The beast tried to follow, but it too was reduced to one arm, the other nearly torn clear by her bladework. It attempted to haul its massive frame onto the root-branch, but she slashed the sword across its knuckles, severing two fingers. Still it scrabbled with a stump-like hand, refusing to surrender.

But the movement had slowed, its roar dying as it slumped over the root. It seemed dead, but she took no chances, stabbing the tip of the blade into its hide and twisting. The beast did not react, but still she was hesitant, slicing at its remaining arm as she crept closer, poised to retreat if it gave any sign of life. At last, she took a chance, leaping forward and driving the blade into the beast’s neck. It shuddered as the power sword pierced the vertebrae, then was still.

Shard deactivated the sabre, sheathing it on the third attempt before collapsing to her knees. Her breath was beyond laboured, her arm useless. But she glanced up at Iwazar, who was still surveying the scene.

‘Get a good look,’ she said, each word preceded by a shuddering gasp. ‘I told you. I am Flight Commander Lucille von Shard, and I will not–’

I have no doubt it would have been a stirring speech. But at that point she doubled over, and the next few minutes were spent emptying her stomach of the putrid swamp water.

Chapter twenty-five

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

We were fortunate one of the ork fanboats remained swamp-worthy, despite the bullet holes riddling the hull. I was reluctant to use a xenos vessel unsanctioned by the Adeptus Mechanicus. Perhaps the craft felt likewise, for Shard struggled to engage the engine. But, as she pointed out, it had been salvaged from stolen Imperial parts and was as much ours as theirs. And, since the alternative was waiting to die, my principles yielded to pragmatism.

I pointed Shard in the direction of what I hoped was the distillery, and we limped along the gnarl-vines, shuddering at barely a walking pace, the pair of us half-crippled and our transport little better. Only Iwazar seemed relatively unscathed. Despite all it had endured, the seer-skull whirled happily beside us, its lenses capturing the expansive swamps.

I drifted in and out of consciousness, and could not judge the passage of time or distance. Dimly, I saw the shadow of the refinery falling over us, but I was fading then. We must have made quite the sight as we drew up to the docks. I only later learned that we were not shot on sight because our craft had moved so pitifully slowly we had been initially mistaken for one of the work crews hauling vine-fruit.

By then I was unconscious, and only know what happened next from reviewing Iwazar’s data-core.