Aylen Marjuk snarled and snatched his laspistol out of its holster, then turned to run towards the invaders, picking his way through the glowing sigils with the expertise of a man who was no longer just a man. There was something else behind Marjuk’s eyes now, and it could see on a different wavelength to mere mortals, Radimir had no doubt of that.

He also doubted that it would be enough, whatever it was.

Radimir could have helped to turn the tide, perhaps. Alone, he wouldn’t have fancied his chances. As part of the Children, stepping in and out of the darkness while his enemies were busy with other attackers, he might have wreaked havoc. He could certainly have thinned their numbers out, perhaps to the point where the remnants of the Children could have ­simply overwhelmed these followers of the Corpse-Emperor.

Except he couldn’t, while the rite was unfinished. It could fizzle and die like one of the cheap fireworks that had been going off in the sky above them all evening. Vorlese had to fall, to strike a new psychological blow at the Imperium and tax its already-strained infrastructure to breaking point. Let them see how vulnerable they were, even this close to their beloved Throneworld. Let them learn that the threat of Chaos was not always as obvious as the Despoiler and his power-armoured minions. Let them never know safety again.

Radimir crouched down, dug his fingers into the bloodstained dirt and poured all the power and fury of his spirit into the renewed incantation. He would not fail. No matter the cost, he would not fail. The aching hollow in his chest expanded as the ritual sucked greedily at his soul, but he was ready to die, and his soul was already commended to the True Gods. If being drained to a husk in the smog-stained dirt of this planet was the price for his success, then he would consider it a fair trade.

Besides, if escape was impossible then there was no reason to draw the predators in slowly…

For the Emperor

For the Emperor

The smog lit up ahead of them, an ethereal glow of sickly, pale luminescence.

‘You can see that?’ Chetta panted, gesturing vaguely with the laspistol in her left hand. She felt like she’d near killed herself, guiding her companions this far this quickly, and her lungs were no longer replenished in the way they once had been by the air she was sucking in through her respirator’s grille.

‘We can see it,’ Ngiri confirmed grimly. The inquisitor was a brooding shadow beneath glowing red eyes, holding a plasma pistol in one ceramite gauntlet and a long, ornate power sword in the other. ‘That is the location of this foulness?’