Had this been here when the Mournival had gathered? He didn't think so.
Look for the temple, Sindermann had said, so Loken ducked beneath the banner and through the doorway, letting the banner fall into place behind him. The smell of incense was definitely here, and it had been burned recently, or was still burning.
Loken suddenly realised where he had smelled this aroma before and he gripped the hilt of his combat knife as he remembered the air of Davin, the scents that filled the yurts and seemed to linger in the air, even through rebreathers.
The passageway beyond was dark, but Loken's augmented eyesight cut through the gloom to reveal a short passageway, recently constructed, that led to an arched doorway with curved sigils etched into the ironwork surrounding it. Although it was simply a door, Loken felt an unutterable dread of what lay beyond it and for a moment he almost considered turning back.
He shook off such a cowardly notion and made his way forwards, feeling his unease grow with every step he took. The door was closed, a stylised skull mounted at eyelevel and Loken felt uncomfortable even acknowledging that it was there let alone lookВing at it. Something of its brutal form whispered to the killer in him, telling him of the joy of spilling blood and the relish to be taken in slaughter.
Loken tore his eyes from the leering skull and drew his knife, fighting the urge to plunge it into the flesh of anyone waiting behind the door.
He pushed it open and stepped inside.
The space within was large, a maintenance chamВber that had been had been cleared and refitted so as to resemble some underground stone chamber. Twin rows of stone benches faced the far wall, where meaningless symbols and words had been painted. Blank-eyed skulls hung from the ceiling, staring and grinning with bared teeth. They swayed gently as Loken passed them, thin tendrils of smoke rising from their eye sockets.
A low wooden table stood against the far wall. A shallow bowl carved into its surface contained flaky dark detritus that he could smell was dried blood. A thick book lay beside the depression.
Was this a temple? He remembered the bottles and glass flasks that had been scattered around the water fane beneath the Whisperheads.
This place and the fane on Sixty-Three Nineteen looked different, but they felt the same.
He heard a sudden rustle on the air, like whispers in his ear, and he spun around, his knife whipping out in front of him.
He was alone, yet the sense of someone whispering in his ear had been so real that he would have sworn on his life that another person had been standing right beside him. Loken took a breath and did a slow circuit of the room, his knife extended, on the defenВsive in case the mysterious whisperer revealed himself.
Bundles of torn material lay by the benches, and he made his way towards the table – the altar, he realised – upon which lay the book he had noticed earlier.
Its cover was leather, the surface cracked, old and blackened by fire.
Loken bent down to examine the book, flipping open the cover with the tip of his knife. The words written there were composed of an angular script, the letters written vertically on the page.
'Erebus,’ he said as he recognised the script as identical to that tattooed upon the skull of the Word Bearer. Could this be the Book of Lorgar that Kyril Sindermann had been raving about following the fire in the archive chamber? The iterator had claimed that the book had unleashed some horror of the warp and that had been what caused the fire, but Loken saw only words.
How could words be dangerous?
Even as he formed the thought, he blinked, the words blurring on the page in front of him. The symbols twisted from the unknown language of the Word Bearers to the harsh numerical language of Cthonia, before spiralling into the elegant script of Imperial Gothic and a thousand other languages he had never seen before.
He blinked to ward off a sudden, impossible, sense of dizziness.
What are you doing here, Loken?' a familiar voice asked in his ear.
Loken spun to face the voice, but once again he was alone. The temple was empty.
'How dare you break the trust of the Warmaster?' the voice asked, this time with a sense of weight behind it.
And this time he recognised the voice. He turned slowly and saw Torgaddon standing before die altar.
'Down!' yelled Tarvttz as gunfire streaked above him, stitching monochrome explosions along the barren rock of Isstvan Extremis. 'Squad Fulgerion, with me. All squads to position and wait for the go!'
Tarvitz ran, knowing that Sergeant Fulgerion's squad would be on his heels as he made for the cover of the closest crater. A web of criss-crossing tracer fire streaked the air before the monitoring station the Isstvanians had set up on Isstvan Extremis, a tall, organ-like structure of towers, domes and antennae. Anchored on the barren rock surface by massive docking claws, the station was dusted in a powdery residue of ice crystals and parВticulate matter.
The Isstvan system's sun was little more than a cold disc peeking above the horizon, lining everyВthing in a harsh blue light. Automatic gun ports spat fire at the advancing Emperor's Children, more than two hundred Astartes converging in a classic assault pattern to storm the massive blast doors of the station's eastern entrance.
Isstvan Extremis had little atmosphere to speak of and was lethally cold; only the sealed armour of the Space Marines made a ground assault possible.
Tarvitz slid into the crater, turret fire ripping up chunks of grey rock around him. Sergeant FulgeВrion and his warriors, shields held high to shelter
them from the fire, hit the ground to either side of him. Veterans only truly at home in the thick of the hardest fighting, Fulgerion and his squad had fought together for years and Tarvitz knew that he had some of the Legion's best warriors with him.
They were ready for us, then?' asked Fulgerion.
They must have known that we would return to restore compliance,’ said Tarvitz. 'Who knows how long they have been waiting for us to come back,’
Tarvitz glanced over the lip of the crater, spotting purple armoured forms fanning out in front of the gates to take up their allotted positions. That was how the Emperor's Children fought, manoeuvring into position to execute perfectly co-ordinated strikes, squads moving across a battle zone like pieces on a chess board.
'Captain Garro of the Death Guard reports that he is in position,’ said Eidolon's voice over the vox-net. 'Show them what war really is!'
The Death Guard had been assigned the task of taking the western approach to the station, and Tarvitz smiled as he imagined his old friend Garro marching his men grimly towards the guns, winВning through relentless determination rather than any finesse of tactics. Each to their own, he thought as he drew his broadsword.
Such blunt tactics were not the way of the Emperor's Children, for war was not simply about killing, it was art.
Tarvitz and Fulgerion in position,’ he reported. 'All units ready,’
'Execute!' came the order.
'You heard Lord Eidolon,’ he shouted. 'Children of the Emperor!'
The warriors around him cheered as he and Ful-gerion clambered over the crater lip and gunfire streaked overhead from the support squads. A perВfect ballet began with every one of his units acting in complete concert, heavy weapons pounding the enemy guns as assault units moved in to attack and tactical units took up covering positions.
Splintering explosions burst in the sub-zero air, chunks of debris blasted from the surface of the entrance dome as turret guns detonated and threw chains of bursting ammunition into the air.