is telling.' 'Gene stock traits,' said Pech. 'No,' said Grammaticus. 'Cosmetic efforts to resemble one another. Except you-' he looked at Alpharius and Omegon. 'You really are identical.' 'The differences between us are simply too subtle for you to detect,' Omegon said. 'I doubt that. I really doubt that. Which one of you is Alpharius?' 'I am,' said Alpharius. 'Very well, let me rephrase the question,' said Grammaticus. 'Which one of you is the primarch?' Alpharius smiled. 'I think it's high time we started asking the questions, John. You came looking for us, hunting for us, and you found us. Then you did everything you could to evade us. Now you come to us again. Why?' 'I was sent to broker terms with you, with the Alpha Legion,' Grammaticus replied. 'This would be by the Cabal you described?' Pech asked. 'Yes. They sent me. I knew the endeavour would be dangerous, and that you would resist me, so I was wary. However, matters have shifted, and I come to you openly.' 'Does the Cabal know of your change in tactics?' asked Herzog. 'The Cabal ordered me to change my tactics,' Grammaticus replied. 'Brokering of terms can come later. I'm here to warn you. This world has about a day of life left in it. You must flee before it overwhelms you.' 'WE'LL HEAD WEST,' said Bronzi. Tche nodded, holding the chart flat against the face of a boulder. 'West it is,' he agreed. 'The service track's probably-' Tche shook his head. 'No, down the wadi and through there. The dry bed. Any further north and we risk getting caught up in this.' 'Oh, come on,' Bronzi said. 'It's all over, bar the body bagging.' 'Is it?' asked Tche. 'Have you seen the sky?' 'Fug the sky,' said Bronzi. 'Yeah, well, the wadi will keep us clear of any potential action, that's all I'm saying,' Tche retorted. 'Hm. I like that thinking,' Bronzi admitted. The elements he had gathered around him were too weak and unfocused to get swept up in the main brawl. If he could conduct them west as far as the palace, or at least its environs, the uxors could redeploy them properly to strengthen other sections. 'All right, we're moving out,' Bronzi told his senior bashaw. 'Wake 'em up and tell 'em where to go.' Tche ran forwards, calling out instructions. The other bashaws became alert and started to relay them. The Jokers got to their feet obediently, gathering their kit and weapons. The Outremar troopers looked befuddled at the orders. 'Get lively and move!' Bronzi yelled at them. 'Come on, girls, it's time to go!' Most of them, the Jokers included, had spent the last forty minutes watching a spectacle they would tell to their grandchildren. Titans and Hort armour, laying into the enemy with full military power, it was the stuff fireside tales were made of, the stuff that made grandpa or great-grandpa seem bigger than life. An incredible sight, the Titans blasting all hell out of the landscape, slowly advancing into the vapour flume with the tanks of the Zanzibari Hort at their gigantic heels. Bronzi couldn't begin to guess how many thousand tonnes of munitions had been delivered into the enemy ranks. If there was a Nurthene left alive, he'd be surprised. The Imperial Army, combined with a Titan Legion from Terra's fraternal twin, Mars - Emperor bless the Mechanicum! - had done what it was designed to do. It had crushed, it had obliterated. It had overwhelmed Nurth's last ditch effort. The great show had disappeared from view. The Titans and their support line of heavy tanks had vanished into the vapour's haze. Bronzi could still hear them firing, still see the flash, and feel the distant overpressure thump of their detonations. The Nurthene storm, the veil that had so comprehensively overwhelmed the earthwork line at dawn, was folding back and dissipating. Bronzi imagined fields of burning sand, littered with dead Nurthene and exploded reptile carcasses, imprinted with the smouldering footprints of Titan monsters. 'Come on. Come on!' he shouted. 'Get off your arses, you idiots! Let's move! Down the valley and west!' He looked up. He suddenly realised how black and lightless the day had become. 'THE NURTHENE POSSESS a device known as a Black Cube,' Grammaticus said. 'Explain the term,' Pech insisted. 'I can't. I don't understand it. I only know what it does. It's a device, an ancient device. Older than you can conceive, a weapon constructed before the rise of man. The Cabal believes that they were used in ancient wars between the first-comer races, in the galaxy's youth.' 'Another portentous myth with no basis in-'

. He suddenly realised how black and lightless the day had become. 'THE NURTHENE POSSESS a device known as a Black Cube,' Grammaticus said. 'Explain the term,' Pech insisted. 'I can't. I don't understand it. I only know what it does. It's a device, an ancient device. Older than you can conceive, a weapon constructed before the rise of man. The Cabal believes that they were used in ancient wars between the first-comer races, in the galaxy's youth.' 'Another portentous myth with no basis in-' Herzog started to say. 'Listen to me!' Grammaticus cried out. He was using his voice at its most formidable and persuasive. There was no longer any time for restraint. He had to make them listen and understand. Modifying his tone and pitch with a skill finessed over centuries, he made Soneka start, and the Alpha legionnaires stare at him. 'The Cabal believes there are no more than five of these infernal devices left in existence,' he said. 'It is a weapon of Chaos ritual. A Black Cube, once activated, manufactures a Black Dawn. From that point, no life on the planet is safe.' 'How is a Cube activated?' asked Pech. 'By blood,' said Grammaticus. 'By the sacrifice of blood. Don't you see, the Nurthene want you to kill them. They want you to slaughter them. That activates their weapon.' A gust of foul wind swept around the rock bowl. Down in the bottom of the basin, the armouring Astartes and their operatives had stopped in the midst of their activities. Some had risen to their feet. They were listening too. 'How do we stop it?' asked Alpharius. 'You can't, not now,' said Grammaticus. 'Then what?' 'You must abandon this enterprise,' said Grammaticus. 'You must quit this world immediately and retreat to a point of safety. There is still a chance to save the Alpha Legion. Furthermore, if you are persuasive enough, there is still a chance to save the expedition forces.' 'Namatjira won't just-' Alpharius began. 'You're a primarch!' snapped Grammaticus. 'One of you is, at any rate. Use your influence, and even a Lord Commander will listen! Either that, or cut your losses and leave them to their doom. The important thing is... the Alpha Legion is far too valuable a resource to be lost in such a senseless manner.' 'You're here to save us, then, are you, John?' asked Omegon. 'Why do you care so much?' asked Alpharius. Grammaticus sighed. 'Because I was sent here as an ambassador to open a dialogue between you and the Cabal. I've told you this already. I told it to Pech, I've said it until I'm sick of the words. The opportunity for subtle persuasion has gone. Come with me, flee this world, escape this doom, and I will take you to a place of revelation.' 'I don't run from a fight,' said Alpharius. 'I am committed. I don't just cut my losses and walk away when I'm oathed to a moment.' 'Don't you?' Grammaticus and the Astartes glanced at Soneka. 'Did you speak, Peto?' Pech asked. Soneka hesitated. 'Yes. I said... I meant... that's what you do. That's what I've seen you do.' Alpharius's eyes narrowed. 'Peto?' 'Pragmatism, unsentimental pragmatism, seems to be your defining quality. I'm not, forgive me, I'm not questioning your honour or courage, but you do what you have to. You do whatever is necessary to accomplish the greater goal.' Alpharius took a step towards him. 'Have you suddenly become an expert on the Alpha legion's military ethics?' Soneka shook his head. 'I only report what I've seen with my own eyes. Without qualm or reservation, you do whatever is necessary to win. The Dancers I left in the sand at Tel Utan will attest to that.' 'You make us sound clinical and ruthless,' said Alpharius. 'You are the most effective fighting mechanisms Terra has ever produced,' said Grammaticus behind him. 'Is that so bad a description?' There was a long silence, broken only by the breath of the noxious wind. Alpharius stared at Omegon, then nodded curtly. He turned to Herzog and Pech. 'Signal the Legion to stand down and prepare for immediate withdrawal. Rapid evacuation pattern, unit by unit, standard reconstitution policy.' Alpharius glanced at Grammaticus. 'What is a safe distance?' 'The edge of the system would be prudent,' Grammaticus replied. Alpharius turned back to his captains. 'Standard reconstitution policy,' he continued, 'in the heliopause. Do it now.' They both saluted and moved off urgently, muttering streams of orders into their suit mics. 'Signal the Lord Commander, and tell him I will attend upon him in thirty minutes,' Alpharius told Omegon. Then he turned to face Grammaticus. Grammaticus looked up into the primarch's eyes. 'If it turns out that you have played us in any way, John,' Alpharius said. 'If this proves to be a trick or a ruse, I will personally oversee your execution, and then I will hunt out and exterminate your precious Cabal.' 'That, sir, is entirely reasonable,' replied John Grammaticus. PART TWO THE HALTING SITE ONE Vicinity of 42 Hydra, five months after the fall of Nurth THE LOCK PLATE beside the hatch knew his hand, read it with a soft blink of light, and the hatch slid open. He picked up the heavy canvas satchel, slung it over his shoulder, and stepped through. 'Good day to you, John,' he said. John Grammaticus smiled. 'Hello, Peto. Is it another day already?' 'Already indeed,' replied Peto Soneka, putting the satchel down on the steel table. 'One would hardly know,' said Grammaticus, true to form. It had become a refrain between them, varying only slightly from day to day, a shorthand of comradeship. The cell was crude, but large enough for a man to waste hours in it pacing up and down. A cot, two chairs, the table, a basin in the wall and a chemical toilet were its only features. There were no windows, and the lights were on permanently. After weeks of quiet complaint, Grammaticus had been allowed an eye-shade so that he could simulate night. Soneka never closed the hatch behind him. It remained open for the duration of each visit, tantalisingly open. A deliberate psychological effect, he presumed. Soneka did not close the hatch behind him, because he had been told not to close the hatch behind him. With its recycled air, the lingering scent of the toilet and the bad lights, the cell was charmless and unpleasant, but despite the environment he was required to live in, Grammaticus was always clean and respectable. They gave him a change of clothes every three days, and he washed at the basin. His beard had grown out bushy and grey in a distinguished manner, like an old general's. They had not permitted him a razor. Soneka opened the satchel and started to take out its contents. 'What do we have today?' asked Grammaticus, with false brightness. 'Cold meat and cheese,' Soneka told him, lifting out small parcels wrapped in waxed paper, 'a jar of pickled capers, a bottle of wine, a loaf of bread and the usual vitamin supplements.' 'A veritable feast,' said Grammaticus. 'The cheese is particularly welcome,' Soneka agreed. They sat down, on either side of the table, and began to share out the food. Soneka took two plates, two cups, two bowls, two paring knives and two spoons from the bag, and set the bag on the floor. Grammaticus used one of the knives to slice the block of rindy cheese and share it out. Soneka pulled the cork plug out of the wine bottle, and poured measures into the waiting cups. They moved around one another, dutiful and relaxed, like a married couple that know each other's ways intuitively. Five months of shared meals would do that. 'Did you sleep well?' Soneka asked, passing one of the cups to Grammaticus. 'Peto, I haven't slept well in a thousand years,' Grammaticus replied, 'but I shan't complain. I have reason to believe my mission is about to be completed.' 'Really?' Grammaticus took a bite of bread, sipped his wine as he munched, and placed the cup in the centre of the table between them. He pointed at it. 'What?' asked Soneka, adding a slice of cheese to his hunk of bread. 'The ripples, Peto, the ripples.' Some distant vibration, too subtle to be felt, was being transmitted up through the deck into the table and the cup. Tiny, concentric ripples pulsed out across the surface of the wine like a sensor pattern. 'The drive rate has altered,' said Grammaticus. 'I think we're firing the engines to retard towards translation.' Soneka put a couple of fat capers in his mouth and nodded back with a grin. 'We'll be translating in the next hour. Nothing much gets past you, does it, John?' Grammaticus, chewing another mouthful, raised his eyebrows sardonically. WHEN THEY WERE done with the meal, Soneka refilled the satchel and nodded goodbye to Grammaticus. As he closed the hatch behind him, he saw Grammaticus staring back at him from his seat at the table. Soneka felt his profound loneliness return the moment the hatch had sealed. Though he could not, in all fairness, describe Grammaticus as a friend, the Cabal's agent was the closest approximation to real human company that Soneka had experienced in half a year. Living amongst Astartes was a strange experience, and the novelty had long since worn off. THE FIRST CAPTAIN was rehearsing close combat techniques in his chambers. Dressed in a sleeveless bodyglove, he stepped and turned smoothly through a sequence of passes, blocks and ripostes using a hardwood practice sword. Around him, eight operatives echoed his moves in perfect unison. The matching precision was impressive to watch. Soneka stood in the hatchway for a while, observing the session, until Pech signalled a halt with a brief nod. The operatives filed out past Soneka. One of them was Thaner, the man Bronzi had taken him to on that fateful night. Thaner acknowledged Soneka with a slight tilt of his head. There was no camaraderie between operatives. Each of them existed in his own quiet, driven world of service and duty. Soneka had not expected to engage with the Astartes, for they were a breed apart, and the distinctio

stood in the hatchway for a while, observing the session, until Pech signalled a halt with a brief nod. The operatives filed out past Soneka. One of them was Thaner, the man Bronzi had taken him to on that fateful night. Thaner acknowledged Soneka with a slight tilt of his head. There was no camaraderie between operatives. Each of them existed in his own quiet, driven world of service and duty. Soneka had not expected to engage with the Astartes, for they were a breed apart, and the distinctions between them and regular humans perfectly obvious, but the behaviour of the operatives puzzled him. They were all human still, humans drawn together for a common purpose, but they shared nothing. Soneka had never known a company of men to remain so disparate. The normal habits of military comradeship were missing. No one ever spoke of who they had been or where they had come from; no one ever shared a drink or a humorous story. In their way, they seemed less human than the Astartes. Pech beckoned Soneka over. 'How is John today, Peto?' he asked, placing his practice sword back on the rack. 'Much the same as ever: contained, patient. He has deduced that we are at the point of arrival. That seems to have lifted his spirits slightly.' Pech nodded. 'Anything else?' Soneka shrugged. 'Yes, one thing. He didn't ask me about Rukhsana today.' 'No?' 'I can't remember a day in the last five months when he hasn't. I always tell him he'll be allowed to see her in time, but today, he didn't ask.' 'Well, at least you didn't have to lie,' Pech replied. 'There is always that.' Pech began to buckle on a pair of heavy boots. 'I want you by my side for the next few days, Peto,' he said. 'Operations are about to begin, and I need you on hand to furnish me with any insight you might have concerning Grammaticus. You've spent more time with him than anyone else.' 'I don't pretend to know him,' Soneka replied. 'He hardly takes me into his confidence.' 'None of us knows him,' said Pech, pulling on a heavy, knee-length robe. He sighed. 'Sometimes I wish we'd just ripped the secrets out of his head. Shere might have enjoyed that.' Soneka was aware that the Alpha Legion had strenuously debated the best way to handle Grammaticus. It had been decided that it wasn't prudent to risk damaging or killing their only link to the Cabal. 'We have come all this way,' Pech said, 'and we still don't know if he's lying.' 'He wasn't lying about Nurth,' said Soneka. FIVE MONTHS BEFORE, Nurth had died, exactly as John Grammaticus had said it would. The final day, which had never properly dawned, had dragged out, darkening and thickening, into a primordial night. The atmosphere had congealed in a toxic caul of ash and soot, and hurricane winds that had flayed the surface of the world and boiled the oceans. Lord Namatjira had at first categorically rejected Alpharius's instruction to abandon Nurth. He had laughed derisively in the primarch's face at the very idea of giving up on the hard-won victory presently in his grasp. His scornful laughter had grown hollow as conditions worsened, however, and it had become clear, even to him, that it would be suicide to remain. Gripped by a fury as fierce as the gathering damnation storms, Namatjira had ordered the retreat. Turmoil had followed. No force the size of the 670th Expedition could be deployed or withdrawn easily, even under emergency protocols. Waves of landers and heavy lifters braved the vicious windshear to set down at makeshift extraction points where Army companies had hastily gathered. Imperial strongpoints and vehicles were abandoned. Entire units, struggling to make their way to evacuation rendezvous, were lost forever in the encroaching blackness. Some lift ships, fully laden, failed to make it back through the blizzarding atmospheric wrath to orbit. Others returned to the fleet with their holds empty, having been unable to locate a landing site or anything worth rescuing. The panic-fuelled nightmare of evacuation had finally been called off after seventeen hours. Almost half of the expedition's strength failed to make it off Nurth alive. The logistical difficulties of extracting heavy vehicles meant that armour companies suffered particularly heavy losses. Princeps Jeveth openly denounced Namatjira. A lack of specialist super-lifters resulted in six of his Titans being left behind. A week after the fall of Nurth, Jeveth detached his force from the 670th Fleet and returned to Mars, warning the Lord Commander that he might never expect collaboration from the Mechanicum again. No one in the Imperial expedition ever laid eyes on the object that slew Nurth. No confirmation was ever made of its size, construction, or process, nor even if it was actually a Cube at all. No one could account for its effect, or properly explain exactly the manner of the doom it unleashed, except that it was likened to some invasive disease, a plague that swept through organic and inorganic structures alike. Imperial minds felt it, however. Its molten hiss escaped the failing edges of Nurth's atmosphere and bit corrosively into the astrotelepathic orders of the fleeing expedition fleet. It triggered madness and delusion. The uxors of the Geno Chiliad felt it less profoundly, but they felt it all the same. Privately, they agreed that it sounded like the mewling and squealing of some daemon, awakened and trapped in the lightless, broiling cinder pit that Nurth had become. Peto Soneka still dreamed about the havoc of that day. He no longer slept well at all. When he wasn't dreaming about the roiling black clouds sweeping in to annihilate them all, he dreamed uneasily of diorite heads, and the verses lodged in Dimi Shiban's throat. TWO High anchor, 42 Hydra Tertius, the next day cycle GRAMMATICUS WAS DRESSED and ready when Soneka arrived. He sat at the metal table, exhibiting a sort of anxious excitement. 'I imagine he's ready to speak with me,' said Grammaticus. 'He is.' 'Finally,' said Grammaticus, and got to his feet. 'We're at high anchor?' 'At high anchor above 42 Hydra Tertius. An interesting choice of location, John.' Grammaticus smiled. 'It was selected very particularly, as a token of respect for the Alpha Legion's iconography. Do they approve?' 'I think the name just makes them suspicious. Then again, everything makes them suspicious.' Grammaticus laughed, but Soneka could hear the nervous edge in it. 'John,' he said, 'I don't really understand what this is about, but if you want things to go your way, if you want your mission to succeed, you have to get yourself together. You've been in here too long. You're wired. Try to calm down. Please don't be hyper, or joke around with them.' Grammaticus nodded and cleared his throat. He took a deep breath. 'I understand,' he said. 'Thanks for the advice. I am a little tense.' They left the cell together. Grammaticus took one last look back, as if he fully expected to see himself still in it. Soneka led him down the dull metal hallway of the detention block, past the blank hatches of other cells, and through two cage doors that slid open when he waved his hand in front of the lock plates. 'How is the hand?' Grammaticus asked. 'Better than the old one,' Soneka replied. They walked out into one of the battle-barge's main spinal corridors. The deck was mesh, and the corridor was so large that a tank might have been comfortably driven along it. The gunmetal walls, banded with horizontal bars of frosty mauve lights, seemed to stretch away forever. Their footsteps echoed on the metal. There was no one else around. 'They trust you,' Grammaticus remarked. 'What?' 'To send you to fetch me, with no escort.' 'This is an Astartes battle-barge, John, one of the most fortified and secure warships in human space. Where exactly would you run to?' 'Good point. They do trust you, though,' said Grammaticus. 'Did you ever wonder why they let you do this?' 'Do what?' 'Fraternise with me? Eat lunch with me every day?' Soneka made a sour face. 'I don't ask. In almost all respects, I've been as much of a prisoner as you.' 'You must have thought about it,' Grammaticus pressed. 'I suppose,' said Soneka, 'they believe you'll relate to me better than to any of them, human to human.' 'Or whatever it is I am,' Grammaticus chuckled. Soneka glanced at him. 'Actually, I asked their permission. They're not like me. They don't even eat, or not that I've witnessed. For the first few days, I'd dine alone, and then bring you your food. It seemed stupid not to combine the two events.' 'And they said yes?' 'They said yes,' Soneka agreed. 'Of course, it quickly occurred to me what they were really after. They wanted me to build a rapport with you, the sort of rapport that none of them could fashion personally.' 'Didn't they worry that I might somehow... influence you?' Soneka looked Grammaticus in the eyes. 'I think they were actually hoping that might happen.' 'What do you mean?' asked Grammaticus. 'You wouldn't dare try anything with an Astartes, but with a lowly operative? I believe they were interested in what they might learn about you if you did try something.' Grammaticus pursed his lips. 'That's remarkably perceptive of you, Peto. So, do you think you've fallen under my thrall?' Soneka shrugged. 'How could I tell? I know you're a dangerous man, John, and that you can achieve with words what a Lord Commander couldn't with Titans. My impression has been that we've always talked as friends. I doubt you'd admit otherwise.' Grammaticus nodded. 'Of course I wouldn't,' he said. A LITTLE FURTHER on, Grammaticus stopped and looked over his shoulder. 'What's the matter?' asked Soneka. 'I thought,' Grammaticus began. 'I thought I heard-' 'What?' 'I thought I heard her calling out to me,' he said. 'It was your imagination, John,' Soneka told him. IN THE LONG walk from the detention block to the briefing chamber, they saw no signs of life, except for a pair of polish

alked as friends. I doubt you'd admit otherwise.' Grammaticus nodded. 'Of course I wouldn't,' he said. A LITTLE FURTHER on, Grammaticus stopped and looked over his shoulder. 'What's the matter?' asked Soneka. 'I thought,' Grammaticus began. 'I thought I heard-' 'What?' 'I thought I heard her calling out to me,' he said. 'It was your imagination, John,' Soneka told him. IN THE LONG walk from the detention block to the briefing chamber, they saw no signs of life, except for a pair of polished arachnoid servitors working at a wall panel and a busy cyberdrone that zipped past high overhead and vanished into the distance of the vast corridor. The hatch was a huge blast shield, with the emblem of the hydra graven on its oiled surface. Soneka had seen many parts of the barge during his time on board, and all of them had been spare, functional and utilitarian. This was the only piece of decoration he had come across. As they approached, the hatch opened, lifting a thick, toothed base up out of slots in the deck. It rose like the gate of a portcullis. The chamber beyond was almost pitch black, but they could both sense how large it was. Twenty metres in front of them, illuminated by a single amber glow-globe, Alpharius sat on a heavy, undecorated steel throne. He was wearing his full armour, and his helm sat on the broad arm of the throne beside his right hand. He stared at them. 'Approach.' 'John Grammaticus, lord,' said Soneka. 'Thank you, Peto. Stay, please.' Soneka nodded, and stepped to one side. 'John,' said Alpharius. 'Great lord,' Grammaticus replied. 'I believe there will be a reckoning,' said Alpharius. 'Your cooperation is expected.' 'And will be given, to the best of my abilities,' Grammaticus said. 'We stand at high anchor above the world you selected,' the primarch said. 'The expedition fleet is about nine hours behind us. As soon as it has arrived and recomposed, we will commence surface deployment.' Grammaticus swallowed briefly. 'That suggests a war footing, as does your armour.' Alpharius nodded. 'I don't venture into the unknown unarmed, John. You told me that this Cabal of yours asked you to bring me here. You say they wish to talk of weighty matters. I welcome discourse, and enjoy the stimulation of meeting new minds and new ideas, but I am no fool. The Imperial Army and my forces will assemble and make ready. At the slightest sign of disingenuity or betrayal, your Cabal, if it is really here, will face extreme sanction.' 'You must do as you see fit, lord,' said Grammaticus. 'In the spirit of cooperation, I would say that the Cabal does not find threat postures especially endearing. It would prefer to undertake its dealings with you without the duress of a military presence. However, I believe the Cabal will make allowances. They appreciate that you are a warlord, and that you will behave according to your nature. It is, after all, precisely your nature that interests them.' Alpharius nodded again. 'Then we have a first measure of understanding.' He raised his left gauntlet. There was a series of deep, mechanical thumps, and light began to shaft into the chamber, as the entire starboard wall began to retract into the roof. Soneka realised that a row of immense blast shutters was gradually opening to reveal a vast stellar observation port. The light, soft yellow but bright, like a summer's haze, poured under the opening shutters, and slowly flooded the chamber. The briefing chamber was as large as he had expected, with a black grille floor, heavy bulkheads of bare metal, and a vaulted roof. Everything in it was bathed in the smoky golden radiance that streamed in from outside. Along the inner wall, behind Alpharius's spare, cyclopean throne, thirty-five fully plated Alpha Legion Astartes stood like monumental statues. They had been there all along, silent in the darkness. They were all captains or squad leaders. Soneka recognised Pech and Herzog by their company marks, Omegon in his almost black armour, and Ranko in the monstrous plate of the Terminators. They were illuminated, in the golden light, like some elysian vision. Grammaticus had seen them too. Soneka saw the pang of undisguised fear in his eyes. Alpharius rose to his feet. The shutters ground to a halt, fully open. The view through the giant observation port was as impressive as the revealed post-human warriors. The vault of space, more profoundly deep than Soneka had ever seen it, was thick with distant stars that shone like motes of dust in sunlight. Radiant streamers of gas, as delicate and multicoloured as moth wings, lay across the star field like veils, causing some stars to glitter like faceted jewels, and others to fog and blur like uncut stones. Nearby, perhaps only a hundred and fifty million kilometres away, lay a pale red sun, the local star and the source of the bathing yellow sunlight that made both the view and the chamber seem as if they were set in amber. Closer still, looming below them, was the night-side of a planet. Alpharius pointed at the star. Hololithic graphics immediately lit up across the observation port, outlined the star, and contoured it. Numerical columns rapidly scrolled up the port, followed by block statistical data. 'Freeze there. Dim radiance and magnify by six,' said Alpharius. The hololithic projection blinked, and centred a glare-adjusted magnification of the star on the port display. '42 Hydra,' said Alpharius. 'It's an old, population II star with poor metallicity. Its life is reaching an end. 42 Hydra, would you care to comment, John?' Grammaticus looked lost for words. 'Lord?' said Soneka. 'Speak, Peto.' 'As I understand it, 42 Hydra was selected as a mark of homage to the Legion. An inside joke, if you will. I believe that, in hindsight, John possibly regrets the flippancy of the gesture.' Alpharius nodded. 'That,' Grammaticus said, coughing but recovering some composure, 'that is the case, lord. No disrespect or mockery was intended. 42 Hydra was chosen because of your emblem.' 'Is this typical of the symbolism and nuance we can expect from the Cabal?' asked Pech. 'No,' said Grammaticus. 'Good,' said Omegon, 'because it's childish.' '42 Hydra has six planets,' Alpharius continued. 'The third one, designated 42 Alpha Tertius, being the one you directed us to, John. We sit in orbit above it.' 'Above Eolith,' said Grammaticus. 'Repeat?' 'Eolith,' said Grammaticus. 'The Cabal's name for this world, 42 Hydra Tertius, is Eolith.' 'So noted. Isolate and enlarge.' The graphics returned the star to its original position, and then surrounded the dark globe below them, sectioned it, and brought it up into the centre of the port. More graphics spooled across the projection. 'Small and unremarkable,' said Alpharius, 'it is wracked by pestilential weather and acid precipitation. Uninhabited, according to our vital sweeps, auto-probes detect only basic xenofauna.' He paused. 'Distinguish,' he ordered. The display revealed the surface of the planet in terms of mottled topographic imaging, and then overlaid that with a graphic of striated weather patterns. The world looked like a grey, flecked iris. 'A backwater, in other words,' said Alpharius, 'and utterly hostile to human life. And yet...' He paused again. 'Enlarge.' The display rapidly magnified a small section of the world and outlined it: a circular whorl of white vapour like an island in the streaked grey cloud mass. 'In the southern hemisphere,' Alpharius continued, 'we read a zone three hundred kilometres in diameter that possesses a rudimentary human bearable atmosphere. What are the chances of that?' 'What, indeed?' Grammaticus replied. 'Would you care to explain?' asked Alpharius. Grammaticus took another breath to steady himself and remain calm. 'That is the venue. Elemental processors were activated there about five years ago, to prepare the area for your visit. They've barely had time to manufacture a decent micro-climate, but it's sustainable enough.' 'Atmospheric engineering?' asked Herzog. 'Yes, sir,' Grammaticus replied. 'Magnify specific,' Alpharius instructed. The boxed image of the white vapour blinked half a dozen times as the scale enlarged, resolving details of cloud masses, and then individual formations, until the view looked down through wisps of trailing white cloud at surface details. Soneka peered hard. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to be seeing: a range of hills, mountains perhaps, cold and grey, seen from directly above, and deep pockets of valley shadow. In the middle of the frame, nestled amongst the higher peaks, lay some sort of indistinct pattern, the outline of some structure. 'I find this particularly interesting,' said Alpharius. 'This structure reminded me of something.' He looked back at the port and raised his hand. 'Display and compare archive record N6371.' A second graphic box appeared beside the first, showing another orbital image, taken under different conditions. It was clearly another world. A network of graphic lines rapidly linked areas on both boxes, until it was evident that hundreds of contextual similarities had been identified. The boxes then shuffled and overlaid. The surface structures matched with an unnerving precision. 'Archive N6371,' said Alpharius, 'is an orbital view of Mon Lo Harbour.' There was a long silence. 'A structure of that type was the epicentre of an atmospheric deluge that almost annihilated us,' said Alpharius, 'and you take us to its twin on a world where atmospheric manipulation is already underway.' 'I can see how that looks bad,' Grammaticus admitted. 'John!' Soneka hissed. Grammaticus glanced at Alpharius, and bowed his head respectfully. 'Forgive me, lord.' He walked across to the port and stopped when he was close enough to point out individual details. 'They are the same, because both worlds are halting sites,' he said. 'Define the term,' demanded Pech. 'Of course,' said Grammaticus. 'The Cabal is

take us to its twin on a world where atmospheric manipulation is already underway.' 'I can see how that looks bad,' Grammaticus admitted. 'John!' Soneka hissed. Grammaticus glanced at Alpharius, and bowed his head respectfully. 'Forgive me, lord.' He walked across to the port and stopped when he was close enough to point out individual details. 'They are the same, because both worlds are halting sites,' he said. 'Define the term,' demanded Pech. 'Of course,' said Grammaticus. 'The Cabal is extremely old, and composed of various... what you would term xenosbreeds. They have no shared origin or homeworld. Since the earliest days, the time of their formation, they have been nomadic, moving from one world to the next, like the court circuits of the old kings of Terra.' 'How long do they stay in one place?' asked Omegon. 'However long they want, sir,' Grammaticus replied, 'however long they need. Over the ages, they constructed halting sites on the many worlds that formed their long, orthotenic routes. Landing zones, you see? On some worlds, Nurth being a good example, local populations later inhabited the sites in ignorance of their original purpose.' 'That implies a significant span of time,' said Pech. Grammaticus nodded sadly. 'I need you to appreciate the duration and extent of the Cabal's activities. The halting site at Mon Lo was constructed nearly twelve thousand years ago. The one here on Eolith is considerably older, about ninety thousand years. It was the Cabal's previous visits to Nurth, and their understanding of the culture developing there, that caused them to select it as a place to demonstrate to you the-' 'Wait,' said Alpharius. 'Did you just say ninety thousand years?' 'Yes, lord primarch.' Alpharius seemed to consider this for a moment. 'Continue.' 'I... I've rather lost my thread, sir,' said Grammaticus. 'There is little left that I can explain. The Cabal has prepared the venue, and you have come to meet with them. I suggest...' He cleared his dry throat again, 'I suggest you get on with it. I'm your key, sir. You must take me to the surface and-' 'A moment,' said Omegon. He broke from the rank of watching Astartes, and walked over to the observation port. For a moment, Soneka feared that the warrior was intent on doing some harm to Grammaticus, but instead, he stared pensively down at the dark world below them. He uncoupled his helm and removed it. 'You've enticed us here, John Grammaticus,' he said, 'with vague stories of an impending cataclysm that threatens to engulf mankind and the cosmos, and the role we might take in preventing it. I would like to know a little more before this Legion commits to even a landing.' Grammaticus laughed out loud. Omegon looked down at him sharply. 'I'm sorry, Lord Omegon,' Grammaticus said, failing to stifle his giggles, 'but you have brought an entire, militarised expedition fleet across parsecs on the basis of my "vague stories". As I see it, you're committed fairly comprehensively already. Stop prevaricating.' Omegon glared down at the human. 'First Captain Pech said you described the impending cataclysm as a war against Chaos.' 'I did, sir,' said Grammaticus, 'though the war against Chaos has been raging since the galaxy's infancy. However, the human species has now become the focus of the war, and the Imperium its chosen battlefield. The Cabal has farseen that what happens in the next few years will be pivotal to the destiny of all races.' Omegon turned and looked back at the planet. 'Pech related something else you said, back in heathen Mon Lo. He said you called what was coming "a great war against yourselves". That would seem to describe a civil war, John Grammaticus.' 'Yes, it would,' said Grammaticus, still staring up at the giant. 'Civil war in the Imperium is an impossibility,' said Alpharius, walking forwards to join them. 'It simply could not happen. The Emperor's plan is-' 'Utopian,' Grammaticus cut in and finished boldly, 'and therefore predicated to fall short of its goals. Please. The Alpha Legion is the most pragmatic and subtle of all the Legions. You are not blinded by Imperial dogma like the others. You are not hidebound by Guilliman's ideals of conduct, or rooted in frenzied tribal tradition like Russ's warriors, nor are you stalwart lapdogs like Dorn's famous men, or berserk automatons like Angron's monsters. You think for yourselves!' 'That is the closest thing to heresy that has ever been spoken in my presence,' said Alpharius quietly. 'And that's why you're listening to me,' said Grammaticus, with a grin. 'You recognise the truth when you hear it. You only recruit the cleverest and brightest. You think for yourselves.' He stood between the giants, rising to his scheme. Soneka smiled as he saw John Grammaticus's confidence return. 'The Emperor chases a Utopian ideal,' Grammaticus announced, 'which is fine as far as it goes. It ignites and drives the masses, it gives a soldier something to focus on, but perfection is only ever an ideal.' 'We have considered these issues,' said Pech quietly. 'And?' asked Grammaticus. 'We have come to appreciate that Utopian goals are ultimately counter-intuitive to species survival,' Pech replied. 'No power can engender, or force to be engendered, a state of perfection,' said another captain, 'because perfection is an absolute that cannot be attained by an imperfect species.' 'It is better to manage and maintain the flaws of man on an ongoing basis,' said Pech. Grammaticus bowed. 'Thank you for that appraisal. I applaud you for your insight.' He looked up at Alpharius. 'Sir, the Imperium is about to implode. At the halting site on Eolith, the Cabal awaits to show you how best, as the first captain so eloquently put it, to manage and maintain the flaws of man.' Alpharius let out a deep sigh. He gazed down at Grammaticus. 'I wonder, years from now, will I regret not executing you at this moment?' 'Civil war, sir,' Grammaticus cautioned, 'think of it.' Alpharius shook his head. 'I am. John, my brother primarchs have their feuds and rivalries, they bicker at times, and fall out with one another, the way any close kinsmen might. I've come to that family only lately, and already I know the fashion of it. Roboute, for example, despises me, and I ignore him. It may lead to bruises at some stage, but not blood. For a civil war to ignite, primarch would have to be drawn against primarch in blood. That would never happen, John. It is simply inconceivable. Now that the Warmaster leads us, we-' 'Warmaster?' asked Grammaticus sharply. 'Horus Lupercal is Warmaster,' Alpharius replied. 'Since when?' Grammaticus asked. There was a queasy look on his face suddenly. 'Four months ago, after the Great Triumph on Ullanor. The Emperor retired from the Crusade and named his first son as Warmaster. I regret I could not attend the ceremony, but the retreat from Nurth and the business you presented to me was occupying my time. To be fair, I shun such occasions. I sent envoys.' 'Horus is already Warmaster?' Grammaticus whispered. He sat down heavily on the deck, and bowed his face. The massive Astartes looked down at him as if he was a child throwing a tantrum. 'What's the matter, John?' asked Omegon. 'Already,' Grammaticus murmured, shaking his head. 'So soon. Two years, he said, two years. We haven't got two years.' 'John?' Grammaticus refused to look up at the Astartes around him. Soneka stepped forwards and scooped him back onto his feet. Grammaticus was trembling. Wiping his mouth, Grammaticus looked up at Alpharius. 'Horus is the catalyst. Please, lord, escort me to the venue. Take whatever retinue you choose. I will be your shibboleth. I will conduct you to the presence of the Cabal, as intermediary, and vouch for you. This is the way it has to be done. There is no more time. Horus is Warmaster. Oh, glory, Horus is Warmaster.' 'Peto, conduct John back to his cell,' Pech said. Holding Grammaticus upright, Soneka replied with a firm nod. Grammaticus began to struggle. 'I have to go down first. I have to open the way!' he cried. Soneka placed him in a tight arm lock, and led him towards the hatch. 'We will commit a landing party to the venue zone as soon as the fleet has arrived to support us,' Alpharius said. 'You're wasting time!' Grammaticus yelled, fighting with Soneka. 'You're wasting valuable time!' 'Remove him,' said Alpharius. SONEKA PALMED THE lock of the cell open and threw Grammaticus inside. 'I don't appreciate the bruises, John,' he said, rubbing his arms. 'You don't appreciate anything, Peto,' Grammaticus growled, getting to his feet. 'Horus is Warmaster. Do you know what that means?' Soneka shrugged. 'It means that our timing is out! It means the war has already begun for all intents and purposes. Peto, you've got to help me. I need to get down there, down to the surface. I need to pave the way. The Alpha Legion mustn't be allowed to go blundering in. It'll ruin everything. The Cabal will not respond to military intimidation. Please, Peto.' 'I can't help you, John.' Please, Peto! Soneka recoiled as if he'd been stung. 'Ow! Don't do that again!' 'Sorry, sorry,' Grammaticus murmured. 'I'm sorry, Peto. Look, you have to help me get down to the surface.' 'The primarch has ordered otherwise. I can't do that.' 'Peto...' 'I can't!' 'For Terra's sake,' Grammaticus said, sitting down on his cot. 'The Alpha Legion has to be recruited before it's too late, and I have to open the way.' 'I have no leverage,' Soneka said. 'You hate it here!' Soneka nodded. 'Yes, I fugging do. I've never been so lonely in my life. I trust the Alpha Legion less and less, and I positively despise my fellow operatives. I don't understand what I've become caught up in, but I loathe it, day after day.' 'So help me!' 'How?' 'You're in a position of trust! They trust you!' Soneka shook his head. 'I can't. I'm sorry, John, I just can't.' 'Peto!' Grammaticus yelled. Peto wave

ave to open the way.' 'I have no leverage,' Soneka said. 'You hate it here!' Soneka nodded. 'Yes, I fugging do. I've never been so lonely in my life. I trust the Alpha Legion less and less, and I positively despise my fellow operatives. I don't understand what I've become caught up in, but I loathe it, day after day.' 'So help me!' 'How?' 'You're in a position of trust! They trust you!' Soneka shook his head. 'I can't. I'm sorry, John, I just can't.' 'Peto!' Grammaticus yelled. Peto waved his new hand and the hatch slammed shut, cutting Grammaticus off. SONEKA WALKED BACK down the grim iron corridors of the detention block. At the far end of the hallway, where he could no longer hear Grammaticus's angry shouts and pounding fists, he leant against the wall and slid down into a crouch. 'Peto?' He hadn't heard the cage doors slide open. He sprang up, rubbing his eyes. 'Was he difficult?' asked Pech. 'Did he try his tricks on you?' Soneka nodded. 'Yes, sir.' 'Are you all right?' Pech asked. 'Are you still up to the job? I can assign another operative to Grammaticus if you prefer.' 'No, sir,' Peto Soneka replied. 'I can do this. You've given me a duty to perform, and I'll see it through to the end.' Ingo Pech nodded. 'Do it,' he said. THREE High anchor, 42 Hydra Tertius, fourteen hours later AN AUTOMATED VOICE was blaring out across the principal embarkation deck of the carrier Loudon. 'Move up to designated markers! Move up to designated markers! Boarding by company will commence in thirty-three zero minutes!' Buzzers sounded, and the announcement repeated, fighting with the cacophony of machine noise and shouts echoing around the vast platform. Swathed in cascades of steam and fanfared by raucous sirens, the next bank of drop-ships rose up from the service bays on the through-deck elevators, flight crews in russet overalls ran forwards to detach the undercarriage bolts with power ratchets, and servitors strutted up, tool limbs raised, to uncase and activate the autoguidance arrays built into bulges under the drop-ships' cockpits. Overhead, the hangar's primary hoist system swung a brace of hook-nosed escort fighters down the length of the deck to the stern catapult rails. There was a sudden, thunderous bellow of tank engines starting up. A row of forty, twin-barrelled assault tanks, drawn up along a line of thick yellow chevrons painted on the deck, began revving their turbines and snorting fumes from their exhausts, as service crews began to lower the cargo ramps of the massive bulk lifters. 'Move up to designated markers!' the automated voice repeated. Hurtado Bronzi signed the data-slate with a flourish, and removed his biometric from the slot in its side. 'Your company stands certified, het,' the liveried weaponsmith said formally, taking the slate back. 'March in fortune.' Bronzi made the old salute of the Unity fist against his chest, nodded, and turned back to his unit. 'You heard the call,' he yelled. 'Designated markers. Move your arses!' 'Designated markers!' Tche repeated. The Jokers hoisted their heavy kit and weapons, and advanced from the check station onto the main platform. Shouting and waving their arms, the bashaws shepherded them into positions on the red-painted sections of decking. 'Request permission to furl the company banner for embarkation,' Tche said. Bronzi nodded. There was a fire in his belly, for the first time in months. His appetite was back. He looked along the length of the giant platform. His bashaws were lowering the standard, and the pike-men had temporarily set their long weapons on the deck beside them. Forty metres to his left, the Carnivales had drawn up along their markers, and beyond them, the Troubadours. To his right, the 41st Zanzibari Hort were streaming forwards to their line. The air smelled of gun oil and engine smoke. Somewhere, diligently but futilely, a marching band was playing in competition with the general racket. Honen Mu and her aides, all carrying small kit bags and dressed in foul-weather gear, advanced across the open deck towards him. 'Het Bronzi,' Mu said. He made a namaste. 'My beloved uxor. You look especially fragrant and, uhm, waterproof, today.' The aides sniggered. 'Operational?' she asked, remaining composed. 'We have just been certified,' he replied. 'We're ready to ramble, uxor. When do we get to find out where?' 'Any moment, Bronzi,' she replied. She appreciated his annoyance. Namatjira had kept the details of the operation close to his chest, a mistake, in her opinion. After the disaster of Nurth, the Lord Commander should have been working to rebuild morale. Instead, he had become even more poisonous than usual. The odium of defeat, she suspected, but there was no excuse. The expedition fleet had reassembled at the edge of the Nurthene system twenty-eight hours after the final collapse of the evacuation effort. From there, they had made shift to Empesal for refit and recovery. A brief furlough had been granted in the souks and circuses of Empesal, but for nothing like long enough. Word had spread that Namatjira was in close discussion with the high officers of the fleet, and some new operation was already being planned. There was a rumour that the entire expedition might be despatched to Sixty-Three Nineteen, to support the Luna Wolves in the compliance war that they had undertaken there. That, Mu believed, would have suited well. All thoughts of failure and loss, the bitter smirch of Nurth, would have been quickly expunged by the glory of serving alongside the new Warmaster and his noble Legion. However, Namatjira had evidently made other plans. He had declared that the expedition would be mounting an operation in concert with the Alpha Legion, and ordered immediate embarkation, an act so premature that nearly eight thousand Army casualties had to be left at Empesal, unfit for service, along with four carriers with refits and repairs still pending. To remedy the diminished strength of the 670th Expedition, Namatjira hastily enfranchised two brigades of Lusitan heavy infantry and an armoured cavalry company from Pramatia, together with their carrier ships and tenders, and sixteen fleet auxiliary and fire support vessels. When the expedition departed Empesal, its strength stood at about two-thirds of the force that had begun the Nurthene compliance. Even with Jeveth's Titans gone, it was a considerable presence. And, of course, there was an Alpha Legion battle-barge at the head of the convoy. Namatjira had subjected his forces to a four and a half month shift to an undisclosed location. Onboard training continued as usual, but morale had wilted quickly. No one would say where they were going, or what manner of undertaking they would be expected to make. Namatjira seemed not to care. It was as if he had something to urgently prove, or wished to throw himself back into the field after the Nurthene debacle. Mu privately speculated that he was borrowing a little too much of the Alpha Legion's pitiless pragmatism. A week before arrival, Namatjira ordered his forces to begin preparations for ground assault, and announced that the mission target had been designated as 42HtX. This was greeted with general puzzlement. According to form, the campaign should have been officially labelled Six-Seventy Twenty-Six. Evidently, they were not heading for a compliance action. 42Ht was a planetary code, and the X indicated Extraordinary Operations. Namatjira informed his officer caste that he had committed the expedition to support the Alpha Legion in a classified undertaking, and that Alpharius had obtained direct permission from the Warmaster for Extraordinary Operations status. Only the demands of deployment preparation, the daily routine of weapons certification and fitness tests, kept their minds, collectively, from wondering what the hell they were all getting into. Mu turned to Tiphaine, who opened the black leather wallet she was holding, and took out a sealed packet of papers. Mu took it and handed it to Bronzi. 'Your operational orders,' she said. 'At last,' Bronzi said. He held the packet up to his ear and shook it experimentally. 'What does it say?' he grinned. Mu resisted the temptation to grin back. 'I have no idea. We all get to read the details at the same time. You'll brief in transit. Get ready for last moment 'cept counsel as I get up to speed.' 'This is going to be fun, isn't it?' Bronzi asked. 'It rather depends on your definition of fun, Hurtado,' she replied. He shrugged his heavy, armoured shoulders. 'Well, you know... dropping blind into a place we don't know, to go up against we know not what, with no advanced tactics? That sort of thing.' She returned his grin with a mordant look. 'Then yes, this is going to be fun,' she agreed. NAMATJIRA HELD OUT his arms, and the eunuch dressers slid on his full-length gloves and buttoned them around his shoulders and armpits. The gloves formed the sleeves of his dark tan leather doublet. He flexed his fingers to settle them into the gloves, as another dresser draped a cape of fur and zebra skin over his left shoulder, securing it with a golden fibula. He extended his right hand, and the Warden of the Seal carefully slid the heavy signet onto his middle finger. The ring was gold, with table-cut rubies at the shoulders, and a large, square bezel that bore, in intaglio, the crest of the office of Lord Commander. The band of the ring contained a biometric authority. Until the moment Namatjira had been ready to put it on, the ring had been secured in a stasis box, carried by the Warden's men-at-arms. No chances were taken. The ring had legal force in and of itself. Snare drums were rapping a tattoo in the stateroom beyond the lord's private wardrobe. Namatjira looked in the full length mirror, and then turned to his escort. One of the Lucifer Blacks carried the Lord Commander's ceremonial hand-and-a-half sword, another his golden cap helm with it

authority. Until the moment Namatjira had been ready to put it on, the ring had been secured in a stasis box, carried by the Warden's men-at-arms. No chances were taken. The ring had legal force in and of itself. Snare drums were rapping a tattoo in the stateroom beyond the lord's private wardrobe. Namatjira looked in the full length mirror, and then turned to his escort. One of the Lucifer Blacks carried the Lord Commander's ceremonial hand-and-a-half sword, another his golden cap helm with its high criniere. Dinas Chayne entered the room, and saluted. 'Is he here, Dinas?' 'His ship has just docked.' Namatjira snapped his fingers, and the dressers, the attendants and warden and his men hurried out through the servants' door. The Lord Commander turned and marched through the ornate archway into the stateroom, his companions in perfect step at his shoulders. Namatjira's flagship had been named Blamires after a Concussion Age void Navy commander that the Lord Commander particularly admired. The Blamires was one of the best appointed and technically sophisticated vessels in the Imperial fleet. The stateroom he strode into was as long and broad as a cathedral's nave, paved in black and white tiles, and walled with gold caryatid pillars and tall crystal mirrors. The high roof displayed scenes from the Age of Unification in fresco form. The ceremonial band's tempo intensified at the Lord Commander's approach, and the honour guard of six hundred Outremar lancers snapped to present arms. Halfway down the stateroom, Major General Dev, in full dress uniform, stood waiting with Jan Van Aunger, the master of the fleet, and eight senior adepts in long emerald robes. Dev stood to attention as Namatjira came to a halt in front of him. The drumming ceased the moment Namatjira stopped walking. 'Lord Commander,' said Dev, 'the forces of the expedition stand ready for deployment. We await your authority.' Namatjira nodded. 'Master Van Aunger?' he asked. The venerable fleet master, robed in ermine and segmented mirror-steel, made a namaste. 'The fleet abides, Lord Commander,' he said, 'all components and sub-components report smooth running. The escort squadrons are ready for launch. Target solutions for the surface coordinates have been supplied to the siege frigates, rail gun platforms, and all long range ordnance. We can commence orbital bombardment at your discretion.' 'Thank you, Master Van Aunger. The bombardment will only be undertaken if necessary.' Van Aunger frowned. 'As I have advised you, sir, the bombardment should precede the drop. We can't very well hammer surface targets if our troops have already-' 'Thank you, Master Van Aunger,' said Namatjira. 'You have your instructions.' Van Aunger stuck out his chin bullishly, but said nothing, and stepped back. 'Lord Commander?' Dev said gently, indicating the small jade coffer that one of the elderly adepts was holding on a velvet cushion. 'A moment, major general,' said Namatjira. On cue, a fanfare of horns sounded outside the stateroom and the double doors at the far end opened. Alpharius, alone, in full war plate, gleaming and polished, strode through, and came down the stateroom towards them. His armoured bulk was so massive that the black and white tiles creaked like ice as they took each step. 'My lord primarch,' said Namatjira, bowing. 'Welcome aboard.' 'Lord Commander,' Alpharius responded, making the sign of the aquila, and then unlocking his helmet. He removed it, and held it under his arm. 'Your message said that you wished to speak with me.' 'Our business commences,' said Namatjira. 'Let us pray it is fruitful,' Alpharius agreed. In the silvery radiance of the grand stateroom, his eyes seemed as green as the jade coffer on the adept's cushion. 'I am about to issue authority,' said Namatjira. 'Is there any reason why I should not?' 'No, sir,' Alpharius answered. 'The objective must be sectioned and secured as rapidly as possible. You estimated three days?' 'Three days, lord primarch, unless we encounter unexpected difficulties of terrain or climate, or previously unidentified sources of resistance.' 'There has been no supplementary data suggesting that, sir,' replied Alpharius. 'Then we will proceed,' said Namatjira. 'For the Emperor,' said Alpharius. 'For the Emperor!' the honour guard barked with one voice. At a gesture from the major general, the adept carrying the jade coffer brought it forward to the Lord Commander, and knelt down. A second adept opened the coffer's lid with a small silver key. As soon as the lid lifted, the receiver of the biometric scanner inside opened like a flower and dilated. Namatjira reached in and pressed the bezel of his signet ring into the receiver. There was a whirr and a brief pulse of light. 'Authority confirmed,' the adept said. Another fanfare sounded and sirens began to blare in the depths of the flagship below. Namatjira withdrew his hand, and the adepts closed the coffer and stepped back. 'Lord primarch, the forces of the 670th Expedition are deploying,' said Namatjira. 'Thank you. Now, what did you want to speak about?' asked Alpharius. 'Oh, that. Let us withdraw. Privacy, I think, would be best,' Namatjira replied. ANOTHER BUZZER SOUNDED. 'Ten minutes!' Bronzi yelled above the hangar's uproar to his waiting company. He looked at Mu. 'Our beloved lord general is cutting it fine. At this rate, we'll be making it up as we go along.' She did not respond to his bait. He tried again. 'I half expect to open the packet and find a note saying "Have a good time, see you soon",' he said. Mu grinned, very slightly. 'Uxor?' said Jahni. Mu turned. Genewhip Boone came jogging across the pad towards them. 'Authority has finally been issued,' he called as he approached. 'At last,' said Bronzi. He tore open his order packet with his teeth. Mu took hers from Tiphaine, and opened it rather more demurely. They were both silent as they read. 'Well?' asked Boone. 'Land and hold,' said Bronzi. 'It doesn't seem too bad,' said Mu. 'Open dropzone, mind, and the terrain looks ropey,' said Bronzi. 'It doesn't seem too bad,' Mu repeated. 'We're not far off the five-minute buzzer,' said Boone. 'Anything you want to catch before it's too late?' Bronzi shook his head. 'Then march in fortune,' Boone said, and ran on to the next company. Mu turned to her aides, who gathered around her, and began her 'cept briefing. Bronzi took another look at his orders, checked he hadn't overlooked anything, and ambled over to his men. They all turned to him. Those that had been sitting down on the deck got to their feet. 'Jokers!' he shouted. 'Today's benediction from his highness the Lord Commander comes in the form of an orbit to surface drop, into open country, for seize and hold purposes.' There weren't too many groans. 'Terrain is said to be moderately contoured with moisture, which I think is Tactical's way of saying precipices with waterfalls.' The men laughed. 'We'd better expect rugged geography, which means the drop is going to be tricky. Watch what you're doing, especially those lugging heavyweight kit. I don't want anybody coming off the ramp onto a slope or scarp and going over. No broken necks, please, no broken legs or ankles, not even sprains, I'm looking at you, Trooper Enkomi.' More laughter. 'Full dispersal when we hit. Vishnu formation. Uxor Mu will 'cept your markers. Get down, get to those markers, and dig in. The object of the exercise is the seizure of territory. Once we've got our feet dry, we'll advance as per my instruction as the situation allows. Plan is, we'll be marching in country on this one, my lucky lads, so let's hope none of you skimped on the endurance training.' More groans. 'Remember, my Jokers, a dropzone is like a woman. Land on her firmly, and make sure you have the vital parts located before you get going.' The men laughed again. 'If the drop goes according to plan,' Bronzi continued, 'we'll have the Carnivales west of us, and a unit of light armour to our east. Of course, the drop will not go according to plan, because they never do, so expect to be facing the wrong way with your heads up your arses. All right, settle, it wasn't that funny, Zhou.' The men quietened down. 'This isn't a ramble,' Bronzi declared, 'this is a serious operation. Extraordinary, don't you know? So no backsliding, no idling, no thinking with your pants on backwards, no tarting about, and no mistakes. You're the geno's own Jokers, best in the Chiliad, so be sharp, be alert, and be what the trickster god created you to be. Which, in case you didn't know, is to be the best fugging assault infantry to ever come out of Terra. Questions? Lapis?' 'Will it be cold?' 'Fug me on a stick!' Bronzi shook his head. 'Yes, so bring mittens and a scarf, Lapis, you pretty little girl.' The men laughed loudly, and Trooper Lapis fended off playful slaps and jabs. 'Calm down,' said Bronzi. 'In all honesty, it looks like it'll be pissy damp and cold. Scans show open land, little shelter, and steady precipitation, which is rain to you, Trooper Kashan. Hands up anyone who ignored this morning's standing order and didn't put on his boot liners and underglove, or sleeve his weapon? Better still, don't tell me. I don't want to know how stupid you decided to be when you got up today. If you get trench foot or crotch rot, if you freeze, or you find your fugging weapon won't actually fire, then it's your hard boo-hoo, and the genewhips will see you later. Anything else?' Tche raised his hand. 'Tche? Is this going to be a sensible question, or something about the availability of local fruit produce like last time?' 'I like fruit,' Tche protested. 'Good for you. Your question?' 'The one thing you haven't covered, het,' Tche said. 'What hostiles can we expect to meet and greet?' The Jokers whooped and roared aggressively. Bronzi raised a hand for quiet. 'Excellent point, excellent point, Tche. There's a r

and the genewhips will see you later. Anything else?' Tche raised his hand. 'Tche? Is this going to be a sensible question, or something about the availability of local fruit produce like last time?' 'I like fruit,' Tche protested. 'Good for you. Your question?' 'The one thing you haven't covered, het,' Tche said. 'What hostiles can we expect to meet and greet?' The Jokers whooped and roared aggressively. Bronzi raised a hand for quiet. 'Excellent point, excellent point, Tche. There's a reason I haven't covered it. According to the specs, our target world is uninhabited. There are no hostiles.' This provoked the rowdiest chorus of all. 'That's right, that's right... we're dropping dirtside for a nice walk in mountain scenery,' Bronzi yelled above it. 'Now shut up! That's better. What's the first rule of common soldiering? Trooper Duarte?' 'Always assume that anyone in a position senior to you isn't telling you everything?' 'That's my boy. There's more to this than meets the eye, so don't get slack.' A buzzer sounded, crude and brazen, across the vast deck. 'That's it!' Bronzi yelled. 'The five-minute buzzer! Pick up your stuff, pick up your arses, and leave all your complaints and regrets on the carrier, they'll still be here when you get back. Jokers, are you with me?' 'March in fortune!' they yelled back. 'Company first, Imperium second, geno before gene!' he shouted. 'Now get the fug on with it!' He strolled back towards Honen Mu. Her briefing had finished, and the aides had gathered into a tight huddle, discussing tactical variations in fierce, low voices. 'No hostiles?' he remarked to Mu. 'That's just got to be bad data, right?' Mu shrugged. 'There's another alternative. This is a seize and hold. The Lord Commander is asking us to make a section of territory secure. I'm tempted to suppose there's something valuable down there, and we're being sent in to secure the ground so that it can be recovered.' 'Something valuable like what?' 'I don't know,' she said. 'Perhaps the Lord Commander's congenial side?' Bronzi blinked. 'What?' she asked. 'You made a joke, uxor,' he beamed. 'An actual, proper, honest to goodness joke.' She looked back at him. Her mouth wasn't smiling, but her eyes were. 'Yes, well, don't tell everyone, or they'll all want one,' she said. The deck quivered and they heard the distant rumbling squeal of the plasma catapults at the stern end of the platform discharging. 'That's the first of the escort fighters away,' said Bronzi. 'It won't be long now. Nervous?' 'Why would I be nervous, Hurtado?' Mu asked. He hunched his shoulders. 'It's not often that the uxors get to ride down with us soldier types at the sharp end of things. You usually follow on with the support lines.' 'Operational requirements,' she replied. 'We can't provide you with reliable 'cept coverage from orbit.' 'Uh huh. So, I was thinking... I could arrange to sit next to you, and hold your hand if it gets bumpy,' Bronzi offered. 'That won't be necessary,' she replied. 'I've made my share of combat drops. March in fortune, Hurtado.' ''cept me well, Honen,' he replied. She made a half bow and returned to her girls. Bronzi took one last look around the vast carrier deck. An electric munition train clattered past. Four flight crewmen were frantically working to replace a faulty hydraulic on the nosegear of a nearby lander. Another pair of hook-nosed escort fighters whined by overhead on the primary hoist. The tanks had finally started loading, and more armour pieces had drawn up on the ramp from the lower deck, waiting to advance to the wait line for boarding. He did what he always did before a drop, his private ritual. He pressed his fingertips to his lips, and then bent down and touched his fingertips against the deck. 'Let us all see you again,' he whispered. 'Let us all come back safe.' He rose. He pulled his order packet out of his pocket, and made one final check to make sure he hadn't missed anything. It turned out he had. Tucked inside the vellum sleeve, along with his sheaf of orders, was a small green sliver that he at first assumed was a leaf. He realised that it was a wafer-slim piece of metal machined to resemble a lizard's scale. On it, in Edessan, was written a brief, whimsical phrase, which translated as 'Your father cheers, your mother cries, that is the lot of the soldier'. Beside the phrase was the embossed brand of the hydra. Bronzi stroked his thumb across the raised image. He put the green scale in his pocket and walked towards the waiting drop-ship. NAMATJIRA LED ALPHARIUS into the forward lookout of the flagship Blamires. Vast petal-form ports glazed the side walls of the triangular chamber and met in a sharp apex overlooking the kilometre of prow projecting ahead of them. 'Give us the room,' Namatjira snapped, and the servants and ensigns hurried out. Chayne closed the hatch behind them and stood guard, his hands behind his back. Alpharius turned and looked pointedly at the Lucifer. 'He goes where I go,' Namatjira explained, helping himself to a flute of frost wine from a side cabinet. 'Dinas has the highest clearance.' Alpharius nodded. 'Very well,' he allowed. 'A toast, lord primarch? Or is that contrary to your regimen?' 'Why not?' the primarch replied. Namatjira poured a second glass, and handed it to Alpharius. The sub-servos of the primarch's gauntlet hissed and whined as they adjusted to the subtle act of gripping the flute without shattering it. Namatjira walked towards the starboard side of the ports. His thylacene lay snoozing on the bank of seats under the windows. That's the Maskeleyne,' Namatjira said, pointing with the same hand that was holding the glass. 'A heavy carrier, very versatile. 'That, behind it, you see, is the Tancredi, an Outremar vessel.' Alpharius came and stood behind him. The view from the lookout was humbling. The plates of the ports had self-tinted to reduce glare, and diminish the blaze of the local sun. Space fell away beneath them and soared away above. A trillion, trillion stars glimmered in that endless night. To the starboard side of the Blamires lay the eclipsed target world, a massive globe with a peal of light just slipping off its shoulder. Off to the flagship's starboard, a formation of mainline vessels hung, gleaming, in the target world's shadow, laid out in a chain astern, across several thousand kilometres. 'That's the Agostini,' Namatjira went on, 'and behind it, the siege frigate Barbustion. Behind that, the carrier Loudon-' 'I know the names and indicatives of all the fleet vessels,' said Alpharius. Namatjira smiled and turned to face him, taking a sip of his wine. 'I'm sure you do, sir, but, oddly, I cannot name your great barge.' He glanced back at the ports. 'That's it there, isn't it?' he asked, pointing towards a dark blur seven hundred kilometres off the Blamires's starboard bow. 'That shielded object?' 'We do not name our ships,' Alpharius said. 'We simply designate them with serials.' 'Oh, and what is that barge's designation?' asked Namatjira. 'Beta,' replied Alpharius. 'Ah. I am forced to wonder what Alpha is doing this day,' Namatjira grinned. 'It is occupied elsewhere,' Alpharius replied. Namatjira turned back and looked the giant figure up and down. 'Well, to business. My lord primarch, I summoned you because I find I have some misgivings.' 'Misgivings?' Alpharius asked. 'You made a firm commitment to me, sir, at Empesal. You swore that this undertaking would absolve the shame of the Nurth fiasco. You promised it would present me with the opportunity to make reparations for that loss, and restore my dignity and reputation in the eyes of the Council of Terra.' 'I stand by that promise,' Alpharius said. Namatjira wandered over to one of the window couches, and sat down. He took another sip of his wine. 'As you explained it to me,' he said, 'the purpose of this mission is to acquire information vital to the continued security of the Imperium. The Emperor, you said, will thank me and reward me for securing this valuable intelligence, and bringing it to his attention. I might even expect a place on the High Council. I can only speculate as to what this information could possibly be.' He paused. 'And that's where my misgivings begin. I can only speculate, because you won't tell me. I think it's high time you let me a little deeper into your confidence.' 'I see,' said Alpharius. 'You just watched me issue my authority and mobilise my forces in your service, Lord Alpharius,' said Namatjira, with a slight tone of menace. 'I deserve to know more.' Alpharius pursed his lips, and set his flute down, untouched. 'You were willing enough,' he said, 'when I co-opted your expedition for this venture. My word was sufficient guarantee then.' 'Well, it turns out, it isn't any more,' said Namatjira. 'That's a pity,' said Alpharius. 'What is the nature of this information?' asked Namatjira. 'What does it concern? Where is it, and how do we secure it? Who has it? How did you learn of its existence and its location? What could possibly be so important, so valuable, so revelatory, so damn secret, that the fate of all human culture depends upon it? 'You will know precisely what I choose to tell you, Namatjira,' said Alpharius. 'My Lord Commander said he needs to know more,' Dinas Chayne stated quietly, but firmly. He took a step forwards. Alpharius slowly turned his head and looked at Chayne. 'Or what, companion? I hope for your sake that you don't presume to threaten me.' Chayne did not move. Alpharius ignored him and looked down at Namatjira. 'I had heard that the Lucifer Blacks were remarkably brave. I didn't realise they were clinically insane.' 'Step back, Dinas,' said Namatjira with a casual flick of his hand. 'My Lord Alpharius understands the burden of command. He knows full well that the paramount responsibility of a man in my position is the security and welfare of his forces, and i

mpanion? I hope for your sake that you don't presume to threaten me.' Chayne did not move. Alpharius ignored him and looked down at Namatjira. 'I had heard that the Lucifer Blacks were remarkably brave. I didn't realise they were clinically insane.' 'Step back, Dinas,' said Namatjira with a casual flick of his hand. 'My Lord Alpharius understands the burden of command. He knows full well that the paramount responsibility of a man in my position is the security and welfare of his forces, and it is his solemn duty to disengage those forces from any undertaking that he deems unwise or reckless. Isn't that right, my lord?' Alpharius said nothing. 'I will not put my soldiers in harm's way without a very good reason,' said Namatjira, 'a very good reason, and a reliable source of intelligence. I would be derelict in my duty otherwise.' Alpharius gazed through the ports for a moment, and contemplated the dark world below. 'In the course of the Nurth campaign,' he said quietly, 'my infiltration networks encountered the agent of a xenoform faction. The faction calls itself the Cabal. The agent claimed that the Cabal was in possession of certain information vital to the Imperium of Man. No evidence or provenance was offered, but the Cabal had clearly put a great deal of effort and ingenuity into making contact with me. They extended an invitation to meet with them, so that this information could be transmitted. 42 Hydra Tertius is the site chosen for that meeting.' 'Are you saying that this whole endeavour was inspired by the baseless tattle of some xenos spy?' asked Namatjira. 'Dear me, sir, I thought you were shrewd.' 'I never said I believed him,' Alpharius replied. 'While there's even a chance that his story is true, we cannot afford to ignore it. If it's a lie, then we're here, in force, to locate and suppress a dangerous xenoform power that has the means and skills to attempt manipulation of the Imperium. This is how I presented it to the Warmaster, and it is on this basis that he granted this expedition Extraordinary status. Lord Commander, we may be about to save the Imperium, or go to war to exterminate an insidious alien menace.' Namatjira rose to his feet. 'And which do you suppose it is, sir?' Alpharius shook his head. 'I make no guesses, lord, but there is one significant fact. It was the agent who first warned me of the Black Cube. But for that warning, we would all be dead.' 'And this agent?' asked Namatjira. 'He was operating inside the Imperial Army in an extremely capable and efficient manner. He got remarkably close to the centre of things.' Alpharius looked over at Chayne. 'He slew one of your men, companion.' 'Konig Heniker,' whispered Chayne. 'That's right,' said Alpharius. 'That was one of the identities he adopted, at least. My operatives captured him on the last day of Nurth's existence. He's in my custody.' 'Well,' murmured Namatjira. He lit up a very careful and benevolent smile. 'I feel my misgivings ebbing away. Thank you for your disclosure. This will, of course, remain entirely classified.' 'I expect no less,' Alpharius replied. He turned and walked towards the hatch. 'I take it our conversation is done?' 'One last thing,' Namatjira called to him. 'If the story is true, and this meeting takes place, I will, naturally, be there at your side.' The Lord Commander didn't wait to see how Alpharius might respond. He turned to the windows. 'Oh, look. There they go!' he cried out jauntily, and pointed. Bright sparks, like meteorites, had begun to sear down out of the carriers behind them. Alpharius opened the hatch and left the lookout. 'Dinas?' Namatjira said. 'In the light of the primarch's comments, please re-examine all the data we have on Konig Heniker.' 'Yes, sir.' Namatjira took a sip of wine and tilted his head to one side reflectively, watching the drop-ships fall. 'I believe it will be instructive to learn how the picture fills in now that we have more pieces of it,' he said, 'particularly in terms of the Astartes and their manipulation networks.' 'Yes, sir,' Chayne replied. THE DROP-SHIP lurched and fell. Metal spilling from the release claws showered backwards in a glittering tail behind it. They began to pull two Gs, three. The airframe began to vibrate. Bronzi held out his hand and Mu took it. She squeezed it. 'Here we go,' Bronzi said. FOUR Orbital, Eolith, continuous SONEKA OPENED THE cell hatch and stepped inside. He put his satchel down on the steel table. 'What? More cheese?' asked Grammaticus snidely. He was sprawled on the cot, dispirited. 'Get up. Quickly,' Soneka said. 'But we haven't eaten our lunch,' said Grammaticus. 'Shut up and get up,' Soneka told him. He looked back at the open hatch and the corridor beyond it. 'Hurry.' Grammaticus sat up, frowning. 'What's going on, Peto?' 'Just follow me.' Soneka turned towards the cell door and peered out cautiously. Grammaticus rose to his feet. 'Peto? What is this? Has the primarch agreed to let me drop with him and-' Soneka looked back, his eyes narrow. 'Will you shut up? I'm doing what you asked. Keep a lid on it. Shere is everywhere.' Grammaticus blinked in surprise. 'Oh,' he managed to say. 'Just follow me and keep quiet,' said Soneka. He opened the satchel over his shoulder and drew out a laspistol. Grammaticus looked at the weapon as if he'd never seen one before. 'Oh my word,' he murmured. 'Peto, Peto just stop for a moment and look at me. Look at me. Control word Bedlame.' Soneka turned and faced him. His eyes were vacant. 'What's your name?' Grammaticus asked. 'Peto Soneka.' 'What are you doing right now, Peto?' 'Your bidding, John.' 'Glory!' said Grammaticus. He stepped back, his hand to his mouth, staring at Soneka. 'I didn't think it had worked,' he said, laughing in surprise. 'I really didn't think it had worked. All those lunches, five months of casual lunchtime conversations, dropping a weighted tell word in, now and then. I thought you were resistant.' Soneka remained blank. 'Peto, I'm truly sorry to have abused you this way,' said Grammaticus solemnly. 'I want you to know that. We're friends, I'd like to think. You have shown me great kindness. I hope one day, you will see the broader picture, and forgive me for doing this to you. Do you hear me?' 'Your voice, I can't fight it,' growled Soneka, glassy-eyed. 'Every day, I could feel you doing this, and I couldn't fugging fight it. You took advantage of my disaffection. You're a bastard, John Grammaticus.' 'I know. I'm sorry. Can you get me off this barge?' 'I can do my best,' replied Soneka. 'Thank you, Peto, thank you. Control word Bedlame.' Soneka blinked awake and steadied himself against the cell wall. 'What the fug was that?' he asked. 'I was dizzy for a moment.' 'You were saying something?' Grammaticus cued. Soneka shook his head. 'Come on, I was saying. We've only got a small window. The fleet is deploying.' 'Already?' 'Come on, John.' They hurried down through the quiet detention block to the cage shutters. Soneka waved his hand and the cages withdrew. 'What's your plan?' whispered Grammaticus. 'How do we reach the surface?' 'Drop-pod,' Soneka replied. 'They're all primed and certified for the Legion's landing. We'll head for the bay on underdeck eight. I checked the deployment schedule, and they have been assigned for the second landing wave in six hours' time, so it should be quiet. But there's something we have to do first.' 'What?' asked John Grammaticus. 'Something you'll thank me for. Something I need to do,' Soneka replied. They turned onto the vast spinal corridor, and came face to face with a maintenance servitor. The servitor jolted, whirring as it studied them, upper limbs raised in query. 'This section is monitored and private. Show me your authority,' the servitor's vox speaker rasped. Soneka shot it through the head. The servitor issued a thready whine, and clattered sideways against the wall, smoke trailing from its exploded cranium. 'Run,' Soneka said. THEY RAN UNTIL they were hoarse and out of breath, and cut away from the main spinal corridor into a maze of sub-halls and gloomy compartments. The strips of mauve lighting made it feel like twilight in an empty city. No alarms sounded, but the air was pregnant and still, as if it was about to explode with noise. 'Where is everyone?' Grammaticus asked. 'In the arming chambers, preparing for deployment,' Soneka replied. He beckoned Grammaticus towards a heavy hatch shutter. 'Here,' Soneka said. Grammaticus put his hand to his temple. An expression of pain, wonder and realisation filled his face. 'Oh!' he said. 'I hear her.' 'I know,' said Soneka. 'She was calling out to me, all the time, wasn't she?' 'Yes.' 'Thank you, Peto,' Grammaticus whispered. He looked as if he was close to tears. Soneka faced him, and put a steadying hand on his shoulder. 'John, listen to me, this will be a shock. The Alpha Legion interrogated her, and damaged her in the process.' Grammaticus looked at Soneka. 'I understand.' 'I hope you do,' said Peto Soneka, and waved his new hand in front of the shutter's lock reader. The hatch opened. In a corner of the small dark room beyond, something stirred and whimpered. Grammaticus pushed past Soneka and crossed the room, holding out his hands reassuringly. 'Hush, hush,' he said. 'It's all right. It's me.' Snivelling and trembling, Rukhsana looked up at him, with wild eyes. She was pressed into the corner, her legs pulled in, and her arms wrapped around her body. Her robes were tattered. She looked at his face and cried out. 'Rukhsana, Rukhsana, it's just a beard. I've grown a beard.' She put her hands over her eyes. 'Rukhsana, it's all right,' Grammaticus whispered. He touched her gently, and she recoiled. 'It's all right,' he repeated. 'Please be quick, John,' Soneka hissed. Grammaticus embraced Rukhsana and rocked her. She buried herself against his chest and began to cry. 'What the fug

, her legs pulled in, and her arms wrapped around her body. Her robes were tattered. She looked at his face and cried out. 'Rukhsana, Rukhsana, it's just a beard. I've grown a beard.' She put her hands over her eyes. 'Rukhsana, it's all right,' Grammaticus whispered. He touched her gently, and she recoiled. 'It's all right,' he repeated. 'Please be quick, John,' Soneka hissed. Grammaticus embraced Rukhsana and rocked her. She buried herself against his chest and began to cry. 'What the fug did they do to her, Peto?' he asked. 'They let Shere have her. He went into her mind, looking for you and for any information on the Cabal,' Soneka replied. 'The process shattered her sanity. She's been like this since Nurth, five months ago. I've brought her food every day, and tried to keep her clean and healthy, but she's little more than feral.' 'Oh, Rukhsana,' Grammaticus whispered, hugging the uxor to him and tenderly stroking the lank blonde hair that had once glowed like spun gold. 'John, please, we haven't got much time,' Soneka urged. He stood in the doorway, watching the corridor outside. Grammaticus coaxed Rukhsana to her feet, and led her across the dark chamber, keeping her tight against his side. 'I've got her,' he said. 'Lead the way.' UNDERDECK EIGHT WAS an extensive space of industrial metal, thick pipe work, violet lighting and oily shadows. There was a constant background murmur of engines and the barge's heavy atmosphere plants. Every now and then, a distant sound of tools or machine shop activity echoed back to them. So much pipe and duct work ran along the roof space, the access ways felt low and claustrophobic. Soneka brought them to a long hallway that had eight massive blast hatches in its left-hand wall. Gigantic rotor fans turned lazily in the roof cage. The identical blast hatches, each one large enough to accept a large transport vehicle, all stood open, waiting. They stopped outside the first of them, dwarfed by the hatch frame, and looked inside. Four armoured drop-pods sat in an oily black launch cradle, like bullets loaded into a revolver's drum. The chamber was lined with greasy black hydraulics. Feed lines were attached to the pods, and steam wreathed up slowly from the cradle mechanism. 'This'll do,' said Soneka quietly. He nodded towards the adjacent hatches. 'They're all the same, four in each.' 'Whatever you say, Peto. This is your plan.' Soneka led them over to the far side of the hallway. Rukhsana remained clenched against Grammaticus's side. He watched as Soneka woke up a large cogitator system built into the bulkhead. Soneka called up several pages of data, touch flicking through them, moving from one menu to the next. 'What are you doing?' Grammaticus asked. 'I'm checking that the navigation systems are programmed for the venue zone. Yes, that's good. Set. Right, I just have to countermand the launch notice.' 'What?' Soneka gestured at the waiting pods behind them, and then carried on moving through screens and data scrolls. 'When one of these launches, a notification will flash up immediately on the excursion monitor on the bridge. I'm cancelling that instruction. They're going to know we're gone soon enough, and it won't take them long to realise a pod's missing, but I'd like to postpone discovery for as long as possible.' 'You can do that?' asked Grammaticus, impressed. Soneka smiled and held up his new hand. 'They trust me, remember? They've given me the highest clearance, built in.' 'More fool them,' Grammaticus grinned. 'This should only take a couple of minutes,' said Soneka. 'Down on the right, there's a locker store. We're going to need three sets of foul-weather gear. See what you can dig out.' Grammaticus nodded and hurried to oblige, as fast as Rukhsana would let him. They came back after five minutes with a bundle of suits tailored to fit operatives. Soneka was ready. Together, the three crossed back through the huge blast hatch and clambered into one of the pods. Soneka waved his hand. The massive blast hatch began to close. Hazard lights started to flash around the chamber, and a low electrical hum filled the air, mounting in intensity. FIVE Eolith THE FIRST THING that hit them was the stench. It was vile and unexpected, like wet rot, like liquescent decay. It permeated the cold wet air. As soon as they had spread clear of the fumes from the howling drop-ships, it was all they could taste. The Jokers ran forwards, fanning out across the slick, wet rocks. Some were gagging, or complaining about the reek. 'Don't be babies! Get on with it!' Bronzi yelled. He sniffed. 'Fug me, that's awful,' he said to himself. The banner was up. The company was extending in a line away from the landing zone where the drop-ships waited, lifting spray from their idling jet wash. Bronzi got his bearings. They were in a flat-bedded valley between two lines of rock hills that were curiously regular, like plinths or flat roofed towers. It was cold, but the dampness was worse. The air seemed wet, less than rain, less than drizzle, just a swirling, particulate moisture. He could feel it on his skin like cold sweat. The Jokers were already soaked. Capes had gone lank, and armour gleamed with droplets. The sky was low and dense with squally clouds. The terrain was grey rock, a hard stone rendered slippery by the accumulating wetness. The stone seemed to have a natural propensity to split and shear in quadrilateral plains, forming blocks and steps that looked unnervingly like they'd been cut by a stone mason rather than geology. Bronzi realised that the rock's planar property explained why the hills looked so much like cubic buildings. He'd never seen such a geometrically rigid landscape. It was dominated by straight verticals, hard edges and flat surfaces. He felt like he was standing in the jumbled heap of some giant child's building blocks. To the west, more drop-ships were whining down out of the cloud cover. Tche signalled that the lokers were clear, and Bronzi sent an instruction to the pilots. Hatches began to slide shut, and ramps retract. The sound of the engines rose in pitch as the drop-ships prepared to lift off. Bronzi moved forwards through his extending ranks, mindful of planting every step carefully. Underfoot, the flat stone felt as spongy as bone marrow. Cavities had filled with black water, like rock pools. 'Some order please, ladies!' Bronzi barked at the lokers. A couple of them had already slipped over, much to their chagrin. 'What isn't this?' Bronzi roared. 'A fug-fingered ramble!' they chorussed back. 'Could have fooled me,' he muttered. Men began to call out as they pushed forwards into the lower levels of the cubic hills. They'd found things. Bronzi went to look, and Mu and her aides followed him, stepping from block to block as if they were paving stones. There were dead things amongst the stones. Drooling black matter, putrescent jelly, and bits of bone and quill lay in pool cavities or on flat blocks. Some were as large as men, some as small as rats. It was impossible to tell what they had been in life. No real structure remained, no anatomy. Local xenofauna, Bronzi presumed. It was as if some great tide had rolled out and left strange marine life forms behind to rot. That's what the stench reminded him of: beached fish, decomposing on a rocky shore. Mu bent down to examine a few of the congealing horrors. 'Any thoughts?' Bronzi asked. 'The brief said this zone was an artificially generated climate,' Mu said. 'I suppose these are the remains of fauna types abundant in the planet's natural climate. They died here as the air, pressure and chemistry changed.' The aides had all pulled up the hoods of their foul-weather suits, and buttoned collars up over their mouths and noses. Bronzi saw the anxiety and revulsion in their eyes. Huddled in their hoods, they looked like a scholam outing that had ended up in entirely the wrong place. The Jokers advanced steadily into the hills, ignoring the litter of organic decay. Signals came in reporting that their supporting units were on the ground and advancing. No scan by eye, device or 'cept could detect any contact ahead. So far, the humans were the only living things on that abyssal shore. 'Keep scanning,' Bronzi called as he puffed and climbed up the blocks. A man behind him slipped over on his arse with a hard thump. 'I'll pretend I didn't see that, Tsubo,' Bronzi growled. 'Oh, fug!' he added. Reaching for a handhold, he'd dipped his fingers into something slimy and gristly. He shook the gloop off in disgust. The fish gut reek was noxious. 'Is it turning out to be as much fun as you hoped?' Mu asked him. 'Ha ha,' he replied. THEY COULD SEE a good distance from the tops of the hills. A jumbled valley of grey blocks and glinting black pools fell away below, and stretched north, into the shadows of a great, dark wall of monolithic cliffs, split by gorges. The scale of the child's building blocks had increased. In places, they could detect the long, white ropes of cascades falling down rock faces. At the feet of the cliffs, vapour gathered like white smoke. 'When you said precipices with waterfalls, I thought you were joking,' said Tche. 'So did I,' Bronzi replied glumly. He checked his locator against the maps from the order packet. Mu did the same. 'The notation says they're called the Shivering Hills,' Bronzi said. 'How long to get up there?' she asked. 'A day, if we find a decent gorge or vent to follow.' 'Well, that's where they want us, so we'd better get going.' He nodded. 'Are you 'cepting anything?' he asked. 'No,' she replied, 'but I'm cold and uncomfortable, and that doesn't help. This is... a difficult circumstance.' 'I'd prefer a good, honest war,' said Bronzi. 'You know where you are when someone's shooting at you. This is just getting creepy. Waiting for something to happen, that's just going to rack up the spooks. See what you can do to keep the men leve

t gorge or vent to follow.' 'Well, that's where they want us, so we'd better get going.' He nodded. 'Are you 'cepting anything?' he asked. 'No,' she replied, 'but I'm cold and uncomfortable, and that doesn't help. This is... a difficult circumstance.' 'I'd prefer a good, honest war,' said Bronzi. 'You know where you are when someone's shooting at you. This is just getting creepy. Waiting for something to happen, that's just going to rack up the spooks. See what you can do to keep the men level.' 'Understood,' she replied. 'Tche!' Bronzi called. 'Yes, het?' 'Ten-minute halt here. Then we're going to head out across the valley. Tell the boys to have a drink, and a pinch of peck if it makes them feel jollier.' 'Yes, het.' Bronzi wandered along the rocks away from the main group. He slipped the green metal scale out of his pocket and studied it again. It bore a code, standard Alpha form. The phrase 'Your father cheers, your mother cries, that is the lot of the soldier' had been written in Edessan to make it personal to him. He quickly substituted each letter for its numerical place in the alphabet, combined them as he had been taught, and ended up with two, seven digit channel codes. Bronzi clambered up a line of blocks to the nearest vox officer, and borrowed his field set. He slipped on the headset, tapped in one of the codes and waited. 'Speak and identify,' said a voice. 'Argolid 768,' Bronzi said. 'Are you deployed, Hurtado?' 'I'm on the surface.' 'You are not alone. You were given the codes so that you could remain in contact during this event. Check in every two hours. We will inform you if you are required to take any specific action. Consider yourself on standby,' 'Understood.' The signal finished. Bronzi erased the code from the vox-set's log, and carried the device back to its owner. THEY LEFT THE drop-pod in the clutch of the scorched rock that had caught it, and moved west along a line of grey, buttress hills in the wet murk. Rukhsana seemed to have recovered a little composure. Grammaticus believed that seeing him again had settled her mind slightly. She insisted on staying at his side and holding onto his hand. The foul-weather kits were bulky and cumbersome, but they were glad of them. Stones dripped, and every surface shone with liquid. The place stank of rot and organic decay. Soneka had brought a locator. 'How far do we have to go?' he asked. Grammaticus took the device from him and activated it. He watched the display resolve, and turned slowly, checking other readings. 'Two hours, maybe three,' said Grammaticus. 'We'll keep heading west.' Soneka looked at the chart display. 'You know where you're going, right?' 'Pretty much,' said Grammaticus. 'The Imperial landing forces will be concentrating on the Shivering Hills.' 'Why?' 'Because that's where the halting site is, and they'll assume the Cabal is there.' 'Isn't it?' asked Soneka. Grammaticus laughed. 'Peto, the Cabal is as cautious about this meeting as the Astartes are. The Cabal is all too aware of mankind's propensity for shooting first, especially when it comes to xenoforms. Until the members of the Cabal are certain that the Alpha Legion hasn't simply come here with the sole purpose of exterminating them, they're not going to show themselves. Would you wait in the open for a stranger whose intentions were unclear?' 'Not really,' said Soneka. They scrambled down a slope of loose rocks onto a series of wide, cubic blocks. Grammaticus helped Rukhsana all the way. Every now and then, he reached out with his mind, and looked into hers in an attempt to monitor her wellbeing. There was nothing there, nothing he could read, just a blizzard of thought noise and panic. 'So the Cabal is staying out of the way?' Soneka asked. Grammaticus looked back at him. 'The halting site is just an inert structure, a series of well-founded platforms and deep stone pilings designed to support the mass of the Cabal's vessel when it visits. Alpharius showed us the scans, and there was no vessel there, a slight logic flaw that he didn't seem to appreciate.' 'So?' 'Alpharius should have listened to me,' Grammaticus said. 'He should have come down here with me, instead of landing a full military expedition. I'm the passport, you see, Peto, the matchmaker. I make contact, bring them together, and make sure both parties are comfortable. Then they talk. That's how it was supposed to go.' 'But Alpharius is far too wary?' mused Soneka. 'Exactly. He doesn't like unknowns. If he doesn't know something, it means he can't trust it. He likes to be in control all the time.' They ascended a slope through scrolls of drifting vapour. 'On the other hand, the Cabal is very circumspect when it comes to humans,' added Grammaticus. 'I'm afraid to say they have a fairly poor opinion of mankind.' 'Why? 'Humanity is a young race, a barbaric upstart child in the eyes of the Old Kinds, but, by the stars, it's vigorous and massively successful. It is spreading out and annexing the galaxy faster than any race has ever done before. It thrives like weeds, and finds purchase in even the harshest climes. The Cabal has been forced to recognise that mankind is a serious player on the galactic stage, and can no longer be ignored or sidelined, and, of course, they've seen what's coming.' 'This war you talked about?' Grammaticus nodded. 'A civil war. It will tear the Imperium apart. The Cabal doesn't especially care about that. What matters is that a civil war in the Imperium will unleash Chaos. The Primordial Annihilator, the power they have fought to deny since the start of all ages, will use humanity's terrible conflict to gain final ascendancy.' 'They want the war prevented, then?' said Soneka. 'It's too late for that. They want the war won the right way.' 'Let's rest for a minute,' said Soneka. 'The uxor looks tired.' Rukhsana looked especially pale. She was trembling from the cold. Grammaticus sat her down on a stone block. 'It's all right, Rukhsana my love. Everything is going to be all right.' She looked up at him. 'Konig?' she asked. 'Yes, yes! That's right, Rukhsana. It's Konig. It's me.' 'Konig,' she repeated, and then gazed out over the misty rocks. 'You know where the Cabal's hiding?' asked Soneka. 'Yes,' said Grammaticus. 'We go to them, make contact...' 'We go to them, make contact, reassure them that the Alpha Legion means to listen, and then I'll go back to Alpharius.' 'Go back?' Soneka asked, incredulous. 'And bring him here.' 'He might just execute you, John.' Grammaticus shrugged. 'I can't worry about that. This is too important. This is about deciding what the future will be about for everyone.' SIX Carrier Loudon, orbital 'WHICH OF YOU men is Franco Boone?' Chayne asked. The six Chiliad genewhips standing in conversation in one of the hangar deck's check stations turned to look at him. Alarm flashed across their faces for a second as they realised that the question had come from one of the Lord Commander's companions. Chayne had shuttled to the Loudon in full Lucifer Black armour. 'I am,' said Boone. 'We will converse,' said Chayne. 'Come here.' 'Begging your pardon, sir,' said Boone, 'but I'm a little occupied. We're marshalling the second wave for drop. Come back in a couple of hours.' Boone turned back to his fellow genewhips, and they continued to compare and check their data-slates. 'I believe,' said Chayne, 'that you understood my instruction to be optional, Franco Boone. It was not. We will converse. Come here.' Boone tensed. His men looked on in concern, as Boone turned and walked across to the Lucifer Black. 'What?' Boone asked. He was a big man, but he had to look up into Chayne's visored face. 'We will converse, Franco Boone.' 'So you keep saying. What about some courtesy, sir? Remove your helmet so that I can see your face.' 'Why?' asked Chayne. 'Because that's what men do when they converse.' Chayne didn't move for a moment. Then he raised his hands, unlocked his helm seals, and took the helmet off. He tucked it under his arm. His face was drawn and hard, and his eyes chilled Franco Boone's soul. 'Thank you,' said Boone. 'Your name? You seem to know mine.' 'Chayne, bajolur, companion guard.' 'Well, Chayne, bajolur, companion guard, how can I help you this day?' 'You can walk with me for a moment, you can answer my questions, and you can dispense with the verbal sport.' Boone shrugged. They began to walk along the edge of the vast deck, past shouting flight crew and rattling tools. An autoloader cart zipped past them. 'This is a busy day for us, bajolur,' said Boone. 'Get on with it.' 'What can you tell me about Peto Soneka and Hurtado Bronzi?' 'Why?' 'I simply require you to answer the question, genewhip,' replied Chayne. Boone frowned. 'They're two of the Chiliad's most respected hetmen. One's downstairs on 42 Hydra Tertius, the other was lost on Nurth.' 'During the last week of operations on Nurth,' said Chayne, 'both came under suspicion of treasonous behaviour.' 'They did,' Boone replied. 'I was gunning for the pair at one point, and I believe you arrested and questioned both of them. They were clean. We both found that.' 'I am reviewing the case material,' said Chayne. 'Why?' asked Boone. 'One of them's five months' dead, for fug's sake.' 'New data has been gathered,' Chayne told him. 'It casts doubt on the stories they told us.' 'Look, Chayne...' Boone began. He paused. 'One moment, bajolur.' Boone took a step aside. 'You. You men there!' he yelled out across the deck. 'Pick up your kit, you idiots. It's blocking the service strip. Come on, you gee-tards. You know the drill. Stay behind the cue line!' The men from Mannequin Company hurried to oblige. Boone turned back to the Lucifer. 'You were saying? New data?' 'New data,' Chayne replied. 'What sort of new data?' asked Boone. 'That's classified. It's beginning to appear that Het Soneka and Het Bronzi were not so inn

, bajolur.' Boone took a step aside. 'You. You men there!' he yelled out across the deck. 'Pick up your kit, you idiots. It's blocking the service strip. Come on, you gee-tards. You know the drill. Stay behind the cue line!' The men from Mannequin Company hurried to oblige. Boone turned back to the Lucifer. 'You were saying? New data?' 'New data,' Chayne replied. 'What sort of new data?' asked Boone. 'That's classified. It's beginning to appear that Het Soneka and Het Bronzi were not so innocent after all.' 'Listen to me,' Boone growled, looking the companion in the eye. 'You'd better have some fugging watertight facts before you come down here dragging the reputations of two of my hetmen through the gutters.' 'Ah, the famous Chiliad loyalty,' said Chayne. 'How does it go? "Company first, Imperium second, geno before gene"? I was told to expect that you'd close ranks.' 'We look after our own, companion, and I'm not sure I like what you're implying,' Boone answered. Chayne nodded. He knew when to be forthcoming with a morsel of information. 'There were spies at work on Nurth, Boone. We assumed they were Nurthene agents. It now appears that they were part of the Alpha Legion Astartes infiltration network.' 'Hurt and Peto? Never!' 'Why never?' 'I'd have known. I knew them both,' Boone exclaimed. 'I have identified the spy at the heart of the business,' said Chayne. 'He was using the name Konig Heniker, and operating under the guise of an Imperial agent. Uxor Rukhsana Saiid was running him during the Nurthene operation. Bronzi and Soneka were arrested after an attempt to remove her from the palace. Was that the Chiliad covering itself, I wonder?' Boone felt his mouth drying up. He breathed deeply, and steered the Lucifer Black out of the path of a trundling servitor truck laden with ground attack missiles. He led Chayne into a nearby repair shop where crews were working on service parts. 'Get out,' he told the men. They withdrew, puzzled. Alone, Boone turned to Chayne. 'Of course the Chiliad covers itself. We see a weak link, we clean house. Saiid was in bed, literally, I believe, with the spy. Soneka and Bronzi were simply covering our arses. I sanctioned them. You can't blame the Chiliad for that. We cleared up our own dirty laundry.' 'I won't blame you, Boone,' Chayne replied. 'Tell me about Strabo.' 'Fugging Strabo?' Boone asked, raising his eyebrows. 'Why is he called that?' 'I dunno. It's a long standing joke. Do you Lucifers make jokes, Chayne?' 'Never,' Chayne replied. 'Why am I not surprised?' Boone replied. 'All right, what's Strabo got to do with anything?' Chayne walked away towards the shop's workbench and inspected some of the tools idly. 'He made a report, after the extraction from Nurth.' 'I think he may have,' Boone said. 'Don't be coy, Franco Boone,' Chayne said. 'With the Lord Commander's personal authority, I have accessed the Chiliad's private record base.' 'That's illegal,' Boone spat. 'You've no right!' 'Council of Terra edict 1141236a, powers of search and inquiry, as governed by the martial process,' Chayne responded. 'During war operation, the authority of any Lord Commander, or commander holding a position of equivalent authority over an expedition or similar task force, or equivalent mandate, may be allowed, under suspicion or general threat of insurgency, to seize, audit, copy, access and otherwise examine any data files compiled and stored by any military section of a regiment under his purview. That's my right. Tell me about Strabo.' 'It was nothing,' said Boone, miserably. 'Strabo was head bashaw of the Clowns. They'd lost their het. Soneka was sent in as proxy, to see them through. As Strabo reported it, Soneka left the Clowns on station under bashaw command during the last few hours of the Nurth campaign.' 'Why?' asked Chayne. 'Isn't that rather unusual?' Boone shrugged. 'According to Strabo, Soneka just took off. Strabo, and bashaw Lon, who's a much more reliable source, said that Soneka had taken a spy into custody, and was personally escorting him to us genewhips. Then Nurth came down around our ears and no one ever saw him again.' 'Thank you,' said Chayne. 'That's it?' asked Boone. 'One last request,' said Chayne. 'Supply me with the surface drop coordinates of Het Bronzi.' 'Why?' 'He is not working for us, genewhip,' said Dinas Chayne, 'and he hasn't been for a long time.' SEVEN Eolith, continuous THEY SCALED A steep slope of jumbled rock littered with decomposing residue. Soneka saw poking ribs and split fatty blubber, filled with liquid putrescence. The stench was intolerable. 'Come on, just a little further,' Grammaticus urged. He had become imbued with a boyish vigour. Soneka and Rukhsana followed on behind him, Soneka clasping the uxor's hand now. 'Down here!' Grammaticus called. They followed him down into a depression between leaning stone blocks. A cave of sorts lay before them, its basin flooded with black liquor between the scattered slabs. The cave was cold and had an odd echo. Grammaticus leapt from stone to stone to avoid the stagnant water, hopping from one raised block to another as if they were stepping stones in an ornamental water garden. Soneka and Rukhsana followed him. The cave opened out into the most enormous chapel of stone. Moisture dripped and trickled down out of the arched roof. There was a wide stone shelf in the centre of the space, like a stage. The wet rock shone like glass. Grammaticus helped Peto and Rukhsana up onto it. 'This is it?' asked Soneka, looking around at the ominous shadows, dubiously. Grammaticus nodded. 'What happens now?' 'Wait, Peto, wait,' Grammaticus replied. He turned in a slow circle, gazing up at the walls. He seemed to be listening for something. 'I can't feel them,' he murmured. 'Where are they?' 'I may have to fleet,' he decided after a moment. 'You may have to what?' asked Soneka. 'Fleet! Fleet!' Grammaticus said, as if everybody understood what the arcane term meant. He jumped off the stone platform and bent down beside a rock pool. He skimmed the surface of the water with his fingers. 'Please, please,' he mumbled. Nothing happened. 'Come on!' he snapped, flicking his fingers across the water. It suddenly went very cold. Rukhsana pulled herself against Soneka. There is no need to fleet, John Grammaticus. Grammaticus looked up at the cave roof. 'You hear me? You're here?' We've been here all along, John. 'Show yourselves!' Grammaticus called out. 'Oh fug me,' Soneka breathed, holding Rukhsana close. She was crying and agitated. Shapes were beginning to appear around the platform of rock, alien forms cohering into place. Soneka swallowed hard as he saw the inhuman nature of the things solidifying in front of him: ghastly shapes, mockeries of creation, a gathering of the most disturbing xenosforms. Some were pallid, multi-limbed entities, others whispered their respiration through fluttering mats of gelatinous pseudopods. Others were stalk things, or crouching vulpine shapes, or asymmetric insects. Some were horned, or boneless, or armoured in bizarre environment suits. A giant mollusc uncurled, glistening, from its vast shell. Two spavined avian creatures hopped forwards and peered with bright, curious eyes. Something mechanical rose up on four, club-footed limbs. One entity seemed to be nothing more than a beam of discoloured light. An imposing eldar in pearl white armour, somehow the most terrifying thing of all with its oh-so human shape, walked to the front of the congregation. Grammaticus opened his arms wide, and bowed. 'Hello, my masters,' he sighed. An insectoid scuttled out in front of the mighty eldar and writhed its mouth parts. 'Greetings, John,' G'lattro announced in perfect Low Gothic. 'My friend, hello,' Grammaticus replied. 'Who have you brought with you to this place?' asked G'Lattro. 'Rukhsana Saiid, who is my heart love, and Peto Soneka, my friend,' said Grammaticus. 'I have come to arrange the meeting. The Alpha Legion awaits. I'm tired, sirs. This has been a long and punishing task, but it is done, and the Alpha Legion, though painfully cautious, is ready to hear what you have to say.' Slau Dha, the autarch, murmured something. 'The autarch wishes to understand why you have brought mon-keigh things with you,' G'Latrro piped. 'Where are the envoys of the Astartes Alpha Legion?' 'I had to improvise,' Grammaticus said. 'The Alpha Legion is not easily manipulated. I could not allow suspicion and mistrust to debase this meeting. I did not want a misunderstanding to lead to bloodshed. Now that I have vouched for their intent, we can contact them directly and-' 'Mon-keigh!' Slau Dha boomed abruptly. Grammaticus turned. Peto Soneka was aiming his laspistol right at him. 'Peto?' Grammaticus said, incredulously. 'Control word bedlame. Bedlame?' Soneka laughed. 'You really thought that had worked, didn't you, John?' he asked. He tossed the locator to Rukhsana. 'Got it, Peto,' she said. She activated the beacon setting. 'Rukhsana?' Grammaticus stammered. 'No!' Stained light blinked and flickered all around the cave. There was a chorus of rapid, harmonic chimes. One by one, around the edges of the chamber, Alpha Legion warriors appeared in the shivering light display, weapons already trained. The teleport delivery left a dry, gritty scent in the air. In less than four seconds, fifty Alpha legionnaires were covering the Cabal from every angle. The members of the Cabal jostled and quivered, and jabbered in consternation. Slau Dha glared and reached for his weapons. 'Stand where you are and make no attempt to resist,' Omegon ordered, bolter aimed. He adjusted channels. 'We're secure.' Light wafted. Alpharius materialised, with Shere at his side. The primarch walked forwards. 'Cabal,' he said. 'We meet at last, on my terms.' EIGHT Eolith, continuous 'THERE'S A SHIP approaching,' said Mu. Bronzi called the company to halt and looked

he members of the Cabal jostled and quivered, and jabbered in consternation. Slau Dha glared and reached for his weapons. 'Stand where you are and make no attempt to resist,' Omegon ordered, bolter aimed. He adjusted channels. 'We're secure.' Light wafted. Alpharius materialised, with Shere at his side. The primarch walked forwards. 'Cabal,' he said. 'We meet at last, on my terms.' EIGHT Eolith, continuous 'THERE'S A SHIP approaching,' said Mu. Bronzi called the company to halt and looked up into the saturated cloud cover. He couldn't see anything. 'There's no drop due,' he said, 'and we haven't been notified of air support. I can't see anything.' 'It's there,' she insisted, staring up into the sky. Her 'cept had caught its approach. A dot appeared out of the clouds, and swooped down across the block valley, trailing vapour. It was a Jackal gunship. 'What does he want, I wonder?' asked Tche. The gunship made two passes over the Jokers' position, and then banked in and hovered down to settle on the flattest patch of rock in the immediate vicinity. As soon as its claws bit into the ground, figures dismounted from the side hatch and ran towards the waiting geno company. 'Lucifer Blacks?' Mu murmured uneasily. Bronzi felt a shudder of panic. 'No, no,' he whispered. The three companions, armed and armoured, covered the ground sure-footedly, and reached the Jokers. They came to a halt in a row, apparently oblivious to the surly glares of suspicion that they were getting from hundreds of big, gene soldiers. 'Hetman Bronzi,' said the lead companion. 'Identify Hetman Bronzi.' A murmur ran through the company. Bronzi realised that he was trembling. There was absolutely no way he could run or hide from this. He did the only thing he could. 'That's me,' he called, walking out of the huddled troops to face the Lucifers. One of them immediately stepped forwards and disarmed him. Bronzi didn't fight. 'What the fug do you think you're doing?' Tche exclaimed. 'Hetman Bronzi,' the lead companion announced, 'you are detained by order of the Lord Commander. You will come with us.' The Jokers started to yell and protest, spilling forwards out of their lines in outrage. 'Keep your places!' Bronzi yelled. 'That's an order! Keep your places! This is just a misunderstanding, and we'll get it cleared up!' 'You will come with us now,' the lead companion demanded. 'No,' Honen Mu snapped, striding out to stand beside Bronzi. 'I can't allow this. You cannot remove my hetman during an operation.' 'Your objection is noted, uxor,' said the companion, 'but it is overruled. Step back.' 'This is a disgrace!' Mu yelled. 'How dare you-' 'Step back, uxor,' the companion repeated. 'Don't provoke them, Honen,' Bronzi told her gently. 'I'll get this sorted out and be back as quickly as I can.' 'What is this about, Hurtado?' she asked, horrified. 'I don't know.' 'Bronzi, what have you done, you silly old dog?' she pleaded. 'Nothing,' he insisted. 'I've done nothing.' He clasped her hands in his and looked down into her eyes. 'I'll come back, Honen. Look after my Jokers for me, all right?' 'Hurtado...' He bent and kissed her cheek, and then let go of her hands and allowed the companions to walk him back to the gunship. He never looked back. As she watched him walk away, Honen Mu had the most profound feeling that she'd never see him again. 'THIS IS NOT how it should be!' Grammaticus roared. 'Be quiet,' said Alpharius. 'No!' Grammaticus spat, turning to face the primarch. 'This is exactly the sort of confrontational duress I was trying to avoid. This is no way to deal with the Cabal. You cannot turn your guns on them and force them to-' 'I can do anything I want,' said Alpharius, 'and what I want is to be in control of this situation. Your Cabal has persistently and covertly schemed to manipulate the Alpha Legion. That is no basis for trust. I'll hear them out, but I will not let them use my Legion, or lead it into a trap.' 'It's not a trap!' Grammaticus wailed. 'Not any more it isn't,' Omegon agreed. Grammaticus put his head in his hands and backed away. He looked up, and saw Soneka and Rukhsana. 'You used me,' he sighed in disbelief. 'No more than you thought you were using me, John,' Soneka replied, 'and you did try very hard to do that.' 'But-' Grammaticus said. 'This is what my lord wanted, and this is what I delivered for him,' said Soneka. 'He wanted to see where you would go, given the chance.' 'And you too,' Grammaticus murmured, looking at Rukhsana. 'It was all a sham.' She opened the throat of her protective gear and revealed the pendant hanging there. 'Psionic scrambler, Konig,' she said. 'It made my mind seem as if it were out of joint.' 'Oh, Rukhsana, why?' he begged. Playfully, she continued to unbutton her suit, and pulled the seam aside to show half of her right breast. The hydra brand appeared like a beauty spot on her pale skin. Grammaticus looked away and sank to his knees. 'Who speaks for the Cabal?' Alpharius asked, advancing across the platform towards them. 'They will all speak through me,' clicked G'Latrro. 'Lord Alpharius, our agent is correct. This is no way to conduct business. The Cabal deplores your aggression.' 'But they want to talk to me, so they'd better get used to the situation and begin,' Alpharius replied. 'I have limited patience. What is so important that you'd go to such lengths to draw me here?' The Cabal's interpolator did not reply. Behind him, in low, odd tones, the Cabal members consulted one another. 'Stay sharp,' Pech said to Shere, his boltgun trained on the aliens. 'Any sign of trickery...' Shere nodded. 'There is psychic activity, but it is purely communicative. None of it is active.' 'Let me know if that changes,' said Pech. The buzzing, mumbling stir of alien voices ceased. G'Latrro looked up at Alpharius. 'The Cabal will speak, though it resents the position you have placed it in,' it said. 'It is typical of human zeal and belligerence.' 'Begin,' said Alpharius. 'The Cabal will deal directly with the primarch of the Astartes Alpha Legion,' G'Latrro stated. 'You are,' said Alpharius. 'With the entire primarch,' said the insectoid. Alpharius paused. 'You are,' he repeated. 'A show of trust is perhaps in order on your part, seeing that you hold us at gunpoint?' said G'Latrro. 'A token to signify that true secrets can be shared between us?' Alpharius glowered for a moment, and then nodded. Omegon, in his gleaming, blue-black infiltrator armour, walked slowly over to stand at Alpharius's side. Soneka and Rukhsana exchanged brief glances of confusion. Grammaticus looked up, fascinated. 'Cut off one head and two shall grow in its place,' said G'Latrro. 'Alone amongst the gene sons of the Terran Emperor, you are the only twins. You are both the primarch, one soul in two vessels.' 'The fact is not known outside our Legion,' said Omegon. 'It is our most closely guarded secret,' said Alpharius. 'How did you know?' asked Omegon. The insectoid's mouthparts twitched. 'Through a careful study and comparison of the known primarchs that has lasted for decades. It became clear to us that the oldest and the youngest sons were the most significant of all. Horus, for what he will do, and you for what you will undo.' 'What will Horus do?' asked Alpharius. 'He will let the galaxy burn,' said G'Latrro. 'He will ignite the civil war.' 'You speak heresy!' Omegon growled. 'Exactly so,' the interpolator replied. Alpharius shook his head. 'This is futile. Like your agent before you, you speak of a coming war and a great doom. You describe a division that could not possibly happen. Horus Lupercal is Warmaster. He is the Emperor's right hand, and the most loyal of all. What he does, he does for the Emperor.' 'I believe you intend to sow the seeds of dissent with these wild tales,' Omegon told the interpolator. 'You wish to undermine the foundations of the Imperium.' 'They are not wild tales,' said G'Latrro. 'They are baseless and offensive to us!' Omegon snapped. 'You supply no specifics, you deal in vague pronouncements.' 'It has been farseen,' said G'Latrro. 'Again with this!' Alpharius laughed. 'Some vision, some shamanic dream? A worthless prophesy, a hollow auguring! It all means nothing! You cannot know the future, and therefore you cannot show us any proof.' 'Yes, we can,' said G'Latrro. 'If that is what you need, we will share the Acuity with you.' 'How exactly is that done? asked Omegon warily. 'It cannot be accomplished here,' said G'Latrro. 'We must first bring our vessel to the halting site, and transfer to it with you. As a matter of trust, we will allow you to escort us, under guard. We need you to know, Alpharius Omegon. We need you to see.' 'Do it,' said Alpharius and Omegon simultaneously. NINE Orbital, Eolith, three hours later THEY TOOK HIM to a cell in the brig deck of the Blamires, and had him strip. Then they made him watch as they shredded his clothing and dismantled every piece of his equipment. After that, they locked him in an iron restraint chair. They did not speak once the entire time. After a while, when he realised that they weren't ever going to answer him, he stopped asking questions. From that point, the processing continued in silence. The hatch opened. Dinas Chayne entered the cell, accompanied by a burly officer of the brig and two assistants in floor length plastek aprons. Chayne conversed quietly with the three companions who had brought Bronzi in and processed him. He turned to the painfully restrained hetman. 'Hurtado Bronzi.' Bronzi said nothing. 'You are detained on suspicion of being a covert operative of the Astartes Alpha Legion,' said Chayne. 'The Lord Commander takes a dim view of spies, and of internecine espionage. If you are found to be working for the Astartes, it will be considered a gross act of disloyalty to your regiment, the Imperial Army, the expedition, and the Lord Commander. Do y

panions who had brought Bronzi in and processed him. He turned to the painfully restrained hetman. 'Hurtado Bronzi.' Bronzi said nothing. 'You are detained on suspicion of being a covert operative of the Astartes Alpha Legion,' said Chayne. 'The Lord Commander takes a dim view of spies, and of internecine espionage. If you are found to be working for the Astartes, it will be considered a gross act of disloyalty to your regiment, the Imperial Army, the expedition, and the Lord Commander. Do you have anything to say?' Bronzi flexed his throat and jaw against the iron bars trapping them. 'This is a mistake,' he said. 'This is wrong. You've got the wrong man.' Chayne remained impassive. He walked across to the metal side table where the debris of Bronzi's clothing and kit sat in boxes. He reached into one, and produced the green metal scale. He held it up to make sure Bronzi could see it. 'I don't know what that is,' Bronzi said. 'You've planted it there.' Chayne returned the scale to the box and walked back to his prisoner. He pointed his right index finger at the brand mark on Bronzi's right hip. 'And that, hetman? Did I plant that too?' Bronzi scowled. 'You are in no position to equivocate, Bronzi,' said Chayne. 'Tell me. Tell me your secret.' Bronzi gritted his teeth. Very slowly and deliberately he said, 'My name is Hurtado Bronzi.' He looked at Chayne, and winked. 'There, I've said it,' he smiled. 'I've said it and I can never take it back. The secret's out.' 'Don't annoy me, Bronzi,' said Chayne. Tell me the rest.' 'Ah. The rest?' said Bronzi. 'Well, if I must sir...' ALL THE DEEP range scopes began to sound contact alerts. Van Aunger, master of the expedition fleet, got up from the leather throne in the middle of the Blamires's wide main bridge and strode across to the tracking station. 'What's this?' he asked. 'Contact echo, sir,' the tracking officer replied. 'An object just appeared on the scopes, inbound to 42 Hydra Tertius.' 'Appeared?' Van Aunger repeated. 'I don't understand it, sir,' the tracking officer replied, adjusting his control panels with fast, expert hands. 'There are no energetic or magnetic profiles that would suggest a real space translation. The object just appeared. I speculate that it was previously cloaked.' 'Track it and project, full assessment,' Van Aunger ordered. 'Yes, sir,' replied the officer. 'General quarters!' Van Aunger called out. 'Shields and batteries to stand by!' A klaxon started to sound. The bridge staff, over a hundred officers, bustled to their stations, their voices overlapping as they exchanged data and instructions. 'Trajectory projection!' the tracking officer announced. 'Main display,' Van Aunger replied. The primary hololithic display lit up with a complex graphic diagram of the planet, the position of the fleet components, and the sweeping vector of the object. 'That will take it directly to the venue zone,' Van Aunger murmured. 'Have you identified vessel type or designation?' 'Negative, sir,' the tracking officer replied. 'It doesn't even read like a vessel. It's inert on all scans. It's... oh Terra...' 'What?' 'I'm marking it in excess of point eight superluminal, and it's big, sir. It's at least as big as we are.' 'Battle stations!' Van Aunger cried. 'Raise shields!' The klaxon changed tone immediately. Van Aunger activated his vox-wand. 'My Lord Namatjira,' he said. 'What's going on, fleet master?' the Lord Commander's voice came back. 'An unknown craft of significant displacement is about to cut right across the fleet inbound to the planet.' 'Mobilise the picket,' Namatjira ordered. 'Interdict it now.' 'It's moving too fast, sir,' Van Aunger said. 'I've never seen anything like it.' 'Fleet master, I want you to-' Namatjira's voice was lost in a wash of static. Every screen on the bridge stations suddenly milked out, and the main lights died. In the darkness that followed, a violent vibration shook through the mighty flagship for a few seconds. The lights came back on. One by one, the screens came back to life. '-an Aunger? Van Aunger?' Namatjira's voice blurted from the vox. 'What in the name of the Emperor just happened?' 'It went past us, sir,' replied Van Aunger. 'Whatever it was, it just went right past us.' HONEN MU CRIED out. When Tche turned to look, he thought she'd slipped over on the wet rock. Then he saw that her aides were down too. He ran back over the flat topped rocks to reach her. He began to feel it too, through the 'cept. All the men felt it, and they had come to a halt. 'What is it? What is it, uxor?' he asked. She was down on her hands and knees, shivering with pain. 'I don't know,' she gasped, shaking her head. Huddled on the ground behind her, her aides were sobbing and wailing. Thunder rolled. Tche and the Jokers looked up at the overcast sky and the thick banks of cloud. 'Is it a storm?' asked one. More thunder, deep and heavy, shook out. The echo it left rolled down the wide valley that the Jokers were still only half way across. A wind began to pick up, strong and lusty, and wet cold. Their banners and capes flapped. Spray lifted off the puddles and pools in the rocks around them. Thunder sounded again, as if the sky was splitting. This time, Tche and his men saw lightning flare above the clouds, back lighting them. The pulsing discharges made it look as if the clouds were on fire inside. The men started to point at the sky and cry out. 'Holy fug,' Tche mumbled. A city was falling out of the sky on top of them. At first, it was a great copper dish, half as wide as the visible sky. Streaks of luminous white and blue pulsed out from the centre of the dish, to its rim and back. The rim was turning like a spinning top, and flashing with iridescent patterns. The dish passed overhead, plunging them into shadow. It made an infrasonic murmur that quaked their internal organs and made them involuntarily squeal in fear. There was a smell of ozone, and sizzling bolts of forked lighting seared down from the clouds all along the length of the valley. The copper dish, so vast that the very size of it was terrifying, swung in over the monolithic black cliffs of the Shivering Hills, and slowly descended. Now, they could see its upper surface, where giant copper structures resembling fans and leaves bloomed like a cyclopean, abstract water lily from the top of the dish. It sank lower and lower, until the spinning dish was obscured by the cliffs. There was a colossal boom that shook the ground under them, and caused splinters of rock to topple over and come crashing down the face of the black cliffs. The dish had set down somewhere beyond the hill line. They could see the golden fans and petals of its upper structure rising above the Shivering Hills like the spires and monuments of some heavenly city. Stray lightning continued to spark and flicker in the clouds, but the wind dropped as quickly as it had risen. Tche helped Mu to her feet. Blood was seeping from her left nostril. They gazed in silent awe at the gilded shapes of the new skyline. 'What... what is it?' Tche asked. Honen Mu had no answer for him. NAMATJIRA SLOWLY STUDIED the orbital pictures. 'It's huge,' he murmured. 'A xenosform vehicle of some kind,' nodded Van Aunger. 'I'm afraid we can't determine any details apart from its size. It is resistant to our probes.' 'It has landed precisely at the location Alpharius instructed me to secure,' said Namatjira. 'Yes, sir,' said Van Aunger, 'inside the Shivering Hills area, at the heart of the atmospheric anomaly, and directly upon structures that our scans identified as artificial.' 'So,' the Lord Commander mused, 'the Cabal has arrived and shown itself.' 'My lord?' asked Van Aunger. Namatjira looked up from the pictures. 'Return to the bridge, fleet master. Set the fleet to a war footing. Charge all main battery weapons, and target that object. You will only commence bombardment on my instruction.' 'Sir, we have significant ground troop deployments adjacent to that craft,' said Van Aunger. 'They would most likely be caught in any orbital bombardment we unleashed. I told you this, Lord Commander, before the day began. I told you that bombardment tactics would-' 'Charge all main battery weapons and target that object,' hissed Namatjira. 'Is that too complex an order for you? Should I break it down? Target that object! If that's beyond you, expect to be stripped of your mastery with immediate effect. I understand Admiral Kalkoa is eager to rise to fleet command.' Van Aunger glared at Namatjira, made a sullen namaste and left the lookout. Namatjira sat down on one of the window couches, and stroked the flank of his gene-bred pet. Chayne entered the lookout, and dismissed the companion on duty. 'Did you see?' asked Namatjira. Chayne nodded. 'The Cabal is clearly more potent than we feared.' 'They're not playing by Alpharius's rules either,' said the Lord Commander. 'This is not the schedule the primarch told me to expect. He anticipated that our ground forces would have the area surrounded and in our control before-' He paused. 'Sir?' asked Chayne. 'Unless he lied to me,' said Namatjira. 'Unless he is already making contact with the Cabal and learning their precious secrets for himself.' Namatjira rose. He crossed the lookout and poured a flute of wine, sipped it, and then dashed the glass against the window ports with a snarl of fury. 'He plays us!' he growled. 'He plays us and uses us! Everything he promised me, the honour, the glory, the Emperor's gratitude, was that all lies too?' Chayne shrugged. 'I have not trusted the Astartes Alpha Legion from the start, sir. They do not practise the codes of nobility and honour shown by the other Legions Astartes. I believe their operation and conduct should be reported to the Council of Terra, pending censure or dissolution. It wouldn't be the first time a Legion Astartes has overstepped the mark, after all. They mu

ys us and uses us! Everything he promised me, the honour, the glory, the Emperor's gratitude, was that all lies too?' Chayne shrugged. 'I have not trusted the Astartes Alpha Legion from the start, sir. They do not practise the codes of nobility and honour shown by the other Legions Astartes. I believe their operation and conduct should be reported to the Council of Terra, pending censure or dissolution. It wouldn't be the first time a Legion Astartes has overstepped the mark, after all. They must be stopped and held accountable before they become too powerful.' Namatjira nodded, thoughtfully. 'Agreed, and I will be the one to bring the matter directly to the Emperor's attention. Perhaps then I can salvage some of my reputation. We need to find them culpable, Dinas. We need firm evidence of their miscreant nature. I need to know precisely what they're doing, and what infernal compart they are making with these xenoform bastards.' Chayne poured another drink, and handed it to his master. 'Thank you, Dinas,' Namatjira replied. He began to pace. 'We already have evidence of their espionage, sir,' said Chayne. 'I have detained an officer of the Geno Five-Two Chiliad, and have manifest proof that he has been working as an operative of the Alpha Legion.' 'In our own damn ranks?' 'The man is Bronzi, sir. It is shocking to discover that the Alpha Legion has infiltrated at the highest operational level.' Namatjira nodded. 'That's a start. Good. You have interrogated him?' 'He is resisting us, my lord, stoically, but my men are very skilled and patient. I do not know how much longer a man, even a man of Bronzi's considerable constitution, can withstand such levels of pain.' 'Get me a link to the primarch, Dinas,' Namatjira said, 'person to person. Let's see what new lies he chooses to spin me, and see if we can't establish his location while we listen to them. Prepare the Lucifer Blacks for teleport assault.' Chayne saluted. 'And Dinas?' 'Yes, sir?' 'Show this Bronzi no mercy,' said Namatjira. 'Break him mind, body and soul, and pluck his secrets from him.' 'Yes, my lord,' replied Dinas Chayne. TEN The Acuity SONEKA HAD NEVER travelled by teleport before. It wasn't an experience he'd care to repeat. It made him feel sick and disoriented, as if he'd been put back together the wrong way around. The Astartes showed no sign of being remotely discomforted. The teleport arrays of the battle-barge had relocated them all, Imperials and Cabal aliens alike, from the dank cave to a wet rock platform at the halting site, just below the gilded lip of the Cabal's parked vessel. The landing at the halting site had churned up the local atmosphere. It was raining hard, and a vapour like steam was rising from the cubic blocks and the oil black pools. The encircling cliffs of the Shivering Hills surrounded them in a ring forty kilometres in diameter. The water particles in the air had created a fabulous half rainbow over the steaming bowl of the halting site. The Cabal's immense vessel, dazzling with gold and copper reflections, was too vast to comprehend. Soneka looked at it for a while, seeing it as a budding flower, opening its fimbriate petals to the sky, or a crown of oddly twisted thorns. He realised at length, that it was simply too big, too alien, too unparalleled, for his mind to accommodate without collapsing into madness. He looked away. He'd seen enough of the extraordinary for one lifetime. 'It's...' Rukhsana mumbled. 'It's... simply...' 'I know,' Soneka said, and gently turned her aside to look at the rim of black cliffs through the rain. 'It's best not to look at it for too long.' 'What have we got ourselves into, Peto?' she asked. He smiled. 'I really don't know any more. We've played our parts. I don't believe we matter at all now. A great destiny is being shaped, I think. Can't you feel it, the weight of future ages hanging over us?' She nodded, and hooked her rain-plastered hair off her face. 'Absolutely,' she said. 'This is a task for stronger minds,' said Soneka, 'post-human minds, not our weak brains. We have to trust the Astartes to do what they were created to do. We have to trust them to keep our species safe.' 'Do you trust them, Peto?' Rukhsana asked. 'We both carry their mark, uxor,' he said. 'I think it's far too late to ask that question.' She looked around. A considerable way away, down the rainswept platform, Grammaticus sat hunched under the guard of an Astartes. 'He hates us,' she said. 'Of course he does,' said Soneka, 'we betrayed him.' 'That was hard to do,' she said. To use him-' 'He's used everybody, every step of the way,' Soneka replied. 'He'll get over it. It may not have gone the way he'd have liked it to, but we got him what he wanted.' 'No, you have to understand, I loved him,' she said, 'or I thought I did, and I thought he loved me. I didn't understand what he was, even when he told me to my face. I didn't understand the scale of it all.' 'You were never supposed to,' said Soneka. 'Pawns are never supposed to perceive the game as a whole.' A golden ramp, like a curving tongue, had extended from the rim of the Cabal vessel to meet the edge of the stone platform. The Astartes, bolters ready, had begun to steer the huddle of alien sentients up into the craft. Some whimpered or murmured as they were herded along. Slau Dha, the great autarch, walked with his crested head up, ignoring the trained bolters. 'Signal relayed from the battle-barge,' Herzog said to Alpharius. 'Content?' 'Lord Commander Namatjira requests personal vox audience. He worries that you have begun the meeting without him.' 'Tell him I can't be reached at this time,' said Alpharius. 'Tell him to maintain position and keep his forces on standby.' 'He won't like it,' said Herzog. 'That's his problem,' Omegon replied. 'I probably shouldn't tell him that, though, should I?' asked Herzog. 'Tell him I appreciate his patience, and I will contact him directly,' said Alpharius. THEY BOARDED THE copper craft. Its internal compartments bore no relation to a ship of human design. Odd spaces opened out into curious chambers, or turned back on themselves like a maze. The walls glowed softly with inner radiance. In places, the ceiling seemed to soar away forever. Soneka felt muddled and uncomfortable. The air smelled like burnt sugar and fused plastek. They were left alone for a while in a chamber formed from three golden petals. 'What's that noise?' Rukhsana asked. 'I don't hear anything,' said Soneka. 'It's in my 'cept then, like a swarm of bees.' First Captain Pech appeared and strode over to them. 'The primarch has called for you, Peto,' he said. 'Me?' 'He needs you. Follow me.' Soneka glanced at Rukhsana. 'Go on,' she urged. Pech led him through the luminous halls of the Cabal vessel to a chamber where Alpharius, Omegon and Shere were waiting. 'My lord?' asked Soneka. 'The Cabal is about to display the Acuity to us, Peto,' Alpharius told him. 'As far as we can tell, it's a perception device, a means of temporal lensing, based on eldar principles of farseeing.' 'Yes, lord. I don't really understand anything you just said.' 'We are about to have the future revealed to us,' said Omegon. 'Sirs, why did you send for me?' asked Soneka. 'I need to determine, as accurately as I possibly can, the viability of what they are about to show us,' said Alpharius. 'I have suggested that the witnesses should be Omegon and myself, Shere from the psyker perspective, and you as an unmodified human. Do you consent?' 'Sir, I-' 'Do you consent?' demanded Omegon. 'We haven't got time to waste.' Soneka nodded. 'I will do whatever I can, my lords,' he replied. 'Thank you, Peto,' said Alpharius. 'We're ready,' he called out. A wall that had seemed solid parted like smoke. The four men walked into the chamber beyond, side by side. It was dark, and lit by a ruddy glow that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. Ahead of them, a monolithic slab of silver light shivered in the darkness. I am Gahet. 'I am Alpharius, primarch of the Twentieth Legion Astartes,' Alpharius replied. Welcome. Let us know the others, and your other self. 'I am Omegon, primarch of the Twentieth Legion Astartes,' said Omegon. Welcome. Den Dang Keyat Shere, welcome. Shere bowed. Peto Soneka. Welcome. 'Hello,' said Soneka. 'You're inside my head.' I am 'That's not entirely pleasant,' said Soneka. 'Oh, get a backbone, het,' snapped Omegon. You are prepared to observe the Acuity? 'Yes,' said Alpharius. 'Any tricks will result in our bolters dismantling this vessel piece by piece. Are we understood?' Yes. You are a violent species, human. You threaten quickly. The violence will come later, and will be entirely your business. 'Get on with it,' said Omegon. We have battled to deny the Primordial Annihilator for longer than you have been evolved. Chaos cannot be permitted to gain control of the galaxy. 'This fact has already been established, Gahet,' said Alpharius. The human race is virile. It thrives, unruly and edacious. It is, in its ignorance, especially susceptible to the influence of Chaos. The Primordial Annihilator has buried its fingers into mankind, intending to turn it into a weapon. 'Mankind will resist,' said Alpharius. You will not know how to resist. The Primordial Annihilator is cunning. It will trigger civil war within the Imperium of Man, and bring all creation crashing down. See. The slab of silver light trembled and opened. They saw what was inside it. It felt as if they were falling from orbit onto a burning world. Shere began to weep. This is our veridical testimony. This is the future as it will happen. The great war will erupt across the firmament and engulf the human race. The stars will go out. The Annihilator will rise. 'No,' said Omegon bluntly. His eyes were wide. You cannot deny it, Omegon. It is a process already underway. 'You damn liar!' Omegon roared, and looked away from t

ht trembled and opened. They saw what was inside it. It felt as if they were falling from orbit onto a burning world. Shere began to weep. This is our veridical testimony. This is the future as it will happen. The great war will erupt across the firmament and engulf the human race. The stars will go out. The Annihilator will rise. 'No,' said Omegon bluntly. His eyes were wide. You cannot deny it, Omegon. It is a process already underway. 'You damn liar!' Omegon roared, and looked away from the Acuity's vision. I cannot lie. I do not lie. The human race will become the absolute masters of teratogeny. They will create the greatest monster of all: Horus! Soneka's mind was numb. What he had witnessed made the sight of the giant copper craft seem unremarkable. 'How... how do we stop this?' he asked with a trembling voice. You don't, but the Alpha Legion Astartes is perfectly placed to control and direct it. 'Explain!' Alpharius demanded. The civil war brought against the Emperor by Horus Lupercal will end one of two ways. Either Horus will win, and Chaos will triumph, or the Emperor's forces will prevail and drive Chaos into retreat. 'The Alpha Legion has always, always, been for the Emperor,' Alpharius stated. The slab of silver light flickered. Regard, then, the future. Horus wins, and Chaos triumphs, a terrible prospect, but likely. The Cabal sees a scintilla of honour remaining in bright Lupercal. He will secretly hate himself for the atrocities committed in his name. If he wins, his fury will accelerate, along with his self-loathing. He will immolate the human species inside two or three generations. The self-destructive, redemptive urge in Horus will drive him to exterminate mankind in shame. Even his closest allies will war against him in a final armageddon. Chaos will burn brighter than ever before, and will then be extinguished. Its great victory will flare, and then gutter, as the dying Imperium takes it to the grave. The races of the galaxy will be spared, through the sacrifice of the human race. 'Horus will not be allowed to win!' Omegon retorted. Consider the alternative, Omegon primarch. This is what we have farseen. The Emperor will give his life to achieve victory. He will fall, at Terra, striking Horus down. This will be his destiny. See. The silver light shimmered. They saw the magnificence of the Golden Throne, and the howling rictus of the wizened cadaver locked inside it. 'Oh my lord!' Soneka cried. If the Emperor wins, stagnation will seize the Imperium. It will seek to perpetuate itself, over and again, across thousands of years, but it will decay, slowly and surely. It will decay, and gradually allow Chaos to seep back in and consume it. 'Victory... is defeat?' asked Alpharius softly. If the Emperor wins, Alpharius, Chaos will ultimately triumph. Ten, twenty thousand years of misery and rot will follow, until the Primordial Annihilator at last achieves ascendancy. 'This is the choice?' asked Omegon. He laughed bleakly. The slow, inexorable conquest of Chaos, or a brief period of terror and frenzy. Creeping damnation, or a bloody century or two as the human race rips itself apart, and expunges Chaos from the galaxy. This is the choice we present to you. The human race is a weapon. It can save the galaxy or destroy it. 'This is hardly a choice at all, Gahet,' said Alpharius. I pity you, human. It is not, but you are pragmatic, that is your abiding virtue. You see the long view. You make the hard decisions. Alpharius, the stagnant future must be denied. 'How do we do that?' asked Omegon. 'How do you propose we do that, you alien bastard?' It is perfectly simple, Omegon. The Alpha Legion must side with the rebels. You must ensure that Horus wins. 'Never!' snarled Omegon. 'It is unthinkable!' Alpharius yelled. Then see the result. See it. See it for yourselves. The silvery glow shivered again. They flinched. They saw it all, in the space of a moment. The Acuity showed them everything. Omegon and Alpharius staggered backwards, screaming. Shere burbled furiously, and then fell down, stone dead, his mind destroyed. Soneka sank to his knees and wept. ELEVEN 42 Hydra THEY CAME BACK out into luminous halls that would never seem so bright again. The future came with them, like a shroud. Alpharius and Omegon were silent and expressionless. Ashen, broken, Soneka carried Shere's corpse in his arms. The Astartes were waiting for them, their bolters still covering the furtive, whispering members of the Cabal. 'My lord?' Pech began. 'What did-' Alpharius raised a hand for silence. He looked at his twin, and they stared into each other's eyes for a long time. Soneka set Shere's body down on the deck. Rukhsana came over to him. 'Peto? Your face!' she whispered. 'What was it? What did you see?' Soneka shook his head. He couldn't speak. She put her arms around him. 'He saw the Acuity.' John Grammaticus was standing behind them. 'It is a terrible thing, isn't it, Peto? Quite terrible, and wonderful too.' 'Wonderful?' Soneka burst out, pulling away from Rukhsana. 'How can you call it that?' 'Because in all the horror, it offers a chance,' said John Grammaticus. 'One pure, simple chance to save, to spare, and to protect.' Soneka stared at him. 'I don't think much of the chance, John,' he replied. SLAU DHA STEPPED forward to face Alpharius. The Astartes followed him with their weapons, but he ignored the threat. 'Well?' he asked, in halting, thickly accented Low Gothic. 'What is your response, mon-keigh? Do you have the strength to make this choice, or are you just as weak and self-serving as the rest of your vermin species?' Alpharius gazed at the autarch levelly. 'I stand for the Emperor,' he replied. 'In all things, I am loyal to Him, and I cannot break that bond. He has many great ambitions, and the noblest of intentions, but I know that above all else, He is determined to stand firm against the rise of Chaos. He has always known the truth of it. The overthrow of the Primordial Annihilator is His greatest wish. So what I do, autarch, from this moment on, I will do for the Emperor.' Slau Dha nodded. He turned and walked away. 'Lord Namatjira continues to plague us with demands,' said Herzog. 'He is becoming quite agitated. He insists that you report to him immediately and make full disclosure.' 'Does he indeed?' Alpharius replied. Herzog nodded. 'He's beginning to make veiled threats too, my lord, accusations of treason or worse. I believe we must make some kind of response before he loses all patience and embarks upon a regrettable course of action.' 'We will make a response,' said Omegon. Alpharius glanced at his twin. 'If we are to prevail in the task ahead of us,' said Omegon, 'we must be secure and committed. We cannot let our hand be seen too early, or have our undertaking betrayed. Secrecy is, as always, our most potent weapon.' 'Agreed,' said Alpharius. He bowed his head, and was silent and pensive for a moment. 'So?' asked Omegon. Alpharius looked up him. 'Do it,' he said. 'STILL NO RESPONSE from the primarch or any of his officers, my lord,' announced the master of vox. 'His barge also refuses to acknowledge our repeated hails.' Namatjira nodded. The bridge of the Blamires had grown increasingly quiet. The tension was palpable. 'Repeat the message,' Namatjira ordered. 'Yes, my lord,' said the master of vox. The Lord Commander turned to Van Aunger. 'I'm going to withdraw to my chambers,' he said, 'and compose a statement of censure regarding the Astartes Alpha Legion. If we have not received a satisfactory reply by the time I'm done, you will send the statement directly to Terra.' 'Yes, my lord,' said Van Aunger. 'At that time, I will issue one final notice of intent, and if it is not answered, we will begin total bombardment of the surface zone.' 'Sir, I-' Van Aunger protested. 'Shut up and listen, Van Aunger!' Namatjira growled. 'Total bombardment of the surface zone. Furthermore, you will position appropriate heavy cruisers to challenge and cripple the battle-barge.' Van Aunger shook his head in dismay. 'They are Astartes, my lord. What you're proposing amounts to war against our own.' 'The Lord Commander does not believe they are our own any more, fleet master,' said Dinas Chayne. Namatjira turned to leave the bridge, but a call from the tracking officer stopped him. 'Sir, the Astartes battle-barge has just slipped high anchor.' 'What?' demanded Van Aunger, hurrying to the station. 'Show me.' 'It's coming about, sir,' the tracking officer gabbled. 'It's turning in towards the fleet formation.' 'Those duplicitous bastards,' murmured Namatjira. 'That's an attack vector!' Van Aunger cried. 'Full shields! Battle stations!' 'The barge has opened fire, sir!' a deck officer shouted. The Cantium has taken direct hits! The Solar Wind too! It's open to the void!' 'Return fire!' Van Aunger ordered. 'All vessels with a viable target solution on the barge Beta fire at will!' 'The carrier Loren has gone, sir! The Tancredi and the Loudon both report damage!' 'It's just one ship,' barked Namatjira. 'It's an Astartes battle-barge, you cretin!' Van Aunger spat at him. 'It's ploughing through the centre of the fleet like a hot knife!' The deck shook as the Blamires began to fire its primary batteries. 'Eight direct hits recorded on the target vessel,' the master of ordnance sang out. 'Yes!' crowed Namatjira, clenching a fist. 'The Beta is not slowing down,' said the tracking officer. 'Function does not seem to have been impaired.' A shrill siren began to sound, slicing through the battle klaxons. 'Teleport signature!' a bridge officer howled. 'Full spread of teleport flares throughout the midsection! We're being boarded!' INTERNAL HATCHES BLEW open in a welter of flame and flying metal. Bolter rounds ripped out of the smoke choking the hallway, and cut down crew personnel as they tried to flee. The Astartes appeared, striding relent

wing down,' said the tracking officer. 'Function does not seem to have been impaired.' A shrill siren began to sound, slicing through the battle klaxons. 'Teleport signature!' a bridge officer howled. 'Full spread of teleport flares throughout the midsection! We're being boarded!' INTERNAL HATCHES BLEW open in a welter of flame and flying metal. Bolter rounds ripped out of the smoke choking the hallway, and cut down crew personnel as they tried to flee. The Astartes appeared, striding relentlessly out of the fire, their purple armour reflecting the rippling flames. Their bolters roared as they switched left and right methodically, covering every side tunnel and passageway. 'Repulse! Repulse!' shouted Major General Dev, sword in hand, trying to rally two platoons of Hort infantry. 'Open fire!' The troopers began to blaze shots down the length of the hallway. Dev thought he glimpsed a purple figure staggering back, but bolt rounds seared out of the swirling smoke and destroyed two of the troopers beside him. Covered in their blood, Dev tried to pull his men back to cover. 'Keep firing!' he yelled. He grabbed his vox. 'Repulse squads to decks eight and nine! Heavy weapons! We need heavy weapons!' They drew back along the hall, and into an assembly chamber. Bolt rounds chased them, and cut down three more men. Forty Outremar heavies were running forwards through the chamber to support them. 'Up! Up! Up!' Dev yelled. 'Come on! Hold the fugging hatchway! Keep them back!' The deck shook with a series of loud blasts from somewhere below. 'Give me that fugging launcher!' Dev screamed, throwing down his sword and snatching the heavy weapon out of the hands of one of the Outremars. He began to pump rocket grenades out through the chamber hatch. Light blinked and flickered in the chamber behind them. Coalescing matter swirled, and twisted the eddying smoke. Six Alpha Legion Astartes materialised, their weapons firing on full auto. The major general and his men perished in seconds. 'SOMETHING'S HAPPENING,' SAID Tche urgently. 'Something bad.' Honen Mu gazed up at the sky. The bright flashes and sparks beyond the cloud cover were not lightning. It was orbital fire. The fleet had engaged. 'I can't raise the carrier, or the flagship,' the Jokers' vox officer reported. 'Keep trying,' she ordered. 'What is it?' asked Tiphaine. 'What's happening up there?' 'I don't know,' Mu replied. Everyone winced suddenly. 'Cept pain shot through the uxor and her aides. Its iridescent rim turning slowly, the giant copper disk rose up behind the crags of the Shivering Hills, and ascended straight up into the sky. It vanished into the low cloud. Mu sat down on a flat block of stone. It had begun to rain, fierce and cold. She could already smell the minute change in the air. Whatever purpose the atmospheric zone had been created for was done with. It was no longer needed, and it was being allowed to dissipate. She had no idea if the process would take minutes, days or weeks, but the caustic atmosphere of 42 Hydra Tertius would flood back and restore climactic equilibrium. Honen Mu perceived that no one would be coming for them. The Jokers, and all the other ground assault units, would still be in the zone when the poison storms of 42 Hydra Tertius reclaimed it. Then other decomposing remains would be left, drowned and scattered, across the lonely cubic rocks. TWELVE Blamires, orbital DINAS CHAYNE PLACED a firm hand on Namatjira's arm. 'Now, my lord,' he insisted. 'No, Dinas,' Namatjira snapped, pulling away. 'The security of the flagship can no longer be guaranteed,' said Chayne. 'The companions must escort you to the safety of your sanctuary launch.' The bridge was shaking. Every man at every station was shouting above the wail of the sirens. There was a distinct smell of smoke. 'Target it again!' bellowed Namatjira. 'Again!' 'We cannot break its shields,' Van Aunger yelled back. 'We just lost the Barbustion!' someone yelled. 'The Loudon is reported as on fire and drifting!' called another voice. Namatjira walked up to Van Aunger and slapped him hard across the face. 'Destroy that barge, you piece of shit!' Van Aunger recoiled, spitting blood from his lip. He balled his fist to swing back. Chayne took him by the throat. Van Aunger gagged. 'You will not raise your hand to the Lord Commander,' said Chayne. 'Complete your orders.' He let go. Van Aunger fell to the deck, gasping. 'All weapons,' he coughed. 'All weapons, sustained fire. Everything we've got, damn it, before-' 'Contact!' the tracking officer cried. 'A second contact!' They stared at the jumping graphics on the main display. A vessel was shown tracking towards the rear of the fleet mass. 'Where did it come from?' Van Aunger asked. 'It just appeared on the scopes, sir. It was concealed behind the planet.' 'That's another barge,' said Van Aunger in a low voice. 'That's another fugging battle-barge!' 'The Alpha,' whispered Namatjira. 'It has opened fire!' the tracking officer yelled. 'Now, my lord,' said Chayne. This time, Namatjira allowed Chayne to lead him away. 'NOISY... OUT THERE...' Bronzi muttered through the blood oozing out of his mouth. 'Shut it!' ordered the officer of the brig. He exchanged a worried look with his two assistants in their blood-spattered aprons. The thump of explosions and the crackle of gunfire was impossible to ignore. Bronzi began to laugh, but it turned into a wet, ragged cough. 'They're coming... they're coming for me, you see? I knew... I knew they would.' 'Shut up!' the officer snarled, and viciously tightened one of the cage screws. Bronzi screamed. He coughed out more blood. 'My name... my name is Hurtado Bronzi...' he wheezed. 'That's... that's all you're getting...' The cell door slammed open. Two figures in black bodygloves burst in. Peto Soneka shot the officer of the brig twice through the heart with his laspistol, and then pumped several more rounds into his twitching corpse. Thaner decapitated one of the assistants with an expert slice of his falx, and then drove the long blade through the other's belly. He tugged the weapon out. The man collapsed. 'Get him out of the restraint,' said Soneka. Thaner started to undo the heavy clasps and bolts. 'Peto?' 'Hang on, Hurt. You're a mess.' 'You... came for me.' 'A personal favour granted by the primarch,' Soneka said. 'You... came for me...' Bronzi repeated. 'We look after our own,' said Thaner. They pulled him out of the cage. He couldn't stand, so they carried him between them, his meaty arms, blood-soaked, around their shoulders. 'Hurry,' said Thaner. 'Signal the teleport,' said Soneka. Thaner nodded. 'We're going to get you out, Hurt,' said Soneka. 'We'll get you to the barge and patch you up. Just hang on.' 'It's... good to see you, Peto,' Bronzi murmured. 'And you, Hurt.' 'If it's so good... to see me... why do you look... so fugging grim?' 'Later,' said Peto Soneka. 'I'll tell you later.' ONE END OF the flagship's vast carrier deck was ablaze. Chayne and a squad of six Lucifer Blacks ran Namatjira through the smoke and across the wide deck space towards the armoured sanctuary launch. 'Prepare for immediate departure,' Chayne cried into his vox. The Lord Commander will be aboard in twenty seconds!' 'I don't believe he will,' said Alpharius. The primarch had emerged from the dense smoke pouring down the carrier space. He stood, gladius drawn, between the companions and the launch. The Lucifer Blacks were armed with laspistols and sabres. Without hesitation, they rushed him, firing as they came. Las-rounds pinged and flashed off Alpharius's armour. Some left scorched and dented holes. He drove in to meet the charge. One swing of his sword broke the back of the first Lucifer. Alpharius wheeled and crushed another's skull with his left fist. Blades sawed at him from all sides. He blocked with his sword, and the gauntlet of his left hand. A sabre shattered. The gladius stabbed clean through the chest of a companion, and ripped free. Blood spattered out in a wide arc across the deck. Blocking another sword stroke with his gladius, Alpharius delivered a crushing punch with his left hand that sent one of the remaining Lucifers flying backwards. He grabbed another, and broke his neck with one twist of his armoured fingers. Chayne swung his sabre in, and it was barely blocked by the primarch's sword. He altered his attack dynamic. Alpharius had to take a step backwards to defend against Chayne's extraordinary swordsmanship. The primarch parried and thrust, but Chayne dodged the strike, and ran his sabre into Alpharius's side. The tempered blade, as strong and sharp as any metal known to man, punched under the side of the power armour, through the segmented layering, and deep into Alpharius's torso. Alpharius looked down at the wedged blade. A tiny amount of blood oozed out. 'Hmh,' he murmured. He stared at Chayne, who knew he could not pull the sword out. 'That's all you get,' said Alpharius, and split him in half. Alpharius sheathed his gladius, and dragged the sabre out of his torso. He tossed it away, and walked through the litter of bodies to where Namatjira was kneeling on the deck. 'Please! My lord primarch! Please, I beg you!' Namatjira pleaded, his hands making a desperate namaste. Alpharius drew his boltgun. 'Why?' shrieked Namatjira. 'Why are you doing this?' 'For the Emperor,' said Alpharius, and pulled the trigger. EPILOGUE Cabal THE COPPER DISH spun out through the darkest part of the void. John Grammaticus walked its silent halls for the last time. 'Where are you going?' asked Slau Dha. 'Away. It's over. I'm done.' 'There will be other tasks.' 'Not for me,' said John Grammaticus. 'The Cabal is grateful for your efforts,' said Slau Dha. 'I bet that was hard to say,' Grammaticus replied, scornfully. He walked away from the autarch. 'You were successful, mon-keigh,' said the eldar lord. 'Why do you n

LOGUE Cabal THE COPPER DISH spun out through the darkest part of the void. John Grammaticus walked its silent halls for the last time. 'Where are you going?' asked Slau Dha. 'Away. It's over. I'm done.' 'There will be other tasks.' 'Not for me,' said John Grammaticus. 'The Cabal is grateful for your efforts,' said Slau Dha. 'I bet that was hard to say,' Grammaticus replied, scornfully. He walked away from the autarch. 'You were successful, mon-keigh,' said the eldar lord. 'Why do you not seem satisfied?' 'Because of the measure of my success,' said Grammaticus. 'I successfully signed the death notice of the human race.' 'John?' Slau Dha called out. 'You are heading in the direction of the external hatches. John?' John Grammaticus ignored him and kept walking. He felt he deserved it. It wouldn't be his first death, but he hoped it would be his last. ONE Bearers of the Word Let slip our cloaks The death of Cruithne OLYMPUS MONS BURNED bright and spat a plume of fire into the sky. Below the immense edifice of rock lay the primary sprawling metropolis of Mars. Track-ways and factorums bustled with red-robed acolytes, pursued dutifully by lobotomised servitors, bipedal machine-constructs, thronging menials and imperious skitarii. Domed hab-blisters, stark cooling towers and monolithic forge temples vied for position amidst the red dust. Soaring chimneys, pockmarked by millennia of endeavour, belched thick, acrid smoke into a burning sky. Hulking compressor houses vented steam high over the industrious swell like the breath of gods from arcane blasting kilns carved into the heart of the world; so vast, so fathomless, a labyrinthine conurbation as intricate and self-involved as its fervent populous. Such innumerate, petty meanderings were as inconsequential as a fragment of coal in the blast furnaces of the mountain forges, so great was the undertaking of that day. Few knew of its significance and fewer still witnessed the anonymous shuttle drone launch from the hidden caldera in the Valles Marineris. The drone surged into the stratosphere, piercing cloud-like crimson smog. Through writhing storms of purple-black pollution and wells of geothermal heat that hammered deep bruises into the sky, it breached the freezing mesosphere, the drone's outer shell burning white with effort. Plasma engines screaming, it drove on further into the thermosphere, the rays of the sun turning the layer into a blazing veil of relentless heat. Breaking the exosphere at last, the shuttle's engines eased. This was to be a one-way trip. Preset tracking beacons found their destination quickly. It was far beyond the red dust of Martian skies, far beyond prying eyes and questions. The shuttle was headed for Jupiter. THULE HAD ORBITED the shipyards of Jupiter for six millennia. Suspended high above the gaseous surface of its patron planet, it dwelled innocuously beyond the greater Galilean moons: Callisto, Ganymede, Europa and Io. It was an ugly chunk of rock, its gravity so weak that its form was misshapen and mutated. Such considerations were of little concern to the Mechanicum. What place did appearance and the aesthetic have in the heart of the machine? Precision, exactness, function, they were all that mattered. Though of little consequence, Thule was to become something more than just a barren hunk of rock. It had been hollowed out by massive boring machines and filled with conduits, vast tunnels and chambers. Millions of menials, drones and acolytes toiled in the subterranean labyrinth, so great was the deed that they were charged to perform. In effect, the dead core of Thule had become a giant factorum of forge temples and compressors, a massive gravity engine its beating heart. This construction extended from the surface via metal tendrils that supported blister domes, clinging like limpets to the rock, and pneumatic lifter arrays. Thule was no mere misshapen asteroid. It was an orbital shipyard of Jupiter, and one that had guests. 'WE STAND UPON the brink of a new era.' Through the vox-amplifier built into his gorget, Zadkiel's voice resonated powerfully in the gargantuan chamber. Behind him, the exo-skeletal structure of Thule shipyard loomed large and forbidding against the cold reaches of space. Here, within one of the station's blister domes, he and his charges were protected from the ravages of the asteroid's surface. Solar winds scoured the rock, bleaching it white, the inexorable erosion creating a miasma of nitrogen-thick rolling dust. 'A red dawn is rising and it will drown our enemies in blood. Heed the power of the Word and know it is our destiny,' Zadkiel bellowed as he delivered the sermon, animated and fervent upon a dais of obsidian. Scripture carved into his patrician features and bald skull added unneeded gravitas to Zadkiel's oratory. His grey, turbulent eyes conveyed vehemence and surety. His fists encased in baroque gauntlets, Zadkiel gripped the edge of the lectern and assumed an insistent posture. He wore his full battle armour, a fledging suit of crimson ceramite yet to bear the scars of conflict. Replete with the horns of Colchis, in honour of the primarch's home world and the symbol of a proud and distinguished heritage, it represented the new era of which Zadkiel spoke. The Word Bearers Legion had been denied their true nature for too long. Now, they had shed the simulacra of obedience and capitulation, the trappings of compromise and denial. Their new power armour, fresh from the forges of Mars and etched with the epistles of Lorgar, was a testament to that treaty. The grey-granite suits of feigned ignorance were destroyed in the heart of Olympus Mons. Clad in the vestments of enlightenment, they would be reborn. A vast ocean of crimson stretched before Zadkiel, as he stood erect behind his pulpit of stone. A thousand Astartes watched him dutifully, a full Chapter split into ten companies, each a hundred strong, their captains to the fore. All heeded the Word. The Legionaries were resplendent in their power armour, bolters held at salute in their armoured fists, clutched like holy idols. Zadkiel's suit was the mirror-image of those of his warriors, although sheaves of prayer parchment, scorched trails of vellum writ over with litanies of battle, and the bloodied pages ripped from sermons of retribution were affixed to it. When he spoke, it was with the zealous conviction of the rhetoric he wore. 'Heed the power of the Word and know this is our destiny.' The congregation roared in affirmation, their voices as one. 'We have our lance of vengeance. Let it strike out the heart of Guilliman and his weakling Legion,' Zadkiel bellowed, swept up by his own vitriolic proclamations. 'Long have we waited for retribution. Long have we dwelt in shadow.' Zadkiel stepped forward, his iron-hard gaze urging his warriors to greater fervour. 'Now is the time,' he said, smashing his clenched fist down upon the lectern to punctuate the remark. 'We shall cast off falsehoods and the shackles of our feigned obeisance,' he snarled as if the words left a bitter taste in his mouth, 'let slip our cloaks and reveal our true glory! 'Brothers, we are Bearers of the Word, the sons of Lorgar. Let the impassioned words of our dark apostles be as poison blades in the hearts of the False Emperor's lapdogs. Witness our ascension,' he said, turning to face the great arch behind him. A vast ship dominated the view through the hardened plexi-glass of the blister dome. It was surrounded by massively over-engineered machinery, as if the scaffold supporting the hordes of menials and enginseers had been built around it, and thick trails of reinforced hosing bled away the pneumatic pressure required to keep the gargantuan vessel elevated. Cathedra soared from the ship's ornate hull, their spires groping for the stars like crooked fingers. So armoured, it could withstand even a concerted assault from a defence laser battery. In fact, it had been forged with that very purpose in mind. Its blunt bullet prow, and the way its flanks splayed out to encompass the enormous midsection, spoke of strength and precision. Three massive crenellated decks extended from it like the sharpened prongs of a stygian trident. Twin banks of laser batteries gleamed in dull gunmetal down its broadsides. A single volley would have annihilated the loading bay and everyone in it. Cannon mounts sat idle on angular blocks of metal filled with viewpoints that hinted at the myriad chambers within. The rapacious bristle of the defensive turrets along the dorsal and ventral spines, and the dark indentations of the torpedo tubes, shimmered with violent intent. Spiked antenna towers punched outward from multitudinous sub-decks, interspersed with further weapon arrays and torpedo bays. The ship's ribbed belly shimmered like oil and was replete with dozens of fighter hangars. At the stern, the huge cowlings of the exhausts flared over the deep glow of the warming engines, primed to unleash enough thrust to force the warship away from Thule. Like chrome hexagons, the engine vents were so vast and terrible that to stare into their dormant hearts was to engulf all sense and reason in a fathomless darkened void. Finally, sheets of shielding peeled off the prow, revealing a massive figurehead: a book, wreathed in flame, wrought from gold and silver. Words of Lorgar's choosing were engraved on the pages in letters many metres high. It was the greatest and largest vessel ever forged, unique in every way and powerful beyond reckoning. Such was the sight of it, like some creature born from the depths of an infinite and ancient ocean, that even Zadkiel fell silent. 'Our spear is made ready,' Zadkiel said at last, his voice choked with awe. 'The Furious Abyss.' This ship, this mighty ship, had been made for them, and here in the Jovian shipyards its long-awaited construction had finally reached an end. This was to be a blow against the Emperor, a blow for H

essel ever forged, unique in every way and powerful beyond reckoning. Such was the sight of it, like some creature born from the depths of an infinite and ancient ocean, that even Zadkiel fell silent. 'Our spear is made ready,' Zadkiel said at last, his voice choked with awe. 'The Furious Abyss.' This ship, this mighty ship, had been made for them, and here in the Jovian shipyards its long-awaited construction had finally reached an end. This was to be a blow against the Emperor, a blow for Horus. None could know of the vessel's existence until it was too late. Steps had been taken to ensure that remained the case. The launch from little known, and even less regarded, Thule was part of that deceit, but only part. Zadkiel turned on his heel to face his warriors. 'Let us wield it!' he extolled with vociferous intensity. 'Death to the False Emperor!' 'Death to the False Emperor,' his congregation replied like a violent blast wave. 'Horus exultant!' Discipline broke down. The assembled throng bellowed and roared as if possessed, smashing their fists against their armour. Oaths of hatred and of devout loyalty were shouted fervently and the building sound rose to an unearthly clamour. Zadkiel closed his eyes amidst the maelstrom of devotion and savoured, drank deep of the zealotry. When he opened his eyes again, he faced the archway and the landscape of the Furious Abyss. Smiling grimly, he thought of what the vessel represented, and he imagined its awesome destructive potential. There was none other like it in all of the Imperium: none with the same firepower; none with the same resilience. It had been forged with one deliberate mission in mind and it would need all of its strength and endurance to achieve it: the annihilation of a Legion. IN THE DARKER recesses of the massive loading bay, now an impromptu cathedra, others watched and listened. Unfeeling eyes regarded the magnificent array of soldiery from the shadows: the product of the Emperor's ingenuity, even perhaps his hubris, and felt nothing. 'Curious, my master, that this Astartes should exhibit such an emotional response to our labours.' 'They are flesh, Magos Epsolon, and as such are governed by petty concerns,' remarked Kelbor-Hal to the bent-backed acolyte stooped alongside him. The fabricator general had purposely taken the long journey from Mars to Thule aboard his personal barge. He had done so under the pretence of a tour of the Jovian shipyards, overseeing atmospheric mining on the surface of Jupiter, reviewing the operations on Io, and observing vehicle and armour production within the hive cities of Europa. All of which would explain his presence on Thule. The truth was that the fabricator general wanted to witness this momentous event. It was not pride that drove him to do it, for such a thing was beyond one so close to absolute communion with the Omnissiah, rather it was out of the compulsion to mark it. One endeavour was much like any other to the fabricator general, the requirements of form and function outweighing the need for ceremony and majesty. Yet, here he stood swathed in black robes, a symbol of his allegiance to the Warmaster and his commitment to his cause. Had he not sanctioned Master Adept Urtzi Malevolus to forge Horus's armour? Had he not also allowed the commissioning of vast quantities of materiel, munitions and the machines of war? Yes, he had done all of this. He had done it because it suited his purposes, the burgeoning desire, or rather intrinsic programming, within the servants of the great machine-god to gradually become one with their slumbering deity. Horus had unfettered Mars in its pursuit of the divine machine, countermanding the Emperor's chastening. For Kelbor-Hal the question of his allegiance and that of the Mechanicum was one of logic, and had required mere nanoseconds of computation. 'He sees beauty where we see function and form,' the fabricator general continued. 'Strength, Magos Epsolon, strength made through fire and steel, that is what we have wrought.' Magos Epsolon, also robed in black, nodded in agreement, grateful for his overlord's enlightenment. 'They are human, after a fashion,' the fabricator general explained, 'and we are as far removed from that weakness as the cogitators aboard that ship.' Immensely tall, his ribcage exposed through the ragged edge of his robes with ribbed pipes and tendril-like servos replacing organs, veins and flesh, Kelbor-Hal was anything but human. He no longer wore a face, preferring a cold steel void implanted with a curious array of sunken green orb-like diodes in place of eyes. A set of mechadendrite claws and arms stretched from his back, like those of an arachnid, replete with blades, saws and other arcane machinery. His voice was devoid of all emotion, synthesised through a vox-implant that droned with artificial coldness and indifference. As Kelbor-Hal watched the phalanx of Astartes boarding the ship through the tube-like umbilical cords that snaked from the vessel's loading ramps to the blister dome, their bombastic leader swelling with phlegmatic pride, the internal chron within his memory engrams alerted him that time was short. Dully, the Furious Abyss's thrusters growled to life and the great vessel strained vertically against the lifter clamps. A low, yet insistent hum of building power from the awakening plasma engines followed, discernible even through the plexi-glass of the blister dome. With the Astartes and their crew aboard, the Furious Abyss was preparing to launch. A data-probe snicked from the end of one of the fabricator general's twitching mechadendrites and fed into a cylindrical console that had emerged from the hangar floor. Interfacing with the device, Kelbor-Hal inputted the code sequence required to launch the ship. A series of icons upon the face of the console lit up and a slowly building hum of power resonated throughout the launch chamber. Lead Magi Lorvax Attemann, part of the coterie of acolytes and attendant menials who had gathered to observe the launch, was permitted to activate the first sequence of explosions that would release the Furious Abyss. He did so without ceremony. Lines of explosions, like stitches of fire, rippled along the side of the dock. Lifters, assembly arrays and webs of scaffolding fell away into the darkness, where magnetic tugs waited to gather the wreckage. Slabs of radiation shielding lifted from the ship's hull. The last dregs in the refuelling barges ignited in bright ribbons of fire. The plasma engines roared, loud and throaty, scorching a blue swathe of fire and heat across the surface of Thule. A new star was rising in the darkling sky, so terrible and wonderful that it defied expression. It was a thunderous metal god given form, and it would light the galaxy aflame with its wrath. At last the Furious Abyss was underway. As Kelbor-Hal watched it lift majestically into the firmament and registered the heavy thrum of its engines, a single tiny vestige of emotion blinked into existence within him. It was an ephemeral thing, barely quantifiable. Accessing internal cogitators, interfacing with his personal memory engrams, the fabricator general found its expression. It was awe. THE DRONE SHIP waited deep within the heart of Thule, accessed through a series of clandestine tunnels and lesser-known chambers. As it made its approach, the still toiling menials and servitors paid it no notice, programme wafers ensuring that they remained intent on their work. So, the shuttle passed them by slowly, unchallenged, unseen. Once through the myriad tunnels, the drone waited for several hours docked in a small antechamber that fed off the vast gravity engine at the asteroid's core. An hour earlier, Fabricator General Kelbor-Hal's personal barge had departed the station, the head of the Mechanicum leaving his subordinate, Magos Epsolon, to organise the clean up after the launch of the Furious Abyss. It was to be the last vessel that left Thule. Pre-programmed activation protocols abruptly came on line in the servitor pilot slaved to the drone shuttle. A mix of chemicals, separated within the body of the servitor pilot became merged as they were fed into a shared chamber. Once combined, the harmless chemicals became a volatile solution capable of incredible destructive force. A second after the solution became fully merged a small incendiary charge ignited their fury. The immediate firestorm engulfed the ship and spread out, the growing conflagration billowing down tunnels and through access pipes, incinerating labouring menials. When it struck the gravity engine the resultant explosions began a cataclysmic chain reaction. It took only minutes for the asteroid to break into flame-wreathed fragments. There was no time to flee to safety and no survivors. Every adept, servitor and menial was burned to ash. The debris field would spread far and wide, but the asteroid was far enough away, locked at the farthest point of its horseshoe orbit, not to trouble Jupiter. It would not escape notice, but it was also of such little consequence that any investigation would take months to effect and ratify. None would discover the thing that had been wrought upon the asteroid's surface until it was much, much too late. Much technology was lost in Thule's destruction. It was a steep price to pay for absolute and certain secrecy. In the end, the fabricator general's will had been done. He had willed the death of Thule. TWO Hektor's fate Brothers of Ultramar In the lair of the wolf IT WAS DARK in the reclusium. Brother-Captain Hektor kept his breathing measured as he prosecuted another thrust with his short-blade. He followed with a smash from his combat shield and then twisted his body out of the committed attack to make a feint. Crouching low, blackness surrounding him in the chapel-like antechamber, he spun on his heel and repeated the manoeuvre in the opposite direction: swipe, thrust, block, thrust;

TWO Hektor's fate Brothers of Ultramar In the lair of the wolf IT WAS DARK in the reclusium. Brother-Captain Hektor kept his breathing measured as he prosecuted another thrust with his short-blade. He followed with a smash from his combat shield and then twisted his body out of the committed attack to make a feint. Crouching low, blackness surrounding him in the chapel-like antechamber, he spun on his heel and repeated the manoeuvre in the opposite direction: swipe, thrust, block, thrust; smash, feint, turn and repeat, over and over like a physical mantra. With each successive pass he added a flourish: a riposte here, a leaping thrust there. The cycles increased in pace and intensity, the darkness enveloping him, honing his focus, building to an apex of speed and complexity, at which point Hektor would gradually slow until at peace once more. Standing stock-still, maintaining control of his breathing, Hektor came to the end of the training regimen. 'Light,' he commanded, and a pair of ornate lamps flared into life on either wall, illuminating a spartan chamber. Dressed in only sandals and a loincloth, Hektor's body was cast in a sheen of sweat that glistened in the artificial lamplight. The curves of his enhanced musculature were accentuated within its glow. Indulging in a moment of introspection, Hektor regarded the span of his hands. They were large and strong, and bereft of any scars. He made a fist with the right. 'I am the Emperor's sword,' he whispered and then clenched his left. 'Through me is his will enacted.' Two robed acolytes waited patiently in the shadows, cowls concealing their augmetics and other obvious deformities. Even without being compared to the tall slab of muscle that was an Astartes, they were bent-backed and diminutive. Hektor ignored their obsequiousness as he released the straps affixing the combat shield to his arm and handed it over along with his short-blade to the acolytes. He looked at the ground as his attendants retreated silently into the shadow's penumbra at the edge of the room. An engraved 'U' was carved into the centre of the chamber, chased in silver on a circular field of blue. Hektor stood in the middle of it, in exactly the position that he had started. He allowed himself a smile as he beckoned his attendants to bring forth his armour. A great day was fast approaching. It had been a long time since he had seen his fellow Ultramarines. He and five hundred of his battle-brothers had been far from their native Ultramar for three years, as they helped prosecute the Emperor's Great Crusade to bring enlightenment to the galaxy and repatriate the lost colonies of man by fighting the Vektates of Arkenath. The Vektate were a deviant culture, an alien overmind that had enslaved the human populous of Arkenath. Hektor and his warrior brothers had shattered the yoke that bound their unfortunate human kin and in so doing had destroyed the Vektates. The human populace owed fealty to the Imperium, and demonstrated it gladly when they were free of tyranny. It had been a grim war. The Fist had been involved in a brutal ship-to-ship action against the enemy, but had prevailed. Repairs had been conducted on Arkenath, as well as the requisitioning of a small tithe of men, eager to venture beyond the stars, to help replenish elements of the ship's crew. Once the war was over, Hektor and his battle-brothers had been summoned to the Calth system and the region of space known as Ultramar. At long last, they would be reunited with their brothers and their primarch. Hektor was full of pride at the thought of seeing Roboute Guilliman again, his gene-father and noble leader of the Ultramarines Legion. The deciphered messages from the Fist of Macragge's astropaths had been clear. The Warmaster himself, mighty Horus, had ordered the Legion to the Veridan system. Guilliman had ratified the Warmaster's edict and instructed all disparate Ultramarine forces to muster at Calth. There they would take on supplies and rendezvous with their brothers in preparation to launch a strike on an ork invasion force besieging the worlds of neighbouring Veridan. A short detour to the Vangelis space port to take on some more battle-brothers stationed there and the campaign to liberate Veridan would be underway. FULLY ARMOURED, HEKTOR strode down an access tunnel and headed towards the bridge. His ship, the Fist of Macragge, was a Lunar-class battleship, named in honour of the Ultramarines' home world. Deck hands, comms-officers and other Legion serfs bustled past the Astartes down the cramped confines of one of the vessel's main thoroughfares. The faint hiss of escaping pressure greeted Hektor's arrival on the bridge as the automated portal allowed him entry, before sliding shut in his wake. 'Captain on the bridge,' bellowed Ivan Cervantes, the ship's helmsmaster. Cervantes was a human, and despite being dwarfed by the mighty Astartes, he remained straight-backed and proud before the glorious countenance of his captain. Cervantes snapped a sharp salute with an augmetic hand; his original body part had been lost on Arkenath, together with his left eye, during the boarding action against the Vektates. The bionic replacement glowed dull red in the half-light of the bridge. Screen illumination from various consoles threw stark slashes into the gloom, the activation icons upon them grainy and emerald. Crewmen, hard-wired directly into the vessel's controls from access ports bolted into their shaved scalps worked with silent diligence. Others stood, consulting data-slates, observing sensor readings and otherwise maintaining the Fist of Macragge's smooth and uninterrupted passage through real space. Lobotomised servitors performed and monitored the ship's mundane functions with precise, circadian rhythm. 'As you were, helmsmaster,' Hektor replied, climbing a short flight of steps that led to a raised dais at the forefront of the bridge, and sitting down at a large command throne at its centre. 'How far are we from Vangelis space port?' Hektor asked. 'We expect to arrive in approximately-' Warning icons flashed large and insistent on the forward viewport in front of the command throne, interrupting the helmsmaster in mid-flow. 'What is it?' Hektor demanded, his tone calm and level. Cervantes hastily consulted a console beside him. 'Proximity warning,' he explained quickly, still poring over the data that had started churning from the console. Hektor leaned forward in his command throne, his tone urgent. 'Proximity warning? From what? We are alone in real space.' 'I know, sire. It just... appeared.' Cervantes was frantically consulting more data as the organised routine of the bridge was thrust into immediate and urgent action. 'It's another ship,' said the helmsmaster. 'It's huge. I've never seen such a vessel!' 'Impossible,' barked Hektor. 'What of the sensorium, and the astropaths? How could it have got so close to us, so quickly?' he demanded. 'I don't know, sire. There was no warning,' said Cervantes. 'Bring it up on the viewscreen,' Hektor ordered. Blast shields retracted smoothly from the front viewscreen, revealing a swathe of real space beyond. There, like black on night, was the largest ship Hektor had ever seen. It was shaped like a long blade with three massive decks that speared out from the hull like prongs on a trident. Points of intense red light flared in unison down the vessel's port side as it turned to show the Fist of Macragge its broadside. The light illuminated more of the ship, so that it stretched the entire length of the viewscreen. It was even larger than Hektor had first assumed. Even several kilometres from the Fist of Macragge, it was rendered massive in the glow of its laser batteries 'Name of Terra,' Hektor gasped when he realised what was happening. The terrible vessel that had somehow foiled all of their sensors, even their astropathic warning systems, was firing. 'Raise forward arc shields!' Hektor cried, as the first impact wave struck the bridge. A bank of consoles on the left suddenly exploded outward, shredding a servitor with shrapnel and all but immolating one of the deck crew. The bridge shuddered violently. Crewmen clutched their consoles to stay upright. Servitor drones went immediately into action dousing sporadic fires with foam. Hektor gripped the arms of his command throne as critical warning klaxons howled in the tight space, and crimson lightning shone like blood as emergency power immediately kicked in. 'Forward shields,' Hektor cried again as a secondary impart wave threw the Astartes from his command throne. 'Helmsmaster Cervantes, at once!' Hektor urged, getting to his feet. No answer came. Ivan Cervantes was dead, the left side of his body horribly burned by one of the many fires erupting all across the bridge. What was left of the crew worked frantically to reroute power, close off compromised sections and find firing solutions so that they might at least retaliate. 'Somebody get me power, lances, anything!' Hektor roared. It was utter chaos as the carefully drilled battle routines were made a mockery of by the sudden and unexpected attack. 'We have sustained critical damage, sire,' explained one of Cervantes's subordinates, blood running freely down the side of his face. Behind him, Hektor saw other crewmen writhing in agony. Some were prone on the bridge floor and not moving at all. 'We're dead in the void.' Hektor's face was grim in the gory glow of the bridge, a burst of sparks from a shorting console casting his features in stark relief. 'Get me an astropath.' 'A distress call, sire?' asked the crewman, fighting to be heard above the chaotic din. The silhouettes of his colleagues rushed back and forth to stem the damage, desperately trying to restore order in spite of the fact that it was hopeless. 'We are beyond help,' Hektor uttered with finality as the Fist of Macragge's systems started failing. 'Send a warning.'

n the gory glow of the bridge, a burst of sparks from a shorting console casting his features in stark relief. 'Get me an astropath.' 'A distress call, sire?' asked the crewman, fighting to be heard above the chaotic din. The silhouettes of his colleagues rushed back and forth to stem the damage, desperately trying to restore order in spite of the fact that it was hopeless. 'We are beyond help,' Hektor uttered with finality as the Fist of Macragge's systems started failing. 'Send a warning.' CESTUS KNELT IN silent reflection within one of the sanctums in the Omega quarter of Vangelis space port. The vast orbital station was built into a large moon and based around several hexagonal blisters into which docks, communion temples and muster halls were housed. A labyrinthine tramway connected each and every location of Vangelis, which was organised into a series of courtyards or quarters to make navigation rudimentary. The bustling space port was crammed with traders, naval crewmen and mechwrights. A large proportion of its area had been given over to the Astartes. Vangelis was a galactic waymarker and small numbers of Astartes involved in more discreet missions used it as a gathering point. Once their objective was completed, they would congregate at one of the many muster halls designated for their Legion and await pick-up by their battleships. Though little more than a company from any given Legion would be expecting transit at any one time, sectors Kappa through Theta were at the complete disposal of the Legions. Few non-Astartes were ever seen there, barring ubiquitous Legion serfs and attendants, though occasionally remembrancers would be granted brief access in concordance with maintaining good relations with the human populous. Cestus drank in the darkness of the sanctum and used it to clear his thoughts. He was fully armoured, and pressed his left gauntlet against the sweeping, silver 'U' emblazoned on the cuirass of his power armour, symbol of the great Ultramarines Legion, whilst keeping his head bowed. Soon, he thought. He and nine of his battle-brothers had been on Vangelis for over a month. They had been acting as honour guard for an Imperial dignitary at nearby Ithilrium and were consequently separated from the rest of their Legion. Their sabbatical had passed slowly for Cestus. At first, he had thought it curious and enlightening to mix with the human population of the space port, but even bereft of his power armour and swathed in Legionary robes he was greeted with awe and fear. Unlike some of his brothers, it wasn't a reaction that he relished. Cestus had kept to Astartes quarters after that. The fact that transit was inbound to extract them from Vangelis and ferry him and his brothers to Ultramar and their primarch and Legion filled Cestus with relief. He longed to embark on the Great Crusade again, to be out on the battlefields of a heathen galaxy, bringing order and solidity. Word had reached them that the Warmaster Horus had already departed for the planet of Isstvan III to quell a rebellion against the Imperium. Cestus was envious of his Legion brothers, the World Eaters, Death Guard and Emperor's Children who were en route with the Warmaster. Though Cestus craved the esoteric and was fascinated by culture and erudite learning, he was a warrior. It had been bred into him. To deny it was to deny the very genetic construct of his being. He could no more do that than he could go against the will and patriarchal wisdom of the Emperor. Such a thing could not be countenanced. So, Cestus sought the seclusion of the meditative sanctum. 'You have no need to genuflect on my account, brother.' A deep voice came from behind Cestus, who was on his feet and facing the intruder in one swift motion. 'Antiges,' said Cestus, sheathing his short-blade at his hip. Normally, Cestus would have rebuked his battle-brother for such a disrespectful remark, but he had formed an especially strong bond with Antiges, one that transcended rank, even of the Ultramarines. It was a bond that had served the battle-brothers well, their whole much more than the sum of their parts as it was for the Legion in its entirety. Where Cestus was governed by emotion but prone to caution, Antiges was at times choleric and insistent, and less intense than his brother-captain. Together, they provided one another with balance. Battle-Brother Antiges was similarly attired to his fellow Astartes. The sweeping bulk and curve of his blue power armour reflected that of Cestus, together with the statutory icons of the Ultramarines. Pauldrons, vambrace and gorget were all trimmed with gold, and a gilt brocade hung from Antiges's left shoulder pad to the right breast of his armour's corselet. Neither Astartes wore a helmet; Antiges's fastened to a clasp at his belt, whilst Cestus's head was framed by a silver laurel over his blond hair, his battle helm cradled beneath his arm. 'A little on edge, brother-captain?' Antiges's slate-grey eyes, the mirror of his closely cropped skull, flashed. 'Do you desire to be out amongst the stars, commanding part of the fleet again?' As well as a company captain, Cestus also bore the rank of fleet commander. During his sojourn on Ithilrium that aspect of his duty had been briefly suspended. Antiges was right, he did desire to be back with the fleet, fighting the enemies of the Emperor. 'At the prospect of you lurking in the shadows, waiting to reveal yourself,' Cestus returned sternly and stepped forward. He managed to maintain the chastening expression for only a moment before he smiled broadly and clapped Antiges on the shoulder. 'Well met, brother,' Cestus said, clasping Antiges's forearm firmly. 'Well met,' Antiges replied, returning the greeting. 'I have come to take you away from here, brother-captain,' he added. 'We are mustering for the arrival of the Fist of Macragge.' IT WAS A short journey from the sanctum of Communion Temple Omega to the dock where the rest of Cestus's and Antiges's battle-brothers awaited them. A narrow promenade, lined with ferns and intricate statuettes, quickly gave way to a wide plaza with multiple exits. The Ultramarines, who spoke with warm camaraderie, took the western fork that would eventually lead them to the dock. Turning a corner, at the lead of the two Astartes, Cestus was hit square in the chest. The impact, though surprising, moved the Astartes not at all. He stared down at what had struck him. Quivering amidst a bundle of tangled robes, a litho-slate clasped reassuringly in his hands, was a scholarly-looking human. 'What is the meaning of this?' Antiges demanded at once. The pale scholar cowered beneath the towering Astartes, shrinking before his obvious power. He was sweating profusely, and used the sleeve of his robe to wipe his head before casting a glance back in the direction he had come from in spite of the monolithic warriors in front of him. 'Speak!' Antiges pressed. 'Be temperate, my brother,' Cestus counselled calmly, resting his hand lightly on Antiges's shoulder pad. The gesture appeased the Ultramarine, who backed down a little. 'Tell us,' Cestus urged the scholar gently, 'who are you and what has put you in this distemper?' 'Tannhaut,' the scholar said through ragged breaths, 'Remembrancer Tannhaut. I only wanted to compose a saga of his deeds, when a madness took him,' he blathered. 'He is a savage, a savage I tell you!' Cestus exchanged an incredulous look with Antiges, who turned back to fix the remembrancer with his imperious gaze once more. 'What are you talking about?' Tannhaut pointed a quivering finger towards the arched entrance of a muster hall. A stylised rendering of a lupine head was etched into a stone panel beside it. Cestus frowned when he saw it, knowing full well who else was on the space port with them at that time. 'The sons of Russ.' Antiges groaned inwardly. 'Guilliman give us strength,' he said, and the two Ultramarines strode off in the direction of the muster hall, leaving Remembrancer Tannhaut quailing behind them. BRYNNGAR STURMDRENG'S BOOMING laughter echoed loudly around the muster hall as he felled another Blood Claw. 'Come, whelplings!' he bellowed, taking a long pull from the tankard in his hand. Most of the frothing, brown liquid within spilled down his immense beard, which was bound in a series of intricate knots, and swept over the grey power armour of his Legion. 'I've yet to sharpen my fangs.' In recognition of the fact, Brynngar displayed a pair of long incisors in a feral grin. The Blood Claw Brynngar had just knocked prone and half-conscious crawled groggily on his belly in a vain attempt to get clear of the ebullient Wolf Guard. 'We're not done yet, pups,' Brynngar said, clamping a massive armoured fist around the Blood Claw's ankle and swinging him across the room one-handed to smash into what was left of the furnishings. The three Blood Claws left standing amongst the carnage of broken chairs and tables, and spilled drink and victuals, eyed the Wolf Guard warily as they began to surround him. The two facing Brynngar leapt in to attack, their shorter fangs bared. The Wolf Guard drunkenly dodged the swipe of the first and hammered a brutal elbow into the Blood Claw's gut. He took the punch of the second on his rock-hard chin before smashing him to the floor with his considerable bulk. A third Blood Claw came from behind, but Brynngar was ready and merely sidestepped, allowing the young warrior to overshoot, before delivering a punishing uppercut into his cheek. 'Never attack downwind,' the bawdy Wolf Guard told the Blood Claw rolling around on the floor. 'I'll always smell you coming,' he added, tapping his flaring nostrils for emphasis. 'As for you,' Brynngar said, turning on the one who had struck him, 'you hit like you're from Macragge!' The Wolf Guard laughed out loud, before stomping a ceramite boot in mock salute of his triumph on top of the last Blood Claw,

he young warrior to overshoot, before delivering a punishing uppercut into his cheek. 'Never attack downwind,' the bawdy Wolf Guard told the Blood Claw rolling around on the floor. 'I'll always smell you coming,' he added, tapping his flaring nostrils for emphasis. 'As for you,' Brynngar said, turning on the one who had struck him, 'you hit like you're from Macragge!' The Wolf Guard laughed out loud, before stomping a ceramite boot in mock salute of his triumph on top of the last Blood Claw, who had yet to stir from unconsciousness. 'Is that so?' a stern voice from the entranceway asked. Brynngar swung his gaze in the direction of the speaker, and his one good eye brightened at once. 'A fresh challenge,' he cried, swigging from his tankard and delivering a raucous belch. 'Come forth,' Brynngar said, beckoning. 'I think you've had enough.' 'Then let us see.' The Wolf Guard gave a feral grin and stepped off the inert Blood Claw. 'Tell me this,' he added, stalking forward, 'can you catch?' CESTUS HURLED HIMSELF aside at the last moment as the broad-backed chair flew at him, smashing into splinters against the wall of the muster hall. When he looked up again, he saw a broad and burly Wolf Guard coming towards him. The Astartes was an absolute brute, his grey power armour wreathed in pelts and furs, numerous fangs and other feral fetishes hanging from silver chains. He wore no helmet, his long and ragged hair swathed in sweat together with a beard drenched in Wulfsmeade, swaying freely about his thick shoulders. 'Stay back,' Cestus advised Antiges as he hauled himself to his feet. 'Be my guest,' the other Ultramarine replied from his prone position. Adopting a crouching stance as dictated by the fighting regimen of Roboute Guilliman, Cestus rushed towards the Space Wolf. Brynngar lunged at the Ultramarine, who barely dodged the sudden attack. Using his low posture to sweep under and around the blow, Cestus rammed a quick forearm smash into the Space Wolf's elbow, tipping the rest of what was in the tankard over his face. Brynngar roared and came at the Ultramarine with renewed vigour. Cestus ducked the clumsy two-armed bear hug aimed at him and used Brynngar's momentum to trip the Space Wolf hard onto his rump. The manoeuvre almost worked, but Brynngar turned out of his trip, casting aside the empty tankard and using his free hand to support his body. He twisted, using the momentum to carry him, and landed a fierce punch to Cestus's midriff when he came back too swiftly for the Ultramarine to block. An overhand blow followed as Brynngar sought to chain his attacks, but Cestus moved out of the striking arc and unleashed a fearsome uppercut that sent Brynngar hurtling backwards. With the sound of more crushed furniture, the Space Wolf got to his feet, but Cestus was already on him, pressing his advantage. He rained three quick, flat-handed strikes against Brynngar's nose, ear and solar plexus. Staggered after the barrage, the Wolf Guard was unable to respond as Cestus drove forward and hooked both arms around his torso. Using the weight of the attack to propel him, Cestus roared and flung Brynngar bodily across the muster hall into a tall stack of barrels. As he moved backwards, Cestus watched as the rack holding the barrels came loose and they crashed down on top of Brynngar. 'Had enough?' Cestus asked through heaving breaths. Dazed and defeated, and covered in foaming Wulfsmeade, a brew native to Fenris and so potent that it could render an Astartes insensible should he drink enough, Brynngar looked up at the victorious Ultramarine and smiled, showing his fangs. 'There are worse ways to lose a fight,' he said, wringing out his beard and supping the Wulfsmeade squeezed from it. Antiges, standing alongside his fellow battle-brother, made a face. 'Up you get,' said Cestus, hauling Brynngar to his feet. 'Fair greetings, Cestus,' said the Wolf Guard, when he was up, crushing Cestus in a mighty bear hug. 'And to you, Antiges,' he added. The other Ultramarine backed away a step and nodded. Brynngar put his arms down and nodded back with a broad smile. 'It has been a while, lads.' It was on Carthis during the uprising of the Kolobite Empire in the early years of the crusade that the three Astartes had first fought together. Brynngar had saved Cestus's life that day and had been blinded in one eye for his trouble. The venerable wolf had fought the Kolobite drone-king single-handed. The mighty rune axe, Felltooth, which Brynngar wielded to this day, had part of its blade forged from the creature's mandible claw by the rune-priests and artificers of Fenris in recognition of the deed. 'Indeed it has, my noble friend,' said Cestus. 'Drunk and brawling? Are the drinking holes of this space port insufficient sport, Brynngar? Did you build this muster hall for just such a purpose, I wonder?' said Antiges with a hint of reproach. Lacquered wood panelled the walls, and a plentiful cache of barrels, filled with Wulfsmeade, were stationed at intervals throughout the hall. Huge, long tables and stout wooden benches filled the place, which was empty except for Brynngar and the groaning Blood Claws. Tapestries of the deeds of Fenris swathed the walls. The muster halls of the Ultramarines were austere and regimented; this one, fashioned by the artisans of Leman Russ's Legion, looked more like a rustic long-house from the inside. 'A pity you could not have joined in sooner,' Brynngar remarked. 'Perhaps tomorrow?' 'With regret, we must decline,' Cestus replied, secretly relieved; he had no desire to go a second round with the burly Space Wolf. 'We leave today for Ultramar. War is brewing in the Veridan system and we are to be reunited with our brothers in order to prosecute it. We are heading to the space dock now.' Brynngar smiled broadly, clapping both Astartes on the shoulder, who both felt the impact through their armour. 'Then there is only one thing for it.' Antiges's expression was suspicious. 'What is that?' 'I shall come to see you off.' With that, the Wolf Guard turned the two Ultramarines and, putting his massive arms around their shoulders, proceeded to walk them out of the muster hall. 'What about them?' Cestus asked as they were leaving, indicating the battered Blood Claws. Brynngar cast a quick look over his shoulder and made a dismissive gesture. 'Ah, they've had enough excitement.' THREE God of the Furious Abyss Psychic scream Visions of home CORALIS DOCK WAS one of many on Vangelis. A wide, flat plain of plate metal stretched out from its many station houses and listening spires, ending in a trio of fanged docking clamps where the various visiting craft could make harbour and take on or drop off cargo. Arriving at the main control hub of Coralis, the three Astartes found themselves in a tight chamber that overlooked the dock. Thick, interwoven cables looped from the ceiling and dim, flickering halogen globes illuminated the bent-backed menials and cogitator servitors working the hub. A backwash of sickly yellow light thrown from numerous pict screens and data-displays fought weakly against the gloom. An azure holosphere was located in the centre of the chamber, rotating above a gunmetal dais. It depicted Vangelis space port in grainy, intermittent resolution and a wide arc surveyor net that projected several thousand metres from the surface. A large, convex viewport confronted the Astartes at the far wall through which they could see the magnificent vista of real space. Distantly, writhing nebulae patterned the infinite blackness with their iridescent glory and fading suns. Starfields and other galactic phenomena were arrayed like the flora and fauna of some endless obsidian ocean. It was a breathtaking view and stole away the fact that the recycled air within the control hub was sickly and stifling. A machine drone accompanied it from the space port's primary reactor located in the subterranean catacombs of Vangelis. The insistent hum of latent power could be felt through the reinforced plasteel floor. It was hot, too, the stark industrial interior barely shielded against the dock's generatorium. Saphrax was already on the command deck of the control hub, consulting with the hub's stationmaster, when the other Astartes arrived. Saphrax was the honour guard squad's standard bearer, and the Ultramarines honour banner was rolled up in its case slung over his back. The rest of Saphrax's battle-brothers were below at the hub's gate, preparing for their imminent departure. 'Greetings, Saphrax. You know Brynngar of the Space Wolves,' said Cestus, indicating the brutish Wolf Guard who gave a feral snarl. 'What news?' the brother-sergeant asked his banner bearer. 'Captain, Antiges,' said the Ultramarine to his battle-brothers. 'Son of Russ,' he added for Brynngar's benefit. Saphrax was a bald-headed warrior with a long scar that ran from his left temple to the base of his chin: another souvenir from the Kolobite. Cestus often mused that none in the Legion were as straight-backed as Saphrax, so much so that he seemed permanently at attention. Dependable and solid, he was seldom given to great emotion and wore a stern expression like a mask over chiselled stone features. Pragmatic, even melancholic, he was the third element to the balance that existed between Cestus and Antiges. Even so, the banner bearer's mood was particularly dour. 'We have received an astropathic message,' Saphrax informed them. There were three astropaths in residence at the hub, and more in the space port at large. They were sunk into a deep, circular vestibule, just below floor level, and swathed in shadow. Dim lights set into the edge of the vestibule cast weak illumination onto their faintly writhing forms. A skin of translucent, psychically conditioned material was draped over the trio of astropaths like a clinging veil. Beneath it, they looked like they were somehow conjoined, as if feeling each other'

med them. There were three astropaths in residence at the hub, and more in the space port at large. They were sunk into a deep, circular vestibule, just below floor level, and swathed in shadow. Dim lights set into the edge of the vestibule cast weak illumination onto their faintly writhing forms. A skin of translucent, psychically conditioned material was draped over the trio of astropaths like a clinging veil. Beneath it, they looked like they were somehow conjoined, as if feeling each other's emotions as one being. Other, less obvious, wards were also in place. All were designed to safeguard against the dangerous mental energies that could be unleashed during the course of their duties. Withered and blinded, the wretched creatures - two males and a female - like all of their calling had undergone the soul-binding ritual; the means by which the Emperor moulded and steeled their minds, so that they might be able to look into the warp and not be driven insane. Astropaths were vital to the function of the Imperium; without them, messages could not be communicated over vast distances, and forces could not be readied and co-ordinated. Even so, it was an inexact science. Messages both sent and received by the Astra Telepathica were often nought but a string of images and vague sense-impressions. Wires and thick cables snaked from the vestibule, slaving the astropaths to the control hub, where their 'messages' could be logged and interpreted. 'It started fifteen minutes ago,' said the stationmaster, an elderly veteran of the Imperial Army with cables running from under his shaved scalp, plugged into the command ports of the consoles set above the astropathic chamber. 'We've only received fragments of meaning, so far. All we know for certain is that they come from a distant source. Thus far, only part of the message has reached us. Our astropaths are endeavouring to extract the rest as I speak to you.' Cestus turned to regard the stationmaster and in turn the gibbering astropaths. Beneath the protective psy-skin, he could see their wasted bodies, swaddled in ragged robes. He heard the hissing of sibilant non sequiturs. The astropaths drooled spittle as they spoke, their sputum collecting against the inner material of the skin enveloping them. Their bone-like fingers were twitching as their minds attempted to infiltrate the empyrean. 'Falkman, sire,' said the stationmaster by way of introduction with a shallow bow. His right leg was augmetic and, judging by his awkward movements, most of his right side, which was probably why he had been sidelined to age and atrophy at Vangelis, no longer fit to taste of the Imperium's glory on the battlefield. Cestus pitied his fragility and that of all non-Astartes. 'Could it be a distress beacon sent from a ship?' Antiges broke through Cestus's thoughts with his assertive questioning. 'We have been unable to discern that yet, sire, but it is unlikely,' said Falkman, his face darkening as he turned to Saphrax. 'The nature of the message was... broken, more like a psychic cry delivered with extreme force. With the warp in tumult the energy used to send it was unpredictable,' said Saphrax, 'and it was no beacon. There was a single message; the pattern does not repeat. We think perhaps it was an astropathic death scream.' 'And that is not all.' Cestus's gaze was questioning. Saphrax's face was grim. 'We have yet to receive word from the Fist of Macragge.' The banner bearer of the honour guard let the words hang there, unwilling to voice what was implied. 'I will not make any negative conclusions,' Cestus replied quietly, unwilling to give in to what he feared. 'We must believe that-' The three astropaths slaved to the control hub began convulsing as the full force of the psychic scream made its presence felt. Blood spurted inside the psy-skin covering them and looked hazy and bright viewed from outside it. The wasted limbs of the astropaths pressed against the material, forcing it tight, their muscles held in spasm as they writhed in agony. Cogitators set around the hub above them were spewing reams of data as the astropaths fought to control the visions rushing into their minds. Smoke clouded the already hazy interior of the psy-skin as it rose from their decrepit bodies. Consoles sparked and exploded as wrathful electricity arced and spat. It earthed into the wizened frames of the astropaths, carried by the wires and cables, now little more than human conductors for its power. As one, they threw their heads back and a backwash of pure psychic force was unleashed in a terrible death scream that resonated throughout the room. The astropaths became a conduit for it, the strength of the psychic emission made many times more powerful by the volatile state of the warp. Walls shuddering against the onslaught, the lights of Vangelis space port went out. THE BRIDGE OF the Furious Abyss was like a sprawling city in miniature. The banks of cogitators were like hive-stacks rising above the streets formed by the exposed industrial ironwork of the deck. The various bridge crews sat in sunken command posts like arenas or deep harbours. Three viewscreens dominated one end of the bridge, while a raised acropolis at its heart was formed by the captain's post. A strategium table stretched out before it from which he could raise an orrery display, showing the ship and its foes wrought in rotating brass rings. High above the sprawling bridge was a decked clerestory where the astropathic choir of the mighty warship were slaved. The vaulted space was shared by the Navigator's sanctum, concealed in an antechamber so as to be secluded whilst traversing the perils of the warp. The command throne, raised upon a hard-edged pentagonal dais, was the seat of a god. Zadkiel was that god, looking down upon a city devoted to him. 'Listen,' Zadkiel bade those kneeling before him in supplication. The dulcet roar of the Furious Abyss's plasma engines, even dulled by the thick adamantium plating surrounding the ship's hull and interior, was like a war cry. 'Listen and hear the sound of the future...' Zadkiel was on his feet, sermonising, '...the sound of fate!' Three warriors, true devotees of the Word, heeded Zadkiel's rhetoric and stood. 'We pledge our service to you, Lord Zadkiel,' said the tallest of the three. He had a voice like crushed gravel and one of his eyes was blood-red, surrounded by a snarl of scar tissue. Even without the injury, his granite slab of a face would have made him a figure of fear even among his fellow Word Bearers. This was Baelanos, assault-captain and Zadkiel's private terror weapon. A potent warrior, Baelanos lacked imagination, which made him the perfect follower in Zadkiel's eyes. He was obedient, deadly and fiercely loyal, all fine qualities in an underling. 'As do we all,' Ikthalon interjected blithely. Another Astartes, Ikthalon was a company chaplain, demagogue and expert torturer. Unlike Baelanos, he wore his helmet in the presence of his commander, a skull-faced piece of armour with a pair of discreet horns on either side of the temple. Even through it, Ikthalon's thinly veiled contempt was obvious. 'Perhaps we should address the matters at hand, brother,' he counselled, lingering sarcastically on the last word. Zadkiel sat back down in the command throne. It was sculpted to accept his armoured frame, as if he had been born to take command of this bridge, to be the god of this warship. 'Then let us tarry no further,' he said, his viperous gaze lingering on Ikthalon. 'Sensorium reports that the Fist of Macragge was destroyed and all weapon's systems tested successfully, sire.' It was Reskiel who spoke. He was a youth compared to the other Astartes on the command dais, gaunt of face with a keening hunger in his black eyes, a strange quirk of his birth. Reskiel was a veteran of many battles, despite his age, and he wore the newly fashioned studded armour of his Legion proudly, keen to baptise it with the scars of war. He was widely regarded as Zadkiel's second, if not in an official capacity - that honour fell to Baelanos - and made it his business to know all the happenings aboard the Furious Abyss and report them to his master. Where Baelanos was the dutiful lap-dog, Reskiel was the eager sycophant. 'It was as expected.' Zadkiel's response was terse. 'Indeed,' said Ikthalon, 'but our astropaths also suggest that the stricken ship, though smitten by our righteous fury, managed to send out a distress call. I would not like to think that all our caution at commissioning the vessel's construction in the Jovian shipyards has been undone so swiftly and needlessly.' Zadkiel allowed a flutter of emotion to cross his features for a moment at the news. He considered drawing his power mace and staving in Ikthalon's skull for his persistent insubordination, but in truth, he valued the chaplain's council and his Word. Though he was a barb in Zadkiel's side, even since the Great Crusade had been in its infancy, he did not couch expressions with sycophantic frippery as Reskiel was prone too, nor was he so singled-minded that he was unable to convey subtlety and the need for delicacy when required like Baelanos. Zadkiel did not trust him, but he trusted his Word and so he was tolerated. 'It is possible that a message reached a way station, or some isolated listening spire at the edge of the segmentum, but we are well underway and there is little that any vessel can do to prevent our destiny. So it is written,' Zadkiel said at last. 'So it is written,' the assembled commanders intoned. 'Reskiel, you will maintain a close watch on the sensorium. If anything should stray into surveyor range, I want to know immediately,' Zadkiel ordered. 'It will be done, my lord.' Reskiel bowed obsequiously and retreated from the dais. 'Baelanos, Ikthalon, you have your own duties to attend to,' Zadkiel added, dismissively, not waiting to watch them depart as he turned to regard t

vent our destiny. So it is written,' Zadkiel said at last. 'So it is written,' the assembled commanders intoned. 'Reskiel, you will maintain a close watch on the sensorium. If anything should stray into surveyor range, I want to know immediately,' Zadkiel ordered. 'It will be done, my lord.' Reskiel bowed obsequiously and retreated from the dais. 'Baelanos, Ikthalon, you have your own duties to attend to,' Zadkiel added, dismissively, not waiting to watch them depart as he turned to regard the viewscreens before him. 'Engines,' said Zadkiel, and at once the central viewscreen blinked into life, the bridge lights dimmed and the image on the screen lit the miniature city in hard moonlight. It showed the Furious Abyss's cavernous engine room, the prostrate cylinders of the plasma reactors dwarfing the crewmen who scrabbled around them in their routine duties. The crew wore the deep crimson of the Word Bearers; they were servants of Lorgar just as the Word Bearers were, devoted to the primarch's Word and grateful for such a certain place in the universe. They did not know the details of the Word, of course. They were ignorant of the web of allegiances and oaths that Lorgar had created among his brother primarchs, or of the mission that would seal the inevitability of the Word Bearers' victory. They did not need to know. It was enough for them that they laboured under the wishes of their primarch. Amongst the piteous menials, a tall figure stood out. Looming from the darkness, he was swathed in black robes and bore the cog symbol of the Mechanicum around his neck on a chain of bolts. 'Magos Gureod, you are to keep us at a steady speed, but be ready to increase our plasma engines to maximum capacity.' 'It will be done,' the magos replied, his artificial voice relayed through a series of synthesisers. Gureod's face was hidden by the massive cowl over his head, but a pair of blinking red diodes was vaguely discernible in the void where his eyes should have been. Odd protrusions in the sweep of his long robes suggested further augmetics, and his withered hands, crossed over his abdomen, offered the only clue that Magos Gureod was indeed human. At the order, he withdrew into the shadows again, doubtless heading for the sanctum and deep communion with the machine spirit. Turning to another screen, Zadkiel uttered, 'Ordnance.' The crowded munitions deck was displayed there. Weapon Master Malforian was in residence, barking harsh commands to crews of sweating orderlies and gang ratings, toiling in the steam-filled half dark of the cluttered deck. Full racks of torpedoes stood gleaming, fresh from the Martian forges. The ordnance deck stretched across the breadth of the Furious Abyss beneath the prow, and like the rest of the ship it was wrought in a bare industrial style that had an elegance of its own. Realising he was being summoned, Malforian attended to his captain at once. 'Keep broadsides primed and at ready status, Master Malforian,' Zadkiel instructed him. 'The test against the Fist of Macragge was to your satisfaction, yes?' 'Yes, my lord. Your will shall be done.' The lower portion of the weapon master's face was supplanted by a metal grille and he spoke in a tinny monotone as a result; most of his jaw and chin had been destroyed during the early years of the Great Crusade while he was aboard the Galthalamor, fighting the ork hordes of the Eastern Fringe. The vessel, an ancient Retribution-class battle cruiser, was all but annihilated in the conflict. Zadkiel dismissed the weapons master and blanked the pict screens. Coding a sequence into his command throne, Zadkiel felt the hydraulic pistons at work in the dais as he was slowly, majestically, raised above the bridge and brought level with the massive viewport overlooking the vessel's prow. The endless expanse of real space stretched beyond it. Somewhere within that curtain of stars was Macragge, home world of Guilliman's Legion. It was the stage of his destiny. 'Navigator Esthemya,' said Zadkiel, staring into the infinite. 'My lord,' a female voice chimed through the vox set into the command throne. 'Take us to Macragge.' 'Vectors are locked, captain,' Esthemya informed him from the secluded cocoon in the clerestory, a hard-edged blister that was surrounded by spines of data medium like the spires of a cathedral. Zadkiel nodded, turning to face the viewscreen in front of him as the Navigator went to her duties. The infinite gaped before him, and Zadkiel was acutely aware of the power that lay beyond the veil of real space and the pacts he had made to harness its limitless strength. Before the countenance of his enemies, aboard this mighty vessel, he would be god-like. There was no other ship in existence that could do what the Furious Abyss was destined to do. It alone had the power to achieve the mission that Kor Phaeron had charged them with. Only the Furious Abyss could get close enough, could endure the awesome defences of Macragge to unleash its deadly payload. Icons in his command throne lit up with the acquisition of their new heading, bathing Zadkiel in an aura of his own personal heaven. 'Like a god,' he whispered. EVERY EMERGENCY KLAXON had gone off at once in the control hub of Coralis Dock at Vangelis space port. Cestus could barely hear the thoughts in his head. Light flickered sporadically from the warning readouts on every command surface, casting the darkened control hub like some monochromatic animation. The astropathic choir bucked and kicked, and spat blood beneath the psy-skin in a collective seizure. 'Station captain, report,' bellowed Cestus. Falkman was reeling, trying to tear the cables from his skull as they pumped a screaming torrent of information into his mind. Brynngar went to the side of the human at once, preventing Falkman from ripping out more cables, determined that the station master would do his duty. 'The hub reactor is overloading,' the station captain snarled through gritted teeth, trying desperately to hold on. 'The psychic jolt must have started a chain reaction in our electrical systems. The reactor must be shut down or it will destabilise.' Cestus's face, lit up intermittently in readout flares and the bursts of warning strobes, held a question. 'The resulting explosion will vapourise the station, this dock and all of us.' The Ultramarine captain turned to the assembled Astartes in the control hub. 'Saphrax, stay here and maintain control over the situation,' he ordered with a meaningful glance at Falkman. 'Try to salvage whatever you're able to from the astropathic choir.' 'But my captain-' 'Do it!' Cestus would not be argued with, even with a battle-brother so seldom disposed to querying orders as Saphrax. 'Whatever was in that message was important; I can feel it in my very marrow. It must be recovered.' 'What of the rest of us?' asked Antiges, barley registering the flying embers of sparks spitting across the chamber. 'We're going to save the dock.' 'YOU ARE NO Techmarine. How do you plan on shutting down the reactor?' Brynngar shouted against the din, sparks showering him from cogitator cables above. Although the Space Wolf's face was almost next to Cestus's ear, the Ultramarine could only just hear him. The droning reactor was a thunderous pulse in the subterranean access tunnels. After verbally guiding the Astartes to an antechamber below the control hub and a reinforced access portal that would lead them to the reactor, Falkman had neglected to provide them with the necessary instruction to shut the device down, the fact of his passing out from shock a major contributing factor to the oversight. Usually, this area of the dock would be thronging with menials and engineers, but the rapid outflow of escape reactor radiation had prompted an evacuation alert. The Astartes had passed a number of fleeing tech adepts as they'd made their way down to the reactor. Those that were left were either dead or critically injured. The Astartes ignored them all, immune to their pleas for help with the safety of the entire dock at stake. 'I am hoping a solution will present itself,' Cestus replied as they made their way through the cramped tunnel. The corridor the Astartes were in spiralled around the main reactor shell down to the power source at the base of the station. 'To think the Legion of Guilliman are regarded as master strategists,' said Brynngar with bellowing laughter. 'Directness is a valid strategy. Space Wolf,' Antiges reminded him, shouting to be heard above the horrendous noise of lurching metal, as if an inner storm was at play within the conduit. 'I would have thought one of the Sons of Russ would find it familiar.' Brynngar's amused response was raucous and deafening. Shouldering past the last of the surviving crewmen and panicked tech adepts as they fled, Cestus led the Astartes to the reactor chamber. Only one of the Emperor's Angels, replete in his power armour, could hope to survive the reactor's intense radiation at such close range. Like his battle-brothers, Cestus had donned his helmet before entering the tunnel. Extreme radiation warning icons flashed insistently in the lens display. Time was running out. Atmospheric pipes fractured and sprayed freezing gas across a pair of gargantuan blast doors closing off the interior of the reactor shell from the rest of the station. Doubtless, they'd been activated as soon as the psychic power surge from the astropaths had hit. The servos on the massive door had shorted and were a tangled mass of wires and machinery. 'Prepare yourselves,' cried Cestus, ignoring the subzero gas. He seized the edge of the blast door in an effort to prise it open. 'Stand back,' snarled Brynngar, using his bulk to muscle the Ultramarine aside. He hefted Felltooth with practiced ease, sweeping the rune axe around in a lazy arc. 'No sport when the enemy stays still,' he growled and split the blast door in two with one mighty swing, sparks

he servos on the massive door had shorted and were a tangled mass of wires and machinery. 'Prepare yourselves,' cried Cestus, ignoring the subzero gas. He seized the edge of the blast door in an effort to prise it open. 'Stand back,' snarled Brynngar, using his bulk to muscle the Ultramarine aside. He hefted Felltooth with practiced ease, sweeping the rune axe around in a lazy arc. 'No sport when the enemy stays still,' he growled and split the blast door in two with one mighty swing, sparks cascading from the blade. Stowing the weapon, Brynngar peeled back the rent metal with both hands, making a space wide enough for the Astartes to enter. The reactor was a swirling mass of glowing blue-green energy, rippling in on itself as it drew in power from the plasma conduits looping around it like eccentric orbits around a star. It pulsed, streaked with black and purple, and chunks of scorched machinery tumbled into it. A hot blast of air, tingling with radiation, washed over them in a back-draught. More warning runes flickered against Cestus's helmet lens, transmitted through onto the display from the acute sensor readouts on his armour. 'Now what?' shouted Antiges above the howl of the reactor. Cestus watched the writhing mass of energy, taking in the confines of the small chamber that housed it and the control console, all but destroyed by its wrath. 'How many charges do you have?' 'A cluster of fragmentation and three krak grenades, but I don't understand, captain,' Antiges replied, his perplexity concealed by his helmet. 'A full belt of krak,' Brynngar growled. 'Whatever you are planning, lad, we'd best be about it,' he added. Being blown to smithereens by a malfunctioning reactor was not the death saga he wanted for his epitaph. 'We prime the chamber with set charges, everything we've got,' said Cestus with growing conviction, 'and bury it.' 'That would cause catastrophic damage to the station,' Antiges countered, turning to regard his captain. 'Yes, but it would not destroy it,' said Cestus. 'There is no other choice.' Cestus was about to detach the grenades from his clip harness when the reactor abruptly collapsed like a dying star imploding into a black hole. In its place a glowing sphere of deep purple blossomed, flickering like an image on a faulty pict screen. Purple lightning licked from the surface, playing over Cestus's armour. He took a step back. Yowling static flared suddenly into life and the Astartes were floored by the wave of noise. A bright flash lit the entire chamber, overloading their helmet arrays in an instant. There, amidst the intense flare of light, Cestus saw an image, so fleeting and indistinct that it could have been an illusion from the overwhelmed optics in his helmet. He blinked once, seeing only white haze, and shook his head, trying to recapture it. The flare died down and when Cestus's vision returned the afterglow haunted the edge of his retinas, but the image was gone and the reactor was dead. The core had turned dark. Cracks of static electricity glowed over its surface. It shrank and became abruptly inert. The warning lights inside the reactor shell dimmed and went out. Elsewhere on the station, secondary and tertiary reactors, registering the loss of the primary reactor, diverted power to the dock, allowing the tech-seers time to make the necessary repairs. The storm had howled itself out. 'What in the name of Terra just happened?' asked Antiges, a cluster of frag grenades still in his hand. 'Mother Fenris,' Brynngar breathed at what he had just witnessed. 'Did you see that?' asked Cestus. 'Did you see it in the blast flare?' 'See what?' Antiges replied, relieved that they didn't have to collapse the reactor chamber after all. Cestus's posture displayed his shock and disbelief as sure as any facial expression disguised by his armour. 'Macragge.' SHARDS OF BROKEN images flashed on the psy-receiver, what was left of the astropathic transference from the psychic scream. Falkman, looking gaunt and haggard from his earlier experience, but otherwise intact, pored over them, running analysis protocols and clarity procedures with what little machinery still worked in the hub. Saphrax stood pensively beside him, awaiting the return of his captain. 'Brother-captain!' he said with no small amount of relief as Cestus and the others emerged from the tunnel, their armour scorched black in several places. When Cestus removed his helmet, his face was ashen and a cold sweat dappled his brow. Saphrax was taken aback; he had never seen a fellow Astartes, certainly not his captain, look so afflicted. 'The astropathic message,' Cestus stated coldly, going to the psy-receiver before Saphrax could verbalise his concern. 'What's left of it?' 'All is well, brother,' said Antiges, following in his captain's wake and placing his hand on the banner bearer's shoulder, though his tone was anything but reassuring. Brynngar waited further back, deliberately distancing himself, and stony silent as if processing what had happened in the reactor. He touched a fang totem attached to his cuirass with an inward expression. 'There is little left,' confessed Falkman, who, though he had managed to restore lighting and some of the basic functions of the hub, had failed to recover the entire astropathic message. 'I need to get one of the logic engines functioning if I'm to decipher it with any degree of certitude, but this is what we have.' Cestus glared at the pict-slate of the psy-receiver as the broken images cycled slowly: a gauntleted fist wreathed in a laurel of steel, a golden book, what appeared to be the hull of a ship and a cluster of indistinct stars. Cestus knew of a fifth image. Though his rational mind told him otherwise, in his heart, the Ultramarine knew what he had seen - the range of mountains, the lustrous green and blue - it was unmistakable. He also knew what he had felt: a sense of belonging, like coming home. 'Macragge,' he whispered, and felt suddenly cold. FOUR Divine inspiration A gathering Contact MHOTEP STARED INTO the water, so still and clear its surface was like silver. The face that stared back at him had hard and chiselled features with a handsome bone structure, despite the velvet cowl that partly concealed it. Hooded eyes spoke of intelligence, and skin, so tan and smooth that it was utterly without imperfection, suggested the nature of his Legion: the Thousand Sons. Mhotep was dressed in iridescent robes that pooled like deep red liquid around him as he knelt with head bowed. Stitched in runes, his attire suggested the arcane. He was at the heart of his private sanctum. The ellipse-shaped chamber had a low ceiling that enhanced the sense of claustrophobia created by the sheer volume of esoteric paraphernalia within. Stacks of scroll cases and numerous shelves, replete with well-thumbed archaic tomes, warred for space with crys-glass cabinets filled with bizarre arcana: an oculum of many hued lenses, a bejewelled gauntlet, a plain silver mask fashioned into an ersatz skull. Upon a raised dais, there was a planetarium in miniature, rendered from gold, the stellar bodies represented by gemstones. Gilt-panelled walls were swathed in ancient charts in burnished metal frames, cast in the azure glow of eldritch lamps. A red marble floor stretched across the entire room, engraved with myriad paths of interlocking and concentric circles. Runes of onyx and jet, etched into the stone, punctuated the sweeping arcs without regularity. Mhotep was at the nexus of the design, at the point where all of the interweaving circles converged. A chime registered in a vox-emitter built into the sanctum's entry system, indicating a guest. 'Enter, Kalamar,' said Mhotep. A hiss of escaping pressure accompanied the aide as the door to the sanctum opened and he shuffled into the room. 'How did you know it was I, Lord Mhotep?' asked Kalamar, his speech fraught with age and decrepitude. 'Who else would it be, old friend? I do not need the prescience of Magnus to predict your presence in my sanctum.' Mhotep bent towards the bowl, plunging both hands into the water to lightly splash his face. As he came back up, he withdrew his cowl and the lamp light reflected from his bald scalp. 'And I need no sophisticated augury to divine that you bring important news, either,' Mhotep added, dabbing his face with his sleeve. 'Of course, sire. I meant no offence,' said Kalamar, bowing acutely. The serf was blind, and wore ocular implants; the augmetic bio-sensors built into his eye cavities could not 'see' as such, but detected heat and provided limited spatial awareness. Kalamar supplemented his somewhat unorthodox visual affliction with a silvered cane. 'My lord, we have docked at Vangelis,' he added finally, confirming what his captain already knew. Mhotep nodded, as if possessed of sudden understanding. 'Have the Legion serfs prepare my armour, we are leaving the ship at once.' 'As you wish,' Kalamar said, bowing again, but as he was retreating from the sanctum he paused. 'My lord, please do not think me impertinent, but why have we docked here at Vangelis when our journey's end lies at Prospero?' 'The paths of destiny are curious, Kalamar,' Mhotep replied, looking back down at the bowl. 'Yes, my lord.' Even after over fifty years in his service, Kalamar did not fully understand his master's cryptic words. When the Legion serf had gone, Mhotep rose to his feet, his voluminous robes gathering up around him. From within the folds of his sleeves, he produced a stave-like object, no longer than his forearm and covered in arcane sigils. Stepping away from the circle, a single eye was revealed at its centre as he took a bizarre course through the labyrinthine design of the room. It represented the wisdom of Magnus, Primarch of the Thousand Sons Legion and gene-father to Mhotep. Locked in his cabalistic route, Mhotep arrived at an ornate, lozenge-shaped vessel and reveren

robes gathering up around him. From within the folds of his sleeves, he produced a stave-like object, no longer than his forearm and covered in arcane sigils. Stepping away from the circle, a single eye was revealed at its centre as he took a bizarre course through the labyrinthine design of the room. It represented the wisdom of Magnus, Primarch of the Thousand Sons Legion and gene-father to Mhotep. Locked in his cabalistic route, Mhotep arrived at an ornate, lozenge-shaped vessel and reverently placed the stave within it. The vessel was much like a gilded sarcophagus, similar to that in which the rulers of ancient Prospero had once been entombed. The item secured, Mhotep sealed the vessel shut, a vacuum hiss of escaping pressure emitting from its confines, and inputted a rune sequence disguised within the sarcophagus's outer decoration. 'Yes,' uttered Mhotep, the task done, absently caressing a scarab-shaped earring, 'very curious.' 'IT IS A low turn out,' muttered Antiges beneath his breath. Within the stark, grey ferrocrete austerity of the Ultramarines muster hall three Astartes awaited Cestus and his battle-brothers. The three were seated around a conference table inset with a single arcing 'U'. A huge tapestry, depicting the auspicious day when the Emperor came to Macragge in search of one of his sons, framed the scene. Clad in glorious armour of gold, a shining halo about his patrician features, the Emperor stretched out his hand to a kneeling Roboute Guilliman, who reached out to claim it. That day, their primarch had been truly born and their Legion's inception cemented. Even now, and rendered as mere artistry, Cestus could not help but feel his heart lift. 'With such short notice, I had expected less,' the Ultramarine confessed, approaching the gathering with Antiges. Cestus's battle-brother had briefed his captain on the attendees. Brynngar he knew, of course, but the two others, a Thousand Son and a World Eater, he did not. Cestus and Antiges were joined by four more of their brothers - Lexinal, Pytaron, Excelinor and Morar, for the sake of appearances. The rest, Amyrx, Laeradis and Thestor, were with Saphrax on a separate duty. The Ultramarines had called the gathering, so it was only proper that they arrived at it in force to show their commitment. 'Greetings brothers,' Cestus began, taking his seat alongside his fellow Ultramarines. 'You have the gratitude of Guilliman and the eighth Legion for your attendance here this day.' 'As is well,' said a bald-headed Astartes with richly tanned skin, 'but we beseech you to illuminate us as to your plight.' His voice was deep and powerful. Clad in the panoply of the Thousand Sons Legion, a suit of lacquered dark red and gold power armour, as angular and proud as the monuments of Prospero, he cut an intimidating figure. Antiges had already informed Cestus that the Thousand Son was Fleet Captain Mhotep. Darkly handsome, bereft of the usual battle scars and functional facial bionics wrought by years of unremitting warfare, this Mhotep had a curious, aloof air. His shining eyes seemed to bore into Cestus's very soul. Not all of the assembly were so respectful of his obvious power. 'The Great Wolf values silence over idle chatter, so that he might heed wise words otherwise lost in needless interrogation,' snarled Brynngar, the animosity he felt towards the son of Magnus obvious. It was the Wolf Guard, already pledged to Cestus's cause, together with Antiges, that had summoned the Legions on Vangelis to this meeting. They had done so with passion and curt request, divulging little of what Cestus needed of them. The Space Wolf had at first railed against the inclusion of the Thousand Sons to be their potential sword-brothers in this deed. The conflicting character of the two Legions did not lend itself to a ready accord, but Cestus had reasoned that they needed every soul, and Mhotep had answered the call. What was more, he also had his own ship, a fact that only served to bolster the small fleet he was trying to assemble. The captain of the Thousand Sons ignored the Space Wolf's thinly veiled insult and leant back in his seat with a gesture for Cestus to proceed. The Ultramarines captain told the assembly of his squad's scheduled extraction from Vangelis by the Fist of Macragge, and of the astropathic message that had very nearly wrecked the control hub of Coralis dock. He even confided in them his fears that some unknown enemy had destroyed the ship, but he did not mention his experience in the reactor core. Cestus was still processing what he had seen. Visions were the province of sorcery and to divulge that he, an Ultramarine, had witnessed one would undermine his credibility and arouse suspicion as to his motives. 'Perhaps this deed was committed by an alien ship. Ork hulks have been fought and crushed by my Legion as far as the Segmentum Solar,' said a voice like iron. Skraal was a World Eater, an Astartes of the XII Legion, and the third of the invited warriors, including Brynngar. He wore battered Mark V power armour, rendered in chipped blue and white, the colours of his Legion, clearly eschewing the Corvus pattern suits worn by his battle-brothers. The armour was heavily dented in several places, sporting numerous replacement parts, and the battlefield repair work was obvious. Formed of basic materials, the plates were held together by spikes, the manifest studs clearly visible on the left pauldron, greaves and gorget. The helmet rested on the table next to the warrior. It was similarly adorned and bore a fearsome aspect of blade and ballistic damage that revealed bare, grey metal beneath. Skraal's face was the mirror of his armour, cross-hatching scar tissue a map-work of pain and suffering. A thick vein across his forehead throbbed as he spoke. His bellicose demeanour, coupled with a nervous tic beneath his right eye, gave him the outward appearance of being unhinged. The World Eaters were a fearsome Legion. Much like their primarch, Angron, they were a primal force that fought with fury and wrath as their weapons. Each and every warrior was a font of rage and barely checked choler, bloody echoes of the battle-lust of their primarch. 'That is possible,' said Cestus, deliberately holding the gruesome warrior's gaze, despite Skraal's obvious belligerence. 'What is certain is that a ship of the Emperor's Astartes has been attacked by enemies unknown and for some nefarious purpose,' he continued with building anger and got to his feet. 'This act cannot go unreckoned!' 'Then what would you have us do, noble son of Guilliman?' asked Mhotep, ever the epitome of calm. Cestus spread his hands across the table, laying his palms flat as he regained his composure. 'Astropathic decryption revealed a region of space that has been identified by the station's astrocartographer. I believe this is where the Fist of Macragge met its end. I also believe that since the ship was headed for the Calth system and a rendezvous with my lord Guilliman, it is possible that their attacker was heading in the same direction.' 'A substantial leap of logic, Ultramarine,' Mhotep countered, unconvinced by Cestus's impassioned arguments. 'I cannot believe that the very ship carrying five companies of my battle-brothers and en route to Calth was destroyed before reaching Vangelis in a random art of xenos contrition,' Cestus reasoned, his need for urgency fuelling his frustration. 'How are we to find this slayer vessel, then?' asked Skraal, thumbing the hilt of his chainaxe, the urge for carnage obvious. 'If what you say is true, and the distress call you received from the vessel is old, the prey will be far from that location.' Cestus sighed in agitation. He wished dearly that he could make his brothers see what was in his heart, what he knew in his gut. For now, though, he dared not, at least, not until he could make some sense of what he had seen. There was no time for delay. 'Our position on Vangelis bisects the route of the Fist of Macragge; the route it would have taken to Calth. In short, it is ahead of the site of its demise. If we make ready at once, it is possible we may be able to catch the enemy's trail.' Silent faces regarded him. Even Brynngar did not look certain of the Ultramarine's reasoning. Cestus realised that it was not logic that guided him on this course, but instinct and inner belief. The image of Macragge seen for an instant in the flash of the reactor burned fresh in his mind, and he spoke. 'I do not need your aid in this venture. I have already sent one of my battle-brothers to commandeer a vessel from this very station and I will take it to the site of the Fist of Macragge's last transmission. With luck we can pick up a trail to follow and find whoever is responsible for what happened to it. No, I do not need your aid, but I ask for it, humbly,' he added, pushing the seat back and kneeling reverently before his fellow Astartes with head bowed. Antiges was aghast at first, but then he too left the table and kneeled. The other Ultramarines followed his lead, and soon all six of Guilliman's sons were genuflecting before the rest of the council. 'The sons of Russ do not refuse an honour debt,' said Brynngar, getting to his feet and laying Felltooth upon the table. 'I will join you in this endeavour.' Skraal stood next and set his chainaxe with the Space Wolf s rune blade. 'The fury of the World Eaters is at your side.' 'What say you, son of Magnus?' Brynngar growled, his savage gaze falling upon Mhotep. For a moment, the Thousand Son sat in calm reflection, considering his answer. He laid his ornate scimitar with the other weapons, its gilded blade humming with power as he unsheathed it. 'My ship and I are at your disposal, Ultramarine.' 'Bah! This council's greatest opponent; I should like to know why,' said Brynngar. Mhotep smirked with amusement at the Space Wolf's rancour, but refused to be baited. 'You all know of the

of Magnus?' Brynngar growled, his savage gaze falling upon Mhotep. For a moment, the Thousand Son sat in calm reflection, considering his answer. He laid his ornate scimitar with the other weapons, its gilded blade humming with power as he unsheathed it. 'My ship and I are at your disposal, Ultramarine.' 'Bah! This council's greatest opponent; I should like to know why,' said Brynngar. Mhotep smirked with amusement at the Space Wolf's rancour, but refused to be baited. 'You all know of the events at Nikaea concerning my primarch and Legion, and the sanctions placed upon us that day,' the Thousand Son said plainly. 'I am keen to foster improved relations with my fellow Legions and where better to start than the vaunted sons of Roboute Guilliman.' Mhotep nodded respectfully at the final remark, a deliberately weak attempt to cover the slight. Cestus cared little for the discord between the two Astartes and arose, Antiges following his example. 'You do me great service this day,' Cestus said with genuine humility. 'We meet at Coralis dock in one hour.' THE SATURNINE FLEET had existed before the Great Crusade, carving out a miniature empire among the rings of Saturn. Its strength and longevity had been based on a tradition of navigational skill, essential to negotiate the infinitely complex puzzle of the rings. Its rolls of honour noted the first time it had encountered the warships of the fledgling Imperium. Its admirals saw a brother empire, based on the demonstration of power and not just empty words or fanaticism, and signed a treaty with the Emperor that still held pride of place in the Admiralty Spire on Enceladus. Its ships had accompanied the Great Crusade to all corners of the galaxy, but their spiritual home had always been in the rings, the endless circle of Saturn boiling above them. The Wrathful was a fine ship, Cestus admitted to himself as he stood upon the bridge alongside Antiges. It was old and lavish, panelled and decorated with the heritage of a naval aristocracy that pre-dated the Imperial Army and its fleets. Its bridge looked like it had been lifted from a naval academy on Enceladus, all dark wood map tables and glass-fronted bookcases, with only the occasional pict screen or command console to break the illusion. A ring of nine viewscreens was mounted on the ceiling, where they could be lowered to provide an all-angles view of what was happening outside the ship. The command crew were in the dark blue brocaded uniforms of the Saturnine Fleet, all starch and good breeding. In commandeering this vessel, Saphrax and his battle-brothers had performed their task well. 'Rear admiral,' said Cestus as he approached the captain's post, a grand throne surrounded by racks of charts. The throne rotated to reveal Rear Admiral Kaminska. Cestus could almost see the proud heritage etched upon her face: strong jaw, fine neck, high cheekbones, with a slight curl to the lip that suggested acute arrogance. 'Captain Cestus, it is an honour to serve the Emperor's Astartes,' she responded coolly. Saphrax had described the admiral's reaction to the acquisition of her ship to Cestus as he and the rest of the Ultramarine honour guard had boarded. It was prickly and vociferous. She gave a near imperceptible nod by way of acknowledgement. The gesture was all but lost in the high collar of her uniform and the thick, furred mantle that hung around her shoulders. Admiral Kaminska was a stern-faced matriarch. A monocle over her left eye partly obscured a savage scar that cracked that side of her face. The monocle's sweeping chain was set with tiny skulls and pinned to the right breast of her jacket. She carried a control wand at her waist, secured by a loop of leather, and a naval pistol sat snugly in a holster at her hip. Gloved hands bore a lightning flash emblem made from metal; they were tense and gripped the supports of her command throne tightly. 'The Wrathful is an impressive ship,' said Cestus, attempting to dispel the fraught atmosphere. 'I am glad you could respond to our summons.' 'Indeed it is, Lord Astartes,' Kaminska said in clipped tones. 'It would be a great pity to sacrifice it upon the altar of futile vengeance. As for your summons,' she added, face pinching tight with anger, 'it was hardly that.' Cestus held his tongue. As an Astartes fleet commander, it was within the remit of his authority to take command of the ship. For now, he decided he would allow the admiral some leeway. He was sketching a suitable reproach in his mind, when Kaminska continued. 'Captain Vorlov of the Boundless has also requested to accompany us, although you'll find he is of a more placid demeanour.' Cestus had heard of the vessel, and of Captain Vorlov. It was a warhorse ship of the fleet, its combat scars too numerous to count. Its star was in decline, as better, more powerful ships made their presence felt in the greater galaxy. Cestus suspected that the Boundless had been docked at Vangelis for some time, its role in the Great Crusade somewhat diminished, and that Captain Vorlov did not wish to submit to atrophy just yet. 'Very well,' said Cestus, deciding against rebuking the admiral. He had, after all, taken her ship for a mission of dubious reasoning. Her attitude, he told himself, was to be expected. 'You have your heading, admiral. There is little time to lose.' 'The Wrathful is the fastest vessel in the Segmentum Solar. If your enemy is out there in the void then we will catch him,' Kaminska assured him, and whirled her command throne back around to her instrument panels. ADMIRAL KAMINSKA BRISTLED furiously as the Astartes departed the bridge. She had come to Vangelis to effect repairs and take on supplies and replacement crew. She had been looking forward to a week or so of recuperation. Yet, at the word of the Emperor's Angels, lord regents of the galaxy it seemed, she and her ship were pressed back into service with barely a moment's notice. 'By the authority of the Emperor of Mankind', those words were an unbendable edict that Kaminska could not refuse. It was not that she resented serving - she was a dutiful soldier of the Imperium who had distinguished herself on numerous occasions for its greater glory - no, she took umbrage at the fact that this particular mission was fostered on hunches and, as far as she could tell, whimsy. It did not sit well with Kaminska, not at all. 'Lord admiral, the escort squadron is in position,' said Helmsmistress Athena Venkmyer. Her long hair was tied up severely, and her shoulders were forced to attention by the brocade of her uniform. 'Good,' Kaminska replied. 'Screens down!' The ring of viewscreens descended and glowed to life. The bright, hard gleam of Vangelis was visible from the assembly point, surrounded by a fuzzy shoal of lesser lights: satellite listening spires, fleets at anchor and orbital debris. A distant sun was a brighter point, automatically dimmed by the viewscreens' limiters. Icons blinked onto the screens, showing the positions of the other ships in the makeshift fleet. The four escorts - Fearless, Ferox, Ferocious and Fireblade - were flying in a slanted diamond around the Wrathful. The vessel of the Thousand Sons and Captain Mhotep, the Waning Moon, was a short distance away. Even at this distance, the Astartes craft was impressive, a sleek dart of red and gold. The Boundless, a cruiser like the Wrathful, but fitted out with decks for attack craft, was further out, still making its approach. Satisfied that they were about ready to disembark, Admiral Kaminska flicked a control stud on the arm of her throne and the bridge vox-caster opened up. 'Loose escort pattern, keep the Waning Moon in our lee. Advance to primary way point, plasma engines three-quarters.' 'Three-quarters!' came the yell from Helms-mate Lodan Kant at the engine helm. 'Mister Orcadus, the Terraward end of the Tertiary Core Transit if you please,' said Kaminska, having opened up a line to her principal Navigator. 'At your word, lord admiral,' was the dour response from the Navigator's sanctum. The Tertiary Core Transit was the most stable warp route from Segmentum Solar to the galactic south-east. It would take them to their destination expediently, and hopefully allow the Wrathful to gain some ground on whatever foes, real or imagined, awaited them in the void. It was also the route that any void-farer, if he or she did not want to take a four to five year detour, would take to arrive at the Calth system. The Astartes had been very specific about that. Admiral Kaminska would have liked to question it, but there was no bringing the Emperor's Angels to account on such a triviality. She would defer to the Astartes's order, since he was in charge. It would have been unseemly to do otherwise. Kaminska resolved to discover the truth later. The Wrathful's engines kicked in, banishing the admiral's thoughts to the back of her mind. She could feel the vibration through the panelled floor of the bridge. The escort squadron moved into formation on the viewscreens, followed by the Waning Moon and the Boundless. Whatever was out there, they would find out soon enough. 'THERE IS AN energy trail here. It's degraded but discernible,' said Principal Navigator Orcadus's voice from his inner sanctum on the Wrathful. The Imperial ship and her fleet had reached the region of real space as indicated by the co-ordinates provided by Captain Cestus, the supposed site of the destruction of the Fist of Macragge, in short order. They found no sign of the Ultramarine vessel. There was merely a faint energy trace that matched the Fist of Macragge's signature. Unlike battles on land, where evidence of a fight could be seen clearly and obviously, conflicts in space were not so easily identifiable. Wrecks drifted, ships could be caught and destroyed in black holes, space debris drawn into the gravity well of a passing moon or small planet, even solar wind could scatter the final proof of

he Fist of Macragge, in short order. They found no sign of the Ultramarine vessel. There was merely a faint energy trace that matched the Fist of Macragge's signature. Unlike battles on land, where evidence of a fight could be seen clearly and obviously, conflicts in space were not so easily identifiable. Wrecks drifted, ships could be caught and destroyed in black holes, space debris drawn into the gravity well of a passing moon or small planet, even solar wind could scatter the final proof of a battle ever having taken place. So it was that Kaminska had instructed her Navigator to search for whatever energy traces remained behind, those last vestiges of plasma engine discharge that lingered in spite of all other evidence dissipating due to the ravages of space. 'By Saturn, the output must have been massive,' Orcadus continued with rare emotion. 'Whatever ship left this wake is gargantuan, admiral.' 'It is possible to follow it then?' Kaminska asked, swivelling in her command throne to regard Captain Cestus standing silently alongside her. Orcadus's reply was succinct. 'Yes, admiral.' 'Do it,' Cestus told Kaminska grimly, his expression far away. Kaminska scowled at what she perceived as arrogance, and returned to her original position. 'Then do so. Set radar array to full power, Mister Orcadus. Take us onward.' 'BROTHERHOOD,' SAID ZADKIEL, 'is power.' Surrounded by novices in the sepulchral gloom of the cathedra, he loomed high above the assembly within a raised pulpit of black steel. 'It is at the core of all authority in the known galaxy, and the source of humanity's dominion. This is the Word of Lorgar, as it is written.' 'As it is written,' echoed the novices. Over fifty Word Bearers had gathered for the seminary and knelt in supplication before their lord, wearing grey initiate robes over their crimson armour. The cathedral's ceiling soared on stone-clad struts overhead, adding acoustic power to Zadkiel's oratory, and the air was as still and cold as a vault. The floor, tiled with stone pages cut with passages from the Word, emphasised that this was a place of worship. It was the very thing that the Emperor had forbidden in his Legions. Idolatry and zealous faith had no place in the Master of Mankind's new age of enlightenment, but here, in this place, and in the hearts of all Lorgar's children, faith would be honed into a weapon. One of the initiates stood among the congregation, indicating his desire to respond. 'Speak,' said Zadkiel, quelling his annoyance at the impromptu interruption. 'Brother can turn on brother,' said the novice, 'and thus become weakened. Where, then, is such power?' In the half-light, Zadkiel recognised Brother Ultis, a zealous youth with ambitious temperament. 'That is the source of its true power, novice, for there is no greater rivalry than that which exists between siblings. Only then will one seek to undo the works of the other with such vehemence, giving every ounce of his being to claim victory,' Zadkiel said, arrogantly, enjoying the feeling of superiority. 'Upon gaining mastery over his kin, that brother will have forged a mighty army so as to overthrow him. He will have plumbed deep of his core and unleashed his hate, for in no other way can such a victory be achieved.' 'So you speak of hate,' said Ultis, 'and not brotherhood at all.' Zadkiel smiled thinly to conceal his impatience. 'They are two wings on the same eagle, equal elements of an identical source,' Zadkiel explained. 'We are at war with our brothers, make no mistake of that. In his short-sightedness, the Emperor has brought us to this inexorable fate. With our hate, our devotion to the credos of our primarch, the all-powerful Lorgar, we will achieve our victory.' 'But the Emperor holds Terra, and in that surely there is strength,' Ultis countered, forgetting himself. 'The Emperor is brother to no one!' cried Zadkiel, stepping forward as his words crushed Ultis's challenge easily. Silence persisted for a moment, Ultis shrinking back before his master as he was being chastened. None in the cathedral dared speak. All were cowed by Zadkiel's obvious power. 'He lurks in his dungeons on Terra,' Zadkiel continued with greater zeal, but now addressing the entire congregation. 'The aexectors and bureaucrats, the flock of Malcador, who run Terra's regency, they shy away from all ties of brotherhood. They sit on a pedestal, above reproach, above their brothers, above even our noble Warmaster!' The crowd roared in ascent, Ultis among them, kneeling once more. 'Is that brotherhood?' The novices roared again, gauntleted fists pounding the breast plates of their armour to emphasise their fervour. 'These regents create a stale, meaningless world where all passion is dead and devotion is regarded as heresy!' Zadkiel spat the words, and was suddenly aware of a presence in the shadows behind him. One of the Furious Abyss's crew, Helms-mate Sarkorov, a man with delicate data-probes instead of fingers, was patiently awaiting Zadkiel's notice. 'My apologies, lord,' he said, once he had crossed the few metres between them, 'but Navigator Esthemya has discovered a fleet of pursuing vectors in our wake.' 'What fleet?' 'Two cruisers, an escort squadron and an Astartes strike vessel.' 'I see.' Zadkiel turned back to the congregation. 'Novices, you are dismissed,' he said without ceremony. The assembled Word Bearers departed in silence into the shadows around the edge of the cathedral, heading back to their cells to ruminate on the Word. 'They are gaining ground, my lord,' said Sarkorov once they were alone. 'We are powerful, but these ships are smaller and outmatch us for speed.' 'Then they will reach us before we arrive at the Tertiary Core Transit.' It was a statement, not a question. 'They will, my lord. Should I instruct the magos to force the engines to maximum power? It is possible we could make warp before we are intercepted.' 'No,' said Zadkiel, after some thought. 'Maintain course and keep me updated as to the fleet's progress.' 'Yes, sire,' replied Sarkorov, saluting and then turning sharply to return to the bridge. 'My Lord Zadkiel,' said a voice from the gloom. It was Ultis, concealed by the shadows, but now stepping into the light at the centre of the cathedra. 'Novice,' said Zadkiel, 'why have you not returned to your cell?' 'I would speak with you, master, of the lessons imparted.' 'Then illuminate me, novice.' There was the slightest trace of amusement in Zadkiel's tone. 'The brothers of whom you spoke, you were referring to the primarchs,' Ultis ventured. 'Go on.' 'Our current course will bring us into conflict with the Emperor. To the unenlightened observer, it would appear that the Emperor rules the galaxy and the throne of Terra cannot be usurped.' 'What of the enlightened, novice, what do they see?' 'That the Emperor's power is wielded through his primarchs,' Ultis said with growing conviction, 'and by dividing them, the power of which you spoke is realised.' Zadkiel's silence bade Ultis to continue. 'It is how Terra can be defeated, when Lorgar's brothers join with him, when we bring war to those who will inevitably side with the Emperor. We will yoke our hatred and use it as a weapon, one that will not be denied!' Zadkiel nodded sagely, suppressing a prickle of annoyance at this precocious, yet insightful, youth. Ultis, however, had overreached himself. Zadkiel saw the naked ambition in his eyes, the flame within that threatened to devour Zadkiel's own. 'I merely seek to understand the Word,' Ultis added, exhaling his fervour. 'And you shall, Ultis,' Zadkiel replied, a plan forming in his mind. 'You will be an important instrument in the breaking of Guilliman.' 'I would be honoured, lord,' said Ultis, bowing his head. 'Truly blind men like Guilliman are few,' Zadkiel counselled. 'He believes religion and devotion to be a corrupting force, something to be abhorred and not embraced as we followers of the Word do. His pragmatic retardation is his greatest weakness and in his dogmatic ignorance we shall strike at the heart of his favoured Legion.' Zadkiel spread his arms wide to encompass the cathedral, its high vaults and fluted columns, its pages of the Word, its altar and pulpit. 'One day, Ultis, the whole galaxy will look like this.' Ultis bowed once more. 'Now, return to your cell and think on these lessons further.' 'Yes, my lord.' Zadkiel watched the novice go. A great passage in the sermon of the Word was unfolding and Ultis would play his part. Zadkiel turned back to the pulpit, behind which was a simple altar. Zadkiel lit a candle there for the soul of Roboute Guilliman. Blind he might be, but he was a brother of sorts, and it was only right that his future death be commemorated. ABOARD THE WRATHFUL, on one of the ship's training decks, two World Eaters clashed furiously in a duelling pit. It was one of several arenas in a much wider gymnasium that was replete with dummies, weights and training mats. Weapon ranks lined the walls. The Astartes had brought their own stocks of training weapons with them, and sword-breakers, short-blades, bludgeons and spears were all in evidence. It appeared that the concept of simple training was anathema to the duelling sons of Angron. Amidst the storm of blades and unbridled blood-lust the World Eaters fought as if to the death. Armed with unfettered chainaxes and stripped to the waist, wearing crimson training breeches and black boots, their muscled bodies revealed gruesome welts and long, jagged scars. With a roar, they broke off for a moment, and began circling each other in the sunken chamber of the pit. White marble showed up dark splashes from where the gladiators had wounded each other early on in the contest. A narrow drain at the centre of the pit was already clogging with blood. 'Such anger,' Antiges commented, overlooking the contest from a seated position at the back of the auditorium before whi

s and black boots, their muscled bodies revealed gruesome welts and long, jagged scars. With a roar, they broke off for a moment, and began circling each other in the sunken chamber of the pit. White marble showed up dark splashes from where the gladiators had wounded each other early on in the contest. A narrow drain at the centre of the pit was already clogging with blood. 'Such anger,' Antiges commented, overlooking the contest from a seated position at the back of the auditorium before which it was staged. 'They are Angron's progeny,' said Cestus, alongside him, 'it is their way to be wrathful. Properly employed, their wrath is a useful tool.' 'Yes, but their reputation is a dire one, as is their lord's,' replied Antiges, his expression stern. 'I for one do not feel at ease with their presence on this ship.' 'I have to concur with my brother, Captain Cestus,' added Thestor, who was watching the show alongside Antiges. The burly Astartes was the biggest of the honour guard. Unsurprisingly, his bulk went well with his role of heavy weapons specialist. The rest of the honour guard were nearby, except for Saphrax, watching the ferocious display with mixed interest and disdain. Thestor echoed the thoughts of all his brothers when he next spoke. 'Was it necessary to bring them with us at all?' he asked, his gaze shifting back from his captain to watch the fight. 'This is the business of the Ultramarines. What has it got to do with our Legion brothers?' 'Thestor, do not be so narrow-minded as to think we do not need their aid,' Cestus chastened the heavy-set Astartes, who glanced over at his captain. 'We are a brotherhood: all of us. Though we each have our differences, the Emperor has seen fit for us to conquer the galaxy in his name together. The moment we seek our own personal glories, when we abandon solidarity for pride, is the moment when brotherhood will be shattered.' Thestor regarded the floor when his captain had finished, shamed by his selfish remarks. 'You may take your leave, Thestor,' said Cestus. It wasn't a request. The big Astartes got to his feet and left the training arena. 'I agree with you, Cestus, of course I do,' said Antiges, once Thestor had gone, 'but they are like savages.' 'Are they, Antiges?' Cestus challenged. 'Are Brynngar and the wolves of Russ not savages, too? Do you hold them in such disregard also?' 'Of course not,' Antiges replied. 'I have fought with the Space Wolves and know of their courage and honour. They are savages in their own way, yes, but the difference is that they are possessed of a noble spirit. These sons of Angron are blood-letters, pure and simple. They kill for the simple joy of it.' 'We are all warriors,' Cestus told him. 'Each of us kills in the Emperor's name.' 'Not like them we don't.' 'They are Astartes,' Cestus said, biting out his words, and turning on his battle-brother. 'I will hear no more of this. You forget your place, Antiges.' 'I apologise, captain. I spoke out of turn,' Antiges replied after a moment of stunned silence. 'I only meant to say that I do not approve of their methods or their deeds.' At that, the Ultramarine turned back to watch the battle. Cestus followed his battle-brother's gaze. The Ultramarine captain did not know either of the World Eaters in the duelling pit. He knew precious little of their leader, Skraal. This was ritual combat. No slight, no besmirching of honour had occurred to bring it about. Yet it was bladed and deadly. 'I do not, either,' Cestus admitted, watching as one of the combatants nearly lost his arm to a wild swing of his opponent's chainaxe. The Ultramarine had heard stories from his fellow Legionnaires about the so called 'cleansing' of Ariggata, one of the World Eaters' more infamous battle actions. The Legion's assault on the citadel there had reputably left a charnel house in its wake. Cestus knew full well that Guilliman still sought a reckoning with his brother primarch, Angron, concerning the dire events of that mission, but this was no time for recrimination. Necessity had forced Cestus's hand, and whether he liked it or not, this is what he had been dealt. Skraal led twenty World Eaters on the Wrathful and Cestus was determined to make the best use of them. Brynngar had brought the same number of Blood Claws, and while they were raucous and pugnacious, especially when forced into idleness in the confines of the ship, they did not harbour the same homicidal bent as the bloody sons of Angron. Mhotep was the only Astartes not aboard the Wrathful. He had his own ship, the Waning Moon, but no squads of Thousand Sons, just cohorts of naval arms-men at his command. Barely fifty Astartes and the vessels of their makeshift fleet, Cestus hoped it would be enough for whatever was in store. 'What troubles you, brother?' asked Antiges, their brief altercation swiftly forgotten. The Ultramarine finally turned his back on the battling World Eaters, deciding he had seen enough. 'The message at Coralis dock sits heavily on me,' Cestus confessed. 'The clenched fist, crested by a laurel crown represents Legion... our Legion. The golden book - I don't know what that means, but I saw something else.' 'In the reactor flare,' Antiges realised. 'I had thought I was hearing things when you asked us if we'd seen anything.' 'You were not, and yes, I saw it in the reactor flare, so fleeting and indistinct that at first I believed it was my imagination, that my mind was articulating what my heart longed for.' 'What did you see?' Cestus looked Antiges directly in the eyes. 'I saw Macragge.' Antiges was nonplussed. 'I don't-' 'I saw Macragge and I felt despair, Antiges, as if it presaged something terrible.' 'Signs and visions are the province of witchery, brother-captain,' Antiges counselled warily. 'We both know the edicts of Nikaea.' 'Brothers,' a voice broke in before Cestus could respond. It was Saphrax, come from the bridge where Cestus had instructed he maintain a watch on proceedings. Both Saphrax's fellow Ultramarines turned to him expectantly. 'We have made visual contact with the ship from the site of the Fist's destruction.' 'THAT IS A Legion ship, captain. You are not suggesting that a vessel of the Imperium fired upon one of its own?' Admiral Kaminska warned the Astartes. Following Saphrax's report, Cestus and Antiges had made for the bridge at once. What they saw in the viewscreen when they got there had stunned them both. The vessel they tracked in the void was of Mechanicum design and clearly made for the Legion. It was bedecked in the iconography of the Word Bearers. It was the largest ship that Cestus had ever seen. Even at a considerable distance it was massive, easily three times the size of the Wrathful, and would have dwarfed an Emperor-class battleship. It bore an impressive array of weapons; tech-adepts aboard the Wrathful had suggested port and starboard broadside laser batteries and multiple torpedo tubes to the prow and stern. It was the monolithic statue towering at the vessel's prow, however, that gave Cestus the most concern: a gigantic golden book, the echo of the fragmented image in the astropathic message on Vangelis. 'We're at extreme strike range,' said Captain Commander Vorlov. 'What are your orders, admiral?' 'Hold them back,' said Cestus, deliberately interrupting Kaminska. 'They are our Legion brothers. I am certain they will be able to account for themselves. They may have information regarding the Fist of Macragge.' Vorlov was a paunchy man with jowls that wobbled independently of the rest of his body. He had a gnarled red nose that spoke of long nights drinking to keep away the cold of space, and dressed in the heavy furs typical of his Saturnine heritage. His presence filled the viewscreen through which he was communicating with the bridge of the Wrathful. 'Yes, my lord,' he said. 'No point rattling the sword without reason,' Cestus muttered to Antiges, who nodded his assent. 'Hang back and keep them within range, but do not approach. Admiral Kaminska, bring the Wrathful in at the lead. Keep the Waning Moon and the escort fleet in our wake.' 'As you wish, my lord,' she said, swallowing her annoyance and her pride. 'Relaying orders now.' The tension around the bridge was palpable. Brynngar, having joined them a moment before, growled beneath his breath. 'What is your plan, Cestus?' he asked, eyes locked on the viewscreen and the mighty vessel visible beyond it. 'We draw in close enough to hail them and demand to know their business.' 'On Fenris, when stalking the horned orca, I would swim the icy depths of the ocean taking care to stay in the beast's wake,' Brynngar said with intensity. 'Once I drew close enough I would slip my baleen spear from my leg and launch it into the orca's unprotected flank. Then I would swim, long and hard, to reach the beast before it could turn and impale me on its horn. Within its thrashing swell I would seize upon it and with my blade pare its flesh and gut its innards. For the orca is a mighty beast, and this was the only way to be sure of its demise.' 'We will hail them,' Cestus affirmed, noting the savagery that played across Brynngar's features with unease. 'I won't commit us to a fight over nothing.' 'Admiral,' the Ultramarine added, turning to Kaminska. 'Helms-mate Kant, open up a channel to the vessel at once,' she said. Kant did as ordered and indicated his readiness to his commander. Kaminska nodded to Cestus. 'This is Captain Cestus of the Ultramarines Seventh Chapter. In the name of the Emperor of Mankind, I am ordering you to state your designation and business in this subsector.' Static-fringed silence was the only reply. 'I repeat: this is Captain Cestus of the Ultramarines Seventh Chapter. Respond,' he barked into the bridge vox. More silence. 'Why do they not answer?' asked Antiges, his fists tightly clenched. 'They are Legionaries, like us. Since when did the sons of Lorgar fail to ac

us. 'This is Captain Cestus of the Ultramarines Seventh Chapter. In the name of the Emperor of Mankind, I am ordering you to state your designation and business in this subsector.' Static-fringed silence was the only reply. 'I repeat: this is Captain Cestus of the Ultramarines Seventh Chapter. Respond,' he barked into the bridge vox. More silence. 'Why do they not answer?' asked Antiges, his fists tightly clenched. 'They are Legionaries, like us. Since when did the sons of Lorgar fail to acknowledge the Ultramarines?' 'I don't know. Perhaps their long-range vox is out.' Cestus was reaching for answers, trying to deny what he had known in his heart ever since Vangelis, that something was wrong, terribly, terribly wrong. 'Signal one of the frigates to make approach,' Cestus ordered after a brief silence, eyes fixed on the viewscreen like every other soul on the bridge. 'I don't want to come in with our cruisers,' he reasoned. 'It might be perceived as a threat.' Kaminska relayed the order in curt fashion and the Fearless closed on the unknown vessel. 'I shall follow them in,' said Mhotep from a second viewscreen on the bridge. 'I have half a regiment of Prospero Spireguard standing by to board.' 'Very well, captain, but keep your distance,' Cestus warned. 'As you wish.' The viewscreen went blank as Mhotep took active command of the Waning Moon. A tactical array abruptly activated, depicting the closing vessels that were virtually lost from sight in the viewport. The Word Bearers ship was a red icon on the display surrounded by sensor readings of the approaching frigates, little more than green blips in its presence. 'This reeks,' snarled Brynngar, who had begun prowling the bridge with impatience, 'and my nose never lies.' Cestus kept his eyes on the tactical array. Macragge. The image of his Macragge, seen as part of the astropathic warning in the reactor core, came to mind once more. How were the fates of this vessel and his home world entwined? The Word Bearers were his brothers; surely they had nothing to do with the destruction of the Fist of Macragge? Such a thing was unconscionable. Cestus would have his answers soon enough. The Fearless had reached its destination. FIVE A line is drawn Silver Three down Open book 'YOUR ORDERS, CAPTAIN?' came the vox from the ordnance deck. Zadkiel sat back on his throne. The feeling of power was intoxicating. The battleship was his to command, like an extension of his body, as if the torpedo tubes and gun turrets were his hands. He could simply spread his fingers and will destruction on the enemy. 'Hold,' said Zadkiel. The central viewscreen showed the closing vessels: a frigate with a strike cruiser in its wake. The frigate did not interest the Word Bearer captain, but the cruiser was an entirely different prospect: fast, well-armed and designed for precision attacks and boarding actions. It was painted in the livery of the Thousand Sons. 'Magnus's brood,' said Zadkiel, idly. Astride his command throne, he glanced at a supplementary screen that depicted a tactical readout of the ship. The Furious Abyss's archive had identified it as the Waning Moon. It had many battle honours, and had followed the Thousand Sons Legion across half the galaxy prosecuting the Great Crusade. 'I have always admired their imagination.' Assault-Captain Baelanos was standing behind the command throne. 'They're within range, sire.' 'There is no hurry, captain,' said Zadkiel. 'We should savour this moment.' Additional readings flicked up on the viewscreen. The Waning Moon was showing life-signs equivalent to a full regiment of troops gathering at the boarding muster points. 'Helms-mate Sarkorov, open up a clandestine channel to the Waning Moon,' Zadkiel ordered. 'At once, my lord,' came the reply from deep inside the dark city of the bridge. After a moment, Sarkorov added. 'Channel is secure.' 'On screen.' The central image was replaced with a view of the Waning Moon's gilded bridge. The Astartes in the command throne, which was massively ornate and inset with numerous jewels and engraved runes, looked up in mild surprise. He had light brown skin and hooded eyes, with a face that spoke of discipline and resolve. 'This is Captain Zadkiel, addressing you from the Furious Abyss. Am I speaking to the captain of the Waning Moon?' asked Zadkiel. 'You are. I am Captain Mhotep of the Thousand Sons. Why have you not responded to our hails?' 'No, captain, I demand to know what this display of force means,' Zadkiel said, unwilling to be interrogated by his brother Astartes. 'You have no authority here. Disengage at once.' 'I repeat, why have you not responded to our hails and what do you know of the Fist of Macragge and its fate?' Mhotep was relentless and would not be cowed. 'I do not appreciate your tone, brother. I know nothing of the vessel you speak of,' Zadkiel replied. 'Now, disengage.' 'I do not believe you, brother,' said the Thousand Son with certainty. Zadkiel smiled mirthlessly. 'Then I shall give you the truth. Great deeds are unfolding, Captain Mhotep. Lines will be drawn. Flame and retribution is coming, and those who are on the wrong side of that line will be burned to ash.' Zadkiel paused for a moment, allowing his words to sink in. Mhotep remained impassive. The Thousand Sons were quite the experts at concealing their true emotions. 'We are on a secure channel, Captain Mhotep, and the Legion of the Word have ever been supporters of your lord Magnus. The events of Nikaea must rankle.' That got a reaction, near imperceptible, but it was there. 'What are you suggesting, Word Bearer?' Hostility now, the icy reserve was thawing at the mention of what many in the Legion regarded as Magnus's trial and that what happened at Nikaea was performed by a council in name only. 'Lorgar and Magnus are brothers. So are we. What side of the line will you stand on, Mhotep?' The retort was curt. The Thousand Son's face was set like stone. 'Prepare to be boarded,' he said. 'As you wish,' replied the Word Bearer. The vox link to the Waning Moon was cut. 'Master Malforian,' said Zadkiel, levelly. The ordnance deck flashed up on the viewscreen, a deep metal canyon beneath the prow crowded with sweating ratings hauling massive torpedoes. 'My lord.' 'Fire.' A spread of torpedoes flew from the Furious Abyss towards the Waning Moon, which had positioned itself before the massive ship's prow. Starboard, a bank of laser batteries lit up at once, and beams of crimson light stabbed into the void. They struck the Fearless and the frigate was broken apart in a bright and silent flurry of blossoming explosions. 'THRONE OF TERRA!' Cestus could not believe what he was seeing through the Wrathful's viewscreen. Powerless, and benumbed, he watched the Fearless fragment like scrap as a firestorm ravaged it, hungrily devouring the oxygen on board and turning it into a raging furnace. It was over in seconds, and after the conflagration had died all that remained was a blackened ruin. Then the torpedoes hit the Waning Moon. 'SHARKS IN THE void!' cried Helms-mate Ramket from the sensorium on the bridge of the Waning Moon. The crew were all at battle stations, carefully monitoring the actions of the Word Bearer ship. The lights in the elliptical chamber were dimmed as was protocol for combat situation, and the tiny blips that represented the ordnance launched by the Furious Abyss glowed malevolently on one of the bridge's tactical display slates. 'Evasive manoeuvres. Turrets to full! Withdraw boarding parties to damage control stations!' Mhotep scowled and gripped the lip of the command console in front of him. Shields were useless against torpedoes; he had to hope their hull armour could bear the brunt of the Furious Abyss's opening salvo. 'At your command, my lord,' came Ramket's reply. Warning runes flashed on multiple screens at once, presaging the missile impacts. Mhotep turned again to his helms-mate. 'Open a channel to the Wrathful,' he ordered as the first of the torpedoes hit, sending damage klaxons screaming as a massive shudder ran through the bridge. 'Mhotep, what's happening out there?' asked Cestus over the ship-to-ship vox array. 'The Fearless is gone. We are taking fire and attempting to evade. The Word Bearers have turned on their own, Cestus.' A burst of crackling static held in the air for the moment combining with the din of relayed orders and cogitator warnings. When he finally spoke, the Ultramarine's voice was grim. 'Engage and destroy.' 'Understood.' THE BRIDGE OF the Wrathful moved to battle stations, Kaminska barking rapid orders to her subordinates with well-drilled precision and calm. The professionalism of the Saturnine Fleet's officer class was evident as the weapons were brought to bear and shields focused prow-ward. 'How shall we respond, lord Astartes?' she asked, once they were at a state of readiness. Cestus fought a cold knot of disbelief building in the pit of his stomach as he watched the spread of blips on the tactical display move into attack positions. The Word Bearers have turned on their own. Mhotep's words were like a hammer blow. His words, the words that Cestus had spoken earlier on the training deck to Thestor and Antiges, of brotherhood and the solidarity of the Legions, suddenly turned to ash in his mouth. He had admonished his brothers for even voicing mild dissent against a fellow Legionnaire, and now, here they were embattled against them. No, they were not World Eaters. They were not the murderous, blood-letters that Antiges had described. They were the devout servants of the Emperor. Ostensibly they were his most vehement and staunchest supporters. How far did this treachery go? Was it confined merely to this ship, or did it permeate the entire Legion? Surely, with the vessel crafted by the Mechanicum it had the sanction of Mars. Could they be aware of the Word Bearers' defection? Such a thing could not be c

ttled against them. No, they were not World Eaters. They were not the murderous, blood-letters that Antiges had described. They were the devout servants of the Emperor. Ostensibly they were his most vehement and staunchest supporters. How far did this treachery go? Was it confined merely to this ship, or did it permeate the entire Legion? Surely, with the vessel crafted by the Mechanicum it had the sanction of Mars. Could they be aware of the Word Bearers' defection? Such a thing could not be countenanced. With these questions running through his mind like a fever, Cestus could not believe what was happening. It did not feel real. From disbelief, anger and a desire for retribution was born. 'Break that ship in two,' Cestus said, full of righteous conviction. He could feel the ripples of shock and disbelief passing through the non-Astartes as the full horror of what they had witnessed sank in. He would show them that the true servants of the Emperor did not tolerate traitors and any act of heresy would be summarily dealt with. Cestus's feelings and the ramifications of what had transpired would have to wait and be rationalised later. 'Relay astropathic messages to Macragge and Terra at once,' the Ultramarine added. 'The sons of Lorgar will be held to account for this. Admiral Kaminska, you have the helm.' 'As you wish, my lord.' Kaminska said. Trying her best to maintain her cold composure in the face of such developments, she swivelled the command throne as the screens around her shifted to show every angle around the ship. 'Captain Vorlov, are you with me?' 'Say the word, admiral.' Vorlov's enthusiasm was obvious, despite the static flickering through the fleet's vox array. 'Take the lead behind the Waning Moon. If they stay on the Astartes ship, swing up in front of them. Give them a bloody good broadside up the nose, and scramble attack craft. Keep their gunners busy. I'll send what's left of our escorts with you. In the name of Emperor!' 'At your command, admiral,' replied Vorlov with relish. 'Main engines to full, all crew to battle stations. Watch my stern, admiral, and the Boundless will pick this swine apart! In the name of Emperor!' 'Mister Castellan,' Kaminska barked, terminating the vox link with the Boundless. The Wrathful's Master of Ordnance appeared on screen, toiling ratings just visible behind him on the gun decks. 'A lance salvo to their dorsal turret arrays and engines, if you please,' said Kaminska. 'Load prow plasma torpedoes, but hold in reserve, I want something up our sleeve.' 'At your command, admiral,' came the clipped response from Master of Ordnance Castellan, who snapped a curt salute before the screen blanked. CESTUS WATCHED AS the organised chaos of battle stations unfolded. Every crewman on the bridge had his own role to play, relaying orders, monitoring sensorium and viewscreens, or making minute adjustments to the ship's course. One of the tables on the bridge unfolded into a stellar map where holographic simulacra were moved around to represent the relative positions of the ships in the fleet. 'Traitorous whoresons,' snarled Brynngar, 'it'll be Lorgar's head for this.' Cestus could see the hairs on the back of the Space Wolf's neck rise. In this fell mood and with the dimmed battle stations gloom, he took on a feral aspect. 'Scuttle her and I'll lead the sons of Russ aboard,' he growled darkly. 'Let the wolves of Fenris gut her and I'll tear out the beating heart myself.' Brynngar hawked and spat a gobbet of phlegm onto the deck as if what was transpiring in the void had left a bitter taste. There were a few raised eyebrows, but the Wolf Guard paid them no heed. Cestus's reply was terse. 'You'll get your chance.' Brynngar roared, baring his fangs. 'I can no longer sit idle,' he snapped savagely, turning on his heel. 'The warriors of Russ will make ready at the boarding torpedoes. Do not make us wait long.' Cestus couldn't be certain if the last part was a request or a threat, but he was, for once, glad of the Wolf Guard's departure. His mood, since they'd hit the void and encountered the Word Bearers had grown increasingly erratic and belligerent. The Ultramarine sensed that the wolves of Russ did not relish such encounters. The fact that Brynngar was so eager to spill the blood of fellow Astartes only caused Cestus greater discomfort. At war with our Legion brothers, the very idea scarcely seemed possible, yet it was happening. Cestus watched the space battle unfold with curious detachment and felt his sense of foreboding grow. THE WANING MOON had burned its retro engines to kill its speed, and fired all thrusters on its underside to twist upwards and present its armoured flank to a second torpedo volley shimmering towards it. The first torpedoes missed high, spiralling past the ship to be lost in the void. A handful detonated early, riddled with massive-calibre fragmentation shells from the defence turrets mounted along the flank of the Waning Moon. Several found their mark just below the stern. Another streaked in with violent force, and then two more amidships. Useless energy shields flared black over the impact points as hull segments spun away from the ship, the torpedoes gouging their way through the outer armour. 'Damage report!' shouted Mhotep above the din of the bridge. 'Negligible, sire,' Officer Ammon answered from the engineering helm. 'What?' 'Minimal hull fractures, my Lord Mhotep.' 'Sensorium definitely read four impacts,' confirmed Helms-mate Ramket watching over the readouts. Embedded deep in the hull of the Waning Moon, the outer casing of each torpedo split with a super-heated incendiary and six smaller missiles drilled out from their parent casing. They were ringed with metallic teeth and bored through the superstructure of the strike cruiser as they spun. Drilling through the last vestiges of hull armour, the missiles emerged into the belly of the vessel and detonated with a powerful explosive charge. With a deafening thoom-woosh of concussive heat pressure, the gun decks were ruined. Ratings and indentured workers died in droves, burned by the intense conflagration. Heaps of shells exploded in the firestorm, throwing lashes of flame and chunks of spiralling shrapnel through the decks. Master Gunner Kytan was decapitated in the initial barrage, and dozens of gunnery crew met a similar fate as they scrambled for cover as the gun-decks became little more than an abattoir of charred corpses and hellish screaming. THE WANING MOON shuddered as explosions tore through its insides. A destructive chain reaction boiled through the upper decks and into crew quarters. Stern-wards, detonations ripped into engineering sections, normally well shielded from direct hits, and ripped plasma conduits free to spew superheated fluid through access tunnels and coolant ducts. Damage control crews, waiting at their muster points to douse fires and seal breaches, were torn asunder by the resultant carnage from amidships. Orderlies at triage posts barely had time to register the pandemonium on the gun decks before the blunt bullet of a warhead thundered through into the medicae deck and annihilated them in a flash of light and terror. Chains of explosions ripped huge chunks out of the Waning Moon's insides. Like massive charred bite marks, whole sections were reduced to smouldering metal and hundreds of crewmen were lost to the cold of the void as the vessel's structural integrity broke down. 'REPORT THAT!' ORDERED Mhotep, clinging to his command throne on the bridge as sections of the ship collapsed around him, revealing bare metal and sparking circuitry. The lights around the bridge were stuttered intermittently as the Waning registered power loss and damage across all decks. Mhotep's crew were doing their best to marshal some semblance of order, but the attack had been swift and far-reaching. 'Massive internal and secondary explosions,' replied Officer Ammon, struggling to keep pace with the warning runes dancing madly over the engineering helm, and snapping off further reports. 'Plasma venting from reactor seven, gun crews non-responsive and medicae has taken severe damage.' 'Tertiary shielding is breached,' said Mhotep as the ship-to-ship vox crackled into life. 'Mhotep, report your status at once! This is Captain Cestus.' The impacts had shaken the vox array and the Ultramarine's voice was distorted with static. 'We are wounded, captain,' said Mhotep grimly. 'Some kind of Mechanicum tech that I have never seen before burned our insides.' 'Our lances are firing,' Cestus informed him. 'Can you stay engaged?' 'Aye, son of Macragge, we're not done yet.' A further crackle of static and the vox went dead. The bridge of the Waning Moon was alive with transmissions from the rest of the ship: some calm, reporting peripheral damage to minor systems; others frantic, from plasma reactor seven and the gun decks, and there were those that were unintelligible through raging fire and screaming: the last words of men and women dying agonising deaths. 'Be advised, captain, they are coming about.' Principal Navigator Cronos was eerily calm as his voice came through the internal vox array. Mhotep scrutinised the tactical holo-display above the command console. The Furious Abyss was changing course. It was suffering lance imparts from the Wrathful and was turning to present its heavily armoured prow to the aggressors. 'What folly from this Bearer of his Word,' Mhotep intoned. 'He thinks we will flee like the jackal, but his only victory is in raising the ire of Prospero! Mister Cronos, bring us across his bow. Gun decks port and starboard, prepare for a rolling broadside!' THE WANING MOON rotated grandly, as if standing on end in front of the Furious Abyss. The Word Bearer vessel had not reacted, and its blunt prow faced the damaged strike cruiser. Deep scores, like illegible signatures, were seared into the prow armour of the traitors' ship by the

Mhotep intoned. 'He thinks we will flee like the jackal, but his only victory is in raising the ire of Prospero! Mister Cronos, bring us across his bow. Gun decks port and starboard, prepare for a rolling broadside!' THE WANING MOON rotated grandly, as if standing on end in front of the Furious Abyss. The Word Bearer vessel had not reacted, and its blunt prow faced the damaged strike cruiser. Deep scores, like illegible signatures, were seared into the prow armour of the traitors' ship by the Wrathful's laser batteries. An insane crosshatch of crimson lance beams erupted between the two vessels with pyrotechnic intensity as they traded blows, silent shield flares indicating absorbed impacts. Errant bursts glittered past the Waning Moon as it opened up its gun ports and the snouts of massive ship-to-ship cannon emerged. Behind them, sweat-drenched ratings toiled to load the enormous guns and avenge their dead. They chanted in gun-cant to keep their rhythm strong, one refrain for hauling shells out of the hoppers behind them, another for ramming it home, and yet another for hauling the breech closed. The signal to fire reached them from the bridge. The rating gang leaders brought hammers down on firing pins and inside the ship, thunder screamed through the decks. Outside, jets of propellant and debris leapt the gap between the two ships. A split second later the shells impacted, explosive charges blasting deep craters into the enemy vessel. THE BRIDGE OF the Furious Abyss stayed calm. Zadkiel was pleased. His ship, the city over which he ruled, was not governed by panic. 'My lord, should we retaliate?' asked Helms-mate Sarkorov. 'For now, we wait,' said Zadkiel, content to absorb the punishment as he sat back on the command throne watching images of the Waning Moon's assault on the viewscreens above him. 'There is nothing they can do to us.' 'You would have us sit here and take this?' snarled Reskiel at his master's side. 'We will prevail,' said Zadkiel, unperturbed. Dozens of new contacts flared on the viewscreens, streaking from the launch bays of a ship identified as the Boundless. 'Assault boats, sire,' Sarkorov informed him, monitoring the same feed. 'Escorts are closing.' Zadkiel pored over the hololithic display. 'They intend to attack from all angles and confuse us, and while we weather this storm, their assault boats and escorts will pick us apart.' Zadkiel provided the curt tactical analysis coldly, his face aglow in the display. 'What is our response?' asked Reskiel. 'We wait.' 'That's it?' 'We wait,' repeated Zadkiel, his voice like iron. 'Trust in the Word.' Reskiel stood back, watching the fire hammering in from the Waning Moon, and listening to the dull thuds of explosions from within the Furious's prow. THE ATTACK CRAFT wing of the Boundless swept in tight formation through the veil of debris building up from the damage to the two ships ahead of them. The Waning Moon and the Furious Abyss were locked in the Spiral Dance: the long, painful embrace that saw one ship circle another pumping broadsides into the enemy as it spun. Like everything else in space the Spiral Dance had its own mythology, and to a lifelong pilot of the Saturnine Fleet it meant inevitable doom and the spite of one ship lashing out at the enemy in its death throes. It was desperation and tragedy, like a dying romance or a last stand against vast odds. The fighters, ten-man craft loaded with short-range rockets and cannon, streaked past the Waning Moon, the pilots saluting their fellow ship as custom dictated. They locked on to the Furious Abyss, the squadron leaders marking out targets on the immense dark red hull already pocked with lance scars and broadside craters from the battering the Wrathful had given it. Shield housings, sensor clusters and exhaust vents all lit up on the tactical display in a backwash of emerald light. Targeting cogitators locked on and burned red. Silver Three, flown by Pilot Second-Class Carnagan Thaal, matched assigned approach vectors and built to full attack run speed. Through the shallow forward viewscreen, Thaal could see the Furious Abyss crisscrossed by laser battery barrage, its prow a flickering mass of smouldering metal. He ordered his weapons officers to lock on to their target, a stretch of gun turrets along the Furious's dorsal spine. The port guns obeyed, the lascannon mounts swivelling into position. The starboard guns did not move. Pilot Thaal repeated his order through the ship's vox. His co-pilot, Rugel, checked the array, but found nothing amiss. 'Rugel, go down to the armaments deck and align those guns,' Thaal ordered, deciding there was enough time before they hit their final approach vector. The co-pilot nodded and tore out the wires attaching him to his seat and the console in front of him, and swung around in his chair. 'Scell, what are you doing?' Thaal heard his co-pilot ask and turned to get a good look at what was going on. He started when he saw Weapons Officer Carina Scell standing there with her autopistol in her hand. Thaal was about to tell her to get back to her post and get the damn cannons locked on when Scell shot him in the face. She took Rugel in the chest, stepping forward to deliver the shot point-blank. Bleeding badly, the copilot scrabbled to get his sidearm out of its holster. 'It is written,' Scell said, and shot him twice more in the head. Silver Three continued on its attack vector. Scell headed below decks to finish her work. 'SILVER THREE'S DOWN,' said Officer Artemis on the fighter control deck of the Boundless. The deck ran almost a third of the length of the Boundless to accommodate the numerous tactical consoles. Captain Vorlov, his face awash in the reflected ochre glow of datascreens, paid it little heed as he prowled the ranks of fighter controllers. Attack craft were always lost. It was the way of the void. Vorlov continued his tour, preferring to witness firsthand the actions of his fighters rather than make do with the fragmented reports filtering through to the bridge. The Boundless was a dedicated carrier for attack craft and his duties were here, listening to the fates of his fighter wings. His helms-mate was perfectly capable of keeping the ship running in his absence. 'Any defensive fire?' asked Vorlov of the nearest control overseer. 'None yet,' said the overseer, whose shaved scalp was festooned with wires feeding information from each controller into her brain. 'But we're in range of their countermeasures,' said Vorlov, a thought occurring to him. 'You! What took down Silver Three?' The controller looked up from his screen. 'Unknown. The pilot went off my screen. Possible crew casualties.' 'Non-standard transmissions from Gold Nine,' said another controller hunched over his screen. He held one of his earphones tight against his head and winced as he tried to hear more clearly. 'Some kind of commotion aboard ship, sire. They're not responding to protocols.' 'Bring them in. The rest of you, report any further anomalies!' Vorlov harrumphed in annoyance and leaned forward on his cane. The Saturnine Fleet had the best small craft pilots this side of the galactic centre. They didn't just flake out during a firefight. 'Gold Nine is lost, captain,' reported the controller. 'I detected small-arms fire in the cockpit.' 'Get me word on what the hell's going on or I'll have your commission,' barked Vorlov at the overseer. 'Yes, captain.' 'Fragmented reports are coming in from Silver Prime,' interrupted yet another controller. 'They say they've lost control of the engine crew.' 'Get all this on air!' shouted Vorlov. The overseer fiddled with a couple of settings and cockpit transmissions crackled through the deck's vox-caster. '...gone insane! He's barricaded himself in the aft quarters. Esau's dead and he's venting the bloody air. I'm pulling out from attack vectors and going down there to shoot him.' 'I am the light that shines always. I am the lord of the dawn. I am the beginning and the end. I am the Word.' 'Agh, I'm... I'm bleeding out... Heral's dead, but I'm not going to make it.' 'Gold Twelve just opened fire on us! We're hit aft-wards, pulling back and venting engine three.' Vorlov was assailed by the desperate voices and distorted screams, dozens of them, all from experienced assault pilots, all tinged with fear or disbelief, or pain. Reports of colleagues sabotaging engines or murdering crew, ranting paranoia and delusion spewed forth from the vox. Vorlov couldn't believe what he was hearing. His wings were in total disarray and the glorious attack run he had envisaged had failed utterly without the enemy firing off a shot. He had never even read about such a thing in the histories of the Saturnine Fleet. 'It's as if they're going mad, captain,' said the overseer, struggling to keep her voice level, 'every one of them.' 'Abort!' shouted Vorlov. 'All wings! Abort attack run and return to the Boundless!' 'WE ARE SUCCESSFUL, lord,' the sibilant voice of Chaplain Ikthalon said through the vox array. 'The supplicants have effectively neutralised their fighter assault.' 'You are to be commended, chaplain. Ours is a divine purpose and you have ensured your name will be remembered in the scriptures of Lorgar,' Zadkiel replied coldly from the command throne, before turning to address Helms-mate Sarkorov. 'Let the escort craft close and then open the book.' 'Yes, my lord.' Sarkorov relayed the order at once. Zadkiel watched a close-up of the sector of space through which the Boundless's attack wings were flying. Fighters were already tumbling, glittering short-lived explosions as their colleagues shot them down. Others were spiralling off-course. The pathetic assault was in ruins. 'Behold,' Zadkiel said to his second standing alongside him, 'the power of the Word, Reskiel.' 'It is indeed humbling,' Reskiel replied, bowing deeply to his lord. Zadkiel found the obvious toadying distas

der at once. Zadkiel watched a close-up of the sector of space through which the Boundless's attack wings were flying. Fighters were already tumbling, glittering short-lived explosions as their colleagues shot them down. Others were spiralling off-course. The pathetic assault was in ruins. 'Behold,' Zadkiel said to his second standing alongside him, 'the power of the Word, Reskiel.' 'It is indeed humbling,' Reskiel replied, bowing deeply to his lord. Zadkiel found the obvious toadying distasteful. Even so, this was a great moment, and he allowed himself to bask in it before returning to the vox. 'Ikthalon, how many supplicants did we lose?' 'Three, Lord Zadkiel,' the chaplain replied. 'The weakest.' 'Keep me appraised.' 'As you wish.' Ikthalon said, and terminated the link. Zadkiel ignored the impudence and sat back in his command throne to watch the damage control reports flicker by. The prow was mangled, chewed up by the Waning Moon's broadsides and torn by the lances of the Wrathful, but the prow was merely armour plating and empty space. It didn't matter. It could soak up everything they could throw at it for hours before the shells penetrated live decks. Even then, only Legion menials would perish, the unaugmented humans pledged to die for Lorgar. 'This is the Fireblade,' came the transmission intercepted by the Furious Abyss's advanced sensorium from one of the approaching escort ships. 'We've got a clear run. Lances to full.' 'On your tail, Fireblade,' came the reply from a second frigate. 'Master Malforian, bring turrets to bear and reload ordnance,' said Zadkiel. He followed the blips of the escorts as they negotiated the graveyard of fighter craft, intent on helping the Waning Moon finish off the Furious. Zadkiel allowed himself a thin smile. 'THE FIGHTERS ARE lost,' said Vorlov. His face was ruddy with frustration as it glowered out of the viewscreen on the bridge of the Wrathful. Almost to a man, the crewmen of the ship were watching Captain Vorlov's report of the total failure of the attack run. 'What, all of them?' asked Admiral Kaminska. 'Twenty per cent are en route back to the Boundless,' said Vorlov. 'The rest are gone. Our crews turned on each other.' 'You think this was a psychic attack, captain?' asked Cestus, suddenly glad that Brynngar was off the bridge. 'Yes, lord, I do,' Vorlov breathed, fear edging his voice. This was a worrying development. All the Legions knew full well what had been decided on Nikaea, and the censure imposed by the Emperor on dabbling in the infernal powers of the warp and the use of sorcery. The Ultramarine turned to Admiral Kaminska. 'What of our remaining escorts?' 'Captain Ulargo on the Fireblade is leading them in,' she replied. 'No problems so far.' Cestus nodded, processing everything unfolding on the bridge. 'Maintain lance barrage from the Wrathful and the Waning Moon. Captain Vorlov, add the Boundless's from distance and let the escorts engage. No ship, however massive, can withstand such a concentrated assault.' 'At your command, my lord,' Vorlov returned. Cestus turned to regard Kaminska, seething at her command throne. 'As you wish, captain,' she responded coolly. THE FIREBLADE STITCHED the first volleys of lance fire down against the upper hull of the Furious Abyss. It had nothing like the firepower of the fleet's cruisers, but up close it could pick its targets, and each lance fired independently to blast off hull plates and shear turrets from their emplacements with fat bursts. Defensive guns retaliated in kind and shots blistered against the Fireblade's shields, some making it through to the escort's dark green hull. The Fireblade twisted out of arcs of fire and sent a chain of incendiaries hammering down into the dorsal turret arrays. Silent explosions blossomed and were swallowed by the void, leaving glittering sprays of wreckage like silver fountains. The Fireblade's hull was resplendent with kill markings and battle honours. It had done this many times before. It was small, but it was agile and packed a harder punch than its size suggested. Behind it was the Ferox, its younger sister ship, using the heat signatures of the Fireblade's strikes to throw bombs and las-blasts through the tears opened up in the upper hull. The Fireblade finished its first run and corkscrewed up over the Furious's engine housings, letting the heat wash of the battleship's engines lend a hand in catapulting it void-wards before it lined up for another pass. Below the two escorts, the last of the squadron, now just the Ferocious with the dramatic and sudden demise of the Fearless, was making its run along the underside of the massive vessel, pouring destruction into the ventral turrets. All three remaining escorts came under fierce fire, but their shields and hull armour held, their speed too great to allow a significant number of defensive turrets to bear at once and combine their efforts. Captain Ulargo, at the helm of the Fireblade, commented to his fellow escort captains that the Word Bearers appeared to want to die. ANOTHER BROADSIDE THUNDERED from the Waning Moon as the strike cruiser turned elegantly, keeping level with the Furious Abyss's prow. The void was sucking fire out of the prow, so it looked like the head of a fire-breathing monster made of smouldering metal. The enormous book that served as the ship's figurehead was intact. Slowly, silently, the metal book cracked open and folded outwards. The massive bore of a gun emerged from behind it. The end of the barrel glowed red as reactors towards the rear of the ship opened up plasma conduits to the prow and the weapon's capacitors filled. Licks of blue flame ran over the ruined prow, ignited by the sheer force of the building energy. The prow cannon fired. A white beam leapt from the Furious Abyss. At the same time thrusters kicked in, rotating the Furious a couple of degrees so that the short-lived beam played across the void in front of it. It struck the Waning Moon just fore of the engines. Vaporised metal formed a billowing white cloud, like steam, condensing into a silver shower of re-solidified matter. Secondary explosions led the beam as it scored across the strike cruiser's hull, until finally it was lost in the shower of debris and vapour as its energy expended and the glowing barrel began to cool down in the vacuum. Further explosions rippled across the Waning Moon in the wake of the crippling barrage, and the rear third of the strike cruiser was sheared clean off. SIX The void Squadron disengage A way with words THE PACE OF space battles was glacially slow. Even when seen through viewscreens it was carried out at extreme ranges, with laser battery salvoes taking seconds to crawl across the blackness. The battle had been raging for over an hour when the cannon on the prow of the Furious Abyss fired its maiden shot. The broadside from the Waning Moon had crossed a gulf of several hundred kilometres before impacting on the enemy ship's prow and that had been point-blank by the standards of ship-to-ship warfare. The Boundless's fighter wings had flown distances that would have taken them across continents on a planet's surface. When something happened quickly, it was a sudden, jarring occurrence that threw everything else out of kilter. The slow ballet of a ship battle was broken by the discordant note of a rapid development, and all plans had to be re-founded in its wake. An event that could not be reacted to, that was over too quickly to change course or target, was a nightmare that many ship captains struggled to cope with. It was unfortunate for the captains of the Imperial fleet, then, that the death of the Waning Moon happened very quickly indeed. 'BY TITAN'S VALLEYS,' gasped Admiral Kaminska on the bridge of the Wrathful. 'What was that?' The instruments on the bridge suddenly lit up as one as an intense flare of light filled the forward viewscreen. 'Massive energy reading,' came the confused reply from Helmsmistress Venkmyer. 'Energy sensorium's blind.' 'Did the Waning Moon just go plasma-critical?' 'There were no damage control signs that suggested major engine damage. They'd got the reactor-seven leak locked down. Maybe a weapons discharge?' 'What weapon could do that?' 'A plasma lance,' replied Cestus. Kaminska turned to face the Ultramarine, whose grim expression betrayed his emotions. 'I did not know such a device had been wrought and fitted,' he added. The admiral's initial shock turned to stern pragmatism. 'My lord, if I am to risk my ship and the souls onboard, I would have you tell me what we are up against,' she said, with no little consternation. 'I have little idea,' Cestus confessed, staring into the viewscreen, analysing and appraising tactical protocols in nanoseconds as he considered Kaminska's question. 'The Astartes are not privy to the secret works of the Mechanicum, admiral.' The Ultramarine sensed the challenge from Kaminska, her growing discontent, and was determined to crush it. 'Suffice to say that the plasma lance was developed as a direct fire close-range weapon for ship-to-ship combat. In any event, it matters not. Your orders are simple,' said Cestus, turning his steely gaze upon Admiral Kaminska in an attempt to cow her veiled truculence. 'We are to destroy that ship.' 'They are Astartes aboard that ship, Cestus, our battle-brothers,' Antiges said quietly. Until now, the fellow Ultramarine had been content to maintain his silence and keep his own council, but events were unfolding upon the bridge of the Wrathful and out in the wide, cold reaches of real space that he could not ignore. 'I am aware of that, Antiges.' 'But captain, to condemn them to-' 'My hand is forced,' Cestus snarled, suddenly turning on Antiges. 'Know your place, battle-brother! I am still your commanding officer.' 'Of course, my captain.' Antiges bowed slightly and averted his gaze from his fellow Ultramarine. 'I would request to le

in his silence and keep his own council, but events were unfolding upon the bridge of the Wrathful and out in the wide, cold reaches of real space that he could not ignore. 'I am aware of that, Antiges.' 'But captain, to condemn them to-' 'My hand is forced,' Cestus snarled, suddenly turning on Antiges. 'Know your place, battle-brother! I am still your commanding officer.' 'Of course, my captain.' Antiges bowed slightly and averted his gaze from his fellow Ultramarine. 'I would request to leave the bridge to inform Saphrax and the rest of the squad to prepare for a potential boarding action.' Cestus's face was set like stone. Antiges met it with a steely gaze of his own. 'Granted.' His captain's curt response was icy. Antiges saluted, turned on his heel and left the bridge. Kaminska said nothing, only listened to what Cestus ordered next. 'Raise Mhotep at once.' The admiral turned to regard her helms-mate monitoring communications with the Waning Moon. 'We cannot, sire,' Kant replied. 'The Waning Moon's vox array is not operational.' Kaminska swore beneath her breath, turning to the tactical display in the hope that a solution would present itself. All she saw was the massive enemy ship manoeuvring for a fresh assault against the Boundless. 'Captain Vorlov,' she barked into the vox, 'this is the Wrathful. She's heading for you next. Get out of there.' There was a crackle of static and Vorlov's voice replied, 'What is this monster you have us hunting, Kaminska?' There was a slight pause, and suddenly Kaminska looked very old as if the many juvenat treatments she'd undertaken to grant her such longevity had been stripped away. 'I don't know.' 'I never thought I'd hear you at a loss for words,' said Vorlov. 'I'm breaking off and hitting warp distance. I suggest you do the same.' Kaminska looked at Cestus. 'Do we run?' 'No,' said Cestus. His jaw was set as he watched the debris from the Waning Moon rain in all directions as the ship's hull split in two. 'That's what I thought. Helmsmistress Venkmyer, relay orders to engineering to make ready for full evasive.' THE BRIDGE OF the Waning Moon was in ruins. Massive feedback had ripped through every helm. Crewmen had died as torrents of energy had hammered through their scalp sockets and into their brains. Others were burning in the wreckage of exploded cogitators. Some of them had got out, but there was little indication that anywhere on the ship was better off. There was smoke everywhere, and all sound was swamped by the agonising din of screaming metal from the rear of the ship. The ship's spine was broken and it could no longer support its own structure. The Waning Moon's movement was enough to force it apart with inertia. The blast doors had buckled under the extreme damage inflicted upon the stricken vessel and would not open. Mhotep had drawn his scimitar and cut through them with ease, forcing his way out of the bridge. Engineering was gone, simply gone. The last surviving readouts on the bridge had been tracking the engines as they spun away below the ship, ribbons of burning plasma and charred bodies spilling from the ship's wounds like intestines. No order had been given to abandon ship. Mhotep hadn't needed to give it. 'Captain, power is falling all across the ship,' shouted Helms-mate Ramket, his voice warring against the din of internal explosions somewhere below decks. 'We are beyond saving, helms-mate. Head for the starboard saviour pods immediately,' Mhotep replied, noting the savage gash across Ramket's forehead where he'd been struck by falling ship debris. Ramket saluted and was about to turn and do as ordered when a sheet of fire rippled down the corridor, channelled through the Waning Moon's remaining oxygen. It flowed over Mhotep in a coruscating wave, spilling against his armour as it was repelled. Warning runes within his helmet lens display flashed intense heat readings. Ramket had no such protection, and his scream died in his burning mouth as the skin was seared from his body. Smothered by fire, as if drowning, Ramket thundered against the deck in a heap of charred bone and flaming meat. Mhotep forced his way through the closest access portal and hauled it shut against the blaze. The fire had caught on the seals of his armour and he patted them out with his gauntleted palm. He had emerged from the conflagration into one of the ship's triage stations, where the wounded had been brought from the torpedo strikes on the gun decks. The injured were still lying in beds hooked up to respirators and life support cogitators. The orderlies were gone; ship regulations made no provision for bringing invalids along when abandoning ship. They had given their lives to the Thousand Sons. They had known that they would die in service, one way or another. Mhotep ignored the dead and pressed on. Beyond the triage station were crew quarters. Men and women were running everywhere. Normally, they would know exactly where to head in the event of an abandon ship, but the Waning Moon's structure was coming apart and the closest saviour pods were wrecked. Some were already dead, crushed by chunks of torn metal crashing through the ceiling or thrown into fiery rents in the deck plates. In spite of the confusion, they stood aside instinctively to allow Mhotep clear passage. As an Astartes and their lord, his life was worth more man any of theirs. 'Starboard saviour pods are still operational, captain,' said one petty officer. Mhotep remembered his name as Lothek. He was just one of the many thousands of souls about to burn in the void. Mhotep nodded an acknowledgement to the man. The Thousand Son's own armour was still smouldering and he could feel points of hot pain at the elbow and knee joints, but he ignored them. Abruptly, the crew quarters split in two, one side hauled sharply upwards in a scream of twisting metal. Lothek went with it, smashed up into the ceiling and turned to a grisly red paste before his mouth had even formed a terrified scream. A huge section of the Waning Moon's structure had collapsed and given way. Its inertia ripped it out of the ship's belly and air shrieked from the widening gaps. Mhotep was staggered by the unexpected rupture and grabbed the frame of a door as air howled past him. He saw crewmen wrenched off their feet and dashed against torn deck plating that bent outwards like jagged, broken teeth. The tangled mass before him gave way and tumbled off into the void, over a dozen souls screaming silently as they went with it. Their eyes widened in panic even as they iced over. They gasped out breaths, or held them too long, and ruptured their lungs, spewing out ragged plumes of blood. Hitting space, their bodies froze in spasm, limbs held at awkward angles as they drifted away into the star-pocked darkness. The scene was bizarrely tranquil as Mhotep regarded it, the swathe of black-clad nothing silent and endless where distant constellations glittered dully and the faded luminescence of far off suns left a lambent glow in the false night. Gravity gave way as the structure was violated. Mhotep held on, armoured fingers making indentations in the metal, as the last gales of atmosphere hammered past. A corpse rolled and bumped against his armour, on its way to the void. It was Officer Ammon, his eyes red with burst veins. They were dead: thousands all dead. Mhotep felt some grim pride, knowing that, had they seen it would end this way, the crew would all still have given their lives to Magnus and the Thousand Sons. With no time for reverie, the Astartes pulled himself along the wall, finding handholds among shattered mosaics. With the air gone, the only sound was the groaning of the ship as it came apart, mumbling through its structure and up through the gauntlets of Mhotep's armour. His armour was proof against the vacuum, but he could only survive for a limited time. The same was not true of anyone else aboard ship. Mhotep passed through the crew quarters. In the wake of its demise, the Waning Moon had become an eerily silent tomb of metal. As power relays failed, lights flashed intermittently, the illumination on some decks made only by crackling sparks. Gobbets of blood broke against Mhotep's armour as he moved, and icy corpses bobbed with the dead gravity as if carried by an invisible ocean. The Astartes shoved tangled bodies aside, faces locked in frozen grimaces, as he fought his way to a pair of blast doors and opened them. The air was gone beyond them, too, and more crewmen floated in the corridor leading down to the saviour pod deck. One of them grasped at Mhotep's arm as the Astartes went past him. It was a crewman who had emptied his lungs as the air boomed out and had, thus, managed to stay conscious. His eyes goggled madly. Mhotep swept him aside and carried on. The starboard saviour pods were not far away, but the Thousand Son had to take a short detour first. Passing through a final corridor, he reached the reinforced blast door of his sanctum. Incredibly, the chamber still retained power, operating on a heavily protected, separate system from the rest of the ship. Mhotep inputted the runic access protocol and the door slid open. The oxygen that remained in the airtight sanctum started to pour out. Mhotep stepped over the threshold quickly and the door sealed shut behind him with a hiss of escaping pressure. Ignoring the damage done to the precious artefacts within the room, Mhotep went straight to the extant sarcophagus at the back of the sanctum. Opening it with controlled urgency, he retrieved the short wand-stave from inside it and secured the item in a compartment in his armour. When Mhotep turned, about to head for the saviour pods, he saw a figure crushed beneath a fallen cry-glass cabinet. Shards of glass speared the figure's robed body, and vital fluids trickled from its bloodless lips. 'Sire?' gasped Kalamar, using what little oxygen remained in the chamber. Mhotep went to t

to the extant sarcophagus at the back of the sanctum. Opening it with controlled urgency, he retrieved the short wand-stave from inside it and secured the item in a compartment in his armour. When Mhotep turned, about to head for the saviour pods, he saw a figure crushed beneath a fallen cry-glass cabinet. Shards of glass speared the figure's robed body, and vital fluids trickled from its bloodless lips. 'Sire?' gasped Kalamar, using what little oxygen remained in the chamber. Mhotep went to the ageing serf and knelt beside him. 'For the glory of Magnus,' Kalamar breathed when his lord was close. Mhotep nodded. 'You have served your master and this vessel well, old friend,' the Astartes intoned and stood up again, 'but your tenure is at an end.' 'Spare my suffering, lord.' 'I will,' Mhotep replied, mustering what little compassion existed in his cold methodical nature and, drawing his bolt pistol, he shot Kalamar through the head. THE SAVIOUR POD deck was situated next to the hull, a hemispherical chamber with six pods half-sunk into the floor. Two had been launched and another was damaged beyond repair, speared through by a shaft of steel fallen from the ceiling. Mhotep pulled himself down into one of the remaining pods. Contrary to naval tradition, he would not be going down with his ship. In his chambers, just prior to docking at Vangelis, he had seen a vision of himself standing upon the deck of the Wrathful. This was his destiny. The hand of fate would draw him here for some, as of yet, unknown purpose. Mhotep engaged the icon that would seal the saviour pod. It closed around him. There was room for three more crew, but no one was alive to fill it. He hit the launch panel and explosive bolts threw the pod clear of the ship. He watched the Waning Moon turning above him as the pod spiralled away. The aft section had burned out and was just a black flaking husk, disappearing against the void. The main section of the ship was tearing itself apart. The fires were mostly out, starved of fuel and oxygen, and the Waning Moon was a skeleton collapsing into its component bones. In the distance, thousands of sparks burst around the Furious Abyss, as if it were at the heart of a vast pyrotechnic display. Mhotep was as disciplined as any Thousand Son, and Magnus made the conditioning of his Legion's minds the most important part of their training. He could subsume himself into the collective mindset of his battle-brothers, and as such was rarely troubled by emotions that did not serve any immediate purpose. He was disturbed. He very much wanted to exact the hatred he felt on the Furious Abyss. He wanted to tear it apart with his bare hands. Perhaps, Mhotep told himself, if he was patient, he would find a way to do that. THE FIGHTERS HAD come from nowhere. With the violent death of the Waning Moon, the remaining escort ships, the Ferox and the Fireblade, were locked in a deadly duel with the massive enemy vessel. Even with the Boundless in support and the Wrathful inbound they would not last long against the Word Bearer battleship. The frigates would have to use their superior speed to endure while aid arrived. That advantage was summarily robbed with the appearance of crimson-winged fighter squadrons issuing from the belly of the Furious Abyss in an angry swarm. It was impossible for such a ship, even one of its impressive size, to harbour fighter decks and the weapons system that had destroyed the Waning Moon. This fact had informed every scenario the escort squadron's captains had developed for any reaction to their attack runs. The Furious Abyss, however, was no ordinary ship. The destruction of the Waning Moon, appalling as it was, had at least given the escort ships the certainty that the Word Bearers would not have the resources for attack craft. That was before the launch bays had opened like steel gills down the flanks of the battleship, and twinkling blood-slick darts had shot out on columns of exhaust. Captain Ulargo stood in a corona of light on the bridge of the Fireblade. The rest of the bridge was drenched in darkness with only the grainy diodes of control consoles punctuating the gloom. Arms behind him, surrounded by the hololithic tactical display and with vox crackling, the terrible choreography of war played out with sickening inevitability. 'Ferox engaged!' came the alert from Captain Lo Thulaga. 'Multiple hostiles! Fast attack craft, registering impacts. Shutting down reactor two.' 'Shield your engines, for Terra's sake!' snapped Captain Ulargo, watching the grim display from the viewport. 'What do you think I'm doing?' retorted Lo Thulaga. 'I have fighters port, aft and abeam. They're bloody everywhere.' The Ferox spiralled away from its attack run on the underside, pursued by a cloud of vindictive fighters. Tiny explosions stitched over the hindquarters of the escort ship, ripping sprays of black debris from the engine housings. Turrets stammered back fire from the belly and sides of the Ferox, but for every fighter reduced to a bloom of plasma residue there were two more pouring fire into it. It was like a predator under attack from a swarm of stinging insects. The Ferox was far larger than any of the fighters, which were shaped like inverted Vs with their stabiliser wings swept forwards. Individually its turrets could have tracked and vaporised any of the enemy before they got in range, but there were over fifty of them. 'I cannot shake them,' snarled Captain Vorgas on the Ferocious, his voice ragged through the vox. 'They're bloody killing us!' yelled Lo Thulaga, whose voice was distorted by the secondary explosions coming from the escort's engines. Ulargo wore a disgusted expression. In his entire career, he had never backed down from a fight. He hailed from the militaristic world of Argonan in Segmentum Tempestus, and it was not in his nature to capitulate. Clenching his fists, he bawled the order. 'Squadron disengage!' Fireblade pulled away from the Furious Abyss, followed by the Ferocious. The Ferox tried to pull clear, but the enemy fighters hounded it, darting into the wake of the escort's engines, risking destruction to fly in blind and hammer laser fire into its engineering decks. One of the reactors on the embattled frigate melted down, its whole rear half flooding with plasma. The forward compartments were sealed off quickly enough to save the crew, but the ship was dead in the void, only its momentum keeping it falling ponderously away from the upper hull of the Furious Abyss. The fighters circled it, flying in wide arcs around the dead ship and punishing it with incessant fire. Crew decks were breached and vented. Saviour pods began to launch as Lo Thulaga gave the order to abandon ship. The Furious Abyss wasted no time sending fighters to assassinate the saviour pods as they fled the stricken Ferox. The Ferocious pulled a dramatic hard turn, ducking back towards the enemy battleship to fox the fighters lining up for their attack runs. It strayed into the arcs of the Furious Abyss's ventral turrets, and a couple of lucky shots blew plumes of vented atmosphere out of its upper hull. The fighters closed and targeted the breach, volleys of las-fire boring molten fingers into the frigate. Somewhere amidst the bedlam the bridge was breached and the command crew died, incinerated by sprays of molten metal or frozen and suffocated as the void forced its way in. The remaining turrets on the Furious Abyss targeted the fleeing Fireblade, the last vessel of the escort. Most of the battleship's attention was away from the frigate, representing as it did a mere annoyance. Its vengeful ire was focused squarely on the Boundless. 'THE FEROX AND the Ferocious are gone,' Kaminska stated flatly, watching the blips on the tactical display blink out. 'How on Titan can that thing support those fighter wings?' 'The same way it has a functioning plasma lance,' said Cestus, grimly. 'The Mechanicum know more about what they're doing than they are letting on, and are ignoring Imperial sanctions.' 'In the name of Terra, what is happening?' Kaminska asked, seeing the enemy battleship turn its cross hairs on the Boundless. For the first time, the Ultramarine thought he could detect a hint of fear in the admiral's voice. 'We cannot win this fight, not like this,' he said. 'Bring the Boundless in, we need to regroup.' Kaminska cast her eye over the tactical display. Her voice was choked. 'It's too late for that.' 'Damnation!' Cestus smashed his fist hard against a rail on the bridge and it buckled. After a moment, he said, 'Contact your astropath, and find out what is keeping that message. I must warn my lord Guilliman at once.' Kaminska raised the astropathic sanctum on the ship-to-ship vox, even as Helmsmistress Venkmyer relayed disengagement protocols to engineering. Chief Astropath Korbad Heth's deep voice was heard on the bridge. 'All our efforts to contact Terra or the Ultramarines have failed,' he revealed matter-of-factly. 'By order of the Emperor's Astartes, keep trying and you will prevail,' said Cestus. 'My lord,' Heth began, unmoved by the Ultramarine's threatening tone. 'The matter is more fundamental than you appreciate. When I say our efforts have failed, I mean utterly. The Astronomican is gone.' 'Gone? That's impossible. How can it be gone?' 'I know not, my lord. We are detecting warp storms that could be interfering. I will redouble our endeavours, but I fear they will be in vain.' The vox went dead and Heth was gone again. Antiges's return to the bridge broke the silence. 'We must return to Terra, Cestus. The Emperor must be warned.' 'What of Calth and Macragge? Our Legion is there, and our primarch; they are in imminent danger and the ones who must be warned. I do not doubt the strength of our battle-brothers and the fleet above Macragge is formidable, as are its ground defences, but there is something about this ship... What if it is merely

ar they will be in vain.' The vox went dead and Heth was gone again. Antiges's return to the bridge broke the silence. 'We must return to Terra, Cestus. The Emperor must be warned.' 'What of Calth and Macragge? Our Legion is there, and our primarch; they are in imminent danger and the ones who must be warned. I do not doubt the strength of our battle-brothers and the fleet above Macragge is formidable, as are its ground defences, but there is something about this ship... What if it is merely the harbinger of something much worse, something that can be a very real threat to Guilliman?' 'Our primarch has ever taught us to exercise pragmatism in the face of adversity,' Antiges reasoned, stepping forward. 'Upon our return, we could send a message to the Legion.' 'A message that would never reach them, Antiges,' Cestus replied with anger. 'No, we are the Legion's last hope.' 'You are letting your emotion and your arrogance cloud your judgement, brother-captain,' said Antiges, drawing in close. 'Your loyalty deserts you, brother.' Antiges bristled at the slight, but kept his composure. 'What good is it if we sacrifice ourselves on the altar of loyalty?' he urged. 'This way, we at least stand a chance of saving our brothers.' 'No,' said Cestus with finality. 'We would only condemn them to death. Courage and honour, Antiges.' Cestus's fellow Ultramarine saw the vehemence in his eyes, remembering his conviction that he knew some terrible peril was creeping towards Macragge and the Legion. His brother-captain had been right thus far, and suddenly Antiges felt shamed that his dogged pragmatism had so blinded him to that truth. 'Courage and honour,' he replied and clapped his hand upon Cestus's shoulder in an apologetic gesture. 'So, we follow them into the warp,' Kaminska interrupted, assuming that the matter was settled. 'We feign flight and get on the ship's tail as soon as it readies to go into the Tertiary Core Transit,' she added. Cestus was about to give his assent when Helms-mate Kant delivered a report from the sensorium. 'Impacts on the Boundless.' THE BOUNDLESS TOOK longer to die than the Waning Moon. Another volley of torpedoes sailed out from the Furious Abyss, this time in a tight corkscrew like a pack of predators arrowing in on the prey instead of spread out in a fan. High explosives tipped the torpedo formation. They penetrated shields and used up the first volleys of turret fire from the Boundless. The main body of the torpedoes were the same kind of bore-header cluster munitions that had ripped into the Waning Moon. A few magnetic pulse torpedoes were part of the volley, too. They ripped through the sensors of the Boundless and blinded it. There was no longer any need to conceal the full arsenal of the Furious Abyss. Cluster explosions, like flowers of fire, blossomed down one flank of the Boundless. Shock waves rippled through the fighter bays, throwing attack craft aside like boats on a wave. Refuelling tanks exploded, their blooms lost in the torrents of flame that followed the first impacts. Fighter crews that had survived the madness of the attack runs were rewarded by being shredded by shrapnel or drowned in fire. The flank of the Boundless was chewed away as if it were ageing and decaying at an impossible rate, holes opening up and metal blackening and twisting to finally flake away like desiccated flesh. The final torpedo wave had single warheads that forced enormous bullets of exotic metals at impossible speeds. They shot like lances from their housings, shrieking right through the Boundless and emerging from the other side, sowing secondary explosions of ignited fuel and vented oxygen, transfixing the carrier like spears of light. Finally, the Furious Abyss took up position at medium range from the Imperial ship. It paused, as if observing the wracked vessel, sizing up the quarry one last time before the kill. The plasma lance emerged, the energy building up and the barrel glowing. The surviving crew of the Boundless knew what was coming, but all their control systems were shot through. A few thrusters sputtered into life as the Boundless tried desperately to limp away from its would-be executioner, but the carrier was too big and badly wounded. The plasma lance fired. It hit the Boundless amidships, at enough of an angle to rip through to the plasma reactors. The entire vessel glowed, the heat of the fusing plasma conducted through its structure and hull. Then the plasma overspilled and, spitted like prey on the solid beam of the plasma lance's light, the Boundless exploded. FROM HIS IMPERIOUS position on the bridge of the Furious Abyss, Zadkiel watched the burning wreck of the enemy cruiser flicker into lifeless darkness. 'Glory to Lorgar,' said Reskiel, who was standing behind him. 'So it is written,' Zadkiel replied. 'Two vessels remain, my lord,' added his second, obsequiously. Zadkiel observed the tactical display. The remaining cruiser was intact, and the final escort being pursued by the Furious Abyss's fighter wings would probably also escape. 'By the time they get to Terra, it will be too late for any warning,' Zadkiel said confidently. 'The warp is with us. We risk far more tarrying here to hunt them down.' 'I will instruct Navigator Esthemya that we are to enter the warp.' 'Do so immediately,' confirmed Zadkiel, his mind on the transpiring events and their impending foray into the empyrean. Reskiel nodded and activated the ship's vox-casters, transmitting Zadkiel's relayed orders into the engine rooms and ordnance decks. 'All crew, make ready for warp entry.' 'Reskiel, have Master Malforian load the psionic charges,' Zadkiel said as an afterthought. 'Once we are in the warp, you will have the bridge. I will be inspecting the supplicants in the lower decks. Ensure Novice Ultis attends.' 'As you wish, my lord,' said Reskiel, bowing deeply. 'And if the Ultramarines try to follow?' 'Commend their souls to the warp,' Zadkiel replied coldly. THE WRATHFUL WENT dark, to simulate the diversion of its power to the engines for escape. The entire bridge was drenched in shadow. The crew was stunned into sudden silence and, for a fraction of a second, stillness, as they struggled to comprehend what they had witnessed. Kaminska was as quiet as the ship. She gripped the arms of her command throne tightly. Vorlov had been her friend. 'A saviour pod jettisoned from the Waning Moon before its destruction, admiral,' announced Helms-mate Venkmyer at the sensorium helm, breaking the silence. 'Can you tell who is on board?' asked Cestus, alongside the admiral, watching impotently as the Word Bearer vessel grew farther and farther away as the Wrathful made its mock retreat. 'Lord Mhotep, sire,' Venkmyer replied. 'He's on his way to us. I've instructed crews to be ready to retrieve him when he docks.' 'Antiges, have Laeradis join the dock crews. Mhotep might be injured and in need of an apothecary.' 'At once, brother-captain.' Antiges turned and was about to head off again when Cestus added, 'Disband the boarding parties and return to the bridge. Instruct Brynngar to do the same on my authority. Bring Saphrax and the Legion captains with you.' The other Ultramarine nodded and went to his duties. SAPHRAX ARRIVED ON the bridge with Antiges as ordered. Brynngar and Skraal joined them, feral belligerence and unfettered wrath increasing the already knife-edge tension. With this many Astartes present, the bridge of the Wrathful felt very small. Saphrax wore his ceremonial honour guard armour, the gold of his armour plates glinting dully. Skraal, on the other hand, made do with little in the way of decoration. Cestus could not help noticing the kill-tallies on his chainaxe, bolt pistol and armour plates: a testament to violence. Killing was a matter of pride for the World Eaters and Skraal had several names etched on his shoulder pad, around the stylised devoured planet symbol of his Legion. 'Battle-brothers, fellow captains,' Cestus began as the Astartes present took position around the dead tactical display table. We are to enter the empyrean and give chase to the Word Bearers. Our Navigators have discerned that they are on course for a stable warp route. Following them won't be a problem.' 'Though, facing them will,' said Saphrax, ever the voice of reason. 'That ship destroyed two cruisers and the same in frigates. What is your plan for overcoming such odds?' It wasn't an objection. Saphrax was not given to questioning the decisions of his superiors. In his mind, the hierarchy of command was absolute, and much like the Ultramarine's posture, it would brook no bending. 'If we go back to Terra,' said Cestus, 'we could try to raise the alarm. If the warp quietened then we could get a message to Macragge and forewarn the Legion.' Cestus knew there was no conviction in his words as he spoke them. 'You have already decided against that course, haven't you, lad,' said venerable Brynngar. 'I have.' The old wolf smiled, revealing his razor-sharp incisors. There was something stoic and powerful in the steel grey of his mane-like hair and beard, implacability in the creamy orb of his ruined eye and the ragged scars of previous battles. But for all the war-like trappings, the obvious martial prowess and savagery, there was wisdom, too. 'When the sons of Russ march to war, they do not cease until battle is done,' he said with the utmost conviction. 'We will chase those curs into the eye of the warp if necessary and feast upon their traitorous hearts.' 'The World Eaters do not flee when an enemy turns on them,' offered Skraal with blood lust in his eyes. 'We hunt them down and kill them. It's the way of the Legion.' Cestus nodded, appraising the brave warriors before him with great respect. 'Make no mistake about this: we are at war,' the Ultramarine warned them, finally. 'We are at war with our brothers, and we must prosecute this fight with all the strength and co

o the eye of the warp if necessary and feast upon their traitorous hearts.' 'The World Eaters do not flee when an enemy turns on them,' offered Skraal with blood lust in his eyes. 'We hunt them down and kill them. It's the way of the Legion.' Cestus nodded, appraising the brave warriors before him with great respect. 'Make no mistake about this: we are at war,' the Ultramarine warned them, finally. 'We are at war with our brothers, and we must prosecute this fight with all the strength and conviction that we would bring against any foe of mankind. We do this in the name of the Emperor.' 'In the name of the Emperor,' growled Skraal. 'Aye, for the Throne,' Brynngar agreed. Cestus bowed deeply. 'Your fealty does me great honour. Prepare your battle-brothers for what is ahead. I will convene a council of war upon Captain Mhotep's return to the Wrathful.' Cestus noticed the snarl upon Brynngar's face at the last remark, but it faded quickly as the Astartes took their leave and returned to their warriors. 'Admiral Kaminska,' said the Ultramarine, once the other Legionaries were gone. Kaminska looked up at him. Dark rings had sunk around her eyes. 'I shall have to prepare Navigator Orcadus. We can follow once the enemy is clear.' She thumbed a vox-stud on the arm of her command throne. 'Captain Ulargo, report.' 'We've got mostly superficial damage; one serious deck leak,' replied Ulargo on the Fireblade. 'Make your ship ready. We're following them,' Kaminska told him. 'Into the Abyss?' 'Yes. Do you have any objections?' 'Is this Captain Cestus's order?' 'It is,' she said. 'Then we'll be in your wake,' said Ulargo. 'For the record, I do not believe a warp pursuit is the most suitable course of action in our current situation.' 'Noted,' said Kaminska. 'Form up to follow us in.' 'Yes, admiral,' Ulargo replied. As the vox went dead, Kaminska sagged in her command throne as if the battle and the comrades she had lost were weighing down on her. 'Admiral,' said Cestus, noting her discomfort, 'are you still able to prosecute this mission?' Kaminska whirled on the Ultramarine, her expression fierce and the rod at her back once more. 'I may not have the legendary endurance of the Astartes, but I will see this through to the end, captain, for good or ill.' 'You have my utmost faith, then,' Cestus replied. The voice of Helms-mate Venkmyer at the sensorium helm helped to ease the tension. 'Captain Mhotep's saviour pod is locked on,' she said, 'and the Fireblade has picked up additional survivors from the Waning Moon.' 'What of the Boundless?' asked Kaminska. 'I'm sorry, admiral. There were none.' Kaminska watched the tactical display on the screen above her as the Furious Abyss's blip shivered and disappeared, leaving behind a trace of exotic particles. 'Take us into that jump point and engage the warp engines,' she ordered wearily, Venkmyer relaying them to the relevant parties aboard ship. 'Captain Mhotep is secured, admiral,' Venkmyer said afterwards. 'Take us in.' ABOARD THE FURIOUS Abyss, the supplicants' quarters were dark and infernally hot. The air was so heavy with chemicals that anyone other than an Astartes would have needed a respirator to survive. The supplicants, sixteen of them in all, knelt by the walls of the darkened rooms. Their heads were bowed over their chests, but the shadows and darkness could not hide their swollen craniums and the way their features had atrophied as their skulls deformed to contain their grotesque brains. Thick tubes snaked down their noses and throats, hooking them to life support units mounted on the walls above. Wires ran from probes in their skulls. They were dressed neatly in the livery of the Word Bearers, for even in their comatose states they were servants of the Word just like the rest of the crew. Three of the supplicants were dead. Their efforts in psychically assaulting the Imperial fighter squadrons had taxed them to destruction. The skull of one had ruptured, spilling rust-grey cortex over his chest and stomach. Another had apparently caught fire, and his blackened flesh still smouldered. The last was slumped at the back of the quarters, lolling over to one side. Zadkiel entered the chamber. The sound of his footsteps and those of one other broke the hum of the life support systems. 'This is the first time you have seen the supplicants, isn't it?' said Zadkiel. 'Yes, my lord,' said Ultis, though his answer was not necessary. Zadkiel turned to the novice. 'Tell me, Ultis, what is your impression of them?' 'I have none,' the novice answered coldly. 'They are loyal servants of Lorgar, as are we all. They sacrifice themselves in a holy cause to further his glory and the glory of the Word.' Zadkiel smiled at the phlegmatic response. Such zeal, such unremitting fervour; this Ultis wore ambition like a medal of honour emblazoned upon his chest. It meant he was dangerous. 'Justly spoken,' offered Zadkiel. 'Was it a worthy sacrifice?' he added, probing the depths of the novice's desire for advancement without him even knowing. 'No one ever served the Word without understanding that they would eventually give the Word their life,' Ultis responded carefully. He is aware that I am testing him. He is more dangerous than I thought. 'Very true,' Zadkiel said out loud. 'Still, some would think this sight distasteful.' 'Then some do not deserve to serve.' 'You always answer with such conviction, Ultis,' said Zadkiel. 'Are you so sure in your beliefs?' Ultis turned to regard his lord directly. Neither of the Astartes wore a helmet, and their gazes locked in unspoken challenge. 'I have faith in the Word. It is such that I need not hesitate; I need only speak and act.' Zadkiel held the novice's vehement gaze for a moment longer before he broke away willingly and knelt down by the third dead supplicant. The Word Bearer tipped its head upwards to reveal burned out eyes. 'This is conviction, Ultis. This is adherence to the creed of Lorgar,' Zadkiel told him. 'Lorgar's Word is powerful,' Ultis affirmed. 'None of his servants would ever forsake it.' 'Perhaps, but think upon it. Many of our Legion have a seductive way with words. We are passionate about our lord primarch and his teachings. We are most talented in spreading that to others. Could it not be said that this blinds lesser men? That to blind them with such passion, and have them do our bidding, is no different to slavery?' 'Even if it could be said,' replied Ultis carefully, 'it does not follow that we would be in the wrong. Perhaps some are more use to the galaxy as slaves than as free men, doing as their base instincts tell them.' 'Were these men suited to being slaves?' asked Zadkiel, indicating the supplicants. 'Yes,' said Ultis. 'Psykers are dangerous when left to their own devices. The Word gave them another purpose.' 'Then you would enslave others to do Lorgar's will?' Ultis thought about this. The novice was no fool, and would be well aware that Zadkiel was evaluating his every word, but failing to answer at all would be by far the most damning result. 'It is better,' said Ultis, 'that lesser men like this lose their freedom than that the Word remains unspoken. Even if what we do is slavery, even if our passion is like a chain that holds them down, these are small prices to pay to see Lorgar's Word enacted.' Zadkiel stood up. These supplicants will require some time to recover. Their psychic exertions have drained them. It is good that the weaker were winnowed out, at least. The warp will not be kind to them. 'You show remarkable tolerance, Novice Ultis. Many Astartes, even those of our Legion, would balk at the use of these supplicants.' 'Those are the lengths to which we must go,' said Ultis, 'to fulfil the Word.' Yes, very ambitious, Zadkiel decided. 'How far would you go, Brother Ultis?' 'To the very end.' Driven, too. Zadkiel smiled thinly. Dangerous. 'Then, there is little left to teach you,' said the Word Bearer captain. The vox-emitter in Zadkiel's gorget chirped. 'Master Malforian has indicated that he is ready,' said Helms-mate Sarkorov. Delegating already, are we Reskiel? thought Zadkiel, seeing rivals and potential usurpers in every exchange, every obsequious nod. 'Deploy at once,' said Zadkiel. 'Yes, sire.' 'They pursue us still?' asked Ultis. 'It was to be expected,' Zadkiel replied. 'Doubtless, some sense of duty compels them. They will soon learn the folly of that emotion.' 'Pray enlighten me, my lord.' Zadkiel considered the novice as he bowed before him. 'Join me on the bridge, Brother Ultis,' he said, 'and merely watch.' THE WARP WAS madness made real. It was another dimension where the rules of reality did not apply. The human mind was not evolved to comprehend it, for it had no rules or boundaries to define it. It was infinite, and infinitely varied. Only a Navigator, a highly specialised form of stable mutant, could look upon it and not go insane. Only he could allow a ship to travel the stable channels of the warp, fleeting as they were, and emerge through the other side. To traverse an unstable warp route, even with a Navigator's guidance, would put a vessel at the capricious mercy of the empyrean tides. The Furious Abyss had plunged into this sea. It was kept intact by a sheath of overlapping Geller fields, without which it would disintegrate as its component atoms ran out of reasons to stay neatly arranged in its metals. From the ordnance bay, wrapped in its own complement of fields, emerged a large psionic mine, spinning rapidly as it tumbled away from the Word Bearers' ship. Though not visible on the outside, within the mine's inner core was a coterie of screaming psykers, insane with a poisonous vapour that had been pumped into the chamber and then hermetically sealed. Their combined death cry would send psionic ripples through the empyrean. With a flash of light, which bled away into emotion as it was absorbed into the warp,

bay, wrapped in its own complement of fields, emerged a large psionic mine, spinning rapidly as it tumbled away from the Word Bearers' ship. Though not visible on the outside, within the mine's inner core was a coterie of screaming psykers, insane with a poisonous vapour that had been pumped into the chamber and then hermetically sealed. Their combined death cry would send psionic ripples through the empyrean. With a flash of light, which bled away into emotion as it was absorbed into the warp, the mine and all its raving cargo detonated. The warp quaked. Love and hate boiled and ran together like paint, the agony of billions of years breaking and shifting like spring ice. Mountains of hope crumbled, and oceans of lust drained into the nothingness of misery. With a sound like every scream ever uttered, the Tertiary Core Transit collapsed. SEVEN Ghosts in the warp Hellbound Legacy of Magnus 'ULARGO!' SHOUTED KAMINSKA. 'You're breaking up. I can barely hear you. Keep the fields up and get into our wake!' The Wrathful, with the Fireblade in tow, had entered the infinite that was the warp. Interference from the rolling shadow sea had rendered vox traffic all but dead as the last vestiges of real space fell away. The final transmissions from the escort ship were fraught with panic and desperation as the Fireblade encountered unknown difficulties during transit. Ulargo's voice was heavily distorted as he relayed a fragmentary message, the words dissolving into crackling non sequiturs. Strange waves of static flowed through the Wrathful's bridge speakers, the short distance between it and the Fireblade filling up with the impossible geometries of the warp. Entering the warp through a stable route, even guided by a Navigator, was dangerous. To do so once that route had collapsed and without the beacon of the Astronomican was nigh-on suicidal. Admiral Kaminska swore beneath her breath, smashing her fist against the arm of her command throne in frustration. 'The link is severed,' she muttered darkly. 'We'll get no further contact with the Fireblade until we leave warpspace, admiral,' said Venkmyer. Kaminska and her crew were alone on the bridge. Captain Cestus and the other Astartes had convened in one of the vessel's many conference rooms to receive Captain Mhotep, find out what he knew and formulate some kind of plan. The mood was subdued because of the warp transit, and the unknown fate of the Fireblade had not alleviated the grim demeanour that pervaded on the bridge. 'I know, helmsmistress,' Kaminska answered with resignation. The Wrathful shuddered. Warning lights flickered up and down the bridge, and in the decks beyond klaxons sounded. 'We're on full collision drill,' Helms-mate Kant informed them. 'Good,' said the admiral. 'Keep us there.' The whole bridge heaved sideways, scattering navigational instruments and tactical manuals. Kant grabbed the edge of a map table to keep his footing with the sudden warp turbulence. 'At your command,' he replied. Kaminska sat back in her command throne, exhausted. She had finally come up against a problem she couldn't solve with tactical acumen and audacity. The Astartes captain of the Ultramarines had put her in this situation, and for all her loyalty to the Imperium and the greater glory of mankind, she resented him for it. Lo Thulaga, Vargas, Abrax Vann of the Fearless and now Ulargo, all gone. Vorlov, of the Boundless, had been her friend and he too had fallen ignominiously in pursuit of an unbeatable foe at the behest of a reckless angel of the Emperor. Now, in the thrall of the warp and impotent as she was, trusting to her Navigator to guide them out safely, Kaminska's anger was only magnified. 'Helms-mate, get me Officer Huntsman of the Watch,' she ordered with forced resolve. 'Admiral,' said Huntsman's voice over the vox array after a few moments. 'Assemble your best men and have them patrol decks. I don't want any surprises or unforeseen accidents during transit,' she replied. 'Any signs, any at all, and you know what to do.' 'I shall prosecute my duty with due and lethal diligence, admiral,' Huntsman responded. HUNTSMAN KILLED THE vox link and turned to the three armsmen waiting patiently for him in the upper deck barracks. They were equipped with pistols and shock mauls and light flak jackets. The four men stood in a small group, their features cast with deep shadows from the low-level lighting that persisted whilst the Wrathful was in warp transit. The rest of the barrack room, all gunmetal with stark walls and bunks, was empty. 'Four teams, decks three through eighteen,' said Huntsman with curt and level-headed precision. 'I want regular reports from the below decks overseers, every half hour.' The three armsmen nodded and left to gather the enforcers. As Officer of the Watch, it was Huntsman's job to ensure that order and discipline were maintained aboard ship. He was brutal in that duty, an unshakeable enforcer who suffered no insubordination. He had killed many men in pursuit of his duty and felt no remorse for it. Warp psychosis could affect any man, and even Huntsman, though possessed of a stronger will than most, felt its presence, even through the shielding of the Geller fields surrounding the ship that acted as a barrier against the empyrean. He had seen many suffering from the malady, and it took many forms. Both physical and mental abnormalities could present themselves: hair loss, babbling, catatonia, even homicidal dementia, were common. Huntsman had the cure for each and every one of them sitting snugly in his hip holster. Wiping a hand across his closely-cropped hair, Huntsman checked the load in his sidearm and patiently awaited the return of his men. CESTUS, ANTIGES AND the other Astartes captains sat around a lacquered hexagonal table in one of the Wrathful's conference rooms. Wood panelling decorated the room and gave it false warmth, despite its obvious militaristic austerity. Plaques hung on the walls describing the deeds of the many great commanders, captains and admirals that had served in the Saturnine fleet. Kaminska's was amongst them. Her roll of honour was long and distinguished. There were several artefacts too: crossed cutlasses, an antique pistol and other traditional oceanic trappings. Presiding over all was an icon that spoke of the new age. The Imperial eagle was the symbol of the Emperor's War of Unification and a symbol of the union between Mars and Terra. It was a stark reminder of all they were fighting for and the fragility inherent within it. 'As soon as we leave warp we get into their wake and launch boarding torpedoes at their blind side. Let the fury of the wolf gut this prey from within!' snarled Brynngar. The Wolf Guard, unlike the rest of them, was on his feet and had taken to pacing the room. 'They would shoot our torpedoes down before they even breached their shields,' countered Mhotep. The Thousand Son had been given the all-clear by Apothecary Laeradis after his ship had been destroyed and was keen to attend the council. 'And should they not,' he added, before the Wolf Guard could protest, 'we do not know what kind of armour they have or what forces are onboard. No, we must be patient and wait until the Furious Abyss is vulnerable.' The debate as to how to stop the Word Bearers had been raging for over an hour. In that time, Mhotep had revealed what little he knew: the name of the vessel and its admiral, the weapon systems that had crippled his vessel and the heresy embraced by the Word Bearers. He neglected to speak of Zadkiel's offer of alliance, leaving that to his own counsel. Despite the heated arguments, little had been agreed upon, other than that they were committed to their current course of action and that an all-out assault upon the Furious Abyss was tantamount to suicide. 'Bah! Typical of the sons of Magnus to advise caution in the face of action,' bellowed the Space Wolf, his feelings for the Thousand Son as direct and pointed as his demeanour. 'I agree with the wolf,' said Skraal. 'I cannot abide waiting in the dark. If we are to sacrifice our lives to ensure the destruction of our enemies then so be it.' 'Aye!' Brynngar agreed, making the most of the support. 'Any other course smacks of cowardice.' Mhotep bristled at the slight and looked unshakeably into the feral grin that had crept across the Space Wolf's savage features, but he would not be goaded. 'This gets us nowhere,' Cestus broke in. 'We know for certain that the Astartes aboard that ship have turned traitor. What that means for the rest of the seventeenth Legion, I do not know. Certainly, the Mechanicum built the vessel and that raises further questions about the nature of its construction. The fact it was kept secret suggests complicity on their part, at least to some degree.' Cestus allowed a moment's pause before he spoke. 'Something is deeply wrong. It is my belief that the Word Bearers are allied against my Legion, and, in so doing, against the Emperor too. They have supporters in the Mechanicum. How else could such a vessel have been made yet none of us have known of it?' At that remark the Astartes were united in a common purpose. What the Word Bearers had committed was an outright act of war, but it smacked of something more. Though they had their differences, the sons of the Emperor were all siblings after a fashion. They would fight and die together against a common enemy. The Word Bearers were now just such a foe. What then are we to do?' Brynngar asked at last, his choleric mood abating, even though he cast a baleful glance at the Thousand Son sitting opposite. Cestus caught the path of the Space Wolf's gaze, but ignored it for the moment. 'We must find a way to disable the ship. Attack it when it is vulnerable,' the Ultramarines captain told them. 'For we are at least agreed that our enemy is our brother no longer. They shall be destroyed for this treachery, but not before I fi

e now just such a foe. What then are we to do?' Brynngar asked at last, his choleric mood abating, even though he cast a baleful glance at the Thousand Son sitting opposite. Cestus caught the path of the Space Wolf's gaze, but ignored it for the moment. 'We must find a way to disable the ship. Attack it when it is vulnerable,' the Ultramarines captain told them. 'For we are at least agreed that our enemy is our brother no longer. They shall be destroyed for this treachery, but not before I find out how deep it goes. The Warmaster must know of the enemies arrayed against him. So, for now, we follow the ship and await our opening.' 'Still sounds like cowardice to me,' grumbled Brynngar, taking his seat at last and slouching back in it. Cestus got to his feet quickly, fixing the Space Wolf with a steely gaze. 'Do not dishonour me or your Legion further,' he warned. The Wolf Guard matched the Ultramarine's hard stare, but nodded, grumbling his assent beneath his breath. Mhotep remained silent throughout the exchange, as ever careful to mask his thoughts. Cestus sat back down, regarding the animosity of his brother Astartes sternly. The Great Crusade had united the Legions in common purpose. Many were the times that he had fought alongside both the sons of Russ and Magnus. Yes, the primarchs each had their differences, and this was passed down to their Legions, and though they bickered like brothers, they were as one. He could not believe that the foundation of their bonds, and the bonds between all of the Legions, were so fragile that by merely putting them in a room together outright war would be declared. What the Word Bearers had done was an aberration. It was the exception, not the rule. The walls of the conference chamber shook violently, interrupting Cestus's thoughts. Brynngar sniffed at the air. 'The stink of the warp is thick,' he snarled, with a glance at Mhotep despite himself. Another tremor struck the room, threatening to tip the Astartes off their feet. Warning klaxons howled in the corridors beyond and the decks below. Mhotep gazed into the reflective sheen of the conference table, before looking up at Cestus. 'Our passage through the empyrean has been compromised,' he told him. The Ultramarine returned the Thousand Son's gaze. 'Antiges,' he said, his eyes still upon Mhotep, 'accompany me to the bridge.' Cestus turned to address the gathering. 'This isn't over. We reconvene once we have left warp-space.' Muttered agreement answered him, and Cestus and Antiges left for the bridge. 'I TAKE IT you have come to find out why our transit isn't exactly smooth, my lord,' said Admiral Kaminska, who was standing next to her command throne. She had been appraising tactical data garnered from the disastrous battle against the enemy ship and was in close conversation with Venkmyer, her helmsmistress, when Cestus arrived on the bridge. Alongside the strategic display was the sudden fluctuation in the external warp readings. 'Your instincts are correct, admiral,' Cestus replied. Despite their shared experience fighting the Furious Abyss and the obvious validation of his mission, Kaminska's demeanour towards the Ultramarine was still icy. Cestus had hoped it would have thawed slightly in the cauldron of battle, but he had effectively taken her ship, despite her experience and her knowledge. Though Cestus was a fleet commander and his naval tactical acumen was superior to Kaminska's, given that he was an Astartes, he had trampled on her command as if it was nothing. It did not sit well with him, but needs must in the situation they were in. Macragge, maybe more besides, was at stake. Cestus could feel it, and that burden must rest squarely on his shoulders. That meant taking command of the mission. If it also meant that he had to put a vaunted Imperial admiral's nose out of joint then so be it. 'I am about to visit my chief Navigator for an explanation, if you would like to accompany me.' Kaminska's attempt at being cordial was forced as she left the command dais. Both Cestus and Antiges were about to follow when she added. 'The Navigator sanctum is small, captain. There will only be room for one of you.' Cestus turned to Antiges, who nodded his understanding and took up a ready position at the bridge. IN THE CLOSE confines of the Navigator sanctum, Cestus felt the bulk of his power armour as never before. The tiny isolation chamber above the bridge, where Orcadus and his lesser cohorts dwelt whilst in warp transit, was bereft of the ornamentation ubiquitous in the rest of the ship. Bare walls and grey gunmetal austerity housed a trio of translucent blister-like pods in which the Navigators achieved communion with the Astronomican and traversed the capricious ebbs and flows of warpspace. Kaminska who was looking less dignified than usual in the cramped space next to the Astartes, addressed her chief Navigator. 'Orcadus.' There was a moment's pause and then a hooded and wizened face appeared in the central blister, blurred through the translucent surface. There was the suggestion of wires and circuitry hanging down from some unseen cogitator in the domed ceiling of the pod. 'What has happened?' asked Kaminska. With a hiss of hydraulics, the central blister broke apart like petals on a rose and Orcadus emerged through a gaseous cloud of vapour, rising as if from a pit. 'Greetings, admiral,' said Orcadus, his voice low and rasping outside of the blister, as if he were struggling to speak. The Navigator's skin was a sweaty grey and he wheezed as he breathed. 'When I was preparing to enter the warp and traverse the Tertiary Coreward Transit as instructed, the empyrean ocean swirled and split.' 'Make your explanations brief please, Navigator, I am needed at the bridge,' Kaminska prompted. Cestus was gladdened to see that her ire was not reserved for Astartes hijacking her ship. Though much of Orcadus's face was concealed by his hood, Cestus could see a tic of consternation on his lip. All Navigators possessed a third eye, and it was this tolerated mutation that allowed them to plot a course through the warp. To look into that eye would drive a normal man insane. 'The Tertiary Coreward Transit is down,' he explained simply. 'I had detected a worsening of the abyssal integrity, prior to the collapse, but we were already too far engaged in the warp to turn back,' he said. 'How is this possible?' Cestus asked. 'How did the enemy collapse the route?' Orcadus's attention fell on the Astartes for the first time during the exchange. If he thought anything of the Ultramarine's presence in his sanctum, he did not show it. 'They deployed some kind of psionic mine,' Orcadus replied. 'The effect would have been felt by our astropaths. As of now, we are sailing the naked abyss,' he stated, switching his attention back to Kaminska. 'What are your orders, admiral?' Kaminska could not keep the shock from her face. To be effectively cut adrift in the warp was a death sentence, one that she was powerless to do anything about. 'We follow the enemy vessel and stay in its wake as best we can,' said Cestus, cutting in. 'They are bound for Macragge.' 'From Segmentum Solar to Ultramar, outside stable routes?' 'Yes.' 'The chances of success would be minimal, my lord,' Orcadus warned without emotion. 'Even so, that is our course,' Cestus told him. Orcadus considered for a moment before replying. 'I can use their vessel as a point of reference, like a beacon, and follow it, but I cannot speak for the warp. If the abyss sees fit to devour us or make us its prey then the matter is out of my hands.' 'Very well, chief Navigator, you may return to your duties,' Cestus told him. Orcadus bowed almost imperceptibly and, just before retreating back to his station, said, 'There are things abroad in the empyrean, the native creatures of the abyss. A shoal of them follows the enemy ship. The warp around it is in tumult, as it has been in the abyss these last several months. It does not bode well.' At that Orcadus took his leave, swallowed up into the blister once more. Cestus made no remark. In his experiences as a fleet commander, he was all too aware of the creatures that lurked in the warp. He did not know their nature, but he had seen their forms before and knew they were dangerous. He did not doubt that Kaminska knew of them, too. With a shared look of understanding, Cestus and Kaminska left the sanctum and headed back down through a sub-deck tunnel that led to the bridge. They had been walking for several minutes before the Ultramarine broke the charged silence. 'Your attitude towards me and this mission has been noted, admiral.' Kaminska breathed deep as if trying to master her emotions and then turned. 'You took my ship and usurped my command, how would you feel?' she snapped. 'You serve the Emperor, admiral,' Cestus told her in a warning tone. 'You'd do well to remember that.' 'I am no traitor, Captain Cestus,' she replied angrily, standing her ground against the massive Astartes despite his obvious bulk and superior height. 'I am a loyal servant of the Imperium, but you have ridden roughshod over my authority and my ship for a chase into shadows and probable death. I will lay my life on the altar of victory if I must, but I will not do so meaninglessly and without consideration.' Cestus's face was an unreadable mask as he considered the admiral's words. 'You are right, admiral. You have shown nothing but courage and honour throughout this endeavour and I have repaid it with ignorance and scorn. This is not fitting behaviour for a member of the Legion and I offer my humble apology.' Kaminska was taken aback, her expression sketched into a defiant response. At last, her face softened and she exhaled her anger instead. 'Thank you, my lord,' she said quietly. Cestus bowed slowly to acknowledge the admiral's gratitude. 'I shall meet you on the bridge,' said the Astartes and departed. When Cest

ut courage and honour throughout this endeavour and I have repaid it with ignorance and scorn. This is not fitting behaviour for a member of the Legion and I offer my humble apology.' Kaminska was taken aback, her expression sketched into a defiant response. At last, her face softened and she exhaled her anger instead. 'Thank you, my lord,' she said quietly. Cestus bowed slowly to acknowledge the admiral's gratitude. 'I shall meet you on the bridge,' said the Astartes and departed. When Cestus was gone, Kaminska realised that she was shaking. The vox array crackling into life got her attention. 'Admiral?' said Helmsmistress Venkmyer's voice through the conduit wall unit. 'Speak,' Kaminska answered after a moment as she mustered her composure. 'We've made contact with the Fireblade.' AFT DECKS THREE through six of the Wrathful were clear. Most of the non-essential crew were locked down in isolation cells for their own protection. For Huntsman and his small band of three armsmen, it was like patrolling the halls of a ghost ship. 'Squad Barbarus, report.' Huntsman's voice broke the grave-like silence as he strafed a handheld lume-lamp back and forth across the corridor. Shadows recoiled from the grainy blade of light, throwing archways and alcoves into sharp relief. Huntsman could feel the tension of his men, drawn up in V formation behind him as the radio-silence from the vox-bead in the officer's ear persisted. 'Squad Barbarus,' he repeated, adjusting his grip on the service pistol outstretched in his hand next to the lume-lamp by way of nervous reflex. Huntsman was about to send two of his armsmen in search of the errant squad when the vox crackled. 'Squad Barb... report... experiencing interfer... all clear.' The clipped reply was fraught with static, but Huntsman was satisfied. The Officer of the Watch was breathing a sigh of relief when a figure darted across a T-junction ahead, picked out briefly in the light beam. 'Who goes there?' he asked sternly. 'Identify yourself at once!' Huntsman moved to the T-junction quickly, but with measured caution, using battle-sign to order his armsmen to fan out behind him and cover his flanks. Reaching the end of the corridor, Huntsman looked left, strafing the light beam quickly. 'Sir, I've got him. This way,' said one of the armsmen, checking down the opposite channel. Huntsman turned, in time to see the same figure disappearing down another corridor. He could swear he was wearing deck crew fatigues, but they weren't the colours for the Wrathful. 'This area is locked down,' barked Huntsman, heart racing. 'This is your final warning. Make yourself known at once.' Silence mocked him. 'Weapons ready,' Huntsman hissed and stalked off down the corridor, armsmen in tow. AFTER THE DISASTROUS war council in the conference room, Mhotep had taken his leave of the other Astartes and retired to one of the Wrathful's isolation cells, intending to meditate for the remainder of their transit through the warp. In truth, the confrontation with the Space Wolf had vexed him, more so his loss of control in the face of Brynngar's berating, and he sought the solitude of his own company to gather his resolve. Mhotep reached down to the compartment in his armour that contained the wand-stave rescued from the Waning Moon. Seeing that the item was intact, he muttered an oath to his primarch. Sitting upon a bench in the cell, the only furnishing in an otherwise Spartan room, Mhotep regarded the wand-stave. In particular, he scrutinised a silvered speculum at the item's tip and stared into its depths. Focusing his thoughts, Mhotep slipped into a meditative trance as he considered the events unfolding, drawing on the mental acumen for which his Legion was famed. An anomalous flicker, something inconsistent and intangible, flashed into existence abruptly and was gone. The Geller field, Mhotep realised. It was the soft caress of the unfettered warp that he had felt, so brief, so infinitesimal that only one of Magnus's progeny, one with their honed psychic awareness, could have detected it. And something else... Though this, for now at least, slipped beyond Mhotep's mental grasp like tendrils of smoke through his fingers. The Thousand Son broke off the trance at once and returned the wand-stave to its compartment in his armour. Donning his helmet, he headed for the Wrathful's primary dock. CAPTAIN ULARGO SAT strapped into his command throne as the warp breached the blast doors at the back of the Fireblade's bridge. All around him was chaos as the hapless crew screamed and thrashed in terror as their minds were unravelled by the warp. Some were already dead, killed by flying debris or simply torn apart as the warp vented its wrath upon them. Ulargo's calm in the face of certain disaster, with chunks of metal hull tearing away into nothing as his bridge was disassembled, was unnerving. The entire chamber was cast in an eldritch light and strange riotous winds buffeted crew and captain alike. 'It goes on... it goes on forever,' he said, his voice caught halfway between wonderment and fear. 'I can see my father, and my brothers. I can hear them... calling me.' They had entered the empyrean in the Wrathful's wake in accordance with Admiral Kaminska's orders, but upon the collapse of the Tertiary Coreward Transit, their Gellar fields had suffered catastrophic failure, leaving them undefended against the raw emotions of warp space. It had already changed the place. The bridge shimmered with the skies of Io and the canyons of Mimas, the places where Ulargo had grown up and trained as a pilot in the Saturnine Fleet. The corpses of the navigation crew, slumped over the sextant array, had sprouted into Ganymedian mangrove trees, twisted roots looping through the steel floor of the bridge that in turn was seething with river grass. Waterfalls ghosted over reality, shoals of fish leaping through the shattered viewport. Ulargo wanted very much to be there, back in the places that lived on only in his memory, back when he had been a boy and the universe had felt so infinite and full of wonders. He held out his hands and felt them brush against the reeds that grew by the River Scamandros on Io. Reptilian birds wheeled in a sky that he could somehow see beyond the torn ceiling of the bridge, as if the torn metal and loops of severed cabling were in another dimension and the reality in his head was bleeding through. He stepped forwards. The rest of the crew were dead, but that did not mean anything any more. They were ghosts, too. The stuff of the warp seethed through the blast doors and caught Ulargo up in a swirl of raw emotions. He filled up with regret, then fear, then love, each feeling so powerful that he was just a conduit for them, a hollow man to be buffeted by the warp: the way his father's eyes lit up with pride when he received his first commission. The grief in his mother's eyes, for she knew so many who had lost sons to the void. The fury of space, the ravenous vacuum, the thirsting void, that he always knew one day would devour him. In the warp they were ideas made as real as the mountains of Enceladus. The side of the bridge gave away. The air boomed out and flung the corpses of the bridge crew out with it. One of the bodies was not yet dead, and in the back of his mind, Ulargo recognised that another human being was dying. Then he saw the warp beyond the Fireblade. Titanic masses of emotion went on forever, seen not with his eyes, but with his mind: rolling incandescent mountains of Passion, an ocean of grief, leading down to infinity through caves of misery, dripping with the poison of anger. Hatred was a distant sky, heaving down onto the warp, smothering. Love was a sun. The winds that stripped away the hull of the Fireblade were fingers of malice. It was wondrous. Ulargo was filled with the sight of it; no, not the sight, but the sheer experience, for the warp was not composed of light, but of emotion, and to experience it was to let it speak to the most fundamental parts of his soul. The sky of hatred split apart and a yawning mouth opened up above Ulargo's soul. Teeth of wrath framed the maw. Beyond it was a black mass, seething like a pit of vermin. It was terror. Mouths were opening up everywhere. Mindless things, like sharks made of malicious glee, slid between the thunderheads of passion. They snatched at the soul-specks of the Fireblade's crew, teeth like knives through what remained of their minds. Even love was turning on them, filling them in their last moments of existence with a horrendous longing for all the things they would never have, and appalling, consuming grief for everything they once had, but would never see again. The maw bore down on Ulargo. Teeth closed in on him, an appalling coldness sheared through him and he knew that it was the purity of death. The boiling mass seethed. The last vestiges of his physical self recoiled as worms forced themselves into a nose and mouth that no longer existed. The warp turned dark, and Ulargo drowned in fear. ADMIRAL KAMINSKA REACHED the bridge to find an ashen-faced crew before her. Cestus had just arrived, his countenance stern and pensive as the distress signal emanating from the Fireblade repeated on the ship-to-ship vox. 'This... Ulargo... Fireblade... damaged in transit... request dock... repairs...' 'Impossible,' said Kaminska, feeling all colour drain from her face as she heard the voice of a man she thought was dead. 'Vox traffic is rendered null whilst in warp transit.' 'Admiral, the Fireblade claims to be abeam to our port side,' offered Helms-mate Kant as he monitored further communications. Kaminska looked instinctively over to the viewport and, despite the shimmering interference caused by the Geller field, she could see Ulargo's ship, a little battered by the initial sortie against the Furious Abyss, but otherwise fine. Common sense warred with the emotions of her heart. U

man she thought was dead. 'Vox traffic is rendered null whilst in warp transit.' 'Admiral, the Fireblade claims to be abeam to our port side,' offered Helms-mate Kant as he monitored further communications. Kaminska looked instinctively over to the viewport and, despite the shimmering interference caused by the Geller field, she could see Ulargo's ship, a little battered by the initial sortie against the Furious Abyss, but otherwise fine. Common sense warred with the emotions of her heart. Ulargo was a comrade in arms. Kaminska had thought him lost and now she had an opportunity to save him. 'Guide them in to make dock at once.' HUNTSMAN HAD CHASED the elusive figure to a dead end in the complex of corridors aboard Aft Deck Three of the Wrathful. Doors punctuated the apparently endless passageways that led into more barrack rooms and occasionally isolation cells. As he approached slowly, drawing the lume-lamp across the figure's body, he noticed that his quarry faced the wall. He also saw the fatigues it was wearing more clearly. It was the deck uniform of the Fireblade. 'Halt,' he ordered the figure sternly, with a quick glance behind to ensure that his armsmen were still in support. From the back, he judged the figure to be male, but a scraggly wretch to be sure with unkempt hair like wire and a stench that suggested he hadn't washed in many days. Huntsman activated the vox-bead. 'Bridge, this is Officer Huntsman. I have detained a male deck crew in Aft-Three,' he said. 'He appears to be wearing a Fireblade uniform.' Helms-mate Kant's response came through crackling static. 'Repeat. Did you say the Fireblade?' 'Affirmative - a deck hand from the Fireblade,' Huntsman replied, edging closer. 'That's impossible. The Fireblade has only just docked with us.' Huntsman felt a cold chill run down his marrow as the figure turned. Somehow, the light from the lume-lamp wasn't able to illuminate a belt of shadow across the top of the figure's head and eyes, but Huntsman saw its mouth well enough. The deck hand made a wide, gash-like smile with rotten lips caked in dry blood. 'In the name of Terra!' Huntsman screamed as the figure's jaw distended impossibly wide and revealed dozens of needle-like teeth. Fingers lengthened into talons, nails drenched in blood and razor-sharp. Eyes flashed red in the darkness, like orbs of hate. Huntsman fired. ON THE BRIDGE, rending screams and scattered gunfire emitted from the vox followed by an almighty static discharge that ended in total silence. 'Raise the Officer of the Watch at once!' Kaminska ordered. Kant worked at the array, but looked up after a few minutes. 'There is no response, admiral.' Kaminska snarled, hammered an icon on her command throne and opened another channel. 'Primary dock, respond. This is Admiral Kaminska. Disengage from the Fireblade at once,' she said, shouting the orders. Nothing. Communications were dead. A warning klaxon sounded on the bridge. Seconds later, the Wrathful shook with external hull detonations. 'Admiral,' cried Helmsmistress Venkmyer, 'I'm reading armour damage to the port side, upper decks. How is that even possible?' 'The Fireblade is firing its dorsal turrets,' she answered grimly. 'It seems Ulargo's ship survived after all,' said Cestus, donning his battle helm, Antiges following his lead, 'only not in the way we had hoped. 'All Astartes,' he barked into his helmet vox, mercifully unaffected by the radio blackout, 'convene on Aft-Three, Primary Dock, immediately.' A LONG, LOW scream keened through the Wrathful, vibrating through the hull, then another and another until a chorus of them was shrieking through the ship. It sounded like the death screams of hundreds of terrified men. Mhotep lowered his smoking boltgun once he had dispatched the creature back to the ether. He had arrived too late to save the Officer of the Watch and his armsmen who lay eviscerated on the floor and part way up the blood-slicked walls. The thing had been warp spawn, that much was apparent, wearing a shadow form of one of the Fireblade's crew rather than inhabiting a body directly. The momentary breach in the Wrathful's Geller field had allowed it aboard ship. Mhotep's instincts told him that it was just a harbinger, and he headed off quickly to the Primary Dock. Crewmen were hurrying down the Wrathful's corridors, and they struggled to get past the bulky armoured Astartes as he fought to gain the Primary Dock. The engine sections started just stern-wards of the shuttle decks and the ship was getting up to full evasion power. Shouldering past the frantic crew, Mhotep saw another figure impeding his progress, but one of flesh and blood, standing rock-like in grey power armour. 'Brynngar,' said the Thousand Son levelly at the Space Wolf who had just emerged from an adjacent corridor. The World Eater, Skraal, with two of his Legion brothers appeared suddenly alongside him from the opposite corridor. Standing at the intersection of the crossroads, a strange sense of impasse existed for a moment before the Wolf Guard snarled and turned away, heading for the Primary Dock. THE FIVE ASTARTES emerged into chaos. Men and women of the Wrathful fled in all directions, screaming and shouting. Some brandished weapons, others sought higher ground only to be torn down and butchered. Blood swilled like a slick on the dock as the attendant deck crews of the Wrathful were torn apart by fell apparitions dressed in the garb of the Fireblade. The crew of the lost escort ship had changed. Their mouths were long and wide as if fixed in a perpetual sadistic grin. Needle-like fangs filled their distended maws like those of the long-extinct Terran shark, while long, barbed fingers curled like claws tearing at skin, flesh and bone. They fell upon the human deck crews with reckless abandon and were devouring them, the bloodied rotten faces of the gruesome predators alive with glee. 'In the name of Russ,' Brynngar breathed as he saw the docking ports that joined the two ships disgorge numberless hordes of twisted Fireblade crew. 'They are warp spawn!' Mhotep told them, drawing his scimitar, 'wearing the bodies of our allies, whose souls are now hell-bound, lost to the empyrean. Destroy them.' Brynngar threw his head back and roared, the sound eerie and resonant from within the confines of his battle helm. With Felltooth in one hand and bolt pistol in the other, he charged into the fray. Skraal and the World Eaters followed, brandishing chainaxes and bellowing the name of Angron. A TRIO OF vampire-like warp spawn fell under the withering report of Mhotep's bolter as he trudged across the Primary Dock and through the visceral mire sloshing at his feet. The copper stink assailing his nostrils would have overpowered a normal man, but the Thousand Son crushed the sensation and closed with the enemy. Barks of bolter fire were tinny and echoing through his helmet as he cut down an advancing warp spawn, parting its sternum and decapitating it with the return swing. The hordes were everywhere and soon surrounded him. The muzzle-flare from his weapon illuminated the grim destruction he wrought with flashing intermittence, the keening wail of his scimitar a high-pitched chorus to the din of explosive fire. He felt something trying to push at the edges of his mind, testing his psychic defences with tentative mental probing. Slogging through the despicable horde, he was drawn closer to the source of it, even as it was drawn to him, and he felt the pressure on his sanity increase. BRYNNGAR SHRUGGED OFF a creature clinging to his arm and smashed it with Felltooth, the rune axe cutting through wasted bone like air. He thrust his bolt pistol into another and used the warp spawn's momentum to lift it from the ground. Triggering the weapon, he blasted the creature apart in a shower of bone and viscera. Then the Space Wolf lunged and butted a third, almost dissolving its rotted cranium against his battle helm. Gore and brain matter spoiled his vision, and Brynngar wiped his helmet visor clean with the back of his gauntleted hand. With the destruction of the physical body, the warp spawn appeared to lose their hold on the material plane and dissipated. They were easy meat. Brynngar had fought far hardier foes, but in such swarms they were starting to tax him. Even his gene-enhanced musculature burned after the solid fighting. For every three the Wolf Guard slew, another six took their place, pouring like rancid ants from the docking portals. Brynngar realised to his dismay, hacking down another spawn, that gradually he was being pushed back. He caught sight of Skraal through the melee. The World Eater was similarly pressed, though a bloody mist surrounded him from the churning punishment wreaked by his chainaxe. He could not see Skraal's fellow Legionaries; Brynngar assumed they had been swallowed by the horde. A sudden tearing of metal, mangled with the sound of tortured souls, rent the air, and Brynngar felt the deck lurch from under him as it seemed to twist in on itself. The integrity fields, which kept the dock pressurised when the dock ports were open, flickered once, but held. The physical structure did not. A huge chunk ripped out of the deck as if bitten by unseen jaws, three decks high. Debris was tumbling out into the ether. Brynngar looked away, for to do otherwise would be to comprehend the naked warp and embrace madness. Something stirred beyond the breach, out in the infinite. Brynngar felt it as the hackles rose on the back of his neck and the feral nature of his Legion became suddenly emboldened. For a brief moment, the Space Wolf wanted to tear off his helmet and gauntlets and gorge himself on flesh like a beast of the wild. He backed away of his own volition, realising that something primal and terrible was with them on the dock. MHOTEP HAD FORCED his way to the docking portals, through a swathe of warp spawn. His armour was dented and sc

ch, out in the infinite. Brynngar felt it as the hackles rose on the back of his neck and the feral nature of his Legion became suddenly emboldened. For a brief moment, the Space Wolf wanted to tear off his helmet and gauntlets and gorge himself on flesh like a beast of the wild. He backed away of his own volition, realising that something primal and terrible was with them on the dock. MHOTEP HAD FORCED his way to the docking portals, through a swathe of warp spawn. His armour was dented and scratched from their ether claws and his body heaved with exhaustion. It was not physical prowess that would save them here, but the discipline of the mind that needed to hold fast. Mhotep had felt the presence, too, and standing before the docking portal he beheld it in his mind's eye. It was dark and seething: a pure predator. 'It has seen me,' he said calmly into his helmet vox, the warp spawn hordes recoiling suddenly from the Thousand Son, regarding him in the same way a Prosperine spirehawk regards its prey. 'I cannot hide from it now.' BRYNNGAR WAS ALMOST back to back with Skraal, the two Astartes having been fought back to the blast doors, when he heard Mhotep through his vox. 'Seen what?' snarled the Space Wolf, gutting another warp spawn as Skraal cleaved the arm from another. 'You cannot prevail here,' the voice of Mhotep came again. 'Get out and seal the doors. I will remain and activate the dock's auto-destruct sequence.' Many vessels of the Imperial Fleet came with such precautionary measures built in to their design by the Mechanicum. They were meant as weapons of last resort, should a ship be overrun and in danger of capture. If a ship could not be defended or retaken from an enemy then it would be denied to them utterly, although in this case, Mhotep's sacrifice would not destroy the ship, only vanquish the foes that were besieging it. 'Do so now!' urged the Thousand Son. Brynngar had lost sight of him, though his view was curtailed as he forced himself to look away from the tear into the naked warp beyond. Although it rankled, the Space Wolf knew when he was chasing a lost cause. 'Come on,' he snarled to Skraal who hacked and hewed with berserk fury, 'we are leaving.' 'The sons of Angron do not flee the enemy,' he raged in response. 'Even so,' Brynngar said, smashing a warp spawn aside. Ducking a blood-maddened sweep of Skraal's chainaxe, he punched the World Eater hard in the chest with the flat of his hand. The stunned Astartes was lifted off his feet and sent sprawling through the open blast doors. Brynngar trudged after Skraal's prone form, carving a path through the horde with Felltooth. A few of the warp spawn had found their way through to the other side of the blast doors that led from the Primary Dock. Brynngar was about to hunt them down when a barrage of bolter fire scythed through them like wheat. Inside his battle helm, the Space Wolf grinned as he saw the battered forms of the Ultramarines. 'Down!' cried Cestus who was leading the group, and Brynngar hit the deck as a fusillade of fire erupted overhead. Arching his neck, the Space Wolf saw the smoking bodies of more warp spawn fall into a heap at the dock threshold. Swinging out a hand, he thumped the portal icon and the blast doors slid shut with a hydraulic pressure-hiss. 'We must seal the doors,' he snarled, rolling on his back as Antiges, Morar and Lexinal charged past him to guard the portal. STRIPPING AWAY THE verisimilitude of the warp spawn crew, Mhotep saw that they were not separate entities at all. They were the extension of a single conjoined conscious, raw emotion given form. Tentacles snaked from three gaping maws lined with cruel teeth that had once been the docking portals, and flesh sacks like finger puppets danced along them. As he stepped forward, he brandished his scimitar, a power sword engraved with hieroglyphics: the old tongue of Prospero. Mhotep was acutely aware of the blast doors shutting behind him, though the sound was far off, as if listened to in a separate dimension from the one he currently inhabited. Realising he was alone, the Thousand Son tapped into the innate power of his Legion, the psychic mutation common to all sons and daughters of Prospero that had earned Magnus the condemnation of Nikaea. Mhotep's power, like that of all the Astartes of his Legion, was honed to a rapier-like point and when properly channelled could be deadly. The nay-sayers of Nikaea had been right to fear it. Mhotep stowed his bolter, for it would not avail him here, and drew forth the wand-stave. Inputting a rune sequence, played out in the jewels along its short haft, the item extended into the length of a staff. Holding the weapon up to his helmet lens, Mhotep peered through the speculum at the tip. The tiny, silvered mirror became transparent and, through it, the Thousand Son saw the entity for what it was. The warp had been cruel. It had taken the ship and its crew and transfigured it into something wretched and debased. Tiny black eyes rolled in the armoured carapace and the bodies of its crew writhed all over the surface of the ship, trapped within a translucent membrane that sheathed it like living tissue. They were deformed, fused together with their tortured expressions stretched out as if melted. These were the souls of the Fireblade's crew and they were lost to the warp forever. The portion of the escort ship that had penetrated the cargo hold eked from the belly of the ship like an umbilical cord, the tentacle strings spilling from the maws at the end of them revealed to be tongues. The sound that emanated from them was appalling. The warp screamed from the Fireblade's throat, a screeching gale that threatened to knock Mhotep off his feet. He stayed upright, however, and found what he was looking for in the partly insubstantial hull of the former Imperial ship. The Thousand Son intoned words of power and an ellipsis of light burned into the deck plate. The Prosperine hieroglyphics on his staff flared bright vermillion. Spinning the staff around, Mhotep drove the scimitar into it pommel first and it became a spear. 'Back to the deeps!' bellowed the son of Magnus, his aim fixed upon the warp-entity's tainted core. 'There will be no feasting here for you, dead thing! By the Silver Towers and the Ever-Burning Eye, begone!' Mhotep flung the spear just as the tentacles closed on him, a burning trail of crimson light following its psychic trajectory. It struck the Fireblade in the heart of its central maw and a great explosion of light detonated within. Spectral blood fountained and the reaching tentacles withered and burned. The illumination built, blazing out of the maw and Mhotep was forced to look away from its brilliance. The scent of acrid smoke filled his nostrils, penetrating his helmet filters, and raging flames engulfed his senses together with the primordial scream of something dying in the fathomless ether. IN THE CORRIDOR beyond the Primary Dock, ceiling plates fell like rain as the walls of the Wrathful shuddered with fury. Cestus and Antiges fought to get to the doors as the tremors hit. The rippling shock waves were coming from the Primary Dock. Staying on his feet, Cestus drew his power sword and was about to beckon forward a group of engineers, who were lingering behind them, to fuse the blast doors when the horrific din emanating from within stopped. Smoke and faint, white light issued through the cracks. All was quiet and still for a moment. 'Where is Mhotep?' the Ultramarine asked, sheathing the blade. He'd been monitoring the helmet vox transmissions and knew that the Thousand Son had been at the Primary Dock. During the warp phenomenon, battles had erupted all across the Wrathful, and the secondary and tertiary docks had also come under attack. Reports were flickering past on Cestus's helmet vox that the warp spawn had abated abruptly for reasons unknown, dissolving back into the ether. Skraal was still out of it on the deck, babbling in enraged delirium, so Cestus turned to Brynngar for his answer. 'He made a noble sacrifice,' intoned the Space Wolf, as he got to his feet. 'That almost sounds like respect,' Cestus said, his voice tinged with bitterness. 'It is,' growled Brynngar. 'He gave his life for this ship and in so doing saved us all. For that he will have the eternal gratitude of Russ. I am not so proud to admit that I misjudged him.' Whining servos and the hiss of released pressure made the Space Wolf turn with bolt pistol raised as the blast doors ground open. Cestus and the other Astartes joined him with weapons levelled at the flickering dark beyond. Mhotep emerged from the scorched ruin of the Primary Dock, staggering, but very much alive. Tendrils of smoke rose from his pitted armour and he was drenched in viscous, translucent gore. In spite of his appearance and obvious injuries, he still retained his bearing, that nobility and arrogance so typical of Prospero's sons. 'It is not possible,' Brynngar breathed, taking a step back as if Mhotep were some apparition from the fireside sages of Fenris. 'None could have survived in such a conflagration.' Cestus lowered his bolter cautiously and then his hand in a gesture for the other Ultramarines to do the same. 'We thought you were dead.' Mhotep unclasped and removed his helmet, breathing deep of the recycled air. His eyes were black orbs and a riot of purple veins wreathed his face, but was slowly disappearing beneath his skin. 'As... did... I,' gasped the Thousand Son, helmet clattering to the deck as it fell from nerveless fingers. Cestus caught his fellow Astartes as he lurched forward and bore him down to the floor, half-cradled in his arms. 'Summon Laeradis at once,' he told Antiges, who was stunned for a moment before he came to his senses and went off to find the Ultramarine apothecary. 'He lives, yet,' Cestus added, noting Mhotep's fevered breathing. 'Aye,' Brynngar muttered darkly, having

neath his skin. 'As... did... I,' gasped the Thousand Son, helmet clattering to the deck as it fell from nerveless fingers. Cestus caught his fellow Astartes as he lurched forward and bore him down to the floor, half-cradled in his arms. 'Summon Laeradis at once,' he told Antiges, who was stunned for a moment before he came to his senses and went off to find the Ultramarine apothecary. 'He lives, yet,' Cestus added, noting Mhotep's fevered breathing. 'Aye,' Brynngar muttered darkly, having overcome his superstition, 'and there is but one way that could be so...' The Space Wolfs lip curled up in profound distaste. '...Sorcery.' EIGHT Nikaea Advantage Bakka Triumveron IN HIS PRIVATE quarters, Zadkiel regarded the pict screen on the console before him with interest. The room was drenched in sepulchral light, the suggestion of idols and craven icons visible at the edge of the shadows. Zadkiel's face was bathed in cold, stark light from the pict screen, making him appear gaunt and almost lifeless. Battle scenarios were displayed on the surface of the screen. An astral body, the size of a moon, exploded moments after being struck by a missile payload. Debris spread outward in a wide field, showering a nearby planet with burning meteors. An icon in the scenario represented a ship, the Furious Abyss, as it moved through the debris field. Trajectory markers with distances indicated alongside were displayed, originating at the ship icon and terminating at the planet's surface. The image paused momentarily and then cycled back to the beginning again. Zadkiel switched his attention to a vertical row of three supplementary screens attached to the main pict screen. The uppermost one was full of streaming data that bore the Mechanicum seal. Calculations concerning armour tolerances, projected orbital weapon strengths and extrapolated endurance times based upon the first statistic versus the other scrolled by. Angles, probable firepower intensities and shield indexes were all considered in exacting detail. The middle screen contained four stage-by-stage picts showing the effects of a particular viral strain upon human beings. A time code at the bottom right corner of the final pict displayed 00:01:30. The final screen displayed projected casualty rates: Macragge orbital defences - 49 percent; Macragge orbital fleet - 75 percent; Macragge population - 93 percent. Kor Phaeron and the rest of the Word Bearers' fleet would account for the rest. Zadkiel smiled; with a single blow they would all but wipe out the Ultramarines' home world and the Legion with it. 'I SAW IT myself, with this very eye,' snarled Brynngar, pointing to the non-cloudy orb. The Kolobite drone king did not blind me so much that I cannot see what is before my face.' Brynngar had joined Cestus, Skraal and Antiges in a waiting room outside of the medi-bay where Laeradis ministered to Mhotep after his collapse. The Wolf Guard stalked back and forth across the small, sanitised chamber, which was all white tile and stark lighting, impatiently awaiting the Thousand Son's return... 'No man, not even an Astartes, could have faced those hordes and lived,' offered Skraal, 'although I would have gladly laid down my life to dispatch them to the hell of the warp.' The World Eater was raging as he spoke, blood fever clouding his vision as the endless need for violence and slaughter nagged at him. He had confessed earlier that he remembered little of the fight, engaged as he was in a haze of fury, only waking in the access corridor to the primary dock. Brynngar had deliberately chosen not to enlighten him, deciding that he didn't want to risk the World Eater's wrath. 'Aye, and I can think of no other way that such a deed could have been done,' said Brynngar, coming to rest at last. 'You speak of witchcraft, Space Wolf,' said Antiges with a dark glance at Cestus. The Ultramarines captain had remained silent throughout. If what Brynngar said was true then it had dire ramifications. What was beyond doubt was that Mhotep's actions had saved the Wrathful from certain doom, but the edicts of the Emperor, laid down at Nikaea, were strict and without flexibility. Such things could not be ignored, to do so would damn them as surely as the Word Bearers. Cestus would not embrace that fate, however rational it might seem. 'We do not know for certain that Mhotep employed such methods and devices, only that he lived where perhaps he should not have,' he said. 'Is that not proof enough?' Brynngar cried. 'The acts of Zadkiel, of this treacherous vermin is one thing, but to have a heretic aboard ship is quite another. Let me wring the truth out of him, I'll-' 'You will do what, brother?' asked Mhotep, standing in the open archway of the waiting room. Like the other Astartes, he wasn't wearing his helmet, but he was also stripped out of his power amour and clad in robes. Apothecary Laeradis, together with another of the honour guard, Amryx, there by way of additional security, was visible behind him. The Apothecary was collecting his various apparatus as stooped Legion serfs scurried around him gathering up Mhotep's discarded armour. Brynngar stared at the Thousand Son, fists clenched, his face reddening as he bared his fangs. 'Laeradis?' asked Cestus, stepping in front of the Space Wolf in order to diffuse the tension. The Apothecary had just emerged into the room. Amyrx was standing silently next to him. 'No lasting injuries that his metabolism cannot cure,' Laeradis reported. 'Good,' Cestus replied. 'Rejoin your battle-brothers in the barracks.' 'My captain,' said the Apothecary, and gratefully left the charged atmosphere of the waiting room with Amryx, obsequious Legion serfs in tow. 'What happened at the dock?' asked Skraal, weighing in on Brynngar's behalf. 'I lost two Legion brothers to that fight, how were you able to survive?' The two World Eaters had been discovered later, recovered by blind servitors before the dock was locked down permanently and bulk heads put in place. The unfortunate Astartes had been transfixed by the blade claws of the warp spawn and died gurgling blood. Their scorched remains rested in one of the Wrathful's mausoleums, awaiting proper ceremony. 'When I reached the auto-destruct console I found that the protocols were off-line,' Mhotep explained, his face unreadable. 'Favour smiled on me though as during the battle, a fuel line linked to one of the docking ports had come loose from its housing and I was able to ignite it. I fought my way to a place where I was shielded from the blast and the resultant conflagration destroyed the entities with purging fire.' 'Your silver tongue is fat with lies,' Brynngar accused him, stepping forward. 'The air is thick with the stink of them.' Mhotep turned his stony gaze on the Space Wolf. 'I can assure you, Son of Russ, whatever odour you are detecting is not emanating from me. Perhaps you should seek your answer nearer to your own bedraggled self.' Brynngar roared and launched himself at the Thousand Son, bearing him to the ground with his massive bulk. 'Drink it in, witch,' snarled the Wolf Guard, intent on forcing Mhotep's head into the tiled floor. A splash of spittle landed on the Thousand Son's grimacing face as he thrashed against the Space Wolf's superior strength. Cestus, using all of his weight, smashed into Brynngar's side to dislodge him. The Wolf roared again as he was toppled from the Thousand Son. Skraal was about to wade in, but Antiges blocked his path, the Ultramarine's hand resting meaningfully on the pommel of his short-blade. 'Stand fast, brother,' he warned. Skraal's hand wavered near his chainaxe, but he snorted in mild contempt, and in the end relented. This was not the fight he wanted. Brynngar rolled from Cestus's body charge and swung to his feet. The Ultramarines captain was quick to interpose himself between Space Wolf and Thousand Son, his posture low in a readied battle stance. 'Stand aside, Cestus,' Brynngar growled. Cestus did not move, but instead kept his gaze locked with the Space Wolf. 'Do so, now,' Brynngar warned him again, his tone low and dangerous. 'This is not the way of the Astartes,' Cestus said, his voice calm and level in response. Behind the Ultramarine, Mhotep got to his feet, a little shaken, but otherwise defiant in the face of his aggressor. 'No: it is not the way of Guilliman's Legion, you mean,' answered Brynngar. 'Even so, I am in charge of this ship and this mission,' Cestus asserted, 'and if you have issue with my commands, then you will take them up with me.' 'He defies the Emperor's decree and yet you defend him!' Brynngar raged and took a step forward. He stopped when he realised that the Ultramarine's short-blade was at his throat. 'If Mhotep is to answer charges then he will do so at my behest and in a proper trial,' Cestus told him, the blade in his hand steady. 'The feral laws of Fenris are not recognised on this ship, battle-brother.' Brynngar growled again as if weighing up his options. In the end, he backed down. 'You are no brother of mine,' he snarled, and stalked from the chamber. Skraal followed him, a thin smile on his lips. 'That went well,' said Antiges, sighing with relief. He had not been relishing the idea of facing one of Angron's Legion, nor had he a desire to see Brynngar go toe-to-toe with his brother-captain. 'Sarcasm does not become you, Antiges,' said Cestus darkly. Brynngar was his friend. They had fought together in countless campaigns. He owed the old wolf his life, and more than once, Antiges too had a similar debt to the Wolf Guard. Cestus had defied him, however, and in so doing had besmirched his honour. Yet, how could he not give Mhotep the benefit of the doubt, without proof of his supposed actions? Cestus admitted to himself that his experience in the reactor chamber at Vangelis, the vision of Macragge he had witnessed, might be affecting his decisions. 'I am grateful to you

had fought together in countless campaigns. He owed the old wolf his life, and more than once, Antiges too had a similar debt to the Wolf Guard. Cestus had defied him, however, and in so doing had besmirched his honour. Yet, how could he not give Mhotep the benefit of the doubt, without proof of his supposed actions? Cestus admitted to himself that his experience in the reactor chamber at Vangelis, the vision of Macragge he had witnessed, might be affecting his decisions. 'I am grateful to you, Cestus,' said Mhotep, smoothing out his robes after the Space Wolf s rough treatment. 'Don't be,' the Ultramarine snapped, in part angry at himself for his self doubt. His gaze was cold and unforgiving as it turned on the Thousand Son. 'This is not over, nor am I satisfied with your explanation for what happened at the dock. You will be remanded to your quarters until we leave the warp and I have time to decide what is to be done. 'Antiges,' Cestus added, 'have Admiral Kaminska send the new Officer of the Watch and a squad of armsmen to escort Captain Mhotep to his cell.' Antiges nodded briskly and went off towards the bridge. 'I could overwhelm a mere band of armsmen and defy this order,' Mhotep said, matching the Ultramarine's steely gaze. 'Yes, you could,' said Cestus, 'but you will not.' 'LET IT NOT be said,' uttered Zadkiel, 'that the warp is without imagination.' Before Admiral Zadkiel, who, having left his private quarters, was in the Furious Abyss's cathedra, stood rank upon rank of Word Bearers. Their presence in the vaulted chamber was an echo of what had faced him at the vessel's inaugural launch at Thule. It was a sight that filled Zadkiel with a sense of power. The warriors represented the Seventh Company of the Quillborn Chapter, one of those that made up the greater Word Bearers Legion. Every Chapter had its own traditions and its own role within Lorgar's Word. The Quillborn were so named because their traditions emphasised their birth, created in the laboratories and apothecarions of Colchis. They were written into existence, born as syllables of the Word. A dedicated naval formation, the Quillborn were true marines, fighting ship-to-ship, completely at home battling through the cramped structure of a starship. At their head was Assault-Captain Baelanos, the acting captain of the company, although Zadkiel was their overlord. 'The ghost of one of their vessels has waylaid them,' continued Zadkiel with rising oratory. 'It was promised that in the warp we would find our allies. The fate of our pursuers aboard the Wrathful has shown that promise to have been kept.' Baelanos stepped forwards. 'Who will hear the Word?' he bellowed. As one, a hundred Word Bearers raised their guns and chanted in salute. 'They will be harrying us from here to Macragge,' said the assault-captain, his belligerence a contrast to Zadkiel's authoritative confidence, 'and they will die for it! Perhaps the warp will send them to us in the end, so we can show them how we deal with the blind in real space!' The Word Bearers cheered. Zadkiel saw Ultis among them, and felt a pang of agitation at his presence in the throng. His fate is written, Zadkiel thought. 'The warp is yet a strange place to us,' said Zadkiel. 'Though it holds nothing for us to fear, for Lorgar knows it better than any mind ever has, you will be assailed by mysteries. You might dream that which your mind has hidden from you. Perhaps you will even see them, as clear as day. These are the ways of the warp. Remember in all things the Word of Lorgar, and it will lead you back to sanity. Lose sight of the Word, and your mind will be carried away on currents from which it might never return. Make no mistake, the warp is dangerous. It is the Word, and the Word alone, that lets us navigate its waters. 'Soon we must make dock. The earlier battle took more of a toll than we thought. The way-station at Bakka Triumveron is our next destination.' Zadkiel did not tell them that his over-confidence had resulted in the damage to the ship that meant they were forced into a detour. A lucky hit from the Waning Moon's lances had cut off the engineering teams from the Furious Abyss's stores of fuel oil as well as rupturing the primary coolant line. Without regular supply, they could not function, and so it was imperative that the damage be cleared in order to allow the crews access. That could only be done whilst at dock. 'Shortly after that, we shall be at Macragge,' Zadkiel continued. 'Then our chapter of the Word will be completed. To your duties, Word Bearers. You are dismissed.' The Word Bearers filed out of the cathedra, many of them heading to reclusium cells. Baelanos approached the pulpit where Zadkiel was standing. 'We won't have long at Bakka,' he said. 'What are your orders to the astropathic choir?' 'I need to make contact with my lord Kor Phaeron,' said Zadkiel, 'and apprise him of our progress.' 'What of Wsoric?' asked Baelanos, a momentary tremor evident in his outward resolve at mention of the name. 'He stirs,' replied Zadkiel. 'We have only to cement our pact with the empyrean with blood, and then he will act.' 'The lap dogs of the Emperor are ever tenacious, my lord.' 'Then we shall cast them off,' Zadkiel told him, 'but for now, we wait. Asking too many favours of the empyrean may not behove us well.' 'As you wish, my lord,' said Baelanos, bowing slightly, but his reluctance was obvious. 'Trust me to fulfil my duties to the Word, Baelanos, as I trust you,' said Zadkiel. 'Yes, admiral,' replied the assault-captain. Baelanos saluted and headed for the engine decks. Zadkiel remained in the cathedra, for a moment, deep in thought. It was so easy to lose sight of the Word, to become wrapped up in power. It would have been simple for him to forget what he was and where his place was in the galaxy. That was why Lorgar had chosen him for this mission. There was no more dedicated servant of the Word, save for Lorgar. Zadkiel knelt before the altar, murmured a few words of prayer, and headed back up towards the bridge. 'CAPTAIN CESTUS?' SAID Kaminska's voice over the Ultramarine's helmet vox. The engine servitors of the Wrathful had managed to bring on-ship communications back on line. 'Speaking,' he replied, more irritably than he'd intended. The confrontation with Brynngar in the medi-bay waiting room was weighing on his mind, that and whatever Mhotep was hiding from them behind that veneer of indifference. 'Meet me on the bridge at once.' Cestus sighed deeply at the admiral's curt response. He had intended to patrol the lower aft decks with Antiges. In the wake of the officer of the watch's death, together with all of his most experienced armsmen, the ship was short-handed. The Astartes captain had taken it upon himself to make up the shortfall and ensure that no other unforeseen difficulties arose for whatever time remained of their warp passage. Given Admiral Kaminska's tone, the patrol would have to wait, so Cestus and Antiges headed for the bridge. KAMINSKA KEPT A lean bridge when not in combat. Crewmen at the sensorium, navigation and engineering helms were all that were present. The admiral was standing at a table illuminated by a hololithic star map. She looked ragged as he approached her, with dark rings around her eyes and a greyish pallor to her complexion. Cestus couldn't help think how long it had been since she had slept. An Astartes could go for several days without, but Kaminska was merely human. He wondered how long she could keep going. 'My lord,' she said, acknowledging the giant Astartes. 'Admiral. What is it you wish to bring to my attention?' Kaminska indicated the star map in front of her. It showed the sector of the galaxy around the dense galactic core. The core was impassable, and so much of the map was taken up with a blank void. Notations and calculations were scrawled in the margins. Beside the map was a printout from one of the sensorium pict screens. It was a close-up of the Furious Abyss's hull. 'See this?' said Kaminska, indicating a white plume issuing from the side of the Word Bearers ship. The grainy resolution made it look like gas was being vented. 'They have an air leak?' 'Better than that,' said Kaminska. 'It's damage to the coolant lines. If they push the engines, the plasma reactors will burn up, and, pursued by this ship, if they want to stay ahead of us, they'll have to push the engines.' Cestus smiled grimly at the sudden turn in fortune. It was small recompense for all they'd lost. 'So the Furious Abyss will have to make dock to effect repairs,' the Ultramarine guessed. 'Yes. They'll also be reloading ordnance and using the time to service their fighters after the battle outside the Tertiary Coreward Transit.' 'Show me the location, admiral,' said Cestus, assuming that Kaminska had already planned their strategy in part. Kaminska laid her finger on the hololithic display in triumph. 'Outside the Solar System there aren't many orbital docks that can support a ship that size.' The Bakka system was already circled on the map. 'Bakka,' said Cestus. 'My Legion mustered there for the Karanthas Crusade. It's the Imperial Army's staging post for half the galactic south.' 'It has the only docks between the galactic core and Macragge that could handle the Furious Abyss,' Kaminska told him. 'I'd bet my commission that this is where they'll head.' Cestus thought for a moment. A plan was forming. 'How long before we break warp?' 'Several hours yet, but delay or not, we can't beat the Furious Abyss in a straight fight.' 'Tell me this, admiral,' Cestus said, looking into Kaminska's eyes. 'When is a ship most vulnerable?' Kaminska smiled despite her weariness. 'When she's at anchor.' Cestus nodded. Turning away from the admiral, he raised the other Astartes captains on the vox array and told them to meet him in the conference room immediately. 'WHAT NEWS HAVE you, Brother Zadkiel?' mout

ow long before we break warp?' 'Several hours yet, but delay or not, we can't beat the Furious Abyss in a straight fight.' 'Tell me this, admiral,' Cestus said, looking into Kaminska's eyes. 'When is a ship most vulnerable?' Kaminska smiled despite her weariness. 'When she's at anchor.' Cestus nodded. Turning away from the admiral, he raised the other Astartes captains on the vox array and told them to meet him in the conference room immediately. 'WHAT NEWS HAVE you, Brother Zadkiel?' mouthed the supplicant. Somehow, the creature's lolling mouth formed the words in such a way that Kor Phaeron's short temper and self-confidence were perfectly enunciated. 'We are on our way, my lord,' said Zadkiel, bowing. Kor Phaeron was one of the arch commanders of the Legion, foremost in Lorgar's reckoning. He was the primarch's greatest champion and it was he, this ancient warrior of countless battles, that would command the forces to attack Calth where Guilliman mustered and destroy the Ultramarines utterly. It was a singular honour to be in Kor Phaeron's presence, albeit across the infinity of warp space, and Zadkiel was at once humbled by the experience. It was not an emotion he had great affinity with. The supplicant chamber of the Furious Abyss was bathed in darkness, but the presence of the astropathic choir behind the supplicant was powerful enough to remove the need for light. The choir consisted of eight astropaths, but the Furious's astral cohort differed from those on any Imperial ship. The fact that there were eight of them suggested their instability. The Furious Abyss's route through the warp, and the forces brought to bear on it, eroded the mind of an astropath with dismaying speed, and while such creatures were all blind, they did not have the heavy ribbed cables running from each eye socket attaching them to the macabre contraption clamped around the supplicant's swollen cranium. 'How goes your progress?' asked the mighty champion of the Word Bearers. 'Half a day longer in the warp, until we reach the fringes of the galactic core. We must make vital repairs at Bakka, before heading onwards to Macragge.' 'I recall no such deviation in the mission plan, Zadkiel.' Despite the fact that Kor Phaeron was doubtless aboard the Word Bearers battle-barge the Infidus Imperator, in deep communion with its own astropathic choir and speaking through a flesh puppet, his tone and manner were still dangerous. 'During a brief sortie with a fleet of Imperial ships we sustained minor damage that could not be ignored, my lord,' Zadkiel explained more hurriedly than he liked. 'A military action?' Kor Phaeron's disdain was clear. 'Did any survive?' 'A single cruiser pursues us yet through the warp, liege.' 'So they do not seek to raise a warning back on Terra,' mused the arch champion, his considered tone at odds with the slack-jawed, drooling visage of the supplicant. 'A pity. I suspect Sor Talgron is itching in his traitor's shackles.' 'I trust that Brother Talgron would have acquitted himself with distinction, Kor Phaeron.' In the eyes of Zadkiel, Sor Talgron's mission was not a desirable one. The lord commander was to remain in the Solar System, his four companies ostensibly guarding Terra, in order to maintain the pretence that Lorgar still sided with the Emperor when in fact, he had been instrumental in the Warmaster's defection. 'It matters not, my lord. The prospect of word reaching Terra should not concern us. The warp's disquiet would prevent any warning getting to Macragge.' 'I disagree.' The supplicant sneered in an echo of Kor Phaeron's idiosyncratic expression. 'Any deviation from the plan as written holds the potential for disaster. The entire Word could go disobeyed!' 'We will be a few hours at Bakka at the most, exalted lord,' said Zadkiel plaintively, wary of his master's wrath. 'Then we will be on our way. If our pursuer catches up with us, she will be destroyed as her sister ships were. In any case we will not be late; our passage through the warp was swift. But what of you, my lord?' 'We've joined up with the other elements of the Legion and all is proceeding as written.' 'Calth has no hope.' 'None, my brother.' The supplicant lolled back, drooling blood as the connection was broken. The astropathic choir sank into silence, only their ragged breathing suggesting the great effort required to maintain the link across the immaterium. Zadkiel regarded the dead supplicant with detached interest. It was interesting to him to see how easily their physical forms could be destroyed when their minds were so strong. He considered that he would like to test that theory. 'All is well, my lord?' asked Ultis. The novice was standing behind Zadkiel. 'All is well, novice,' said Zadkiel. 'You will join Baelanos at Bakka, Ultis. Take the Scholar Coven. They will know to obey you.' Ultis saluted. 'It will be an honour, admiral.' 'One you have earned, novice. Now, be about your duties.' 'Yes, my lord.' Ultis turned smartly and headed for the cell deck where the Scholar Coven would be undergoing their scheduled meditation-doctrine training. Zadkiel watched him go and smiled darkly. Such potential, such relentless ambition; the upstart would soon learn the folly of overreaching. Soon, Zadkiel told himself, forcing down a thrill of excitement. Soon, Guilliman will burn and Lorgar will rule the stars. Zadkiel could feel that time approaching. That age was in its infancy, but it only needed time to come about. Zadkiel knew this as surely as he had ever known anything, because it was written. THE WRATHFUL BROKE out of the warp, almost gasping in relief as it slid back into real space. The vessel's hull was torn and scorched, and chunks of its engine cowlings were ripped out. The winds of the warp had carved strange patterns into its armour plate around the prow and all over the underside. Claws had raked deep gouges all over the upper hull and torn turrets from their mountings. Sitting in her command throne, Admiral Kaminska looked out of the viewport and saw that the Wrathful had not emerged alone. Leprous and wretched with its pitted, rusting hull and disease-ridden ports, the Fireblade limped into existence alongside them. It was a ship of the damned, the thousands of souls aboard condemned to endless, torturous oblivion. Such a thing could not be allowed to endure. Kaminska gave the order to train laser batteries on the decrepit vessel. There was a few seconds' pause when the Wrathful unleashed a blistering salvo of fire. Without operational shields, the Fireblade crumpled under the onslaught. A few seconds more and all that remained of the blighted escort ship was a scorched wreck and space debris. It was a duty that gave Kaminska no pleasure, but necessary all the same, much like the expulsion of their own dead. It was bad luck to keep the deceased on board, not to mention unhygienic. Bodies were never returned to their home port in the Saturnine Fleet. What the void killed, it kept. The tiny gleaming sparks that fell away from the Wrathful were corpses enclosed in body bags, reflecting the light of the star Bakka that burned in a magnesium spark a few light hours away. Much closer was Bakka Triumveron, a titanic gas cloud far bigger than the Solar System's Jupiter, bright yellow streaked with violet and ringed with scores of shimmering bands of ice and rock. Bakka was a mystery, its gaseous form far too stormy and strange to admit any craft, while its rings were death-traps many times more lethal than the rings of Saturn. Bakka's outlying moons, however, were habitable, each one almost the size of Terra and all of them heavily populated. Rogelin, Sanctuary, Half Hope, Grey Harbour: these hive cities were just fledglings compared to the teeming pinnacles of the Solar System, but they were still home to billions of Imperial citizens. The Bakka system was one of the most populated in the segmentum, certainly the largest concentration of human life this close to the galactic core. Bakka Triumveron's fourteenth moon had no cities, but instead was enclosed within a thin black spider web that looked like some planetary disease. It was, in fact, the underlying structure of its orbital docks, held over the moon so that they could benefit from its enormous stores of geothermal energy. The moon was uninhabited, thanks to its relentlessly shifting tectonic plates and accompanying cataclysms, but the dockyards above Triumveron 14 were some of the main reasons why Bakka was populated at all. THREE ASSAULT-BOATS headed out from the launch bays of the Wrathful. They approached the farthest docking spike of Bakka Triumveron 14 and did so with stealth and subterfuge. It was imperative that they not be discovered by the enemy. It also meant that the troops on board would have a long trek to the Furious Abyss. Three assault-boats; three discreet combat formations. Skraal joined his Legion warriors in one. Their mode of approach was a central avenue between overlooking docking towers, decks sprawling out from jutting bartizans, and the World Eaters and their captain were to take the lead. Two flanks branched out from the central avenue and these channels would be taken by the Blood Claws, led by Brynngar in spite of the Space Wolf's earlier altercation with Cestus, and a second group of World Eaters led by the only Ultramarine in the raiding party. Antiges sat bolt upright in the flight couch of the gloom-drenched troop hold of an assault-boat as they made their way closer to the gaseous expanse that was Bakka Triumveron and the moon that would support their embarkation. He was the only Ultramarine aboard the assault-boat, accompanied, as he was, by two combat-squads of Skraal's remaining World Eaters. To Antiges's mind they were brutal warriors, festooned with the trophies of war, crude kill-markings like badges of honour carved into their armour. Each and every one was possessed of a murderous mien

ched troop hold of an assault-boat as they made their way closer to the gaseous expanse that was Bakka Triumveron and the moon that would support their embarkation. He was the only Ultramarine aboard the assault-boat, accompanied, as he was, by two combat-squads of Skraal's remaining World Eaters. To Antiges's mind they were brutal warriors, festooned with the trophies of war, crude kill-markings like badges of honour carved into their armour. Each and every one was possessed of a murderous mien, a faint echo of their primarch's battle rage. Dimly, as if the infinite expanse of black space that existed between them had smothered it, Antiges recalled his last conversation with his captain. 'STAND ASIDE, ANTIGES,' Cestus barked, bedecked in a stripped down version of his honour guard regalia and battle-ready with short-blade, power sword and bolter. Adjusting to the half-light of the assembly deck, Cestus saw that his battle-brother was similarly attired. 'I have told you before, Antiges. The sons of Guilliman will remain aboard ship in case anything goes wrong. I shall accompany the mission as its leader to ensure that it goes to plan.' Cestus had gone over the plan several times since it was first broached in the conference room to the rest of the Astartes captains. If they were to make the most of the Furious Abyss's current disposition, they would need to act in subterfuge and in secret. Even with that caveat in mind, the strike would need to be brutal and at close-quarters. The World Eaters and the Space Wolves had no equals in that regard, save for the sons of Sanguinius, but the Angels were far off in another part of the galaxy. These were the tools at their disposal; they had but to unleash them. The assault force was to infiltrate Bakka Triumveron 14, where the Word Bearers had made dock, in three teams in a classic feint and strike manoeuvre in order that they get close enough to scupper the ship at close-range. Incendiary charges, krak and melta bombs, were to be carried as standard. It was a faint hope, but it was hope none the less and all had embraced it. Even Brynngar, his demeanour sullen and belligerent, had acceded to the plan, doubtless eager to vent his wrath much like his brother captain, Skraal. 'With respect, brother-captain,' said Antiges levelly, purposefully standing his ground. 'You shall not.' Cestus's face creased in consternation. 'I did not expect disobedience from you, Antiges.' 'It is not disobedience, sire. Rather, it is sense.' Antiges still did not move. His expression brooked no argument. 'Very well,' said Cestus, letting his battle-brother have this indulgence before he rebuked him for his insolence. 'Explain yourself.' Antiges's face softened, a trace of pleading behind his eyes. 'Allow me to lead the strike,' he said. 'This mission is too dangerous and our plight too great to risk your life, my captain. Without you, there is no mission. Even now, we hold to our cause by a mere thread. Were you to be lost, then so too would be Macragge. You know this to be true.' Antiges stepped forward, allowing the light to fall on his face and armour. The effect was not unlike a bodily halo. 'I entreat you, liege, let me do this service. I shall not fail you.' At first, Cestus had thought to deny him, but he knew his brother Ultramarine was right. Cestus was acutely aware of the other combat squads mustering on the deck behind him, readying to take to the assault-boats. 'It would do me great honour to have you, Brother Antiges, as my representative,' he said and clapped Antiges on the shoulder. 'My lord,' the fellow Ultramarine intoned and bowed to his knee. 'No, Antiges,' said Cestus, grasping his battle-brother's shoulder to stop him mid-genuflect. 'We are equals and such deference is not necessary.' Antiges rose and nodded instead. 'Courage and honour, my brother,' said Cestus. 'Courage and honour,' Antiges replied and turned to walk away towards the assault-boats. THE WORDS WERE distant now, and Antiges crushed whatever sentiment they held as he intoned the oaths of battle. The World Eaters were similarly engaged, their lips moving in entreaty to their weapons and armaments that they should not fail them, and rather that they be covered in glory and speak with righteous anger. The warriors of the XII Legion were well-armed with chainaxes and storm shields. They bore side arms too, but Antiges suspected that they were rarely drawn. World Eaters fought up close, in face-to-face melee, where the force of a charge and the shock of their ferocity counted the most. Antiges steeled himself and mouthed the name of Roboute Guilliman as the assault-boat screamed towards its destination. THE DOCK-MASTER had demanded to know why prior notification had not been given for the arrival of such an enormous ship. His obstinate and imperious attitude had faltered and withered upon the arrival of the Astartes on his deck. Once Ultis had gained entry to the observation balcony, he had had the dock master put his deck crews to work to receive the Furious Abyss. Violence, at this point, was unnecessary. To the menials and underlings of Bakka Triumveron 14, they were still Astartes and as such their word carried the authority of the Emperor. No man of the Imperium would dare brook that. From the observation balcony overlooking the battleship dock, Ultis could see the automated coolant tanks picking their way through the docking clamps and other dockside detritus towards the towering shape of the Furious Abyss. The dock was a hive of activity, tracked-servitors and human indentured workers bustling back and forth on loaders, carrying massive fuel drums and swathes of heavy piping. The frenetic scene, fraught with activity, was as a mustering of ants before the towering hive that was the Word Bearers ship. It was the first time Ultis had been able to truly appreciate the vessel's gigantic size. Like a city of crenellated towers, arching spires and fanged fortress-like decks, it dwarfed the puny dock, easily clearing the highest antennae and cranes. The book, resplendent upon the Furious's prow easily eclipsed the observation building in which Ultis was standing. 'We are in control,' Ultis voxed privately through his helmet array, the dock master busied at his consoles with the massive ship's sudden arrival. 'Good,' said Zadkiel, back on the ship. 'Did you encounter any resistance?' 'They accept the authority of the Astartes like the dutiful and deluded lapdogs they are, my lord,' Ultis replied, looking around at the Scholar Coven. These warriors had been assembled from the Word Bearers under Zadkiel's command who showed the greatest adherence to Lorgar's Word. They were all more recent recruits to the Legion, all from Colchis and all dedicated scholars of Lorgar's writings. They were motivated not by the glory of the Great Crusade, but by the ideology of the Word Bearers. Zadkiel greatly valued such followers since they could be counted on to support the Legion's latest endeavours, which would be sure to bring the Word Bearers into conflict with elements of the Imperium before long. Ultis looked over at the man he would soon kill, once preparations were fully underway, and reasoned that the conflicts were already beginning to come about. The fact meant absolutely nothing to him. Ultis had no loyalty save to the Word. There was nothing in the galaxy in that moment, other than that which was written. The novice smiled. This day, his destiny would be etched in the Word for all time. NINE Infiltration Ambush Sons of Angron THE ASSAULT-BOATS docked quickly and without incident, the pilot having avoided radar and long-range scans to insert the Astartes squads outside the main thoroughfares of Bakka Triumveron 14. Antiges, clad in the blue and gold of his Legion's honour guard, was first out of the assault-boat, speeding from the embarkation ramp. Chainsword held low at his hip and adopting a crouching stance, he moved stealthily across an open plaza of steel plates, flanked by towering cranes and disused craft in for non-urgent repairs. The few servitors meandering back and forth on tracks and slaved to an aerial rail system ignored the Astartes. Working through pre-assigned protocols as dictated by their command wafers, they were not even aware of their presence. Close behind the Ultramarine, one of the World Eaters, Hargrath, gave the servitors a wary glance as he piled through the open channel with his battle-brothers. 'Pay them no heed,' Antiges hissed, looking back to check on his charges. Hargrath nodded and continued on his way towards the massive crimson horizon ahead, visible across the entire length of the shipyard: the Furious Abyss, the largest vessel any of them had ever seen. 'Keep in cover,' said Antiges as the plaza gave way to a maze-like refuelling and maintenance bay full of passing loaders and stacks of drums. The Ultramarine was careful to keep his squad out of the view of the labouring indentured workers and other menials busying themselves at the dock. They clung to the shadows, using them like a second skin. Once they had reached their destination, their targets would be the engines and ordnance ports. The Ultramarine checked a bandoleer of krak grenades at his hip. There was a cluster of melta bombs flanking it on the opposite side and as the Furious Abyss drew closer, he hoped it would be enough. BRYNNGAR WAS FESTOONED with trophies and fetishes: wolfs' teeth and claws, and a necklace of uncut gem-stones, polished pebbles carved with runes. If he were to go to war at last against his brother Astartes then he would do so in his full regalia. Let them witness the majesty and savage power of the Sons of Russ in their most feral aspect before they were torn asunder for their treachery. The Wolf Guard was focused on the battle ahead, crushing all thoughts of his altercation with Cestus to the back of his mind for now. There would be time for a r

s' teeth and claws, and a necklace of uncut gem-stones, polished pebbles carved with runes. If he were to go to war at last against his brother Astartes then he would do so in his full regalia. Let them witness the majesty and savage power of the Sons of Russ in their most feral aspect before they were torn asunder for their treachery. The Wolf Guard was focused on the battle ahead, crushing all thoughts of his altercation with Cestus to the back of his mind for now. There would be time for a reckoning later. It was only a pity that the Ultramarine had eschewed the mission in favour of overall command aboard the Wrathful. Brynngar wanted to think him cowardly, but he had fought alongside the son of Guilliman many times and knew this not to be the case. It was probably a display of the XIII Legion's much vaunted tactical acumen. The Space Wolves' aspect of attack was a narrow cordon riddled with junked carriers used for spare parts. It was more like an open warehouse with machine carcasses piled high and banded tightly together to prevent them toppling when stacked. Servitors slaved to loaders hummed back and forth amongst the towers of rusted metal like bees harvesting a nest. If they cared about the Space Wolf captain and his Blood Claws, tooled up with broad-bladed axes and bolt pistols, and weaving crisscross fashion through their domain, they did not show it. Brynngar knew that he would spill blood this day, and it would be the blood of his erstwhile brothers. This was no fight against mere heathen men, misguided in their beliefs, nor was it foul xenos breeds ever intent on corralling the human galaxy to their yoke. No, this was Astartes against Astartes. It was unprecedented. Thinking of the devastation the Word Bearers had already wrought, the Space Wolf took a better grip of Felltooth and vowed to make the traitors pay for their transgressions. 'THEY ARE MAKING their final approach towards the dock,' said Kaminska poring over the hololithic tactical display in front of her command throne. Having been preparing the other Ultramarines for potential combat and distributing them around the ship accordingly, Cestus had returned to the bridge and joined the admiral at the tactical display table. Hazy runes moved over a top-down green-rimed blueprint of Bakka Triumveron 14, indicating the progress of the three attack waves heading for the immense swathe of bulky red that represented the Furious Abyss. The ship's magos, Agantese, had tapped into one of the satellite feeds of the orbital moon and was using it to re-route images to the Wrathful's tactical network. It had a short delay, but was an otherwise excellent way to keep track of their forces on the ground. Even so, Cestus felt impotent, directing the action from the relative safety of real space where the cruiser lingered to stay out of radar and sensorium range. 'Antiges, report,' he barked into the ship's vox, synced with his fellow Ultramarine's boosted helmet array. 'Assault protocol alpha proceeding as planned, captain,' Antiges's voice said after a few seconds delay. The reply was fraught with static. Even with the boosted array rigged by the Wrathful's engineers, the gulf of real space between them impinged greatly. 'We will be making our initial insertion onto the dock in T-minus three minutes.' 'Well enough, Brother Antiges. Keep me appraised. If you meet any resistance, you have your orders,' said Cestus. 'I shall prosecute my duties with all the fury of the Legion, my lord.' The vox cut out. Cestus sighed deeply. To think it had come to this. This was no foray into the jaws of alien overlords or the misguided worshippers of the arcane, not this time. It was brother versus brother. Cestus could barely bring himself to think on it. Fighting across the gulf of real space was one thing, but to be face-to-face with those who had betrayed the Emperor, those who had killed warriors they once called friend and comrade in cold blood, was indeed harrowing. It felt like an end of things, and the sense of it caught in the Ultramarine's throat. 'Admiral Kaminska,' said Cestus after the momentary silence, 'you have risked much in the pursuit of this mission. You have done, and continue to do, me great honour with your sterling service to our cause.' Kaminska was clearly taken aback and failed to hide her shock from the Ultramarine completely. 'I thank you, lord Astartes,' she said, bowing slightly, 'but if I am honest, I would have chosen to undertake this duty, although perhaps of my own volition,' she added candidly. Cestus's gaze was mildly questioning. 'I am the last of a dying breed,' she confessed, her shoulders sagging and not from physical fatigue. 'The Saturnine Fleet is to be decommissioned.' 'Is that so?' 'Yes, captain. It doesn't do to have such an anachronism on the rostrum of the new Imperium. All those gentlemen in their powdered wigs talking about good breeding, it hardly speaks of efficiency and impartiality. Our ships are to be refitted for a new Imperial Navy. I'm a part of the last generation. I suppose I should be glad that at least Vorlov didn't see it. You see, captain, this is really my last hurrah, the last great journey of the Wrathful as I know it.' Cestus smiled mirthlessly. His eyes were cold orbs, tinged with a deep sense of burden and regret. 'It might be for us all, admiral.' SKRAAL'S ASSAULT FORCE sped down the central channel of the dock, a loading bay for fuel and munitions tankers, with reckless abandon. The berserker fury was building within the World Eater captain and he knew his battle-brothers were experiencing the same rush. They were the sons of Angron and like their lord they were implanted with an echo of the neural technology that had unlocked the primarch's violent potential. At the cusp of battle, the Astartes warriors could tap into that font of boiling rage and use it like an edged blade to cut their enemies down. After several bloody incidents, the Emperor had censured the further use of implants in the false belief that they made the World Eaters unstable killing machines. Angron, in his wisdom, had eschewed the edict of the Emperor of Mankind and had continued in spite of it. They were killing machines, Skraal felt it in his burning blood and in the core of his marrow, but then what greater accolade was there for the eternal warriors of the Astartes? Though the orders of the Ultramarine, Antiges, had forbidden it, Skraal encouraged his warriors to kill as they converged on the Furious Abyss. A spate of bloodletting would sharpen the senses for the battle to come. The only directive: leave none alive to tell or warn others of their approach. The World Eaters pursued this duty with brutal efficiency and a trail of menial corpses littered the ground between the assault-boat insertion point and their current position. Such reckless slaying had not, however, gone unnoticed. 'MY LORD,' HISSED Ultis into the vox array of the observation platform. Zadkiel's voice responded from the Furious. 'It seems we are not alone,' Ultis concluded. The novice in command of the Scholar Coven consulted a holo-map of the entire dockyard. His gauntleted finger was pressed against a flashing diode near one of the many refuelling conduits. 'Where is that?' he demanded of the dock-master, still engrossed in the refit and refuel of the vast starship. 'Tanker Yard Epsilon IV, my lord,' said the dock-master, who looked closer when he saw the flashing red diode. 'An emergency alarm.' The dock-master moved to another part of the console and brought up a viewscreen. Warriors in blue and white power armour were visible in the grainy resolution surging through the tanker yard. Prone forms, dressed in worker fatigues, slumped in their wake surrounded by dark pools. 'By Terra,' said the dock-master, turning to face Ultis, 'they are Astartes.' The novice faced the dock-master and shot the man through the face point-blank with his bolt pistol. After his head exploded in a shower of viscera and bone-riddled gore, his streaming carcass slid to the deck. The rest of the dock crew on the observation platform had failed to react before the rest of the Scholar Coven had taken Ultis's lead and shot them, too. 'The Astartes have tracked us here and move in on the Furious Abyss as we speak,' said Ultis down the vox. 'I have eliminated all platform personnel to prevent any interference.' 'Very well, Brother Ultis. You have your orders,' said Zadkiel's voice through the array. Ultis looked down through the building's windows to the expanse of the docking stage. Baelanos's assault squad was standing guard there. 'I shall show them what fates are written for them,' said Ultis, drawing his sword. 'Educate them,' replied Zadkiel. THE BATTLESHIP DOCK looked like a tangled web of metal as Skraal and his warriors forged onward. Beyond that the massive Furious Abyss loomed like a slumbering predator in repose. The stink of blood from the previous slaughter was heady through the World Eater captain's nose grille as he raced towards the end of the channel and the open dock beyond. The cordon tightened ahead and the Legionaries were forced together as they rifled through it. Just as Skraal was feeling confident that they had not been discovered, a group of Word Bearers in crimson ceramite emerged before them to block their path. Bolter fire wreathed the opening, lighting up the half-dark of the channel with four-pronged muzzle flares. Kellock, the warrior next to Skraal, took a full burst in the chest that tore open his armour and left him oozing blood. Kellock crumpled and fell, both his primary and secondary hearts punctured. The combat squads were pinned on either side by fuel drums, stacked against bulky warehouse structures. Fleeing menials and mindless servitors, alerted by the commotion, wandered into their path and were cut down with chainblades or battered by shields as the World Eaters sought to close with the foe a

ellock, the warrior next to Skraal, took a full burst in the chest that tore open his armour and left him oozing blood. Kellock crumpled and fell, both his primary and secondary hearts punctured. The combat squads were pinned on either side by fuel drums, stacked against bulky warehouse structures. Fleeing menials and mindless servitors, alerted by the commotion, wandered into their path and were cut down with chainblades or battered by shields as the World Eaters sought to close with the foe and wrest the advantage back. One of the drums was struck by an errant bolter round and exploded in a bright bloom of yellow-white fury. A fiery plume spilled into the air, like ink in water, and a wrecked servitor was cast like a broken doll at the edge of its blossoming blast wave. Three World Eaters were shredded by the concussive force of the explosion and smashed aside into the metallic siding of a warehouse unit. The siding didn't yield to the sudden impact of massed flesh and ceramite, and the two warriors were crushed. Skraal felt the heat of the explosion against his face even through his helmet as the warning sensors went crazy. He staggered, but kept his footing and yelled the order to charge. ANTIGES WAS STALKING through the refuelling bay when he heard the explosion from across the dock and saw fire and smoke billowing into the air. They were close. The Furious Abyss, a dense dark wall, filled the Ultramarine's sights. 'Antiges, report,' Cestus's voice said through the helmet vox, the tactical display obviously registering the sudden influx of heat. 'An explosion in the central channel. I fear we are discovered, brother-captain.' 'Get over there, unite your forces and push on through to the Furious.' 'As you command, captain,' he replied and ordered his combat squads through a maze of piping that connected to the central channel where he knew Skraal and his insertion team were placed. As they moved, Antiges at the lead, a shadow fell across the Ultramarine, cast by the vast observation platform overlooking the dock above. Out of instinct, he looked up and saw the line of crimson armoured warriors bearing down on them with bolter and plasma gun. Death rained down in a hail of venting promethium and spent electrum. Antiges rolled out of its way into the shadow of the docking clamp. Hargrath was distracted and a fraction slower. He paid for his laxity when a bolt of searing plasma blasted a hole in his torso, cooking the World Eater in his armour. He fell with a resounding clang, the wound cauterised before he hit the ground. Several of his brothers heaved his body towards them, but to act as improvised cover, rather than out of any sense of reverence for their dead comrade. Antiges replied with barking retorts of his bolt pistol, half-glimpsing the target above between bursts of chipped plascrete and metal as the docking clamp was chewed up around him. The rest of the World Eaters followed his lead, stowing storm shields and drawing bolt pistols, their weapons adding to the return fire. Menials, put to flight at the start of the attack, and spilling into the rapidly erupting war zone were ripped apart in the crossfire. The roar of gunfire and the shriek of shrapnel mangled together with their screams. Antiges pressed up against the closest docking clamp and looked around it, gauging the terrain leading the rest of the way to the Furious Abyss. The docks formed a landscape of narrow fire lanes between clamps and fuel tanks. Above was the observation platform, strung on metal struts, and beyond that rings of steel holding fuelling gantries, defence turrets and bouquets of sensor spines. Antiges slammed himself back against the steel of the docking clamp as bolter fire continued to pin them. 'Captain, we are ambushed!' he yelled into the vox, in an attempt to overcome the din. Despite his volume, the Ultramarine's tone was calm as he cycled through a number of potential battle protocols learned by rote during his training. There was a moment's pause as the message went through and his captain assessed the options open to him. 'Relief is incoming,' came the clipped reply. 'Be ready.' AFTER A SECOND bout of return fire, a chain of small explosions erupted across the observation platform, showering frag. Beyond the destruction and across the dockyard, embarkation ports were opening in the side of the Furious Abyss. Antiges was on his feet and bellowing orders before the resulting smoke had cleared. 'Don't give them time! Hit them! Hit them now!' The Astartes broke cover and charged, leaving the dead in their wake. Two hundred robed cohorts in the crimson of the Word Bearers emerged from the Furious Abyss, and charged right back. 'Open fire!' shouted Antiges. The Ultramarine felt the immediate pressure wave of discharged bolt pistols behind him as the World Eaters obeyed. The effect was brutal. Lines of the crudely armoured Word Bearer lackeys fell beneath the onslaught. Bodies pitched into their comrades, jerked and spun as the munitions struck. Blood sprayed in directions too numerous to count and the corpses mounted like a bank of fleshy sandbags, tripping those following. There was only time for a single volley, and the disciplined Astartes holstered pistols before closing with the first of the Furious's cannon fodder. A brutish cohort, scarred and tarnished like an engine ganger, came at Antiges with an axe blade. The Ultramarine met the ganger's roar with the screech of his chainsword, plunging it into the man's chest. The cohort fell, wrenching the weapon from Antiges's hand. The Astartes didn't pause and threw the wretch aside with such force that the corpse spun in the air before crashing into its debased brethren. The Ultramarine drew his short-blade, duelling shield already in hand and cut down a second assailant with a low, arcing sweep. Rorgath, a World Eater sergeant, came alongside Antiges and forged into the melee with brutal abandon. Limbs fell like rain as he churned through his enemies, his face a grisly mask of wrath without his helmet. Out of the corner of his eye, Antiges saw another of Rorgath's kin decapitate a cohort officer trying to ram home the charge and extol his warriors to greater fervour. Others disappeared in clouds of red mist and the dreadful din of chainaxes rending bone. Yet, despite the relentless carnage wreaked upon them, the lowly cohorts refused to break, and the killing ground became mired in blood. 'They're fanatics,' grumbled Rorgath, burying his blade in the face on an oncoming cohort. 'Drive them back,' snarled Antiges through gritted teeth, smashing an enemy with the blunt force of his duelling shield. About to redouble his efforts, the Ultramarine fell back, as two or three bodies flew at him. In the madness, he dropped his short-blade, but as he foraged for it in the sea of pressing bodies, he found the hilt of his chainsword. Tearing the weapon loose, Antiges cut a path through bone and flesh to free himself. Hands were grabbing at him to drag the Astartes down, and even as he tried to emerge, bullets rang off his armour. One of the World Eaters yelled in anger and pain. The Furious Abyss disappeared from view as more enemy crewmen threw themselves forward. This was not how men fought. Very few xenos were content to simply die, even when there was something to be gained by it. That was why the Astartes were such lethal warriors; they were the ultimate weapon against any enemy tainted by natural cowardice, since a Space Marine could control and banish his own fear. The Word Bearers had created another kind of enemy, one that even Space Marines could not break. 'Damn you,' hissed Antiges as he threw another man off him, and was sprayed by a shower of blood as Rorgath disembowelled yet another. 'Now we have to kill them all.' Driving on, pain burst against Antiges's side as a blade or a bullet found its way through his armour. He staggered and it gave the enemy the opening they needed. A sudden flurry of cohorts sprang on the stricken Astartes. Then the weight of the attacks was dragging him down, their death-cries and the smell of their sundered bodies fuddling his senses. BRYNNGAR HEFTED HIS last belt of frag grenades at the observation platform. A cluster of explosions rippled over the pitted surface, hewing off chunks of ferrocrete and scorching metal. The assault had achieved its desired effect, forcing the ambushers above Antiges's position back for a few moments, who were unseen from the channel the Space Wolf and his Blood Claws charged down, and switching their attention. Fire erupted again from the platform before the last of the grenades had even detonated, but this time their focus was upon the Wolf Guard and his squad. Brynngar's highly attuned animal senses picked up on the stink of cordite and blood, and the sporadic clatter of weapon's fire, and he assumed that his brother Ultramarine was otherwise occupied, hence their popularity. Rujveld slid into cover beside his venerable leader as he appraised the disposition of the ambushers strafing them. Fire streaked down from the observation gallery and prevented them joining the fight beyond. 'They knew we were coming,' Brynngar growled to the stony-faced Blood Claw. 'What are your orders, Wolf Guard?' Brynngar turned his feral gaze onto his pack brother. 'We bring them down,' he grinned, displaying his fangs. 'Yorl, Borund,' bellowed the Space Wolf captain, and two of his charges abandoned their ready positions to approach their leader. 'Melta bombs,' snarled Brynngar. 'One of those struts.' He pointed to the source of the platform's elevation. Yorl and Borund nodded as one, priming their melta charges before heading across a gauntlet of open ground that led to the structure. Withering fire struck the first Blood Claw before he ventured more than a few feet, the impacts kicking him off his feet and spinning him around before he fell in a bloody heap. Borund had grea

s abandoned their ready positions to approach their leader. 'Melta bombs,' snarled Brynngar. 'One of those struts.' He pointed to the source of the platform's elevation. Yorl and Borund nodded as one, priming their melta charges before heading across a gauntlet of open ground that led to the structure. Withering fire struck the first Blood Claw before he ventured more than a few feet, the impacts kicking him off his feet and spinning him around before he fell in a bloody heap. Borund had greater fortune, a feral war cry on his lips as he reached the base of the platform. Clamping the charge onto one of the struts, he took a hit in the shoulder. Another struck him across the torso as Word Bearers positioned neared the building's base realised what he was doing. Borund pressed the detonator before they could stop him. He roared in savage defiance as the melta bomb exploded, vaporising him in a flare of super-heated chemicals. The platform held. Brynngar was about to head into the gauntlet to finish the job when a second explosion erupted after the first. The Space Wolf captain turned away from the sudden blast, an actinic stench prickling his nostrils when he looked back. The sound of wrenching metal followed and the observation platform finally collapsed, kicking up clouds of dust and ferrocrete. The structure was robust and Astartes could withstand worse. There would be survivors. Unconcerned where the secondary blast had come from, Brynngar got to his feet and howled in triumph. Running across the open to the ruined mass of crumpled metal and broken ferrocrete, he swung his rune axe in preparation for battle, knowing that his Blood Claws were right behind him. ABOARD THE WRATHFUL, Cestus wore a pained expression as he reviewed the tactical display. Frantic vox chatter was coming in over the ship's array, but it was indistinct and impossible to discern. The three icons, representing the relative positions of his assault teams had stalled. A silver icon, indicating the Space Wolves and Brynngar's warriors, was moving slowly towards an area obscured by a sudden belt of smoke and bright light, hazing the readout. Judging from the schematic, this was the observation platform. Cestus assumed that the attack had been successful. Elsewhere in a flanking channel close by, an azure icon represented Antiges and was shown embroiled in a brutal close-quarters fight against massed enemies. The dark slab of crimson that was the Furious Abyss was not far beyond the melee, but it didn't appear as if the Ultramarine was making progress. All Cestus's subsequent attempts to raise Antiges on the vox had thus far failed. A third icon, depicted in stark white, converged on Antiges's position. To Cestus's dismay, they were not alone. TEN Into the belly of the beast Sacrifice My future is written THE SCREAM OF chainaxes brought Antiges to his senses. The whine of their spinning teeth turned to a crunching drone as they bit into flesh and bone. Antiges saw white armour trimmed with blue, sprayed liberally with crimson and the Legion markings of a captain. Skraal dragged the Ultramarine out of the mess of bodies. The Furious's crewmen were being bludgeoned to the ground or thrown through the air, the World Eaters squad painting every surface with crescents of gore. Antiges took a moment to set himself, such was the impact of the second charge from Skraal's World Eaters. The captain of the XII Legion was butchering a man on the floor. Such reckless murderous enthusiasm was alien to the Ultramarines and Antiges fought the urge to put a stop to it. The battlefield was no place for recrimination. Instead, the Ultramarine looked across the dock, a brief lull in the fighting provided by the sudden appearance of Skraal's forces allowing him to take stock. A clutter of crimson-armoured corpses lay at the end of the central channel, victims of the World Eaters' ferocity. He also saw Brynngar leading his Blood Claws, tangled up in a short-range firestorm with a squad of Word Bearers emerging from the ruin of the collapsed observation platform. The fighting was fierce and it didn't look like the sons of Russ would be able to bolster them. Skraal heaved a dying man off the floor and cut him in two at the waist with a slash of his chainaxe. It got Antiges's attention. 'Captain,' cried the Ultramarine, seeing a break in the cohort's ranks for the first time, 'drive on to the ship, now!' Skraal looked back at him. For a split second there was nothing in the World Eater's face but hatred, nothing to suggest that he saw Antiges as anything but another enemy. The moment passed and the eyes that looked at the Ultramarine belonged to Skraal again. The World Eater picked up his shield from the ground, discarded in his lust for carnage, shook his head to get the worst of the blood out of his eyes, and called to his squad to follow. 'Form up on me, and keep moving!' shouted Antiges, pointing towards the Furious Abyss with his chainsword. A WORD BEARER stumbled out of the wreckage of the platform, strafing wildly with his bolter. Brynngar stepped out of the kill-zone and beheaded the Astartes with a sweep of Felltooth. A second followed and the Space Wolf leapt forward, burying the blade in the Legionary's cranium. A third was dragged from the collapsed building, half-dazed, by Rujveld who executed him with a burst from his bolt pistol. After the initial slaughter, though, the Word Bearers managed to put up more of a fight. Wreathed in superheated plasma, Elfyarl fell screaming and Vorik was dismembered by a fusillade of bolter fire. Brynngar snarled at the losses, whipping another Word Bearer off his feet at the edge of the ruins before lunging down to tear out his throat with his teeth. Howling in fury, the Wolf Guard was about to press on when whickering bolter fire churned up the ferrocrete debris around him. Reeling against the sudden assault, the venerable wolf could only watch as a line of blood stitched up Svornfeld's cuirass. He spun and fell in a lifeless heap. A second squad of Word Bearers advanced on them, unseen from the original route of attack. Brynngar unhitched his bolter in the face of this new threat and blew the faceplate off one Word Bearer's helmet and smashed a chunk from the shoulder pad of another as they came on. 'Into them!' he raged, weapon blazing as he charged the enemy. The howling reply of his remaining Blood Claws was a feral chorus to the brutal bolter din. ANTIGES THRUST HIS chainsword through the Word Bearer's chest. As they'd closed on the Furious Abyss, the cohorts a bloody mess in their wake, another line of defenders had emerged: fellow Astartes, their erstwhile brothers the Word Bearers. Decked in crimson armour replete with debased scratchings and ragged scrolls of parchment, they were a dark shadow of the proud warriors Antiges remembered. The Word Bearer jerked as he tried to wrench himself free of the churning blade that impaled him, but then it passed through his spine and all he could do was vomit a plume of blood. Suddenly, it was real. These Word Bearers, Astartes and brothers to all Space Marines, were the enemy. Antiges realised in that moment that he hadn't really believed it before. There was no time to consider it further as a second Word Bearer came at him with a power maul. Antiges caught the weapon just before it cleaved through his face, and rammed his knee into the Astartes's stomach, but his enemy stayed locked with him. Behind the lenses of the Word Bearer's helmet the Ultramarine could just see an eye narrowed in anger. There was no brotherhood there. In a sudden fury of churning steel and wrath, Skraal tore the Word Bearer off Antiges and ripped him apart with his chainaxe. Finishing the grisly work quickly, the World Eater glanced back at his battle-brother. 'Too intense for you, Ultramarine?' A WORD BEARER'S elbow caught Brynngar in the side of the head and the Space Wolf fell back. Rolling out of a second attack, he switched to his bolter and, one-handed, unloaded the magazine into his assailant's stomach. The Word Bearer had life in him yet, though, and Rujveld stalked forward, drawing a knife from a scabbard at his waist. He jammed the point through the gap in the wounded traitor's gorget. Brynngar grunted thanks to the Blood Claw and moved on into the Word Bearer squad that had set upon them. Combined with the survivors from the platform's destruction, the Space Wolves were hard-pressed. The Wolf Guard was determined to lead by example, however, and scythed through crimson ceramite, the bloody Felltooth clutched in his grasp. Cutting down an enemy Astartes with a swift diagonal slice across the neck and chest, Brynngar kicked the Word Bearer aside to face a new opponent. Suddenly, the tempo of the battle changed. The fury and ferocity exploding around him dulled and slowed as he stood eye-to-eye with a fellow captain. This was clearly their leader, clearly a veteran if the ruin and subsequent reconstruction of his face was any measure. A two-handed power sword swung freely in his fists, which he wielded like a mace. A trio of Blood Claws lay at the warrior's feet. They had died on that sword, their bodies split in two and spilling organs over the floor of the dock. 'Now face me,' snarled the Wolf Guard and hefted Felltooth in a feral challenge. The Word Bearer captain drove at the Space Wolf using his body like a battering ram, the blade as its tip. The charge was fast, so fast that Brynngar didn't get out of the way in time and took a glancing blow against his pauldron. White fire surged into his shoulder, but the Wolf Guard mastered the pain quickly and turned with the attack, using its momentum and raking Felltooth down his opponent's back. The Word Bearer roared and spun on his heel, driving the two-handed blade at him like a spear at first to pitch the Space Wolf off balance and then as a club to bludgeon him to death. A wild swipe slapped

arge was fast, so fast that Brynngar didn't get out of the way in time and took a glancing blow against his pauldron. White fire surged into his shoulder, but the Wolf Guard mastered the pain quickly and turned with the attack, using its momentum and raking Felltooth down his opponent's back. The Word Bearer roared and spun on his heel, driving the two-handed blade at him like a spear at first to pitch the Space Wolf off balance and then as a club to bludgeon him to death. A wild swipe slapped the flat edge of the weapon against Brynngar's outstretched arm. His bolter fell from nerveless fingers as the blow struck a muscle cluster, numbed even through his power armour. Brynngar smashed the brutal sword aside as it came for another slash, and used his forward momentum to get inside his attacker's reach. Pressing a rune on Felltooth's hilt, a long spike slid from the tip of the axe. Brynngar roared in savage exultation as he plunged it deep into one of the Word Bearer's biceps and twisted. The Word Bearer's arm was torn open revealing wet muscle and gore. No pain registered on his face as he leapt towards Brynngar in an attempt to throw him off-balance and bring his sword to bear again. Using his opponent's momentum, Brynngar lifted the Word Bearer off his feet and smashed him to the ground. He yanked the dazed enemy captain up again, gripping his gorget, and seized his head by the chin. Emitting a terrible roar that flung blood and spittle into his enemy's face, Brynngar rammed the spike of Felltooth through his throat. The Word Bearer's good eye bulged out as it fought the wracking pain of his imminent death. He coughed up blood, and it sheeted down the front of his armour, covering it with a new wet shade of crimson. Brynngar spat in his face and let the Word Bearer fall. Bolter shells blistered the ground around him as yet more Word Bearers converged on them. Brynngar and what was left of his Blood Claws returned fire and sought cover even as they fell back. The attack was short-lived, the Astartes merely dragging away the body of their fallen captain before retreating too. Indiscriminate and sporadic gunfire kept the Space Wolves at bay as the remaining Word Bearers fell back. Crouching behind the ruin of a disused fuel tanker Brynngar snatched a glance across the battlefield. Skraal and Antiges were advancing towards the Furious Abyss with a small combat squad of World Eaters, scattering crewmen from the battleship as they went. Brynngar envied them. Even before the plasma drives of the Word Bearers' mighty battleship started to power up, he knew that the enemy was leaving. The pinning fire from their retreating assailants was gradually diminishing, and all across the dockyard, enemy Astartes were heading back to embarkation ports in the hull of the vast vessel. Like the orca, I would've gutted that beast inside out, he thought with dark regret and cried out his lament. Blood flecked from his beard and hair as he threw back his head and the long, hollow note tore from his throat. Taking up the call, his Blood Claws arched their necks back as one and joined the chorus howl. GUNFIRE SPATTERED DOWN at the Astartes, ricocheting off metal and kicking out sparks. Together with the Ultramarine, Antiges, and three of his battle-brothers, the World Eater captain had gained the Furious Abyss, entering into the belly of the ship through one of the embarkation ports and heading down. Their progress had been arrested inevitably when the onboard patrols had caught up with them at the intersection of a coolant pipe. The fire was coming from one end of the corridor, distant, shadowy figures tramping urgently down the wide, curved diameter of the pipe. Metal instrumentation provided some cover, but the Astartes were as good as dead if they didn't move on quickly. Skraal took part of the fusillade on his storm shield, casings striking the grating at his feet like brass rain: bolter fire. Shadows danced against the muzzle flashes. Huge armoured bodies, helmets and shoulder pads: Astartes. Word Bearers. One of Skraal's warriors, Orlak, cut through a hatch in the ceiling with his chainaxe. The slab of metal clanged down and he hauled himself up swiftly. Rorgath stood point as the Legionaries made their way further inwards. Having lost both his weapons in the brutal melee outside the ship, he slammed the bolter he had scavenged into rapid fire and hosed the conduit, punching ragged holes into the metal. The other World Eaters lent the fire of their bolt pistols, keeping their enemies at bay. Half the World Eaters were through the hatch before the Word Bearers returned fire. Only Skraal and Antiges remained, the Ultramarine taking over from Rorgath as he undipped a brace of frag grenades from his belt and rolled them down the conduit. Skraal leapt up the hatch as return bolter fire blazed past him. Antiges followed, the World Eater captain hauling the Ultramarine up as the first of the explosions ripped down the conduit, shredding plating and buying time. 'MOUNTAINS OF MACRAGGE,' breathed Antiges. The engine room of the Furious Abyss was like a cathedral to machinery. It was vast. The criss-crossing ribs of a vaulted ceiling reached through the gloom. The immense hulks of the cylindrical exhaust chambers were decorated with steel ribbing and iron scrollwork, and inscribed with High Gothic text running along their whole length. Multiple levels were delineated by gantries and lattice-like overhead walkways. Word Bearers' banners hung from the web of iron above them, bearing the symbols of the Legion's Chapters: a quill with a drop of blood at its nib, an open hand with an eye in the palm, a burning book, and a sceptre crowned with a skull. The metallic throb of the engines was like the ship's own monstrous heartbeat. The conduit in the labyrinthine ship had led the Astartes to this place and though the sounds of pursuit were distant and hollow, the enemy would not be far behind. 'Find something to destroy,' said Skraal. 'Get to the reactors if you can.' Antiges tried to take in the vastness of the engine room. Even with the munitions they had at their disposal and the fact that they were Astartes, they would still have a hard time doing anything that could cripple the Furious Abyss. 'No,' said Antiges, 'we drive onwards. Look for ordnance or cogitators. We can't sabotage this vessel attacking blindly.' Skraal looked back at his squad. The last of them was being dragged up through the hatch. The coolant pipe they had entered through was one of many forming a tangle of pipes and junctions around the exhaust chambers. Between the pipes was darkness and there was no telling how far down it went. 'We might not find our-' 'We're not getting back out,' snapped Antiges. Skraal nodded. 'Forwards, then.' Antiges led the Astartes up onto the nearest walkway, above the exhaust chambers. The immense shapes of generatoria loomed towards the ship's stern, connected to the even larger plasma reactors somewhere below. Ahead of them, the walkway wound into a dark steel valley between enormous pounding pistons. Shapes were gathering on a walkway above them, hidden by the solid metal of a control deck. It seemed that the engineering menials had been ordered out of the chamber, which meant that the Word Bearers planned to stop them here. 'Cover!' shouted Skraal, but there was little to be had when the bolter fire from the Word Bearers hammered down at them. Rorgath returned fire with his scavenged bolter, but there was little the others could do with pistols and close combat weapons. One of Skraal's battle-brothers was hit square in the chest and knocked over a guardrail. He fell onto the engine block below and was pounded flat by a piston hammering down on him. Orlak's arm disappeared in a spray of blood and he fell to the walkway. Antiges hoisted him bodily to his feet and dragged him along as more gunfire streaked from above. 'Break for it!' Skraal bellowed, seeing a lull in the fusillade hammering them. Then he was on his feet and running for the cover at the far end of the engine block, where the walkway led up into a great wall of galleries and machinery. Even hurried by Antiges, Orlak lingered behind and was speared through the back by storm bolter rounds. Smoke poured from the backpack of his armour, mixed with a spray of blood. Orlak: Skraal had led him through a dozen battlefields. He was a brother, as they all were. The World Eater captain took that grief and locked it away beneath his consciousness, where it mixed with the pool of rage that he would call on again when the time was right. Skraal reached cover. The Furious Abyss closed around him. He was in an equipment room, the walls covered in racks of hydraulic drills, wrenches and hammers. Human deck-crews fled in wild panic as the World Eaters burst in, followed by Antiges. There were just three left. It was hardly the raiding force they needed to bring the vast ship to heel. Skraal noticed something inscribed on the ceiling of the chamber. BUILD THE WORD OF LORGAR FROM THIS STEEL LIVE AS IT IS WRITTEN 'Move! Move! They're heading down after us!' bellowed Antiges, demanding his attention. 'We need to hold them up. No way we can dodge bolter fire and wreck the ship at the same time,' said Skraal, slamming the portal shut behind them and using a stolen wrench to wedge it. 'Three squads at least,' Antiges replied, his breathing heavy, but measured. 'No way we can beat them.' 'I'll slow them,' said Rorgath, planting his feet and checking the clip in his bolter. Antiges regarded the World Eater. The white and blue of his armour was already scored by bullet wounds and scorched by plasma burns. 'Your sacrifice will be remembered,' said Antiges, reverently. No such sentiment was evident from the World Eater's captain, who tossed Rorgath his bolt pistol. 'Give them no quarter,' he snarled, turning abruptly to lead what was left of the raiding party thro

n beat them.' 'I'll slow them,' said Rorgath, planting his feet and checking the clip in his bolter. Antiges regarded the World Eater. The white and blue of his armour was already scored by bullet wounds and scorched by plasma burns. 'Your sacrifice will be remembered,' said Antiges, reverently. No such sentiment was evident from the World Eater's captain, who tossed Rorgath his bolt pistol. 'Give them no quarter,' he snarled, turning abruptly to lead what was left of the raiding party through the tangle of anterooms and corridors. The shouts of pursuers relaying their position followed them like hollow, ghost whispers, and the thud of armoured feet on the floor was dull and resonant in their wake. Together, Antiges and Skraal moved swiftly across the hinterlands of the engine room and through a doorway in the bulkhead. Not long before they had left the chamber, the fierce bark of bolter fire erupted behind them. It didn't last long and deathly silence reigned for a moment before their relentless pursuers could be heard once more. Mangled with a cacophony of voices emitted from the ship's vox array, it became obvious that a widespread search had begun. The Furious's warriors were converging on the Astartes. They were getting closer every second. Passing through an empty storage chamber, Skraal kicked open a door to reveal another corridor. The atmosphere was close and hot, the walls lined with burning torches. The sight was incongruous amongst the decks and trappings of a spaceship, but it also led downwards and prow-wards, in the direction where the Astartes guessed the primary ordnance deck would be. 'What did they build in here?' hissed Antiges, giving voice to his thoughts as they moved down the corridor. The Ultramarine got his answer as he emerged from the far end of the tunnel. A vast plaza stretched out in front of them. Walls lined with baroque statues of deep red steel rose up into a domed ceiling. The vault at the apex of the massive chamber was hazy with incense and supported by dramatic false columns. Prayers were inscribed on the flagstone floor. An altar and pulpit stood at the far end of a central aisle. There was only one word to describe it: a cathedral. In the supposed age of enlightenment, when all superstition and religion was to be expunged from the galaxy to be replaced by science and understanding, all that the Emperor had decreed was dishonoured by the chamber's very existence. Antiges found that it left a bitter taste in his mouth and was ready to tear down the effigies and rend this temple of false idolatry to the ground with his bare hands, when a voice echoed out of the surrounding gloom. 'There is no escape.' The Ultramarine saw Skraal throw himself against a pillar. Antiges swiftly adopted a crouching position, bolt pistol outstretched in a two-handed grip, scanning the darkness. He could just make out the crimson armour at the far end of the cathedral. The speaker, his tone eerily calm and cultured, was sheltering behind the altar. The Word Bearer was not alone. Booted feet clacking against the stone floor behind the Astartes confirmed the threat. Antiges and the World Eater were covered from both sides of the chamber. 'I am Sergeant-Commander Reskiel of the Word Bearers,' said the speaker, identifying himself. 'Throw down your arms and surrender at once,' he warned, all the culture evaporating. 'After you fired on us and slew our brothers!' Skraal raged. 'This need not end in further bloodshed,' Reskiel added. Antiges felt the enemy converging on them, heard the faint scrape of ceramite against stone as they closed. 'What is this place, Word Bearer?' asked the Ultramarine, panning his sights first across the pulpit and then further out until he had swept the gloom around them. 'Such religiosity is not condoned by the Emperor. You openly defy his will. Have you reverted to primitive debasement and superstition?' he asked, trying to goad them, trying to find time to devise a plan, expose a weakness. 'Is all Colchis like this now?' 'There is nothing primitive about the vision of our primarch or his home world,' said Reskiel levelly, clearly wise to the Ultramarine's stratagem. Stepping out from behind the altar, the sergeant-commander allowed the diffuse torchlight to bath him in its glow. He was young, but highly decorated judging by the honour studs and medals on his crimson armour. The trappings of heroism and glory warred with strips of parchment and leaves of tattered vellum scripted in wretched verse. A squad of Word Bearers emerged into the cathedral behind him, their bolters trained on the shadows where Antiges and Skraal were in cover. 'Show yourselves, and let us speak brother to brother,' said Reskiel, allowing his guardians to move in front of him. 'You are no brother of mine!' shouted Skraal. 'Get ready,' Antiges hissed to his ally as Reskiel raised a hand. The Ultramarine knew, with an ingrained warrior instinct, that he was about to give the order to open fire. He trained his bolt pistol on a cluster of Word Bearers at the front of the advancing guards. Skraal roared, surging out of cover and throwing his chainaxe. He thumbed the activation stud as it left his hand and the weapon shrieked through the air. With a scream of ceramite on metal, the axe bypassed the guards and sliced clean through Reskiel's wrist, embedding itself in the altar. Shield upraised, a war cry on his lips, the World Eater charged. Antiges cursed the son of Angron's impetuous battle lust and triggered the bolt pistol, running forward as the muzzle flare gave away his position. Bolt rounds hammered into the approaching Word Bearers and three of the warriors collapsed in a heap against the fury. Bedlam filled the cathedral. Skraal covered the distance between him and his enemy so fast that none of the opening bolter shots hit him. Antiges followed, acutely aware that he had foes behind as well as in front. An errant shot clipped his pauldron, another chipped his knee guard and he staggered briefly but kept on into the maelstrom, the name of Guilliman in his furious heart. 'This is sacred ground!' wailed Reskiel, clutching the stump of his arm as blood spurted freely from it. Skraal battered the Word Bearers in his path aside and when he reached the sergeant-commander, backhanded him across the face with his shield by way of a reply, and wrenched his chainaxe from the altar. He spun and slammed the head of the axe into the head of a red-armoured warrior charging behind him. The Word Bearer was thrown off his feet and skidded along the floor on his back, his face a red ruin of bone and shattered ceramite. The ambushers from behind the two Astartes fell into the fray. Skraal fought as if possessed by the spirit of Angron, slaying left and right as a terrible bloody rage overtook him. He embraced the cauldron of fury within and used it to kill, to ignore pain. Word Bearers fell horribly before his onslaught, so fierce that those surrounding the assault gave ground and retreated to the cathedral door. The one who called himself Reskiel was dragged out by one of his battle-brothers, the blood clotting on the stump of his wrist as he screamed his choler. Bolter fire was hammering away towards the rear of the cathedral. Antiges could hear it echoing loudly inside his helmet as Skraal turned from the carnage he was wreaking to look at him. A line of pain sketched its way down the Ultramarine's back and he realised he'd been hit. This time the shot pierced his armour. Something warm welled in his chest and Antiges looked down to see a wet ragged hole. As his mind suddenly made the connection to what his body already knew, he slumped against a pillar, spitting blood. Lungs heaving, he tried to force his augmented body back into action and cranked another magazine into his bolt pistol. One hand clamped over the wound, the other triggering the bolter, Antiges resolved to go down fighting. In the distance, vision fogging, a shadow fell. White spikes of pain were flashing before his eyes as he turned to look back at Skraal amidst the bloodbath at the altar. 'Go,' gasped Antiges. The World Eater paused for a second, about to run back in and rescue the Ultramarine. A thrown grenade exploded near the pillar and Antiges's world ended in a billow of smoke and shrapnel. SKRAAL DIDN'T WAIT to see if the Ultramarine had survived. One way or another, Antiges was lost. Instead, he ran from the cathedral, storm shield warding off the worst of the bolter fire hammering across the cathedral towards him. As he fled into the endless darkness, the shifting of the vessel's hull echoing as if venting its displeasure, a thought forced its way into his mind in spite of the battle rage. He was alone. ZADKIEL WATCHED THE battle unfolding through the docking picters mounted along the hull of the Furious Abyss. Baelanos had fallen, yet his inert body had been recovered and lay in the laboratorium of Magos Gureod. He would serve the Word, yet. Baelanos's dedication to the Word was that of a soldier to his commander, and he had never appreciated the more intellectual implications of Lorgar's beliefs. Nevertheless, he was a loyal and useful asset. Zadkiel would not throw him away cheaply. Ultis was doubtless buried beneath the rubble of Bakka Triumveron 14. In that, Baelanos had served Zadkiel too. It was another thorn removed from his side, the potential usurper despatched. Yes, for that deed you will receive eternal service to the Legion. 'We're breached.' Sergeant-Commander Reskiel's voice came through on the vox, down where the engines met the main body of the battleship. 'How many?' 'Only one remains, my lord,' Reskiel replied. 'They made it in through the coolant venting ports, open for the re-supplying.' 'Hunt him down with my blessing, sergeant-commander,' Zadkiel ordered, 'but be aware that you will be making your pursuit under take-off conditions.' Another thorn, thought Zadki

l receive eternal service to the Legion. 'We're breached.' Sergeant-Commander Reskiel's voice came through on the vox, down where the engines met the main body of the battleship. 'How many?' 'Only one remains, my lord,' Reskiel replied. 'They made it in through the coolant venting ports, open for the re-supplying.' 'Hunt him down with my blessing, sergeant-commander,' Zadkiel ordered, 'but be aware that you will be making your pursuit under take-off conditions.' Another thorn, thought Zadkiel. 'Sire, there are still warriors of the Legion fighting on the dock,' countered Reskiel at the news of their imminent departure. 'We cannot tarry. Every moment we stay to fight is another moment for the Wrathful to reach strike range or for our stowaway to damage something that cannot be replaced, not to mention the fact that the dockyard's defences might be brought to bear. Sacrifice, Reskiel, is a lesson worth learning. Now, find the interloper and end this annoyance.' 'At your command, admiral. I'm heading into the coolant systems now.' Zadkiel cut the vox and observed the viewscreens above his command throne. A tactical map showed the Furious Abyss and the complex structure of the orbital docks around it. Crimson icons represented the Word Bearer forces still fighting and dying for their cause. Zadkiel reached back for the vox and gave the order to take off. ULTIS WATCHED FROM the rubble of the collapsed observation platform as the Furious Abyss begin to rise. The engines of the battleship threw burning winds across the dockyards. Docking clamps and supply hangars melted to slag. Gantries burned and fuel tankers exploded, blossoms of blue-white thrown up amidst the firestorm. Fiery gales whipped around the open metal plaza, cooking cohorts and Astartes alike in the burgeoning conflagration surging across Bakka Triumveron 14. Scalding winds singed his face, even shielded by the wrecked chunks of ferrocrete. He saw the crimson paint on his armour blistering in the backwash of intense heat. The maelstrom engulfed the bodies fighting outside it and they became as shadows and ash before it, as if frozen in time, eternally at war. This was not the future he had envisaged for himself as he watched the Furious Abyss rise higher from the deck with a blast from its ventral thrusters. He had been betrayed: not by the Word, but by another on board ship. A shadow eclipsed the stricken Word Bearer, prone in the rubble. 'Your friends desert you, traitor whelp,' said a voice from above, old and gnarled. Ultis craned his neck around to see, vision hazing in and out of focus, dimly aware of the blood that he had lost. A massive Astartes in the armour of Leman Russ's Legion reared over him like a slab of unyielding steel. Bedecked in trophies, pelts and tooth fetishes, he was every inch the savage that Ultis believed the Space Wolves to be. 'I serve the Word,' he said defiantly through blood-caked lips. The Space Wolf shook the blood out of his straggly hair and grinned to display his fangs. 'The Word be damned,' he snarled. The Space Wolf's gauntleted fist was the last thing Ultis saw before all sense fled and his world went black. ELEVEN Survivors Aftermath I will break him BUOYED UPON HOT currents of air vented by the Furious Abyss, what was left of the assault boats carrying the Astartes strike force made their escape from Bakka Triumveron 14 and back to the Wrathful held in orbit around the moon. Cestus was waiting for the atmospheric craft in the tertiary docking bay when a single vessel touched down. Its outer hull shielding was badly scorched and its engines were all but burned out as it thunked to an unwieldy stop on the metal deck. One assault boat, thought the Ultramarine captain, waiting with Saphrax and Laeradis, the apothecary ready with his narthecium injector. How many casualties did we sustain? Engineering deck-hands hurried back and forth, hosing down the superheated aspects of the boat with coolant foam, and brandishing tools to affect immediate repairs. One of the officers stood at a distance with a data-slate, already compiling an initial damage report. Cestus was oblivious to them all, his gaze fixed on the embarkation ramp as it ground open slowly with a hiss of venting pressure. Brynngar and his Blood Claws stepped out of the compartment. The Ultramarine greeted him cordially enough. 'Well met, son of Russ.' Brynngar grunted a response, his demeanour still hostile, and turned to one of his charges. 'Rujveld, bring him out.' One of the Blood Claws, a youth with bright orange hair worked into a mohawk and a short beard festooned with wolf fetishes, nodded and went back into the crew compartment. When he returned, he was not alone. A pale-faced warrior was with him, his hands and forearms encased by restraints linked by an adamantium cord, his face fraught with cuts, and a massive purple-black bruise over one eye the size of Brynngar's fist. Bent-backed and obviously weak, he had a defiant air about him still. He wore the armour of the XV Legion: the armour of the Word Bearers. 'We have ourselves a prisoner,' Brynngar snarled, stalking past the trio of Ultramarines without explanation, his Blood Claws with their prize in tow. 'Find me an isolation cell,' Cestus overheard the Wolf Guard say to one of his battle-brothers. 'I intend to find out what he knows.' Cestus kept his eyes forward for a moment, striving to master his anger. 'My lord?' ventured Saphrax, the banner bearer clearly noticing his captain's distemper. 'Son of Russ,' Cestus said levelly, knowing he would be heard. The sound of the departing Space Wolves echoing down the deck was the only reply. 'Son of Russ,' he bellowed this time and turned, his expression set as if in stone. Brynngar had almost reached the deck portal when he stopped. 'I would have your report, brother,' said Cestus, calmly, 'and I would have it now.' The Wolf Guard turned slowly, his massive bulk forcing the Blood Claws close by to step aside. Anger and belligerence were etched on his face as plain as the Legion symbols on his armour. 'The assault failed,' he growled. 'The Furious Abyss is still intact. There, you have my report.' Cestus fought to keep his voice steady and devoid of emotion. 'What of Antiges and Skraal?' Brynngar was breathing hard, his anger boiling, but at the mention of the two captains, particularly Antiges, his expression softened for a moment. 'We were the only survivors,' he replied quietly and continued on through the deck portal to the passageways beyond that would lead eventually to the isolation chambers. Cestus stood for a moment, allowing it to sink in. Antiges had been his battle-brother for almost twenty years. They had fought together on countless occasions. They had brought the light of the Emperor to countless worlds in the darkest reaches of the known galaxy. 'What are your orders, my captain?' asked Saphrax, ever the pragmatist. Cestus crushed his grief quickly. It would serve no purpose here. 'Get Admiral Kaminska. Tell her we are to continue pursuit of the Furious Abyss at once, with all speed.' 'At your command, my lord.' Saphrax snapped a strong salute and left the dock, heading for the bridge. Cestus's plan had failed, catastrophically. More than sixty per cent casualties were unacceptable. It left only the Ultramarines honour guard, still stationed aboard ship by way of contingency, and Brynngar's Blood Claws. The Space Wolf's continued defiance was developing into open hostility. Something was building. Even without the animal instincts of the sons of Russ, Cestus could feel it. He wondered how long it would be before the inevitable storm broke. Here they were, at war with their fellow Legions. Guilliman only knew how deep the treachery went, how many more Legions had turned against the Emperor. If anything, the loyal Legions needed desperately to draw together, not to fight internecine conflicts between themselves in the name of petty disagreements. When the final reckoning came, where would Brynngar and his Legion sit? Guilliman and his Ultramarines were dogmatic in their fealty to the Emperor; could the same be said of Russ? Cestus left such dark thoughts behind for now, knowing it would not aid him or their mission to dwell on them. Instead, his mind turned briefly to Antiges. In all likelihood, he was dead. His brother, his closest friend slain in what had been a fool's cause. Cestus cursed himself for allowing Antiges to take his place. Saphrax was an able adjutant, his dedication to the teachings of Guilliman was unshakeable, but he was not the confidant that Antiges had been. Cestus clenched his fist. This deed will not go unavenged. 'Laeradis, with me,' said the Ultramarine captain, marching off in the direction that Brynngar had taken. The Apothecary fell into lockstep behind him. 'Where are we going, captain?' 'I want to know what happened on Bakka Triumveron and I want to find out what our Word Bearer knows about his Legion's ship and their mission to Macragge.' BY THE TIME Cestus and Laeradis reached the isolation cells, Brynngar was already inside, the door sealed with Rujveld standing guard. The isolation cells were located in the lower decks, where the heat and sweat of the engines could be heard and felt palpably. Toiling ratings below sang gritty naval chants to aid them in their work and the resonant din carried through the metal. It was a muffled chorus down the gloom-drenched passages that Cestus and Laeradis had travelled to reach this point. 'Step aside, Blood Claw,' ordered Cestus without preamble. At first it looked as if Rujveld would disobey the Ultramarine, but Cestus was a captain, albeit from a different Legion, and that position commanded respect. The Blood Claw lowered his gaze, indicating his obedience, and gave ground. Cestus thumbed the door release icon as he stood before the cell portal. The bare metal panel slid aside, two thins jets

oom-drenched passages that Cestus and Laeradis had travelled to reach this point. 'Step aside, Blood Claw,' ordered Cestus without preamble. At first it looked as if Rujveld would disobey the Ultramarine, but Cestus was a captain, albeit from a different Legion, and that position commanded respect. The Blood Claw lowered his gaze, indicating his obedience, and gave ground. Cestus thumbed the door release icon as he stood before the cell portal. The bare metal panel slid aside, two thins jets of vapour escaping as it did so. A darkened chamber beckoned, barely illuminated in the half-light of lume-globes set to low-emit. A bulky shape stood within, with two shrivelled, robed forms to either side. Brynngar had stripped out of his armour, aided by two attendant Legion serfs. The menials kept their heads low and their tongues still. The Wolf Guard was naked from the waist up, wearing only simple grey battle fatigues. His torso was covered in old wounds, scars and faded pinkish welts creating a patchwork history of pain and battle. Standing without his armour, his immense musculature obvious and intimidating, and with the great mass of his hair hanging down, Brynngar reminded the Ultramarine of a barbarian of ancient Terra, the kind that he had seen rendered in frescos in some of the great antiquitariums. The Wolf Guard turned at the interruption, the shadow of another figure strapped down in a metal restraint frame partly visible for a moment before the Space Wolf's bulk took up the space again. 'What do you want, Cestus? I'm sure you can see that I'm busy.' Brynngar's knuckles were hard and white as he clenched his fists. As he had stormed from the tertiary dock after the Space Wolf and his battle-brothers, Cestus had thought to intervene, the idea of torturing a fellow Legion brother abhorrent to him. Now, standing at the threshold of the isolation chamber, he realised just how desperate their plight had become and that victory might call for compromise. Just how far this compromise would go and where it would eventually lead, Cestus did not care to think. It was what it was. They were on this course now and the Word Bearers were enemies like any other. They had not hesitated when they destroyed the Waning Moon, nor had they paused to consider their actions during the slaughter on Bakka Triumveron 14. 'I would speak to you again, Brynngar,' the Ultramarine captain said, 'once this is over. I would know the details of what happened on Bakka.' 'Aye, lad.' The Space Wolf nodded, a glimmer of their old rapport returning briefly to his features. Cestus glimpsed the prone form of their prisoner as Brynngar turned back to his 'work'. 'Do only what is necessary,' the Ultramarine warned, 'and do it quickly. I am leaving Laeradis here to... assist you if he can.' The Apothecary shifted uncomfortably beside Cestus, whether at the thought of partaking in torture or the prospect of being left alone with Brynngar, the Ultramarines captain did not know. Brynngar looked over his shoulder just as Cestus was leaving. 'I will break him,' he said with a predatory gleam in his eye. 'WE HID BEHIND Bakka Triumveron to keep the Furious Abyss from sending torpedoes after us. We're heading on course for a warp jump vector as we speak.' Kaminska was, as ever, on station at her command throne on the bridge. Saphrax was there, also, straight backed and dour as ever. Cestus had headed there alone after leaving Laeradis with Brynngar in the isolation chamber. In the scant reports he'd received from the admiral regarding information gleaned from the assault boat pilot, Cestus had learned a little more of what had happened at Bakka. They'd lost the other two assault boats during the extraction, swallowed up by the fire of the Furious's engines that had turned much of Bakka Triumveron 14 into a smoking wasteland of charred and twisted metal. The tactical readouts aboard ship had disclosed precious little, save that it was chaotic and not to plan. One of Guilliman's edicts of wisdom was that any plan, however meticulously devised, seldom survives contact with the enemy. The primarch spoke, of course, of the need for flexibility and adaptation when at war. Cestus thought he should have heeded those words more closely. It appeared, also, that the Word Bearers had been forewarned of the Astartes' attack, a fact that he resolved to discover the root of. He considered briefly the possibility of a traitor in their ranks aboard the Wrathful, but dismissed the thought quickly, partly because to countenance such a thing would breed only suspicion and paranoia, and also because to do so would implicate the Astartes captains or Kaminska. 'What of our prisoner, Captain Cestus?' asked Kaminska, after consulting the battery of viewscreens in front of her, satisfied that all necessary preparations were underway for pursuit. 'He is resting uncomfortably with Brynngar,' the Ultramarine replied, his gaze locked on the prow-facing viewport. 'You believe he knows something about the ship that we can use to our advantage?' Cestus's response was taciturn as he thought grimly of the road ahead and of their options dwindling like parchment before a flame. 'Let us hope so.' Kaminska allowed a moment's pause, before she spoke again. 'I am sorry about Antiges. I know he was your friend.' Cestus turned to face her. 'He was my brother' Kaminska's vox-bead chirped, interrupting the sentiment of the moment. 'We have reached the jump point, captain,' she said. 'If we hit the warp now, Orcadus has a chance of finding the Furious Abyss again.' 'Engage the warp drives,' said Cestus. Kaminska gave the order and after a few minutes the Wrathful shuddered as the integrity fields leapt up around it, ready for its re-entry into the warp. ZADKIEL PRAYED TO the bodies in front of him. The Word Bearer was situated in one of the many chapels within the lower decks of the Furious Abyss. It was a modest, relatively unadorned chamber with a simple shrine etched with the scriptures of Lorgar and lit by votive candles set in baroque-looking candelabras. The room, besides being the ship's morgue, also offered solace and the opportunity to consider the divinity of the primarch's Word, of his teachings and the power of faith and the warp. Prayer was a complicated matter. On the crude, fleshly level it was just a stream of words spoken by a man. It was little wonder that Imperial conquerors, without an understanding of what faith truly was, saw the prayers of primitive people and discarded them as dangerous superstition and a barrier to genuine enlightenment. They saw the holy books and sacred places, and ascribed them not to faith or a higher understanding but to stupidity, blindness, and an adherence to divisive, irrelevant traditions. They taught an Imperial Truth in the place of those simple religions and wiped out any evidence that faith had once been a reality to those worlds. Sometimes that erasure was done with flames and bullets. More often it was done with iterators, brilliant diplomats and philosophers, who could re-educate whole populations. Zadkiel's belief, the root of his vainglorious conviction, was that the Throne of Terra would be toppled, not by the strength of arms wielded by the Warmaster, nor even by the denizens of the warp, but by faith. Simple and indissoluble, the purity of it would burn through the Imperium like a holy spear, setting the non-believers and their effigies of science and empirical delusion alight. Zadkiel shifted slightly in his kneeling position, abruptly aware that another presence was in the chapel-morgue with him. 'Speak,' he uttered calmly, eyes closed. 'My lord it is I, Reskiel,' the sergeant-commander announced. Zadkiel could hear the creak of his armour as he bowed, in spite of the fact that he could not see him. 'I would know the fate of Captain Baelanos, sire,' Reskiel continued after a moment's pause. 'Was he recovered?' Doubtless, the ambitious cur sought to supplant the stricken assault-captain in Zadkiel's command hierarchy, or manoeuvre for greater power and influence in the fleet. This did not trouble the Word Bearer admiral. Reskiel was easy to manipulate. His ambition far outweighed his ability, a fact that was easy to exploit and control. Unlike Ultis, whose youthful idealism and fearlessness threatened him, Zadkiel was sanguine about Reskiel's prospects for advancement. 'Though mortally injured, the good captain was indeed recovered,' Zadkiel told him. 'His body has gone into its fugue state in order to heal.' Zadkiel turned at that remark, looking the sergeant-commander in the eye. 'Baelanos will be incapacitated for some time, captain. This only strengthens your position in my command.' 'My lord, I don't mean to imply-' 'No, of course not Reskiel,' Zadkiel interjected with a mirthless smile, 'but you have suffered for our cause and such sacrifice will not go unrewarded. You will assume Baelanos's duties.' Reskiel nodded. The World Eater had shattered the bones down one side of his skull and his face had been reinforced with a metal web bolted to his cheek and jaw. 'We have lost many brothers this day,' he said, indicating the Astartes corpses laid out before his lord. 'They are not lost,' said Zadkiel. Each of the slain Word Bearers was set upon a mortuary slab, ready for their armour to be removed and their gene-seed recovered. One of them lay with his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. Zadkiel closed them reverently. 'Only if the Word had no place for them would they be lost.' 'What of Ultis?' Zadkiel surveyed the array of the dead. 'He fell at Bakka,' he lied, 'and the Scholar Coven with him.' Reskiel clenched his teeth in anger. 'Damn them.' 'We will not damn anyone, Reskiel,' said Zadkiel sharply, 'nor even will Lorgar. The Emperor's gun-dogs will damn themselves.' 'We should turn about and blast them out of real space.' 'You, sergeant-commander, are in no place to say what this s

d them reverently. 'Only if the Word had no place for them would they be lost.' 'What of Ultis?' Zadkiel surveyed the array of the dead. 'He fell at Bakka,' he lied, 'and the Scholar Coven with him.' Reskiel clenched his teeth in anger. 'Damn them.' 'We will not damn anyone, Reskiel,' said Zadkiel sharply, 'nor even will Lorgar. The Emperor's gun-dogs will damn themselves.' 'We should turn about and blast them out of real space.' 'You, sergeant-commander, are in no place to say what this ship should and should not do. In the presence of these loyal brothers, do not debase yourself by forgetting your purpose.' Zadkiel did not have to raise his voice to convey his displeasure. 'Please forgive me, admiral. I have... I have lost brothers.' 'We have all lost something. It was written that we would lose much before we are victorious. We should not expect anything else. We will not engage the Wrathful in a fight because to do so would use up time that we no longer have to spare, and our mission depends on its timing. Kor Phaeron will not be late, so neither will we. Besides, we have other options when dealing with the Wrathful.' 'You mean Wsoric?' Zadkiel clenched his fist in a moment of unsuppressed emotion. 'It is not appropriate for his name to be spoken here. Make the cathedral ready to receive him.' 'Of course,' said Reskiel. 'And the surviving Astartes?' 'Hunt him down and kill him,' said Zadkiel. Reskiel saluted and walked out of the chapel-mortuary. Certain that the sergeant-commander was gone, Zadkiel gestured to the shadows from which a clandestine guest emerged. Magos Gureod shuffled into the light of the votive candles slowly, mechadendrites clicking like insectoid claws. 'You have received Baelanos?' the admiral asked. The magos nodded. 'All is prepared, my lord.' 'Then begin his rebirth at once.' Gureod bowed and left the chamber. Now truly alone, Zadkiel looked back at the bodies lying arranged in front of him. In another chamber, together with the many crew of the Furious who had died, were the enemy Astartes, slain in the engine room and the cathedral. They would not receive benediction. They would have refused such an honour even if it could be given, because they did not understand what prayer and faith meant. They would never be given their place in the Word. They had forsaken it. Those Astartes, the declared enemies of Lorgar, were the ones who were truly lost. AN HOUR AFTER the Wrathful had entered the warp, Cestus went to the isolation chambers. Upon his arrival, he found Rujveld still dutifully in his position. This time, though, the Blood Claw stepped aside without being ordered and offered no resistance, it being ostensibly clear that the Ultramarine would brook none. The gloom of the isolation, cum interrogation, chamber was as Cestus remembered it, although now, the air was redolent of copper and sweat. 'What progress have you made?' the Ultramarine captain asked of Laeradis, who stood at the edge of the room. The apothecary's face was ashen as he faced his brother-captain and saluted. 'None,' he hissed. 'Nothing?' asked Cestus, nonplussed. 'He hasn't yielded any information whatsoever?' 'No, my lord.' 'Brynngar-' 'Your Apothecary has the strength of it,' grumbled the Space Wolf, his back to Cestus, body heaving up and down with the obvious effort of his interrogations. When he turned, Brynngar's face was haggard and his beard and much of his torso were flecked with blood. His meaty fists were angry and raw. 'Is he alive?' Cestus asked, concern creeping into his voice, not at the fate of their prisoner but at the prospect that they might have lost their one and only piece of leverage. 'He lives,' Brynngar answered, 'but, by the oceans of Fenris, he is tight-lipped. He has not even spoken his name.' Cestus felt his spirit falter for a moment. Time was running out. How many more warp jumps until they reached Macragge? How many more opportunities would they get to stop the Word Bearers? It was irrational to even comprehend that one ship, even one such as the Furious Abyss, could possibly threaten Macragge and the Legion. Surely, even the mere presence of the orbital fleet above the Ultramarines' home world would be enough to stop it, let alone Guilliman and the Legion mustering at nearby Calth. Something else was happening, however, events that, as of yet, Cestus had no knowledge of. The Furious Abyss was a piece of a larger plan, he could sense it, and one that posed a very real danger. They needed to break this Word Bearer, and quickly, find out what he knew and a way to stop the ship and its inexorable course. Brynngar was possibly the most physically intimidating Astartes he had ever known, aside from the glory and majesty of the noble primarch. If he, with all his bulk and feral savagery, could not break the traitor then who could? 'There is but one avenue left open to us,' said Cestus, the answer suddenly clear, even though it was an answer muddied with the utmost compromise. Brynngar held Cestus's gaze, his eyes narrowed as he fought to discern the Ultramarine's meaning. 'Speak then,' he said. 'We release Mhotep,' Cestus answered simply. Brynngar roared his dissent. MHOTEP SAT IN quiet contemplation in the quarters made ready for him aboard the Wrathful. As ordered, he had not left the relatively spartan chamber since his incarceration after he had vanquished the Fireblade. He sat, naked of his armour, in robes afforded to him by attendant Legion serfs, long since departed, in deep meditation. His gaze was fixed upon the reflective surface of the room's single viewport, poring into the unfathomable depths of psychic space and communion. When the door to his cell slid open, Mhotep was not surprised. He had followed the strands of fate, witnessed and understood the web of possibility that brought him to this point, this meeting. 'Captain Cestus,' muttered the Thousand Son with an air of prescience from beneath a cowl of vermillion. 'Mhotep,' Cestus replied, taken a little aback by the Thousand Son's demeanour. The Ultramarine wasn't alone; he had brought Excelinor, Amryx and Laeradis with him. 'The assault at Bakka Triumveron failed, didn't it?' said the Thousand Son. 'The enemy obviously had prior warning of our intentions. It is part of the reason I came here to meet with you.' 'You believe that I can provide an answer to this conundrum?' 'Yes, I do,' Cestus replied. 'It is simple,' said Mhotep. 'The Word Bearers have made a part with the denizens of the warp. They forewarned them of your attack.' 'There is sentience in the empyrean?' the Ultramarine asked in disbelief. 'How is it we do not know this? Are the primarchs privy to this? Is the Emperor?' 'That I do not know. All I can tell you is that the warp is beyond the comprehension of you or I, and things exist in its fathomless depths that are older than time as we know it.' Mhotep paused for a moment as if in sudden contemplation. 'Do you see them, son of Guilliman?' he asked, still locked in his meditative posture. 'Quite beautiful.' Cestus followed the Thousand Son's gaze to the viewport and saw nothing but the haze of the integrity fields and the bizarre and undulating landscape of the warp. 'Don't make me regret what I am about to do, Mhotep,' he warned, glad of his battle-brothers' presence behind him. The Ultramarine captain had already dismissed the armsmen guarding the door, an order they responded to with no shortage of relief. It was a moot gesture, really; Mhotep could have left at any time, irrespective of their presence. The fact that he had not somewhat mitigated what Cestus was about to say. That was, before Mhotep pre-empted him. 'I am to be released.' It wasn't a question. 'Yes,' said Cestus, carefully. 'We have a prisoner aboard and precious little time to find out what he knows.' 'I take it conventional methods have already failed?' 'Yes.' 'Small wonder,' said Mhotep. 'Of all the children of the Emperor, the seventeenth Legion are the most fervent and impassioned. Mere torture would not prevail against such ardent fanaticism and zealotry.' 'We require a different tack, one which I do not relish undertaking, but which I am compelled to employ.' Mhotep stood, setting back his hood and turning to face Cestus. 'Ultramarine, there is no need to convey your reluctance to me. I am sure the account of this day, if such records ever come to pass given our current predicament, will state that you acted under the most profound duress,' he said smoothly, the trace of a smile appearing on his lips before it was lost in the mask of indifference. 'I do not know what powers you possess, brother,' said Cestus. 'I had thought to make you stand trial and answer that question for me. It seems, however, that events have overtaken us.' 'Indeed,' answered Mhotep. 'I am as moved by my duty as you are. Ultramarine. If I am freed then I will fight as hard as any and pledge my strength to the cause.' Cestus nodded. His stern expression gave away the warring emotions within him, the abhorrence of flouting the Emperor's decree matched against the needs of the situation. 'Gather your armour,' he ordered. 'Brothers Excelinor and Amryx will accompany you to the isolation cell.' Cestus about turned and was walking away with Laeradis when Mhotep spoke again. 'What of the son of Russ? What does he make of my emancipation?' The bellowing and violent protests of Brynngar were still ringing in the Ultramarine's ears. 'Let me worry about that.' CESTUS AND LAERADIS were waiting when Mhotep, with Excelinor and Amryx in tow, reached them at the isolation cell. Brynngar and Rujveld had already stormed off in the wake of the Space Wolf captain's explosive discontent. Cestus nodded to his battle-brothers as they approached. The two Ultramarines reciprocated the gesture and fell in beside their captain. 'The prisoner is within,' the Ultramarine captain told Mhotep, who had reached the door

e Ultramarine's ears. 'Let me worry about that.' CESTUS AND LAERADIS were waiting when Mhotep, with Excelinor and Amryx in tow, reached them at the isolation cell. Brynngar and Rujveld had already stormed off in the wake of the Space Wolf captain's explosive discontent. Cestus nodded to his battle-brothers as they approached. The two Ultramarines reciprocated the gesture and fell in beside their captain. 'The prisoner is within,' the Ultramarine captain told Mhotep, who had reached the door and stood before it calmly. 'Will you require Laeradis's assistance?' he added. 'You can have your chirurgeon go back to his quarters,' replied the Thousand Son, his gaze fixed upon the sealed portal as if he could see through it. Cestus nodded to his Apothecary, indicating that his duty was done. If Laeradis thought anything of the slight that Mhotep had delivered, he did not show it. Instead, he snapped a sharp salute to his captain and left for his quarters as directed. Mhotep thumbed the activation icon and the portal slid open, showing the darkened cell. 'Once it begins,' he said, 'do not enter.' Mhotep turned to face the Ultramarine. 'No matter what you hear or see, do not enter,' he warned, and all trace of superiority vanished from his face. 'We will be outside,' Cestus replied, Excelinor and Amryx grim-faced behind their captain, 'and watching everything you do, Thousand Son.' The Ultramarine captain indicated a viewport that allowed observation into the isolation cell. 'I see anything I don't like and you'll be dead before you can utter another word.' 'Of course,' said Mhotep, unperturbed as he entered the chamber, the door sliding shut in his wake. MHOTEP STEPPED CAREFULLY into the gloom, surveying his immediate surroundings as he went. Dark splashes littered the floor and walls; even the ceiling was not devoid of the evidence of torture. A suit of armour had been thrown into one corner, together with the body-glove that went beneath it. This was not considered disrobing by a coterie of acolytes. No, this was frenzied: an attempt to get to the soft meat of the flesh and exact pain and profound suffering. Mhotep's expression hardened at such barbarism. Implements, crude and brutish to the Thousand Son's eyes, lay discarded on a silver tray, also speckled in blood. Some of the devices even bore traces of meat, doubtless rent from the unfortunate subject when his tongue failed to loosen under the fists of the Space Wolf. The chirurgeon's methods, then, had been equally ineffective. 'You are quite tenacious,' Mhotep said. There was a trace of menace in his calm inflection as he approached the metal cruciform frame to which the prisoner was affixed. The Thousand Son ignored the rapacious bruising, the cuts, gouges and tears that afflicted the subject's battered body. Instead, he focused on the eyes. They were still defiant, albeit slightly groggy from the beatings the prisoner had been given. 'What compromise you force us to endure,' he whispered to himself, drawing close so that their faces almost touched. 'Tell me, what secrets do you possess?' The response came stuttering through blood-caked lips. 'I... serve... only... the... Word.' Mhotep reached for the scarab earring and removed it. He manipulated the small object with his thumb and forefinger, and placed it upon his forehead, where it stayed affixed in the shape of a gold eye, the symbol of Magnus. 'Do not think,' he warned, placing his fingers against the prisoner's skull and pressing hard, 'that you can hide from me.' When Mhotep's fingers penetrated the flesh, the screaming began. TWELVE Sirens Screams and silence Here be monsters CESTUS'S TEETH CLENCHED at the horrific noises emanating from within the isolation chamber. Excelinor and Amryx followed their captain's example, stoically bearing the sounds of psychic torture, secretly glad that they were not the subject of Mhotep's attentions. Through the viewport, the isolation cell was shrouded in shadow. Cestus could see Mhotep from the back only. The Thousand Son moved almost imperceptibly as he stood before the prisoner who, by contrast, spasmed intermittently as his mind was ransacked. On several occasions, when the screaming was at its height, Cestus had wanted to go in and end it, abhorred at the mental damage being inflicted on what was once a brother Astartes, but he had stopped himself every time, even warning off Excelinor and Amryx from taking action. Instead, the two battle-brothers had turned away from the viewport, leaving Cestus alone to observe the imagined horrors of the Word Bearer's torture. Twice already, he had angrily ordered worried arms-men away, after they had come to investigate the sound, fearing another warp attack as they patrolled the decks. As the shipboard vox crackled, issuing a warning, obliquely, they were right. 'Captain Cestus, come to the bridge at once. We are under attack!' LOATHE AS HE was to leave Mhotep, albeit with Excelinor and Amryx, Cestus had little choice but to do as bidden. He reached the bridge quickly and Saphrax quickly apprised him of the situation. The alert had come when several unknown projectiles had been expelled from the vicinity of the Furious Abyss, and were snaking across the warp towards the Wrathful. At first it was believed that the missiles were in fact torpedoes launched in a punitive attempt to dissuade pursuit. That assumption was crushed in the moment when Admiral Kaminska's helmsmistress, Venkmyer, had identified their erratic trajectory and the truth had been revealed. 'Sirens,' Kaminska breathed, looking up at the tactical display before her that showed the inexorable advance of the creatures. A dark atmosphere seemed to pervade the bridge, and the admiral looked uncomfortable because of it. Her uniform was in slight disarray - she had clearly been roused from quarters when the alert had come in - and only added to her apparent sense of unease. 'I had thought such things were void-born myths.' 'They are the denizens of the empyrean,' Cestus told her, the disquieting mood affecting him less acutely. Something was awry. The Ultramarine captain put it down to the sudden appearance of the warp beasts. 'Can we avoid them, admiral?' Kaminska's face was grave as she considered the path of the warp creatures on the tactical display in front of her command throne. 'Admiral,' Cestus said sternly, snapping Kaminska free of the dark mood that had suddenly ensnared her. 'Yes, captain?' she gasped, face pale and unsteady in her command throne. 'Can Orcadus find a way around these creatures?' Kaminska shook her head. 'We are on a collision course.' Cestus turned to Saphrax. 'Ready the honour guard and have them gather on the assembly deck at once; Amryx and Excelinor, too.' He didn't want to leave Mhotep alone, but the warp creatures threatened the safety of the ship and he would need all of his battle-brothers to defend it. On balance, it was a risk worth taking. 'Captain,' said Kaminska as the Ultramarine was leaving. Cestus turned and looked at her, noticing that Helmsmistress Venkmyer had moved to her aid. Kaminska warned off her second-in-command with a glance. 'What is it, admiral?' Cestus asked. 'If these creatures are indeed native to the warp, how are we to stop them?' 'I don't know,' answered the Astartes and then left the bridge. QUITE WHAT THE warp looked like was a question that could never be answered. The human mind was not designed to comprehend it, which was why only specialised mutants like Orcadus could look upon it, and even then with a third eye that did not truly perceive it, merely filtering out the parts that would otherwise drive him mad. Certainly, there was something ophidian or shark-like about the creatures that closed in on the Wrathful. In truth, they neither intercepted nor followed it, but stalked it from all directions at once, creeping up from the past and gliding in from the future to converge on the point of fragile space-time that held the Wrathful in its bubble. They had eyes, lots of eyes. Their bodies were writhing strings of non-matter, which could take on any shape, because they had no true form to begin with, but there were always eyes. They had wings, too, which were also claws and fangs, and masses of pendulous blubber to keep them warm against the nuclear cold of the warp's storms. They burned and shimmered with acid, and shed daggers of ice from their scales. They had been born in the abyss, and had never been forced by the tyranny of reality into one form. To stay the same from one moment to the next would have been as alien to them as the warp was to a human mind. Lamprey mouths opened up. The predators made themselves coterminous with the Wrathful, forcing themselves into unfamiliar frames of logic to avoid annihilation by the protective energy fields that surrounded the ship. The minds inside were brimming with the potential for madness, delicious insanity to be suckled upon. The predators fed normally on scraps: moments of emotion or agony, powerful enough to bloom in the warp and be consumed. Here there were lifetimes worth of sensation to be drained, enough for any one of the wraiths to become bloated and terrible, a whale drifting through the abyss big enough to feed upon its own kind. Thousands of bright lights flickered in the ship, each one both a potential feast, and a gateway for the non-physical predators. One of them found an unprotected mind and, easing itself painfully into the rules of reality, forced its way in. THE SCREAMS WERE the first signs that anything was wrong on the lance deck. The lances, immense laser cannon hooked up to the plasma reactors in the ship's stern, had been silent since the duel with the Furious Abyss outside the Solar System. The gun gangs still tended to them, because lasers were temperamental, especially when they had to funnel the titanic levels of power that could surge through a laser lance, and the

d, easing itself painfully into the rules of reality, forced its way in. THE SCREAMS WERE the first signs that anything was wrong on the lance deck. The lances, immense laser cannon hooked up to the plasma reactors in the ship's stern, had been silent since the duel with the Furious Abyss outside the Solar System. The gun gangs still tended to them, because lasers were temperamental, especially when they had to funnel the titanic levels of power that could surge through a laser lance, and the gun gangs were constantly busy hammering out imperfections in focusing lenses and cleaning the laser conduits, which could misfire if any blemish refracted too much power in the wrong direction. One ganger fell from his perch high up on the inner hull, where he had been aligning one of the huge mirrors. He hit the ground with a wet crump that told the gang chief that he was most certainly dead. It was a sound he had heard many times before. The gang chief was in no hurry to see what had become of the fallen ganger. Deaths meant hassle. The gang would be one short, so someone would have to be drafted from somewhere else on the ship and the Wrathful had lost plenty of men already, and they were in the abyss. For a man to die in the abyss was bad luck. Some said if you died in the warp you never got out, and even with the suppression of religions in the fleet you couldn't stop a void-born superstition like that. The dead man, however, was not dead. When the gang chief reached the body he saw it mewling like a drowning animal, writhing around on its back with its wrists and ankles shaking as if it was trying to right itself. The gang chief expressed displeasure that the man was still alive, since he would undoubtedly die soon and carting him off to the sick bay was another inconvenience the gun crews didn't need. The dying man's body distended with the cracking of ribs. One side of his body split off from the other, organs separating as his pelvis split. His sternum snapped free and false ribs pinged against the laser housing beside him. His body rippled up from the floor into a writhing, pulsing arch of flesh and bone, drizzling blood onto the gunmetal deck. The crewman's head lolled to one side, its jaw wrenched at an angle, its eyes still open. The space within the arch twisted and went dark. The predator forced its way through, spilling out onto the floor like the contents of a split belly, feeling blindly, eyes blinking as they evolved to absorb light. Then the screaming started. IT WAS CARNAGE IN the lance decks, absolute carnage. The warning icons had blazed through the ship, coupled with frantic vox chatter about monsters and the dead coming back to life, before it cut off ominously. Reconnoitering with his battle-brothers on the assembly deck, Cestus had led the honour guard, fully armed, to the lance decks and there they stood to bear witness to the horror. The Ultramarine captain wondered, for a moment, whether he had been wrong all along, whether the Imperial Truth itself was wrong, and that the hells of those primitive faiths really did exist to be given form in the lance decks. He dismissed his doubts as heretical, crashing them beneath his iron-hard resolve and his loyalty to Roboute Guilliman. Even still, what he saw warred with what he desperately tried to believe. Bodies were painted across the walls in ragged smears of skin and muscle. The faces of the gang ratings were ripped open in expressions of horror, and stared out from heaps of torn limbs. Flesh and viscera were draped across high girders ahead, or over the massive workings of the lances themselves. The focusing mirrors and lenses were sprayed with blood. The living writhed in a single mass, smearing themselves with gore and sinking their teeth into one another. Spectral threads of glowing black wrapped around the spines of the bleeding revellers. The threads led up to the ceiling of the lance deck where a titanic mass of darkness squatted, a seething thing of eyes and mouths gibbering and chuckling as it manipulated the lance deck's crew into further depths of suffering. Cestus was an Astartes. He had seen extraordinary, horrible things: amorphous aliens that consumed their own to be ready for battle; insect-things that broke up into swarms of seething, biting horrors; whole worlds infected or dying, whole stars boiling away in the death throes of a species, but he had never seen anything like this. 'Weapons free,' he raged. A brutal chorus of bolter fire rang out to his order, puncturing the mass of flesh and exploding it from within. Thestor swung his heavy bolter around and added his own punishing shots to the salvo. Terrible screeching filled the tight space and resonated in his battle helm, auditory-limiters struggling to modulate the horrible keening of the damned ratings. The dangling threads held by the warp creature began to sever one by one as the munitions of the Astartes struck and detonated with fury. It snarled its displeasure, revealing row upon row of fine needle-like fangs and a slathering spectral tongue that appeared to taste their essence. Like a lightning strike, the tongue lashed out and speared Thestor through his cuirass. He bellowed in pain, heavy bolter fire flaring as he triggered the weapon in his death throes. The honour guard scattered as the errant shells strafed the deck, and Thestor shook and went into spasm as he was lifted into the air, impaled on the warp spawn's tongue. 'Burn it!' cried Cestus in desperation. 'Burn it all!' Morar stepped forward with his flamer and doused the tunnel in roaring, white-hot promethium. Thestor and the creature's transfixing tongue were immolated in cleansing fire. The warp spawn reeled, shrieking in anger as it recoiled from the attack. Morar swept the cone of intense heat downward, cooking the conjoined mass of the dead ratings. As the warp spawn gave ground, Cestus noticed patches of ichorous fluid spattering the deck in its wake. If it can bleed, he thought, we can kill it. 'Advance on me,' cried the Ultramarine captain. 'Courage and honour!' 'Courage and honour!' his battle-brothers bellowed in reply. BROODING IN THE temporary barrack room afforded to the Space Wolves onboard the Wrathful, Brynngar had heard the alert screaming through the ship and had mustered his warriors. Tracking the commotion to the lower lance decks, he and his Blood Claws were unprepared for the sight that greeted them as they descended into the gloom. It was a charnel house. Flayed flesh lined the walls and blood slicked the floor. Bones, still red with gore, lay discarded in mangled piles. Screams were etched upon the visages of skulls, locked in their last moments of agony. The bloody massacre was not, however, what gave the Space Wolf captain pause. It was the nightmare creature, tearing at chunks of flesh with its teeth. At their approach, the beast, a luminous, shark-like horror, turned, its lipless maw smeared with blood, its swollen belly engorged. 'Here be monsters,' Brynngar breathed and felt a quail of something unfamiliar, an alien emotion, trickle down his spine. He found his courage quickly, baring his fangs as he howled. The Space Wolves launched at the creature, blades drawn. MHOTEP STAGGERED FROM the isolation chamber, not surprised to see that he was alone. He had broken the traitor, though it had not been easy. He felt the sweat of his exertions beneath his helmet and was breathing heavily as he stepped into the adjoining corridor. Of the subject known as Ultis, for he had given his name before the end, there was precious little left. A drooling cage of flesh and bone were all that remained. His conditioned defences, ingrained by years of fanatical indoctrination, had been tough to break, but as a result, when they had fallen, they had fallen hard. Only a shell remained, a gibbering wreck incapable of further defiance, incapable of anything. Exhausted as he was, Mhotep groaned when he detected the rogue presence onboard the ship. Mustering what reserves of strength he had left, he made for the lance decks. MORAR WAS DEAD. His bifurcated body lay in two halves across the deck. Amyrx was badly wounded, but alive. He slumped against an upright, beneath a metal arch, a chunk of flesh ripped from his torso. A dark mass was boiling down the corridor behind Cestus, even as the honour guard faced off against the first warp predator, torrents of semi-liquid flesh bursting through doorways in a flood. Eyes formed in the mass, focusing on the Astartes. The Ultramarine swivelled his body around, barking a warning before his bolter blazed, the muzzle flare lighting up the dark around him. A long tongue of dark muscle thrashed blindly past him from the creature's gaping mouth, and Cestus threw himself out of its path. Laeradis, desperately ministering to the wounded Amyrx, was not so lucky. The membrane lashed around him, sending spines of pain throughout his body. The Apothecary screamed as the flesh suddenly dried and split open, fist-sized seeds spilling from the fibrous interior. The seeds burst into life, tiny buzzing wings shearing through the shells and long sharp mandibles splintering out. Laeradis was eviscerated in the storm in a bloody haze of bone, flesh and armour. Cestus cried out and swung his bolt pistol back around. He picked off the insectoid creatures with precise shots as they buzzed towards him, letting out his breath to steady his aim. He caught the last with his free hand. Cestus mashed it into the wall before it could chew through the ceramite of his gauntlet. With the two warp creatures on either side, the Ultramarines were being crushed into a tight circle. Even as he continued to pummel the second warp fiend with bolt pistol fire, he heard Saphrax bellow the name of Roboute Guilliman, punctuated by the retort of his weapon. The burning flare of expelled plasma lit the side of his face, and the Ultramarine captain knew that their oth

last with his free hand. Cestus mashed it into the wall before it could chew through the ceramite of his gauntlet. With the two warp creatures on either side, the Ultramarines were being crushed into a tight circle. Even as he continued to pummel the second warp fiend with bolt pistol fire, he heard Saphrax bellow the name of Roboute Guilliman, punctuated by the retort of his weapon. The burning flare of expelled plasma lit the side of his face, and the Ultramarine captain knew that their other special weapon bearer, Pytaron, was still with them. Muzzle flashes blazing, Lexinal and Excelinor continued to fire their bolters, war cries on their lips. The chorus of battle raged as the warp predators closed, weaving and twisting impossibly from the worst of the Ultramarines' fusillade, shrieking and screeching whenever they were struck and forced back. Cestus checked the ammo-reader on his bolt pistol. His remaining rounds wouldn't last long. Divided as they were, he and his battle-brothers would be unable to destroy either creature like this. With little recourse left, he made his decision. 'All guns with me!' he cried. 'In the name of Guilliman, concentrate fire.' With no hesitation, the Ultramarines turned their combined fire onto one of the warp creatures. Not expecting the sudden storm, the beast was caught unawares. Desperately trying to weave and jink out of harm's way, it was struck by a barrage of bolter rounds. Super-heated plasma scorched its flank and a precise salvo from Cestus struck it in the eye. A keening wail emanated from the dread creature as it shuddered out of existence, expelled from the bubble of real space within the Wrathful. However, the victory proved costly, as the second creature surged, unhindered, to the Ultramarines' position, suddenly buoyed by the presence of three more of its kin. Cestus and his battle-brothers turned as one, defiant war cries on their lips as they prepared to sell their lives dearly. The rending of flesh as their bodies were torn asunder, the stench of blood and the sound of shredding bone failed to materialise. Poised with jaws outstretched, ready to devour the Astartes, the warp creatures were assailed by a blazing crimson light that bathed the corridor in an incandescent lustre. The beasts recoiled and shrank before him, snapping ineffectually at the air as the building aura seared them. 'Warp spawned filth!' spat a voice behind Cestus, echoing with power. 'Flee back into the abyss and leave this plane of existence.' Shielding his eyes against the brilliance of the light, Cestus saw Mhotep striding towards them, a cerulean nimbus of psychic energy coursing over his armoured body. He held a golden spear in his outstretched hand. 'Down, now!' he cried and the Ultramarines hit the floor with a crash of ceramite. The spear arced over their heads like a divine bolt of lightning and pierced the first warp beast, tearing through its slithering flank and slathering the deck with dark grey, spilling gore. Its death cry reverberated in the confines of the vaulted tunnel, the metal uprights screaming before it. Then it was gone, leaving an actinic stench in its wake. The kindred beasts came at him, enduring the furious energy that the Thousand Son had unleashed, but were driven back as Cestus and his honour guard crouched on their knees and delivered a punishing salvo. 'Blind them,' Mhotep cried, plucking his spear from the air as it returned to him as if magnetised to his gauntlet. The Ultramarines obeyed, aiming for the hideous black orbs that served the shark-like predators as eyes. More screeching filled the corridor as the shots found their marks, rupturing the glassy orbs. Mhotep cast his spear again and another of the creatures was thrust back into the immaterium. The last predator turned in on itself and re-formed. It grew fresh eyes, dripping with glowing ichor. It extruded a frill of tendrils from what Cestus assumed was its head end, and they became tough jointed limbs tipped with claws. Snakelike tongues whipped from its mouth. A hail of fire struck it and it was blasted into a gory mess upon the deck. Curious, ringing silence filled the void where the eruption of bolters and the bark of shouting had been. Red-tinged gloom from the emergency lights drifted back into focus after the monochromatic battle flare of muzzle flashes and psychic conflagration. Cestus surveyed his battle-brothers. Amyrx lay still against the upright, injured but alive. The service of Laeradis and Morar, though, had ended, their final moments awash with blood and pain. The rest had survived. A weary nod from Saphrax confirmed it. Breathing hard, a strange, subdued exultance at their victory sweeping over him, Cestus looked back around at Mhotep. The Thousand Son staggered, the crimson light extinguished. 'They are gone,' he breathed and fell hard onto the deck. THIRTEEN Legacy of Lorgar Proposition Honour duel AS SKRAAL DELVED deeper into the Furious Abyss, the world around him got stranger. The ship was the size of a city, and just like a city it had its hidden corners and curiosities, its beautiful clean-cut vistas and its dismal bordellos of decay. Though supposedly newly fashioned, the vessel felt very old. Its concomitant parts had spent so many decades being built and rendered in the forges of Mars that they had acquired a history of their own before the battleship was ever finished, let alone launched. It had a presence, too, a kind of impalpable sentience that exuded from its steel walls and clung to its corridors and conduits like gossamer threads of being. Skraal passed under a support beam, his chainaxe held out warily in front of him, and saw the signature of a Mechanicum shipwright inscribed in binary. The passageway of steel looked like an avenue in a wealthy spire-top, the low ceiling supported by caryatids and columns; a nest of shanties, perhaps the lodgings of the menials, who had once laboured to build the ship, their ramshackle homes abandoned between two generatorium housings: the vessel was intricate and immense. The World Eater saw chambers he could only assume were for worship, with altars and rows of prayer books etched in the Word of Lorgar. A temple, half wrought in stone and symbiotically merged with deep red steel, was housed in a massive false amphitheatre, its columned front and carved pediment providing a medieval milieu. The wide threshold was lit by braziers of violet fire. Skraal thought he had seen something moving inside and took care to avoid it. The World Eater had no time for distractions. The denizens of the Furious Abyss hunted him, and even in a ship as vast as it, the chase would not last indefinitely. Melta bombs and belts of krak grenades clanked against his armour as he moved, reminding him of their presence and the urgency with which he needed to put them to some use. In a fleeting moment, when Skraal had paused to try and get some kind of bearing, he thought of Antiges. The Ultramarines believed themselves to be philosophers, or kings, or members of the galaxy's rightful ruling class. They did not appreciate the purity of purpose that could only be found in the crucible of war as did Skraal's Legion. They were most concerned with forging their own empire around Macragge. Antiges had demonstrated his warrior spirit, though, fighting and dying in the cauldron of war, driven by simple duty. Skraal mourned his passing with a moment of silence, honouring his valorous deeds, and, in that moment, he made a promise of revenge. A great set of double doors carved from lacquered black wood blocked the World Eater's path. Skraal could not turn back from the barrier, incongruous like so much of what he had witnessed on the Furious Abyss. Instead, he pushed the door open. There was light inside, but still the silence persisted, so, he entered into what was a long, low chamber. Beyond it was a gallery full of artefacts. Tapestries lined the walls, displaying the victories and history of the Word Bearers. He saw a comet crashing down to their native earth of Colchis and a golden child emerging from the conflagration left from its impact. He saw temples, their spires lost in a swathe of red cloud, and lines of pilgrims trailing off into infinity. It was a world stained with tragedy, the gilded palaces and cathedrals tarnished, and every statue of past religious dynasts missing an arm or an eye. In the middle of this fallen world, like a single point of hope, was the smouldering crater of their saviour's arrival. The ceiling was a single endless fresco depicting Lorgar's conquest of Colchis. Here it was a corrupt place cleansed by the primarch, whose image shone with the light of reason and command as robed prophets and priests prostrated themselves before him. Armies laid down their arms and crowds cheered in adulation. At the far end of the museum the story ended with Colchis restored and Lorgar a scholar-hero writing down his history and philosophy. This epilogue ended with a truth that Skraal knew, the Emperor coming to the world to find Lorgar, just as he had come to the World Eaters' forgotten home world to install Angron as the Legion's primarch. The paintings, frescoes and tapestries gave way to trophies displayed on plinths and suspended from the vaulted ceiling. Skraal ignored them and pressed on. 'You look upon the soul of our Legion, brother,' boomed a voice suddenly through the vox-casters in the gallery. Skraal backed up against the wall, which was painted with an image of Lorgar debating with a host of wizened old men in a Colchian amphitheatre. 'I am Admiral Zadkiel of the Word Bearers,' said the voice, when the World Eater answered with silence. 'You are aboard my ship.' 'Traitor whoreson, does your entire Legion cower behind words?' Skraal snapped, unable to contain his anger. 'Such a curious term, World Eater,' the voice of Zadkiel replied, ignoring the slight. 'You dub us traitors, and yet

aal backed up against the wall, which was painted with an image of Lorgar debating with a host of wizened old men in a Colchian amphitheatre. 'I am Admiral Zadkiel of the Word Bearers,' said the voice, when the World Eater answered with silence. 'You are aboard my ship.' 'Traitor whoreson, does your entire Legion cower behind words?' Skraal snapped, unable to contain his anger. 'Such a curious term, World Eater,' the voice of Zadkiel replied, ignoring the slight. 'You dub us traitors, and yet we have never been anything but loyal to our primarch.' 'Then your lord is also a traitor,' Skraal growled in return, hunting the shadows for any sign of movement, any hint that he was being stalked. 'Your own lord, Angron, calls him brother. How then can Lorgar be regarded as a traitor?' Skraal cast his gaze around, trying to locate the picter observing him or the vox-caster broadcasting Zadkiel's voice. 'Then he has betrayed my primarch and in turn his Legion.' 'Angron was a slave,' said Zadkiel. 'The very fact shames him. He despises what he was, and what other men made of him. It is from this that his anger, that the anger of all the World Eaters stems.' Certain that there was no one else in there with him, Skraal started moving cautiously through the gallery, looking for some way out other than the double doors at either end. He would not be swayed by Zadkiel's words, and focused instead on the hot line of rage building inside him, using it to galvanise himself. 'I saw the echo of that anger at Bakka Triumveron,' said Zadkiel. 'It was enacted against the menials that drowned in their own blood at the hands of you and your brothers.' Skraal paused. He had thought no one knew of the slaughter he had perpetrated at the dock. 'Angron sought to bring his brothers closer to him in that aspect, did he not?' Zadkiel was relentless, his words like silken blades penetrating the World Eater's defences. 'It was the Emperor's censure that forbade it, the very being that holds you and your slave primarch in his thrall. For what is Angron if not a slave? What accolades has he won that the Angel or Guilliman have not? What reward has Angron been given that can equal the empire of Ultramar or the stewardship of the Imperial Palace granted to Dorn? Nothing. He fights for nothing save by the command of another. What can such a man claim to be, other than a slave?' 'We are not slaves! We will never be slaves!' Skraal cried in anger and carved his chainaxe through one of the museum's stone pillars. 'It is the truth,' Zadkiel persisted, 'but you are not alone, brother; yours is not the only Legion to have been thus forsaken,' he continued. 'The Word Bearers worshipped him, worshipped the Emperor as... a... god! But he mocked our divinity with reproach and reprimand, just as he mocks you.' Skraal ignored him. His faith in his Legion and his primarch would not easily be undone. This Word Bearer's rhetoric meant nothing. Duty and rage: these were the things he focused on as he sought to escape from the chamber. 'Look before you, World Eater,' Zadkiel began again. 'There you will find what you seek.' Despite himself, Skraal looked. There, within an ornate glass cabinet, forged of obsidian and brass and once wielded by Angron's hand, was a chainaxe. Decked with teeth of glinting black stone, its haft wrapped in the skin of some monstrous lizard, he knew it instinctively to be Brazentooth, the former blade of his primarch. The weapon, magnificent in its simple brutality, had taken the head of the queen of the Scandrane xenos, and cleaved through a horde of greenskins following the Arch-Vandal of Pasiphae. A feral world teeming with tribal psychopaths had rebelled against the Imperial Truth, and at the mere sight of Brazentooth in Angron's hand they had given up their revolt and kneeled to the World Eaters. With the forging of Gorefather and Gorechild, the twin axes Angron now wielded, Brazentooth had been as much a symbol of Angron's relentlessness and independence as it was a mere weapon. 'Gifted unto Lorgar, it symbolises our alliance,' Zadkiel told him. 'Angron pledged himself to our cause, and with him all the World Eaters.' Skraal regarded the chainaxe. Thick veins stuck out on his forehead, beneath his skull-helmet, exacerbated by the heat of his impotent wrath. 'It is written, World Eater, that you and all your brothers will join with us when the fate of the galaxy is decided. The Emperor is lost. He is ignorant of the true power of the universe. We will embrace it.' 'Word Bearer,' Skraal said, his lip curled derisively, 'you talk too much.' The World Eater shattered the cabinet with a blow from his fist and seized Brazentooth. Without pause, he squeezed the tongue of brass in the chainaxe's haft, and the teeth whirred hungrily. The weapon was far too heavy and unbalanced for Skraal to wield; it would have taken Angron's own magnificent strength to use it. It was all he could do to keep the bucking chainblade level as he put his body weight behind it and hurled it into the nearest wall. Brazentooth ripped into a fresco depicting Lorgar as an educator of the benighted, thousands of ignorant souls bathing in the halo of enlightenment that surrounded him. The image was shredded and the weapon, free of Skraal's hands, bored its way through, casting sparks as it chewed up the metal beneath. 'You're doomed, Zadkiel!' bellowed Skraal over the screech of the chainblade. 'The Emperor will learn of your treachery! He'll send your brothers to bring you back in chains! He'll send the Warmaster!' The World Eater hurled himself through the ragged tear in the museum wall and fell through into a tangled dark mess of cabling and metal beyond. Zadkiel's laughter tumbled after him from the vox-caster. ZADKIEL SWITCHED OFF the pict screens adorning the small security console at the rear of the temple. 'Tell me, chaplain, is everything prepared?' Ikthalon, decked in his full regalia including vestments of deep crimson, nodded and gestured towards a circle, drawn from a paste mixed from Colchian soil and the blood that had been drained from the body of the Ultramarine, Antiges. The Astartes inert body lay at its nexus, his cuirass removed and his chest levered open to reveal the congealed vermillion mass of his organs. Symbols had been scratched on the floor around him, using his blood. His helmet had been removed, too, and his head lolled back, glassy-eyed, its mouth open as if in awe of the ritual he would facilitate in death. 'It is ready, as you ordered,' uttered Ikthalon, the chaplain's tone approaching relish. Zadkiel smiled thinly and then looked up at the sound of shuffling feet. An old, bent figure ascended the steps at the temple entrance and the candles on the floor flickered against its cowl and robe as it entered between the pillars. 'Astropath Kyrszan,' said Zadkiel. The astropath pulled back his hood, revealing hollow sockets in place of his eyes as inflicted by the soul-binding. 'I am at your service,' he hissed through cracked lips. 'You know your role in this?' 'I have studied it well, my lord,' Kyrszan replied, leaning heavily on a gnarled cane of dark wood as he shuffled towards Antiges's corpse. Kyrszan knelt down and held his hands over the body. The astropath smirked as he felt the last wreaths of heat bleeding from it. 'An Astartes,' he muttered. 'Indeed,' added Ikthalon. 'You'll find his scalp has been removed.' 'Then we can begin.' 'I will require what is left after this is done,' added Ikthalon. 'Don't worry, chaplain,' said Zadkiel. 'You'll have his body for your surgery. Kyrszan,' he added, switching his gaze to the astropath, 'you may proceed.' Zadkiel threw a book in front of him. Kyrszan felt its edges, ran his fingers over its binding, the ancient vellum of its pages and breathed deep of its musk, redolent with power. His spidery digits, so sensitive from a lifetime of blindness, scurried across the ink and read with ease. The script was distinctive and known to him. 'What... what secrets,' he whispered in awe. 'This is written by your hand, admiral. What was it that dictated this to you?' 'His name,' said Zadkiel, 'is Wsoric and we are about to honour the pact he has made with us.' IN THE HOURS that followed, the warp was angry. It was wounded. It bled half-formed emotions, like something undigested: hatred that was too unfocused to be pure, love without an object, obsession over nothing and gouts of oblivion without form. It quaked. It thrashed as if being forced into something unwilling, or trying to hold on to something dear to it. The Wrathful was thrown around on the towering waves that billowed up through the layers of reality and threatened to snap the spindly anchor-line of reason that kept the ship intact. The quake subsided. The predators that had homed in on the disturbance scented the corpses of their fellow warp-sharks in the Wrathful, and hastily slunk back into the abyss. The Wrathful continued on its way, following eddies left by the wake of the Furious Abyss. 'HAS THERE BEEN any change?' asked Cestus as he approached Saphrax. The banner bearer stood outside the medical bay, looking in at the prone form of Mhotep, laid as if slumbering, on a slab of metal. 'None, sire. He has not stirred since he fell after the battle.' The Ultramarine captain had recently been tended to by the Wrathful's medical staff, an injury sustained to his arm that he had not realised he had suffered making its presence felt as he'd gone to Mhotep's aid. In the absence of the dead Laeradis, the treatment was rudimentary but satisfactory. The bodies, what was left of them, of the Astartes, two of the Blood Claws included, had been taken to the ship's morgue. Cestus's mind still reeled at what he'd witnessed on the lance decks and the powers that the Thousand Son had unleashed. Truly, there was no doubt as to his practising psychics. That in itself left an altogether different and yet

ffered making its presence felt as he'd gone to Mhotep's aid. In the absence of the dead Laeradis, the treatment was rudimentary but satisfactory. The bodies, what was left of them, of the Astartes, two of the Blood Claws included, had been taken to the ship's morgue. Cestus's mind still reeled at what he'd witnessed on the lance decks and the powers that the Thousand Son had unleashed. Truly, there was no doubt as to his practising psychics. That in itself left an altogether different and yet more pressing question: Brynngar. The Wolf Guard had also been down in the lance decks, though Cestus was not aware of it until the battle was over, and had banished three of the warp spawn with his Blood Claws. The artifice of the Fenrisian rune priests, in their fashioning of Felltooth, was to thank for it. For once, reunited at the centre of the deck, Brynngar had curtly disclosed how the creatures parted easily before the blade and fled from the Space Wolves' fury. The Ultramarine believed that some of the account was embellished, so that it might become worthy of a saga, but he did not doubt the veracity at the heart of Brynngar's words. It mattered not. Whatever the Wolf Guard intended to do about Mhotep and, indeed, Cestus, he would do regardless. Right now, the Ultramarine captain had greater concerns, namely, that the traitor had been broken, for Saphrax had discovered his shattered body in the isolation chamber, but that whatever secrets he had divulged were denied to them while Mhotep was incapacitated. It felt like a cruel irony. 'Do you know what we do with witches on Fenris, Ultramarine?' Cestus turned at the voice and saw Brynngar standing behind him, glowering through the glass at Mhotep. 'We cut the tendons in their arms and legs. Then we throw them in the sea to the mercy of Mother Fenris.' Cestus moved into the Space Wolf's path. 'This is not Fenris, brother.' Brynngar smiled, mirthlessly, as if at some faded remembrance. 'No, it is not,' he said, locking his gaze with Cestus. 'You give your sanction to this warp-dabbler, and in so doing have twice besmirched my honour. I will not let his presence stand on this ship, nor will I let these deeds go unreckoned.' The Space Wolf tore a charm hanging from his cuirass and tossed it at the Ultramarine's feet. Cestus looked up and matched the Wolf Guard's gaze. 'Challenge accepted,' he said. BRYNNGAR WAITED IN the duelling pit in the lower decks of the Wrathful. The old wolf was stripped down to the waist, wearing grey training breeches and charcoal-coloured boots, and flexed his muscles and rotated his shoulders as he prepared for his opponent. Arrayed around the training arena, commonly used for the armsmen to practise unarmed combat routines, were what was left of the Astartes: the Ultramarine honour guard, barring Amryx, who was still recovering from his injuries, and a handful of Blood Claws. Admiral Kaminska, as the captain of the ship, was the only non-Astartes allowed to attend. She had forbidden any other of the crew from watching the duel. The realisation that the Astartes in the fleet were turning on one another was a sign of the worst kind, and she had no desire to discover its effects upon morale if witnessed by them first hand. She watched as Cestus stepped into the arena, descending a set of metal steps that retracted into the wall once he was within the duelling pit. The Ultramarine was similarly attired to Brynngar, though his training breeches were blue to match the colour of his Legion. At the appearance of his opponent, Brynngar swung the chainsword in his grasp eagerly. The assembled Astartes were eerily silent; even the normally pugnacious Blood Claws held their tongues and merely watched. 'This is madness,' Kaminska hissed, biting back her anger. 'No, admiral,' said Saphrax, who towered alongside her, 'it is resolution.' The Ultramarine banner bearer stepped forward. As the next highest ranking Astartes, it was his duty to announce the duel and state the rules. 'This honour-duel is between Lysimachus Cestus of the Ultramarines Legion and Brynngar Sturmdreng of the Space Wolves Legion,' Saphrax bellowed clearly like a clarion call. 'The weapon is chainswords and the duel is to blood from the torso or incapacitation. Limb or eye loss counts as thus, as does a cut to the front of the throat. No armour; no fire arms.' Saphrax took a brief hiatus to ensure that both Astartes were ready. He saw his brother-captain testing the weight of his chainsword and adjusting his grip. Brynngar made no further preparation and was straining at the leash. 'The stakes are the fate of Captain Mhotep of the Thousand Sons Legion. To arms!' The Astartes saluted each other and levelled their chainswords in their respective fighting stances: Brynngar two-handed and slightly off-centre, Cestus low and pointed towards the ground. 'Begin!' BRYNNGAR LAUNCHED HIMSELF at Cestus with a roar, channelling his anger into a shoulder barge. Cestus twisted on his heel to avoid the charge, but was still a little sluggish from the earlier battle and caught the blow down his side. A mass of pain numbed his body, resonating through his bones and skull, but the Ultramarine kept his feet. Blows fell like hammers against Cestus's defensive stance, his chainblade screeching as it bit against Brynngar's weapon. Teeth were stripped away and sparks flew violently from the impact. Two-handed, the Ultramarine held him, but was forced down to one knee as the Space Wolf used his superior bulk against him. 'We are not in the muster hall, now,' he snarled. 'I shall give no quarter.' 'I will ask for none,' Cestus bit back and twisted out of the blade lock, using Brynngar's momentum to overbalance the Space Wolf. The Ultramarine moved in quickly to exploit the advantage with a low thrust, intending to graze Brynngar's torso, draw blood and end the duel. The old wolf was canny, though, and parried the blow with a flick of his sword, before leaning in with another shoulder charge. It lacked the sudden impetus and fury of the first, but jolted Cestus's body all the same. The Ultramarine staggered and Brynngar swept his weapon downward in a brutal arc that would have removed Cestus's head from his shoulders. Instead he rolled and the blade teeth carved into the metal floor of the duelling pit, disturbing the streaks of old blood left by the World Eater's earlier contest. Cestus came out of the roll and was on his feet. There was a little distance between the two Astartes gladiators, and they circled each other warily, assessing strength and searching for an opening. Brynngar didn't wait long and, howling, hurled his body at the Ultramarine, chainsword swinging. Cestus met it with his blade and the two weapons came apart with the force of the blow, chain teeth spitting from their respective housings. Brynngar cast the ruined chainsword haft aside and powered a savage uppercut into Cestus's chin that nearly shattered the Ultramarine's jaw. A second punch fell like a piston and smashed into his ear. A third lifted him off his feet, hammering into the Ultramarine's gut. The sound of Brynngar's grunting aggression became dull and distant as if Cestus was submerged below water, as he fought to get his bearings. He was dimly aware of falling and had the vague sense of grasping something in his hand as he hit the hard metal floor of the duelling pit. Abruptly, Cestus found it hard to breath and realised suddenly that Brynngar was choking him. Strangely, the Ultramarine thought he heard weeping. With a blink, he snapped back into lucidity and smashed his fists down hard against Brynngar's forearms, whilst landing a kick into his sternum. It was enough for the Space Wolf to loosen his grip. Cestus head-butted him in the nose and a stream of blood and mucus flowed freely after the impact. Feeling the ground beneath him again, Cestus ducked a wild swing and lashed out beneath Brynngar's reach. The Ultramarine wasn't quick enough to avoid a backhand swipe and took it in the side of the face. He was reeling again, dark spots forming before his eyes, hinting that he was about to black out. 'Yield,' he breathed, sinking to his knees, his voice groggy as he pointed to the Space Wolf's torso with the chainsword tooth clutched in his outstretched hand. Brynngar paused, fists clenched, his breathing ragged and looked down to where Cestus was pointing. A line of crimson was drawn across the Space Wolf's stomach from the tiny diagonal blade in his opponent's grip. 'Blood from the torso,' Saphrax announced with thinly veiled relief. 'Cestus wins.' FOURTEEN Hunted A single blow We are all alone TIME HAS LITTLE meaning in the warp. Weeks become days, days become hours and hours become minutes. Time is fluid. It can expand and contract, invert and even cease in those fathomless depths of infinite nothing; endless everything. Leaving the gallery and Zadkiel's echoing laughter behind him, Skraal had fled into the pitch dark. Crouching in the blackness with naught but the groans of the Furious Abyss for company it felt like the passage of years, and yet it could have been no more than weeks or as little as an hour. Heaving, shifting, baying, venting, the vessel was like some primordial beast as it ploughed the empyrean tides. Sentience exuded from every surface: the moisture of the metal, the blood, oil and soot in the air. Heat from generatoria became breath, fire from blast furnaces anger and hate, the creak of the hull, dull moans of pleasure and annoyance. Perhaps this awareness had always existed and lacked only form to give it tangibility. Perhaps the skeleton the adepts of Mars had forged provided merely a shell for an already sentient host. The World Eater decided that his thoughts heralded the onset of madness at being hunted for so long, the thin talons of paranoia pricking his skull and infecting his mind with visions. After his discovery in the gallery, he had gone t

and hate, the creak of the hull, dull moans of pleasure and annoyance. Perhaps this awareness had always existed and lacked only form to give it tangibility. Perhaps the skeleton the adepts of Mars had forged provided merely a shell for an already sentient host. The World Eater decided that his thoughts heralded the onset of madness at being hunted for so long, the thin talons of paranoia pricking his skull and infecting his mind with visions. After his discovery in the gallery, he had gone to ground, questing downwards through the inner circuitry and workings of the Furious Abyss in some kind of attempt at preservation. It was not cowardice that drove him, such a thing was anathema to the Astartes: a World Eater was incapable of the emotion. Fear simply did not have meaning for them. No, it was out of a desire to regroup, to plan, to achieve some petty measure of destruction that might not at least escape notice, that meant something. Into the heat and fire he'd passed arches of steel, vast throbbing engines and forests of cables so thick that he'd needed to cut them down with his chainaxe. It was in this manufactured hell that he'd found refuge. Bones lay on the lower decks, pounded to dust by pistons, though some were intact. They were the forgotten dead of the Furious's birth, sucked into machinery or simply lost and left to starve or die of thirst in the ship's labyrinthine depths. During his flight into this cauldron, Skraal had seen things. The dark had played with him, the heat, too, and the endless industrial din. Glowing eyes would watch the World Eater, only to then melt away into the walls. A landscape had opened up before him, its edges picked out in darkness: a vast land of bloody ribs and palaces of bone, with mountains of gristle and labyrinths carved down into plains of rippling muscle. Humanoid shapes danced in rivers of blood as the whole world swelled and fell with an ancient breath. Then it was gone, replaced by the darkness, and so he had driven on. Here in the searing depths, he'd found some respite. It could have been days that he'd lingered in meditative solitude, listening to the pitch and pull of the vessel, marshalling his thoughts and his resolve so as not to give in to insanity. Way down in the stygian gloom, Skraal couldn't hear the vox traffic, didn't sense the patrols at his heels and so didn't know if he was still hunted. Sheltering in a crawl space large enough to accommodate his power-armoured frame, within a cluster of pipes and cables, the World Eater snapped abruptly to his senses. Disengaging the cataleptic node that allowed him to maintain a form of active sleep, Skraal became aware of a shadow looming in the conduit ahead. He was not alone. The passing of menials was not uncommon, but infrequent. Skraal had listened to their pathetic mewlings as they serviced and maintained the ship, with disgust. Such wretches! It had taken all of his resolve not to spring out of his hiding place and butcher them all like the cattle they were, but then the alarm would have been raised and the hunt begun anew. He needed to think, to devise his next move. Not gifted with the tactical acumen of the sons of Guilliman or Dorn, Skraal was a pure instrument of war, brutal and effective. Yet now he needed a stratagem and for that he required time. Survival first, then sabotage; it was his mantra. That doctrine dissolved into the ether with the shadow. No menial this, it did not mewl or bay or weep, it was silent. It was something else, massive footfalls resonating against metal with every step, and it was seeking him. Skraal extracted himself from the crawl space and bled away into the darkness, eyes on the growing gloom he left behind him, and went onwards into the Furious Abyss. 'THEY TAIL US ever doggedly, my lord,' uttered Reskiel as he considered the reports of Navigator Esthemya clutched in his gauntlet. Zadkiel appeared sanguine to the fact that the Wrathful continued to follow them into the warp as he regarded the scrawlings on the cell wall of one of the ship's astropathic choir. It was a spartan chamber with little to distinguish it. A narrow cot served as a bed, a simple lectern as a place to scribe. Function was paramount here. 'Wsoric is with us,' he said, emboldened enough in the surety that they had sealed their pact with the ancient creature to speak his name, 'and once he reveals his presence, the pawns of the False Emperor will learn the folly of their pursuit. The horrors endured thus far will be as nothing compared to the torture he will visit upon them.' 'Yes, my lord,' Reskiel said humbly. 'We are destined to achieve our mission, Reskiel,' Zadkiel went on, 'just as this one was destined to die for it.' The admiral turned the corpse of a dead astropath over. It was lying in the middle of the cell in a pool of its own blood. The face was female, but twisted into a rictus of fear and pain so pronounced that it was hard to tell. Black, empty orbs stared out from crater-like sockets. Communications were difficult even for those who claimed the warp as an ally, and the messages of the Furious's astropathic choir were proving ever more unreliable and difficult to discern. Zadkiel had some skill at divination, however, and carefully deconstructed nuances of meaning, subtle vagaries of sense and context in the symbolic renderings of the dead astropath. 'Anything?' asked Reskiel. 'Perhaps,' said Zadkiel, sensing the desperate cadence in the sergeant-commander's voice. 'Once we reach the Macragge system we will have no further need of them,' he added. 'You need not fear us floundering blind in the immaterium, Reskiel.' 'I fear nothing, lord,' Reskiel affirmed, standing straight, his expression stern. 'Of course not,' Zadkiel replied smoothly, 'except, perhaps, our intruder. Do the sons of Angron hold an inner dread for you sergeant-commander? Do you recall all too readily the sting of our erstwhile brother's wrath?' Reskiel raised his gauntlet to the crude repairs of his face and cheekbone almost subconsciously, but then retracted it as if suddenly scalded. 'Is that the reason that our interloper still roams free aboard this ship?' Zadkiel pressed. 'He is contained,' Reskiel snarled. 'Should he surface then I will know, and mount his head upon a spike myself!' Zadkiel traced a shape out of the dense scribblings on the wall, deliberately ignoring the sergeant-commander's impassioned outburst. 'Here,' he hissed, finding the meaning he sought at last. The astropath had written the message in her vital fluids, the parchment pages of her symbol log overloaded with further crimson data and strewn about the cell floor like bloodied leaves. 'The crown is Colchis,' said Zadkiel, indicating a smeared icon. 'These ancillary marks indicate that this dictate comes from a lord of the Legion,' he added, a sweep of his gauntleted hand encompassing a range of symbols that Reskiel could not fathom. Astropaths rarely had the luxury of communicating by words or phrases. Instead, they had an extensive catalogue of symbols, which were a lot easier to transmit psychically. Each symbol had a meaning, which became increasingly complex the more symbols were added. The Word Bearers fleet had their own code, in which the crown was modelled after the Crown of Colchis and represented both the Legion's home world and the leadership of the Legion. 'Two eyes, one blinded,' continued Zadkiel. 'That is Kor Phaeron's Chapter.' 'He asks something of us?' asked Reskiel. Zadkiel picked out another symbol from the miasma, most of which was eidetic doggerel coming out in a rush of mindless images and non-sequitous ravings, a coiled snake: the abstract geometrical code for the Calth system. 'His scouts have confirmed that the Ultramarines are mustering at Calth,' Zadkiel answered, 'all of them. There are but a few token honour guards not present.' 'Then we will strike them out with a single blow,' stated the sergeant-commander confidently. 'As it is written, my brother,' Zadkiel replied, looking up from the scrawlings and offering a mirthless smile. He finished examining the astropaths message and brushed the flakes of dried blood from his gauntlets. 'All is in readiness,' he said to himself, imaging the glory of their triumph and the plaudits he, Zadkiel, would garner. 'Thy Word be done.' CESTUS FILLED HIS time with training regimens and meditation, in part to occupy his mind whilst the Wrathful traversed the warp, but also to recondition his body after the brutal duel with Brynngar. Something had possessed the Space Wolf during the fight, Cestus had felt it in every blow and heard it in the Wolf Guard's battle cries. It was not a change in the sense that the warp predators took on the form of the Fireblade's crew. No, it was something less ephemeral and more intrinsic than that, as if a part of the gene-code that made up the zygotic structure of Leman Russ's Legion had been exposed somehow and allowed free rein. Base savagery, that was how Cestus thought of it, an animalistic predilection let slip only in the face of the Space Wolves' foes. Was the warp the cause of this loosening of resolve? Cestus felt its presence constantly. It was clear that the crew did also, though they appeared to be more acutely afflicted. Armsmen patrols had doubled over the passing weeks. Rotations of those patrols had also increased and prolonged exposure to the warp even whilst in the protective bubble of the Wrathful's integrity fields took its toll. There had been seventeen warp-related deaths after the attack on the lance decks, the entirety of which had been fusion-sealed in the wake of the horrors perpetrated there. Damage sustained whilst in battle against the Word Bearers' ship had rendered the weapon systems inoperable in any case, and no one on the Wrathful had any desire to tread those bloody halls again. Suicides and apparent accidents were common, one rating was even murdered, the perpetra

athful's integrity fields took its toll. There had been seventeen warp-related deaths after the attack on the lance decks, the entirety of which had been fusion-sealed in the wake of the horrors perpetrated there. Damage sustained whilst in battle against the Word Bearers' ship had rendered the weapon systems inoperable in any case, and no one on the Wrathful had any desire to tread those bloody halls again. Suicides and apparent accidents were common, one rating was even murdered, the perpetrator still at large, as the products of warp-induced psychosis made their presence felt. Of the Furious Abyss, there had been little sign. It continued to plough through the empyrean, content to let the Wrathful follow. Cestus didn't like the calm; trouble invariably followed it. A stinging blow caught the Ultramarine captain on the side of the temple and he grimaced in pain. 'You seem preoccupied, my lord,' said Saphrax, standing opposite him in a fighting posture. He twirled the duelling staff in his hands with expert precision as he circled his captain. The two Astartes faced each other in one of the vessel's gymnasia, wearing breeches and loose-fitting vests as they conducted the daily ritual of their training katas. Routine dictated the duelling staff as the weapon of choice for this session. Cestus's body was already bruised and numb from a dozen or more precise blows landed by his banner bearer. Saphrax was right; his mind was elsewhere, still in the duelling pit facing off against Brynngar. 'Perhaps, we should switch to the rudius?' Saphrax offered, indicating a pair of short wooden swords clutched by a weapons servitor, two amongst many training weapons held by the creature's rack-like frontal carapace. Cestus shook his head, giving the battle-sign that he had had enough. 'That will suffice for today,' he said, lowering the staff and reaching for a towel offered by a Legion serf to wipe down his naked arms and neck. 'I don't like this, Saphrax,' he confessed, handing the duelling weapon back to the servitor as it approached. 'The training schema was not satisfactory?' the banner bearer asked, unlike Antiges, unable to penetrate the deeper meaning of his captain's words. 'No, my brother. It is this quietude that vexes me. We have seen little in the way of deterrent from the Furious Abyss for almost two weeks, or at least as close to two weeks as I can fathom in this wretched empyrean.' 'Is that not a boon rather than a cause of vexation?' Saphrax asked, commencing a series of stretching exercises to loosen his muscles after the bout. 'No, I do not think so. Macragge draws ever closer and yet we seem ever further from finding a way to stop the Word Bearers. We do not even know of their plan, damn Mhotep in his coma state.' Cestus stopped what he was doing and looked Saphrax in the eye. 'I am losing hope, brother. Part of me believes the reason they have ceased in their attempts to destroy us is because they do not need to, that we no longer pose a significant threat to their mission, if we ever did.' 'Put your belief in the strength of the Emperor, captain. Trust in that and we shall prevail,' said the banner bearer vehemently. Cestus sighed deeply, feeling a great weight upon his shoulders. 'You are right,' said the Ultramarine captain. Saphrax might not possess the instinct and empathy of Antiges, but his dour pragmatism was an unshakeable rock in a sea of doubt. 'Thank you, Saphrax,' he added, clapping his hand on the banner bearer's shoulder while nodded in response. Cestus wrenched off the vest, sodden with his sweat, and donned a set of robes as he padded across the gymnasium to the antechamber, where Legion serf armourers awaited him. 'If you do not need me further, captain, I shall continue my daily regimen in your absence,' said the banner bearer. 'Very well, Saphrax,' Cestus replied, his thoughts still clouded. 'There is someone else I need to see,' he added in a murmur to himself. BRYNNGAR SLUMPED FORLORNLY onto his rump in the quarters set aside for him by Admiral Kaminska. He was alone, surrounded by a host of empty ale barrels, his Blood Claws isolated to the barracks, and belched raucously. He had come here after losing the honour duel, speaking to no one and entertaining no remarks, however placatory, from his fellow Space Wolves. The old wolf's demeanour made it clear that he wished to be alone. Not everyone got the message. Brynngar looked up from his dour brooding when he saw Cestus enter the gloomy chamber. 'Wulfsmeade is all gone,' he slurred, impossibly drunk despite the co-action of the Space Wolf's preomnor and oolitic kidney. The beverage, native to Fenris, was brewed with the very purpose of granting intoxication that overrode even the processes of the Astartes' gene-enhanced physiognomy, albeit temporarily. 'You keep it, my friend,' Cestus replied with mock geniality, despite his apprehension. Brynngar grunted, kicking over his empty tankard as he got up. The old wolf was stripped out of his armour and wore an amalgam of furs and coarse, grey robes. Charms and runic talismans clattered over his hirsute chest, the nick from the chain tooth still visible, though all but healed. 'You seem well recovered, Ultramarine,' grumbled the Wolf Guard, irascibly. Brynngar's belligerence had not dimmed with the passage of hours in the warp. In truth, Cestus still felt the ache in his jaw and stomach in spite of the larraman cells in his body speeding up the healing process exponentially. The Ultramarine merely nodded, unwilling to disclose his discomfort. 'Now it is done,' he said. 'You are an honourable warrior, Brynngar. What's more, you are my friend. I know you will abide by the outcome of the duel.' The Space Wolf fixed his good eye on him, pausing as he hunted around for more ale to quaff. He snarled, and for a moment Cestus thought he might instigate another fight, but then relaxed and let out a rasping sigh. 'Aye, I'll abide by it, but I warn you, Lysimachus Cestus, I will hold no truck with warp-dabblers. Keep him away from me or I will visit my blade upon his sorcerer's tongue,' he promised, drawing closer, the rustle of his beard hair the only clue that the Space Wolf s lips were actually moving. 'If you stand in my way again, it will be no honour duel that decides his fate.' Cestus paused for a moment, matching Brynngar's intensity with a stern expression. 'Very well,' the Ultramarine replied, and then added, 'I need you in this fight, Brynngar. I need the strength of your arm and the steel of your courage.' The old wolf sniffed in mild contempt. 'But not my counsel, eh?' Cestus was about to counter when Brynngar continued. 'You'll have my arm, and my courage, right enough,' he said, waving Cestus away with his clawed hand. 'Leave me, now. I'm sure there's more to drink in here somewhere.' Cestus breathed in hard and turned away. Yes, Brynngar remained in the fight, the Ultramarine had gained that much, but he had lost something much more potent: a friend. CESTUS DID NOT have much time to lament the ending of Brynngar's friendship as he made for the bridge. Down one of the Wrathful's access corridors, he received a vox transmission that crackled in the receiver node on his gorget. 'Captain Cestus,' said Admiral Kaminska's voice. 'Speak admiral, this is Cestus.' 'You are required at the isolation chambers at once,' she said. 'For what reason, admiral?' Cestus replied, betraying his annoyance at the admiral's brevity. 'Lord Mhotep is awake.' ONCE CESTUS HAD left, Brynngar found a last barrel of Wulfsmeade and guzzled it down, foam and liquid lapping at his beard. He cared little for the revival of the Thousand Son and slumped back into melancholy, their passage through the warp affecting him more than he would admit. A haze overtook his vision and he could smell the scent of the cold and hear the lap of Fenrisian oceans. Brynngar wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and remembered standing atop a jagged glacier with nought but a flint knife and a loincloth to cover his dignity. This was not a punishment, he recalled, recognising the place from his past, it was a reward. Only the toughest Fenrisian youths were considered for the test. It was called the Blooding, but so rarely did a Space Wolf speak of it that it barely needed a name at all. Faced with the bleak white nightmare of the Fenrisian winter, Brynngar had found the bone of a long-dead ice predator and had fixed his knife to it to make a spear. He had stalked patiently, following the short-lived tracks of the prey-beast across the ice and tundra. When he had killed it, it had put up a mighty fight, because even the most docile of Fenrisian creatures were angry monsters. After consuming its flesh, he had skinned it, and worn the skin as a cloak as if part of the beast's essence lived on within him. Without its fur and flesh, he would have died during the first night. He had then sharpened its bones into more blades, in case he lost his knife. He wove a line from its tendons and made a hook from a tiny bone in its inner ear, using it to pull fish from the sea. He split its jawbone in two and carried it as a club. Brynngar trekked his way back towards the Fang, using faint glimpses of the winter sun to show him the way as he descended the glacier. Upon a rugged place of razor shards, the ice collapsed to pitch him into a sickle-tooth den. He fought his way free of the scaly predators with his jawbone club. Onwards he pressed, and a frost lynx ambushed him, but he wrestled the writhing feline to the ground and bit out its throat, saturating himself in gore. The journey was long. He had killed a skyblade hawk with a thrown bone knife. He had scaled mountains. When, finally, he saw the gates of the Fang ahead, Brynngar understood the lesson that the Blooding was supposed to teach him. It was not about survival, or fighting, or even the determination required of an Astartes. Any prospectiv

bone club. Onwards he pressed, and a frost lynx ambushed him, but he wrestled the writhing feline to the ground and bit out its throat, saturating himself in gore. The journey was long. He had killed a skyblade hawk with a thrown bone knife. He had scaled mountains. When, finally, he saw the gates of the Fang ahead, Brynngar understood the lesson that the Blooding was supposed to teach him. It was not about survival, or fighting, or even the determination required of an Astartes. Any prospective Space Wolf who made it to the Blooding had already shown that he had those skills and qualities. The Blooding's message was far harder to learn. 'We are all alone,' Brynngar muttered, having drained the last of the Wulfsmeade. Briefly, his mind wandered back to the Blooding. He remembered that an enormous, shaggy, black wolf had appeared on a crag overlooking the path he was to take. It had watched him for a long time, and he had known that it was a wulfen: the half-mythical predators said to be born from the earth of Fenris to winnow out the weak. The wulfen had not approached him, but Brynngar had felt its eyes watching him for days on end. He wondered if the creature's gaze had ever left him. The same wulfen was now sitting before him, regarding Brynngar with its black eyes. The Wolf Guard returned its gaze and saw his face mirrored in the beast's pupils. 'You're alone,' he said. 'We're pack animals all of us, but that's just... that's just on the surface. We cling to the pack because if we did not there would be no Legion. We are alone, all of us. There might as well be no one else on this bloody ship.' The Wulfen did not reply. 'Just you and me,' said Brynngar, huskily. The Wulfen shook itself, like a dog drying its fur. It growled powerfully and stood up on all fours. It was the size of a horse, its head level with the Space Wolf s. The Wulfen bowed down and picked something up off the floor with its jaws. With a flick of its head he threw it at Brynngar's feet. It was a bolt pistol. The grip was plated with shards of the bone knife that Brynngar had been carrying when he arrived at the Fang after his Blooding. His fishhook hung from the butt of the gun on a thong made from animal tendon. Skyblade talons and frost lynx teeth decorated the body of the weapon in an intricate mosaic depicting a black wolf against the whiteness of a Fenrisian winter. 'Ah,' said the Wolf Guard, picking the weapon up, 'that's where it got to.' FATE WAS A lattice of interconnecting strands of potential realities and possible futures. Eventualities flowed in bifurcating lines and paradoxes. Destiny was unfixed, existing purely as a series of outcomes, and even the most infinitesimal action had consequence and resonance. Mhotep regarded the myriad strands of fate in his mind. Focusing on the silence and solace of the isolation chamber, visions sprang unbidden to his mind. Glorious mountains of power rose up before him. Galaxies boiled away in the distance, points of burning light on an endless silver sky. Infinite layers of reality fell, each one teeming with life. Mhotep's concepts of history and humanity saw endless cities springing up like grass and withering away again to be replaced by spires greater than those on Prospero. Mhotep's memories flared up against the sky and became whole worlds. Subsumed completely within the meditative trance state, he saw the magnificence of the Emperor's Palace, its golden walls resplendent against the Terran sun. He saw the finery and gilded glory torn down, artistry and mosaic replaced by gunmetal steel. The palace became a fortress, cannons like black fingers pointing towards an enemy burning from the sky above. Driven earth and waves of blood tarnished its glory. Brother fought brother in their Legions and changeling beasts loped out of the dark at the behest of fell masters. War machines soared, their titanic presence blotting out the smoke-scarred sun. Thunder boomed and lightning split the blood-drenched sky as their weapons spoke. Laughter peeled across the heavens and the Emperor of Mankind looked skyward where shadows blackened the crimson horizon. Light, so bright that it burned Mhotep's irises, flared like the luminance of an exploding star. When he looked back, the battlefield was gone, the Emperor was gone. There was only the isolation chamber and the escaping resonance of purpose drifting out of Mhotep's consciousness. 'Greetings Cestus,' he said, noting the Ultramarine's presence in the room as he shrouded the disorientation and discomfort he felt after leaving the fate-trance. 'It is good to have you back with us, brother,' said Cestus, who had lingered at the threshold, but now stepped fully into the chamber to stand in front of his fellow Astartes. Mhotep turned to face the Ultramarine and gave a shallow bow. 'I see you still do not see fit to offer better accommodations.' Prior to the Thousand Son's revival, Cestus had ordered that as soon as he awoke and his vital signs were confirmed, Mhotep should be taken at once to the isolation chamber. There existed no doubt of his abilities. It meant that he had defied the edicts of Nikaea, and it meant that he had a connection to the warp. Whether it was one he could exploit or would need to sever, Cestus did not yet know. 'You come to learn of what I gleaned from Brother Ultis,' Mhotep stated, content to guide the conversation. The Ultramarine found his prescience unnerving. 'Don't worry, Cestus, I am not probing your mind,' added the Thousand Son, sensing his fellow Astartes' unease. 'What other possible reason could there be for you to have been summoned to my presence so urgently?' 'Ultis: that is his name?' 'Indeed,' Mhotep answered, parting the robes he wore to sit upon the bunk in the chamber. The Astartes armour had been removed during his time in the medi-bay. There it lay still, with the rest of the Thousand Son's accoutrements. Cestus noted, however, that Mhotep still wore the scarab earring, glinting in the depths of his cowl from the ambient light in the room, and remained hooded throughout the exchange. 'What else did you learn? What do the Word Bearers plan to do?' 'Formaska is where it begins,' Mhotep answered simply. Cestus made an incredulous face. 'The second moon of Macragge. It's a barren rock. There is nothing there.' 'On the contrary, Ultramarine,' countered Mhotep, lowering his head. 'Everything is on Formaska.' 'I don't understand,' said Cestus. Mhotep lifted his head. His eyes were alight with crimson flame. 'Then let me show you,' he said as Cestus recoiled, lunging forward to thrust his open palm against the Ultramarine's head. FIFTEEN Desecration Communion Visions of death SKRAAL SURGED THROUGH the dark and the heat, rising now, exploiting conduits and pipes and using any means he could to secrete his ascent up the decks of the Furious Abyss. Finally he arrived, incredulously, at the place where weeks before he had fled, leaving Antiges to his death. He had returned to the temple. Skraal found that Antiges remained, too. Dismembered in his armour, the dark blue of the ceramite almost hidden by the red sheen of blood, the World Eater could only tell it was Antiges by his Chapter symbols. Little more than a collection of body parts existed now. What lay before him on a pall, attended by silent acolytes could barely be considered a corpse. Antiges's head was missing. Skraal had heard of the inhabitants of feral worlds who dismembered their foes or sacrificed humans to their heathen gods. The World Eaters had their own warrior traditions, most of them bloody, but nothing to compare to the religious mutilation he had seen among the savages. To see Astartes, especially the self-righteously sophisticated Word Bearers, doing thus, shocked Skraal as much as the moment that the Furious Abyss had turned on the Imperial fleet. The galaxy was changing very quickly. The words of Zadkiel, spoken so many days ago in the gallery, echoed back at him. The World Eater shrank deeper into the shadows as he saw Astartes entering the chamber. One, the warrior he had fought earlier in the temple during his escape, he recognised. It was not with a little satisfaction that he saw the metal artifice attached to the Word Bearer's face where Skraal had broken his jaw and shattered his cheekbone. A darkly-armoured chaplain accompanied the warrior, Reskiel. One of the demagogues of the Legion, the chaplain wore a skull-faced battle helm with conjoined rebreather apparatus worked into the gorget and carried a crozius, the icon of his office. Silently, Reskiel gave the acolytes orders. As if understanding on some instinctive level, they bowed curtly and proceeded to lift what was left of Antiges on a steel pall. Together, they raised him up onto their shoulders and, led by the chaplain, left the room. Reskiel lingered in their wake, probing the shadows and, for a brief moment, Skraal thought he was discovered, but the Word Bearer turned eventually and followed the macabre procession. Loosening the grip on his chainaxe, the World Eater went after them. Tailing the enemy at a discrete distance, Skraal was led down a pathway lined with statues that flowed towards what he assumed was the prow of the ship. He had previously steered clear of the vessel's forward sections, preferring to hide himself in the industrial tangle of the stern-ward engine decks, but a greater understanding of his enemy was worth the risk. Continuing his pursuit, the World Eater found himself in darkness, lit only by candles mounted in alcoves. Watching intently, Skraal witnessed the pallbearers saying a prayer at a set of blast doors - the exact words were indiscernible, but their reverence was obvious - before continuing into a dim chamber beyond. Using the shadows like a concealing cloak, Skraal moved into the room. As he got further inside, he realised that it was an anatomy theatre. A surgeon's slab dominated the centre o

. Continuing his pursuit, the World Eater found himself in darkness, lit only by candles mounted in alcoves. Watching intently, Skraal witnessed the pallbearers saying a prayer at a set of blast doors - the exact words were indiscernible, but their reverence was obvious - before continuing into a dim chamber beyond. Using the shadows like a concealing cloak, Skraal moved into the room. As he got further inside, he realised that it was an anatomy theatre. A surgeon's slab dominated the centre of the room, surrounded by circular tiers of seating, though they were not occupied. Whatever ritual or experiment was to be performed here was a clandestine one. The chaplain, the vestments he wore across his armour fringed with black trim, beckoned the acolytes forward. The debased creatures, hunch-backed and robed, slunk to the table as one. Sibilant emanations pierced the silence softly as they took the disparate sections of Antiges's corpse and laid them out on the slab. Obscene and profane, the gorge in Skraal's throat rose and his anger swelled at the sight of the act. Taken apart like that: it was as if Antiges was no more than a machine to be stripped down or meat cleaved at the butcher's block. Coldness smothered the anger and bile within Skraal, as if his blood had been drained away and replaced with ice. It was as if a film of dirt overlaid him, and choked him all at once. Skraal had done terrible things. At the Sack of Scholamgrad and the burning of the Ethellion Fleet, innocents had died. Even at Bakka Triumveron, he had killed in cold blood for the sake of slaking his thirst for carnage, but this was different. It was calculated and precise, the systematic and ritual dismemberment of another Astartes so invasive, so fundamentally destructive that his essence was forever lost. There would be no honours for him, no clean death on the field of battle as it should be for all warriors; there was dignity in that. No, this was an aberration, soulless and terrible. To think of a fellow Astartes being so shamed and by one of his battle-brothers.. . it took all of Skraal's resolve not to wade in and kill them all for such defilement. Stepping forward, the chaplain approached the table, the acolytes retreating obsequiously as he picked up one of Antiges's arms to inspect it. 'There is no head?' he asked, setting the limb back down as he turned to his fellow Word Bearer. 'Wsoric required it,' replied Reskiel. 'I see, and now our omniscient lord would have us yoke this body for further favours of the warp.' There was an almost contemptuous tone to the chaplain's words. 'You speak out of turn, Ikthalon,' Reskiel snapped. 'You would do well to remember who is master aboard this ship.' 'Be still, sycophant.' The chaplain, Ikthalon, fashioned his retort into a snarl. 'Your allegiance is well known to all, as is your ambition.' Reskiel moved to respond, but was cut off. 'Hold your tongue! Think on the fate of those left at Bakka Triumveron. Think of Ultis before you speak of whom is master. In this place,' he said, spreading his arms to encompass the macabre surgery, 'you supplicate yourself to me. Zadkiel's wizened astropath has had his turn and sealed the pact with Wsoric, now I will divine what I can from what remains. Speak no further. I have need to concentrate, and you try my patience, Reskiel.' The other Word Bearer, cowed by the tirade, retreated back into the shadows to let the chaplain work. Skraal kept watching with abhorred satisfaction, but was intrigued by the obvious dissension within the Word Bearers' ranks. 'Warrior's hands,' said Ikthalon, gauntleted fingers tracing Antiges's palm as he resumed his morbid examination, 'strong and instinctive, but I will need more.' The chaplain gestured at the former Ultramarine's torso. 'Open it.' One of the acolytes took a las-cutter from beneath the slab and sheared through the front of Antiges's breastplate. The gilded decoration split off from the ceramite and clattered to the floor. The Word Bearers ignored it. Once the acolyte with the cutter retreated, Ikthalon inserted his fingers into the cut. With a grunt of effort, he forced the Ultramarine's chest open. The complex mass of an Astartes's organs was exposed. Skraal could make out the two hearts and third lung, together with the reverse of the bony breastplate that fused from every Astartes's ribs. The chaplain dug a hand into the gory dark and extracted an organ. It looked like the oolitic kidney, or perhaps the omophagaea. Ikthalon regarded it coolly, putting the organ down and yanking out a handful of entrails. He cast them across the slab, and stood for a long time peering into the loops of tissue and sprays of blood. 'Macragge suspects nothing,' he hissed, discerning meaning from the act. Running a finger through the bloody miasma, he added. 'Here, that's our route. It lies open to us.' 'What of Calth?' Reskiel asked from the darkness. 'That is unclear,' Ikthalon replied. 'Kor Phaeron has no obstacles, save any he makes for himself.' The chaplain peered into Antiges's open chest again. 'There is veining on the third lung. Guilliman is represented there as just a man. Not a primarch, just a man ignorant of his fate.' Ikthalon's voice dripped with malice. The chaplain looked further, his gaze lingering for a moment on one of Antiges's hearts before his head snapped up quickly. 'We are not alone,' he snarled. Reskiel's bolter swung up in readiness and he barked into the transponder in his gorget. 'In the anatomy theatre, now!' A troop of four Word Bearers barged into the room, weapons drawn. 'Spread out,' Reskiel bellowed. 'Find him!' Skraal backed out of the chamber. He forged back the way he had come and split off from the candlelit path, kicking open a maintenance hatch and dropping into a tangle of wiring and circuitry. He stormed ahead, relying on the ship to hide him for a little longer. He wanted to feel rage, and be comforted by it, but he couldn't reach it. He felt numb. VISIONS RACED INTO Cestus's mind as he felt all of tangible reality fall away around him. At once, he was suspended in the depths of real space. Formaska rolled beneath, its laborious orbit somehow visible. Silvered torpedoes struck suddenly against its surface at strategic points across the moon. Miniature detonations were discernible as a slow shockwave resonated over it in ripples of destructive force. Cestus saw tiny fractures in the outer crust, magnifying with each passing second into massive fissures that yawned like jagged mouths. Formaska glowed and pulsed as if it were a throbbing heart giving out its last, inexorable beat. The moon exploded. Debris cascaded outwards in shuddering waves, miniscule asteroids burning up in the atmosphere of nearby Macragge. A fleet suspended in the planet's upper atmosphere was destroyed. Impossibly, Cestus heard the screams of his home world's inhabitants below as the detritus of Formaska's death rained upon them in super-heated waves of rock. Something moved in the debris field, shielded from the thundering defence lasers of Macragge's surface. Getting ever closer, the dark shape breached the planet's atmosphere. The vision shifted to the industrial hive of the cities. A cloud of gas boiled along the streets, engulfing the screaming populous. The image changed again, depicting other ships, great vessels of the Crusade, held in orbit at Calth hit by an errant meteor storm. Cestus watched in horror as they broke up against the onslaught, the stylised 'U' of his Legion immolated in flame. The meteor shower struck Calth, forcing its way through the planet's atmosphere to where his battle-brothers mustered below. Cestus roared in anguish, furious at his impotence, screaming a desperate warning that his brothers and his primarch would never hear. The scene changed once more as the void of real space became metal. As if propelled at subsonic speed, Cestus flew through the tunnels and chambers of a ship. Through conducts, across heaving generators, beyond the fire of immense plasma-driven engines, he came at last to an ordnance deck. There, sitting innocuously amongst the other munitions, was a lethal payload. Though he could not explain how, he knew it at once to be a viral torpedo and the effective death warrant of Macragge. World killer. The words resolved themselves in the Ultramarine's mind, taunting him, goading him. Cestus railed against the sense of doom, the fathomless despair they evoked. He bellowed loud and hard, the only name he could think of to repel it. 'Guilliman!' Cestus was back in the isolation chamber. He saw Mhotep sitting across from him. The Thousand Son's face was haggard and covered in a sheen of sweat. Cestus staggered backwards as recall returned, wrenching his bolt pistol from its holster with difficultly and pointing it waveringly at Mhotep. 'What did you do to me?' he hissed, shaking his head in an effort to banish the lingering images and sensations. 'I showed you the truth,' Mhotep gasped, breathing raggedly as he propped himself up against the wall of the cell, 'by sharing my memories, the memories of Ultis, with you. It is no different to the omophagea, though the absorption of memory is conducted psychically and not biologically,' he pleaded. Cestus kept his aim on the Thousand Son. 'Was it real?' he asked. 'What I witnessed, was it real?' he demanded, stowing the bolt pistol in favour of grabbing Mhotep by the throat. 'Yes,' the Thousand Son spat through choking breaths. Cestus held him there for a moment longer, thinking that he might crush the life out of the fellow Astartes. Exhaling deeply, Cestus let Mhotep go. The Thousand Son doubled over coughing as he gasped for breath and rubbed his throat. 'They do not plan to attack Calth, or destroy Macragge. They want to conquer them both and bring the Legion to heel or vanquish it if it does not yield,' said Cestus, his thoughts and fears coming out in a flood. Mhotep

housand Son spat through choking breaths. Cestus held him there for a moment longer, thinking that he might crush the life out of the fellow Astartes. Exhaling deeply, Cestus let Mhotep go. The Thousand Son doubled over coughing as he gasped for breath and rubbed his throat. 'They do not plan to attack Calth, or destroy Macragge. They want to conquer them both and bring the Legion to heel or vanquish it if it does not yield,' said Cestus, his thoughts and fears coming out in a flood. Mhotep looked up at the frantic Ultramarine, and nodded. 'And the destruction of Formaska is where it will begin.' 'The ship,' Cestus ventured, beginning to calm down. 'That was the Furious Abyss, wasn't it? And the viral pay-load is the method of extermination for the people of Macragge.' 'You have seen what I saw, and what Ultis knew,' Mhotep confirmed, regaining his composure and sitting up. Cestus's gaze was distant as he struggled to process everything he'd learned, together with resisting the urge to vomit against the invasive psychic experience. He looked back at Mhotep, a suspicious cast to his eyes and face. 'Why are you here, Mhotep? I mean, why are you really here?' The Thousand Son gazed back for a moment and then withdrew his hood and sighed deeply. 'I have seen the lines of fate, Ultramarine. I knew long before we made contact with the Furious Abyss, back when we were on Vangelis, that my destiny lay with this ship, that this mission, your mission, was important. 'My Legion is cursed with psychic mutation, but my lord Magnus taught us to harness it, to commune with the warp and fashion that communion into true power.' Mhotep ignored the growing revulsion in Cestus's face as he spoke of the empyrean, and went on. 'Nikaea was no council, Ultramarine. It was a trial, not only of my lord Magnus but of the entire Thousand Sons Legion. The Emperor's edict wounded him, like a father's disapproval and chastisement would wound any child. 'What I told you at Vangelis, that I sought to improve the reputation of my Legion, in the eyes of the sons of Guilliman if no other, was in part true. I desire only to open your eyes to the potential of the psychic and how it is a boon, a ready weapon to use against our enemies.' Cestus's expression was stern in the face of Mhotep's impassioned arguments. 'You saved us all in the lance deck,' said the Ultramarine. 'You probably did the same when we fought what became of the Fireblade. But, your ambition overreaches you, Mhotep. I have stayed Brynngar's hand, but from this point on you will remain here in isolation. If we are successful and can reach Macragge or some other Imperial stronghold, you will face trial and there, your fate will be decided.' Cestus got to his feet and turned. As he was about to leave the room, he paused. 'If you ever invade my mind like that again, I will execute you myself,' he added and left, the cell door sliding shut behind him. 'How narrow your mind is,' Mhotep hissed, focusing at once on the reflective sheen of the cell wall. 'How ignorant you are of what is to come.' SIXTEEN Fleet Kor Phaeron A storm breaks 'THAT,' SAID ORCADUS, 'is Macragge.' The Navigator had received instructions from his admiral that whilst they were still in the warp he should make regular reports of their progress. The appearance of the Ultramarines' home world, albeit through the misted lens of the empyrean, was worthy of note and so he had summoned her. The observation blister was a chamber on the same deck of the Wrathful as the bridge and within walking distance. The room was usually reserved for formal gatherings, when officers came together to formalise some business within the Saturnine Fleet. Its grand transparent dome afforded a view of space that lent gravitas to the matters at hand. In the warp, of course, it was strictly off-limits and its eye was kept permanently closed. The eye was open, but the dome was masked with heavy filters that kept all but the most mundane wavelengths of light out of the blister. Admiral Kaminska faced away from the Navigator and actually followed Orcadus's gaze through a mirror screen that offered a hazy representation of what he was seeing. To look at the warp, even filtered as it was, would be incredibly dangerous for her. 'If you could see it as I can,' Orcadus hissed, allowing a reverent tone to colour his voice. 'What wonders there are out in the void. There is beauty in the galaxy, for those who can but see it.' 'I'm happy staying blind,' said Kaminska. The view through the filters and reflected by the mirror screen was heavily distorted, but she could make out a crescent-shaped mass of light hanging over the ship. Though she had no frame of reference, she had an impression of enormous distance. 'Macragge,' muttered Orcadus. 'See how it glows, the brightest constellation in this depth of the abyss? All those hard-working souls toiling at its surface; their combined life-spark is refulgent to my eyes. Ultramar is the most heavily populated system in the whole segmentum and the minds of its citizens are bright and full of hope. That is what I mean by beauty. It is a beacon, one that shines amidst the malice and bleakness of the empyrean tide.' Kaminska continued to regard the dim mirror image of the warp through the minute aperture offered by the filters. Old space-farers' tales were full of the effects the naked warp could have on a human mind. Madness was the most merciful fate, they said: mutation, excruciating spontaneous cancers and even possession by some malfeasant presence all featured prominently. Kaminska felt a flicker of vulnerability, and was glad that only the Navigator was there with her. 'Is this why you summoned me?' she asked, having little time or inclination for a philosophical debate concerning the immaterium. Her mind was on other matters, namely the sudden revival of Mhotep and Cestus's meeting with the Thousand Son. She hoped it would yield some good news. 'No,' Orcadus answered simply, puncturing the admiral's introspection, and pointing to a different region of the warp. It was a dim mass of glowing bluffs, like the top of endless cliffs reaching down into blackness. Above the cliffs was a streak of red. 'I am not well-versed in reading the empyrean tides, Navigator,' she snapped, weary of Orcadus's eccentricities, which were ubiquitous amongst all the great Navigator houses. 'What am I looking at?' 'Formations like these cliffs are common enough in the abyss,' he explained, oblivious to Kaminska's impatience. 'I am steering us well clear of them, and I am certain that our quarry has taken the same route. The formation above them, however, is rather more troubling.' 'Another world, perhaps?' ventured Kaminska. 'There's plenty of new settlement out here near the fringe.' 'I suspected that, but it is not a planet. I believe it is another ship.' 'A second vessel?' 'No. I think it is a fleet.' 'Are they following us?' asked Kaminska, a knot of dread building in her stomach. 'I cannot tell. Distance is relative down here,' the Navigator admitted. 'Could it be the Ultramarines? Their Legion was heading for Calth.' 'It is possible. Calth could be its destination, I suppose.' 'If not, then what is the alternative, Navigator?' Kaminska didn't like where this was going as the knot in her stomach became a fist. 'It could be another Legion fleet,' said Orcadus, leaving the implication hanging. 'You mean more Word Bearers.' 'Yes,' the Navigator confirmed after a moment's pause. LORD KOR PHAERON of the Word Bearers scowled. 'He's behind schedule,' he said. Aboard the Infidus Imperator he and his warriors made their inexorable course towards Ultramar, the great flagship leading the dread fleet of battleships, cruisers, escorts and frigates towards their destiny. The arch commander of the Legion, favoured of Lorgar, was immense in his panoply of war. Seated upon a throne of black iron, he towered like an all-powerful tyrant, the surveyor of all his deadly works. Votive chains, festooned with tiny silver skulls, and icons of dedication, arched from his shoulder pads to his cuirass. A spiked halo of iron arced across his mighty shoulders, fixed to his armoured backpack. The stout metal gorget fixed around his neck was forged into a high and imperious collar that bore the symbol of the Legion. The tenets of it were etched ostensibly across every surface of Kor Phaeron's armour in the epistles of Lorgar. Parchments unfurled like ragged, script-ridden pennants from studded pauldrons; seals and scraps of vellum covered his leg greaves like patchwork. In the eyes of the arch-commander there burned a relentless fervour that flowed outwards and ignited the room. It was almost as if any who fell beneath his glowering gaze would be immolated in righteous fire should they be found wanting. His voice was dominance and zeal, his Word the dictate of the primarch. This would be his finest hour, as it was written. Six Chapter Masters of the Word Bearers stood behind Kor Phaeron, each resplendent in their respective panoplies. They still managed to fill the immense council chamber of the Infidus Imperator with their presence. Above them curved a great domed roof hung with smoking censers. The floor was a giant viewscreen, showing a stellar map of the space surrounding Ultramar. 'Our most recent reports indicate that Zadkiel was being followed,' said Faerskarel, Master of the Chapter of the Opening Eye. 'It is possible that he is just showing caution.' 'He has the Furious Abyss,' roared Kor Phaeron. 'He should have been able to see off anything that stood in his way. Zadkiel had better know the consequences for us all if we fail.' Deinos, Master of the Burning Hand Chapter, stepped forwards. 'Lorgar shows Admiral Zadkiel all honour,' he said. In keeping with the name of his Chapter, Deinos's gauntlets were permanently wreathed in flames from gas jets built into his vambraces. 'It was written that we

ossible that he is just showing caution.' 'He has the Furious Abyss,' roared Kor Phaeron. 'He should have been able to see off anything that stood in his way. Zadkiel had better know the consequences for us all if we fail.' Deinos, Master of the Burning Hand Chapter, stepped forwards. 'Lorgar shows Admiral Zadkiel all honour,' he said. In keeping with the name of his Chapter, Deinos's gauntlets were permanently wreathed in flames from gas jets built into his vambraces. 'It was written that we will succeed.' 'Not,' said Kor Phaeron, measuredly, 'that we will do so without great loss. Calth will fall and the Ultramarines with it, that is already decided, but there is plenty of scope for our Legion to lose a great many brothers, and we certainly shall if Zadkiel cannot fulfil his mission.' 'My lord, surely Zadkiel makes his own fate? We should be minded only with the progress of our own fleet.' It was Rukis, the Master of the Crimson Mask Chapter, who spoke. The faceplate of his helmet was wrought to resemble a fearsome red-skinned snarling creature. 'I will not allow our brother to fail us,' hissed Kor Phaeron, intent on the stellar map and the alleged progress of the Furious Abyss. 'I had not wanted to use my hand in this matter, but it seems that circumstances allow no other recourse. Much is written of Zadkiel's success and its bearing upon our own. To prosecute the war on Calth, we must risk nothing. Is that understood?' The Chapter Masters' silence constituted their agreement. Skolinthos, Master of the Ebony Serpent Chapter, broke the quietude once his assent and that of his brothers was clear. Skolinthos's oesophagus had been crushed in the early years of the Great Crusade when it was the Emperor whom the Word Bearers vaunted above all others. His voice crackled sibilantly through a vocal synthesiser on his chest, the honorific of his Chapter somehow perversely apt given his affliction. 'Then how might we assist the admiral?' 'There are still words newly written,' said Kor Phaeron, 'that you do not know of. They concern the warp through which we travel. We can reach Zadkiel even though the Furious Abyss lies many days ahead of us. Master Tenaebron?' Chapter Master Tenaebron bowed in supplication behind his lord. The Chapter of the Void was probably the least respected among the Word Bearers Legion for it was by far the smallest, with less than seven hundred Astartes. There was little glory in its history, used moreover as a reserve force that enacted its missions behind the front line. This grim, dishonourable purpose fell to the Void and Tenaebron, their master, did not complain, for he knew that his Chapter's true role was to create and test new weapons and tactics for the rest of the Legion. It had not gone unnoticed that Lorgar's most recent orders to Tenaebron had concerned the exploitation of the Word Bearers' psychic resources. 'I trust you will require the use of the supplicants?' said Tenaebron. 'How many remain?' asked Kor Phaeron, votive chains jangling as he shifted in his throne. 'One hundred and thirty, my lord,' Tenaebron replied. 'Seventy here on the Infidus, thirty on the Camomancer and the remainder are spread throughout the fleet. I have ensured they are kept in a state of readiness; they can be awakened within the hour.' 'Get them ready,' Kor Phaeron ordered. 'How many can we afford to lose?' 'More than half would compromise the masking of the Calth assault,' Tenaebron answered humbly. 'Then be prepared to lose them.' 'Understood, my lord. What will you have them do?' Kor Phaeron cracked his knuckles in annoyance. There could be no doubt that he had hoped everything would go more smoothly than this. Zadkiel's mission was supposedly easy. The assault on Calth would be far more complex, with much more to go wrong. If Zadkiel could not fulfil his written role, then the problems at Calth would be magnified greatly. 'Give me a storm,' said the arch-commander, darkly. TENAEBRON LED KOR Phaeron down into the supplicant chambers of the Infidus Imperator. The arch-commander had since dismissed the other masters to their respective duties, ignoring their obvious surprise at his bold stratagem. The Infidus Imperator was a great and mighty flagship that almost rivalled the immensity of the Furious Abyss. It took some time to traverse the proving grounds and ritual chambers, the ranks of Word Bearers honing their battle-skills with bolter and blade in the arenas. Down here, upon every surface, the Word was ubiquitous. Sentences inscribed on bulkheads and support ribs, tomes penned by Lorgar on pulpits overlooking halls and seminary chapels, libraries of lore, the vessel was drenched in the primarch's wisdom and zealotry. The ship had once been known as the Raptorous Rex, a vessel devoted to the Emperor, who had plucked Lorgar from Colchis and placed the Word Bearers at his command. It was a temple to another, more willing and appreciative idol now, the False Emperor of Mankind having been stricken from its corridors. Tenaebron reached the narrow, high chamber, like a steel canyon, where the supplicants resided. Held in glass blisters on the walls, each served by a bulky life support system feeding oxygen and nutrients, the supplicants slumbered. Curled up and naked, twitching with the force of the power held in their swollen, lacerated craniums it looked like they were dreaming. Their eyes and mouths had grown shut. Some had no facial features at all, their bodies abandoning the need to breathe, eat or experience externally. A trio of Word Bearers Librarians saluted their Chapter Master as Tenaebron examined the vital-signs on a pict screen, slaved to the individual life supports, in the centre of the room. The Librarians bowed deeply as Kor Phaeron walked in, and genuflected silently before him. 'Rise,' he intoned, and the Librarians obeyed. 'Is everything in preparation?' he asked, directing the question at the Chapter Master. Tenaebron consulted the data on the pict screen, turned to his lord and nodded. 'Marshal the storm,' he growled. 'Let them be broken by its wrath.' The Chapter Master nodded again, and proceeded to order his Librarians to activate the cogitators hooked up to the supplicants' blisters. Kor Phaeron left Tenaebron to his duties without further word. Up on the walls the supplicants stirred, as if the dream had become a nightmare. ZADKIEL ARRIVED ON the bridge as the storm broke. The vista below him was bathed in strobing hazard lights as if lashed by lightning. Complicated symbolic maps of the warp shone on the three main viewscreens and indicated that it was in violent flux. Bridge crew, Helmsmaster Sarkorov barking orders at them, bent over their picters, faces picked out in the green glow of reams of scrolling data. 'The warp rebels!' hissed Zadkiel. 'Perhaps not,' muttered Ikthalon. The chaplain, having left Reskiel to his pursuit of their stowaway, had been summoned to the bridge and stood alongside the command throne. The supplicants were recently animated. It was probably a foreshadowing of the empyrean's current state of turmoil. 'I believe that a higher purpose is at work. Confidence, it seems, in our ability to prosecute this mission, is waning.' Ikthalon was careful to keep the barb well-hidden, but the implication at Zadkiel's ineptitude was still there. The admiral ignored it. The warp storm, and its origin, was of greater concern to him at that moment 'Kor Phaeron?' he wondered. 'I can think of no other, save our arch lord, who would intercede on our behalf.' Zadkiel sneered as another thought occurred to him. 'It is Tenaebron, no doubt, trying to claim for the Chapter of the Void that which belongs to the Quill.' 'He is ever ambitious,' Ikthalon agreed, keeping his voice level. Zadkiel assumed his position on the command throne. 'It would be rude,' Zadkiel sneered, 'to deny Tenaebron his sliver of victory. It will be eclipsed utterly by our own. Helmsmaster Sarkorov,' he snapped, 'press on for Macragge. Let the warp take the Wrathful.' CESTUS WAS THROWN against the wall as the Wrathful shuddered violently. He was heading back to the bridge in order to convene with Kaminska and the remaining Astartes when the storm wave hit. Debris was flung throughout the corridors, medi-bays were in disarray as desperate orderlies fought to hang on to the wounded, armsmen were smashed against bulkheads and ratings fell to their deaths as the Wrathful pitched and yawed. A terrible metallic moaning came from the engine sections as the ship fought to right itself. Cestus could feel the structure flexing and straining through the floor, as if the vessel was on the verge of snapping in two under the strain. The Ultramarine made his way through the mayhem until he reached the bridge, blast doors opening to allow him access. The crew clung to their posts, Helmsmistress Venkmyer issuing frantic orders set against the unearthly calm of servitors running through their emergency protocols. Drenched in crimson gloom from vermillion alert status, the bridge looked bloody in the half-light. 'Navigator Orcadus, report!' snapped Kaminska, gripping the sides of her command position as the shaking Wrathful threatened to dethrone her. 'A storm,' Orcadus's voice said over the bridge vox-caster, the Navigator sounding strained, 'came out of nowhere.' 'Evade it,' ordered Kaminska. 'Admiral, we are already in it!' replied the Navigator. 'Damage control to your posts!' bellowed Kaminska. 'Close off the reactor sections and clear the gun decks.' Cestus reached the admiral. 'This is the Word Bearers' doing,' he shouted against the din of warning sirens and frantic reports from the crew. Another wave slammed into the Wrathful. Bursting pipes vented vapour and gas. Crewmen were thrown off their feet. A viewscreen was sheared off its moorings and fell in a shower of sparks and shattered glass, landing in the middle of the bridge. 'Orcadus, can we ride it out?' a

bellowed Kaminska. 'Close off the reactor sections and clear the gun decks.' Cestus reached the admiral. 'This is the Word Bearers' doing,' he shouted against the din of warning sirens and frantic reports from the crew. Another wave slammed into the Wrathful. Bursting pipes vented vapour and gas. Crewmen were thrown off their feet. A viewscreen was sheared off its moorings and fell in a shower of sparks and shattered glass, landing in the middle of the bridge. 'Orcadus, can we ride it out?' asked Kaminska, her eyes on the Ultramarine. 'I see no end to it, admiral.' 'Captain Cestus?' she asked of the Astartes. 'If we drift here and ride it out, the Furious Abyss escapes,' Cestus confirmed. 'There is no choice left to us but to drive through it.' Kaminska nodded grimly. If they failed it would mean the destruction of the ship and the deaths of over ten thousand crew. Her order would condemn them all to their fates. 'Engage the engines to full power!' she ordered. 'Let's break this storm's back!' she snarled with fire in her eyes. 'We'll teach the warp to fear us!' FROM WITHIN THE confines of the isolation cell, Mhotep could hear the anarchy outside. He ignored it, poring over the reflective sheen of the polished gunmetal walls instead. A window of fate opened up to him as he channelled his powers. Panic reigned on the Wrathful. He saw fire, men and women burning, thousands sacrificed upon the altar of hopeful victory. They became ghosts in his mind's eye, their penitent souls devoured hungrily by the warp and scattered into atoms until only residue remained. Death awaited on this ship: his death. The certainty of that fact instilled calm in him rather than fear. His place amongst the myriad strands of fate was fixed. The vista changed and Mhotep's mind ranged beyond the Wrathful and into the churning abyss. The Furious Abyss loomed through the haze of resolution as a new scene presented itself. The vessel was immense, like a city laid on its side and falling towards the Wrathful. Thousands of gun ports opened up like mouths, the primed, glowing barrels of magna-lasers and cannon like tongues ready to roar. The Furious Abyss was utterly hideous, a monstrosity of dark crimson steel, and yet the beauty of its majesty overcame any aesthetic offence. Mhotep drifted further across the gulf, through ersatz reality. As his mind expanded, he could taste the warp, the endless flavours, sounds and sensations of the abyss, calling to him. Probing tendrils pricked at his sanity and the Thousand Son attempted to disengage. He couldn't, and panic rushed into him like a flood. Mhotep mastered it quickly, recognising at once that he was in peril. The warp had seen him and it sought to drive his mind asunder. It showed him visions of destruction, the spires of Prospero aflame and his Legion cast into the warp. In another vista, he knelt before a throne of black iron in supplication before the icon of the Word Bearers. Screams filled his ears, together with the howling of wolves. Mhotep clawed back some semblance of control. He fashioned the image of a cyclopean eye in his mind. It glowed with scarlet radiance, and, as if following a beacon to safe harbour, Mhotep used it to guide himself away from the clutches of the empyrean. He emerged at last, drained of all will, of all strength and collapsed to the floor of the cell. The metal was cool against his cheek. Though hard and unyielding, it was the most invigorating salve he had ever felt. He had resisted, though the lines of fate had been laid open to him. Mhotep knew, as he slipped into unconsciousness, what the visions had been about. It was not a lure into madness; it was something far more sinister and invasive. It was temptation. 'THEY ARE LOST,' said Zadkiel, smiling with malice. He looked up at the centre viewscreen, showing little emotion as alarming numbers scrolled past the symbol representing the Wrathful. He looked more thoughtful than triumphant. 'Do we have any readings from their engines? Are they still void-worthy?' 'No readings,' Sarkorov replied. 'The storm is too strong.' 'I have seen enough,' Zadkiel said, his response was curt. 'Continue at all speed.' 'You won't wait until we are certain of the Wrathful's destruction?' counselled Ikthalon, a sliver of doubt evident in his voice at Zadkiel's order. 'No, I will not,' answered the admiral. 'Our mission is to reach Macragge in time for Kor Phaeron's assault. I cannot tarry here in order to make certain of what is inevitable. We need to be out of this region and back on our way. Return to your chambers, chaplain. Have the supplicants watch for the Wrathful's death throes. Even in a warp storm such as this, that many deaths should make some ripple.' 'As you wish, my lord.' Ikthalon bowed and left the bridge. The Furious Abyss resumed its former heading in short order. Kor Phaeron's plan had worked in so far as they were undamaged by the storm. Whether it had also put paid to the Wrathful did not concern the admiral. A petty creature might have been angry at his lord's meddling, but Zadkiel was sanguine. Let lesser minds worry on such things. The Word would play out as written. Nothing else mattered. SEVENTEEN Strategy Out of the warp Formaska in sight CESTUS TURNED HIS head away as the warp glared against the Wrathful's port side. The force of it shone through the metal of the ship's hull, as if the Wrathful was made of paper, transparent against the light of the abyss. Cestus heard screams and laughter as men's minds were stripped away by it. He threw himself against the housing of a torpedo tube entrance, willing himself not to look. Saphrax and Brother Excelinor were beside him and they too averted their gaze. Cestus had left the bridge almost as soon as he'd arrived. He'd gathered his fellow Ultramarines to patrol the corridors, knowing full well what awaited them and the crew of the Wrathful. Two teams of what was left of the honour guard and Brynngar's wolves moved through the decks and corridors in an effort to steel resolve, and snuff out manifesting psychosis wherever they found it. Cestus hoped the presence of the Astartes would be enough. The need for them to be the Angels of the Emperor was greater than any other. 'It is as if the warp is at their very beck and call,' bellowed Excelinor, his voice tinny through his Corvus-pattern nose cone. Cestus did not reply, for he knew of the terrible truth of his battle-brother's words. Moving defiantly down the corridor, the infernal light of the empyrean was scarlet through his eyelids. Silhouettes of bodies fell in the blazing vista; men and women fell to their knees, weeping and screaming; a gunshot rang out as an officer turned his sidearm on himself. The sound of a female voice was contiguous with it, reciting paragraphs from the Saturnine Fleet's rules and regulations in an effort to stave off the madness. Visions forced their way into the Ultramarine's mind; the beneficent Emperor, mighty upon his golden throne and the majesty of the Imperial Palace, and Terra, the beacon of enlightenment in a galaxy surrounded by darkness. Then he saw it burning, continents peeling off and red gouts of magma boiling away into space. He was an Astartes. He was stronger than this. 'Do not give in to madness,' he cried aloud to all who could still listen. 'Hold on and heed the Imperial Truth.' For a brief moment, it looked like that the warp would engulf them, but then the visions melted away and the screaming ebbed and died. The ship was still again. The Wrathful had emerged on the other side. Cestus breathed hard as the blazing light diminished, leaving a painful afterglow. He adjusted quickly and opened his eyes to see that his brothers were still with him. The shadows came back, too, swallowing the dead. The Ultramarine nodded slowly to Saphrax and Excelinor and opened up communications through his gorget as he surveyed the carnage around him. 'Admiral, are you still with us?' There was a pause before the vox-link crackled and Kaminska's voice replied. 'We are through the storm,' she said, similarly breathless. 'Your plan was successful.' 'Medical teams are required at my location as well as fleet morticians,' Cestus informed her. 'Very well.' 'Admiral,' Cestus added, 'as soon as recovery is underway, I request your presence in the conference chamber.' 'Of course, my lord. I shall be there momentarily. Kaminska out.' HALF AN HOUR later, when the crews began to organise themselves into shifts to recover the bodies and the wounded, Kaminska had Helmsmistress Venkmyer tour the worst-hit sections of the ship and make a report of their losses. In normal circumstances, Kaminska would have done this herself, demonstrating to the crew that their leader cared about the deaths and the terrible tragedy that had befallen them. More urgent matters pressed for her attention, however, and she was not about to ignore the request of an Astartes. So, she had made her way to the conference chamber as bidden. Within, the remaining Astartes force awaited her. 'Welcome, admiral,' said Cestus, standing at the edge of the oval table with Saphrax to his right and his other battle-brothers arrayed around him. The Space Wolf, Brynngar, sat opposite with his warriors, but did not acknowledge the admiral's arrival. 'Please sit,' the Ultramarine captain said sternly, despite trying to soften his mood with a small smile. Now the council was assembled, Cestus surveyed the room, looking into the eyes of each person present. 'It is beyond all doubt,' he began, 'that the Word Bearers are in league with the warp. They are utterly lost.' Hardened faces returned his gaze as the Ultramarine articulated what they already knew in their hearts. 'With such dark allies at their disposal, together with the Furious Abyss, they are a formidable opponent,' Cestus continued, 'but we have a slim hope. I have discovered the nature of the Word Bearers' plan and how it

urveyed the room, looking into the eyes of each person present. 'It is beyond all doubt,' he began, 'that the Word Bearers are in league with the warp. They are utterly lost.' Hardened faces returned his gaze as the Ultramarine articulated what they already knew in their hearts. 'With such dark allies at their disposal, together with the Furious Abyss, they are a formidable opponent,' Cestus continued, 'but we have a slim hope. I have discovered the nature of the Word Bearers' plan and how it is to be employed.' Brynngar twitched at the remark. The Space Wolf clearly knew of the methods that the Ultramarine had used to discover the information they needed. He also knew of Mhotep's subsequent revival. The absence of the Thousand Son from the conference spoke volumes as to his demeanour on that matter. 'Make no mistake,' Cestus began, 'what the Word Bearers are planning is audacious in the extreme. In assaulting Macragge, there are several factors that any enemy must consider before committing his forces,' he explained. 'Firstly, the planetary fleet held in high orbit consists of a flotilla of several cruisers and escorts. It would not be easy for any foe, however determined or well-armed, to break through without significant losses. Should he be successful, though, the enemy must then face the static orbital deterrents on the surface: Macragge's battery of defence lasers.' 'And the Furious Abyss is supposed to achieve this feat?' scoffed Brynngar. 'Impossible.' Cestus nodded in agreement. 'Had you asked me the same an hour ago I would have concurred,' the Ultramarine admitted. 'The Word Bearers strategy has two key elements. It all begins at Formaska, which the Word Bearers plan to hit with cyclonic torpedoes to destroy it.' 'I know little of Ultramar,' growled the Wolf Guard, 'but Formaska is a dead moon. Why not use their cyclonics against Macragge directly?' 'A direct assault against Macragge would be suicide. Its defence lasers would cripple their fleet before they made landfall and render any attempt to subdue Guilliman untenable,' he explained. 'The debris from Formaska's destruction will achieve their ends indirectly. The Legion will divert forces to the aid of Macragge caught in the asteroid storm of the moon's demise and the Word Bearers will strike as they are divided and take them utterly by surprise.' 'I've seen it,' said Brynngar, 'on Proxus XII. An asteroid passed too close and came apart. It was a feral planet. Those people thought the world was ending. Fire was falling from the sky. Every impact was like an atomic hit. It won't destroy Macragge, but it'll kill millions.' 'That is not all,' Cestus continued. 'The Furious Abyss will then use the debris like a shield, allowing them to get past the warning stations and satellites around Macragge and draw close enough for a viral payload to be effective. Only that ship is powerful enough to weather the inevitable storm of fire from the defence lasers. The death toll from the viral strike will be near-total. Guilliman and the Legion will be divided, some of our forces probably destroyed on Macragge, when the remainder of the Word Bearers' fleet will strike. I do not know whether we could recover from such a blow, should it succeed.' 'What then, is to be done?' the Wolf Guard asked gruffly. 'We are nearing Macragge and soon will be out of the warp,' said the Ultramarine, a nod from Kaminska confirming his words. 'So too are our enemies. It will require discipline, guile and timing.' Cestus paused, and looked around the room again, his gaze ended on Kaminska. 'Most of all it will require sacrifice.' SPACE RUPTURED AND spat out the Furious Abyss, edged hard in the diamond light of Macragge's sun. Shoals of predators shimmered out alongside it, like sea creatures leaping around the bow of a ship. Caught in the anathema of reality, they coiled in on themselves and seethed out of existence, their psychic essence dissipating without the warp to sustain them. The Furious Abyss looked little worse than it had when it had left Thule. The attack of the escort squadron had destroyed some of the gun batteries on its dorsal and ventral surfaces, and there were countless tiny pock-marks on its hull from the impacts of doomed fighter craft that had crashed into it after their crews had lost their minds. Those scars did nothing to diminish the majesty of the vast scarlet ship, however. It took a full minute to emerge from the warp rift torn before it, and in those moments the warp was full of nothing but slabs of hull plating and engine cowlings all streaming into real space. Every warning station around Macragge instantly recognised the scale of the ship and demanded its identity. No reply was forthcoming. THE IMAGE OF Macragge filled the central viewport on the bridge of the Furious Abyss. Flanking it were tactical readouts of the system, which were full of early warning stations and military satellites. 'There it is,' said Zadkiel. 'Hateful is it not? Like a boulder squatting in the path of the future.' Magos Gureod stood beside Zadkiel, mechadendrites clicking like insectoid limbs, withered arms folded across his chest. 'It evokes no emotion,' the magos replied neutrally. Zadkiel sniffed his mild contempt at the passionless Mechanicum drone. 'As a symbol, it has no equal,' he said. 'The majesty of a stagnant universe. The ignorance of the powerful. The Ultramarines could have done anything with the worlds under their dominion, and they chose to forge this tired echo of a past that never was.' Gureod remained unmoved. He had come to bear witness to the launching of the torpedoes that would end a world, the unbridled destructive forces yielded by the mech-science of Mars's devotion to the Omnissiah. The magos was standing in the position once occupied by Baelanos, who had fallen at Bakka. 'I take it your presence means that my former assault-captain has been recovered?' Zadkiel snapped, annoyed at Gureod's unwillingness to bask in his self-perceived reflected glory. 'He dreams fitfully, my lord. When the sus-an membrane failed and he roused, somewhat unexpectedly, I was forced to take more drastic methods to secure him,' said the magos. 'See that he does not waken again until the transition is complete. Once Formaska is destroyed, we shall be joining Kor Phaeron's forces on the ground. Baelanos is to be part of that invasion force.' 'Yes, my lord.' Gureod said, showing no fear. Zadkiel turned his attention back to the viewport. All was in place now. He would lead the assault that would be remembered forever in history. A few moments passed. Then the bridge vox-units crackled. 'Awaiting your mark, admiral,' said Kor Phaeron's voice, transmitted across the system from Calth. Even at these relatively short distances, only the most advanced system could allow communication between the two ships without the need for an astropath. 'It shall be forthcoming,' said Zadkiel, turning his attention to another viewscreen. 'Master Malforian,' he intoned, awaiting the grizzled countenance of his weapon master. The nightmarish visage of the badly injured Word Bearer was forthcoming. 'At your command, my lord,' Malforian responded. 'Open the frontal torpedo apertures and load the first wave of cyclonics,' Zadkiel commanded with relish. 'It begins at Formaska. Let us unleash devastation and bring about a new era of man.' Sarkorov snapped orders at the bridge crew, and despatched runners as the Furious Abyss prepared for battle stations. The navigation crew began orienting the ship towards Formaska, its prow arc aimed like a sniper's sight on his kill. The moon was on the screen. Deep lava-filled gulleys wormed their way across its continents, broken by boiling seas. 'The primitives of ancient Macragge thought Formaska was the eye of a god, and that it was bloodshot with anger,' Zadkiel said, to himself more than the unappreciative Magos. 'Sometimes, when the lava fields grew, they thought the eye had opened and looked down on them as prey. They prophesied the day when the god would finally decide to reach down and consume them all. That day has arrived,' he concluded. 'Admiral,' the sibilant voice of Chaplain Ikthalon came through on the bridge vox. 'What is it, chaplain?' Zadkiel snapped. 'The supplicants are stirring,' Ikthalon told him. 'There is movement in the warp. It seems that our pursuers have yet to give up the fight.' 'See that they do not interfere,' snarled Kor Phaeron from the long wave vox, before Zadkiel could reply. 'I'm bringing the fleet into an assault pattern. Guilliman knows we are here by now. Fulfil your mission, Zadkiel.' 'So it is written,' replied Zadkiel, 'so it shall be.' He returned to Malforian. 'Your status, weapon master?' 'A few more minutes, my liege,' Malforian replied. 'We are encountering some problems with the torpedo apertures.' 'Inform me as soon as we're ready to fire the cyclonics,' ordered Zadkiel, his tone betraying his impatience at the unforeseen delay. 'My lord,' Helmsmaster Sarkorov interrupted, 'the Wrathful is coming abeam. They are priming weapons.' Zadkiel exhaled his annoyance. He should have excised this thorn from his side long ago. 'Malforian,' he barked into the vox, 'send all targeting solutions to the bridge once the Imperial lap dogs are in our sights. The Wrathful does not deserve the honour of dying as a part of this history, but we shall grant them that honour nonetheless.' The Wrathful appeared on the left viewscreen. She had lost half her guns down one side and was followed by a tail of wreckage tumbling out of her ravaged engine and cargo areas. Her hull was weathered and pitted by the lashes of the warp, covered in the tooth marks of empyrean predators. Zadkiel smiled maliciously when he saw the wrecked ship. He would derive great pleasure from this. 'Let us finish her.' THE WRATHFUL LIMPED from the warp and went immediately to battle stations. Aft thrusters burn

rathful appeared on the left viewscreen. She had lost half her guns down one side and was followed by a tail of wreckage tumbling out of her ravaged engine and cargo areas. Her hull was weathered and pitted by the lashes of the warp, covered in the tooth marks of empyrean predators. Zadkiel smiled maliciously when he saw the wrecked ship. He would derive great pleasure from this. 'Let us finish her.' THE WRATHFUL LIMPED from the warp and went immediately to battle stations. Aft thrusters burning as hot as they were able, the once formidable Imperial vessel drove head on towards the waiting form of the Furious Abyss. Diverting power to its port side, the great ship turned grindingly slowly on its aft axis until its still-functioning broadsides were presented to the foe. Beams of azure light lit up all the way down the Wrathful's flank, and in seconds the blazing fury of her lances was unleashed. Explosions rippled down the armoured hull of the Furious Abyss, together with the immense blast flares of shield impacts. These wounds were a mere sting to a beast such as this and the Word Bearer vessel responded with a devastating salvo. As the crimson light rays of the Furious's broadside cannons spat out, the Wrathful was already moving, trying to bring the enemy vessel's prow abeam of their lances. The shields of the Imperial ship disintegrated against the assault and the aft decks were raked by deadly fire, explosive impacts sending out chunks of debris and spilling swathes of crew. Still, the Wrathful endured, its last ditch manoeuvre bringing it away from the deadly barrage. Torpedoes soared from the vessel's prow, followed by a second volley from the lances. Again, the Furious was stung and dorsal cannons swung in their mounts to bring their munitions to bear. Incendiaries crumpled against the Wrathful's swerving prow, fully extended broadsides punching ragged holes through its hull armour. Annoyed at the tenacity of this little wasp, the mighty Furious Abyss turned to present its full armament against their aggressor. The damage sustained by the Wrathful had slowed it, but even still it could have fled if it had wanted to. Instead, the Imperial vessel stood its ground, making a defiant last stand. Lances flashing, the Wrathful poured everything it had left at the Word Bearers. It wasn't enough. The Furious Abyss had turned, and, now, it unleashed devastation. ZADKIEL OBSERVED THE short-lived battle from the bridge. The Wrathful was in their sights. The might of his ship was at his disposal. 'Crush them,' he snarled. Malforian replied his affirmation. Light and fire filled the viewscreen a moment later as the Furious's guns wrecked the Imperial vessel. Its engines died, and great fissures were rent in its hull as it slowly drifted, pulled by the gravity well of Formaska. As the Wrathful fell away, sparks flashed sporadically, rendering it in a grim cast, as vented coolant pipes billowed in hazy plumes. 'I had expected more from a son of Guilliman,' Zadkiel admitted. 'How could such a desperate plan ever succeed? The Ultramarines are deserving of their death warrant.' 'Lord Zadkiel.' It was Sarkorov again. Zadkiel turned to face him. 'What is it, helmsmaster?' he snapped. 'Shuttles, my liege,' he explained, 'heading for the port side.' Zadkiel was nonplussed. 'How many?' 'Fifteen, my lord,' Sarkorov replied. 'Too close for lances.' Zadkiel paused for a moment, still confused as to this latest Imperial gambit. The answer came swiftly. 'They seek to gain entry through the torpedo apertures,' he said. 'Should I give the order to close them, Lord Zadkiel?' 'Do it,' Zadkiel snapped, 'and engage dorsal cannons. Bring them down!' EIGHTEEN Gauntlet Infiltration Dark dreams BRYNNGAR SMILED AS the shuttle shuddered, spirals of flak and countermeasures hammering against its hull. Rujveld and the Blood Claws sat in the tight crew compartment with him. They were strapped down in their shuttle couches, braced across the shoulders, chest and waist. The engines were screaming, and intermittent flashes from the explosions outside threw sharp light into the compartment. The small vessel was armoured, but it wasn't designed to take this punishment. Every bolt and stanchion was straining with the speed. 'Do you hear it, lads?' he roared above the din, utterly at ease. His Blood Claws, even Rujveld, looked back perplexed. 'It is the call to combat,' he told them proudly. 'Those are the arms of Mother Fenris! That's the embrace of war!' The Wolf Guard howled and the Blood Claws howled with him. Beyond the vision slits, it and several other shuttles soared through the void towards the Furious Abyss. Deployed before the suicide attack, the Wrathful's feint had given them the time they needed to close the gap. It had provided a chance to reach the gaping apertures of the vessel's torpedo tubes before being scattered into debris by its guns. DORSAL GUNS PULSED and rocked in their turrets as the Furious Abyss sought to obliterate the attacker's force. In the third shuttle, Cestus saw three of his sister vessels explode under a hail of flak. They broke and split apart, their desperate speed abruptly arrested as if they were a sail boat breaking up on the rocks of some ragged cliff line. The bodies of naval armsmen spilled from the crew compartments, frozen in spasms of pain as they were exposed to the void. Three of his battle-brothers were alongside the Ultramarine captain: Lexinal, Pytaron and Excelinor helping to fill up the compartment with their armoured bulk. They stared impassively into space as the flash of explosions was thrown through the viewports, and the armoured hull shook. Their lips moved as they swore silent Oaths of Moment. Cestus did the same, watching three more shuttles shredded apart by heavy turret fire. 'Come on,' he urged through gritted teeth, the gaping maw of the torpedo aperture getting ever closer. 'Come on.' 'IMPACT IN ONE minute!' said the vox from the shuttle's pilot. 'One minute from mother's love!' shouted Brynngar, taking a firm grip on Felltooth. Embarkation would need to be swift; there could be enemy forces already in position to repel any boarders. For a moment, he wondered whether or not Cestus had made it through the fusillade. Putting the thought out of his mind, he took up the battle cry once more. They were almost in. 'She's waiting for us there! Mother Fenris, mother of war!' 'Mother of war!' yelled the Blood Claws. 'Mother of war! Mother of hate!' A few feet from the aperture, a stray round struck the left aerofoil of the shuttle and it spiralled wildly out of control. Exploding shrapnel shattered the front viewing arc; the sound of breaking armourglas could even be heard in the troop compartment. The pilot died with a shard of hot metal in his neck, before the icy cool of space froze him and his desperate co-pilot to their flight couches. Brynngar's shuttle dipped sharply away from the aperture and downward into another void entirely. A SHUTTLE EXPLODED, its nose sheared off by a shell casing thrown out of the Furious Abyss's gun decks. The remaining craft looped up beneath the battleship's ventral surface, the valleys and peaks of the city-sized ship streaking past. Cestus saw another vessel explode, the bursting shrapnel shredding much of its frontal arc. It dipped, engines blazing ineffectually, and fell downward until it was lost from view behind a slab of crimson hull. Ahead, the torpedo apertures were closing. 'More speed!' Cestus roared into his helmet vox. The blazing shuttle engines screeched even louder. A snatched glimpse through the viewport showed a third shuttle, banking sharply in an attempt to avoid the flak fire and arrow back towards the battleship. Its retro engines flared as it braked. It didn't slow fast enough and slammed into the hull beside the torpedo aperture. The fat metal body crumpled under the impact and split. Broken bodies were cast into the void. They were wearing the blue armour of the Ultramarines. Saphrax and Amryx are dead, thought Cestus bitterly. Twisting sharply, the shuttle found a way through the rapidly diminishing aperture. As the Furious Abyss swallowed them, Cestus thought he heard the explosions of the shuttles following them as they crashed against the sealed hull. 'Brace!' yelled the pilot. Tortured metal boomed. Cestus was thrown against the restraints of his grav-couch and felt them stretch and pull against his cuirass. A terrible twisting, howling sound, like a metal earthquake, filled the Ultramarine's ears. 'Umbilicals away!' said the pilot's voice. The hatch in the roof of the passenger compartment slid open. White vapour filled the shuttle. 'Pressurising!' shouted the pilot. Cestus knew what was next and hammered the icon on his chest that would disengage the harness. It came apart quickly and he was on his feet, his battle-brothers beside him. Excelinor, Pytaron and Lexinal, two with bolters low slung and another carrying a plasma gun: they would have to be enough. Cestus checked the load in his bolt pistol and unsheathed his sword, thumbing the activation stud that sent frantic lines of power coursing through the blade. 'Courage and honour!' he yelled, and his battle-brothers returned the battle cry. Explosive bolts detonated like gunshots. The second hatch was flung open, and the long dark throat of the torpedo tube opened up above them. Cestus stormed through the short umbilicus, through the hatch and into the tube. It sloped upwards and was wide enough for an Astartes to walk with his head bowed. Its ribbed metal interior was caked in ice. The shuttle had pumped air into it, and the vapour in that air had frozen instantly. 'Move!' ordered the Ultramarine captain, and headed upwards. As Cestus led the way up the torpedo tube, the sounds of thundering guns and shell impacts echoed dimly through the structure of the Furious Abyss, a terrible chorus welcoming them onto the ship. C

e hatch and into the tube. It sloped upwards and was wide enough for an Astartes to walk with his head bowed. Its ribbed metal interior was caked in ice. The shuttle had pumped air into it, and the vapour in that air had frozen instantly. 'Move!' ordered the Ultramarine captain, and headed upwards. As Cestus led the way up the torpedo tube, the sounds of thundering guns and shell impacts echoed dimly through the structure of the Furious Abyss, a terrible chorus welcoming them onto the ship. Cestus saw light ahead: the fires of a forge. He had his bolt pistol up in front of him, ready to fire. The light was coming through a thick armourglas window in a heavy hatch, sealing the far end of the tube. 'Charges!' he ordered. Excelinor and Pytaron reacted quickly, planting a cluster of krak grenades around the weak points of the hatch. Charges primed, the Astartes retreated as one. A few feet from the entrance, Cestus bellowed, 'Now!' A muffled explosion radiated through the tube, echoing off the concave interior, and the hatch fell away in a shower of sparks and fire. Combat protocols and stratagems learned when he was a neophyte and honed in countless conflicts throughout the Great Crusade cycled through Cestus's battle-attuned mind. Bursting onto the ship, the Ultramarines found themselves amidst the massive workings of an ordnance deck: torpedo cranes, ammunition and fuel hoppers; cavernous spaces criss-crossed with gantries and crowded with gangs of sweating menials were all in abundance. With tactical precision, the Astartes fanned out. Cestus drove forward with Lexinal, the punch of his battle-brother's plasma gun backing up the ferocity of the Ultramarine captain at close quarters. A group of deck hands came at them with a clutch of heavy tools. Cestus swept low through their clumsy attacks and rose quickly, cutting through two with a savage criss-cross strike and killing a third with a head-butt. Barking fire from his bolt pistol put paid to two more. An actinic flash sent the temperature warnings in his battle-helm spiking as a beam of plasma ignited a fuel hopper. Fire blossomed in plumes of orange and white, twinned with billowing smoke. A squad of rushing armsmen were incinerated in the blaze and the heavy stubber mount, hastily erected above, was thrown to oblivion. Left and right, Excelinor and Pytaron let rip with their bolters, creating a deadly crossfire that shredded anything that dared to advance through it. They surged steadily into the deck, despatching targets with brutal efficiency, but these were only ratings and armsmen. Cestus knew that the Astartes of the Word Bearers would be coming. They had to act quickly and disable the cyclonics before the real threat arrived. Without the destruction of Formaska, the Word Bearers could not fulfil their plan and get close enough to Macragge to unleash the viral strain. His super-advanced mind skipping ahead to the tactical tasking to come, Cestus almost missed the scarred-faced officer flying at him with a power mace. This one was Astartes, although he wore a half-armour variant of full battle-plate. Most of the bottom half of his face was destroyed and had been replaced with a metal grille. Deep pink scar lines ran like fat veins up his jaw and across his cheek bones. 'Quail before the might of the Word,' he bellowed, voice metallic and resonant through the augmetics. Cestus parried a deft swing of the mace with his power sword. Arcs of miniature lightning danced across the two weapons as they were locked in a brief, pyrotechnic struggle. The Ultramarine broke away and brought up his bolt pistol, only for the grille-faced Word Bearer to smash it out of his grasp. Pain lanced through Cestus's fingers, even though his armour bore the brunt of the blow, numbing his shoulder. 'Lorgar will guide us to victory,' snarled the Word Bearer, allowing his fervour to fuel his swings, though they dulled his accuracy. Cestus wove out of the death arc from an overhand smash designed to finish him and brought his blazing blade onto the Word Bearer's bare head. Slicing through flesh, bone and, eventually, armour, he sheared the warrior in two, the corpse flopping on either side of the blow. 'Know that Guilliman is righteous,' Cestus snarled, gritting back the pain to reclaim his fallen pistol. Rearmed, he drove on into the building firestorm, focused on the killing. 'WHERE ARE THEY?' demanded Zadkiel. 'All over the gun decks,' came the reply from one of Malforian's subordinates. In the weapon master's absence, Zadkiel assumed that he was dead or otherwise incapacitated. 'Reports say they're Astartes.' 'They'll be going for the torpedo payload,' said Zadkiel, mainly to himself. The admiral turned his attentions to his helmsmaster. 'Sarkorov, are we in position to launch?' 'Yes, my lord, but we cannot deploy the torpedoes while the deck is contested.' Zadkiel swore beneath his breath. 'Reskiel,' he snarled into the throne vox with growing annoyance. The sergeant-commander responded after a moment's pause. 'I'm calling off the hunt for our interloper. Gather your brethren and head for the ordnance decks at once. Destroy any Astartes you find on that deck. Do you understand?' Reskiel replied in the affirmative and the vox link died. 'If the attack is to be delayed, I will return to my sanctum,' said Magos Gureod, already blending away into the darkness. 'Do as you must,' Zadkiel muttered, his agitation obvious, the veneer of calm ever slipping. 'Ikthalon,' he snarled into the vox, a plan forming in his mind. 'My lord,' the sibilant voice of the chaplain replied. 'Wake the supplicants.' THERE WAS NO need to spare the supplicants. The Furious Abyss had reached its destination. The mission was over. Their role had been to help with the manipulation of the warp and fend off attacks against the ship. Zadkiel's order meant using them to destruction. The streams of nutrients were replaced with psychoactive drugs. Restraints snapped apart and cortical stimulators crackled, waking the supplicants from their comatose state to halfway between sleep and waking, where sensations and nightmares alike were real. Some of the supplicants, the ones whose mouths and throats still worked, moaned and mewled as they slithered out of their restraints onto the floor. Some convulsed as unfamiliar impulses flooded their muscles. One or two died, their hearts finally giving out. As part of his chaplain's attire, Ikthalon drew a heavy scarlet cowl over his battle-helm to prevent excess psychic energy from staining his mind, and moved carefully among the waking supplicants, inspecting readouts and checking for swallowed tongues. One by one, he switched off the inhibitor circuits, the loops of psychoactive material that kept the supplicants' minds from feeding back into the Furious Abyss. The cogitators hooked in to the debased creatures' consciousness fed them the image of the ship's prow, the engineering works behind the plasma lance and the ordnance decks below. Finally, the supply of stupefying narcotics and soothing brain-wave instigators was cut off and the supplicants were given their last silent orders. CESTUS SPRAYED A gantry with bolter fire. Bodies plummeted and crumpled against his fury. The Ultramarines had gained a foothold on the primary ordnance deck, but Cestus could still see no sign of the Space Wolves. He hoped that they had not shared the same fate as Saphrax. The schematic as witnessed in the vision bestowed upon him by Mhotep filled his eidetic memory. The cluster of cyclonics destined for Formaska was at the end of the deck, doubtless in mid-transit to the torpedo apertures. The viral payload was secured in a drop chamber in the hull. There was no way to get to it. They would have to hobble the Word Bearers' plan at its first juncture. Barking fire from a pair of pintle-mounted cannons set up on a loading platform above had the Ultramarines pinned for a moment. Cestus's battle-brothers regrouped behind a pair of empty fuel bowsers and the housing of a torpedo crane. Lexinal, plasma gun cradled in his gauntlets, slid in beside Cestus. 'What now, captain?' he asked as the barrage above them intensified. Cestus memorised an open stretch of deck and then the huge metal cliff face of the Furious Abyss's prow, broken by the loading mechanisms and the torpedo tubes. He visualised an industrial tangle on the other side, including giant hoppers stacked with further munitions and the rearing masses of arming chambers where yet more ordnance was stored. 'We have to clear the deck and then get to the munitions store and deploy our melta bombs,' he replied. 'What about Brynngar?' Lexinal asked, using a break in the fusillade to fire off a snap shot that bathed the loading platform in super-heated plasma. The screams died in the raging battle din. 'Once we take out the cyclonics, we link up with whoever is left and do what damage we can,' said Cestus, once Lexinal had resumed cover. The Ultramarine nodded his understanding. Cestus relayed the same order through his helmet vox on a discrete frequency in Ultramar battle-cant to Pytaron and Excelinor. The two battle-brothers flanked the captain's position, heavy-duty munitions crates in front of them being chipped apart by persistent fire. Cestus glanced between the two bowsers. The Furious's crewmen, in dark scarlet overalls and fatigues, had been hit hard by the shock of the assault. Dozens of them lay dead around the torpedo hatches or shot down from the gantries and cranes. The Astartes has exacted a heavy toll, but the enemy were regrouping and reinforcements covered their losses in short order. There was no time to delay. 'On me,' Cestus cried, 'battle formation theta-epsilon, Macragge in ascendance!' He vaulted the bowser, bolt pistol flaring and lasgun impacts spattered his cuirass. Cestus held his sword in salute stance, in front of his face and the upright blade deflected energy blasts

d around the torpedo hatches or shot down from the gantries and cranes. The Astartes has exacted a heavy toll, but the enemy were regrouping and reinforcements covered their losses in short order. There was no time to delay. 'On me,' Cestus cried, 'battle formation theta-epsilon, Macragge in ascendance!' He vaulted the bowser, bolt pistol flaring and lasgun impacts spattered his cuirass. Cestus held his sword in salute stance, in front of his face and the upright blade deflected energy blasts from his battle-helm. Twin bolters blazed, cross-shaped muzzle flashes glaring, as Excelinor and Pytaron moved in staggered battle formation to Cestus's left. Lexinal took the right flank, firing his plasma gun in controlled bursts to prevent the deadly weapon from overheating. Towards the last third of the deck, they broke up, each taking a channel into the industrial tangle of machinery. Troops of armsmen had mobilised and came at Cestus with shock mauls and lengths of spiked chain. The Ultramarine captain cut them down, Guilliman's name a mantra on his lips. Amidst the killing, he noticed an access portal to the ordnance deck and wondered why the Word Bearers' Astartes had not yet shown themselves. 'Link up and force through to the cyclonics,' Cestus ordered through his helmet vox as he moved into a labyrinth of munitions. His battle-brothers obeyed and together they converged on a pair of cyclonics, still harnessed in their mobile racking. Shots spattered from gantries above, most of the las-bolts and hard rounds smacking into cranes and clusters of machinery. Cestus saw a lucky shot ricochet from Lexinal's breastplate and he staggered. A second burst from a heavy cannon somewhere above them raked his leg greave and he was down. Out of the corner of his eye, Cestus saw a group of armsmen converging on the prone Ultramarine. A las-bolt clipping his pauldron, Cestus twisted as he ran, slamming a fresh magazine in his bolt pistol and discharging a furious burst into the armsmen. Two disappeared in a red haze, another crumpled to the ground nursing the wet crater in his stomach. Cestus didn't see the rest. Lexinal was getting to his feet when a round struck an active fuel bowser. The resulting explosion engulfed the Astartes in coruscating flame, the blast wave throwing him half way across the deck. The Ultramarine captain averted his gaze, muttering a battle-oath, and refocused ahead. 'Deploy incendiaries,' Cestus ordered when they finally reached the first batch of cyclonics. Pytaron unclipped a melta bomb from his armour, disengaging the magna-clamp that kept it in place. Excelinor provided covering fire with his bolter. 'Brynngar!' Cestus shouted into his helmet vox, crouching beside Excelinor as he desperately tried to make contact. 'Brynngar respond.' Dead air came back at him. Either the wolf had been killed or he was in another part of the ship where they couldn't reach him. 'Charges deployed,' reported Pytaron. As he turned to his captain, a heavy round struck him in the neck, piercing his gorget. He clutched the wound with one hand, the melta bomb detonator in the other, and fell to one knee as blood streamed down his breastplate. Larraman cells within Pytaron's body worked hard to slow the bleeding and speed up clotting, but the wound was serious. Even an Astartes enhanced physiology would be unable to save the battle-brother. 'Take it,' Pytaron said, gurgling his words through blood. Cestus took the detonator, his hands around Pytaron's. 'You will be honoured...' Cestus's voice trailed away as the air around him suddenly turned cold, receptors built into his battle-plate registering a severe drop in temperature. For an awful second, he thought that the deck had de-pressurised and the void would claim them all. With the cold came screaming: a thousand voices, echoing out from the inside of Cestus's head. It was not the void, reaching into the ship to freeze them solid. It was something far worse. Prickling talons probing his mental defences like ice blades reminded Cestus of his earlier encounter with Mhotep aboard the Wrathful. 'Psyker!' he hissed with sudden realisation. 'Psyker!' he shouted this time to get Excelinor's attention. 'We are under attack.' One of the Furious Abyss's crewmen stumbled out into the open. He clutched an autogun loosely in one hand, his arm hanging down by his side. With his other hand, he appeared to be trying to tear out his own tongue. Cestus shot the man in the chest. He bucked violently and fell still against the deck. He then turned and saw Excelinor slowly raise his boltgun to his head. 'No,' Cestus cried, yanking his fellow battle-brother to his senses. 'Voices in my head... I can't stop them,' whispered Excelinor through his vox, still struggling with his bolter. 'Fight it!' Cestus snarled at him, feeling the shreds of his own sanity slowly being devoured by the unseen force of the warp. They had to get out, right now. The Ultramarine captain seized Excelinor's arm, the world starting to blur around him, and hauled him towards the access portal. 'Come on,' Cestus breathed as the floor shifted beneath him and the walls began to melt. Try as he might, Cestus could not keep himself from falling into madness. The last thing he remembered was his fist closing on the detonator and the rush of fire. 'THEY THINK IT'S alive,' breathed Zadkiel, standing before his command throne. 'This ship has been a part of them for so long that the supplicants regard it as an extension of their own bodies. No. It is a host, in which they are parasites. There won't be a mind left intact among them. The enemy will be driven mad long before we kill them.' 'Your orders, admiral?' The voice of Sergeant-Commander Reskiel through the throne vox interrupted Zadkiel's monologue. 'You have gained the area outside of the ordnance deck?' he asked, imagining the warriors of Reskiel looming in the corridor intersections. 'Yes, my lord,' Reskiel answered. Just prior to entering the ordnance deck, the sergeant-commander and his warriors had been ordered to secure the exits, Zadkiel having no desire for his forces to be caught up in the psychic attack. 'Although, a massive detonation destroyed much of the tertiary access points, as yet, we have been unable to break through,' Reskiel added. 'Is it possible that the Astartes escaped the deck?' the irritation in Zadkiel's voice obvious, even through the vox link. There was a short pause as Reskiel considered his response. 'It is possible, yes.' 'Find them, Reskiel. Do it or do not return to my bridge.' Zadkiel cut the vox link abruptly. The admiral turned to a secondary force of Word Bearers, who had assembled behind him. 'Secure the ordnance deck, port and starboard access portals. Get in there and recover what is left of our cyclonic payload.' 'Yes, my lord,' said a chorus of voices from the assembled Word Bearers. 'Do so, now!' Zadkiel raged and the clattering sound of booted feet erupted behind him as the Word Bearers deployed. The infiltrators had to be stopped. Despite the psychic assault, Zadkiel needed to be sure that any further loose ends had been tied up. Nothing must prevent the bombardment against Formaska. Without it, the rest of the plan could not proceed. He would not allow his soul to be forfeit from Kor Phaeron's rage at his failure. Success was inevitable. It had to be. It was written. MACRAGGE'S NATIVES, THE people who had been there before the Emperor's Great Crusade had rediscovered them, had believed in a hell that was very specific in its cruelties. Its circles each held a certain breed of sinner, all suffering punishments appropriate to their misdeeds. The further in a dead man went, the more horrible and varied his punishments became, until the very worse of the worst - traitors to Macragge's Battle Kings, and those who had betrayed their own families - were held in the very centre in a series of torments that a living mind could not comprehend and upon which the legends refused to speculate. Those beliefs had survived alongside the Imperial Truth, as folk tales and allegories. Macragge's circles of hell were the subject of epic verse, cautionary tales and colourful curses. Cestus was, at that moment, in the circle of hell reserved for cowards. 'Run!' shouted the taskmaster. 'You ran from everything! You sacrificed everything to run! Run, now, as you did in life! Never stop!' Cestus was blinded by tears. His hands and feet screamed at him, cut to tatters. Behind him, a miniature sun rolled towards him, blistering the skin on the back of his torso and legs. It was relentless, never slowing, as it ground its way along the vast circular track, bounded by walls of granite, its light flickering against the stalactites hanging from the cave ceiling overhead. The floor was covered in blades, swords dropped by failed soldiers as they fled the battlefield. As the ball of fire approached, the sinners fled, tearing themselves on the blades to escape the fire. Their punishment was to flee forever. Cestus remembered being told of this hell by drill sergeants on Macragge, in the half-remembered time before Guilliman's Legion had taken him from among hundreds of supplicants to be turned into an Ultramarine. This hell was halfway through the levels of hell, for while cowards were despised on Macragge theirs was a pathetic sin, a sin of failure, and not comparable to the treachery of murder punished closer to hell's heart. It compounded the punishment, not only to suffer, not only to know the weight of failure, but to be reminded that even in sin a coward was lacking. Cestus stumbled and fell. Steel bit into his hands, his knees and his chest. A blade slid through the softer skin of his lips and he tasted blood. He coughed, desperate for it to end. It felt like he had been there for years, the relentless sun driving him on. The taskmaster was a drill sergeant of Macragge, the same kind of man who had ordered h