"What does your slate tell you, sir?' Keeler asked.

'It says... this is quite funny I suppose it would be scary, if one actually believed in such things. It says that the Whisperheads are the one place on this world where the spirits walk and speak. It mentions Samus as chief

of those spirits. Local, and very ancient, legend, tells how one of the emperors battled and restrained a nightmarish force of devilry here. The devil was called Samus. It is here in their myths, you see? We had one of our own, in the very antique days, called Seytan, orTearmat. Samus is the equivalent.’

'Samus is a spirit, then?' Keeler whispered, feeling unpleasantly light-headed.

'Yes. Why do you ask?'

'Because.’ said Keeler, 'I've heard him hissing at me since the moment we touched down. And I don't have a vox.’

BEYOND THE ROCK-BRIDGES, the insurgents had raised shield walls of stone and metal. They had heavy cannons covering the gully approaches to their fortress, wired munition charges in the narrow defiles, electrified razor-wire, bolted storm-doors, barricades of rockcrete blocks and heavy iron poles. They had a few automated sentry devices, and the advantage of the sheer drop and unscalable ice all around. They had faith and their god On their side.

They had held off Varvaras's regiments for six weeks.

They had no chance whatsoever.

Nothing they did even delayed the advance of the Luna Wolves. Shrugging off cannon rounds and the backwash of explosives, the Terminators wrenched their way through the shield walls, and blasted down the storm-doors. They crushed the spark of electric life out of the sentry drones with their mighty claws, and pushed down the heaped barricades with their shoulders. The company flooded in behind them, firing their weapons into the rising smoke.

The fortress itself had been built into the mountain peak. Some sections of roof and battlement were visible from outside, but most of the structure lay within, thickly

armoured by hundreds of metres of rock. The Luna Wolves poured in through the fortified gates. Assault squads rose up the mountain face on their jump packs and settled like flocks of white birds on the exposed roofs, ripping them apart to gain entry and drop in from above. Explosions ripped out the interior chambers of the fortress, opening them to the air, and sending rafts of dislodged ice and rock crashing down into the gorge.

The interior was a maze of wet-black rock tunnels and old tile work, through which the wind funnelled so sharply it seemed to be hyperventilating. The bodies of the slain lay everywhere, slumped and twisted, sprawled and broken. Stepping over them, Loken pitied them. Their culture had deceived them into this resistance, and the resistance had brought down the wrath of the Astartes on their heads. They had all but invited a catastrophic doom.

Terrible human screams echoed down the windy rock tunnels, punctuated by the door-slam bangs of bolter fire. Loken hadn't even bothered to keep a tally of his kills. There was little glory in this, just duty. A surgical strike by the Emperor's martial instruments.

Gunfire pinked off his armour, and he turned, without really thinking, and cut down his assailants. Two desperate men in mail shirts disintegrated under his fire and spattered across a wall. He couldn't understand why they were still fighting. If they'd ventured a surrender, he would have accepted it.

That way.’ he ordered, and a squad moved up past him into the next series of chambers. As he followed them, a body on the floor at his feet stirred and moaned. The insurgent, smeared in his own blood and gravely wounded, looked up at Loken with glassy eyes. He whispered something.

Loken knelt down and cradled his enemy's head in one massive hand. 'What did you say?'

'Bless me...' the man whispered. 'I can't.'

'Please, say a prayer and commend me to the gods.' 'I can't. There are no gods.'

'Please... the otherworld will shun me if I die without a prayer.' 'I'm sorry,' Loken said, "ifou're dying. That's all there

is.

'Help me...' the man gasped.

'Of course.’ Loken said. He drew his combat blade, the standard-issue short, stabbing sword, and activated the power cell. The grey blade glowed with force. Loken cut down and sharply back up again in the mercy stroke, and gently set the man's detached head on the ground.

The next chamber was vast and irregular. Meltwater trickled down from the black ceiling, and formed spurs of glistening mineral, like silver whiskers, on the rocks it ran over. A pool had been cut in the centre of the chamber floor to collect the meltwater, probably as one of the fortress's primary water reserves. The squad he had sent on had come to a halt around its lip.

'Report.’ he said.

One of the Wolves looked round. What is this, captain?' he asked.

Loken stepped forward to join them and saw that a great number of bottles and glass flasks had been set around the pool, many of them in the path of the trickling feed from above. At first, he assumed they were there to collect the water, but there were other items too: coins, brooches, strange doll-like figures of clay and the head bones of small mammals and lizards. The spattering water fell across them, and had evidendy done so for some time, for Loken could see that many of the bottles and other items were gleaming and distorted with mineral deposits. On the overhang of rock above the pool, ancient, eroded script had been chiselled. Loken couldn't

read the words, and realised he didn't want to. There were symbols there that made him feel curiously uneasy.

'It's a fane.’ he said simply. 'You know what these locals are like. They believe in spirits, and these are offerings.’

The men glanced at one another, not really understanding.

They believe in things that aren't real?' asked one.

They've been deceived.’ Loken said. That's why we're here. Destroy this.’ he instructed, and turned away.

THE ASSAULT LASTED sixty-eight minutes, start to finish. By the end, the fastness was a smoking ruin, many sections of it blown wide to the fierce sunlight and mountain air. Not a single Luna Wolf had been lost. Not a single insurgent had survived.

'How many?' Loken asked Rassek.

They're still counting bodies, captain.’ Rassek replied. 'As it stands, nine hundred and seventy-two.’

In the course of the assault, something in the region of thirty meltwater fanes had been discovered in the labyrinthine fortress, pools surrounded by offerings. Loken ordered them all expunged.

They were guarding the last outpost of their faith.’ Nero Vipus remarked.

'I suppose so.’ Loken replied.

'You don't like it, do you, Garvi?' Vipus asked.

'I hate to see men die for no reason. I hate to see men give their lives like this, for nothing. For a belief in nothing. It sickens me. This is what we were once, Nero. Zealots, spiritualists, believers in lies we'd made up ourselves. The Emperor showed us the path out of that madness.’

'So be of good humour that we've taken it.’ Vipus said. 'And, though we spill their blood, be phlegmatic that we're at last bringing truth to our lost brothers here.’

Loken nodded. T feel sorry for them.’ he said. They must be so scared.’

'Of us?'

'Yes, of course, but that's not what I mean. Scared of the truth we bring. We're trying to teach them that there are no greater forces at work in the galaxy than light, gravity and human will. No wonder they cling to their gods and spirits. We're removing every last crutch of their ignorance. They felt safe until we came. Safe in the custody of the spirits that they believed watched over them. Safe in the ideal that there was an afterlife, an otherworld. They thought they would be immortal, beyond flesh.’

'Now they have met real immortals.’ Vipus quipped. 'It's a hard lesson, but they'll be better for it in the long run.’