Venting gases and bodies spilled from ruptured hulls, and thousands died every second as wounded ships fell from low orbit and streaked down through the atmosphere to their destruction. The flaming wreckage of Mechanic.u.m Gloriam, its engines destroyed as it sought to evade a hunting pack of frigates in low orbit, plunged through the lightning-wracked skies of Mars towards the planet's surface.

The Technotheologians, watching its fall from the Basilica of the Blessed Algorithm in the Cydonia Mensae region, proclaimed it a sign of the Machine-G.o.d's wrath, raising their manip arms and mechadendrites in praise of this wondrous sign of divine displeasure. Calls for peace and a cease of hostilities were carried far and wide across Mars, broadcast on every channel by every means available to them.

That signal was abruptly cut short as Mechanic.u.m Gloriam slammed into the basilica and obliterated the vast complex of temples, shrines and reliquaries in a heartbeat. Millions of square kilometres and billions of faithful priests were consumed in the explosive impact, and any last call to reason vanished with them in the newest and deepest impact crater to disfigure the Martian soil.

All across Mars, in every region where the Mechanic.u.m had built its holdings, the ancient order tore at itself in a frenzy of bloodletting more savage than any alien race had dared inflict on Humanity.

Libraries of priceless knowledge burned, adepts whose expertise had helped free the human race from confinement to its birth planet were torn limb from limb by screaming mobs, and forges that had previously sworn undying pacts of allegiance turned on one another like lifelong foes.

Burning debris from orbit fell to the planet's surface, and though it was said that it never rained on Mars, a rain of fire now filled the heavens as though the sky wept comet tears that it should bear witness to such destruction.

SITTING NEXT TO Caxton in the bucket seats fitted in the cramped rear compartment of their salvaged Cargo-5, Dalia fought to stay awake as the rugged, dusty vista of the Syria Planum sped past, rendered grainy and blurred through the scratched gla.s.s of the compartment's windows. The ground was uneven, but Rho-mu 31 guided them expertly across the rocky plains. Severine sat on the other side of Caxton, her broken arm bound close to her chest, while Zouche sat up front in the driver's cabin next to Rho-mu 31.

In the aftermath of the Kaban Machine's attack, her Protector had pulled himself from the metal that impaled his shoulder and quickly dragged them from the wreckage of the mag-lev. Working with practiced urgency, he had ascertained the extent of their injuries and moved them to a hidden culvert in the tunnel walls.

As Rho-mu 31 and Zouche searched the rear cargo holds of the mag-lev for anything useful in the wreckage, Severine had stared at Dalia with an expression of awe and what Dalia would later realise was fear.

*How did you do that?' asked Severine. *Send that machine away, I mean. I thought we were all dead.'

*We should have been,' agreed Caxton. *Maybe it missed us or there was some kind of interference, I don't know.'

Severine shook her head, biting her lip as the pain of her broken arm flared. *No, it was something Dalia did, I know it. What did you do?'

*I don't understand it myself, to be honest,' said Dalia, leaning her head back on the cold stone of the tunnel wall. *It was as if I could see the mechanisms of its mind and I just knew how it worked. I saw what Chrom had done to it and I... kind of blinded it to the fact we were right in front of it.'

*Chrom?' said Severine. *Lukas Chrom? He built that machine? A thinking machine?'

*Yes,' said Dalia. *I could see his handiwork all over its mind.'

*Why would an adept like Chrom want to kill us?'

*Not us,' said Caxton. *Dalia.'

Severine looked at Dalia as though she had personally broken her arm. *What haven't you told us, Dalia? Why does Lukas Chrom want you dead?'

Dalia knew nothing she said would convince Severine that she didn't know for sure, but she shrugged and said, *I'm guessing here, but I think maybe it's something to do with Adept Zeth's Akashic reader. Some people don't want it built, and I think they're afraid of what's going to happen when we know everything it can show us. Think about it, if anyone can know everything, then what happens to the keepers of knowledge? Knowledge is power, right? So what happens when everyone can access that knowledge?'

*They'd lose their power,' said Caxton.

*Exactly,' said Dalia. *And I'm surer than ever that whatever the creature beneath the Noctis Labyrinthus is, it's the key to making the Akashic reader work. People are frightened of what we'll be able to achieve when we unlock its potential and they're desperate to hang on to what they've got.'

*So what's all that got to do with what's happening all over Mars?'

*I don't know,' said Dalia. *I really don't, but whatever it is, it's bigger than all of us.'

At that moment Rho-mu 31 and Zouche had returned laden with a veritable treasure trove of useful items recovered from the unclaimed supplies earmarked for Crater Edge and Red Gorge: medicae packs, ration cartons, water recyclers and breathing apparatus. The medicae packs were opened and wounds cleaned and treated with counterseptic before being bound with gauze and bandages.

Best of all, Zouche had discovered an overturned Cargo-5 all-terrain hauler, an unreliable and cantankerous vehicle common in the frontier towns and less affluent forges, but one which offered them a chance of survival. Rho-mu 31 easily righted the vehicle, but upon doing so, they discovered that the indiscriminate fire of their attacker had severed the track unit and holed the mechanics of the driver's controls.

Undaunted, Zouche set to work repairing the damaged track unit with Rho-mu 31's help, while Caxton dismantled the control panel and set to work with Dalia, trying to jury-rig the controls back to life. Using spars of metal from the wrecked mag-lev, Rho-mu 31 groaned with effort as he lifted the Cargo-5 enough for the others to pull the repaired track links through, and they had cheered and embraced when Caxton finally ignited the drive plant and the engine turned over with a belligerent growl.

Stocking up the rear compartments of the Cargo-5 with their supplies, they had driven along the darkness of the tunnel and emerged into a freshly broken morning. Dalia had never been happier to see open sky, though the scarlet hue of the dawn and the cascades of fire she saw in the distance spoke of deeper troubles to come.

As Rho-mu 31 negotiated the Cargo-5 down the rugged slope leading to the Syria Planum, Dalia and the others had their first glimpse of Mondus Gamma forge complex. Like a dark slick, it spread south and east across the landscape in a vast swathe of smoking, flaming industry. Hive manufactories, vast weapon hangars and blazing foundries pounded and throbbed with the labour of production. One of the largest forges on Mars, its furthest extremities were beyond sight, a black pall of shrouding smoke clinging to the fabrication plants and sub-hives as though unwilling to let outsiders view what lay beneath.

The sight was profoundly disturbing, for Dalia knew this was the domain of Adept Lukas Chrom, the builder of the machine that had just tried to kill them.

Despite that, a newfound vigour filled Dalia, though whether this was in response to their brush with death or some other reason, she couldn't tell. All she knew was that she was alive and all the things she had feared losing were still there, just waiting to be experienced.

The same mood seemed to suffuse them all, and over the next few hours of their journey, as the ground levelled out and they made good time across the plain, each of her fellow companions relaxed into this new stage of their journey. Even Severine, whose arm was still painful despite Rho-mu 31's ministrations and the effects of a couple of painkillers, seemed in better spirits.

The air in the vehicle was clammy, yet it was better than the hot dust that billowed around them outside. This far from the pallidus a the atmosphere outside wasn't actually poisonous, but it wasn't exactly pleasant. Dalia felt a growing sense of optimism that they were going to reach their goal after all as the hours blurred into days and the unending dust clouds enveloped them.

The days pa.s.sed mostly in silence, though occasionally one of them would point out a particularly interesting formation or unusual sight and they would talk about it until it was obscured in the dust of their wake. Rho-mu 31 kept one eye on the distant forge, and Dalia felt a growing excitement as the ground became rockier.

At length, Rho-mu 31 slowed the Cargo-5 and pointed to a dark scar in the earth that dropped sharply into the ground between two descending cliffs of rock.

*The western entrance to the Noctis Labyrinthus,' said Rho-mu 31.

*Well, we made it here,' said Severine. *What now?'

Dalia looked at the tense faces of her friends. They had come this far, but looking into the tomb-like darkness of the Noctis Labyrinthus, she could see their fear and hesitation at war with their desire to stand by her.

*We go in, what else is there to do?' asked Caxton. *We've come all this way and we can't turn back. Right, Dalia?'

*Right,' said Dalia, grateful for his support. *Fine by me,' said Zouche. *Pointless journey if we don't go in.'

Severine nodded slowly, and Rho-mu 31 guided their vehicle down the sloping entrance to the canyon system.

The ground dropped away sharply, swallowing them whole as the light faded and left them travelling in a twilight wilderness of shadows and thin bars of diffuse light that filtered down from high above.

Sheer cliffs of layered rock soared above them, and Dalia felt like they were plunging deeper and deeper into the heart of the planet through some dreadful, unhealed wound.

MAVEN COULD BARELY contain his anger at the sight of so many bodies. The tunnel was choked with them, lying scattered in pieces or crushed amid the twisted wreckage of a mag-lev that had been blasted from the track. He rode Equitos Bellum through the darkness, his twin stab-lights illuminating the tunnel and the dusty armoured carapace of Pax Mortis.

*You still think we're following dead spoor?' he voxed to Cronus.

His battle-brother didn't answer for a moment and Maven sensed his friend's fury at what he was seeing. The mag-lev hadn't just been attacked, it had been obliterated. Weapons of tremendous power had torn it open from end to end and slaughtered every living soul within.

*With all that's happening across Mars and even after what we found in the pallidus, I'll admit I was beginning to regret my decision to follow you,' said Cronus. *But no more, brother. Whatever that machine is, it has to be destroyed. This will not stand.'

Maven nodded in agreement, though, truth to tell, even he had begun to doubt the instincts of his mount as it led them deeper and deeper into the pallidus. Then, after days of fruitless searching, his auspex had fizzed and hissed with the familiar spider-like pattern of electromagnetic energy that was their prey's signature.

The buried wreck of a prospector's hauler had been almost completely obscured by the dust storms, but Equitos Bellum had scented the handiwork of its nemesis in its destruction.

No sooner had the Knight's auspex sniffed at the residue of reactor, shield and weapons, than Maven felt its gnawing desire to travel eastwards over the mountainous ridge between Tharsis and the Syria Planum in an aching pull of the Manifold.

Now they had found this corpse-filled tunnel, a charnel house of senseless slaughter, and still the Manifold pulled them onwards.

*Why hasn't anyone come to help?' wondered Maven. *Why have they just left them?'

*Mars has bigger problems,' replied Cronus. *You've heard the feeds. It's civil war.'

Maven heard the warring desires in his friend's voice and felt the same turmoil within his own heart. The inload feeds had been jammed with a million clamouring voices: declarations of war, pleas for aid and feral screams of hatred. The Martian forges, which had stood shoulder to shoulder through uncounted epochs of darkness and weathered those storms intact, were now doing to one another what Old Night could not.

Duty to their order told Maven they should abandon this quest and ride west with all speed to join their fellow Knights in defence of the Magma City.

But honour told him that once begun, a quest could never be abandoned, only completed.

Maven felt the angry pull of Equitos Bellum through the Manifold and knew which imperative he must obey.

*It's closer,' he said. *I can feel it.'

*Then let's get after it,' said Cronus, riding towards the Syria Planum. *The sooner we kill it the sooner we can rejoin our brothers.'

THE CARGO-5 ROLLED onwards through the soaring canyons of the Noctis Labyrinthus, the darkness always seeming to draw it further and further in, as an ambush predator lures its prey. The darkness was cold and the cabin's tiny heater did little to take the edge off the chill, but after the dusty, clammy journey across the Syria Planum, no one was complaining yet.

The deeper they went, the colder it became, and white webs of h.o.a.rfrost formed on the windows, a phenomenon none of them had ever seen before. Rho-mu 31 was forced to divert valuable battery power to the heater to keep the gla.s.s clear and see where he was going.

The headlights of the Cargo-5 stuttered, barely piercing the gloom, and the atmosphere within the cabin grew stuffy and unpleasant as the air recyder failed. Hour after hour pa.s.sed, and though there was nothing resembling a roadway, the base of the graben was relatively flat and the Cargo-5 devoured the kilometres.

Whenever they came to a branching canyon, Dalia would direct Rho-mu 31 with a nod of the head, as though afraid to disturb the sepulchral silence that filled the Noctis Labyrinthus.

No one questioned how she knew where she was going.

Grating static hissed from the oil-stained vox and Zouche reached down to turn it off before looking over his shoulder with a puzzled expression. *Strange. It's not even on.'

*Mellicin did say the adepts in this region left because of technical problems,' said Caxton.

His words were said lightly, but served only to heighten their unease.

More mechanical glitches plagued them as the journey continued, though the pa.s.sage of time after the first two days in the darkness was hard to judge after everyone's chronometers failed at exactly the same moment. Several hours later, the cabin's internal lights sputtered and died as they made a treacherous descent into an even deeper, shadow-thickened canyon unleavened by sunlight.

The darkness closed in on them utterly, and Dalia felt as though a cloak was being drawn around them while a host of black ghosts followed and watched from the shadows. Each of them felt a thousand eyes upon them, the hairs on the backs of their necks erect and screaming danger, though nothing threatening was visible.

Several times along the way the engine coughed and died, and each time it had to be coaxed back to life by an increasingly frustrated and nervous Caxton.

Despite the mechanical problems and the sullen, apprehensive mood that settled upon everyone in the gloom, Dalia felt a mounting sense of excitement with each kilometre that pa.s.sed. They had seen no daylight and no hint of anything resembling their final objective, but with the certainty of a zealot, Dalia knew they were close.

She had no idea how deep they had penetrated into the Noctis Labyrinthus a the odometer had failed the previous day a or where they were in relation to any other living thing on Mars, but a growing ache in the back of her mind told her they were close.

The rumble of the engine cut out again, and Dalia heard Caxton groan as he prepared to venture out into the cold and the dark to get it restarted.

Rho-mu 31 shook his head. *No need. We're not going any further, the battery's dead.'

*So what do we do now?' asked Severine, a shrill edge to her voice.

*It's all right,' said Dalia, leaning forward and wiping her hand across the cold gla.s.s of the driver's cabin. *Look!'

Ahead of the lifeless Cargo-5, a sheer cliff towered over them, its walls sparkling as though studded with nuggets of quartz. But this was no ordinary wall of rock, Dalia realised: its surface was smooth, like fused gla.s.s, and it shone with a faint internal light. Sections of the cliff had fallen away over the aeons, exposing a darkened pa.s.sage that cleft the rock, and from which a strange mist sighed like steam from a geothermal vent. *The breath of the Dragon,' said Dalia. *We've arrived.'

THE HIMADRI PRECINCT encircled the great, hollow mountain of the Himalazia at the crown of Terra, a mighty concourse of black, gla.s.sy marble lined with busts and statues of cowled figures. Veins of gold and red and blue threaded the marble and a thousand honour banners hung from the kilometre-high roof of shadowed arches and iron vaults.

Cold light spilled into the vast chamber through tall windows twice as large as a Warlord t.i.tan, throwing out great spars of brightness across the tiled floor of black and white terrazzo. The light fell on the towering warrior in gold who marched along its length in the company of a smaller, white-haired man who wore the simple robes of a palace administrator.

The giant wore a magnificent suit of golden armour, wrought by the finest craftsmen and embellished with finery scrimshawed by the greatest artisans of the Imperial Fists. A mantle of red velvet edged with bronze weave hung around his shoulders and his silver hair gleamed in contrast to the l.u.s.tre of his armour.

The warrior's face was craggy and tanned, browned by the light of unnumbered suns, and carved in an expression of stoic determination.

His companion was as unremarkable as the warrior was exceptional, his white hair worn long, like a mane, and his shoulders stooped with the weight of the world.

Behind this unlikely pair marched a detachment of ten Custodians in bronze armour and scarlet-plumed helms who carried long-bladed pole arms. Their presence was a formality, for Rogal Dorn, Primarch of the Imperial Fists, needed no protection.

Of all the great precincts of the Emperor's Palace, the Himadri was one of the few not to have been turned into a fortress by the golden warrior; though that fact was scant comfort to him, saw his companion, Malcador the Sigillite, Regent of Terra.

Malcador saw the wonder in Dorn's eyes as they pa.s.sed beneath Shivalik Arch and the ten thousand names of its builders inlaid with gold onto the marble. Behind that wonder, he also saw sadness.

*The glory of the Emperor's fastness will rise from the ashes of this war like a phoenix,' said Malcador, guessing his friend's thoughts.

Dorn looked down at him and smiled wearily. *Sorry. I was just calculating how long it would take to dismantle the great archway and replace it with a bastion gateway.'

*I know you were,' nodded Malcador, lacing his hands behind his back as they pa.s.sed beneath the arch. *So how long would it take?'

*If my Fists did the work, perhaps two days,' said Dorn. *But let's hope it doesn't come to that. If the traitor's forces reach this far then we have already lost.'

*The Emperor trusts you not to let that happen.'

*I will not,' agreed Dorn.

They walked in silence for some time, content to enjoy the view of the mountains against the rare sight of a blue sky and the many wonders contained within the Himadri Precinct: the Throne Globe of Mad King Peshkein of Tali, the Colonnade of Heroes, the last flying machine of the Roma, preserved in a shimmering stasis field and a hundred other wonders and trophies taken in the Wars of Unity.

*The Emperor still does not join us?' asked Dorn as they pa.s.sed the bloodstained Armour of Pearl that had been torn from the body of the warlord Kalagann.

Malcador sighed. He had been waiting for this question. *No, my friend, he does not.'

*Tell me why, Sigillite,' demanded Dorn. *His empire is crumbling and his brightest b.a.s.t.a.r.d son is dragging half the galaxy into war. What could possibly be more important?'

*I have no answer for you,' said Malcador. *Save the Emperor's word that nothing is more important than his labours in the palace vaults, not Horus, not you and certainly not I.'

*Then we are alone.'

*No,' said Malcador. *Not alone. Never alone. The Emperor may not stand beside us, but he has given us the means to fight this war and win it. Horus has three of his brother legions with him, you have your Fists and thirteen others.'

*Would that it were fifteen,' mused Dorn.

*Do not even think it, my friend,' warned Malcador. *They are lost to us forever.'

*I know,' said Dorn, *and you are right. By any simple reckoning of numbers, the traitor stands little chance of victory, but he was always the most cunning, the one most likely to find a way where no others could.'