My gaze slid to Stylee. Why had he not fled with his mistress? Had she abandoned him, and he decided to take out his frustration on the plant? Or was he here under her orders, to kill the wretched thing and perhaps remove any evidence of its existence? I would never know. Still, snivelling creature that he was, he did not deserve this fate.

Carefully, I bent down and retrieved the billhook, retreating before the flowers supping at his wrist could reach for me, their thorns glistening. I stepped back, debating whether I should attack the plant, hack it to pieces before it spread further. But its roots had already burrowed deep beneath the château’s shell, and by now had infested the swamp. Killing it was beyond me.

I turned away, activating the billhook’s oscillating blades, praying to the God-Emperor it would be sufficient to carve a path back.

Chapter thirty-two

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

I returned to find Shard in the main hangar. It looked odd stripped so bare, every aircraft it once housed already sacrificed to the ork threat.

All bar one. Shard’s Lightning. Mendax Matertera.

Or rather, the vessel formerly known as Mendax Matertera, for its proud silhouette was now plated in scrap. I could not tell if the patches were cut from ork or Imperial craft, or if the distinction mattered any more, but the haphazard placement certainly gave it an orkish silhouette.

Shard raised her head as I entered, frowning at the sap staining my robes and the billhook’s blades.

‘Success?’ she asked.

I nodded, Iwazar gliding into view beside me.

‘Did you have fun?’

‘It does not matter,’ I replied, gaze lingering on her craft. ‘Is this supposed to be ablative armour?’

‘Not exactly,’ she said. ‘But we still need to install your minion. Plient?’

A head emerged from somewhere within the fuselage. Plient’s face was stained black, and one of his eyebrows was missing. But his smile had returned.

‘Well done, sir,’ he said, beaming. ‘I’ll have it installed momentarily.’

‘I do not see the purpose of this,’ I muttered. ‘Your craft looks barely sky-worthy, and has space for only a pilot. What use is a seer-skull?’

‘Because I need backup. And that’s your job. You need to operate the skull.’

‘But there is no space in the vessel.’

‘Then you do it from the ground.’

‘I cannot. They do not have sufficient range.’

She raised an eyebrow, nodding to Kikazar. It was laid out beside the plane, its holo-projectors intermittently flashing picts of the sky-fortress’ interior.

‘That is some sort of xenos techno-sorcery.’

‘Are you saying the orks can do it, but we can’t?’ she replied. ‘Because that sounds suspiciously like heresy. I may have to shoot you.’

‘Go ahead. It makes no difference. We do not have the means to replicate what they did. Believe me, I have been trained by the adepts of the Mechanicus and know every oath of activation.’