‘Uttam Luna Hesh Udar,’ he repeated with confidence, and this time the weapons accepted that one of their masters was standing before them. The barrels slowed and the eyes of the servitors changed from red to green.

‘Take them,’ said Atharva.

The three World Eaters sprang forward like hunting dogs loosed from their chains.

Ashuba sprinted towards the gun on the left and vaulted onto the rungs of the maintenance ladder bolted to its side. His hand speared out, fingers rigid, and the servitor’s head was severed from its neck as cleanly as though cut with an energised blade.

His twin and Tagore sprang onto the turret on the right, their blades hacking deep into the servitor’s body in a flurry of rapid, punching blows. In seconds, nothing even remotely human was left of the cybernetic creature, just slopping chunks of carved meat that fell from the turret with a series of moist slaps. Yet for all the butchery of the slaying, there was no frenzy to the attack, each blow precise and controlled without any wasted effort.

‘Let’s move,’ said Tagore, dropping to the ground.

Atharva moved past the turrets, impressed despite himself at the thoroughness and speed of the World Eaters’ attack. Kiron, Gythua and Severian followed at his heels, and Atharva felt their admiration for their fellows’ speed.

At the end of the passageway, a heavily armoured door blocked further progress, its impenetrable facings painted black and gold and marked with numeric codes that told Atharva exactly where they were in the prison complex. Gythua braced himself on the door and closed his eyes. Surely he didn’t think to break the door open on his own?

‘Two metres thick at least,’ said Gythua, the muscles at his shoulders and biceps flexing like inflating fuel bladders. ‘If I had time and leverage I could open it.’

‘Which you don’t,’ pointed out Kiron, aiming the plasma carbine at the door.

‘That won’t even scratch the paintwork,’ said Gythua with a disdainful glance.

‘Not even the combined strength of all seven of us will be able to break it down,’ said Asubha. ‘Atharva, is there any life left in that head of yours? Can it open this door?’

‘It better, or this is going to be a damn short escape attempt,’ said Subha.

Atharva ignored them and lifted the head towards the black slate of the signifier mounted above the door. His hand was sticky with blood, and he felt the weight of death dragging the struggling synapses of the Custodian’s consciousness down into oblivion.

‘One last favour I must ask of you, Custodian Uttam,’ said Atharva as he held the severed head up towards the signifier. His breath came in short hikes as he poured the power of the Great Ocean into the dying organ within the severed skull. Such energies were creation unbound, but what was dead was dead, and there could be no return from that black abyss. All Atharva could hope was that Uttam Luna Hesh Udar had not fallen too far into its embrace. Every scrap of his skill went into honing his deception, his genes donning the mask of another and his muscle density altering to match the body mass of the Custodian.

The signifier clicked as the machine brain behind the blank slate considered the living creature before it.

‘It’s not working,’ he heard Kiron say. ‘Why would you break us out if you didn’t have a plan to get us beyond the first damn door? I thought you Thousand Sons were supposed to be clever?’

‘Be silent,’ hissed Severian.

‘I’ll speak my mind as I please, Wolf,’ said Kiron with a poisonous glare.

‘Enough,’ hissed Asubha. ‘Give it a chance to work before admitting failure.’

The hiss and thump of disengaging locks answered before Kiron could take issue with Asubha’s words, and Atharva sagged against the walls of the passageway as the door swung slowly open on greased hinges. The Great Ocean was a powerful tool to achieve impossible ends, but it was also a demanding master. No sooner had the door opened enough to allow passage than Severian ghosted through the gap.

Tagore bent down to look Atharva in the eye.

‘Can you continue?’ he asked.

Atharva nodded and took a deep breath as he pushed himself upright. ‘I can continue.’

‘Good,’ said Tagore. ‘I don’t want to die here when the open sky is so close.’

‘You would stay here and die with me?’ said Atharva. Tagore was a killer, but at least he was a loyal killer, like a faithful war hound that would fight and die beside its master.

Tagore regarded him strangely, as though the question was beneath him. ‘I do not like you, Atharva, and there is yet a reckoning to be had between us, but you are a brother of the Legiones Astartes. We fight and die as one.’

Atharva doubted the rest of their group felt as strongly, but kept that thought to himself.

‘Besides,’ added Tagore, gesturing to the severed head Atharva carried, ‘you are the only one who knows the way out.’

‘About that,’ said Atharva. ‘We need to make a detour before we get to the surface.’

‘A detour? What are you talking about?’

Atharva dropped Custodian Uttam’s head and wiped frosty sweat from his brow.

‘There is another prisoner we have to free before we leave this place of incarceration.’

‘More soldiers are coming,’ said Tagore. ‘We do not have time for fool’s errands.’

‘This is no fool’s errand,’ snapped Atharva. ‘We free this prisoner or else we may as well surrender now.’

‘Who is this prisoner? What is he to us?’ demanded Tagore.

‘Someone more important than you can possibly imagine,’ said Atharva. ‘Someone upon whom all our fates may rest.’

KAI COULD NOT take his eyes from the droplet on the end of the needle. The label on the bottle from which it had been drawn was turned away from him, but he had no doubt that it was a powerful sedative. The hypodermic contained enough to put him out in moments or perhaps even kill him.

‘Adept Scharff or whoever you are,’ said Kai. ‘Are you just going to let her do this?’

Sharff flinched at the mention of his name, but did not move or otherwise acknowledge Kai’s words. Whatever notion had possessed Scharff to help him had clearly passed, but neither had he shown any inclination to help his former colleague.

‘This is Adept Hiriko, immediate assistance required,’ said Hiriko, speaking into a vox-bead at her collar. ‘Interrogation cell four seven, primus zero.’

She smiled and said, ‘In moments there will be a squad or more of soldiers here, perhaps even a Custodian, so you might as well surrender now.’

‘I’ll take my chances,’ said Kai, lunging for the door. He pressed the opening mechanism, but the door stayed resolutely closed. It had been a forlorn hope to imagine the door wouldn’t be locked, but it was all he had.

He turned just as Hiriko lunged at him with the needle extended before her. He raised his hands to fend her off, and more by luck than judgement managed to grip her forearms with the needle less than a hand span from piercing the pulsing vein at his neck. Though she was short and slender, Hiriko was stronger than she looked, and the needle inched towards his skin. Whatever Scharff had given him to counteract the soporific drugs that had kept him placid was clearly wearing off.

Kai found himself staring into Hiriko’s lambent green eyes and had a brief moment to reflect that if he was going to die here, at least it would be while staring at something beautiful.

He felt the needle depress the surface of his skin, but before it could draw blood, Adept Scharff had his hands wrapped around Hiriko’s shoulders. He yanked her off her feet and hurled her against the chair that had held Kai prisoner for so many nightmarish sessions of psychic interrogation.

‘Scharff!’ yelled Hiriko. ‘Whatever is in you, fight it!’

Her attacker paid no heed to her words and Kai slid down the wall beside the door as he punched her square in the face. Hiriko reeled from the blow and sagged against the chair. Scharff leapt upon Hiriko and wrapped his hands around her neck, throttling the life out of her even as his face purpled with the effort of resisting the force that impelled him to murder.