Some of the salvagers fought them, believing them to be rivals for these valuable parts, but they are now dead, shot down by the Black Sentinels as they swept in from the landing site, two hundred metres back. Saturnalia and Golovko wasted valuable time in searching the wreckage, but Nagasena knew they would find nothing.

Severian had made sure of that, and Nagasena knows he will be the most formidable of the renegades to catch. That one is a wolf, a loner who will not hesitate to abandon his fellows when he feels the breath of the hunters at his neck. Adept Hiriko stands by the crushed fuselage, running her palm over the warm metal and attempting to draw out any latent psi-traces of their targets. It is a hopeless task. Too many have travelled in this craft and too many have touched it since it crashed for any real trace to be left, but every avenue must be explored, every element considered.

Saturnalia is impatient to begin the hunt again, but Nagasena knows their prey is not going anywhere in the immediate future, and there is much that can be learned by simply observing them for a time. While the escaped Space Marines debate their future, unaware that their every move is being watched – thanks to the coerced co-operation of House Castana and Kartono’s technical ability – they will gradually reveal their strengths and weaknesses, making the hunt’s outcome inevitable. It is the way Nagasena trained to hunt, the way he has worked for many years, and no amount of pressure from Saturnalia or Golovko will change that.

Saturnalia turns to Kartono, his manner brusque and irritated.

‘Can you identify their location from this feed?’

Kartono looks over at Nagasena, and nods slowly before answering. ‘Not precisely, but maybe to within a few hundred metres.’

Saturnalia then addresses Athena Diyos. ‘And if you are that close, can you establish a more precise location?’

Athena Diyos does not want to be here, but she knows she has little choice. From what Nagasena has learned of her, he knows her to be an unforgiving tutor, but a staunch friend of those who earn her trust. It is not hard to see why she should feel protective of Kai Zulane.

‘I think so,’ she says.

‘Then we need to move,’ says the Custodian.

Nagasena steps to Saturnalia, blocking his path. ‘Be mindful, Custodian,’ he says. ‘This is my hunt, and I set the pace. You underestimate these men at your peril. In any scenario they are dangerous beyond belief. Corner them and they will fight like Thunder Warriors of old.’

‘There’s only seven of them, and I doubt the Death Guard will see the sunrise,’ sneers Golovko. ‘Throne only knows what you think you gain by waiting.’

‘I gain understanding of the truth,’ says Nagasena, resting his right hand on the pommel stone of his sword. ‘And that is the most important thing.’

‘Truth?’ asks Saturnalia. ‘What truth do you think to learn from traitors?’

Nagasena hesitates before answering, but he will not lie to Saturnalia, for a lie would diminish him.

‘I hope to learn whether I should catch these men at all,’ he says.

KAI WOKE FROM a terrible dream in which his head was being slowly encased in clay that hardened around him with each breath. Like being bricked up in a suffocating cave the exact dimensions of his body, each breath came shorter and more forced than the last. As awareness of his surroundings returned to Kai, his fatigue crashed down upon him as though he had not rested at all.

His eyes hurt and he rubbed the skin around them. His skull felt as though it was vibrating from the inside, and the interrogation clamps that had widened the orbits of his eye sockets to allow the insertion of ocular-recording equipment had badly bruised his cheeks and forehead. He scratched his eyes, feeling like there was an itch beneath his skin he couldn’t reach.

Kai felt the eyes of the Outcast Dead upon him and took a deep breath as he saw the sky beyond the entrance of their hiding place was a yellowed purple, like an intensely livid bruise.

‘What’s happening?’ he asked, sensing the tension in the warriors before him. ‘Are we in trouble?’

Severian chuckled and the World Eaters grinned broadly.

‘We are branded as traitors and are being hunted by our enemies,’ said Tagore. ‘It’s fair to say we are going to be in trouble for some time.’

‘That’s not what I meant,’ said Kai.

‘We are deciding what is to be done with you,’ said Atharva, and Kai felt a tremor of fear at the casual nature of his words.

‘Oh,’ he said, scratching the skin beneath his eyes. ‘Did you reach a decision?’

‘Not yet,’ admitted Atharva. ‘Some of our number want to escape Terra and take you to Horus Lupercal, while others want to just kill you.’

‘Kill me? Why?’ gasped Kai.

‘You represent a very real danger, Kai,’ said Kiron, putting a hand on his shoulder, and Kai felt the killing power in that grip. The Space Marine’s hand was so enormous it cupped his entire shoulder, from clavicle to scapula. With only the slightest increase of pressure, Kiron could break every bone without even thinking about it.

‘Danger, what danger?’

‘I suspect the information you carry is knowledge of the future,’ said Atharva. ‘And truth is the most dangerous weapon in any war.’

‘But I don’t know anything,’ protested Kai. ‘I told them that!’

‘You do,’ said Kiron, pressing hard enough to make Kai wince in pain. ‘You just don’t know you do. The army that carries truth as its banner cannot falter. Picture a perfect war, waged by warriors who know they cannot lose. That is the promise you carry within you, and to possess that knowledge, great and good men will do anything to make you their banner.’

‘We will fight our way off this world, and you will help us,’ said Tagore.

‘Leave Terra?’ said Kai, baring his teeth and rubbing his temples with the heels of his palms. ‘Throne, it feels like my eyes are on fire.’

‘What is wrong with him?’ asked Subha.

Asubha knelt beside Kai and took his head in his hands. The World Eater turned Kai’s head and peeled back the skin at the juncture of his augmetics. A tear of blood ran down Kai’s cheek.

‘Angron’s blood,’ swore Asubha. ‘Be silent all of you, they are watching and listening.’

Kai struggled in the World Eater’s grip, but it was utterly implacable. He could no more move his head than he could move his shoulder. Asubha stared straight into Kai’s eyes and had he been able to move, he would have flinched at the venom he saw there.

‘Clever,’ said Asubha, resting his fingertips on Kai’s cheeks, ‘but this is where it ends.’

‘What are you talking about?’ gasped Kai.

‘What are you doing?’ said Atharva.

‘Covering our trail,’ said Asubha, digging his thumbs into the meat of Kai’s skull and gouging out his eyes in a welter of blood and cabling.

SEVENTEEN

Death is Coming

A Snare Slipped

Antioch

KAI WORE A mask of blood and oil and coolant fluids. Subha held him up as they plunged deeper into the city, moving as fast as the wounded Gythua allowed. Tagore and Kiron supported the wounded Space Marine, and no amount of his demands to be left to die would make them drop him. Kai had given up screaming. The pain was shocking, and showed no sign of fading. He didn’t think that was a good sign.

Wires flopped on his cheeks, and though he was suddenly plunged into the world most astropaths lived in daily, he was finding it hard to adjust after such a sharp trauma. Yet for such an apparently senseless and brutal act, the removal of Kai’s eyes was as precise as any augmetic specialist could have managed.

Blurred lines of smudged light flashed past Kai as his blindsight struggled to reorient itself to being his primary mode of perception. He travelled in a world of sound and smell, of taste and touch. He felt the rough cobbles beneath his feet, and the cold air of night on his skin. The smell of cooking fats and precious woodsmoke drifted through covered alleyways, and the warm reek of close-packed humanity was a pervasive odour that overlaid every other ingredient.