Loken made no response.

'It is simply a band of brothers.’ Aximand said. 'A fraternity of warriors, bi-partisan and without rank.’

'So I've heard.’

'Since the Whisperheads, we have had a vacancy. We'd like you to fill it.’

'A vacancy?' Loken said. You mean Jubal? I saw his medal.’

"Will you come with me?' asked Aximand.

'I will. Because it's you who's asking me.’ said Loken.

Felling the Murder trees Megarachnid industry Pleased to know you

THEIR BROTHERS ON the tree were already dead, past saving, but Tarvitz could not leave them skewered and unavenged. The ruination of their proud, perfect forms insulted his eyes and the honour of his Legion.

He gathered all the explosives carried by the remaining men, and moved forwards towards the trees with Bulle and Sakian.

Lucius stayed with the others. 'You're a fool to do that.’ he told Tarvitz. "We might yet need those charges.’

What for?' Tarvitz asked.

Lucius shrugged. "We've a war to win here.’

That almost made Saul Tarvitz laugh. He wanted to say that they were already dead. Murder had swallowed the companies of Blood Angels and now, thanks to Eidolon's zeal for glory, it had swallowed them too. There was no way out. Tarvitz didn't know how many of the company were still alive on the surface, but if the other groups had suffered losses commensurate to their own, the full number could be little higher than fifty.

Fifty men, fifty Astartes even, against a world of numberless hostiles. This was not a war to win; this was just a last stand, wherein, by the Emperor's grace, they might take as many of the foe with them as they could before they fell.

He did not say this to Lucius, but only because others were in earshot. Lucius's brand of courage admitted no reality, and if Tarvitz had been plain about their situation, it would have led to an argument. The last thing the men needed now was to see their officers quarrelling.

'I'll not suffer those trees to stand.’ Tarvitz said.

With Bulle and Sakian, he approached the white stone trees, running low until they were in under the shadows of their grim, rigid canopies. The winged megarachnid up among the thorns ignored them. They could hear the cracking, clicking noises of the insects' feeding, and occasional trickles of black blood spattered down around them.

They divided the charges into three equal amounts, and secured them to the boles of the trees. Bulle set a forty-second timer.

They began to run back towards the edge of the stalk forest where Lucius and the rest of the troop lay in cover.

'Move it, Saul,' Lucius's voice crackled over the vox.

Tarvitz didn't reply.

'Move it, Saul. Hurry. Don't look back.’

Still running, Tarvitz looked behind him. Two of the winged dades had disengaged themselves from the feeding group and had taken to the air. Their beating wings were glass-blurs in the yellow light, and the lightning flash glinted off their polished black bodies. They circled up away from the thorn trees and came on in the direction of the three figures, wings fhrocking the air like the buzz of a gnat slowed and amplified to gargantuan, bass volumes.

'Run!' said Tarvitz.

Sakian glanced back. He lost his footing and fell. Tarvitz skidded to a halt and turned back, dragging Sakian to his feet. Bulle had run on. Twelve seconds!' he yelled, turning and drawing his bolter. He kept backing away, but trained his weapon at the oncoming forms.

'Come on!' he yelled. Then he started to fire and shouted 'Drop! Drop!'

Sakian pushed them both down, and he and Tarvitz sprawled onto the red dirt as the first winged clade went over them, so low the downdraft of its whirring wings raised dust.

It rose past them and headed straight for Bulle, but veered away as he struck it twice with bolter rounds.

Tarvitz looked up and saw the second megarachnid drop straight towards him in a near stall, the kind of pounce-dive that had snared so many of his comrades earlier.

He tried to roll aside. The black thing filled the entire sky.

A bolter roared. Sakian had cleared his weapon and was firing upwards, point blank. The shots tore through the winged clade's thorax in a violent puff of smoke and chitin shards, and the thing fell, crushing them both beneath its weight.

It twitched and spasmed on top of them, and Tarvitz heard Sakian cry out in pain. Tarvitz scrabbled to heave it away, his hands sticky with its ichor.

The charges went off.

The Shockwave of flame rushed out across the red dirt in all directions. It scorched and demolished the nearby edge of the stalk forest, and lifted Tarvitz, Sakian and the thing pinning them, into the air. It blew Bulle off his feet, throwing him backwards. It caught the flying thing, tore off its wings, and hurled it into the thickets.

The blast levelled the three stone trees. They collapsed like buildings, like demolished towers, fracturing into brittle splinters and white dust as they fell into the fireball. Two or three of the winged clades feeding on the trees took off, but they were on fire, and the heat-suck of the explosion tumbled them back into the flames.

Tarvitz got up. The trees had been reduced to a heap of white slag, burning furiously. A thick pall of ash-white dust and smoke rolled off the blast zone. Burning, smouldering scads, like volcanic out-fhrow, drizzled down over him.

He hauled Sakian upright. The creature's impact on them had broken Sakian's right upper arm, and that break had been made worse when they had been thrown by the blast. Sakian was unsteady, but his gen-hanced metabolism was already compensating.

Bulk, unhurt, was getting up by himself.

The vox stirred. It was Lucius. 'Happy now?' he asked.

BEYOND REVENGE AND honour, Tarvitz's action had two unexpected consequences. The second did not become evident for some time, but the first was apparent in less than thirty minutes.

Where the vox had failed to link the scattered forces on the surface, the blast succeeded. Two other troops, one commanded by Captain Anteus, the other by Lord Eidolon himself, detected the considerable detonation, and followed the smoke plume to its source. United, they had almost fifty Astartes between them.

'Make report to me.’ Eidolon said. They had taken up position at the edge of the clearing, some half a kilometre from the destroyed Uees, near the hem of the stalk forest. The open ground afforded them ample warning of the approach of the megarachnid scurrier-clades, and if the winged forms reappeared, they could retreat swiftly into the cover of the thickets and mount a defence.

Tarvitz outlined all that had befallen his troop since landfall as quickly and clearly as possible. Lord Eidolon was one of the primarch's most senior commanders, the first chosen to such a role, and brooked no familiarity, even from senior line officers like Tarvitz. Saul could tell from his manner that Eidolon was seething with anger. The undertaking had not gone at all to his liking. Tarvitz wondered if Eidolon might ever admit he was wrong to have ordered the drop. He doubted it. Eidolon, like all the elite hierarchy of the Emperor's Children, somehow made pride a virtue.

'Repeat what you said about the trees.’ Eidolon prompted.

The winged forms use them to secure prey for feeding, lord.’ Tarvitz said.

'I understand that.’ Eidolon snapped. 'I've lost men to the winged things, and I've seen the thorn trees, but you say there were other bodies?'

The corpses of Blood Angels, lord.’ Tarvitz nodded, 'and men of the Imperial army force too.’

'We've not seen that.’ Captain Anteus remarked.

'It might explain what happened to them.’ Eidolon replied. Anteus was one of Eidolon's chosen circle and enjoyed a far more cordial relationship with his lord than Tarvitz did.