Vipus glanced at the readout on a pict-screen mounted above his head. *Drifting! We'll hit the target, but off-centre. I hate these things. Give me a stormbird any day!'

Loken didn't bother replying, barely able to hear Nero as the atmosphere thickened beneath the drop-pod and the jets on its underside kicked in. The drop-pod shuddered and began heating up as the enormous forces pushing against it turned to fire and noise.

He sat through the last few minutes while everything around him was noise, unable to see the enemy he was about to fight and relinquishing control over his fate until the drop-pod hit.

Nero had been right when he said he had preferred an a.s.sault delivered by stormbird, the precise, surgical nature of an airborne a.s.sault far preferable to a warrior than this hurtling descent from above.

But the Warmaster had decided that the speartip would be deployed by drop-pod, reasoning a rightly, Loken admitted a that thousands of Astartes smashing into the defenders' midst without warning would be more psychologically devastating. Loken ran through the moment the drop-pod would hit in his mind, preparing himself for when the hatch charges would blow open.

He gripped his bolter tightly, and checked for the tenth time that his chainsword was in its scabbard at his side. Loken was ready.

*Ten seconds, Locasta,' shouted Vipus.

Barely a second later, the drop-pod impacted with such force that Loken's head snapped back and suddenly the noise was gone and everything went black.

LUCIUS KILLED HIS first foe without even breaking stride.

The dead man's armour was like gla.s.s, shimmering and iridescent, and his halberd's blade was fashioned from the same reflective substance. A mask of stained gla.s.s covered his face, the mouth represented by leading and filled with teeth of gemlike triangles.

Lucius slid his sword clear, blood smoking from its edge, as the soldier slumped to the floor. A curved arch of marble shone red in the dawn's early light above him and a swirl of dust and debris drifted around the drop-pod he had just leapt from.

The Precentor's Palace stood before him, vast and astonishing, a stone flower with the spire at its centre like a spectacular twist of overlapping granite petals.

More drop-pods hammered into the ground behind him, the plaza around the palace's north entrances the main objective of the Emperor's Children. A nearby drop-pod blew open and Ancient Rylanor stepped from its red-lit interior, his a.s.sault cannon already cycling and tracking for targets. *Nasicae!' yelled Lucius. *To me!' Lucius saw a flash of coloured gla.s.s from inside the palace, movement beyond the sweeping stone panels of the entrance hall.

More palace guards reacted to the sudden, shocking a.s.sault, but contrary to what Lucius had been expecting, they weren't screaming or begging for mercy. They weren't even fleeing, or standing stock still, numb with shock.

With a terrible war cry the palace guard charged and Lucius laughed, glad to be facing a foe with some backbone. He leveled his sword and ran towards them, Squad Nasicae following behind him, weapons at the ready.

A hundred palace guardians ran at them, resplendent in their gla.s.s armour. They formed a line before the Astartes, levelled their halberds, and opened fire.

Searing needles of silver filled the air around Lucius, gouging the armour of his shoulder guard and leg. Lucius lifted his sword arm to shield his head and the needles spat from the glowing blade of his sword. Where they hit the stone around the entrance it bubbled and hissed like acid.

One of Nasicae fell beside Lucius, one arm molten and his abdomen bubbling.

*Perfection and death!' cried Lucius, running through the white-hot silver needles. The Emperor's Children and the Palace Guard clashed with a sound like a million windows breaking the terrible screaming of the halberd-guns giving way to the clash of blade against armour and point-blank bolter fire.

Lucius's first sword blow hacked through a halberd shaft and tore through the throat of the man before him. Sightless gla.s.s eyes glared back at him, blood pumping from the guard's ruined throat, and Lucius tore the helm from his foe's head to better savour the sensation of his death.

A plasma pistol spat a tongue of liquid fire that wreathed an enemy soldier from head to foot, but the man kept fighting, sweeping his halberd down to cut deep into one of Lucius's men before another Astartes ripped off his head with a chainsword.

Lucius pivoted on one foot from a halberd strike and hammered the hilt of his sword into his opponent's face, feeling a tight anger that the faceplate held. The guard staggered away from him and Lucius reversed his grip and thrust the blade through the gap between the gla.s.s plates at the guard's waist, feeling the blade's energy field burning through abdomen and spine.

These guards were slowing the Emperor's Children down, buying precious moments with their lives for something deeper in the palace. As much as Lucius was revelling in the sensations of the slaughter, the smell of the blood, the searing stink of flesh as the heat of his blade scorched it and the pounding of blood in veins, he knew he could not afford to give the defenders such moments.

Lucius ran onwards, slicing his blade through limbs and throats as he ran. He fought as though following the steps of an elaborate dance, a dance where he played the part of the victor and the enemy were there only to die. The Palace Guard were dying around him and his armour was drenched with their blood. He laughed in sheer joy. Warriors still fought behind him, but Lucius had to press on before the palace guard was able to stall their advance with more men in front of them.

*Squad Quemondil! Rethaerin! Kill these and then follow me!'

Fire sawed from every direction as the Emperor's Children forced their way towards the junction Lucius had reached. The swordsman darted his head past the corner, seeing a vast indoor seascape. A plume of water cascaded through a hole in the centre of a colossal granite dome, and a shaft of pink light fell alongside the water, sending brilliant rainbows of colour between the arches formed by the petals of the dome's surface.

Islands rose from the indoor sea that took up most of the dome, each topped by picturesque follies of white and gold.

Thousands of palace guards ma.s.sed in the dome, splashing towards them through the waist-deep sea and taking up positions among the follies. Most wore the gla.s.sy armour of the men still dying behind Lucius, but many others were clad in far more elaborate suits of bright silver. Others still were wrapped in long streamers of silk that rippled behind them like smoke as they moved.

Rylanor emerged into the dome behind Lucius, his a.s.sault cannon smoking and the chisel-like grips of his power fist thick with blood.

*They're ma.s.sing,' spat Lucius. *Where are the d.a.m.ned World Eaters?'

*We shall have to win the palace by ourselves,' replied Rylanor, his voice grating from deep within his sarcophagus.

Lucius nodded, pleased that they would be able to shame the World Eaters. *Ancient, cover us. Emperor's Children, break and cover fire! Nasicae, keep up this time!'

Ancient Rylanor stepped out from the junction and a spectacular wave of fire sheared through the air around him, a storm of heavy caliber sh.e.l.l casings and oil-soaked fumes streaming from the cannon mounted on his shoulder.

His explosive fire shredded the stone of the foremost island's follies, broken and bloodied bodies tumbling from the shattered wreckage.

*Go!' shouted Lucius, but the Emperor's Children were already charging, their training so thorough that every warrior already knew his place in the complex pattern of overlapping fire and movement that sent the strike force sweeping into the dome.

Savage joy lit up Lucius's face as he charged the thrill of battle and the sensations of killing stimulating his body with wondrous excess.

In a swirling cacophony of noise, the perfection of death had come to the Choral City.

ON THE SOUTHERN SIDE of the palace, a strange organically formed building clung to the side of the palace like a parasite, its bulging, liquid shape more akin to something that had been grown than something built. Its pale marble was threaded with dark veins and the ma.s.ses of its battlements hung like ripened fruit. From the expanse of marble monument slabs marking the pa.s.sing of the city's finest and most powerful citizens, it was clear that this was a sacred place.

Known as the Temple of the Song, it was a memorial to the music that Father Isstvan had sung to bring all things into existence. It was also the objective of the World Eaters. The word that the invasion had begun was already out by the time the first World Eaters' drop-pods crashed into the plaza, shattering gravestones and throwing slabs of marble into the air. Strange music keened through the morning air, calling the people of the Choral City from their homes and demanding that they take up arms. The soldiers from the nearby city barracks grabbed their guns as the Warsingers appeared on the battlements of the Temple to sing the song of death for the invaders.

Called by the Warsingers' laments, the people of the city gathered in the streets and streamed towards the battle.

The World Eaters' strike force was led by Captain Ehrlen, and as he emerged from his drop-pod, he was expecting the trained soldiers that Angron had briefed them on, not thousands of screaming citizens swarming onto the plaza. They came in a tide, armed with anything and everything they had in their homes, but it was not the weapons they carried but their sheer numbers and the terrible song that spoke of killing and murder that made them deadly.

*World Eaters, to me!' yelled Ehrlen, hefting his bolter and aiming it into the ma.s.s of charging people.

The white-armoured warriors of the World Eaters formed a firing line around him, turning their bolters outwards.

*Fire!' shouted Ehrlen and the first ranks of the Choral City's inhabitants were cut down by the deadly volley, but the oncoming ma.s.s rose up like a spring tide as they clambered over the bodies of the dead.

As the gap between the two forces closed, the World Eaters put up their bolters and drew their chainswords.

Ehrlen saw the unreasoning hatred in the eyes of his enemies and knew that this battle was soon to turn into a ma.s.sacre.

If there was one thing at which the World Eaters excelled, it was ma.s.sacre.

*d.a.m.n IT,' SPAT Vipus. *We must have hit something on the way in.'

Loken forced his eyes open. A slice of light where the drop-pod had broken open provided the only illumination, but it was enough for him to check that he was still in once piece.

He was battered, but could feel no evidence of anything more than that.

*Locasta, sound off!' ordered Vipus. The warriors of Locasta shouted their names, and Loken was relieved to hear that none appeared to have been injured in the impact. He undid the buckle of his grav-harness and rolled to his feet, the drop-pod canted at an unnatural angle. He pulled his bolter from the rack and pushed his way through the narrow opening broken in the side of the drop-pod.

As he emerged into the bright sunshine, he saw that they had struck a projecting pier of stone on one of the towers, the rubble of its destruction scattered around the ruined drop-pod. He circled the wreckage, seeing that they were at least two hundred metres above the ground, wedged amongst the ma.s.sive battlements of the Sirenhold.

To his left he saw spectacular tomb-spires encrusted with statues, while to his right was the Choral City itself, its magnificent structures bathed in the rosy glow of the sunrise. From this vantage point Loken could see the whole city, the extraordinary stone flower of the palace and the western defenses like scars across the landscape.

Loken could hear gunfire from the direction of the palace and realized that the Emperor's Children and World Eaters were already fighting the enemy. Gunfire echoed from below, Sons of Horus units fighting in the tangle of shrines and statuary that filled the canyons between the tomb-spires.

*We need a way down,' said Loken as Locasta pulled themselves from the wreckage of the drop-pod. Vipus jogged over with his gun at the ready.

*b.l.o.o.d.y ground surveyors must have missed the projections,' he grumbled.

*That's what it looks like,' agreed Loken, as he saw another drop-pod ricochet from the side of a tomb-spire and careen downwards in a shower of broken statues.

*Our warriors are dying,' he said bitterly. *Someone's going to pay for this.'

*We look spread out,' said Vipus, glancing down into the Sirenhold. Between the tomb-spires, smaller shrines and temples b.u.t.ted against one another in a complex jigsaw.

Plumes of black smoke and explosions were already rising from the fighting.

*We need a place to regroup,' said Loken. He flicked to Torgaddon's vox-channel. *Tarik? Loken here, where are you?' A burst of static was his only reply. He looked across the Sirenhold and saw one tomb-spire close to the wall, its many levels supported by columns wrought into the shapes of monsters and its top sheared off by the impact of a drop-pod. *d.a.m.n. If you can hear me, Tarik, make for the spire by the western wall, the one with the smashed top. Regroup there. I'm heading down to you.'

*Anything?' asked Vipus.

*No. The vox is a mess. Something's interrupting it.'

*The spires?'

*It would take more than that,' said Loken. *Come on. Let's find a way off this d.a.m.n wall.'

Vipus nodded and turned to his men. *Locasta, start looking for a way down.'

Loken leaned over the battlements as Locasta fanned out to obey their leader's command. Beneath him he could see the diminutive figures of Astartes fighting black-armoured warriors in streaming firefight. He turned away, desperate to find a way down. *Here!' shouted Brother Casto, Locasta's flamer bearer. *A stairway.'

*Good work,' said Loken, making his way over to see what Casto had found. Sure enough, hidden behind a tall, eroded statue of an ancient warrior was a dark stairway cut into the sand-coloured stone.

The pa.s.sageway looked rough and unfinished, the stone pitted and crumbling with age. *Move,' said Vipus. *Casto, lead the way.'

*Yes, captain,' replied Casto, plunging into the gloom of the pa.s.sageway. Loken and Vipus followed him, the entrance barely wide enough for their armoured bodies. The stairs descended for roughly ten metres before opening into a wide, low-ceilinged gallery. *The wall must be riddled,' said Vipus. *Catacombs,' said Loken, pointing to niches cut into the walls that held the mouldering remains of skeletons, some still swaddled in tattered cloth.

Casto led them along the gallery, the bodies becoming more numerous the deeper they went, the skeletal remains piled two or three deep.

Vipus snapped around suddenly, bolter up and finger on the trigger. *Vipus?'

*I thought I heard something.'

*We're clear behind,' said Loken. *Keep moving and focus. This could-'

*Movement!' said Casto, sending a blast of orange-yellow fire from his flamer into the darkness ahead of him.

*Casto!' barked Vipus. *Report! What do you see?'

Casto paused. *I don't know. Whatever it was, it's gone now.'

The niches ahead guttered with flames, hungrily devouring the bare bones. Loken could see that there was no enemy up ahead, only Isstvanian dead.

*There's nothing there now,' said Vipus. *Stay focused, Locasta, and no jumping at shadows! You are Sons of Horus!'

The squad picked up the pace, shaking thoughts of hidden enemies from their minds, as they moved rapidly past the burning grave-niches.

The gallery opened into a large chamber, Loken guessing that it must have filled the width of the wall. The only light was from the dancing flame at the end of Casto's flamer, the yellow light picking out the ma.s.sive stone blocks of a tomb.

Loken saw a sarcophagus of black granite, surrounded by statues of kneeling people with their heads bowed and hands chained before them. Panels set into the walls were covered in carvings where human forms acted out ceremonial scenes of war.

*Casto, move up,' said Vipus. *Find us a way down.'

Loken approached the sarcophagus, running his hand down its vast length. Its lid was carved to represent a human figure, but he knew that it could not be a literal portrait of the body inside; its face had no features save for a pair of triangular eyes fashioned from chips of coloured gla.s.s.

Loken could hear the song from the Sirenhold outside, even through the layers of stone, a single mournful tone that rose and fell, winding its way from the tomb-spires.

*Warsinger,' said Loken bitterly. *They're fighting back. We need to get down there.'

THE SILVER-ARMOURED palace guards started flying.

Surrounded by burning arcs of white energy, they leapt over the advancing Emperor's Children, gleaming, leaf shaped blades slicing downwards from wrist-mounted weapons.

Lucius rolled to avoid a hail of blades, the silver guard swooping low to behead two of Squad Quemondil, the charged blades cutting through their armour with horrific ease.

He slid into the water, finding that it only reached his waist. Above him, the halberd-guns of the palace guard were spraying silver fire at the Emperor's Children, but the Astartes were moving and firing with their customary discipline Even the bizarre sight of the palace's defenders did not dissuade them from their patterns of movement and covering fire. A body fell into the water next to him, its head blasted away by bolter fire and blood pouring into the water in a scarlet bloom.

Lucius saw that the silver guards were too quick and turned too nimbly for conventional engagement. He would just have to engage them unconventionally.

One of the silver guards dived towards him and Lucius could see the intricate filigree on the man's armour, the tiny gold threads like veins on the breastplate and greaves and the scrollwork that covered his face.

The guard dived like a seabird, firing a bright blade from his wrist.

Lucius turned the missile aside with his sword and leapt to meet his opponent. The guard twisted in the air, trying to avoid Lucius, but he was too close. Lucius swung his sword and sliced the guard's arm from his body, his crackling sword searing through the armour. Blood sprayed from the smoldering wound and the guard fell, twisting back towards the water.

Lucius fell with the dead man, splashing back into the lake as the Emperor's Children finally reached their enemy. Volleys of bolter fire scoured the islands and his warriors advanced relentlessly on the survivors. The palace guards were backing away, forming a tighter and tighter circle. Gla.s.s-armoured guards lay dead in heaps and the artificial lake was muddy pink and choked with bodies.

Rylanor's a.s.sault cannon sent fire tearing through the silk-clad guards, whose preternatural speed couldn't save them as the cannon sh.e.l.ls turned the interior of the dome into a killing ground. Another silver guard fell, bolter fire ripping through his armour.

Squad Nasicae joined Lucius and he grinned wolfishly at them, elated at the prospect of fighting more of the silver guards.

*They're running,' said Lucius. *Keep them on the back foot. Keep pressing on.'

*Squad Kaitheron's reporting from the plaza,' said Brother Scetherin. *The World Eaters are fighting around the temple on the north side.'

*Still?'