Forrix smiled, picturing the limitless possibilities ahead of him.

Larana Utorian watched as Kroeger placed his helmet on the iron frame and stood naked before her. His body was a mass of scar tissue, his slab-like muscles powerful and well-defined. But she had a sense of diminishment, a sense that without his armour he was somehow less terrifying.

His voice was dull and lethargic, and as always after his slaughters, his movements were sluggish, as though bloated with the blood he had consumed in his butcheries.

She kept her hand tucked within her jacket, its flesh pink and raw where she had worn the gauntlet. The skin still burned with the sensations that had wracked her body as renewing fire seared her from the inside out. Already, she felt her strength returning.

New flesh filled her, monstrous vitality pulsing through every fibre of her being, strength coursing along every artery and vein. Her heart pumped with power and she saw with a clarity she had never experienced before.

The sense of impending revenge was intoxicating and she had to keep the excitement from her face as Kroeger sullenly bade her once more clean his armour. He stumbled towards a corner of the dugout and collapsed into blood-gorged unconsciousness.

Larana calmly approached the corrupted armour, feeling its soundless call. She smiled as she felt its silent approval and removed the gauntlet she had first worn: lifting it to her lips and sucking on the fingers, tasting the blood and feeling its power suffuse her.

Yes, the blood is the power, it fills you, drives you. It carries your passions, your lusts, your hate and your future. Only the blood can save you.

Larana nodded, the words making complete sense to her. She could see clearly now. To survive, she must look to whatever power offered her a chance to exact her revenge.

She thrust her hand into the gauntlet, throwing her head back in rapture as power flooded her limbs, hot and urgent. The skin of her arm stretched as muscle tissue grew and swelled, layering upon her bones with grotesque speed.

Yes! Yes! Now the rest and our bargain will be sealed…

Piece by piece, Larana removed Kroeger's armour from its frame, donning each piece without conscious thought. Though designed for a warrior far larger than her, each portion fitted her exactly. Strength poured through her and Larana laughed as her body swelled with terrible power.

As each piece adhered to her body, she felt the armour become more and more part of her, its undulating inner surfaces moulding to her own body, dark tendrils of energy pushing inside her.

Deep within Larana, a tiny voice screamed in warning, but it was lost in the howling gale of powerful change that remoulded her. It shrieked to her of the price to be paid for such abominable gifts, but consumed with hate, Larana pushed it aside.

One last step, Larana. One last bargain to be made. You must give me all, hold nothing back. Your soul must be mine and then we shall be one. We shall become the Avatar of Khorne!

Larana lifted the grinning, skull-masked helm and slowly lowered it over her head.

'Yes,' she hissed. 'Take it all. I am yours…'

And the warning voice within Larana was pushed to the lid of her creaking skull as the Armour of Khorne claimed her.

Her last act as a human being was to scream as for one terrifying instant she realised the scale of the mistake she had just made.

Kroeger woke suddenly, a scream dying on his lips as he rose from a dreamless void, terrifying in the oblivion it promised. His breath came in short, dry heaves and it took long seconds before he could remember where he was. Dim light filtered into the dugout from the doorway, and Kroeger was suddenly struck by a sense of something deeply wrong.

He pushed himself to his feet and padded through to the entrance of his dugout. Shadows coiled and his belief that there was something amiss grew to a raging certainty. He reached for his sword, his fury growing as he saw that it was missing. Had the little human bitch taken it? She would pay for such a transgression with her life.

Suddenly Kroeger became aware that he was not alone in the dugout and he turned around slowly. There was a gloom here that was not wholly natural and he squinted, trying to make sense out of what he saw before him. His armour stood where he had left it, but there was something different… It took him several seconds before he realised what.

There was someone wearing it. And they carried his sword.

'Whoever you are, you are dead,' promised Kroeger.

The intruder shook its head. 'No, Kroeger, you are. We grow weary of you, and have no more need of you.'

Kroeger started as he recognised the voice. But it was impossible. It could not be her, not that weak snivelling human.

She would pay for such impudence. He launched himself forward, club-like fists raised to strike her down. The woman swayed aside, slashing the sword across his flank, the blade biting a hand's-breadth into his flesh. Kroeger roared, blood washing in a crimson flood from his body.

Before he could recover, the sword struck again, ripping through his belly and spilling his looping guts to the earthen floor of the dugout. Kroeger dropped to his knees, a pleading look in his eyes. The sword came at him again and he vainly raised his hands to ward off the blows.

The armoured warrior spared him no mercy, hacking him into pieces. First came his hands, then his arms. Kroeger flopped onto his back, amidst his severed limbs and pooling blood as the woman knelt astride him and cast aside the sword.

With deliberate slowness, the warrior removed the helmet and Kroeger coughed thick gobbets of blood as he saw the reborn face of Larana Utorian.

Gone was the terrified woman he had tortured these long weeks, and in its place was a twisted face, devoid of pity or mercy. A face so full of hate that it chilled him to the very core of his being.

She raised her arms high above her head, a dulled bone knife gripped in both hands.

The thing that had once been Larana Utorian plunged the knife through Kroeger's eye socket and into his brain, stabbing again and again until there was nothing left of her tormentor's skull but a pulverised mass of shattered bone and matter.

Forrix consulted a dust-covered data-slate, checking on the position of the mine, content it was following the correct path. The tunnel had traversed beneath the ditch and he expected to be under the walls within the hour. He stepped over the corpse of a slave and watched the activity on the rockface before him. The drilling rigs could not work this close to the wall for fear of Imperial detection and so gangs of slaves worked with cloth-wrapped picks and shovels to extend the tunnel.

Human soldiers guarded the slaves with barbed cudgels and electro-prods. It was a pleasing irony that these fools were precipitating their own species' downfall.

Satisfied that all was proceeding as planned, Forrix made his way back along the hot tunnel, pushing past teams of cowering slaves. He passed various galleries and blind passages designed to disguise the true direction of their attack from the Imperial sappers.

Iron props supported the roof of the tunnel and sound absorbent mats were laid along its length. Forrix was taking no chances that this tunnel might be discovered, though he knew that the enemy must be aware of the tunnelling operation. There was always the chance the Imperials might discover it through blind luck.

Forrix had prayed they would not and that his successful demolition of a portion of the curtain wall would restore his master's favour.

He had not seen the Warsmith since the destruction of the batteries. The lord of the Iron Warriors had retreated within his pavilion and had allowed only Jharek Kelmaur into his presence. He didn't know whether the Warsmith was aware of Kelmaur's folly, but he fully intended that he would learn of it. The idea of the sorcerer's downfall was only marginally more appealing to him than Honsou's. Why the Warsmith had allowed the half-breed to live after Forrix had told him that it was Honsou's failure that had cost them the guns on Tor Christo was a mystery to him.