'In Zakias's name,' Vipus growled, 'I'll find this bastard Invisible and-'

'Sooth your choler, brother. I've no use for it,' Loken said. 'See to your wounded while I take a look.'

Vipus nodded and redirected his men. Loken pushed up past them to the disputed junction.

It was a vault-roofed crossways where four hallways met. The area read cold and still to his imaging. Fading smoke wisped up into the rafters. The ouslite floor had been chewed and peppered with thousands of impact craters. Brother Zakias, his body as yet unretrieved, lay in pieces at the centre of the crossway, a steaming pile of shattered white plasteel and bloody meat.

Vipus had been right. There was no sign of an enemy present. No heat-trace, not even a flicker of movement. But studying the area, Loken saw a heap of empty shell cases, glittering brass, that had spilled out from behind a bulkhead across from him. Was that where the killer was hiding?

Loken bent down and picked up a chunk of fallen plasterwork. He lobbed it into the open. There was a click, and then a hammering deluge of autofire raked across the junction. It lasted five seconds, and in that time over a thousand rounds were expended. Loken saw the fuming shell cases spitting out from behind the bulkhead as they were ejected.

The firing stopped. Fycelene vapour fogged the junction. The gunfire had scored a mottled gouge across the stone floor, pummelling Zakias's corpse in the process. Spots of blood and scraps of tissue had been spattered out.

Loken waited. He heard a whine and the metallic clunk of an autoloader system. He read weapon heat, fading, but no body warmth.

Won a medal yet?' Vipus asked, approaching.

'It's just an automatic sentry gun.’ Loken replied.

'Well, that's a small relief at least.’ Vipus said. 'After the grenades we've pitched in that direction, I was

beginning to wonder if these vaunted Invisibles might be "Invulnerables" too. I'll call up Devastator support to-'

'Just give me a light flare.’ Loken said.

Vipus stripped one off his leg plate and handed it to his captain. Loken ignited it with a twist of his hand, and threw it down the hallway opposite. It bounced, fizzling, glaring white hot, past the hidden killer.

There was a grind of servos. The implacable gunfire began to roar down the corridor at the flare, kicking it and bouncing it, ripping into the floor.

'Garvi-' Vipus began.

Loken was running. He crossed the junction, thumped his back against the bulkhead. The gun was still blazing. He wheeled round the bulkhead and saw the sentry gun, built into an alcove. A squat machine, set on four pad feet and heavily plated, it had turned its short, fat, pumping cannons away from him to fire on the distant, flickering flare.

Loken reached over and tore out a handful of its servo flexes. The guns stuttered and died.

'We're dear!' Loken called out. Locasta moved up.

That's generally called showing off.’ Vipus remarked.

Loken led Locasta up the corridor, and they entered a fine state apartment. Other apartment chambers, similarly regal, beckoned beyond. It was oddly still and quiet.

'Which way now?' Vipus asked.

'We go find this "Emperor".’ Loken said.

Vipus snorted. 'Just like that?'

The first captain bet me I couldn't reach him first.’

The first captain, eh? Since when was Garviel Loken on pally terms with him?'

'Since Tenth breached the palace ahead of First. Don't worry, Nero, I'll remember you little people when I'm famous.’

Nero Vipus laughed, the sound snuffling out of his helmet mask like the cough of a consumptive bull.

What happened next didn't make either of them laugh at all.

Meeting the Invisibles

At the foot of a Golden Throne

Lupercal

'CAPTAIN LOKEN?' He looked up from his work. That's me.’ 'Forgive me for interrupting.’ she said. You're busy.’ Loken set aside the segment of armour he had been polishing and rose to his feet. He was almost a metre taller than her, and naked but for a loin cloth. She sighed inwardly at the splendour of his physique. The knotted muscles, the old ridge-scars. He was handsome too, this one, fair hair almost silver, cut short, his pale skin slightly freckled, his eyes grey like rain. What a waste, she thought.

Though there was no disguising his inhumanity, especially in this bared form. Apart from the sheer mass of him, mere was the overgrown gigantism of the face, that particular characteristic of the Astartes, almost equine, plus the hard, taut shell of his rib-less torso, like stretched canvas.

'I don't know who you are.’ he said, dropping a nub of polishing fibre into a litde pot, and wiping his fingers.

She held out her hand. 'Mersadie Oliton, official remembrancer.’ she said. He looked at her tiny hand and then shook it, making it seem even more tiny in comparison with his own giant fist.

'I'm sorry.’ she said, laughing, 'I keep forgetting you don't do that out here. Shaking hands, I mean. Such a parochial, Terran custom.’

'I don't mind it. Have you come from Terra?'

'I left there a year ago.’despatched to the crusade by permit of the Council.’

Тои'ге a remembrancer?'

"You know what that means?'

'I'm not stupid.’ Loken said.

'Of course not.’ she said, hurriedly. 'I meant no offence.’

'None taken.’ He eyed her. Small and frail, though possibly beautiful. Loken had very little experience of women. Perhaps they were all frail and beautiful. He knew enough to know that few were as black as her. Her skin was like burnished coal. He wondered if it were some kind of dye.

He wondered too about her skull. Her head was bald, but not shaved. It seemed polished and smooth as if it had never known hair. The cranium was enhanced somehow, extending back in a streamlined sweep that formed a broad ovoid behind her nape. It was like she had been crowned, as if her simple humanity had been made more regal.

'How can I help you?' he asked.

'I understand you have a story, a particularly entertaining one. I'd like to remember it, for posterity.’

'Which story?'

'Horns killing the Emperor.’

He stiffened. He didn't like it when non-Astartes humans called the Warmaster by his true name.

That happened months ago.’ he said dismissively. 'I'm sure I won't remember the details particularly well.’

'Actually.’ she said, 'I have it on good authority you can be persuaded to tell the tale quite expertly. I've been told it's very popular amongst your battle-brothers.’

Loken frowned. Annoyingly, the woman was correct. Since the taking of the High City, he'd been required -forced would not be too strong a word - to retell his first-hand account of the events in the palace tower on dozens of occasions. He presumed it was because of Sejanus's death. The Luna Wolves needed catharsis. They needed to hear how Sejanus had been so singularly avenged.

'Someone put you up to this, Mistress Oliton?' he asked.

She shrugged. 'Captain Torgaddon, actually.’

Loken nodded. It was usually him. What do you want to know?'

'I understand the general situation, for I have heard it from others, but I'd love to have your personal observations. What was it like? When you got inside the palace itself, what did you find?'

Loken sighed, and looked round at the rack where his power armour was displayed. He'd only just started cleaning it. His private arming chamber was a small, shadowy vault adjoining the off-limits embarkation deck, the metal walls lacquered pale green. A cluster of glow-globes lit the room, and an Imperial eagle had been stencilled on one wall plate, beneath which copies of Loken's various oaths of moment had been pinned. The close air smelled of oils and lapping powder. It was a tranquil, introspective place, and she had invaded that tranquility.