'Closs, Saul and Palno. Set up a defensive position here. If anything gets in I don't want them getting very far.’

Saul crossed himself again and then joined the other two Guardsmen in assessing the strategic potential of the barn.

They had come to Fornax in a vain attempt to hold back the advancing tide of Chaos as world after world fell before the horrific advance of the Despoiler's Black Crusade. And it was here that they would make their last stand against the cultist forces that had the manufactory world gripped in a stranglehold of death. It was here that they would die.

But the Guardsmen of Fortress Cadia would not give in to death so easily. It was not their way. Otherwise how had the name of Cadia ever come to be a byword for dogged determination, martial prowess and courage? The shock troops of the Cadian Guard were a force to be feared.

'Sergeant Vessig, sir.’ Dundas's voice came over the vox. 'We have contacts approaching.'

In an instant Vessig was with the door sentries.

'They're advancing from the west.’ Trooper Ranpol explained. 'Some sort of interference is distorting my auspex readings but there's at least six of them, sir.’

'More of those zombies?'

'I don't think so, sir.’

'Sergeant, look!' Dundas hissed, and Vessig peered out from behind the shelter of the columned entrance.

The sickly fog, shot through with putrid yellow vapour, had spread thickly along the roadway, almost to the door of the manufactoiy shed. Then Vessig saw what the shaken trooper had seen.

Shadows loomed in the smoke and cloying chemical mist, the shapes of armoured giants over two and a half metres tall. Sergeant Vessig didn't need to give the order. His men didn't need to be told when to fire. Their training and experience told them all they needed to know.

Red pulses of laser light cut through the smoke and battle fog accompanied by a fizzing zip, as Vessig's own las-fire joined that of the two troopers posted on sentry duty. There was the sound of direct impacts but the shadows barely faltered. A gust of hot, ember-filled air rolled down the crater-pitted walkway, washing over the gas-masked Cadians, and parted the thick smoke before them.

And then the enemy were revealed.

A wave of nausea washed through Vessig and he staggered to a halt, feeling his knees give. An indescribable stench had permeated even the mask of his rebreather unit. It was like soured milk, rotten meat, diarrhoea and the acid sweetness of partially digested stomach contents. It drove the smell of cordite and ozone from his nostrils until the only thing he could smell made him visualise images of the dead and the dying left to rot where they fell on the battlefield.

Vessig swallowed hard and tried not to breathe in through his nose. He endeavoured to inhale through clenched teeth instead.

Over the vox he heard one of the troopers throw up into his helmet. That was another of his squad effectively incapacitated.