Thirteen had set out that day from the tent-town, saying goodbye to their families forever. At first the two parties of youths, those of the Scarrabrae and the Granislatt clans had kept their distance. On only the second day the two rival gangs of aspirants came to blows and two young men died. By the fifth day - the memories came more clearly now - the Granislatts and the Scarrabraes shared a bond closer than friendship, closer even than kith and kin.

Then there had come the deaths from exposure, the fatal falls negotiating the icy cliffs, the catastrophic rockfall.

And now only he remained to complete the task, against all odds. At least he still had his bolter and four full clips of ammunition.

There had been no tears as Anatolus's father gifted him with his own precious bolter, for that was not the way of the people of Medusa, only pride. There was no room for sentimentality in a world where daily survival against the elements was a constant battle. The gun felt heavy with age in Anatolus's hand.

The bolter had been handed down throughout the generations, father to son and heir, throughout each generation, just like the name Anatolus. It had been given to his father when Anatolus's grandfather had set out on his last journey into the absolving elements, the sulphur-rot having taken hold deep in his lungs: better to die while some strength was still in him, than to die a feeble weakling, like a mewling babe-in-arms again, coughing and puking on the discharge of his own lungs. Weakness and infirmity could not be tolerated in a society that relied on everyone being able to pull their weight, for the survival of the entire clan. A man who could no longer fulfil his function within the group had no place in it any more.

As Ferrus Manus had taught the people of Medusa, all those thousands upon thousands of years ago, infirmity was a plague that threatened to destroy mankind. In the same way that sickly infants were offered to appease the elements and so as not to place an unnecessary encumbrance on the rest of the community, the honourable thing for the infirm to do was to face their death with honour intact.

Although his father had not openly stated it, Anatolus knew that he was proud of him and what he intended to do. It would have made any man proud that his son should wish to undertake the gruelling, near impossible, quest to prove himself worthy to the star warriors, to become one of the chosen of Ferrus Manus and the great Emperor.

The recycled air of the apothecarion felt clean but cold, Brother Caduceus's breath, and that of the sleeping Iron-Father clouding in the air in front of them. The Apothecary watched the servo-skull intently, its silvered insect legs twitching as it deposited the bloody lump of flesh in a gleaming kidney-shaped dish on the brass instrument table next to the operating slab.