Steele wished he could close his senses to it all.
He wished he couldn’t hear the baying of the heretics — hundreds of them were packed into the
courtyard, standing in the arched doorways, even hanging out of the surrounding windows. He
wished he couldn’t feel the touch of the cultists that had gathered around him, preparing him,
painting their vile symbols on his face and his exposed chest. He wished he couldn’t smell the stink
of the incense burner that Furst carried, waving it under Steele’s nose as if it were some kind of a
trophy, or feel the evil presence of the Chaos Space Marine lurking behind his right shoulder.
And he wished he couldn’t hear Wollkenden, to his left, still chained to the eight-pointed ice
pillar as was Steele, but whimpering and pleading for mercy. The so-called saviour of the Artemis
system, his demeanour shaming his legend.
Steele wasn’t afraid to die. Even now, he would have given his life gladly in exchange for the
confessor’s freedom. But he could think of nothing worse than this: to die a failure.
He closed his good eye, tried to blot it all out, tried to cast his mind back to a happier time, a
more serene time, a more welcome ceremony. It seemed like months — although, in fact, little more
than a day and a half had passed — since he had stood beside the Termite borer, his head bowed, to
receive the blessing of an Imperial priest.
Had the Ecclesiarchy known, then, that this was to be his fate? Had they sanctified his soul to
deny it to the Chaos gods? He prayed that this might be the case. He prayed as hard and as loud as
he could, tried to fill his own head with the uplifting sound.
“Your Emperor can’t save you now,” Furst hissed spitefully in Steele’s ear.
The mutant’s master, Mangellan, was on the dais too, strutting around, circling his captives,
waving his sceptre, playing to the crowd. His voice rose and fell as he half-chanted, half-sang words
in some ancient, evil language — words that Steele didn’t understand, didn’t want to understand. He
knew that his augmented brain wouldn’t let him forget those words; he couldn’t bear that they
would be captured inside him, a part of him. They were dark words, cold words. Words that seemed
to distort space itself, to punch open a channel to a more malignant realm.
But the words were, he sensed, coming to an end. Mangellan had whipped his audience into a
frenzy. He was gesturing at the pillar, at the readied sacrifices — the colonel and the confessor —
with the sceptre in one hand and a large, ornamental dagger clutched by the jewelled hilt in the
other.
And now he turned to Steele, rested the dagger’s point on his chest, traced the outlines of the
symbols that had been daubed onto his skin — and Mangellan sighed, and in his calm, honeyed
voice, he said, “You should have joined us when I gave you the chance. A shame that such a spirit,
such an intellect, as yours should have been wasted on a lifetime of servitude to an ungrateful
master. You could have been anything you wanted to be, Colonel Steele.”
Steele looked him in the eye, and he said, “I was.”
And at that moment, a ray of sunlight streamed into the courtyard, through the network of iceformed
branches above their heads, and glinted off the dagger as Mangellan drew it back, let the
crowd see its blade for a final time as he prepared to plunge it into its first victim.
“Do it, master,” breathed Furst eagerly. “Do it now! Cut out their hearts!”
That was when the first bomb went off.
98
Grayle and Palinev had timed their ascent to the dais perfectly.
Cloaked in their purloined robes, they had given themselves enough time to reach Wollkenden
and Steele respectively — but not quite enough for the cultists to realise that their numbers had been
swelled by two, to start asking questions.
The explosion ripped through the courtyard, incinerating heretics by the score in a great blossom
of fire. They hadn’t seen it coming, hadn’t spotted that their enemies were walking among them in
disguise. And Mikhaelev had placed his demolition charge well. It collapsed two huge ice trees,
their razor branches falling clear of the dais and into the crowd, where they sliced, dismembered and
decapitated. Grayle just hoped that his comrade was not among the casualties, that he had had time
to get clear. He concentrated on his own task, concealing his lasgun as best he could with his body
as he placed its muzzle to Wollkenden’s chains.
The heretics were screaming, surging away from the site of the first blast… to where the second
was waiting.
The courtyard became a seething mass of panic. None of the heretics knew which way to run,
but they trampled each other in their haste to run somewhere.
A hand came down on Grayle’s shoulder; he was spun around to face a suspicious cultist, whose
eyes widened at the sight of a stranger’s features beneath the hood. The cultist opened his mouth to
yell a warning that might have been heard by the augmented ears of the Chaos Space Marine even
over all the noise. Two las-beams struck him in the head, one more in the shoulder, and he went
down.
More beams flashed from the surrounding windows, and the cultists on the dais cried out,
scattered, leapt into the turmoil around them rather than remain sitting ducks. Grayle prayed that his
comrades knew who they were shooting at, that they wouldn’t mistake him and Palinev for their
targets.
Most of their fire, in fact, was directed at Mangellan — but he was well-protected, by the Traitor
Guardsmen around him, bustling him away down the dais steps. Furst scurried along behind them,
keeping close, benefiting from their armour, although Grayle couldn’t tell if the traitors had even
seen him in their wake.
And then there was the Chaos Space Marine.
He leapt from the dais, reaching the edge of the courtyard with one powerful spring. He smacked
into the palace wall, punching through the ice to make handholds for himself, started to haul himself
upwards. Grayle saw Blonsky’s face in a window, paling as a gauntleted hand clamped onto the sill
in front of him. He drove his gun butt into the Chaos Space Marine’s fingers, but couldn’t dislodge
them. He turned and ran, disappearing from Grayle’s view as his pursuer squeezed his massive form
through the small window after him.
In the confusion, no one had thought to secure the would-be sacrifices. Perhaps Mangellan
thought them secure enough, hadn’t realised that his enemies had already got to them. Grayle’s
lasgun burnt through Wollkenden’s chains at last, and the confessor fell into his arms.
“Is it my turn to speak?” he asked weakly. “I must say, I expected a little more discipline from
the troops. Obviously, I’ve been gone too long. That’s the trouble these days, no leadership.”
“Please, confessor,” said Grayle, “I’m trying to rescue you. Just… just hold still… sir, please… I
need to get this cloak over your head.”
“Take your hands off me!” bellowed Wollkenden — and he pushed Grayle aside, took his own
weight unsteadily, and looked around like a startled rabbit about to bolt…
…as Steele, having been freed and disguised by Palinev, strode up beside him and, without
breaking his step, threw a punch to Wollkenden’s head that knocked him spark out. Grayle and
Palinev watched in abject astonishment as the colonel hoisted the confessor’s limp body over his
shoulders.
“Well?” he barked at them. “Are we getting out of here or what?”
99
Barreski could hardly breathe.
The explosions had kicked up twin plumes of smoke, which were settling now upon the
occupants of the courtyard. The Chaos worshippers were packed too tightly around him, restricting
his movement, their elbows digging into his ribs and his stomach. He braced himself against them,
knowing that if he let his guard down for an instant he would be crushed between them or just
overrun.
He had one advantage, though, over the heretics. He knew where the bombs were — or rather,
where they had been, because Mikhaelev had only had two demolition charges left and they had
both blown. Barreski had placed one himself, and was proud of his handiwork, the carnage he had
caused.
A hapless cultist lost his footing and fell coughing against the disguised Ice Warrior. Barreski
took the opportunity to slip his knife into the man’s heart, let him slide to the floor. Another one less
to worry about, he thought.
His quarter of the crowd appeared to have reached an unspoken consensus. They had chosen an
archway, an escape route, through which to evacuate, had started to move together instead of
fighting each other. Barreski hoisted himself onto the shoulders of a protesting cultist in front of
him, and he screamed out, “Another bomb! Look! There it is! Can’t you see it? In the branches of
that tree!”
No one could see the bomb, because it didn’t exist. Still, Barreski’s words were enough to make
a significant number of the heretics turn back, to fight once more against the tide of their fellows, to
spread more panic.
He glanced up at the dais, and saw that it was empty. Grayle and Palinev would be heading for
their preselected exit, taking Steele and Wollkenden with them. He muttered a quick prayer for their
safety. It was time for him to get out of here himself.
Palinev had chosen a different way out for Barreski, a closer one to his position. He had scouted
a route for him back to the sewer tunnel, made sure that he had memorised the directions. Barreski
pressed his elbows into service, and started to force his way across the yard.
And that was when he saw Mangellan, his traitor escort clearing a path for him, using their
lasguns when they had to. And he was just a few metres away…
He couldn’t resist it. He knew it meant giving himself away, but he snuck his lasgun out from
beneath his robes, flicked its power pack to full auto and squeezed off ten las-beams in the high
priest’s direction.
The traitors reacted quickly, putting themselves in the line of fire, deflecting most of it with their
armour… most of it… Barreski gave a triumphant cry as one of his beams glanced across
Mangellan’s face, causing him to scream out, to clap his hands to his eyes. But now he had his own
safety to worry about.
Already, the traitors were starting to move towards him. He had to lose himself again. He put his
head down, tried to slip away amid the other black cloaks, but he was brought up short by a brawny
cultist with a knife.
“Did you see him?” bluffed Barreski, pointing wildly. “He had a bomb, and he was coming up
behind the high priest. He would have killed him if I hadn’t… Look, you need to defend yourself!”
He thrust his lasgun into the cultist’s hands while he was still gaping, trying to work out what it was
he had seen.
Then Barreski was gone, leaving the brawny cultist with the weapon. Which was how the
Traitor Guardsmen found him, a second later.
“Space Marines! Coming up the passageway!” Pozhar hated this.
100
He was stationed in one of the arched doorways into the palace proper, his job to keep it as clear
as he could for Steele and Wollkenden’s escape. This meant pretending to be one of the heretics —
almost as bad, pretending to be afraid — but Gavotski had given him no say in the matter.
Few of the cultists were coming this way, anyway. Mikhaelev and Barreski had placed their
charges carefully, herding them in the opposite direction — and of those who did try to pass Pozhar,
about half were turned back by his feigned panic. Still, there were some who didn’t seem to hear
him, or were so eager to get out of the courtyard that they took their chances. As one of them
bumped into him, it was all he could do not to draw his lasgun and start shooting.
“They… they’ve got chainswords!” he shouted desperately after the escapees. “And guns! Big
guns!”
“Pozhar!”
He turned at the sound of his name, couldn’t see who had called it at first. In a yard full of robed
figures, it was near impossible to tell which ones were his comrades. Then he recognised the slight
form of Palinev — and there, beside him, that had to be Grayle. And between them…
Pozhar raced forward, dived into the crowd, helped Palinev to lift the unconscious Wollkenden.
He had discarded his sling, declaring himself healed; still, this exercise of his muscles sent a lance
of pain down his right arm.
“What happened?” he cried. “What went wrong?”
“It’s okay, trooper,” said Steele breathlessly, picking himself up, leaning on Palinev. “I just…
overestimated my strength, that’s all. Still tired… Perhaps you and Grayle could… could look after
Confessor Wollkenden for me?”
Pozhar would have accepted that burden gladly. But at that moment, he heard gunfire from
somewhere close by, and he turned to see a squad of Traitor Guardsmen pushing their way towards
the Ice Warriors. They were brandishing lasguns, firing into the air so that the heretics parted before
them.
Pozhar drew his gun, shouting to Grayle and Palinev, “Go! Get the confessor and the colonel out
of here. I’ll hold them off!”
And he started firing — not upwards, but straight into the bodies in front of him.
The cultists were taken unawares. They fell like dominoes, each hit felling three or more of them
— and the ripple effect spread back to the Traitor Guardsmen, blocking their path, threatening to
knock them down too. They tried to fire back, but the seething mass of people between them and
Pozhar made it an impossible shot, and they only succeeded in taking out a few more of their own.
He could have gone after the others, then, could have taken the chance that he had delayed their
pursuers long enough for them all to escape. Yes, he could have done that…
The cultists between Pozhar and the Traitor Guardsmen had begun to rally, identified the threat
in their midst and, unable to flee, swarmed him instead. Few of them were trained fighters — half of
them were women — but they had overwhelming numbers on their side. They punched the Ice
Warrior, clawed at him, dragged him down. He saw the glint of a knife blade, too late to avoid its
swipe, felt it breaking the synth-skin on his stomach where the sewer creature had holed him with its
spines. His lasgun was snatched from him. He took blow after blow to his head. He wasn’t quite
sure what kept him from falling down — but as long as he was standing, he would fight.
Pozhar was a whirlwind of limbs, punching, kicking, scratching, defying any of his foes to get a
