Hriak regarded the human silently for a beat. ‘For a man, you are… unusual. And not just for your ability to cling tenaciously to life.’

‘Interesting way of putting it. But you’re not the first legionary to remark on that,’ Grammaticus replied.

Ignoring the attempted wit, Hriak went on. ‘I have heard of biomancy that can knit skin, mend bones,’ he reached out to touch Grammaticus’s healed body, ‘but nothing like this. It could not bring men back from the dead.’

‘It wasn’t me,’ answered Grammaticus. ‘I serve a higher power who call themselves the Cabal.’

‘A higher power?’ said K’gosi. ‘Do you believe in gods then, human?’

Grammaticus raised his eyebrow. ‘Do you not, even after all you’ve seen?’ He continued, ‘They gave me eternal life. It’s them whom I serve.’

Numeon detected the bitterness in his reply and, coming up alongside Hriak, asked, ‘To what end, John Grammaticus? Evidently you are no creature of Old Night, else my brother here would have urged us to destroy you at once. Nor do I think you’re an alien. So, if not malfeasance, what is your purpose?’

Grammaticus met the Salamander’s gaze. ‘To save Vulkan.’

The tension in the manufactorum suddenly went up several notches.

‘So you’ve said,’ Numeon replied. ‘But I thought he was supposed to be immortal, like you? What need of saving would our primarch have?’

‘I said save him, not save his life.’

Leodrakk sneered, his displeasure at this exchange obvious, ‘And what makes you think you can succeed where we, his Legion, failed?’

Numeon bit back the urge to tell his brother they had not ‘failed’, and let Grammaticus continue.

‘Because of the spear. I need it, the artefact your enemy took from me. They are my enemy, too. With it I can save him.’ Grammaticus turned to the Librarian. ‘Take a look if you don’t believe me. You’ll find I’m speaking the truth.’

Hriak gave Numeon an almost imperceptible nod.

Grammaticus saw it too. ‘So, help me. We have a common foe in this, as well as a common goal.’

‘An alliance?’

‘I’ve been proposing one ever since you captured me.’

‘Where is he then?’ asked Numeon. ‘Where is our primarch that we might save him? And how can a mere human, albeit an immortal one, hope to achieve such a feat? You say you need the spear to do it, but how? What power does it possess?’

‘He’s far from here, that’s all I know. The rest is still a mystery, even to me.’

‘Have Hriak tear his skull open,’ snapped Leodrakk. ‘He’ll unlock what he knows.’

‘Please… Help me to the spear and off Ranos. I can reach him.’

Numeon considered it but then gestured to Hriak.

‘Tells us what he knows,’ he said darkly.

The Librarian took a step forwards so he could press the palm of his right hand against the man’s forehead.

‘Don’t do it…’ murmured Grammaticus. ‘You don’t know what–’

He convulsed as the pain of mental intrusion hit him. Then Hriak jerked, and a grunt of agony escaped through his vox-grille.

Numeon reached out to him. ‘Brother…?’ The Raven Guard warded him off with an outstretched hand.

He couldn’t speak. Hriak was breathing hard, the throaty sound affected by exertion as his powers were tested. He fell down to one knee, but maintained eye contact and kept his hand up to show the others he was all right. He let it drop to his gorget, then detached his helmet clamps, releasing a small plume of pressurised gas into the air. Then he lifted the helmet free. Underneath, his skin was pale, almost bone-white. Ravaged by injury, one half of the Raven Guard’s face was pulled up in a permanent grimace. His neck bore the scar of a grievous throat wound. It was deep, and looked grey and ugly now that it had healed. Grammaticus balked at the grim apparition. Since Hriak’s discomfort had begun, his own pain had visibly eased.

Hriak let him go, relieved no longer to be in contact.

‘Do you see now?’ said Numeon. ‘We have suffered much and have little left to lose, save for our honour,’ he told Grammaticus. ‘I would have no compunction killing you now or later if you lie to us or obfuscate the truth again.’

‘I am not lying. Vulkan lives,’ Grammaticus said simply.

‘He doesn’t know anything else,’ rasped Hriak, taking Numeon’s arm as it was offered and getting back to his feet. He had yet to put his helmet back on, even though he was clearly uncomfortable with his comrades seeing his damaged face. Breathing was obviously easier without it, though. ‘Or at least, not yet. His instructions have been imparted psychically. Some are locked. I cannot reach them.’

‘He’s preventing you?’

‘Someone is.’

‘This Cabal, his masters?’

Grammaticus interrupted, ‘They guard their knowledge well. No amount of digging around in my skull is going to unearth what you’re after.’

‘I have to concur,’ Hriak conceded, reaching for his helmet.

‘Either help me or let me go,’ said Grammaticus. ‘This stalemate achieves nothing for either of us. Let me save him.’

‘How?’ asked Numeon, suddenly angry. ‘I need to know. I haveto know.’

Grammaticus sagged, defeated. ‘I don’t know. How many times must I say it? I only know it concerns the spear.’

Numeon calmed down, but his frustration was still bubbling under the surface. He turned to the others. ‘The cleric likely has the spear now,’ he said. ‘We’ll take it from him.’

‘From his dead hand,’ put in Leodrakk as he saw the chance for petty revenge.

‘One way or another,’ Numeon replied. He glanced at Grammaticus. ‘Bind him. I don’t want him trying to escape.’

Domadus nodded and began uncoiling a length of rappelling cable from his belt.

‘This is a mistake,’ said Grammaticus.

‘Maybe. Either way you are not leaving us just yet. I want to see what happens when you are reunited with the spear, see what fresh secrets tumble from your mind. Then I’ll have Hriak pry open your skull and extract whatever is hidden within.’

Grammaticus hung his head, let his arms fall by his sides and cursed whatever fates had delivered him to the Salamanders.

Eighty metres from the manufactorum, Narek hunched low behind a half-collapsed wall and peered in awe through his scope.

‘Impossible…’ he breathed, adjusting the focus, enhancing the image through the shattered window-glass.

He saw six legionaries, the guerrilla fighters from before, just as he had predicted. What surprised him was the sight of the man he had killed, the one who could not have survived his wounds and yet stood unscathed in the middle of the manufactorum floor. Standing. Breathing. Alive.

Narek opened the vox to Elias, vaguely aware of his companions around him and knowing the rest were converging from separate angles on the manufactorum.

‘Apostle…’ he began.

Things were about to change.

Despite the attentions of his Apothecary, Elias was in excruciating pain. After a struggle, two legionaries had managed to get him back into his power armour but his burned arm remained unclad. It was black and almost useless. The wounds from the godfire that had seared him seemed unaffected by his enhanced physiology or any healing skill his Legion possessed. Only a rival patron could restore him, and as he sat clenched with agony in his tent, Elias thought bitterly on the failed ritual.

The spear was nearby, lying on a table within reach. It no longer glowed, nor burned. It simply appeared to be a spearhead fashioned from rock and mineral. But that simple shell contained something much more potent.

Elias was considering when to apprise Erebus of his progress, but wanted to be in a clear frame of mind first. His master would have questions, questions Elias wasn’t sure he had the answers to just yet. So when the vox crackled to life, his mood was particularly fractious.

‘What is it?’ he snapped, wincing at the pain in his arm.