An elbow strike in the second legionary’s throat dented his gorget and partially choked him, freeing Narek of immediate enemies. The fall had split Elias and the Salamander officer apart. They were close to the edge of the sink and a long drop into the reservoir of filth below. Ignoring the other legionaries, who had started to regroup after the Word Bearers’ fast counter-attack, Narek went straight for Elias.

‘What are you doing?’ yelled the Dark Apostle.

They were outgunned, with a sniper rifle trained on them at distance. Everyone else in the kill-squad was dead or soon to be, and all their reinforcements were trapped inside the tunnel without any excavation gear.

‘Saving our lives,’ snapped Narek as he took Elias and himself over the edge of the sink and down towards the foaming tumult below.

Numeon rushed to the edge of the sink and almost jumped.

Leodrakk stopped him, hauling the captain back by his shoulder guard.

‘We’ve lost enough already,’ he said, but leaned over and sighted down his bolter.

‘Save your rounds,’ Numeon told him, embittered. ‘They’re gone.’

Putting aside his anger, Leodrakk relented and lowered the bolter. ‘We almost had him. That bastard.’

‘He’ll want revenge for this. We’ll see him again.’

‘Did you see his arm?’ asked Leodrakk. ‘He was wounded. Recently.’

‘But not by us.’

‘Not one of his own?’

‘No,’ Numeon said, pensive, ‘something else.’

After a few seconds of watching the tide of filth still plunging from the outflow and not seeing either Word Bearer snared by the current, they stepped away from the edge.

K’gosi was alive. His breastplate was bloodstained where a Word Bearer had plunged a blade into it, but he was otherwise unharmed. He had long since depleted his reserves of promethium and flexed his left gauntlet irritably. The right he held against Shen’ra’s chest.

‘We will remember your sacrifice, brother,’ he muttered softly, kneeling next to the Techmarine whom he had rolled onto his back in repose. The splinter of jetty Shen’ra rested on was about all there was left of it; the others were still up to their armoured shins in sewage.

The Techmarine was not the only casualty. Daka’rai was also dead, on his back in the filth with a knife jutting from his neck. Ukra’bar had taken a bolt-round point blank and would not rise again. The others all carried minor injuries, and none that would amount to the wounding inflicted by their brothers’ deaths.

All present bowed their heads, before Leodrakk spoke up.

‘We cannot even burn them.’

‘No, we cannot.’ Numeon went over to the prone form of the dead human, one of the sump-catchers, and retrieved K’gosi’s cloak to give back to him. ‘So we must honour them a different way.’

In his left hand he held up the fulgurite spear. During their fight, he had wrested it from the Dark Apostle’s scabbard.

Despair turned to hope at the sight of this mundane object, though none who saw it could explain why. It crackled with power, an inner golden glow that spoke of the Emperor’s grace and his near-divinity. Stringent steps and sanctions had been taken to refute the idea of the Emperor as a god, but his power had always suggested otherwise, despite the desire to move from superstition to enlightenment. But the past months had begun to challenge that paradigm. For the universe was not the sole province of mortals, be they human or alien – it was the realm of gods, too, and most of them were malign. The Word Bearers believed in them, even courted their foot soldiers for dark favours. They had faith, but what they believed in was horrible.

As he held the spearhead aloft, Numeon knew that he had faith too: faith in the Emperor and his design for the galaxy and humanity, and faith that his primarch was still alive. The power in the fulgurite seemed to ignite that belief; it ignited it in all of them.

He lightly traced his fingers over the sigil at his waist.

‘Vulkan lives,’ he uttered simply.

Every legionary standing before him replied. First K’gosi and Ikrad.

‘Vulkan lives.’

Then G’orrn and B’tarro.

‘Vulkan lives.’

And Hur’vak and Kronor.

‘Vulkan lives.’

With every new voice, the chorus became louder, until only one remained.

Numeon looked his Pyre brother in the eye, and saw the hurt and pain he held there from when Skatar’var had been lost on Isstvan. If any had cause to doubt, it would be Leodrakk. The memory of that day and their flight to the drop-ships left a canker of regret in Numeon’s mouth, but he kept his expression neutral as he regarded Leodrakk.

His gaze moving from Numeon to the spear to the sigil and then back again, Leodrakk nodded.

‘Vulkan lives.’

Together they turned their affirmation into a battle cry, shouting at the sky in defiance and as one.

‘ Vulkan lives!’

They would hold to this belief, and use it to give their cause much-needed hope.

For the first time since they had run from Isstvan, beaten and bloody, Numeon knew what he had to do. Going back to stand at the edge of the sink, he signalled to Pergellen, with whom he knew Hriak and John Grammaticus were also waiting.

It was time to talk to the human again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Human failings

Kharaatan, during the Great Crusade

Night had fallen over Khartor City for the last time. Through a combined effort of Imperial Army, both infantry and armoured, Titans from the Legio Ignis and two Space Marine Legions, the world of Kharaatan was at last officially deemed compliant. With the warriors’ work now done, the Imperial Administration with its army of logisticians, codifiers, servitors, engineers, manufactors, taxonomers and scriveners could begin the long task of recolonising One-Five-Four Six and repatriating it in the name of the Emperor and the Imperium.

Its old name of Kharaatan, together with the names of all its cities and other important geographical locations, would change. For now simple designations would suffice, such as the signifier it had been given when the war of compliance had been authorised by the War Council. In time, new appellations would be chosen in order to help colonists better adapt and think of the world as their own, as a loyal Imperial world with loyal Imperial citizens.

Kharaatan and all its associated trappings represented rebellion and discord. By changing its names, their power was revoked and supplanted it with another’s.

Part of this transformation began with the logging and transportation of the entire population of Kharaatan. These men, women and children, be they rebels or innocents, would never see their home again. Some would go to the penal colonies, others would be sent to worlds in need of indentured workers, some would be executed. But in the end, the cultural footprint of the Kharaatan people would disappear forever.

Logistician Murbo thought on none of this as he conducted final checks before the transporters’ departure. After what had seemed like days rather than hours of painstaking cataloguing and questioning, the Departmento Munitorum, assisted by Administratum clerks in battalion-strength cohorts, had finally rounded up and divided Khartor’s population. This was the last city. It had also been one of the largest. Headache didn’t even begin to describe the wretched pounding that was alive in Murbo’s skull, so his temper was short as well as his diligence.

As he rattled by the first transport, he didn’t notice the smell. He had a gaggle of servitors and a lexmechanic in tow, but they had long since been divested of the burden of olfactory sensation, so didn’t raise any question either.

It was dark, and a cold wind was coming in across the desert. Murbo wanted to be back in his lodgings aboard ship, warm and with something warming in his belly too. He’d been saving a bottle for just this occasion.