‘I know you know what this is,’ said the first voice, Sebaton catching the barest glimpse of dirty, emerald-green leg greaves. ‘And what it can do. No tricks.’

Sebaton nodded. The bolter was pressed so tightly to the side of his head that the muzzle would leave an angry red ring in his skin.

He was inside, still in Ranos as he’d suspected. He had been taken from the warehouse, though. The air was musty and reeked of ink. It was a large room; it had to be to accommodate the heavy machinery hinted at in the shadows at its periphery. He noticed a sheaf of parchment on the floor, trapped beneath one leg of the chair where he was sitting, but couldn’t read what was on it. Stacks of this parchment were piled up in three corners of the room. A printing press, then.

‘May I raise my head?’ he asked, spreading his arms in a gesture of compliance. He still had his digital weapon, that was something. But the contents of the cloth bundle he had risked and lost four men’s lives to obtain were no longer in his possession. His captors might have it, although he suspected not. If they were looking for it then why bother to interrogate him? Why bother to pull him from the warehouse and bring him here? That gave Sebaton an advantage – he knew they wanted him alive. How long that situation lasted would likely depend on what he said and did next, and what they could find out.

The pressure against the side of Sebaton’s head eased as the gun was withdrawn. He looked up, gingerly touching the abrasion left behind. Three warriors surrounded him. Two in front, another just visible in his peripheral vision around the side. One more waited farther back, observing.

They were huge, hulking men, clad in full armour that growled as they moved, with the gears and servos engineered into it. It was power armour. Sebaton had escaped one legionary, only to be caught by at least four others.

Now his head was up, he got a good look at his closest aggressor.

The legionary wore emerald-green armour, tarnished by wear and battle-damage. He also noticed rasping marks where the bearer had tried to shave off pieces of rust that had colonised the edges. It was ornate, a battered antique now, with artistic flourishes wrought into the metal that seemed at odds with a warrior’s wargear. He still had his helmet on; a cage of ivory fangs framed the jaw and snout. Behind the red retinal lenses the warrior’s eyes burned. A pelt, or perhaps a hide, hung raggedly from his shoulders. Even this had seen more than its fair share of battle.

He was one of the XVIII. A Salamander. No wonder he looked rough.

‘How many of you are there?’ Sebaton asked him, without thinking.

The Salamander seized him by the chin. The edges of his gauntlets were warm and pinched Sebaton’s flesh.

‘No questions will come from your mouth, only answers.’ Behind the oval eye-pieces of his helmet, his eyes burned brighter as if reacting to his sudden anger. ‘Understand?’

Sebaton nodded and was released.

‘Who are you?’ the Salamander asked, stepping back.

‘Caeren Sebaton.’

‘And what is your purpose here?’

‘Archaeology. I came to excavate relics.’

‘Alone?’

‘No, I had a team.’

Another of the three, armoured in black, muttered, ‘The pair of servitors Pergellen found.’

Like the Salamander, he also looked ragged. His armour was broken, held together by field repairs and, Sebaton suspected, sheer will. He was hard to focus on, blending well with the shadows, and although a lumen strip buzzed and crackled overhead, the warrior’s power armour reflected no light.

XIX Legion. Raven Guard.

This one also gave off an aura. Like knew like. Sebaton realised this was the psyker that had addressed him earlier.

The Salamander nodded to his brother-in-arms.

‘There were four men also,’ offered Sebaton, hoping his unprompted show of cooperation would improve his chances of survival. He had to get away from here, double back somehow and retrieve what he had taken from the catacombs. ‘Dead too.’

‘You know the manner of what is hunting you?’ asked the Salamander.

‘I do.’

‘Then you’ll also know how much danger you are in.’

‘Painfully so, yes.’

‘What do you know about why the Word Bearers are here?’

‘Nothing.’

The Salamander turned. The Raven Guard slowly shook his head, prompting his flame-eyed comrade to bear down on Sebaton again.

‘Don’t lie to me.’

‘It’s the truth. I have no idea what they want, or you for that matter.’

That was bold. A little foolish, too.

‘Well,’ said the Salamander, unhitching the clasps around his helmet, ‘that’s easy to answer,’ he added, removing it and revealing a face as black as jet with two burning orbs for eyes. Even the pict-captures as part of his data inload had not prepared Sebaton for this, and he balked.

‘I want to know everythingyou know,’ the Salamander said. ‘And I want to know it… right now.’

Something had happened to these warriors, something that had changed them deeply.

‘Who are you? What are you even doing here?’

‘I warned you once not to ask questions.’ Somewhat forebodingly, the Salamander stepped back and gestured to his comrade.

‘Hriak…’

Without seemingly moving, the psyker was upon him. Close up, Sebaton could see that he wore a tattered grey cloak over his power armour and had a fetish of avian bones attached to the conical snout of his helmet. Definitely one of the Raven Guard. Several of the Legions wore black but a closer look had confirmed it. Legionary psyker, known as a Librarian. They were supposed to have been forbidden in the Legions, but evidently circumstances had forced that particular edict into repeal. In the Raven Guard’s outstretched hand, Sebaton could see a thunderhead of dark lightning. It was raging, the force of a storm held in his palm.

Incredible. The sheer will required for that level of mastery…

When Sebaton realised that it was about to be unleashed on him, he flinched, but a steel-fingered hand held him fast. It was a bionic – he could hear the machine parts grinding as they flexed and bit hard into his shoulder.

‘Take it easy, I’m not a threat,’ said Sebaton.

‘We know,’ uttered the warrior behind him, the one who spoke with the strange machine-like cant.

‘If you were,’ said the Salamander, ‘you’d already be dead. And should you prove to be after Hriak has scryedyou, I’ll have Domadus pull out your spine.’

Sebaton didn’t doubt it. Domadus was X Legion, Iron Hands. They weren’t known for their compassion. His presence raised further questions. All three legionaries came from forces that had been nearly destroyed on Isstvan V. Yet here they were, together, allied to some common cause.

Sebaton suspected that it might be the desire for revenge.

‘We got off to a poor start, I think,’ he said. ‘There’s no need for any of this.’

‘Your demands fall on deaf ears,’ Hriak rasped. It sounded like some old injury was marring his speech, but Sebaton couldn’t see what because the warrior was wearing his helmet. His voice put Sebaton in mind of a cold wind rustling through dry leaves, of a dead and desolate winter, and bones lying under the snow.

A moment later and the lightning touched against Sebaton’s forehead.

Fire, cold and terrible, burned him. It hollowed Sebaton out, tendrils of flame worming into him, slowly unpicking the mental barriers he had erected to protect himself from incursion. Deeper it went, spreading out, searching. His mind was a labyrinth, but this was a Legion psyker and he moved swiftly through the contours of it on feathered wings.

He thought of the drowned boy, his pale face lurking under the water.

Hriak’s voice penetrated the memory, a distant echo on the horizon that filled the sky with the promise of rain.

‘ He’s hiding something…’