If his master had known where the gauntlets were constructed, or by whom, he had never revealed it. They were as much a part of Sahaal now as were his eyes or his tongue.

Or his hate.

Two men exited the tunnel beside him. Dressed in jackets and ferro-salvage pads, they spoke softly and trod with the nervous gait of lifelong underhivers. In these troglodytic caverns caution was as natural as breathing.

It did them little good.

The first was dead before his brain could even register a threat, twin skewers punching out of shadow and into his face, slipping like icicles through the pulp of his eyes. Sahaal shook away the corpse like waste from a shovel, sliding from his alcove to reveal himself to the second. Slowly. Silently.

The memory of his master's voice, leading his Legion in lecture-prayer, rustled like pouring sand, flooding his mind:

'Show them what you can do,' it trilled, as soft and cold as dead flesh. 'Steal their hope, like a shadow steals the light. Then show them what you are. The tool never changes, my sons. The weapon is always the same. Fear. Fear is the weapon.'

In the corridor, standing in the bloody mess of his fallen friend, the second man looked into the face of a nightmare and falteringly, chokingly, began to scream.

'I have questions,’ Sahaal said, reaching out for him.

The man knew nothing, of course. None of them did.

By the end of the second day there had been twelve. Seven men, four women, one child.

It never ceased to amaze Sahaal how varied were their responses. Some - most - had screamed from the outset. When he came upon them, when he flexed his claws and hissed, when he worked their terror like an artist with a brush, smothering gouache horror on subtle blends of oil-smear dread; in those incandescent moments his heart soared with the righteousness of his work, and they threw back their little heads and -mostly - they screamed.

Some, though, were silent. Staring with mute animal-shock; dark eyes bulging, lips twitching, faces bright. In those cases Sahaal took them in his claws and carried them away, slipping down through layers of debris to secret, sheltered places where they could recover their voices at leisure.

Then the screaming could begin.

And then he could ask his questions.

One of the women - deluded, perhaps - dropped to her knees and began to pray; some mumbled litany to the Emperor. Angered by her piety, Sahaal sliced away her fingers one by one, enjoying the change in her demeanour. Holy fools, it would seem, could scream as well as sing.

One of the men tried to fight him. Briefly.

The child... the child had cried for his mother. He'd screamed and blubbed and wailed, though when Sahaal leaned down to fix him with a helmed gaze the tears stopped abruptly, surprising him, and the youth's hand flickered with the bright shape of a switchblade, lunging from below. It seemed that innocence had little business in the underhive.