‘Zulane’s record indicates he is defective as an astropath,’ says Nagasena, sensing that the Choirmaster’s explanation is a lie. His fingers tighten on the grip of Shoujiki. The blade is his touchstone to honesty, and though Nagasena does not always need to know whyhe is hunting, he dislikes hunting for the wrong reasons.

‘He was,’ says Zhi-Meng. ‘But Mistress Diyos was working to restore his abilities.’

Nagasena turns to Athena Diyos and kneels beside her, sweeping his robes out behind him. She cannot see him with her eyes, but he knows she feels his presence.

‘And how successful had you been? Can Kai Zulane send anything off world?’

Athena Diyos takes her time before answering, but Nagasena believes she is truthful. ‘No. Not yet. He is recovering, but I think he is still too afraid to cast his mind into the warp.’

‘That may not matter if he is in the company of Atharva,’ says Saturnalia. ‘Sorcery may be able to pluck the codes from his mind.’

‘Is he capable of that?’ asks Nagasena, turning back to Nemo Zhi-Meng.

‘Little is known of the abilities possessed by Magnus’s warriors,’ admits Zhi-Meng, ‘but I wouldn’t count it beyond the realms of possibility.’

‘Then we must apprehend Kai Zulane swiftly,’ says Nagasena.

‘Can’t you just change the codes?’ asks Kartono.

‘Do you have any idea what that involves?’ snaps Zhi-Meng. ‘Developing new ciphers for a galaxy-wide network requires decades of preparation and attempting such a task in the midst of a rebellion would be madness. No, we must find Kai Zulane before the traitor Space Marines wring the information from him.’

‘If they haven’t already,’ says Saturnalia.

‘Of all the places they had to crash,’ says Golovko. ‘It had to be the damn Petitioner’s City. There’s no maps, no plan and a thousand places they could go to ground.’

‘An astropath and seven Space Marines will find it hard to stay out of sight, even in a warren like the Petitioner’s City,’ points out Nagasena.

‘We need to get to that crash site,’ says Golovko. ‘Pick up the trail from there.’

‘Agreed, but to hunt with success, we must first understand our prey,’ says Nagasena. ‘We are hunting an astropath and seven Space Marines. What I want to know is why only seven? Why did they not free everyone before they fled?’

‘Does it matter?’ asks Saturnalia. ‘Seven traitors at liberty on Terra is seven too many.’

‘Everything matters,’ states Nagasena. ‘Only warriors from the Legions that have sided with Horus Lupercal were freed. I believe Atharva is the leader of these warriors, and he knew enough to recognise which of the imprisoned warriors would follow him. The question then becomes, why did a warrior of the Thousand Sons engineer such a break out? His Legion is still counted as loyal to the Throne is it not?’

Saturnalia steps forward and grips his spear in both hands. ‘No, it is not.’

Hiriko and Diyos gasp in shock, and even Kartono lets out a surprised breath.

‘Would you care to elaborate on that?’ asks Nagasena.

‘The Emperor has pronounced judgement on the Thousand Sons and its Primarch,’ says Saturnalia. ‘Even now, my fellow Custodians draw near Prospero in the company of Russ and his warriors. Primarch Magnus is to be brought to Terra in chains.’

‘Why?’ asks Nagasena.

‘For breaking the edicts of Nikaea and employing sorceries forbidden by the Emperor himself,’ says Saturnalia. ‘Valdor himself has unsheathed his blade.’

‘Then Magnus will be lucky to leave Prospero alive,’ says Nagasena, and he sees Saturnalia wonder if he is insulting the master of the Custodians.

‘We’re wasting time,’ says Golovko. ‘I can fill the Petitioner’s City with Black Sentinels in thirty minutes. We’ll take that shithole apart, brick by shitting brick until we find them.’

Nagasena shakes his head, already irritated at Golovko’s lack of subtlety.

‘Choose thirty of your best men, Maxim,’ he says. ‘More will only hinder us.’

‘Thirty? You saw how badly they mauled us when we first came for them.’

‘This time will be different,’ says Nagasena.

‘How so?’

‘This time they care if they live or die,’ he says.

AN HOUR EARLIER, Kai had woken in agony in a flaming steel coffin. His body felt broken, and he struggled to draw breath as something heavy pressed down on his chest. He coughed as acrid smoke drifted in a soft wind, and he heard the creak of twisted metal and sparking of ruptured cables over the crackle of flames.

He turned his head, even this small movement painful, to survey his surroundings.

The interior of the cutter had flattened on impact and the hull was an oval tube laced with broken spars of metal and hung with ribbed piping that spat hissing gasses or drooled hydraulic fluid. Atharva lay next to him, and Kai saw it was his arm that lay across his chest and pinned him to the ground.

Smoke-filtered light filled the cabin, the heavy fuselage torn open down the entire length of the cutter, and Kai was amazed he had survived so ferocious an impact. Across from him, a figure with dirty white hair picked himself up from the wreckage and shook his head.

‘That’s what you World Eaters call a landing,’ said Argentus Kiron.

A blackened shape at the front of the craft pulled itself from a heap of broken panels and coils of spitting wiring.

‘Any landing you walk away from is a good one,’ said Asubha with a wide grin. It looked to Kai as though he had enjoyed crashing the cutter.

‘Does it still count if you can only crawl?’ asked Subha, pushing himself to his knees and spitting a wad of teeth.

‘You are alive,’ said Tagore, wiping blood from a series of deep gashes on his chest and smearing it over his shoulders and face like tribal war paint. Kai tried to push Atharva’s arm from his chest, but he was still too weak and the warrior’s arm was too heavy. The cold-eyed features of Severian appeared above him, regarding him as a hunter might study a snared animal.

‘I’m trapped,’ said Kai, and Severian lifted Atharva’s arm from his chest. He moved on before Kai could thank him. The movement stirred Atharva, and he rolled onto his side with a groan of pain. Blood was coagulating on his face and arms, and he pulled a shard of metal the size of a dagger from his side.

A sudden cry of alarm made Kai jump and he smacked his head on the buckled side of the cutter. He saw Kiron kneel at the edge of the hole torn in the side of the cutter, presumably by a missile impact or the crash itself. He clambered over the crumpled interior of the cutter to the light and saw Gythua sitting upright in a pool of blood with torn spars of metal jutting from the centre of his stomach and chest.

‘Looks like the Goliath was right,’ said Subha. ‘He candie.’

‘Don’t say that!’ snapped Kiron with a venomous glare.

Severian knelt beside the Death Guard warrior and probed the bloody mess of his guts.

‘The wound is mortal,’ he said. ‘We should leave him.’

‘He’s right,’ said Gythua with a grimace of pain.

‘I’m not abandoning you,’ said Kiron.

‘I meant about the wound being mortal,’ said the Death Guard. ‘I’m dying, but you’re not going to bloody leave me here for the hunters.’

‘We leave no one behind for the hunters,’ agreed Tagore.

Kai was surprised to hear such a sentiment from a World Eater. From all he had heard, Kai had assumed Angron’s warriors to be brutal killers, without compassion or mercy. It was hard to believe a warrior that looked so feral and brutal could have any mercy in him, but the steel in Tagore’s voice brooked no disagreement.

Severian saw the same thing and gave a small shrug of acceptance.

‘Then we need to get him off these spikes of metal,’ he said.

‘Lift him clear,’ said Tagore, waving Asubha and his twin forward. Kai turned away as they bent down to pull Gythua free.