against the network. Giant slabs of rock tore away, shifting the weight above it. Limestone shattered
and cracked for dozens of metres inside the rock strata. The tyranids heard the thunder rumble
through the walls and tried to run… but there was nowhere left to go.
The walls could no longer support the weight of the desert above them, and the tyranids’
network of tunnels had destabilised the area further. The caverns collapsed, bringing a fall of sand
and giant limestone rocks plummeting into the jungle. The tyranids scrambled away from the falling
sky and the cascading pillars of sand. The fall turned into an avalanche, and in moments, the ceilings
over Apostle, Basilica, Cathedral and Devotion collapsed.
In turn, the weight of the buckling caverns cracked through the roofs of the many unexplored
caves below. This precipitated a second cave-in that crushed the unexplored beauty of the lower
network. Sand and debris rained into ancient underground seas, past kilometre high waterfalls, and
onto fossilised jungles preserved and sparkling with mineral coats. The deep collapse acted like a
drain, pulling at all the tunnels and connecting caves, until it tore the entire network down into ruin.
One moment Turk was running, rumbling sand beneath his tired legs and the blue sun above his
head, the next, he was falling, the world pulled out from beneath his feet. Turk slammed back into
the sand after a terrible moment of freefalling, the drop a stomach-lurching ride, and then tumbled
down the longest slope he’d ever experienced.
The ground levelled out, and Turk finally rolled to a stop. He was dizzy and sick, his senses
reeling, unanchored. A dust cloud obscured everything around him, while static bursts discharged
and dazzled him. Someone’s scream forced him to focus; a Guardsman was being swallowed by a
sinkhole in the sand, his hands frantically scrambling to find purchase. He was neck deep; nose deep
a second later, his eyes impossibly wide in panic. Turk scrambled to grab him, but it was too late, he
simply vanished.
The pull of the sand continued, and Turk felt the desert beneath his own feet drag him slowly to
the same hole. The sand felt too liquid, robbed of its cohesion. More static discharged and flared
against the choked air. Turk leapt to the side and crawled against the current, losing a metre to every
one he gained. Finally, he dragged himself onto a stable patch, and turned to see sand spiralling
around sand in a torpid whirlpool. There must have been an air pocket somewhere beneath him. Add
the strange properties of the sand, and the drag was enough to pull men down to their doom.
Turk collapsed atop his small island, panting and exhausted. He felt like he’d been running for
as long as he could remember being alive. He ached. He was tired in a way that made him dizzy. He
wanted to sleep, but there was no promise that his ordeal was over. The tyranids, he realised, and
that thought alone was enough to shock him with adrenaline.
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He looked around in mad panic, trying to get his bearings, but saw nothing that made sense. A
massive dust cloud hung in the air, slowly settling and sparking. The sand sloped upward and away
into a massive dune that seemed to stretch to impossible heights. Streams of sand continued pouring
down the slope. They were thick, at first, but thinned slowly to a trickle. The more the dust storm
settled, and the more Turk could see, the higher the dune soared, until its stature proved too
incredible to comprehend.
Turk’s micro-bead crackled to life, the voice strained and broken by bursts of static. Others had
survived, Turk realised, gratefully. Slowly, the survivors found one another and gathered together:
Nisri, Turk, Ballasra and a handful of others. When Turk found Kamala, they embraced and kissed,
ignoring decorum and scandal. They then found two more men, their bodies snapped and twisted by
unkind falls, and another two with broken legs and arms. The scout Mousar was among the dead, his
mouth and eyes caught in a gasp, his neck turned at an odd angle. Turk quietly covered his scarred
face with his kafiya.
“Has anyone seen Chalfous?” Ballasra asked. They all shook their heads in quiet shock,
although Turk suspected it was Chalfous he had seen drowning.
Turk claimed the 892nd’s banner from one of the fallen Guardsmen, and then they waited for the
dust to settle completely. As it did, what they saw made even less sense. The sand dune that
stretched above their heads was at least a kilometre tall. They could finally see far enough to follow
the dune’s ridge by sight, before realising that it wasn’t a dune, but the lip of a giant crater. It was
dozens of kilometres in diameter, massive whirlpools of sand and giant daggers of upturned rock
dotted across its surface. They were at the bottom of the giant bowl that had once been the caverns.
As they explored their surroundings, Ballasra whistled them over. A claw had appeared in the
sand, followed by the upper body of a wounded snake. Turk drew his pistol and killed the tyranid
before it could crawl free.
Over the next hour, the survivors found refuge in the shade of a giant finger of rock that broke
the skin of the desert. It was encrusted with mud, its water long past drunk by the desert. They
buried the dead as best they could, tended to the wounded, killed the occasional injured tyranid that
had somehow crawled its way out of the ground, and discussed ways of escaping the crater.
5
It was night, and the air in the crater was deathly cold. The survivors huddled together to keep
warm, and they covered the two injured men in the Imperial banner.
They’d found one brief hope in a small puddle of water that had trickled to the surface, but by
the time dusk had arrived, the greedy desert had drunk the puddle back up. Now they slept the sleep
of the dead, waiting for dawn before attempting to crawl up the crater’s dune wall. Not that they
believed they would have much success. The slope was too steep.
Turk started awake, Kamala’s hand gently covering his mouth.
“What is it?” he said, instantly awake. The others did not stir, the deep chill of the early morning
drawing them deeper into their exhausted lethargy.
Kamala’s eyes were black under the night sky. Turk felt disquieted by the way her gaze seemed
to reach and rifle through his very soul. She was searching for something, searching for an anchor.
Kamala kneeled down next to him and waited for him to sit up.
“Beloved, what is it?” he asked.
“The stars are silent again,” she said.
“That’s good, isn’t it?” he asked, hoping no more would come of this.
“No,” she said, a sob escaping her lips. “No it isn’t. I always hear the stars… always… I hear
them throb and ache. I hear the echoes of the Astronomicon, the whispers of the warp trying to eat
its way into my head.” She thumped her temple with her palm. “The Black Ships… the Black Ships
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find us and teach us how to ignore all but the Emperor’s voice, but the noise is always there. It never
leaves us. Never! Except….” Her gaze flitted back up to the stars, her eyes suddenly lost in the
silent heavens.
Turk grabbed her shoulders gently, forcing her to focus on him again. “Kamala, why are the
stars silent? The tyranids?”
“We killed them,” she said, her voice broken. “We killed one ship. One.”
“One?” Turk said, dread like cold water washing through his limbs and organs. “There was more
than one?”
“We killed scouts,” Kamala whispered. “All that terror… all that horror for one scout ship.”
“More are coming?”
“No,” Kamala whispered, “more are here.”
Nisri felt the low tremor move through the ground, building in strength. Streams, and then rivers, of
sand bled from the dune wall. Entire sections hissed as they collapsed and slid. Everyone was awake
and standing, their fatigue robbing them of the will to run, to cry, or to hide.
It was Ballasra who pointed to the distant wall, where the starry sky framed perfectly the lip of
the crater. A dust cloud rose to blanket the crater’s lip, and tyranids began pouring over the side and
down the slope like the seething dark mass of a living shadow.
They numbered in the thousands. They numbered in the endless.
“They’re coming from the south,” Ballasra said.
“There was another ship,” Nisri said. “Merciful Emperor, there was another ship.”
“Make ready,” Turk said, simply. “We have more left to kill.”
Slowly, silently, the Guardsmen prepared themselves. The tyranids were several minutes away,
but gone was the anticipation of battle or the frayed nerves of eagerness. There was only the quiet
determination borne of a bone-aching weariness and a desperate yawning to be done with it. They
had fought, better than they had ever expected to fight, and they had won against incredible odds.
Nisri watched them prepare. He was proud of them, despite their differences… even because of
them. How different things might have been if he hadn’t been so stubborn, if Turk and he hadn’t
fought. This was not the time for regrets.
He knew what he had to do, for himself, the Guard be damned, his tribe be equally cursed. He
called Turk over, beckoning him to the other side of the rock to speak.
Both men walked quietly, Turk perhaps sensing what was to come. When, finally, they were out
of earshot of the others, Nisri straightened and spoke.
“I just wanted to say… it was an honour, Prince Iban Salid,” Nisri said, quietly, “and I ask you
lead them into battle one last time.”
“I shall,” Turk replied, grasping Nisri’s outstretched arm, “and the honour was mine, Prince
Dakar. Journey well.”
“I still fear I may not see you in my Paradise, son of the Banna,” Nisri said, pulling Turk into his
embrace. “I still will not shake my beliefs as a son of the Turenag, but I pray that the Aba Aba
Mushira has a Paradise for soldiers, so that I might welcome you there as my brother.”
The men embraced for a moment longer and kissed one another twice on each cheek, as they
might kiss old friends and beloved family. Then Turk turned around and walked away, leaving Nisri
alone with his thoughts.
Nisri fell to his knees and offered his hands out in submission and prayer. “Forgive me, oh
Emperor,” he whispered. “Forgive my hubris in believing I would be the one to find Paradise for my
people. Forgive me for proving unworthy of Your gifts.” With that, Nisri pulled his laspistol from
its holster.
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Turk didn’t flinch at the discharge of the laspistol, even when everyone else jumped. “Stay where
you are,” he ordered, stopping Ballasra from investigating. “Leave him his dignity.”
Ballasra hesitated, but said nothing. Like Turk, he understood the burden of leadership and the
dangers of brandishing a keen edged faith. Sometimes it was a weapon to use against your enemies,
and sometimes, it was the device of your downfall. No knife was ever crafted that could not defend
you against all aggressors one moment, and then be held at your wrists the next. Turk did not blame
Nisri for his actions; he wasn’t sure if he could have stared into the face of paradise and hope, for so
long, and then given the order to raze it. He understood the colonel’s anguish, and he respected him
for it.
Turk ensured everyone was ready for this last stand, and offered hushed words of
encouragement, and words of thanks for their efforts. He even propped the two injured men up and
armed them so that they could fight to the last. When he reached Ballasra, the two men merely
clapped one another on the shoulder. They were soldiers, the oldest of the lot. Nothing needed to be
said.
The tyranids were less than a minute away when Turk reached Kamala. They embraced and
kissed more passionately than they had during their nights of furtive lovemaking. The ground shook
beneath their feet.
“I can hear the ghosts again,” Kamala whispered, her forehead touching his. “I can finally
understand their words.”
“What are they saying?” Turk asked, curious.
“I love you,” she said, and kissed lurk on the lips. He looked confused, but the time for questions
was over. The tyranid wave was almost upon them. “Protect me to the last,” she said. “I finally
understand what I need to do.”
6
The tyranids swarmed over the last survivors, ripping through them in a terrible collision. The
Guardsmen fell, cut down one by one, by scythe, by claw or by bite. They died firing their pistols
and swinging their blades, their last furious act to kill those that slaughtered them.
Ballasra and Turk protected Kamala as the energy crackled around her body, but she did not
unleash it. It built up inside her, setting her nerves on fire and blistering her skin. Her nose and eyes
bled, the blood cascading down past her psyker’s hood and soaking her chest. She paused for long
enough to watch Ballasra fall, a pack of runners dragging him down into the sand and lacerating the
flesh from his bones. She took strength from his death, and continued to bottle it up inside her.
Turk turned to save Ballasra, but a round of green bioplasm struck him in the back. She watched
as he burned alive, the green fire devouring cloth, and burning away his hair. Their eyes locked, and
she took strength from him, but there was no recognition left in his stare before the fire split them
open. She shut her eyes. She’d seen this before without knowing it, had dreamt it without
understanding it. The images rifled through her thoughts, threatening to overwhelm her and scatter
her energies. The air was suffocated by the stench of ozone, cordite and discharged bowels, but she
forced herself past the noise, past the smells.
Kamala saw the deathblow arrive before it landed, felt it coming with the certainty of
providence. She sensed her end in the seconds before it struck. Her eyes flew open as a scythe struck
her between the shoulder blades and sliced straight through her sternum. She stared at the blade for a
moment, feeling no pain. It was exactly where it was supposed to be, exactly as the ghosts had
shown her.
She focused on the tattered, blood-caked standard half buried in sand. The wind tore at its frayed
edges, and the double-eagle emblem of the Imperium poked out from beneath the bodies of her
friends. It was exactly as she’d seen it, overlaid each time a million times over with no discrepancy
in how it unfolded. Every image she saw was the same, each one superimposed by repetition of this
