He could still take the Apostle, Gdolkin thought. In four more bounding strides he could be on the heretic, cut him down and halt the ritual. But deep down, beneath the valorous intent, the Iron-Father suspected that he was too late and that the ritual had already reached its climax. However, he could still bring down the Word Bearer.

Iron-Father Gdolkin leapt forwards, his two servitor bodyguards only a few steps behind him.

A second thunderclap shook the chamber, louder than the first, flooring the Iron-Father and the other Iron Hands again. With an awful cracking sound the rock floor of the cavern split open as the tremors hit. Screaming cultists tumbled into the void, as did Brother Nerator with his heavy bolter and Brother Momech of Vincien's squad, before any of the other Space Marines could do anything to save them. The airborne assault Marines were hurled into the walls of the Tavern, pieces of fractured rock coming down around them.

Waves of energy, tinged a sickly green by the influence of the warp, were now pulsing from the wildly resonating obelisk: just like the waves of energy following the destruction of the target on Fornax Orbis Majoris by Ordinatus Gehenna.

There was only one possible course of action open to them now, Gdolkin realised. Whatever Magos Thule might believe, the Iron Hands were not expendable; they were the Emperor's finest. They would gladly give their lives for the Emperor, defending His mighty galaxy-spanning realm, but their deaths here and now would gain nothing. In fact, if they failed their quest, their deaths might even result in the Imperium paying a price it could ill afford as the Despoiler's armies ravaged all before it.

'Gdolkin to all units,' he shouted into the comm over the crashing roars of the collapsing cavern. 'Get out!' he bellowed.

A shard of sandstone as large as a Leman Russ struck the ground in front of Gdolkin tip first. With the slow, inevitable momentum of a falling tree, the rock began to topple over towards him. The Iron-Father flung himself to his right as the shard crashed down on the spot where he had been only moments before. The force field generated by his Mechanicus Protectiva fizzed and sparked as a stone ricocheted from the splintering shard.

The Iron Hands were responding as quickly as they could, flinging panicking cultists out of their way as the Shinarii fell victim to the widening fissures in the rock and the falling sections of cave roof. The Space Marines were piling for the tunnel by which they had entered the artefact's resting place. Clouds of dust and sand gusted from the tunnel into the larger chamber. And then Brother Momech was with them. Somehow he had managed to extricate himself from the fissure. As they made their escape, Gdolkin looked back to the Word Bearer. Was he really intending on sacrificing himself to finish about whatever sacrilegious act had been begun here?