Atharva shook his head. ‘It would take too long to explain.’

The World Eater took his arm in a powerful grip. ‘I am not a fool, Atharva. Tell me.’

Atharva wondered for a moment how he could possibly explain the intricacies of bio-psychic engineering to a warrior of the World Eaters. It would be as futile as attempting to elaborate upon the shortcomings of Pandorus Zheng as a scholar relative to the achievements of Ahzek Ahriman to an amoeba.

He held up the severed head and said, ‘I was able to extract the deactivation codes from the Custodian’s brain before it ceased to function.’

Tagore eyed the head of the man he had killed with grim fascination.

‘You sounded like him,’ he said.

Not quite the barbarian then…

‘I am a talented mimic,’ said Atharva, once again using a flicker of his powers to alter the density and length of his vocal chords to match those of Custodian Uttam.

The bridge rang to the sound of heavy Space Marine treads as they crossed to the spur of rock at the edge of the depthless chasm. The warriors paused as they stepped from the bridge, all recognising the significance of the moment. They were clear of their cells, but there was fighting yet to be done if they were to truly call themselves free.

Atharva felt Kiron’s eyes upon him.

‘Is that head still alive?’ asked the warrior of the Emperor’s Children, with a grimace of distaste. Artificial colour in the warrior’s hair had made him an albino while they had been honoured as representatives of the conquering Legions, but deprived of his dyes as a prisoner, dark roots were showing at his temples.

‘After a fashion,’ said Atharva, ‘I can use it to get us past the guns, but we will have to hurry before the synapse connections degrade beyond the point where I can sustain them.’

‘You dishonour a fallen enemy,’ said Subha, pushing into Atharva’s face.

Atharva sent an exasperated glance in Tagore’s direction, and though the World Eater sergeant clearly shared Subha’s feelings towards violating a fallen enemy’s body, he nodded in understanding. Tagore thumped a fist against his chest, an old Unity salute that seemed more in keeping with their status as captives than the Aquila.

‘We are World Eaters, Subha,’ said Tagore. ‘You were there at the great breaking of the chains. We swore to be no man’s slaves, remember?’

‘I remember,’ said Subha with a feral snarl, his fists clenched.

‘We all remember,’ added his twin. ‘The Crimson Path before the Iron Fetter.’

‘Good words,’ said Tagore, gesturing beyond the stone archway before them. ‘Words to live by. Words of meaning.’

‘Angron’s words,’ said Subha, as though that settled the matter, but Atharva didn’t miss the uneasy glance shared by Asubha and Tagore.

‘Beyond that arch lies freedom, but that freedom has to be won in blood,’ said Tagore, brandishing the spear blade. ‘We will show our enemies what it means to put chains on a World Eater.’

‘We’re wasting time,’ said Severian. ‘We should go. Now.’

‘First sensible thing anyone’s said,’ grunted Gythua. ‘Like as not we’ll all die trying to get out of this place, but at least it’ll be on our feet and facing our enemies.’

‘Die?’ said Kiron. ‘What force could lay low the Goliath? You are too big and stubborn to die, my friend.’

‘We can all die, Kiron,’ said Gythua. ‘Even me.’

KAI SPRANG FROM the chair as alarm klaxons echoed from far away. It didn’t take a psychic to figure out that something terrible was happening, something that had never happened in the gaol of the Custodians. Scharff’s inexplicable behaviour and the alarms could mean only one thing. Someone was escaping from the mountain, and though he didn’t know whom or how, Kai knew he was somehow included in this prison break.

He wrenched the canula and drips from his body, crying out as the needles ripped his skin. Blood ran down his arm and clear plastic piping drooled coloured fluids to the tile floor of the interrogation room. The chemical stink of them was pungent, and Kai recoiled from the idea that he had been subjected to their effects.

Kai backed away from Adept Hiriko, putting the chair between them. The extremities of his limbs were still tingling, and there was a clearness to his thinking that could only have come from the stimulants Scharff had fed him. His body was dreadfully weakened from the psychic abuses Hiriko had heaped upon him, and Kai had no idea how long he would be able to function before this new state of physical and mental clarity began to fade.

‘Get back on the chair,’ ordered Hiriko, and Kai laughed.

‘Seriously? You want me to get back into a chair for a procedure that’s going to kill me?’

‘More lives than yours are at stake,’ said Hiriko, her green eyes boring into his. ‘Lives more important than yours.’

‘Not a chance,’ said Kai.

‘The Emperor’s life,’ said Hiriko.

That gave Kai pause, for he was still a loyal servant of the Imperium.

‘You can’t ask me to make that sacrifice,’ said Kai, his voice pleading.

‘Why not?’ said Hiriko, circling the chair. ‘You already gave up your eyes. Listen, Kai, everyone makes sacrifices for the Emperor: the soldiers of the Imperial Army, the warriors of the Legiones Astartes, all the astro-telepaths who died in the Whispering Tower. Why should you be any different? All these sacrifices mean something, and you can make yours mean something too, something infinitely greater than you can imagine. You would be a hero.’

Kai shook his head as a wave of dizziness washed over him. ‘I’m not a hero,’ he said. ‘I can’t do something that’s going to kill me. I don’t have the courage.’

‘Of course you can,’ said Hiriko. ‘You think heroes aren’t afraid? Of course they are. That’s why they are heroes. They faced their fear and they overcame it. They did the right thing even though it meant the end of their lives.’

The tingling in Kai’s limbs began to fade, and an icy numbness replaced it. He glanced over at Scharff, but the man simply stood there with the dead-eyed stare of a mannequin. There would be no help from that quarter.

Hiriko lifted a long, sharp-tipped hypodermic from the silver tray attached to the chair and stabbed the needle into a bottle filled with clear liquid. She drew a measure of the fluid into the body of the injector and tapped it to remove any lingering air bubbles.

‘Very well, Kai,’ she said, as a droplet of liquid beaded at the sharp tip of the needle. ‘If you can’t be a hero yourself, then I’ll make you into one.’

INTO THE CORRIDOR that led from the island. Bright lumen strips banished shadows as Atharva led the way down the rock-hewn passageway. Subha and Ashuba flanked their sergeant, while Kiron and Gythua ran side by side, with Severian at the rear of their ad hoc formation. Ahead, two servitor-crewed turrets spun around to face them, servos whining as multiple barrels rotated and auto-loaders slammed shells into breeches.

Red-eyed targeter lenses bored into Atharva like the eyes of a daemon.

‘Atharva,’ said Tagore.

‘I see them,’ he answered, holding the disembodied head before him and allowing the targeting cogitators to scan its contours and electrical activity. He fed the dying cells within the brain, keeping them alive like a medicae fighting to save a patient he knows will not survive his wounds.

‘Uttam Luna Hesh Udar,’ said Atharva, once again using his Pavoni arts to replicate the dead Custodian’s voice.

‘It’s not working,’ said Kiron, pressing himself against the side of the passageway as the barrels continued to spin.

‘It’s working,’ said Atharva through clenched teeth. The Custodians used advanced biometric readers in their automated weaponry, but hopefully not ones that could tell the difference between a warm body and one kept alive by psychic means. Atharva felt the machines scan the head again, before remembering – though the memory was not his own – that the greenskin toxin that had taken Uttam out of the front line made it more difficult for the signifiers to read him.