As the eighth verse began and the shaking supplicants trembled in ever greater fear and fervour, spittle flecking from their lips, tears of blood streaming down their cheeks, limbs jerking in spastic tremors, the legionaries took up the chant. As one they unsheathed their blades, one each for the souls about to be cast unto the aether.

Below them, the abyssal shaft yawned. Above, the sky crackled with hellish energy. A metaphysical event was taking place, a cosmological alteration that had much in common with the Ruinstorm, albeit on a much smaller level. Darkness clung to this place, tendrils of it were returning as the ritual advanced in potency. They had only to extinguish the remaining light to bring the night forth.

Here was the Emperor’s power, Elias reminded himself. Here, he, Valdrekk Elias, would see it broken and supplanted. The fabric of reality was diminishing, like a film of skin stretched over a skeleton too large for it. Patches of it were thinning, allowing the light – and what was drawn to that light – to peer through.

As he spoke, he reached up with his dagger, his words echoing below through his disciples, and could almost touchthe beyond…

It had visited Dagon, Amaresh, Argel Tal… Even Narek possessed some measure of its influence, regardless of his denial. Now, Elias would receive its boon for loyal and faithful servitude. It was his due. Erebus had promised it.

The eighth verse drew to a close and Elias brought his gaze downwards towards the pit and the mewling creature clenched firmly in his grasp.

Eight times eight blades were touched to eight times eight throats. The cut was made in unison, the robed disciples acting on their master’s signal as the last words were spoken and sacrificial blood was released, for the glory and sustenance of the Pantheon.

Narek saw the storm several kilometres out. He and Dagon were travelling apart, so if one was discovered the other could better effect escape or counter-attack.

It troubled him, the storm. Narek could see it even above the tallest smoke stacks, billowing in clouds of eldritch lightning. He hoped that Elias knew what he was doing. As he picked his way through the deserted streets, he could imagine Dagon’s beseechments and zealous babbling. He was spared that trial on account of the fact that, without his battle-helm, Dagon was no longer linked to him by vox.

‘We were once warriors,’ he said to the lonely wind, swearing there were voices trapped in it. ‘When did we become fanatics?’ Phantom pain in his missing leg throbbed and he clutched the bionic that had replaced it, feeling only cold metal and the touch of flesh no longer.

His lip was curling with displeasure when he felt something warming his side. His retinal display had triggered no alarms concerning his suit’s efficacy, so Narek assumed that it was undamaged. When he looked down, he found that the source of the heat was his scabbard. For a moment he forgot that he had replaced his gladius, and wondered what the object was that glowed faintly within it.

The fulgurite. The lightning spear.

Narek stopped, gazing in sudden wonder at the sublime artefact in his possession. He hesitated to draw it, and found his hand trembling as he reached to do so.

‘ Godlike…’ he whispered, repeating the same word he had used to describe it to Elias.

Finding his resolve, he clutched the haft of the spear and was about to draw it when Dagon’s voice interrupted him.

‘Brother,’ Dagon called to him, ‘why have you stopped? Are you injured?’

Narek released the haft at once, only half turning towards Dagon and clutching his leg.

‘Old wounds, slowing an old soldier,’ he lied.

Dagon approached, only a few metres away when he had called out, and gestured towards the storm. ‘I can feel it, brother.’

Narek’s eyes narrowed behind his faceplate. ‘Feel what?’

‘The touch of the Neverborn, the whispered promise of the Pantheon…’

Narek recalled the voices and realised they were no trick of the wind. Elias was literally reshapingreality, bending it to his will in his attempt to fashion something akin to a gate. Narek wondered briefly if, when that gate was opened, what was on the other side would recognise friend from food.

‘You are more gifted than I, Dagon,’ he replied, though he felt the ripple of the warp’s presence under his flesh, just as he always had. It was an itch, a reminder of what they had all given up in pursuit of so-called ‘truth’.

Dagon clapped Narek on the shoulder, drawing an unseen snarl from the veteran huntsman.

‘We shall all be beneficiaries of the Gods’ boons when this night is done,’ he smiled and walked on ahead. ‘I will take point, brother. Rest your leg, knowing your spirit will soon be nourished.’

My spirit is likely to be nourishment, not nourished,thought Narek.

Glancing at the spear one more time, he waited for Dagon to be lost from sight and followed in silence. The warmth at his side did not abate, but throbbed, reminding him of his every doubt.

Their numbers had swelled since they had first made planetfall. Almost a hundred legionaries and twice that amount in simpering cultists were arrayed before the great ritual pit where Elias sermonised and proselytised. His bombastic doggerel did little to move Narek, who had been last to join the gathering, having followed on behind Dagon, who had already taken his place with the devout.

Offered robe and cowl by a mortal wearing a graven mask and attired in the same priestly vestments, Narek found his place amongst the throng. He watched in mute fascination and revulsion as Elias preached his dogma from on high, standing aloft like a deacon of old Colchis. Narek thought him a petty demagogue, bereft of honour or true purpose. He was Erebus’s puppet, but then Narek supposed that only made him Elias’s hound.

A life given for a life spared, he reminded himself, and barely noticed the humans with their throats slit, cascading into the dark abattoir that awaited their flesh. Their souls… Well, that was another matter.

Many more cattle trembled in their pens, awaiting execution by Elias’s ‘divine’ hand. The efforts of the other legionaries had yielded a ripe harvest. Narek could smell the mortals’ fear, just as he could detect the Dark Apostle’s greed and ambition. Both sickened him.

On Monarchia, they had erected monuments, great citadels of worship. It was worthy endeavour – it was refulgent and glorious. This was grubby and base. The XVII had sunk low, squirming on their bellies, not much better than the vermin they preyed upon. Yet, he could not deny the sense of power. They all felt it, the warriors of the Legion, the cultists, the other humans in their thrall. It was potent and it was also imminent.

The ritual ended. Elias descended from his pulpit, a prophet to his devoted following, his communion with the Gods over for now.

‘Narek,’ Elias said, his eyes finding the huntsman in the throng, warriors parting with muttered benediction as he approached him through the crowd. ‘Do you have it?’ he asked, eyes still bright from the borrowed power he had siphoned through the ritual.

Narek nodded, fighting a sudden reluctance to relinquish his hold upon the spear.

‘Come,’ Elias beckoned, keen to be away from the others when presented with his prize.

A small encampment had been established in close vicinity to the pit; tents, a shrine at which to worship, flesh-pens to harness the cattle. Elias had deemed it necessary to erect a commune. Narek joined him inside one of the tents. After dismissing a pair of hooded cultists, they were alone.

‘It smacks of more permanence than I thought was needed for this,’ said Narek, indicating the encampment.

‘Blood begets blood, brother, but much must be spilled in order to taint this place.’