From his position of cover, Lucius saw that he was in the second ring of instruments, beyond which lay the Precentor's Dais. A mighty throne with its back to him sat upon the dais, a confecВtion of gold and emerald set in a ring of lecterns that each held a massive volume of musical notaВtions.
Gunfire blew one book apart and a blizzard of sheet music fluttered around the throne.
The palace guard massed on the opposite side of the throne room, surrounding a tall figure in gold armour with a collection of tubes and what looked like loudspeakers fanning out from his back. A storm of silver fire flew and Lucius saw yet more guards charging in from the other entrances, a feroВcious struggle erupting as these new arrivals charged the Emperor's Children.
They have courage, I'll give them that,’ he mutВtered to himself.
Chainblades and bolt pistols rang from armour and storms of silver fire ripped between the patches of cover offered by the gilded instruments. Each volley tore up the hardwood frames and sawed through servitors as they sat at the ornate keyВboards or plucked at strings with metal fingers.
And still the music played.
Lucius glanced behind him. One of Nasicae fell as he ran to join Lucius, silver filaments punched through his skull. The body clattered to the floor beside Lucius. Only three of Nasicae remained, and they were cut off from their leader.
'Ancient Rylanor, engage!' yelled Lucius into the vox. 'Get me cover! Tactical squads, converge on the throne and draw the palace guard in! Purity and death!'
'Purity and Death!' echoed the Emperor's ChilВdren, and with exemplary co-ordination they surged forward. A silver-armoured guard was shredВded by bolter fire and flopped, broken, to the ground. Glass-armoured bodies lay shattered and bloody over bullet-scarred instruments. Servitors moved jerkily, still trying to play even though their hands were smoking ruins of bone and wire.
The Emperor's Children moved squad by squad, volley by volley, advancing through the fire as only the most perfect of Legions could.
Lucius broke cover and ran into the whirlwind of fire. Silver shards shattered against him.
Behind him, Rylanor's dreadnought body smashed through a titanic bank of drums and bells,
the noise of its destruction appalling as Rylanor opened fire on the enemy. Acrobatic guards, clad in armour wound with long streamers of silk, darted and leapt away from chainblades and bolts like dancers, slashing limbs with monofilament wire-blades.
Glass-armoured guards charged forward in solid ranks, stabbing with their halberds, yet none of the foes was a match for the disciplined counterВcharges of the Emperor's Children. The slick perfection of their pattern-perfect warfare kept its edge even amid the storm of fire and death that filled the throne room.
Lucius ducked and wove through the fire towards the gold armoured figure, shrapnel flashing against the energised edge of his sword blade.
The man's armour was ancient, yet gloriously ornate, the equal in finery of a lord commander of the Emperor's Children. He carried a long spear, its shaft terminated at both ends by a howling ripple of lethal harmonies. Lucius ducked under a swipe of the weapon, stepping nimbly to the side and bringing his sword up towards his opponent's midriff.
Faster than he would have believed possible, the spear reversed and a tremendous blast of noise batВtered his sword away before it struck. Lucius danced back as a killing wave of sound blared from the tubes and speakers mounted on the golden warВrior's back, a whole section of the mosaic floor ploughed in a torn gouge by the sound.
One of the palace guards fell at Lucius's feet, his chest blown open by Rylanor's fire, and another toppled as one of Nasicae sliced off his leg.
The Emperor's Children surged forwards to help him, but he waved them back – this was to be his kill. He leapt onto the throne pedestal, the golden warrior silhouetted in the light streaming from the distant ceiling.
The screaming spear came down and Lucius ducked to avoid it, pushing himself forwards. He stabbed with his sword, but a pitch perfect note sent his sword plunging towards the floor of the dais instead of its intended target. Lucius hauled his sword clear as the spear stabbed for him again, the musical edge shearВing past him and blistering the purple and gilt of his armour. The battle raged ferociously around him, but it was an irrelevance, for Lucius knew that he must surely be fighting the leader of this rebellion.
Only Vardus Praal would surround himself with such fearsome bodyguards.
Lucius pivoted away from another strike, spinВning around behind Praal and shearing his sword through the speaker tubes and loudspeakers upon his back. He felt a glorious surge of satisfaction as the glowing edge cut through the metal with ease. A terrific, booming noise blared from the severed pipes and Lucius was hurled from the dais by the force of the blast.
His armour cracked with the force, and the music leapt in clarity as he felt its power surge around his body in a glorious wash of pure, unadulterated
sensation. The music sang in his blood, promising yet more glories, and the unfettered excess of music, light and hedonistic indulgence.
Lucius felt the music in his soul and knew that he wanted it, wanted it more than he had wanted anyВthing in his life.
He looked up as the golden warrior leapt lightly from the throne, seeing the music as swirling lines of power and promise that flowed like water in the air.
'Now you die,’ said Lucius as the song of death took hold of him.
In later moments they would name it Death's Tomb, and Loken had never felt such disgust at the sights he saw within it. Even Davin's moon, where the swamps had vomited up the living dead to attack the Sons of Horus, had not been this bad.
The sound of battle was a hellish music of screaming, rising in terrible crescendos, and the sight was horrendous. Death's Tomb was brimming with corpses, festering in charnel heaps and bubВbling with corruption.
The tomb-spire Loken and the Sons of Horus fought within was larger inside than out, the floor sunken into a pit where the dead had been thrown. The tomb was that of Death itself. A mausoleum of bloodstained black iron carved into swirls and scrollwork dominated the pit, topped with a sculpВture of Father Isstvan himself, a massive bearded sky-god who took away the souls of the faithful and
cast the rest into the sky to languish with his Lost Children.
A Warsinger perched on Father Isstvan's black shoulder, screaming a song of death that jarred at Loken's nerves and sent jangling pain along his limbs. Hundreds of Isstvanian soldiers surrounded the pit, firing from the hip as they ran towards the Astartes, driven forward by the shrieking death
song.
At them!' yelled Loken, and before he could draw breath again the enemy was upon them. The Astartes of the spearhead streamed through the many archways leading into the tomb-spire, guns blazing as soon as they saw the enemy swarming towards them. Loken fired a fusillade of shots before the two sides clashed.
More than two thousand Sons of Horus charged into battle and Death's Tomb became a vast amphitheatre for a great and terrible slaughter, like the arenas of the ancient Romanii.
'Stay close! Back to back, and advance!' cried Loken, but he could only hope that his fellow warВriors could hear him over the vox. The screaming was deafening, every Isstvanian soldier's mouth jammed open and howling in the shrieking cadences of the Warsinger's music.
Loken cut a gory crescent through the bodies pressing in on him, Vipus matching him stroke for stroke with his long chainsword. Strategy and weapons meant nothing now. The battle was simВply a brutal close quarters fight to the death.
Such a contest could have only one outcome. Loathing filled Loken. Not at the blood and death around him, he had seen much worse before, but at the sheer waste of this war. The people he was killing… their lives could have meant something. They could have accepted the Imperial Truth and helped forge a galaxy where the human race was united and the wisdom of the Emperor ushered them towards a future filled with wonders. Instead they had been betrayed and turned into fanatical killers by a corrupt leader, destined to die for a cause that was a lie.