‘Liar…’ he hissed.

‘Even though you have me at your mercy, you still cannot manage to drag me down. You can’t even kill me.’

Curze looked like he was about to lash out, but reined his anger in and became disturbingly calm.

‘You’re not special,’ he said. ‘You were just convenient.’ He smiled thinly, and walked around behind me so that I couldn’t see him. ‘I have enjoyed our game, so much so that when it’s over I will go after another of my brothers. And those I cannot kill, I shall break.’

I turned to confront him, to warn him off, but Curze was already gone. He had melted away into the darkness.

The gate yawned open, silently beckoning.

‘ I will break them, Vulkan,’ Curze’s disembodied voice declared. ‘ Just as I am breaking you, piece by fragile piece. And if you’re wondering if there are any monsters in the labyrinth, I can tell you yes, but only one.’

With Curze gone, I had little choice but to enter the Iron Labyrinth.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Faith

Hiding at the edge of the tunnel outflow, Dagon gave the signal to advance.

Vogel went in first, knife drawn as he closed on his prey.

The earlier battle had hit the loyalists hard and there were fewer warriors than he had expected. Pity, it would mean fewer souls to offer up to the Pantheon. Perhaps he would offer up Narek’s soul too if he got in Vogel’s way again.

There were four of them, all Salamanders, sitting together with their cloaks wrapped protectively around their bodies. One, a Techmarine judging by his armour and trappings, was talking to the others. They must be discussing tactics. Two more were laid out under a tarpaulin, and squatting next to them, also huddled in drake hide, was the human the Word Bearers were looking for.

Heavy acid-rain was fouling the auspex, but the blademaster didn’t need his scanners to tell him the four legionaries with their backs to the tunnel were soon to be dead men.

Foolish to leave the human so lightly guarded, but then Vogel knew that the loyalists had taken a hammering at the manufactorum. He doubted there were many more left. He smiled, showing two rows of pointed teeth he had filed down himself, and remembered how the Dark Apostle’s warpcraft had revealed their enemies to him. The tunnels could have led to any one of fifty or more outflows. Vogel was certain that the loyalists would not be expecting an attack so soon.

Unsheathing a second blade, he crept quietly into the open, his footfalls masked by the rain. His fellow assassins were right behind him, but Vogel didn’t need them. He was going to kill all of these weaklings by himself.

Numeon clung to the side of the cliff, beneath the cascading overflow. Glancing to the right, he saw Leodrakk with his gauntleted fingers dug into the manmade rock face. On the left was Daka’rai, also clinging on. Three of their brothers were hiding on the opposite side of the gushing falls, obscured by the water. K’gosi and three more were submerged beneath the sink itself.

Numeon was blind to whatever was happening above. All he could hear was the roar of the water as it battered against his armour. Even through his helmet respirator, the air was foul and dank.

Soon…he told himself.

It was all up to Shen’ra now. All Numeon and the others had to do was honour his sacrifice.

Vogel had a hunter’s stealth but a maniac’s urgency. The latter tended to undermine the former, which was why Narek had only wanted him in his squad when he needed killers and could trust less to subterfuge. Had he been allowed to do this with Dagon and possibly Melach, Narek would have gone about it differently. Something about the scene before him, the quiet comradely conversation, the huddled figure of the stock-still human, gave him pause. He could have given voice to it, he could have suggested caution but instead he let Dagon give the all-clear to attack. After that, Vogel had rushed out to be first.

Narek was content to let him and followed on behind with Dagon, Melach and Saarsk.

Elias was amongst the vanguard too, the rest of the Word Bearers waiting in the tunnel if needed. Narek kept the Dark Apostle behind him, irritated that Elias had insisted on joining the kill-squad. Fear of Erebus and a loss of status amongst the XVII was a compelling motivator, it seemed.

Vogel had almost reached the Techmarine when Narek received a horrible premonition. His concerns, abstract at first, became reality and his warning could not then remain unspoken.

‘Their eyes…’ he hissed urgently over the vox to Dagon.

‘ What of them?’

‘Look!’

The three Salamanders sitting and listening to the Techmarine had dead retinal lenses. Their eyes, normally burning, should have cast a faint light through them.

It meant the eyes were not the only things that were dead, and that in turn meant–

Narek stood up and shouted, ‘Vogel! No!’

Too late, the bladesman plunged his dagger into the Techmarine’s back. It was a killing stroke, punched right through the legionary’s primary heart. Vogel wrenched out the blade. It was covered in blood. He was about to slay another when the dull thudof an object hitting the wooden deck drew his eyes downwards.

Blinking red, an incendiary rolled from the Techmarine’s open gauntlet. There was a smile etched on Shen’ra’s lifeless face as he released the dead man’s trigger.

The explosion immolated Vogel, and threw the others off their feet. Fire swept across the jetty, igniting a chain of grenades dug into and around the tunnel entrance. They cooked off in seconds, releasing a secondary explosion and effectively sealing the outflow behind a tonne of debris.

Smashed back towards the entrance and then away from it as the second blast hit, Narek was on the ground, stunned but alive. He’d dragged Elias down with him as he sought to keep the Dark Apostle from harm. Hate him he might, but he still had his duty to perform. Peering through smoke and fire, the huntsman saw four legionaries emerging from the sink with bolters raised. He threw his knife, piercing the neck of one before the Salamander had a chance to fire.

Dagon had his rifle up, preparing to execute a second ambusher, when a shot whined out from a distance and struck right through the side of his head. The sniper was dead before he hit the jetty.

Bolt-rounds from the submerged legionaries ripped Melach apart, the Word Bearer with his pistol only half drawn.

Prone, almost underneath Narek, Elias fired off a burst and clipped one of the emerging legionaries, who had now drawn blades and were charging through the water. Narek suspected they were low on – or even out of – ammunition, as a concentrated fusillade would have ended the fight quickly. He wondered what the loyalists might be saving their rounds for.

Six more hauled themselves over the edge of the outflow basin. One advanced ahead of the rest. He was a Salamander, a centurion.

A quick headcount made the odds fairly even, but of the many in the tunnel only a few had got out before the blast hit and sealed in the rest. The loyalists also had a plan and the advantage of surprise.

Elias was on his feet. He fired off a snap shot that took the Salamander officer in the shoulder. He staggered but kept on coming, swinging a hefty-looking glaive.

Narek had other concerns as the two from the sink drove at him. He parried one thrust with his rapidly drawn gladius. A second attack he trapped with his forearm and then dragged the legionary in, crushing his vox-grille with a savage head-butt.

Saarsk had engaged some of the Salamanders who had clambered up over the edge of the sink. He stabbed one and shot another before the sniper ventilated his chest, and the others dragged the Word Bearer down to finish him.

He saw Elias barrelled over as the Salamander officer hurtled into him. The two grappling warriors fell hard against the jetty, which cracked under their weight. A second later and the wooden jetty split, dumping everyone on it down into the filth. It doused the fire still crackling against Narek’s armour, and he used the sudden shift in terrain to put a pistol burst point-blank into one of his opponents. Grunting, the Salamander rolled over and sank into the water.