Tellos ran through the rain of gunfire and leapt onto the tank, scrambling quickly up onto its turret, chain-blades scoring gouges in the armour. He could hear the footsteps of twenty a.s.sault Marines as they fol-lowed him and they felt exactly what he did - the enemy were just a few steps away, crowded into the barracks, practically begging for the Emperor's justice.

Tellos leapt onto the crest of the wall. It bulged outwards at the top to prevent anyone climbing it but Tellos's chainblades dug deep into the plasti-crete and he hauled himself up onto the crest of the wall.

Two autogun shots punched through his abdomen. He felt the pain, but he welcomed it, because that meant his body was healing as quickly as it was wounded. Bolt pistol fire crackled from the Marines beside him and the fire point on the wall fell silent. Tellos barely glanced at the Marines fol-lowing him up, and he jumped into the compound.

The main barracks was an imposing building of black metal with gun-slits for windows, surrounded by a wide plasticrete plaza criss-crossed by fire points on the building and on each corner of the compound's walls. A makeshift village of hovels and tents had grown up around the building and there were scores of Septiams here, ma.s.sed near the main blast-doors in the opposite wall, ready for the Jouryans to blow the doors and try to take the com-pound.

If the Soul Drinkers hadn't been there, perhaps that was what would have happened. But with Tel-los leading the a.s.sault from an unexpected direction, every one of those Septiams was dead.

Tellos. .h.i.t the ground running and twenty Marines followed him. Every second he spent here was a second when the enemy were beyond his reach and so he charged headlong through the jerry-built shanty-town.

He ran heedlessly through the walls of flimsy dwellings and brushed hovels aside with his chainblades, barely breaking step to slice through the few defenders who managed to turn and face him.

The Septiams - several hundred of them, clus-tered around barricades to form a killing zone inside the blastdoors - barely had time to notice the a.s.sault charging in behind them.

Tellos was a good dozen paces ahead of the a.s.sault squads. When he hit the Septiam lines, he didn't stop to fight. He dived into the ma.s.s of Sep-tiams and kept going, carving deep into their ranks, twin chainblades swinging in great arcs that severed limbs and head with every stroke. The Septiams turned and tried to counter-charge but they just ran straight into the storm of death.

Tellos strode deeper into the Septiams, leaving a gore-soaked channel of broken bodies that gave the a.s.sault Marines a crucial gap to get a foothold against them.

Rotting faces lolled as they died a second time. k.n.o.bbed, grey-skinned limbs swung clubs and knivesuselessly. Short-range lasbursts and autogun shots spat from the throng but Tellos ignored them, absorbing the ill-aimed shots with his mutated flesh and slicing off the hands that tried to bring weapons to bear too close.

It was the purest butchery. The rage came on Tel-los again, the same rage that had first been sparked in him when he lost his hands on the Geryon weapons platform, and had continued burning inside him as he stormed the beaches of Ve'Meth's stronghold and battled daemons on the deck of the Brokenback. It took hold of him and pushed him further than any Marine could go. It was the fuel that fed his mutated flesh and the impossibly fast, deadly strikes he made with the improvised weapons thrust into the stumps of his wrists.

Tellos didn't live for much else - the rage was the only thing that could make him feel worth anything.

Killing in the name of the Emperor was the purest form of service, and when His spirit took over Tellos there was nothing that could stop him.

His chainblades were clotted with blood. He was covered in gore from head to toe, occulobe organs secreting fluids to wash the blood out of his eyes, blood raw on his pale skin and slick against the armour on his legs. Hundreds of faces merged into one as he thrust in every direction, the Septiams try-ing to surround him just walking into the killing zone that radiated from him.

The more mindless Septiams were driven forward to surround and swamp him. He batted them aside or cut them in two, clambering onto the rampart formed from their bodies to hack down at the tainted troopers from above. Scores died around him, hundreds, every cut ending an undeserving life. The a.s.sault Marines pushed the Septiams back against the gates and forced them into Tellos -those who tried to counterattack found themselves trying to duel with superhuman warriors whose armour turned away bayonets and rifle shots and whose chainblades cut through flesh, bone, and sal-vaged Elysian armour alike.

Tellos saw Jouryan helmets, Elysian fatigues, sena-tors' finery and Enforcement Division uniforms, all wrapped around subhuman corpse-creatures, faces twisted with hatred and disease. Their desiccated tongues moaned and gurgled as they died. Their bones cracked and skin split, muscles ripped to rags by the chainblade teeth. It was the purest slaughter of all, corruption and decay vanquished by the Emperor's strength, Tellos's rage a link to the Emperor like a vox-line to the Golden Throne.

A heavy hand clapped down onto Tellos's shoul-der and only the reflexes hard-wired into Tellos's brain kept him from driving his chainblades into the body of a fellow Marine.

Captain Karraidin's leathery, battered face snarled out of the hood of his Terminator armour. 'd.a.m.n it, Tellos! The enemy's broken! Blow these doors and get to the brig entrance!'

For a moment Tellos was enraged that the Emperor's work had been so rudely interrupted.

Didn't Karraidin realise they were surrounded by slavering, corrupted enemies?

Then he saw what Karraidin saw - Tellos was just a few metres from the inside of the compound wall, standing on a pile of bodies twenty men high, with the Septiams broken and cowering around him.

Karraidin was right. The rage could wait a while before taking over again.

He waved the two a.s.sault squads forward from where they had formed a line of steel backing him up. All carried frag and krak grenades and several had melta-bombs designed to melt through armoured hulls. The a.s.sault Marines sprinted across the blood-slicked ground to the huge double blastdoors and attached bundles of grenades to the hinges and bolts.

Meanwhile, Karraidin's command squad swapped bolter fire with the fire points on the walls and in the barracks buildings, covering the a.s.sault Marines as they rigged the doors and fell back before blow-ing them.

The blastdoors fell open in a shower of sparks, sheets of steel crashing to the rockcrete ground.

Squads Luko and Hastis entered under Karraidin's covering fire. With them was Sarpedon. 'Good work Karraidin, Tellos.' he voxed. 'We've cleared out the buildings around the perimeter. The Jouryans are holding them. The Septiams are trapped between the Stratix and the Jouryans and they'll try to break out at any moment, so we have no time to waste.

Hastis and Luko, you're with me into the holding cells. Karraidin, hold the doors. Tellos, you're reserve.

Cold and fast, Soul Drinkers, move out.'

The small strike-force Sarpedon had managed to smuggle into Septiam City split in two, Karraidin and Tellos to take up positions in the compound amongst the broken bodies of the Septiams, Sarpe-don and the two tactical squads heading towards the barracks building from which intermittent fire still spattered down from roof and gun-slit win-dows.

Somewhere beneath that building were the hold-ing cells, where the criminals of Septiam Torus had been held before the plague took a hold. If they had not been emptied in the chaos that gripped the city, and if there was anything left alive down there, then somewhere in those cells was Adept Karlu Grien.

NINE

From the observation deck of the yacht, the war-zone seemed calm. The stars were as hard and cold as they were anywhere else in the galaxy, and had Thaddeus not been so familiar with the torments of Teturact's rebellion it would have been easy for him to a.s.sume that all was right in the heavens.

But he knew that one tiny winking red star was actually the forge world of Salshan Anterior, where half a million Guardsmen had been surrounded and butchered on the oxide-rich plains and where the Navy was now primed to bomb the hardened workshop-bunkers into dust. One constellation was composed of unnamed dead xenos worlds where Guardsmen and tech-guard warred with tens of thousands of Teturact's cultists, battles flowing like water over planets of frozen oxygen. Gigantic fleet actions were being enacted right in front of his eyes, the blackness between the stars scattered with bat-tleships maintaining blockades and forming up from orbital barrage runs.

The yacht's observation deck was a crystal hemi-sphere blistered out from the upper hull, providing an unbroken panorama of s.p.a.ce. Several drinks cabinets and reclining couches rose from the floor and a trio of personal servitors waited attentively in case their masters showed any signs of needing something. It was an easy place to forget about war.

But Thaddeus could not forget. Lord Kolgo was probably right - he was far more experienced an inquisitor than Thaddeus would probably ever be. However, Thaddeus still had a job to do. He had made a private vow, and he could not betray him-self by breaking it now. No matter what the cost.

A circular hole hissed open in the floor and a plat-form rose up. On the platform was an impossibly slight figure, a man so insubstantial it seemed he hardly cast a shadow. He wore a cobalt uniform trimmed with silver bullion and his frail body was topped with a curiously featureless face, smooth jet-black skin almost unbroken by eyes, nose and mouth. A length of white cloth embroidered with High Gothic devotionals was tied around his head, and the blistered, charred skin just showing on the man's forehead indicated the stresses regularly placed on the warp eye underneath.

'Navigator.' said Thaddeus. 'I am glad you could join me.'

The Navigator smiled. Tour invitation took me by surprise, my master. I am not much used to social functions. I hope I am not found lacking.

'Not at all.' replied Thaddeus with his friendliest smile. 'There are trillions of souls in this galaxy, it is only right that you should get to meet a few of them. Amasec? a.s.suming you're not on duty, of course.' He held out a decanter and gla.s.s.

The Navigator accepted a gla.s.s of the rich, treacly amasec, which Lord Inquisitor Kolgo had probably had imported at a cost Thaddeus couldn't imagine. The Navigator took a tentative sip and seemed to appreciate the nicety.

Thaddeus looked up at the starscape. 'What do you see, Navigator?' he asked. 'Does it look any-thing like this in the warp?'

. It was a risk. Navigators rarely spoke of what they saw when they led ships through the dreams and nightmares of the warp and there was an unspoken taboo against asking them about it. Thaddeus rea-soned that this meant Kolgo's Navigator had probably never been asked, and that it would be a relief for him to tell someone.

'It... sometimes. At first. We want it to look the same, you see. Everyone knows what s.p.a.ce looks like, everyone who has ever seen the night sky. But after the first few moments you have to let it change. You have to begin to see the warp as it truly is. There are no rules to it - half of it is inside your head -but that doesn't make it any less real. Just by look-ing at it, you change it. The Astronomican is the only constant and even then it can flicker and leave you alone. All the things you see when between sleeping and waking, those are real in the warp. There are colours you can't make with light and every now and again, something... looks back at you...' He smiled again, taking another swallow of amasec. 'And you can call me Starn. Iason Starn.'

And you can call me Thaddeus, Starn.' Thaddeus placed the decanter back into the gold-plated hands of the servitor that glided silently over to him as he sat down on one of the couches. 'I imagine Kolgo places great value on you.'

'Indeed. I have been with him for twenty-three years.' 'It sounds like we are both prisoners of a sort.'

'There are worse things.'

Thaddeus sat up suddenly, as if in surprise. 'Starn... isn't the Starn clan related to House Jena.s.sis?'

'We are a sub-clan.' replied Starn. 'We are proud to be one of the const.i.tuent parts of House Jena.s.sis. Few outsiders know much of our Houses, Thad-deus, you must be most learned.'

'I'm sorry, I didn't realise you counted House Jena.s.sis as your patrons. You must all be mourning yourpatriarch.'

Starn nodded, looking mournfully into his amasec. 'Yes, a terrible thing. Chaos Marines, they say The Enemy, in House Jena.s.sis itself. Many of us do not believe it, others know it must be true but cannot fully understand it.'

And you?'

This is a dark galaxy, Thaddeus. Terrible things do happen. The Emperor knows I have seen enough of them with Kolgo over the years.'

Thaddeus let the silence mature. The subtle muta-tions that accompanied the Navigator gene hid the fact that Iason Starn was more than eighty years old, and he had probably been in service since adoles-cence.

How often had any non-Navigator talked to him like this? Let alone an inquisitor, someone with authority, even if he was very much subordi-nate to Lord Kolgo.

'Phrantis Jena.s.sis was not the best of leaders.' said Starn at last. 'But without him the House has no leadership at all. There will be another round of politics, and how we hate it. Some of us will die, inquisitor, though we are forbidden to admit it. Even Navigators have their factions.'

'So do inquisitors, Starn. But we are forbidden to mention it, too, so don't tell anyone.'

On cue, a servitor hovered up to Starn and refilled his gla.s.s. The beauty of amasec was that it didn't taste strong, but it was.

Starn was not a stupid man. He accepted the refilled gla.s.s almost resignedly, as if he had worked out what his part was to be and he was just going through the motions until it was over.

Thaddeus knew his role, too. 'If there was some-one who knew who had killed Phrantis Jena.s.sis -imagine that! Perhaps it was something slightly more complicated than a raiding force of Chaos Marines. It would almost be comforting to know that Phrantis wasn't just a random killing, wouldn't it?'

Starn took a deep swallow. 'I should have guessed this wasn't a social call. Why would a man of your station a.s.sociate with me out of choice?'

'Why would a man of your quality a.s.sociate with your master's prisoner? That's what I am, Iason, and you are well aware of it. You don't want to spend the rest of your life flirting with madness. Perhaps you were once content, but not any more. You find yourself dreaming of the life of a common citizen. You wish you could be something more than you are, because what you are is a piece of someone else's machine. Lord Kolgo considers you a part of this ship. Why shouldn't he? You've never claimed to be anything more. But if you could do something meaningful, something that would affect the whole of House Jena.s.sis - that would be worth something far more.'

'I have heard... stories.' Iason Starn's eyes were suddenly alive, as if he were finally aware of him-self.

They formed an incongruous focus in his featureless face. 'Inquisitors can have a man skinned alive with a word. They can kill thousands, millions if they think they have to. It would be nothing for Lord Kolgo to have me killed if he thought I was betraying his trust.'

'It is too late for that, Iason. Kolgo has this place bugged, of course. He knows every word we have said. If he wants to have you liquidated he will have made the decision already, no matter what you do. You know I am right, Iason. And you should con-sider yourself fortunate - now you can make your decision without worrying about what Kolgo will do, because he will have made up his mind already.'

Starn was shaking, and almost unconsciously bolted the rest of the amasec to calm his nerves. 'I can see why you inquisitors are so feared.'

You should see Kolgo in full flow. He does the same thing to fellow inquisitors. Now, the choice.'

The choice.'

Thaddeus reached inside the plain clothes he had been given in the infirmary. He took out a small, folded letter. 'This doc.u.ment is in cipher, you need never know what it says. All I need is for you to make sure it is transmitted to the correct astropathic duct. Nothing more. I have no access to Kolgo's astropaths but you do. Kolgo will consider me a potential ally for the future and will let me get away with this, because crossing me now could come back to haunt him in the unlikely event I rise to a similar rank as he. He will not let me get away with a blatant abuse of his hospitality, however, since that would hardly be playing the game. So I must use you.

'Kolgo cannot get rid of you immediately since that would leave him in largely uninhabited s.p.a.ce without a Navigator and his work within the warzone is too important for him to spend months marooned. Once he has returned to the fortress you will be surrounded by fellow Navigators and can doubtless organise some protection from other members of your House. This game is not without its risks, but you see how you have a relatively low-risk part to play'

Starn waved away the servitor that came to refill his gla.s.s once again. 'What a complicated game.'

Thaddeus smiled, genuinely this time. 'Politics, Iason. I'm just learning myself.'The Navigator stood, smoothed down the flawless uniform of Clan Starn and took the letter from Thaddeus's hand. 'I am afraid, inquisitor, that my time is short. There are charts to be drawn up and courses to plot, you know how it is.'

'Of course, Navigator Starn. I wouldn't want to keep you from your work. The Emperor protects.'

That he does, inquisitor.' Starn stepped onto the platform and disappeared back through the floor. If Thaddeus was lucky, he would soon be delivering Thaddeus's message which, if again he was lucky, would reach the Crescent Moon shortly.

Not only would his strikeforce be able to act on the information he had recovered from the cathe-dral, but it would also demonstrate to Kolgo that keeping Thaddeus a virtual prisoner on his yacht served very little purpose. Kolgo couldn't visit anything outrageous on Thaddeus - the Inquisitor Lord had only as much authority as his fellow inquisitors let him have and he needed lesser men to defer to him. Thaddeus could be one of those lesser men, which meant it wasn't in Kolgo's interests to have him imprisoned, killed, or anything else.

Thaddeus hated the idea that infighting and point-scoring should be as large a part of the inquisitor's world as fighting the Emperor's foes. But the game was there to be played, and if he had to play it to fulfil his vows, then play it he would.

And no matter what Kolgo wanted, Thaddeus had a critical advantage. He had Stratix Luminae. Very soon, he felt that little else would matter.

The message had been simple. There were two loca-tions - the first was Stratix Luminae, a location which was absolutely not to be approached without Inquisitor Thaddeus himself. The second was Sep-tiam Torus, last recorded location of Adept Karlu Grien, which could be the last chance the strikeforce had to intercept the Soul Drinkers before Stratix Luminae, after which they might be lost forever.

Colonel Vinn and the storm troopers, minus the recon platoons lost at Pharos, were waiting in deep system s.p.a.ce for Thaddeus's next communication. Septiam Torus, meanwhile, belonged to the Sisters.

Sister Aescarion slipped the restraints of the grav-couch and reached up to grab the handrail mounted onto the ceiling of the Valkyrie's pa.s.senger compartment. Aescarion had bullied the three Valkyrie aerial transports plus crews out of the rear echelon Jouryan forces, knowing that fifty battle-ready Sisters and the mention of Inquisitorial authority was more than enough to secure anything she might need.

By the time she had made it to the surface of Sep-tiam Torus the battle for Septiam City was almost a full day old and she needed to get into the thick of it quick. They said there were s.p.a.ce Marines spear-heading the Jouryan a.s.sault, and even if they did not turn out to be the Soul Drinkers, it seemed the Imperial forces could do with a force of heavily-armed battle-sisters fighting alongside them.

The Valkyrie lurched as it switched to defensive manoeuvres. Aescarion couldn't see out of the pas-senger compartment but she could hear the anti-aircraft fire punching up past the Valkyrie from enemy-held sections of the city, and knew the ruins of Septiam City would be streaking by below. One good hit now and the twenty Sisters with her would die in an instant, regardless of training, armour, or even faith. But that was the way war went. Aescarion had taken a vow long ago to wait for death and wel-come it, when the time came.

Her battle-sisters felt the same. She had her own Seraphim squad and two more squads, Retribu-tors carrying three heavy flamers led by Sister Aspasia and a ten-strong unit under Sister Supe-rior Rufilla. Two more Valkyries carried similar complements - whether it would be enough to face the Soul Drinkers would be in the hands of the Emperor.

'Black Three's lost an engine, ma'am.' came the tinny voice of the pilot through the ship's vox. 'Says he's going down.'

'Can they land?' replied Aescarion, the image of a score of valiant dead Sisters flitting through her mind.

Black Three was the lead Valkyrie in the formation, heading for the plaza near the senate-house which the Jouryans had just liberated from the enemy.

'They can bring her down but they're well short. They're going to hit the slums.'

'We can't be spread out. Follow them in and pre-pare for deployment. From the Enemy will the Golden Throne deliver us, citizen.'

Whatever you say, ma'am.' replied the pilot. 'Hold on.'

Bad news. The designated landing zone would have put the Sisters behind the last reported loca-tion of the Marines, in a position to a.s.sault them if they were the Soul Drinkers or reinforce them if they were loyalist Marines. The situation in the city was fluid and confused, but from what Aescarion understood the slums were seething with close-quarters battles between the benighted Septiams and the Stratix XXIII. Aescarion wasn't sure which would be more dangerous to her Sisters.'Coming down, ma'am. Doors away.' said the pilot, his voice strained as he fought to pull the Valkyrie's nose up after a steep descent.

'Sisters!' yelled Aescarion. 'Prepare to deploy! Aspasia, I want fire before we hit the ground! Rufilla, secure our zone and cover us!'

The Sisters Superior saluted in acknowledgement, and then the rear ramp juddered open.

The Valkyrie was swooping down an avenue of shattered slum buildings, little more than shacks piled on top of one another until they spilled into the road and crushed the lower layers into strata of rubble. More solid buildings were pocked and scorched by small arms and artillery. Greying tan-gles of bodies lay cl.u.s.tered around intersections and barricades. Smoke plumed up from below, fill-ing the compartment with the stink of fuel and las-burned air. Tracer fire streaked from every other window and explosions crumped beneath the sud-den roar of the Valkyrie's engines.

Black Three was already down, one engine bil-lowing black smoke, the bulk of the ship laid crossways across the road where it had crash-landed and skidded to a halt. The black-armoured forms of Sisters were deploying rapidly from the stricken transport, using the hull itself for cover or sprinting through a shower of enemy fire into the ruins at the side of the road.

Aescarion saw they were coming down almost on top of Black Three. The Valkyrie dipped lower, downward thrust driving up thick clouds of dust and debris. Without waiting for the pilot's signal, she ran onto the ramp and jumped.

She flicked a switch and her Seraphim jump pack kicked in. Useless on Eumenix, she and her squad had equipped with the jump packs knowing how useful they could be deploying from the air. Her squad followed, Sister Mixu right behind her, all with bolt pistols drawn and c.o.c.ked.

Aescarion hit the ground and managed to keep her feet. She was about thirty metres from Black Three, a smouldering dark shape through the swirl of dust. The engine roar was suddenly replaced with gunfire, crackling from all directions. The distinctive report of bolt weapons told her that the Sisters were leav-ing Black Three and returning fire from the ruined buildings that lined the road. Smaller-calibre weapons blazed down from the buildings all around and Aescarion knew that while they didn't have the discipline of the Sisters, they had far greater num-bers. She glimpsed muzzle flashes and oddly twisted, loping humanoid forms through the chaos.