We huddled down in the shadow of a cave accidentally created in the giant mound of trash. It must have been some primitive instinct that made us do that, to crawl out of sight, for there was no other real reason. The only people around us were the hordes of scavengers and they paid no more attention to us than anyone else around them. If we had looked weaker or less well armed they would have seen as us as prey but as it was we were untouchable. Overhead aircars quartered the sky. Searchlight beams probed into the darkness. I could not avoid the suspicion they were looking for us.
‘We need to get to the airfield,’ Macharius said. ‘We need to find a vehicle that can get us out of this place.’
He said it as reasonably as a man discussing walking down to the canteen to get lunch. He spoke in that calm, powerful voice and all of us just nodded our heads as if what he was saying was sane.
I will say this about Macharius, he never let the fact that he was planning something completely unreasonable stop him from contemplating the possibility of it. In his mind, to come up with something was to do it. For him, there was no difference between visualising a thing and executing it. He had no doubts in his own competence and somehow he projected the idea that he had no doubts of yours. Drake just nodded as if he saw the sense of this as well, then returned to making inscriptions on his data-slate.
‘We won’t find an aircar in this part of the city,’ Anna said.
‘You are right,’ said Macharius. ‘We’ll need a place where they are more common.’
Wearily, we picked ourselves up and began to move again, looking for a way out of this vast maze of rubbish and scavengers and a way back into the wealthier parts of the city where such things as flying vehicles were available to be stolen.
The first thing we grabbed was a groundcar. It was easy. Anton jimmied open the window with his bayonet. Anna invoked the engine spirits aided by a piece of sanctified wire. There was not much room for all of us inside the car, big as it was, but we crawled in and took to the highway between levels.
Macharius knew where the nearest airfield was. Drake found a route on his slate. He had ingested all the information from the datacores into it before the rising. I drove. It seemed like my duty. I even felt a certain nostalgia to be behind the controls of a vehicle again although it was nothing compared to a Baneblade.
Everywhere we passed signs of warfare. There were burned-out vehicles at numerous crossroads. Some of them bore the marking of our regiment, an ominous omen. Gangs had risen across the city, taking advantage of the general chaos to go on a looting spree. I saw nobles and outcasts fighting in the streets, for the pure unadulterated joy of combat, as far as I could tell. One side certainly did not need the loot. Or maybe they were all skanked on blaze.
In other sections, the Sons of the Flame were already out in force. They moved through the streets with companies of bodyguards, flaming halos surrounding their heads. Here they rounded up opposition for burning. There they preached a sermon to a fast-gathering crowd. I watched them all scroll by through the armourglass of the groundcar window. I listened to Drake’s directions and kept the vehicle on course. In the back, most of them slept. Macharius sat wide-eyed, planning. The Understudy’s eyes were sinister black pits. He said nothing, did not move. I wondered what was going on in his head. Anna studied the crowds with her usual calm.
Over everything there still brooded the terrifying sense of presence. I was not surprised by the hysteria in the city. Everyone must have felt it as much as I did. They were reacting in their own way and I suspect the thing the priests worshipped was feeding on it and drawing strength. When I caught sight of the faces of Ivan and Anton and the New Boy I knew they felt as I did, possibly worse, that reaction to what we had done was setting in. We had done our best and we had failed and time was running out.
The road twisted and turned through the hive, climbing levels and then swooping lower, curving back in on itself like the spiral staircases of the cathedral. The Angels watched over every junction, perched on every building. Crowds were visible in every square. There seemed to be a lot of burning going on. Drake followed my gaze.
‘They are making sacrifices. It is all part of the great ritual now.’ He looked sick, but returned to making inscriptions in incomprehensible Inquisitorial runes.
Document under seal. Extract From the Decrypted Personal Files of Inquisitor Hyronimus Drake.
Possible evidence of duplicity on the part of former High Inquisitor Drake.
Cross-reference to Exhibit 107D-21H (Report to High Inquisitor Toll).
I dread what is happening here. The evil of what is being done hangs over us like a vast cloud of doom. I sense terrible flows of power here and a portal being opened into the deepest pits from which the hell-spawn of Chaos crawl. It is difficult to remember that not far from here the mightiest force assembled in recent Imperial history stands waiting. Yet, for all its power, it will be useless unless it moves into action. When the Angel of Fire bestrides this planet once more, not all our army’s strength will avail it.
The High Priest of the Angel is still alive and while that is the case all that seething energy has a focus and all of it is tied to the thing he wishes to summon. Our reprieve, if reprieve it is, is but temporary.
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this business is the thought that we have provoked this manifestation of cosmic evil. If we had not come here, perhaps the pyromancers would never have summoned up the will or courage to begin their summoning. Perhaps we have driven them to it as the only recourse in the face of our overwhelming might.
I must scourge myself for letting such thoughts skitter into my mind. We cannot take responsibility for the evil heretics do. We can only take responsibility for any failure on our part to stand against it. It is our duty to prevent the Angel of Fire becoming manifest if we can. This is the deed the Emperor asks from us.
Looking at my companions, it would be easy to believe the task is hopeless. We are so few and the enemy are so many. Still, in the history of the Imperium the faithful few have often overcome the heretical multitudes. Think of Saint Leone facing the Hordes of the Mithralists, or the Sage Paladine’s band of monks bringing the word to the Cabal of Jewelmakers. No, there are many examples in Testament and Scripture to stiffen our spines and harden our resolve in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds. Ah, but how easy it is to be inspired when reading such things in the comfort of a distant reflectorium. How difficult it is to keep the faith in the face of such overwhelming evil.
Nonetheless, we must persevere, and we must, in the name of the Emperor, triumph. If we do not, the consequences will be dreadful for this world and the Imperium.
We passed through a massive arch and emerged onto a concrete plain with a view out over the great lava deserts and the vast array of industrial structures that surrounded the great hive of Irongrad.
I could see pipes running away into the distance and gigantic refineries and huge hangars containing who knows what. It was not that which held my attention though – it was the airfield itself. A number of flying vehicles were arriving and departing. There was a good deal of military traffic, doubtless part of the local air force fighting against the Imperial Guard armies to the south. There were several tethered airships of enormous size, used for interhive transport during times of peace and which had now been requisitioned as troop carriers. Even as we watched, we could see monstrous lines of infantrymen queuing up to board them from massive docking towers.