Islands rose from the indoor sea that took up most of the dome, each topped by picturesque folВlies of white and gold.
Thousands of palace guards massed in the dome, splashing towards them through the waist-deep sea and taking up positions among the follies. Most wore the glassy armour of the men still dying behind Lucius, but many others were clad in far more elaborate suits of bright silver. Others still were wrapped in long streamers of silk that rippled behind them like smoke as they
moved.
Rylanor emerged into the dome behind Lucius, his assault cannon smoking and the chisel-like grips of his power fist thick with blood.
'They're massing,' spat Lucius. 'Where are the damned World Eaters?'
'We shall have to win the palace by ourselves,' replied Rylanor, his voice grating from deep within his sarcophagus.
Lucius nodded, pleased that they would be able to shame the World Eaters. 'Ancient, cover us. Emperor's Children, break and cover fire! Nasicae, keep up this time!'
Ancient Rylanor stepped out from the junction and a spectacular wave of fire sheared through the air around him, a storm of heavy calibre shell casВings and oil-soaked fumes streaming from the cannon mounted on his shoulder.
His explosive fire shredded the stone of the foreВmost island's follies, broken and bloodied bodies tumbling from the shattered wreckage.
'Go!' shouted Lucius, but the Emperor's Children were already charging, their training so thorough that ever>' warrior already knew his place in the complex pattern of overlapping fire and movement that sent the strike force sweeping into the dome.
Savage joy lit up Lucius's face as he charged, the thrill of battle and the sensations of killing stimuВlating his body with wondrous excess.
In a swirling cacophony of noise, the perfection of death had come to the Choral City.
On the southern side of the palace, a strange organically formed building clung to the side of the palace like a parasite, its bulging, liquid shape more akin to something that had been grown than someВthing built. Its pale marble was threaded with dark veins and the masses of its battlements hung like ripened fruit. From the expanse of marble monuВment slabs marking the passing of the city's finest
and most powerful citizens, it was clear that this was a sacred place.
Known as the Temple of the Song, it was a memoВrial to the music that Father Isstvan had sung to bring all things into existence. It was also the objective of the World Eaters. The word that the invasion had begun was already out by the time the first World Eaters' drop-pods crashed into the plaza, shattering gravestones and throwing slabs of marble into the air. Strange music keened through the morning air, calling the people of the Choral City from their homes and demanding that they take up arms. The soldiers from the nearby city barracks grabbed their guns as the Warsingers appeared on the battlements of the Temple to sing the song of death for the invaders.
Called by the Warsingers' laments, the people of the city gathered in the streets and streamed towards the battle.
The World Eaters' strike force was led by Captain Ehrlen, and as he emerged from his drop-pod, he was expecting the trained soldiers that Angron had briefed them on, not thousands of screaming citiВzens swarming onto the plaza. They came in a tide, armed with anything and everything they had in their homes, but it was not the weapons they carВried but their sheer numbers and the terrible song that spoke of killing and murder that made them
deadly.
World Eaters, to me!' yelled Ehrlen, hefting his bolter and aiming it into the mass of charging people
The white-armoured warriors of the World Eaters formed a firing line around him, turning their bolters outwards.
'Fire!' shouted Ehrlen and the first ranks of the Choral City's inhabitants were cut down by the deadly volley, but the oncoming mass rose up like a spring tide as they clambered over the bodies of the dead.
As the gap between the two forces closed, the World Eaters put up their bolters and drew their chainswords.
Ehreln saw the unreasoning hatred in the eyes of his enemies and knew that this battle was soon to turn into a massacre.
If there was one thing at which the World Eaters excelled, it was massacre.
'Damn it,' spat Vipus. 'We must have hit something on the way in.'
Loken forced his eyes open. A slice of light where the drop-pod had broken open provided the only illumination, but it was enough for him to check that he was still in once piece.
He was battered, but could feel no evidence of anything more than that.
'Locasta, sound off!' ordered Vipus. The warriors of Locasta shouted their names, and Loken was relieved to hear that none appeared to have been injured in the impact. He undid the buckle of his grav-harness and rolled to his feet, the drop-pod canted at an unnatural angle. He pulled his bolter
from the rack and pushed his way through the narВrow opening broken in the side of the drop-pod.
As he emerged into the bright sunshine, he saw that they had struck a projecting pier of stone on one of the towers, the rubble of its destruction scatВtered around the ruined drop-pod. He circled the wreckage, seeing that they were at least two hunВdred metres above the ground, wedged amongst the massive battlements of the Sirenhold.
To his left he saw spectacular tomb-spires encrusted with statues, while to his right was the Choral City itself, its magnificent structures bathed in the rosy glow of the sunrise. From this vantage point Loken could see the whole city, the extraordiВnary stone flower of the palace and the western defences like scars across the landscape.
Loken could hear gunfire from the direction of the palace and realised that the Emperor's Children and World Eaters were already fighting the enemy. Gunfire echoed from below, Sons of Horus units fighting in the tangle of shrines and statuary that filled the canyons between the tomb-spires.
'We need a way down,’ said Loken as Locasta pulled themselves from the wreckage of the drop-pod. Vipus jogged over with his gun at the ready.
'Bloody ground surveyors must have missed the projections,' he grumbled.
'That's what it looks like,’ agreed Loken, as he saw another drop-pod ricochet from the side of a tomb-spire and careen downwards in a shower of broken statues.
'Our warriors are dying,’ he said bitterly. 'SomeВone's going to pay for this,’
"We look spread out,’ said Vipus, glancing down into the Sirenhold. Between the tomb-spires, smaller shrines and temples butted against one another in a complex jigsaw.
Plumes of black smoke and explosions were already rising from the fighting.
'We need a place to regroup,’ said Loken. He flicked to Torgaddon's vox-channel. Tarik? Loken here, where are you?' A burst of static was his only reply. He looked across the Sirenhold and saw one tomb-spire close to the wall, its many levels supВported by columns wrought into the shapes of monsters and its top sheared off by the impact of a drop-pod. 'Damn. If you can hear me, Tarik, make for the spire by the western wall, the one with the smashed top. Regroup there. I'm heading down to you,’ 'Anything?' asked Vipus.
'No. The vox is a mess. Something's interrupting it.
The spires?'
'It would take more than that,’ said Loken. 'Come on. Let's find a way off this damn wall,’
Vipus nodded and turned to his men. 'Locasta, start looking for a way down,’
Loken leaned over the battlements as Locasta fanned out to obey their leader's command. Beneath him he could^ee the diminutive figures of
Astartes fighting black-armoured warriors in streaming firefight. He turned away, desperate to find a way down. 'Here!' shouted Brother Casto, Locasta's flamer