“RUN!” SHOUTED KHALOPHIS, as the frantic buzzing noise grew louder. Camille looked up to see an organically shifting swarm of winged clades launching themselves from hidden lairs in the darkness of the ruined structure.

Terror flooded her limbs with paralysing stillness.

The chittering clatter of insect limbs rattled from the steel structure as scores of psychneuein boiled down the length of the building, frantic with alien hunger. Camille saw hundreds of them, vile insect-like monsters with grasping limbs and feeding proboscis. The droning buzz of hundreds of wings and the chitinous clackingof snapping mandibles grew steadily in volume.

Something moved behind her, and she turned to see one of the hideous, beetle-like creatures. It had a glossy, segmented body and six spindly limbs that oozed a repellent resin. Its wings moved too fast to see, like oil spilled on water, and it stank of spoiled meat.

Razored mandibles jutted from its swollen head, its surface grotesquely textured like a human brain studded with multi-faceted eyes that threw back her horrified reflection.

The creature launched itself forward, but erupted in flames before it reached her. The charred corpse struck her in the chest and disintegrated into hot ashes. She screamed, and frantically brushed the smoking remains from her lap as Khalophis swept her up into the crook of his arm as easily as a man might pick up a small child.

“I told you to run,” he snapped. “You mortals never listen.”

Khalophis set off towards the stairs, but a host of psychneuein crawled up from below.

“Damn things,” said the Astartes, flicking his free hand towards them. A wall of red flame erupted from the ground, consuming the creatures in seconds. No sooner had he despatched the psychneuein than more landed on the overhanging girders and piles of rubble. Camille counted at least a dozen.

As though a single intelligence controlled the beasts, they took flight at the same instant. They swooped towards them, the screech of their wings like a war cry.

“You think it’s that easy?” roared Khalophis, filling the air around them with balls of phosphorescent flame, spinning them around like whipping poi. The psychneuein hovered at bay, hissing and spitting as the fiery spheres wove a flaming lattice around their prey. More of the creatures appeared with every passing second.

Khalophis set her down and said, “Stay behind me. Do what I say when I say it and you will live. Understood?”

Camille nodded, too terrified to speak. The Astartes warrior hurled a torrent of fire from his hands towards the largest group of psychneuein, and they screeched in rage as they erupted in flames. A chop of his left hand sent a spear of fire into a psychneuein that dared swoop down at him from above. His right hand shot out, and an invisible blaze of heat rippled outwards. A dozen beasts spontaneously exploded as the molecules of their bodies were superheated to explosive temperatures.

The air was blisteringly hot, and Camille felt her skin burning in the fire shield around them. Secondary fires were filling the air with sooty, carbonised smoke. Her eyes stung with the heat, each breath laboured and painful.

“I can’t breathe!” she gasped.

Khalophis glanced down at her. “Deal with it.”

More of the psychneuein came at Khalophis, but none could breach his protective barriers of heat. Camille pulled her body into a tight ball on the floor, covering her mouth with her hand. She tried to keep her breaths shallow, but terror was working against her and she felt her vision greying.

“Please,” she gasped with the last of the oxygen in her lungs.

Khalophis bent down and hauled her to her feet.

“Stand here,” he said. “Stay within the heat haze and you will be able to breathe.”

Camille could barely hold herself upright, but she felt the heat vanish, as though the door to a meat locker had just opened in front of her. She sucked in greedy mouthfuls of cold air, seeing a ripple in the filmy atmosphere surrounding her. Beyond the haze, fires and smoke raged unchecked as Khalophis’ power consumed anything flammable within reach. None of it touched her, as though she were enclosed in a hermetically-sealed bubble.

Khalophis fought with the fury of a gladiator as the psychneuein assailed him from every side. There seemed to be no end to their numbers as they hurled themselves at the warrior with furious abandon.

“Burn, you freaks!” shouted Khalophis, killing with jets of flame, daggers of fire and waves of superheated air. Even in her terror, Camille heard the strain in his voice. The power of the Pyrae was phenomenal, but so too was the cost.

With every display of psychic mastery, the fury of the attacking monsters doubled.

She tried to recall what Lemuel had told her of the psychneuein, but could remember little other than the fact that they reproduced by stinging you and laying their eggs in your body. One fact leapt to the front of her consciousness, and despite the heat, a sudden chill travelled the length of her spine.

“It’s your powers!” she yelled. “They’re being drawn to us because of your powers! It’s driving them wild. You have to stop using them!”

Khalophis sliced half a dozen psychneuein from the air with a shimmering fire sword that sprang from his fist. In that brief lull, he turned to her, his face dripping in sweat, his eyes sunken and exhausted.

“The fire is all that’s keeping us alive!” he cried, sweeping the blade around as three more came at him.

“It’s what will get us killed if you don’t stop using it!”

A hissing psychneuein landed on the broken remains of a fallen wall, its thorax bulging and dripping. A long stinger whipped at its rear and she screamed as it leapt at Khalophis.

“Behind you!” she yelled.

Khalophis dropped to one knee and immolated the monster with a glance. A clutch of monsters took its place, their stingers erect and wickedly barbed. Never mind the eggs, being stung would kill her before they could use her body as an incubator.

Khalophis snarled and the fire sword vanished. He swung his bolter around, racking the slide and firing a three round burst into the group of psychneuein.

“Back towards the stairs!” shouted Khalophis, firing as he went. “If we can reach the speeder, we’ll be safe.”

Camille nodded, trying to keep behind the warrior as her insulating cocoon vanished.

The entire floor was ablaze, pools of molten steel and dissolving carcasses littering the ground. Again the smoke tarred her lungs, and she coughed as her body fought for oxygen. A psychneuein slammed into Khalophis, its body ablaze from the fires, and the giant warrior stumbled. He batted it away, but the momentary lapse of concentration caused his barrage of bolter fire to falter.

Three psychneuein darted in, their stingers plunging into Khalophis’ armour. Two stingers broke on impact, but the third stabbed into his waist through the coiled cabling beneath his breastplate. He grunted and crashed the beast with his fist. His bolter roared and psychneuein burst like target dummies.

Khalophis expertly switched magazines on his bolter and loosed another burst of shots as more of the beasts flew in. The fire had taken hold of the entire building, and Camille felt the floor shift underfoot as beams melted in the intolerable heat. The buzz of wings was almost obscured by the crackle of flames and creaking structural elements.

“The stairs!” she cried.

The way down was ablaze, the sagging ironwork red hot and melting. No way down there.

Khalophis saw it at the same time and shook his head, as though disgusted at her fragility.

“Hold on,” he said as he slung his bolter and tossed her over his shoulder.

The psychneuein boiled towards them, but Khalophis was already on the move. He ran through the flames, head down like a living battering ram. Psychneuein smashed against him, some breaking open on his armour, others stabbing him with their long stingers. Camille cried out in pain as a barb protruding from his shoulder-guard tore into her side. She looked up in time to see that Khalophis was running towards a sheet of dancing flame. She cried out as he leapt into it.