bearer. 'A stairway'
'Good work,’ said Loken, making his way over to see what Casto had found. Sure enough, hidden behind a tall, eroded statue of an ancient warrior was a dark stairway cut into the sand-coloured stone.
The passageway looked rough and unfinished, the stone pitted and crumbling with age. 'Move,’ said Vipus. 'Casto, lead the way,’ "Yes, captain,’ replied Casto, plunging into the gloom of the passageway. Loken and Vipus folВlowed him, the entrance barely wide enough for their armoured bodies. The stairs descended for roughly ten metres before opening into a wide, low-ceilinged gallery. 'The wall must be riddled,’ said Vipus. 'Catacombs,’ said Loken, pointing to niches cut into the walls that held the mouldering remains of skeletons, some still swaddled in tattered cloth.
Casto led them along the gallery, the bodies becoming more numerous the deeper they went, the skeletal remains piled two or three deep.
Vipus snapped around suddenly, bolter up and finger on the trigger. Vipus?'
'I thought I heard something,’ "We're clear behind,’ said Loken. 'Keep moving and focus. This could.
'Movement!' said Casto, sending a blast of
orange-yellow fire from his flamer into the darkness
ahead of him.
'Casto!' barked Vipus. 'Report! What do you see?'
Casto paused. 'I don't know. Whatever it was, it's
gone now,’
The niches ahead guttered with flames, hungrily devouring the bare bones. Loken could see that there was no enemy up ahead, only Isstvanian dead.
'There's nothing there now,’ said Vipus. 'Stay focused, Locasta, and no jumping at shadows! You are Sons of Horns!'
The squad picked up the pace, shaking thoughts of hidden enemies from their minds, as they moved rapidly past the burning grave-niches.
The gallery opened into a large chamber, Loken guessing that it must have filled the width of the wall. The only light was from the dancing flame at the end of Casto's flamer, the yellow light picking out the massive stone blocks of a tomb.
Loken saw a sarcophagus of black granite, surВrounded by statues of kneeling people with their heads bowed and hands chained before them. PanВels set into the walls were covered in carvings where human forms acted out ceremonial scenes of war.
'Casto, move up,’ said Vipus. 'Find us a way down,’
Loken approached the sarcophagus, running his hand down its vast length. Its lid was carved to repВresent a human figure, but he knew that it could
not be a literal portrait of the body inside; its face had no features save for a pair of triangular eyes fashioned from chips of coloured glass.
Loken could hear the song from the Sirenhold outside, even through the layers of stone, a single mournful tone that rose and fell, winding its way from the tomb-spires.
'Warsinger,’ said Loken bitterly. They're fighting back. We need to get down there,’
The silver-armoured palace guards started flying.
Surrounded by burning arcs of white energy, they leapt over the advancing Emperor's Children, gleaming, leaf shaped blades slicing downwards from wrist-mounted weapons.
Lucius rolled to avoid a hail of blades, the silver guard swooping low to behead two of Squad Que-mondil, the charged blades cutting through their armour with horrific ease.
He slid into the water, finding that it only reached his waist. Above him, the halberd-guns of the palace guard were spraying silver fire at the Emperor's Children, but the Astartes were moving and firing with their customary discipline Even the bizarre sight of the palace's defenders did not disВsuade them from their patterns of movement and covering fire. A body fell into the water next to him, its head blasted away by bolter fire and blood pourВing into the water in a scarlet bloom.
Lucius saw that the silver guards were too quick and turned too nimbly for conventional
engagement. He would just have to engage them unconventionally.
One of the silver guards dived towards him and Lucius could see the intricate filigree on the man's armour, the tiny gold threads like veins on the breastplate and greaves and the scrollwork that covВered his face.
The guard dived like a seabird, firing a bright blade from his wrist.
Lucius turned the missile aside with his sword and leapt to meet his opponent. The guard twisted in the air, trying to avoid Lucius, but he was too close. Lucius swung his sword and sliced the guard's arm from his body, his crackling sword searing through the armour. Blood sprayed from the smouldering wound and the guard fell, twisting back towards the water.
Lucius fell with the dead man, splashing back into the lake as the Emperor's Children finally reached their enemy. Volleys of bolter fire scoured the islands and his warriors advanced relentlessly on the survivors. The palace guards were backing away, forming a tighter and tighter circle. Glass-armoured guards lay dead in heaps and the artificial lake was mddy pink and choked with bodies.
Rylanor's assault cannon sent fire tearing through the silk-clad guards, whose preternatural speed couldn't save them as the cannon shells turned the interior of the dome into a killing ground. Another silver guard fell, bolter fire ripВping through his armour.
Squad Nasicae joined Lucius and he grinned wolfishly at them, elated at the prospect of fighting more of the silver guards.
They're running,’ said Lucius. 'Keep them on the back foot. Keep pressing on.'
'Squad Kaitheron's reporting from the plaza,’ said Brother Scetherin. The World Eaters are fighting around the temple on the north side,’
'Still?'
'Sounds like they're holding off half the city,’
'Ha! They can have them. It's what the World Eaters are good at,’ laughed Lucius, relishing the certain knowledge of his superiority.
Nothing in the galaxy could match that feeling, but already it was fading and he knew he would have to procure yet more opponents to satisfy his hunger for battle.
'We press on to the throne room,’ he said. 'Ancient Rylanor, secure our rear. The rest of you, we're going for Praal. Follow me. If you can't keep up, go and join the Death Guard!'
His warriors cheered as they followed Lucius into the heart of the palace.
Every one of them wanted to kill Praal and hold his head aloft on the palace battlements so the whole of the Choral City could see. Only Lucius was certain that Praal's head would
be his.
The Andronius was quiet and tense, its palatial rooms dark and its long, echoing corridors empty
of all but menials. The ship's engines pulsed dimly in the stern, only the rumble of directional thrusters shuddering through the ship. Every staВtion was manned, every blast door was sealed and Tarvitz knew a battle alert when he saw it.
What confused him was the fact that the Isstvani-ans had no fleet to fight.
The hull groaned and Tarvitz felt a deep rumbling through the metal deck, sensing the motion of the ship before the artificial gravity compensated. Ever since the first wave of the speartip had launched, the vessel had been moving, and Tarvitz knew that his suspicions of something amiss were well-founded.
According to the mission briefings he had read earlier, Fulgrim's flagship had been assigned the role of launching the second wave once the palace and the Sirenhold had been taken. There was no need to move.
The only reason to move a vessel after a launch was to move into low orbit in preparation for a bombardment. Though he told himself he was being paranoid, Tarvitz knew that he had to see for himself what was going on.
He made his way swiftly through the Andronius towards the gun decks, keeping clear of such grand chambers as the Tarselian Amphitheatre and the columned grandeur of the Monument Hall. He kept to the areas of the ship where his presence would go unchallenged, and where those who might recognise him were unlikely to see him.
He had told Rylanor that he wanted to renounce his position of honour in the speartip to replace Captain Odovocar as Eidolon's senior staff officer, relaying the commander's orders to the surface, but it would only be a matter of time before his subВterfuge was discovered.