Three hundred modified Skitarii and Protectors marched from the flyer's hold onto the basalt causeway. Wretched by-blows of the Fabricator General's union with the power unlocked in the depths of the forgotten vaults beneath Olympus Mons, these were twisted perversions of their original martial glory. Hunched carapaces, spiked armour and horned helmets clad them and their limb weapons seethed with unnatural power.

The Protectors were no less modified, their bodies swollen and grotesque, their weapons blackened and reforged in new and hateful shapes, designed for pain as much as killing.

Under the watchful gaze of armoured turrets and missile emplacements cunningly worked into the walls of ceramite and adamantium of Zeth's forge, these abominable killers formed up in three separate cohorts and marched on the Vulkan Gate.

Behind them came a shield-palanquin borne by towering, brutish Skitarii with grey skin and barbed armour. These monstrous, ogre-like warriors had been raised to such stature by more than simple gene-bulking and augmetics. Their bodies glistened and their veins pulsed with ruddy light, as though with an internal electricity.

Ambassador Melgator and Adept Regulus stood proudly atop the palanquin, clad in robes of midnight black with their hoods drawn up over their skulls. Melgator carried a staff of ebony topped with a snarling wolf s head and Regulus a staff of ivory topped with a skull of black obsidian.

The host of horrifically altered warriors parted to let them through, and Regulus halted the palanquin a hundred metres before the gate. The soaring adamantine glory of the Magma City's great portal was worked with silver cogs, golden eagles and lightning bolts, and it was opening.

As a widening bar of light split the two halves of the gate and the skitarii bristled with belligerent scrapcode, Regulus raised his arms and a streaming hash of lingua-technis, irregular and arrhythmic, blurted from his internal augmitters. His skull-topped staff crackled with corposant in time with his utterances and, one by one, the turrets and weapons platforms on the wall shut down.

The light of the city spilled outwards in a growing fan of orange light, throwing the shadow of the slender figure that walked from the city out before her in a thin line of black.

Adept Koriel Zeth swept her gaze over the assembled cohorts before fixing a distasteful stare on the two figures borne upon the palanquin, as though they were pestilential plague carriers begging entry.

'By what authority do you dare come to my city and demand my presence?' she said.

Melgator rapped his staff on the shield-palanquin, and its monstrous bearers carried it forward until it was less than twenty metres from Zeth.

canted Regulus in an all-channel squirt of binary.

Zeth winced. 'That's dirty code you're using, Regulus,' she answered, reading his identity from his fizzing electric field.

'On the contrary,' replied Regulus. 'It is pure code, as it was meant to exist before it was tamed and shackled to the will of flesh.'

'If you can't see the flaw in that line of reasoning then you are beyond the reach of my logic,' said Zeth. 'Now speak your piece and begone, I have work to do.'

'That will not be possible, Zeth,' said Melgator. 'We are here to escort you to Olympus Mons, where you will submit to the judgement of the Fabricator General.'

'My title is Adept Zeth, I believe I have earned it,' snapped the Mistress of the Magma City. 'And on what grounds do you dare arrest me?'

canted Melgator.

Zeth said nothing for a moment, letting the weight of the accusation settle on her.

Then she laughed, the sound echoing from the mountainside, carried far and wide across the length and breadth of the causeway.

'You mock these accusations?' snapped Regulus. 'Is there no end to your wickedness?'

'Oh, I absolutely mock them,' sneered Zeth. 'They are laughable, and if you weren't so blinded by what Kelbor-Hal has turned you into, you would see that.'

She swept an arm out, her gesture encompassing the gathered skitarii and Protectors. 'These monstrous things you bring to my forge… they are abominations of flesh and machine, freakish hybrids worse than the feral scrapshunt rejects that wander the pallidus. You have turned all that is beautiful of the Mechanicum into something dark, and it horrifies me that you cannot see it. So, yes, I mock your accusations, and more, I refuse to recognise your right to accuse me!'

'Then you refuse the summons of the Fabricator General?' asked Regulus, his code laced with eagerness to unleash the skitarii. 'You understand the severity of this action?'

'I do,' confirmed Zeth.

'Then we will take you by force,' said Melgator.

'You can try,' said Zeth.

Melgator aimed his staff at the walls and said, 'You will either come with us or you will be destroyed, Zeth. Link with your wall defences and you will see they are shut down. We control the code now.'

The three cohorts of skitarii began to march forward, flame lances, energy halberds and limb weapons arming in a flurry of crackling activations and clattering autoloaders.

'Not all of it you don't,' said Zeth as a pair of enormous mechanical forms marched into the gateway behind her.

Nine metres tall, the two Knights dwarfed the slight form of Adept Zeth, and the deep blue of their armoured plates shimmered with the reflected glow of the magma lake. The proud heraldry of a wheel encircling a lightning bolt was emblazoned on their shoulder guards, and they rode from the gateway to stand behind Adept Zeth with their energy lances and gatling cannons trained on the approaching skitarii.

Behind them, a dozen more Knights took position in line abreast to block entry to the Magma City with their majestic forms.

The march of the altered skitarii faltered and they milled in confusion in the face of the war machines, their pack-masters squalling for orders. Regulus emitted a panicked burst of code, the same mutant algorithms he had used to shut down the wall guns, but the Knights ignored him, their systems shut off to incoming code.

'This is Lord Caturix of the Order of Taranis,' said Zeth indicating the Knight on her left, its aggressive posture making no secret of its desire to wreak harm. 'And this is Preceptor Stator. Their order is an ally of this forge and if that flyer is not off my causeway in five minutes, they are going to ride out with their warriors and destroy you. Do you understand the severity of this action?'

'You dare threaten an emissary of the Fabricator General!' cried Melgator. 'You are a disgrace to the Mechanicum, Zeth!'

'Your assassin destroys the mind of my apprenta and then murders one of my acolytes, and you dare call me a disgrace to the Mechanicum?' snarled Zeth. She consulted her internal chronometer and said, 'Four minutes and forty seconds, Melgator. I suggest you get moving.'

'You will regret this,' promised Regulus. 'We will see your city in ruins and your legacy expunged from all records.'

The Knights took a step forwards, the hiss and clank of their metal limbs sounding dreadfully loud.

Melgator rapped his staff on the shield palanquin and, without another word, he and Regulus withdrew. A hurried code squeal recalled the skitarii and they marched with bitter disappointment back onto the heavy flyer.

As its flanks folded up and it took to the air, the lead Knight turned its cockpit towards Zeth and a noospheric link opened between them.