Kais blasted the ugly device into spinning fragments before it could fire, scattering the tight confines of the duct with scorched components and lumps of bone. A series of teeth rattled cheerfully on the dome of his helmet. He shook his head and moved on, too exhausted to wonder where the monstrous attacker had come from.

The journey was proving tortuous. He’d been ready to rest following the incident in the engine bay. It had seemed fair. He felt like he’d spent tau’cyrs — his whole life, perhaps — fighting and killing and running; the exhaustion had finally overwhelmed him and he’d stood, swaying, as things returned to normal by degrees and his friends and comrades gathered around him. The ship was still full of gue’la, but they’d be hunted down. It had been as good as over, and the conflicting sides of his brain had gratefully segued into a single, relieved whole.

He should have guessed it wouldn’t last.

So: first a garbled message from a fraught-sounding El’Lusha, requesting his presence on the bridge. Not by the normal route, oh no, that was either blocked off or breached or infested, it didn’t matter which. Instead he found himself worming along tor’kans of intestinal ducting and vent systems.

Second, the unpleasant business of guerrilla tunnel combat. The various conduit intersections and turbine chambers had yielded plentiful surprises in the form of gue’la troopers (mostly casualties or cowards who’d crawled off to hide, he suspected). He’d lost the top segment of his shoulder torso guard when a gutshot trooper had taken a respectable stab at blowing his head off. Kais had returned the favour with rather more success.

Third, the internal workings of the Or’es Tash’var— normally a paragon of silent efficiency, out of sight and mind — were not operating in his favour. Much of this part of the ship had been damaged by assault imparts, forcing him to travel further into the complex innards of the vessel than seemed sensible. His attempts to hail the bridge to shut down the blade fans and circulatory turbines had met with a stony silence, forcing him to divert several times into human-occupied chambers to power down systems. Control panels that would, no doubt, appear self-explanatory to any of the kor’la crewmen were, to him, little more than meaningless jumbles of switches and dials. Thus far he’d prevailed by pressing everything at once.

And now, to cap it all, just as the intersection containing the command deck elevator was drawing near, he was getting attacked by scum-fire shyh’am-eating blood-of-t’au skulls, of all things. He swore out loud, just for the sake of it, not caring about the breach of etiquette. He was ready to drop, and he didn’t mind admitting it.

What kept him going was numbness. He’d reached a point beyond exhaustion. To stop now would cripple him, he suspected; the natural stimulants and pain were all that sustained him, pushing him on, delaying that moment when he could finally collapse and sleep and pretend to be normal again.

But there was something else. The remoteness of his physical fatigue was no protection against the turmoil in his mind, and for that he clung grimly to a single phrase:

“Nobody ever pretended it would be easy...”

El’Lusha had been right. To feel unfairly treated, to pity oneself somehow at the injustice of being responsible for such destruction: these were symbols of arrogance and Mont’au.

Kais had understood, as he crawled through the belly of the ship. Every fire warrior, he could see, must face their own Trial by Fire. For some it would be as simple as a physical test of their skills and abilities. For others — for him — such a test was redundant.

His proficiency for violence was inherent, no more open to adjudication than was the slant of his eyes or the size of his feet. For him, the true trial took place not at the tip of his gun barrel or in the bleeding piles of corpses he left behind him. For him, the trial took place in his mind.

So he kept going. He would accept the challenge and strive to succeed, to placate the devil inside him. He’d wage a tranquil, quiet war against the rage, using swords of focus and spears of calm, and in the name of the One Path he’d succeed.

He reloaded the carbine, chewing his lip.

Thinking it was a lot easier than achieving it.

They’d killed everyone.

El’Siet, his second in command for six tau’cyrs. Ruptured parts scattered across the deck, tendrils of brainsludge slithering down his control console.

El’Ver’sev’a, his personnel officer. They’d taken time with her, blowing off her limbs one at a time until she just lay there, emptying across the deck, too traumatised to even scream.

El’Gei’ven and El’Fay, the six kor’vres manning the comms and all the kor’uis and kor’las that hadn’t yet evacuated the bridge. Pulped. Shredded. Atomised and seared, knocked apart by hungry bolter shells or scorched into bubbling liquescence by all manner of vile, howling gue’la weapons.

Kofo Tyra forced open his swollen eyes and surveyed his domain, resisting the urge to vomit. There had been no fight, here. No honourable battle or measured struggle for supremacy. The attackers had stepped out of thin air without warning or challenge, opening fire with a savagery Tyra could never before have imagined. This was carnage, pure and simple. They’d turned his bridge into an abattoir, and expected... what? Cooperation?

“You will tell us,” one said, its voice a metallic boom. Its face, occluded behind a dark green helm with glowing eyes, glowered down from high above.

“Where is the ethereal?” said another.

“You will tell us,” the first repeated, “or you will die.”

A segmented gauntlet backhanded him across his face, snapping his head around and dropping him to the floor. Pain blossomed along his cheekbone, and he dribbled blood onto the deck. It didn’t matter.

“Tell us,” one said. He didn’t know which. They all looked the same: hulking bodies destroying his sense of scale, their thrumming armour moving with speed and agility defying their enormity. A metal boot caught him in the ribs, flipping him onto his back. He felt the bones of his chest crackling as he landed.

“The ethereal,” one said. “Where is he?”

He forced his lips to part and hissed at the impossible shapes towering over him. “Sssafe...” he managed.

The colossus at the edge of the group stamped forwards, armour decorated with whorls and runes that seemed clipped and ugly to Tyra’s eyes. He wore no helmet, frail gue’la features protruding bizarrely from the slabs of ceramite that covered his shoulders. A long pinion of blue metal arched over his bald skull, tangles of cables infesting the ridge of his brow. His eyes seemed to glow.

“You will tell me, xenogen,” it said, mournful voice reaching into Tyra’s mind and sweeping a wave of nausea and dizziness across him. “You have no choice in this.”

“I think not,” Tyra croaked, voice heavy with a confidence he didn’t feel.

“Xenogen. I am Lexicanium Librarian Macex of his Imperial Majesty’s Raptors. Understand this: you are going to die. Today. By my hand. Tell me where your ethereal is hiding and I’ll make it quick, on my honour. I have no greater kindness to offer you, alien.”

Tyra almost laughed, coughing on the blood in his throat. “I... hh... I’m not afraid of you, gue’la.”

The human’s features creased, its expression almost sad. It extended one gauntleted hand, fingers spread, pressing down with surprising tenderness against his brow. “More the fool you,” it said, eyes crackling with a strange energy.

Daggers hit the inside of Tyra’s mind. A splintering medley of pain, indescribable agony that violated every part of his brain, surged through his head, making him cry out in astonishment. Tendrils of fire, like superheated proboscises, examined his thoughts in a series of clumsy incisions.