‘Gah!’ Chetta gasped as one of Nero’s thrashing limbs caught her in the shoulder.

‘What happened?’ Nero demanded, fighting up to her knees and fumbling with her hellgun.

‘The witch must have had a trick left,’ Chetta gasped. ‘Took us both down. Not hard to do, in my case.’ She pawed at Nero’s side, trying to push her away. ‘Ngiri. She took a knife to the ribs, but she may still live. Go, see if you can help her.’

Nero staggered to her feet and made for her mistress. Chetta took a couple of breaths to compose herself, then, doing her best to ignore the stabbing pain in her upper chest, reached up to her comm-bead and keyed it to the highest broadcasting level she could.

‘This is the Lady Chettamandey, Novator of House Brobantis,’ she declared to the sky above her, free for the moment of the vox-blocking smog, thanks to the explosion of warp energy. ‘I am very much not dead, and will pay a reward of ten thousand ducats to the first person or persons who follow this signal and return my companions and me safely to Brobantis Palace.’ She paused, and glanced to her right.

‘In addition, if you can hear this, Judge Arctos, you may be interested to learn that I have killed Radimir Niklau…’

A Matter of Honour

A Matter of Honour

‘He was turned in by his own wife?’ Chetta asked. She was peering through a viewing slot into a stone cell, in which Jalamar Jo’Sin sat strapped to a bare metal chair. The temperature in the room was being gradually lowered. It didn’t look as though Jalamar’s scales were providing him with much protection from the elemental torture, judging by the shivering. Soon, his flesh would begin to freeze to the metal, at which point the questioners would enter. Scion of a powerful ­Navigator house or not, the Adeptus Arbites took a very dim view of Imperial citi­zens who hired sorcerers that destroyed entire planets.

‘Indeed,’ Judge Arctos confirmed. He was a tall, pale man, with an impressive beard of light blond hair that dangled some way below his chin. ‘Lady Morandia apparently overpowered him shortly after he ordered his craft to fire on yours. The evidence we have uncovered so far suggests that she was ignorant of her husband’s schemes involving Niklau, and the assassins who murdered Lord Vittariel and made an attempt on your own life, although we are continuing our investigations.’ He scratched his cheek. ‘Of course, she was not ignorant of many other things, including the fact that their personal flyer had been modified to carry twin-linked autocannons in violation of Ascension City ordinances, which is why she is also currently being detained.’