‘They’re going to kill us,’ said Arik, and though he was only whispering, the words flew to Roxanne’s ears with the poignancy of their simple desire. ‘Please help us, please help us!’

A shape moved in the swirling fog, and Roxanne grabbed hold of a piece of broken bench with a sharp tip. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but it would have to do.

She relaxed as Palladis Novandio emerged from the smoke, his face spattered with blood and his eyes streaming with tears. He staggered like a drunk and Roxanne felt anger overtake her fear at the thought of what was being done here.

‘Palladis!’ she cried, and he turned towards her in desperate relief. ‘Over here!’

‘Roxanne…’ he wept, stumbling towards here and collapsing just as he reached her. He fell into her arms and she felt his racing heartbeat. He sobbed into her shoulder, and held her tight as the slaughter continued around them.

‘I failed,’ he said. ‘It was never enough… I couldn’t keep it away and now everyone else has to suffer.’

Roxanne pulled him behind their flimsy barricade, and he looked up at the Vacant Angel.

‘Why?’ he demanded of the faceless statue. ‘I did everything I could to keep you appeased! Why must you take these people? Why? Take me instead, take me and let them live! I will see you again, my love! My sweet boys, father will see you soon!’

Palladis rose to his feet, screaming at the statue, his words accusing and demanding.

‘Take me, you bastard!’

Roxanne wanted to tell him to be quiet, but she knew no words of hers would dam the heartbreaking flow from the depths of his soul.

‘Take me!’ sobbed Palladis, sinking to his knees. ‘Please!’

‘GO,’ SAYS THE warrior Nagasena knows as Tagore, and Kai Zulane takes to his heels. Kartono is after him in a heartbeat, and Nagasena lets him go. He needs all his concentration for the battle to come. Tagore is a savage, deadly opponent, but Nagasena knows he must fight him. Honour demands it, and if this is the last honour he can salvage from this hunt, then that will be sufficient.

Tagore bears a long, wide-bladed spearhead. Nagasena recognises it as a broken guardian spear, and hopes its edge is no longer energised. Nagasena drops into a fighting crouch and raises his sword above his head, the tip aimed at Tagore’s heart.

‘You think you can fight me, little man?’ says Tagore, a killing light in his eyes.

Nagasena does not reply, his eyes darting over the World Eater’s enormous physique in search of some weak spot, any past hurt that might offer him an advantage: a bullet wound in his side, and traces of a yellow black bruise extending beneath the plates of armour he has taken from the dead men at Antioch’s.

‘I will break that little needle of yours then tear your head off,’ promises Tagore, and Nagasena knows he is more than capable of backing up such threats.

Tagore attacks without warning, slashing with his butcher’s blade. The blow is ferocious, but not without skill. Nagasena sways aside and lashes out with Shoujiki, landing a stinging blow on Tagore’s forearm. A return stroke is only just deflected and Nagasena reels from the incredible power behind the Space Marine’s strike. He has fought Legiones Astartes warriors before in training cages, though never with real weapons and never with any success. This will be a battle he will be lucky to live through for more than a few seconds.

Tagore reads his hesitancy as fear and grins.

They dance with thrust, slash and riposte, each gauging the other’s skill with every blow. For all his rage, Tagore is a fine warrior and a competent swordsman, but what he lacks in skill, he more than makes up for in determination and relentless ferocity. Every attack, from the first to the last, is launched with exactly the same power and desire. Nagasena avoids the most powerful blows, deflects others and launches his own attacks when he can. His bladework is superior to Tagore’s, but they have trained in such different forms of combat that it is proving difficult for either warrior to gain the measure of the other.

‘You are good, little man,’ says Tagore. ‘I thought you would be dead by now.’

‘You will find I am full of surprises,’ says Nagasena.

‘I will still kill you,’ promises Tagore as Nagasena spins around and launches a dazzling series of low thrusts and high cuts. Tagore parries some, dodges others and allows some to strike him. His armour is dented and torn, but Nagasena has not been aiming for one killing blow. Instead he has been working his attacks subtly towards the cratered bullet hole in Tagore’s side.

As the World Eater sways to the right, Nagasena sees his opening and spins low beneath a beheading cut of the guardian spear. He rams his sword forward with all his strength, plunging the blade into the scabbed wound in Tagore’s side. The metal hits hard meat and bone, but Nagasena uses his momentum and Tagore’s forward movement to drive the point deep into his opponent’s body.

Tagore grunts as the tip of Nagasena’s sword bursts from his back. His eyes widen in pain and the metal plates driven into his skull crackle with power as it counteracts the agony of Nagasena’s blow with pain-suppressants. Nagasena twists his blade to free it from the Space Marine’s flesh, but it is wedged deeper than he has strength to overcome. He lingers too long with the effort and a backhanded fist slams into his shoulder.

He loses his grip on Shoujikiand falls heavily to the floor.

Nagasena grips his shoulder, knowing at least one bone there is broken. He rolls onto his side as Tagore’s foot slams down where he lay, moving as fast as he can to avoid the World Eater’s hunger to destroy him. In his haste, he fails to spot a projecting spar of broken roof timber and stumbles as it catches the edge of his foot.

Nagasena manages to avoid falling, but his momentary distraction is the opening Tagore needs. The guardian spear stabs out, catching Nagasena on his wounded shoulder in imitation of the blow he landed on Tagore. The speartip breaks Nagasena’s clavicle neatly in two, and severs the tendons connecting his muscles to the bone. It is a precise blow, at odds with the killing fury in Tagore’s eyes, and Nagasena again realises he has underestimated the World Eater.

Nagasena is plucked from the ground, hanging suspended like a worm on a hook before his opponent. Tagore grins at him and reaches his free hand towards Nagasena’s neck.

‘I told you I would kill you,’ says Tagore. ‘And what I say I will kill, I kill.

Nagasena says nothing. He is in too much pain and there is nothing he can say that will save his life.

Tagore’s free hand reaches out and his thick fingers close around Nagasena’s neck, easily encircling his throat. All it will take is one squeeze and the bones of his spine will be powder, his windpipe crushed, and the fragile thread of his life will be cut.

But the pressure never comes.

A blinding spear of blue white light flashes past Nagasena, the heat of it burning the skin beneath his robes. He is momentarily blinded, but hears the wet drool of blood pouring from a broken body and smells the ripe, repulsive stench of seared human flesh. As his sight returns after the flash, he sees that Tagore has been eviscerated by the close range blast of a plasma weapon of some sort.

Tagore drops to his knees, a gaping crater scorched through his body. His face is contorted in agony that not even Legiones Astartes training and genetics can bear. His grip on Nagasena loosens and he slumps to the side, rolling onto his back as his body fights to keep him alive.

It is a fight Nagasena knows he will lose.

Tagore pulls Shoujikifrom his body with a grimace of pain. The blade is sticky with blood, and he offers it to Nagasena with respect.

‘You were… a worthy… foe,’ gasps the dying World Eater. ‘Fight… well. For a mortal.’