progress. Half a dozen dark splinters were embedded in his armoured back plate, and Burias
frowned.
The icon bearer holstered his bolt pistol and grasped the heavy chain that secured the gate shut.
With a sharp jerk, he snapped the heavy chain and dropped it to the ground. He wrenched the
gate open and the corpse of the enemy soldier was dragged across the floor as it swung wide; frozen,
dead fingers locked around the mesh-links.
Stepping over the corpse, Burias continued along the corridor. After several twisting turns and
intersections, it opened out into an access tunnel at least fifty metres wide. Down the centre of the
tunnel was a sunken carriageway, and two wide platforms ran alongside it.
Moving warily into the tunnel, Burias stepped over wreckage and debris, amongst which were
sprawled a number of corpses. Their bodies had been slashed by blades and ripped apart by
unfamiliar projectile weapons. Several burnt out vehicles were scattered throughout the tunnel, like
the discarded toys of a giant. Several were upturned and leaning against the walls, while others had
fallen into the sunken carriageway.
Climbing atop one of the ruined armoured vehicles, Burias squinted into the distance in each
direction. There was no living soul in sight, though the gently curving tunnel ensured that the icon
bearer could see no more than half a kilometre ahead.
He dropped onto the bonnet of the white-armoured APC, which buckled inwards beneath his
weight, and stepped lightly to the floor.
“All clear,” he said into his vox-relay. “Looks like someone got here before us.”
As the remainder of the Host moved on his position, he dropped to his haunches to inspect one
of the corpses.
It was another of the white-armoured soldiers, whose face was purple and had swollen like a
balloon. Burias plucked a long, barbed splinter from the corpse’s neck, and studied it with interest. It
was half the length of a finger, and so thin that if he turned it sideways it was all but invisible. He
lifted it carefully to his lips, and his tongue flashed out to sample the serrated tip.
The taste was acrid, and he registered unknown toxic agents upon the splinter. He tasted blood
as the barbed shard sliced his tongue.
Xenos toxins entered his bloodstream, and his limbs began to shudder. A slight sweat broke out
on his brow, and he lifted a shaking hand in front of his eyes, attempting to keep it steady, but
failing.
He felt the unknown serum coursing its way towards his twin hearts, but remained unconcerned.
Indeed, as soon as the venom had entered his bloodstream, his bio-engineered defences had
activated, and were even now isolating and breaking down the xenos poison. His heart rate
increased as his body combated the threat, pumping his blood swiftly through his oolitic kidney
implant, cleansing it of the deadly serum.
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After less than a minute, Burias’s heart rate had returned to normal and the shaking sickness had
left him.
“Intriguing,” he said to himself.
The coteries had been moving through the tunnel system for about an hour. They had encountered
no sign of life, though there was evidence of furious firefights. The tunnels were as silent as tombs,
and cold light blazed down upon them from the rows of strip-lights overhead. Abruptly the lights
flickered abruptly and died.
“Five unknowns, moving on our position,” barked Namar-sin, breaking the silence. “Coming fast.
Very fast.”
Marduk and the Stetavoc Space Marines of Namar-sin’s coterie were instantly moving for cover.
A faint whine could be heard, approaching rapidly.
“Ware the north,” Marduk bellowed, just as five blurred shapes roared out of the darkness of the
side tunnel, moving with impossible speed. They scythed through the air, skimming two metres
above the ground and banked sharply into the access tunnel. They were as sleek and deadly as
knives, and shot forward as their engines were gunned.
Khalaxis and his coterie were caught in the open, and before they could even raise their weapons
to fire, three of their number were cut down beneath a hail of barbed projectiles.
Another was dropped as the jetbikes streaked through the coterie, a curved blade slicing off one
of the warrior brother’s arms, severing it at the elbow.
Then the jetbikes were past, hurtling by the Word Bearers and jinking around the scattered
debris.
Bolters coughed, lighting up the darkness, but they were too slow and the enemy too fast. One of
the Anointed unleashed the fury of his reaper autocannon, and hundreds of high calibre rounds
chased the jetbikes as they banked around in a wide circle, passing behind the wreckage of the
derailed carriages of the rail conveyance. The autocannon tore through the carriages of the train and
ripped out great chunks from the rockcrete walls, but even the enhanced targeting sensors built into
the Anointed’s Terminator armour could not match the speed of the enemy.
Empty shell casings fell like rain from the mighty weapon, but the jetbikes roared on through the
darkness unscathed. A missile, launched by one of Namar-sin’s Havoc Space Marines, streaked
through the darkness towards one of the jetbikes as it rounded the debris. With preternatural
reflexes, the jetbike’s rider spun his vehicle around in a spiralling corkscrew roll, and the missile
passed beneath it harmlessly, impacting in a fiery explosion against the wall.
Marduk fired his bolt pistol on semi-auto at the enemy silhouetted against the flames of the
explosion, but even though he had compensated for their speed, still he was too slow.
Two more of Khalaxis’s coterie were cut down as they scrambled for cover, and then the
jetbikes were gone, disappearing up the tunnel that they had emerged from only seconds before.
Kol Badar was roaring orders, and the remains of Khalaxis’s 17th coterie dragged their fallen
brethren into cover.
The one-armed Namar-sin and his heavy weapon toting Havoc warriors rose from their position
and ran forwards, half-dropping into cover behind a wrecked Imperial vehicle while others took up
position behind rockcrete pillars. They readied their heavy weapons, hefting them to shoulders or
bracing them in their arms, their stances wide as they sought targets.
“More hostiles inbound,” shouted Sabtec.
“Where?” snapped Kol Badar.
“Behind us,” replied Namar-sin, and Marduk swore.
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“Sabtec, protect the rear. Enfilading fire,” ordered Kol Badar. The warriors of the 13th moved
instantly into position, moving with practiced efficiency. All the warrior brothers were in cover,
with one line facing north, one west.
“Khalaxis, report,” ordered Marduk.
“One dead, one as good as,” growled the towering champion of the 17th.
The Anointed split, two moving to join the 13th in the rear, the other two standing with Kol
Badar at the entrance to the north tunnel.
“Burias,” hissed Marduk as he dropped in alongside Sabtec, watching the rear. He couldn’t see
anything moving in the distance, but, respectful of the speed of the enemy, he judged that that did
not mean much.
“Yes, my lord?” came the silken response on the vox-net.
“Guard Darioq-Grendh’al.”
Burias was slow to respond, and Marduk read the resistance to his orders in the silence.
“Protect him, icon bearer,” snapped Marduk. “He dies, and you die.”
Burias crouched atop the wreckage of one of the train’s carriages, sniffing the air. He sensed
something nearby, but could not locate its whereabouts.
Movement out of the corner of his eye attracted his attention, and he snapped his head towards
it, emitting a low growl. Even with his daemon-enhanced witch-sight, he could see nothing.
“Burias,” said Marduk, and the icon bearer hissed in frustration.
“Fine,” he replied, giving the area where he had sensed movement a final glare.
As he dropped down from the carriage to the cracked plascrete platform below, a whip-thin
figure crawled forward across the top of the carriage behind him, its form vague as if it dragged the
surrounding darkness around it like a shroud.
The icon bearer flicked a glance over his shoulder, and the shape melted into the shadows. In an
instant, it was once more invisible, and Burias turned away, jogging towards Magos Darioq.
The stink of Chaos was strong around the magos, who was standing immobile behind the twisted
wreckage of what may once have been an Imperial vehicle, oblivious to the preparations going on
around him.
“Move there,” snapped Burias, giving the magos a shove. Darioq-Grendh’al walked
mechanically forward, each slow step accompanied by the hiss and wheeze of servos.
“Here they come again,” said Kol Badar in his warning growl.
“Kill them, in Lorgar’s name!” roared Marduk.
“Contact from the east,” said Sabtec, his voice calm and measured.
Marduk glanced around the twisted metal he was taking cover behind, and saw a number of lithe
figures darting from cover to cover, heading towards them up the tunnel. Even with his advanced
vision and the supplementary enhancements provided by his helmet, they were difficult to focus on,
for they moved so quickly.
The First Acolyte narrowed his eyes, as he focused on one of the xenos humanoids. For a
moment, it was clearly visible as it crouched, the long fingers of one hand splayed out on the floor.
Its slim body was encased in a form-fitting suit of reflective black armour that moulded to its
movements: a far cry from the heavy, inflexible plate worn by the Word Bearers. Barbed ridges rose
along its forearms and shoulders, and its head was completely encased within a sleek, backwards
sweeping helmet. It carried a long, slim weapon of alien design, and elegantly curving blades
protruded from the barrel and hand-grip.
Then the alien was moving once again, its movements sharp and precise as it darted into cover.
Its speed was almost unnatural; one moment it was perfectly still, utterly balanced and focused, the
66
next it was gone. There was a grace and fluidity to its movements that no human, however
enhanced, could ever hope to match.
“Eldar,” spat Marduk.
67
CHAPTER EIGHT
Solon sat alone in the mess room. His tray vibrated slightly on the metal table from the
reverberations of the crawler’s engines, and the mugs hanging against the wall rattled. He still wore
his bulky exposure suit, though he had slipped free of its upper half, which hung down behind him.
He pushed away his half-eaten meal of bland synth-paste gruel as the door to the mess room was
pushed open.
The foreman primaris tapped one of the nicotine sticks from his packet, and lit it with a deft flick
of his butane lighter. He nodded to Cholos through the haze of blue-grey smoke as he sat down
opposite.
The boy that they had found in the abandoned crawler unit moved forward from behind the door,
his wide eyes wandering around the room.
“You gonna eat that?” asked Cholos, gesturing to the half-eaten meal.
Solon pushed the tray towards the orderly in response, blowing out another cloud of smoke.
Cholos coughed once and cleared his throat.
“Come on, kid. Get some food into you,” said Cholos, patting his hand on the seat of the vacant
chair encouragingly. The boy moved forward warily, and his eyes locked on the food.
Solon stared at the boy, still seeing his son’s dead face. The boy wore an exposure suit that was
much too large for him, its hood drawn back away from his head. The sleeves hung well past his
hands, and the cuffs of its legs were bunched up around his ankles. As he shuffled forward, trying
not to trip, he would have made a comical sight were he not so clearly malnourished.
He’d spoken not a word since they had brought him aboard, except to say his name when
questioned: Dios. The boy’s words when they had found him still haunted Solon.
“They were taken,” the boy had said. There were some corpses aboard the crawler, but the vast
majority of the people that had been onboard had apparently disappeared into thin air.
“By who?” Solon had asked.
“Ghosts,” the boy had replied, and the words had made Solon’s skin crawl.
“There is no such thing as ghosts,” the Interdiction sergeant, Folches, had said, though there had
been little conviction in his voice, and Solon wondered whether he had been trying to convince the
boy, or himself.
Solon had to agree with Folches, though. He didn’t believe in ghosts or spirits, but something
had taken all those people. Fifteen hundred people do not just disappear.
Since bringing the boy onboard, the child had shadowed every step of Solon’s second, Cholos.
Solon was just glad that the boy had not latched onto him. For his part, Cholos seemed to be
enjoying the attention, and had even suggested making the boy the crawler crew’s mascot.
“That’s the way,” said Cholos as the boy tucked into Solon’s discarded food with gusto.
“Hungry, aren’t you?”
“Find a woman amongst the refugees that has lost her son,” said Solon. “Give the boy to her.”
“Oh, I don’t mind lookin’ after him,” said Cholos.
“We don’t need a pet kid underfoot, Cholos,” said Solon. “Foist him off on one of the refugees.
There are plenty of women down below who would take him.”
Cholos glared at Solon for a moment.
“Don’t listen to him, boy,” said Cholos. “He’s nothing but a mean old man.”
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The boy, for his part, seemed oblivious to the conversation, focused on the meal before him.
With a last lick of the standard issue spoon in his hands, he finished off the meal, smacking his lips
loudly.
“Cholos,” began Solon, but his words were interrupted as the room shook violently. The crawler
came to a shuddering halt, and warning lights began to flash. The wail of sirens blared from the
hallway, and Solon was instantly up and moving.
“What the hell?” asked Cholos, knocking his chair over as he stood.
A second impact rocked the crawler, and mugs fell from their hooks to clatter on the floor. Solon
clutched at the door-frame to steady himself.
“Ghosts,” murmured the boy, his eyes wide and fearful.
“Go, go, go!” shouted Folches as the crawler bay doors slid open.
The sergeant dropped to the ice and landed in a crouch, his laslock rifle humming as its charge
powered up.
The storm had, if anything, become fiercer, and punishing winds lashed against the soldiers of
the Skyllan Interdiction as they peered into the whitewash of billowing snow.
“Can’t see a damn thing,” muttered one of Folches’s men, the sound crackling through on the
