that is necessary is to gain access to the cortex hub of this bastion facility.”
Marduk turned to look at Burias. The icon bearer shrugged and Marduk turned back towards
Darioq with a sigh.
“What do you need to find the location of the explorator?” asked Marduk, speaking in a slow
and measured voice.
“In order to access the cortex hub of this bastion facility, a sub-retinal scan of the commanding
officer must be made,” said Darioq.
A hint of a smile touched Marduk’s lips, and he turned towards Burias.
“Fetch me his eyes, icon bearer.”
Burias grinned and flexed his fingers.
“As you wish, my master,” replied the icon bearer.
The heavy crawler doors slid aside with a sound like a mountain shifting, and snow and ice billowed
into the cargo hold. The frightened refugees from Antithon Guild were huddled as best they could
against the far wall, protecting their faces from the biting wind.
“Let’s do this quickly,” shouted Solon over the wind. At his side, Cholos gave him the thumbs
up. Solon looked towards Sergeant Folches, who stood with his soldiers. The soldier nodded.
“Keep her running,” shouted Solon to Cholos. “The last thing we want out here is the engines
seizing up.”
Solon pulled his mask and respirator over his face, obscuring his features, and turned around
awkwardly in his bulky exposure suit. He grabbed the sides of the ice-encased metal ladder on the
exterior of the crawler and began to climb down to the ground.
His breathing sounding heavy in his ears and he felt a momentary stab of claustrophobia. He
hated these suits. The pair of circular synth-glass goggle-panes obscured his peripheral vision and
the suit made all movement heavy and laboured. Still, they kept the cold out, and without one he
wouldn’t last more than an hour in these conditions.
He climbed down the eight metres from the cargo hold to the ground and stepped onto the ice.
The wind threatened to knock him down, and he steadied himself with a hand on a massive wheel.
55
He turned around to look up at the bulk of Markham’s lifeless crawler as the others descended. It
reared, black and imposing, like an ancient monolith, dark and dead.
With his mask in place, he had no means to communicate with the others except by hand signals,
and he pointed towards the front of the crawler. Sergeant Folches nodded his head and signalled for
him and his men to take the lead.
“Be my guest, you bastard,” said Solon, gesturing his ascent.
The soldiers had their weapons in hand as they approached the derelict crawler. It was clear to
Solon that its engines had not been running for some time, for there was a thick layer of snow across
the crawler, including over its engine stack. Normally, a crawler’s engineer maintained enough heat
in the boilers that no snow would settle. Snow was banked up high against one side of the massive
crawler, and Solon guessed that it must have been sitting dormant for at least five hours for such an
amount of snow to have settled against it.
The white-armoured Skyllan Interdiction soldiers began moving towards the front of the
crawler, their guns raised to their shoulders. With swift hand signals, the sergeant sent two men
ahead on point, and they covered each other’s blind spots as they moved forward. Solon and Cholos
stomped through the snow behind the soldiers.
“Doesn’t look like anyone is home,” Solon said to himself.
One of the crawler’s immense tracks had been ripped loose, and it lay twisted and broken
beneath the behemoth. This was no accident; nothing could tear a crawler’s track loose except an
immense mining detonation, or concentrated fire by a well-armed enemy.
Solon saw one of the soldiers gesture up at the side of the crawler, and he followed the direction
of his hand. A hole had been blasted through the side of the immense transport, roughly the size of a
man’s head, scorch marks surrounding the strike.
Solon walked closer to the side of the crawler, peering at a line of smaller marks up the side of
one of its wheels. Splinters of barbed metal were embedded in the steel rim off the wheel.
He peered closely at one of the splinters. It was viciously barbed, and he winced at its cruel
design. Had it been embedded in a living body, the flesh would be torn to shreds in attempting to
pull it free.
Solon jerked as a heavy hand slapped him on the shoulder, and he looked up into the faceless
visor of one of the soldiers, who motioned for him to move on. Solon nodded his head, and began
slogging through the snow and ice once more.
He stumbled as his foot caught on something, and fell awkwardly onto his front. A soldier
helped him back to his feet and he looked to see what he had tripped over.
A hand, blue and frozen, was protruding from the snow.
Solon swore and staggered back, pointing frantically at the frozen hand. The soldier nodded
grimly and motioned for him to keep moving.
Tearing his eyes from the grisly display, Solon hurried to catch up with the rest of the group. His
breathing was coming in short, sharp gasps, sounding too loud in the enclosed space of his mask.
The group moved around the front of the crawler, and Solon saw that the reflective plasglass of
the cabin had been shattered. Several holes had been punched through the front chassis of the
crawler, and Solon marvelled at the immense power of the blasts. The front of the crawlers were
heavily armoured, allowing them to push through ice, rock and snow if necessary, and he had been
led to believe that even a lascannon would be unable to pierce its reinforced layers. Whatever had
struck this crawler though had made a mockery of his teaching.
The soldiers moved warily around the side of the crawler, and Solon froze as the sergeant raised
his hand.
One of the soldiers dropped to one knee at the corner of the crawler and risked a quick glance
around it before giving the all clear and moving on.
56
They were out of the worst of the wind behind the lee side of the crawler, and Solon breathed a
sigh of relief to be out of the relentless gale. The snow was not banked up so heavily here, and with
a flurry of hand signals, the sergeant relayed his orders.
One of the cargo bay doors was wide open, and one of the soldiers warily climbed the icy ladder
up to the cavernous opening. As he crouched below the lip of the cargo bay, he raised his lasgun and
clicked on the powerful light under-slung below the barrel.
Rising up on the ladder, the soldier held his lasgun to his shoulder and swung the beam of his
light around within the crawler’s cargo hold. He signalled the all clear, and climbed up into the
interior, disappearing from sight. The other soldiers moved towards the ladder, Solon being herded
in the centre of the group.
Sergeant Folches and one of his men ascended quickly, while the other members of the squad
covered them, and then Solon was signalled to climb up.
His bulky exposure suit made the climb difficult and he was breathing hard as he reached the
top. Sergeant Folches grabbed him under one arm and hauled him over the edge, his pistol held at
the ready in his other hand.
The sergeant held up a hand for Solon to stay put and his soldiers began advancing through the
darkened cargo hold, the focused beams of their lights swinging left and right. They were swallowed
by the darkness as they penetrated deeper into the stricken crawler, leaving Solon standing alone.
He turned around, the weak lights mounted on either shoulder of his exposure suit illuminating
the area around him in their yellow glow. One of the lights flickered and buzzed, and Solon hit it
with one hand. The flickering stopped, but then the light gave out all together, and he swore.
Feeling exposed and alone, he moved further into the cargo hold, trying to see the soldiers’
lights. He couldn’t see them, and the sound of his own breathing filled his ears. He also noticed
evidence of fighting. Blackened scorch marks marred the sides of ore containers and severed cables
hung limp from holes blasted in the walls.
The massive ore containers were loaded on top of each other and tightly packed, forming a maze
of narrow corridors within the vast hold. The containers disappeared in the gloom above him, and
Solon felt a rivulet of sweat ran down his spine.
Turning a corner, he almost stepped on the corpse. It wore the uniform of a crawler orderly, and
Solon recoiled in horror and disgust. The man looked as if he had died in absolute agony, his mouth
wide in a scream, his eyes huge and staring, and his body frozen in a contorted death spasm. His
hands were twisted like claws, and his legs were bent beneath him. It looked as though he had been
writhing in agony as he had died. Solon saw a line of wicked splinters across his chest, embedded in
his flesh.
Solon turned away, feeling his stomach heave. He ripped his mask away and vomited the
contents of his stomach onto the floor. He pulled his canteen from one of the deep pockets of his
exposure suit, and took a swig of the cold water, cleansing his mouth and spitting it out onto the
floor.
He didn’t look again at the corpse as he walked away, sucking in the cold air in deep breaths.
It felt like the soldiers had been gone for hours, though it was more likely just minutes, and
Solon felt panic begin to rise within him. What had hit the crawler? What enemy was loose in the
darkness? And was it still here?
The walls formed by the containers rearing up on either side of him seemed to close in, and
Solon’s breath was coming in shorter gasps.
“Stay here, he says. To hell with that,” said Solon, deciding to find Sergeant Folches and his
soldiers. He might not like the man, but if there was still an enemy in the crawler, he would feel a lot
more comfortable with the armed soldiers.
Thinking he heard a noise behind him, Solon spun around, his heart beating wildly. There was
nothing there. The weak illumination given off by his sole functioning shoulder lamp made the
shadows jump, and Solon’s eyes darted around in fear.
57
“There’s nothing here,” he said to himself.
He turned around to continue his search for the sergeant, and his lamp illuminated a pale face
less than a metre behind him.
Solon staggered backwards, a strangled cry tearing from his throat and his heart lurching. His
sudden movement made the light from his lamp swing wildly, making shadows dance in front of
him, though his eyes were locked on the motionless figure.
He heard a shout, and boots pounded across the grilled flooring, coming closer, but still the face
stared up at him.
It was a child, no more than ten years old by his reckoning, his face pale and gaunt. Solon stared
at the boy in horror, as if the ghosts of his past had risen to haunt him; for a fraction of a second, the
child was the spitting image of his son, dead these last eighteen years.
As the soldiers arrived, they shone their lights upon the child, and Solon saw that he was of flesh
and blood, not some ethereal phantom come to haunt him, and his resemblance to his dead son
faded. The boy’s eyes were deeply ringed by shadow, and he recoiled from the bright lights,
shielding his eyes.
The boy looked up in fright as Sergeant Folches and one of his soldiers appeared, their weapons
levelled at the boy. In the cold light of the soldier’s lights, his face took on a blue tinge. He must be
half-frozen, thought Solon. He let out a long breath, and tried to force his pounding heart-rate to
slow.
“Where in the hell did he come from?” barked Folches, sliding the visor of his helmet up.
“No idea,” said Solon, hardly able to take his eyes off the boy.
“You, boy,” said Folches. “Are you the only one here?” His face fearful, the boy merely stared
up at the soldier.
“What happened here, boy?” asked Folches again, more forcefully. The boy backed away a step,
looking as if he was going to bolt at any second.
“Ease up, sergeant,” said Solon, fumbling at one of his pockets. He pulled out a protein pack,
and tore off its foil seal.
“You hungry?” he asked the boy, offering the food.
The boy merely stared back at him, and Solon took a small bite of the protein pack. It was bland
and tasteless, but he nodded his head and made a show of enjoying it. He saw the boy lick his lips,
and this time when Solon offered it to him he snatched it eagerly.
“You find any survivors?” Solon asked the sergeant in a low voice, though he kept his eyes on
the boy.
“No,” said Folches. “We found some… remains, but nowhere near as many as I would have
expected.”
“Think they got away? Fled on foot, or something?” asked Solon.
“I don’t think so,” said Folches. “Whatever hit here, it hit hard and fast. I don’t think anyone got
away.”
“What then? They just disappeared? There must have been a couple of hundred folks onboard.”
“They were taken,” said the boy suddenly. Solon and Folches exchanged a look.
“Who took them, son?” asked Solon.
“Ghosts,” said the boy, his eyes haunted.
58
BOOK TWO:
GHOSTS
“Hate the xenos as you hate the infidel, as you hate the non-believer. Feel not mercy for them, for
their very existence is profane. What right have they to live, those that are Other?”
—Kor Phaeron, Master of the Faith
59
CHAPTER SEVEN
The four Land Raiders roared across the ice, passing the burnt-out shells of enemy vehicles. The
bodies of men lay strewn around the smoking wrecks, their blood staining the snow beneath them.
“The last known location of the target is here,” said Kol Badar, indicating a position on the
schematics that appeared in flickering green lines upon the data-slate. He was seated within the
enclosed space of the second Land Raider, his hulking form filling the space around him, making
the interior cramped. He had removed his tusked helmet, and the red lights of the interior of the tank
gave his broad face a daemonic glow.
A passage from the Book of Lorgar was etched upon the skin of his right cheek, a gift cut from
the face of Jarulek, back on the Imperial world of Tanakreg before the Dark Apostle fell.
Marduk too had borne a similar passage on his cheek, though it had been obliterated when the
Dark Apostle had shot half his face off. He had removed his skull-faced helmet and stowed it in an
arched niche above his head, alongside a pair of lit blood-candles, and the dark outline of the mark
of Lorgar was clearly visible on his forehead.
