But to the defiler, the shot had no more effect than a mosquito bite.

There was a wet thud next to Gdolkin and the Iron-Father glanced down. Lying in the liquid mud of the trench floor was Brother Oved's head. The bloodless, horrified expression made even Gdolkin feel uncertain for a moment, until he chastised himself angrily for admitting to a momentary lapse of weakness; that was all it would take to fail in his sacred duty to Ferrus Manus and the Emperor. The defiler had effortlessly disassembled Oved into his organic and inorganic parts with its mechadendrite tentacles.

The defiler was now ahead of the running squad. It stopped, its hip-pivot spinning the turret-body around to face the Iron Hands again. The massive machine swayed unsteadily for a moment and another clawed foot came down into the trench only a matter of metres from Gdolkin.

The limb hit a servitor, crushing it underfoot, machine parts bursting through pallid dead flesh. Gun-servitor Gibeon was now just so much scrap metal.

By Medusa, this was getting them nowhere, Gdolkin thought. He had to try something else. First of all he had to get out of this damned trench to have any hope of stopping the daemon-engine. Perhaps he could get on top of it and take his axe to its toad-helmed head.

'Concentrate your fire at its underbody.’ Gdolkin commanded and in a burst of bolter fire Squad Eras-tus obeyed.

Gdolkin took a frag grenade from the dispenser in his utility-belt. If he could distract or temporarily disorientate the defiler he might have a hope of stopping the Chaos-engine. He prepared to hurl the grenade into the air above him and onto the top of the defiler. Then he had another idea.

The filth and grease covered hydraulic joint of a clawed limb was next to him, the remains of Gibeon XII crushed beneath it. Quickly he pulled the pin and forced the grenade into the knurled cog-workings of the joint.

'Clear!' he shouted into the comm.

The squad scattered, only the servitors Joab XIII and Ishmael 192 maintaining the barrage against the defiler. Gdolkin threw himself at the side of the trench and scrambled up it, ceramite toecaps kicking footholds into the compacted earth.

The grenade detonated with a dull crump as Gdolkin cleared the top of the trench. Shrapnel peppered the trench wall behind and beneath him as the leg-joint was wreathed in smoke.

Gdolkin thought he heard a low growl. Pulling himself to his feet he turned to see the verdigrised head of the defiler turn to face him, the gaping black mouth of its battle cannon turning in his direction too.

Then he was running. He could hear the Ebolus climbing up out of the trench behind him, struggling with one seized limb. He could feel its footfalls pounding the ground. So far his plan was working, but now that he had the monstrous machine's attention what was he going to do?

He was back in no-man's-land. The landscape before him was a mess of churned mud, coiled razor wire and the skeletal wrecks that told of the mighty battle that had been waged here.