More likely, they knew that no attacker was stupid enough to try gaining access to the upper hive without the call-codes to which each elevator responded, the sheaf of access papers required to placate the militia elite who patrolled Steepletown, and a sizeable army to rely-upon when things went sour.

The Equixus aristocrats had little to worry about.

The nobles descended here to hunt, primarily. To snort and guffaw amongst themselves, to engender upon their privileged, empty little lives a measure of excitement. They slipped out through the massive snowgates to the vehicle bay beyond, crooning their inflated machismo. They wore heated mouldsuits to shield them from the weather, drove vast juggerkraft loaded with fine wines and sweetmeats, carried decorous weapons of such high calibre that the rare yokkrothi bears they tracked (or, rather, their servitors tracked) would literally vaporise in the unlikely event of a direct hit, and still they somehow managed to slap one another across the back and pronounce themselves brave, manly citizens. Sahaal took one look at it and felt himself angered. This bloated pretend-bravery, this decadent waste of space: it was everything he had come to despise about the Imperium. Vast. Gaudy. Overconfident. Spiritually empty. See how the mighty are fallen... He would change all of that.

The Slake collective had been true to its word. On bundles of parchment its members had scrawled maps to reach this place: descriptions of its interior, directions upon which elevator to approach, what runecodes to enter into its ancient control panel. It would summon their customers' representatives, they assured him. It would lead him to the ones who had purchased his stolen prize.

He'd left them alive, for now: chained to a jagged wall down in the guts of the rustmud caverns. They would receive their swift deaths, as promised, when — if — their assurances were borne out.

The militiamen guarding the gateroom did not pose too great a struggle. Sahaal killed all six without a single shot fired, and waved his ragtag troops past their shattered bodies with a jerk of his bloody claws. As ever, it felt dangerously good to kill again.

He had brought with him a colourful menagerie of warriors — at least one from each subjugated ganghouse, a selection whose eclecticism he owed entirely to Chianni. Still recovering from her wounds, she'd been unable to join his expedition herself, but her advice had been more than pertinent.

Avoid infighting. Avoid favouritism. Take warriors from each tribe. Show them equal respect, and equal contempt. Make them partisan to your struggles, and to one another. Temper their resentment with inclusion and glory.

And it had worked. Such was their awe for the beast that roved ahead of them, such was their terror of the sleek devil that drew them on through shadow and shade, that their mutual loathing was forgotten. Former enemies became allies in fear and devotion: they were gangers no longer. They were Children of the Night.

She was quite the devious diplomat, his condemnitor.

He'd also brought with him the cognis mercator. Pahvulti: the cringing little bastard. Sahaal had conspicuously refused to trust the grinning creature, despite his successful delivery of the Slake collective, and to leave him alone amongst the Shadowkin was not something he cared to countenance. The man knew too much.

That the armless figure — stumbling with a 'het-het-het' and an endless barrage of useless chatter — had enraged Sahaal was a given. That he had gloated and sneered where he should have bowed and offered obeisance had not helped his case. That Sahaal had vowed again and again that he would repay the cackling worm's insolence with death should have sealed his fate...

And yet...

And yet his information had proved flawless. He had helped plan the ongoing attacks upon the hive: its fingers and its heart, in accordance with the Night Haunter's lessons. Pahvulti's knowledge of the city was unmatched, and when ordering his warriors to strike at power stations, orbital armaments, PDF armouries and geotherm ducts, Sahaal had found Pahvulti's input frequently useful. He was a resource that should not be squandered too quickly.

But, more so, the man's hunger for power — as crude as it was — allowed Sahaal at least a measure of dominance over him. The gift of rulership, if and when his brother Night Lords arrived, would be Sahaal's to confer. Pahvulti was no longer in control of their union. Now it was Sahaal who had something the broker wanted, and that was a situation he was keen to enjoy.

And... Yes... yes, he must admit it to himself...

Keeping the bastard alive gave Sahaal something to look forward to.

Within the gateroom, when his mob had entered and swept the place for security and surveillance devices, Sahaal found himself quietly disappointed. The elevator door to which the instructions directed him was an inferior thing: plain and unadorned where others sported intricate frescoes and colourful records of their owner's exploits. Naturally such pomposity revolted Sahaal, but in some strange way he felt that anything connected to the Corona Nox — even the warpshit who had stolen it — should represent a level of... superiority compared to all around it. Amongst a society of princes, he felt as though he'd been mugged by a beggar. It angered him, without him fully being able to explain way.

These days, the anger needed little excuse to arise. The voices rustled and hissed in his mind, tentacles of Chaotic warpstuff playing across his soul, plucking and needling it to ever greater peaks of savagery. For the hundredth time he drew a breath and calmed himself, seeking in vain the focus that his master had always preached.

He entered Slake's code with a steady hand — gratified at the apparent efficiency of the unfussy console — and stepped back to wait.

Behind him the ranks of warriors shifted in their places. A brute of the Atla Clan scratched at his quilled scalp with a moronic grunt, and behind him a pair of androgynous gunners of House Magrittha exchanged glances through heavy lashes.

The warband was edgy. Sahaal wondered vaguely whether it was the result of the situation, or their proximity to him.

He hoped it was the latter.

'My lord?' asked one, an impressive female of the Sztak Chai whose chain-glaive was as tall as Sahaal himself. 'Has it worked?'

He ignored the interruption and glowered at the console. A small brass dial shifted slowly, inching from one side to the other.

153, it read. The label at the head of the dial was marked, simply: TIER.

It took a little over one minute to reach 152.

The Macharius Gate was, of course, on Tier 1.

'This may take a while.' Sahaal sighed.

The warriors silently took up positions at the gate-room's entrance, perhaps detecting the impatience in their lord's vox-distorted voice, thankful for the opportunity to stay out of his way. Pahvulti slumped into a corner, crossing his knees and chattering quietly to himself.

With the hunger for violence gnawing at his mind, Sahaal anticipated the wait for his quarry's arrival as if preparing to be tortured. In some quiet sliver of his soul he recognised that this burgeoning fury was a far from useful state of mind, but it lingered nonetheless: as if a fire had been stoked inside him which no amount of dousing could extinguish.

Resolving instead to contain the blaze — to let it burn slow and steady, without fiery impulse or crackling explosion — he knelt at the elevator's dull entrance and emptied his mind, pushing himself deep into a trance.

He was so close. He could feel it...

He could afford to wait a while longer.

His past called him back, and he slipped into a dream with a sigh.