The echoes of the blast circled the gateroom like a captive bat.

In the course of a single second the Night Lord had lost half of his troops. The feathered headdress of a Quetzai clansman, still affixed to the ruptured clumps of scalp and hair of its former owner, slapped across his shoulder with a moist report. He ignored it and surged onwards, stretching out for the majordomo. Nothing else mattered.

The vindictors poured into the room like a tide of black-coated crabs, perfectly in step, ranks punctuated by the red stripes of an occasional heavy-weapons dervishi, or the unhelmeted snarl of a shouting sergeant. And the noise... the noise shook the room to its foundations and left dust curling from its distant ceiling. Armour clashing together, feet pounding the terracrete in robotic unison, voices raised in a sonorous chant:

'Lex Imperator... Lex Imperator... Lex Imperator...'

It was like an army. Even from the midst of his memories, dredged from the days of the Great Crusade, when glittering hosts without number swept across alien plains, Sahaal could not recall seeing its like. Perfectly precise movements. Every man dressed alike. Black. Shining. Hundreds upon hundreds of them, spilling into the room like oil from a drum.

A perverse part of his soul was gratified. All this, just for me...

Somewhere behind it all, through the tight spaces of the gateroom entrance — immovably blocked by the onrushing troops — a trio of Salamander tanks lurked. Command stations, Sahaal guessed, leading from the rear. Cowards.

He tried in vain to find the witch again, he had seen her enter at the forefront, dressed in rags, but had lost her amidst the swarm. She, at least, had dared to face him. He would enjoy ripping her to shreds.

Somewhere beyond his focused vision he registered a retort like the splintering of a thousand trees. Shotguns being racked, gloved arms pumping fresh shells into place.

The second salvo, en route, all conducted with machine efficiency. There was no cunning trap here, no subtle advance and flanking manoeuvre. Sahaal and his warriors were outnumbered twenty times over: bottled in a dead end, engulfed by a wall of black gloss carapace that seeped forwards like tar.

There was no hope of victory. No hope of defeating them. No hope of escape.

Not on the ground, at any rate.

And then he was upon the shrieking majordomo, wrapping gracile limbs around the man's midriff, locking claws together like the teeth of two gears. He spun as he went, turning his back towards the vindictors, shielding his prize from their pernicious attentions and kicking off, jump pack flaring behind him, delivering him into the air.

For an instant he considered leaping for the open elevator, riding its slow carriage up to the domain of whatever pompous noble had stolen his treasure. But before he could even twist towards it, dipping his rising body to bank left—

BOOM.

The second salvo. Right on time.

The blast swept the world from beneath him like a tidal wave of lead. His launch skewed, his legs flared with pain and jinked out to one side, spinning him backwards even as his feet left the ground. The ancient armour held its cohesion — its spirit moaning in the static of his vox — but where his greaves met his thighguards the metal storm peppered his joints and found his flesh. He shut out the pain, clearing his mind, and put his faith in the larriman coagulators haunting his blood. Unconcerned by the wounds he concentrated on restoring his trajectory — twisting with a furious roar — before his disastrous launch could deliver him into a wall or, worse, the floor: a greasy smear of flesh and armour. The jump pack protested at his ungentle contortions, the spirit that fused it to his true armour hissing deep in his psyche like a part of his own body. Its spiralling ascent smoothed, lifting him now at a shallow angle, fizzling and spitting as it went. It wasn't enough. The great snowgates, locked tight, loomed massively before him.

Mustering an effort that sent adrenaline bursting in his brain, cursing the weight of his captive, he rolled onto his front and banked hard, streaking across the heads of the astonished Preafects, silencing the majordomo's shrieks with a deft backhand across the man's face. With balance regained and agility restored, he whooped aloud and resought the elevator. It was too late: the black ranks had closed across it like a lead shield, and he dipped down in fury to rake a single claw across the Preafects' heads, shattering helmets and cleaving skulls like a ploughshare through their midst.

More blasts followed in his wake — no longer disciplined salvoes but panicky, opportunistic shots — thumping at the air like flak charges. But Sahaal was too fast: streaking across vindictor helmets like a ground-hugging missile, every careless discharge had little effect other than to scatter lead shot amongst the shooter's comrades.

In the blink of an eye the implacable advance collapsed. There was something in their midst, now: something that moved faster than they could see, something that shrieked like a child and lashed out with bright claws, cutting and hewing. Something that could dance between raindrops.

Somewhere behind Sahaal the pounding of a hell-gun joined the acoustic maelstrom, reverberating like a drum between the breathless gasps of lasguns. His remaining warriors, he guessed, cornered in their tiny alcove, fighting for their lives.

Let them die. Let them take as many of the faceless fools as they can. Let them sell their lives for me.

The prospect was strangely invigorating.

He ripped a dervishi's head from its body with a casual sideswipe, bringing up his legs to claw at another man's face as he did so. A fist caught the edge of his helm and he laughed at the futility of the attacker's blow, lost in a vicious world of madness and blood. He turned and crouched, igniting the jump pack with a spoken command, chuckling at the screams of agony from behind him as its blue-fire backwash incinerated a knot of scrambling vindictors, pushing him high into the air.

This! This is life! To kill and rejoice!

Immortal! Superhuman! Scion of the Haunter!

Feel their fear! Taste their terror!

It was... intoxicating.

And then something vast and black, like a great fist reaching out to seize him, slipped up into the air and bulged. He moved on instinct, swooping with the avian grace that was the gift of the Raptor, and dodged the unfurling veil with scant centimetres to spare.

Net-cannons.

He had not anticipated this. In the air he was immortal — or, at least, felt immortal. These swarming maggots sought to bring him down, to earthbind him: to tangle his claws and crush his life.

The giddying rush of sublime power crumbled beneath humility and anxiety. He'd been swept up in his own magnificence. How could he have been so foolish? How could he have allowed himself such arrogance as to believe he could overcome this... this sea of enemies?

It was the rage, he knew. That ugly voice in his head. That cold wisp of savagery, fooling him, making him reckless and unbalanced.

What had the Night Haunter said? Something... something about a flaw...

'It festers in our blood... It makes us fools, my heir... Do you know what it is?'

Focus, Sahaal! Focus!

Somewhere in the shadows the hellgun stuttered and fell silent, the last of his colourful warriors torn from their concealment by a vengeful plume of lascannon fire.

Cursing himself, vigilant for the next unfolding net to come billowing up towards him, he ululated and spiralled higher, feeling his hopes crumbling around him, claws sinking into malleable iron. Upside down, he scuttled across the jumbled beams and awkward buttresses of the ceiling, the majordomo still clutched to his chest. Shotgun blasts raked his back, ineffectual at this distance, stones cast against a mountainside. But there was little respite here: even now he could imagine the dervishi tilting lascannons towards him, bracing themselves against ferocious recoil.