Loken scissored his back and legs, and sprang up on to his feet as Tull closed in. Now he brought his sword out. In the multi-coloured light, the white-steel blade of his combat sword shone like a spike of ice in his fist.

He offered Tull no opportunity to renew the bout as aggressor. Loken launched forward at the charging man and swung hammer blows with his sword. Tull recoiled, forced to use the remains of the spear as a parrying tool, the Imperial blade biting chips out of its haft.

Tull leapt back, and drew his own sword over his shoulder from the scabbard over his back. He clutched the long, silver sword - a good ten fingers longer than Loken's utilitarian blade - in his right hand, and the spear.’club in his left. When he came in again, he was swinging blows with both.

Loken's Astartes-born senses predicted and matched all of me strikes. His blade flicked left and right, spinning the club back and parrying the sword with two loud chimes of metal. He forced his way into Tull's bodyline guard and pressed his sword aside long

enough to shoulder-barge the royal officer in the chest. Tull staggered back. Loken gave him no respite. He swung again and tore the club out of lull's left hand. It bounced across the floor, sparking and firing.

Then they dosed, blade on blade, The exchange was furious. Loken had no doubts about his own ability: he'd been tested too many times of late, and not found wanting. But Tull was evidently a master swordsman and, more significantly, had learned his art via some entirely different school of bladesmanship. There was no common language in their fight, no shared basis of technique. Every blow and parry and ripostes each one essayed was inexplicable and foreign to the other. Every millisecond of the exchange was a potentially lethal learning curve.

It was almost enjoyable. Fascinating. Inventive. Illuminating. Loken believed Lucius would have enjoyed such a match, so many new techniques to delight at.

But it was wasting time. Loken parried Tull's next quicksilver slice, captured his right wrist firmly in his left hand, and struck off Tull's sword-arm at the elbow with a neat and deliberate chop.

Tull rocked backwards, blood venting from his stump. Loken tossed the sword and severed limb aside. He grabbed Tull by the face and was about to perform the mercy stroke, the quick, down-up decapitation, then thought better of it. He smashed Tull in the side of the head with his sword instead, using the flat.

Tull went flying. His body cartwheeled clumsily across the floor and came to rest against the foot of one of the display plinths. Blood leaked out of it in a wide pool.

This is Loken, Loken, Loken!' Loken yelled in this link. Nothing but dead patterns and static. Switching his blade to his left hand, he drew his bolter and ran forward. He'd gone three steps when the two sagittars

bounded into the chamber. They saw him, and their bows were already drawn to fire.

Loken put a bolt round into the wall behind them and made them flinch.

'Drop the bows!' he ordered via his helmet speakers. The bolter in his hand told them not to argue. They threw aside the bows and shafts with a clatter. Loken nodded his head at Tull, his gun still covering them both. 'I've no wish to see him die.’ he said. 'Bind his arm quickly before he bleeds out.’

They wavered and then ran to Tull's side. When they looked up again, Loken had gone.

HE RAN DOWN a hallway into an adjoining colonnade, hearing what was certainly bolter firing in the distance. Another sagittar appeared ahead, and fired what seemed like a laser bolt at him. The shot went wide past his left shoulder. Loken aimed his bolter and put the warrior on his back, hard.

No room for compassion now.

Two more interex soldiers came into view, another sagittar and a gleve. Loken, still running, shot them both before they could react. The force of his bolts, both torso-shots, threw the soldiers back against the wall, where they slithered to the ground. Abaddon had been wrong. The armour of the interex warriors was masterful, not weak. His rounds hadn't penetrated the chest plates of either of the men, but the sheer, concussive force of the impacts had taken them out of the fight, probably pulping their innards.

He heard footsteps and turned. It was Kairus and one of his men, Oltrentz. Both had weapons drawn.

'What the hell's happening, captain?' Kairus yelled.

'With me!' Loken demanded. ^Vhere's the rest of the detail?'

'I have no idea.’ Kairus complained. The vox is dead!'

'We're being damped.’ Oltrentz added.

'Priority is the Warmaster,' Loken assured them. 'Follow me and-'

More flashes, like laser fire. Projectiles, moving so fast they were just lines of light, zipped down the colonnade, faster than Loken could track. Oltrentz dropped onto his knees with a heavy clang, transfixed by two flightless arrows that had cut clean through his Mark IV plate.

Clean through. Loken could still remember Torgad-don's amusement and Aximand's assurance... They're probably ceremonial.

Oltrentz fell onto his face. He was dead, and there was no time, and no apothecary, to make his death fruitful.

Further shafts flashed by. Loken felt an impact. Kairus staggered as a sagittar's dart punched entirely through his torso and embedded itself in the wall behind him.

'Kairus!'

'Keep on, captain!' Kairus drawled, in pain. 'Too clean a shot. I'll heal!'

Kairus rose and opened up with his storm bolter, firing on auto. He hosed the colonnade ahead of them, and Loken saw three sagittars crumble and explode under the thunderous pummel of the weapon. Now their armour broke. Under six of seven consecutive explosive penetrators, now their armour broke.

How we have underestimated them, Loken thought. He moved on, with Kairus limping behind him. Already Kairus had stopped bleeding. His genhanced body had self-healed the entry and exit wounds, and whatever the sagittar dart had skewered between those two points was undoubtedly being compensated for by the built-in redundancies of the Astartes's anatomy.

Together, they kicked their way into the main dining hall. The room was chaotic. Torgaddon and the rest of his detail were covering the Warmaster as they led him

towards the south exit. There was no sign of Naud, but interex soldiers were firing at Torgaddon's group from a doorway on the far side of the chamber. Bolter fire lit up the air. Several bodies, including that of a Luna Wolf, lay twisted amongst the overturned chairs and banquet tables. Loken and Kairus trained their fire on the far doorway.

Tarik!'

'Good to see you, Garvi!'

What the hell is this?'

'A mistake.’ Horus roared, his voice cracking with despair. This is wrong! Wrong!'

Brilliant shafts of light stung into the wall alongside them. Sagittar darts sliced through the smoky air. One of Torgaddon's men buckled and fell, a dart speared through his helm.

'Mistake or not, we have to get clear. Now!' Loken yelled.

'Zakes! Cyclos! Regold!' Torgaddon yelled, firing. 'Close with Captain Loken and see us out!'

'With me!' Loken shouted.

'No!' bellowed the Warmaster. 'Not like this! We can't-'

'Go!' Loken screamed at his commander.

The fight to extricate themselves from Naud's house lasted ten furious minutes. Loken and Kairus led the rearguard with the brothers Torgaddon had appointed to them, while Torgaddon himself ferried the Warmaster out through the basement loading docks onto the street. Twice, Horus insisted on going back in, not wanting to leave anyone, especially not Loken, behind. Somehow, using words Torgaddon never shared with Loken, Torgaddon persuaded him otherwise.

By the time they had come out into the street, the remainder of Loken's outer guard had formed up with them, adding to the armour wall around the Warmaster, all except Jaeldon, whose fate they never learned.