Svet, the huge mutant, was still going strong. Whatever had caused his immense size and altered appearance, be that genetic deviation or divine intervention, it seemed to have given him the ability to survive even in this polluted pit. One of his brothers had succumbed, but Svet powered on.

More surprising, perhaps, was Aylen Marjuk. The ex-Guardsman had donated his respirator – military-issue, by Radimir’s guess, which along with the laspistol was a further suggestion that he’d deserted – to Evelyn Darke when her own had started to fail and she’d fallen to her knees, fighting for breath. Radimir had expected Marjuk to suffer the same fate, as Darke had sucked in clean air greedily and guiltily, and judging by his grim expression, Marjuk had as well. Instead, he’d lapsed into a coughing fit that had rasped wetly, but then seemed to recover. Now he walked around bare-faced, breathing in the smog as though it were the cleanest air of the upper levels. Radimir, for whom shadows held no secrets, could see that the whites of the man’s eyes were turning green, as were his teeth. His tongue looked longer, more pointed. He rubbed at his forehead now and again as well, as though something which pained him lurked beneath the surface of his skin.

It seemed as though the Lord of Disease had found a favourite amongst Sulaman Eichner’s sorry bunch.

It wasn’t just the pollution that had claimed victims. The work of carving the great glyph into the skin of the planet was not an easy one, and it had taken its toll. Had they done it in the light, Radimir had no doubt that he’d have precious few lives left to play with. As it was, when even in daytime the smog reduced the local star’s rays to a dirty brown smear of light in the sky, the Children of the Serpent had, in the main, managed to avoid seeing too much at once of the eight-times-eight sigils they’d been marking out.

And yet, there had been fatalities. One woman had simply slumped down, blank-eyed and unbreathing: a burst heart, had been Eichner’s assessment. Radimir had seen one man grow catatonic and rock for minutes on end, until he suddenly removed his respirator and began trying to eat his own arm until he choked on blood and smog. Svet’s second brother had started screaming without warning, and bludgeoned another man to death before anyone had properly gathered what was happening. When Svet had approached, his brother had turned the shovel he wielded on his mutated kin, with no sign of recognition. Marjuk, his tongue lolling out of a green-toothed grin, had put a las-bolt through the man’s head even as Svet wrapped his huge arms around his brother in an attempt to restrain him.