Smoke hazed the air. Woody shrubs burned on both steep slopes either side of the road, the wind shaping the fires into u-shaped lines of flame that advanced on the Ultramarines’ position. The smokescreen curled across the road in blue sheets, washing over the plascrete roadblock placed across the carriageway some fifteen metres in front of the Land Raider and the line of three Rhinos a hundred metres behind.

Members of the Ultramar Auxilia crouched behind the barrier, guns ready. The roadblock was at the extreme end of the effective range of a lascannon – the fumes from the fires the rebels had set would not help, as the beam focus would diffuse more easily in the smoke. The rebels had made poor tactical choices, but they did have a lascannon, stolen from the militia barracks in Illyricon a week ago. The audacious theft had probably spurred the group into this rash action; success often bred folly.

Calgar would not hide from them. He wished them to feel his contempt. They called themselves ‘concerned citizens’. The very phrase sickened him. The fools in the museum rose up against their protectors at the urging of creatures they could not comprehend.

What Marneus Calgar could not understand was why so many would betray the realm, wittingly or otherwise. Ultramar was under attack – the Cicatrix Maledictum spread its warping fire across the sky every night, and stories of the bloodshed and woe of other worlds spilled freely from the lips of weeping refugees. But in the heart of the nation, traitors still crept out of the dark. This band was but the latest.

He should not have to get involved in this.

The smoke partly hid the Museo Illyricus situated at the brow of the pass. Details were obscured, but the overall shape was discernible to the unaided eye: the massive drum of the main building, with a three-stepped roof and balconies interposed between the layers. There was an attached tower built over the pass itself, almost equal in girth to the main building and slightly taller. A four-lane road passed under this symbolic gatehouse on the way to Illyria.

A very long time ago, this pass was the site of genuine warfare. The rebels aped history crudely, occupying a museum meant to commemorate Macragge’s unity. Weak tactics, weak propaganda. Calgar had come personally to send a strong response.

The road was closed, the dense traffic that used it absent. The rebels held the museum. Amateurish, young, poorly led rebels. But they were there nonetheless.