The Lion joined him. The wall was covered in runes. Some had been burned into the surface, others had been daubed in blood. The Lion’s lip curled. Their forms were becoming familiar in all the worst ways. Repeated exposure did nothing to dull their obscenity, or their uncanny nature. If he looked at any one of the runes for too long, the conviction grew that it was about to start moving. Human hands had marked the walls, and they had used a language that had no origin in the materium, and that no sane being should ever contemplate.

The eight-pointed star held dominion over all the other signs.

‘Matters are becoming clearer,’ Khalybus said.

‘You have had dealings with these cults too, then,’ said Holguin.

‘And the beings they worship, yes.’ His voice, thick with hate, grated more harshly than before. ‘We have established a base on Thrinos,’ he went on, naming a moon in the neighbouring Anesidorax System. ‘There are refugees there, from many worlds. This plague is widespread in the subsector.’

‘Do you think any of them have come from the same location as these ships?’ the Lion asked.

Khalybus shook his head. ‘We have examined all ships as they’ve arrived. They have been free of this taint. And none have been of the same vintage and disrepair. None of these vessels should ever have left their home system.’

They moved on. Once they left the region of the breach, they started to encounter bodies that had not been sucked into the void when the atmosphere vented. They passed corpses tangled in ruined bulkheads, caught in half-closed doors, and lying in sealed rooms. The Lion paused at one closed chamber and looked through the plasteel. He wrenched the door open and stepped inside. He examined the corpses. ‘These did not die from suffocation,’ he said. The room was a scene of mutual slaughter. Torsos had been cut open, throats slit. Runes had been carved on every forehead. Many of the dead clutched primitive blades. More than a few appeared to have cut themselves open, perhaps after all the others had been despatched.

‘This was not murder,’ said Holguin.

‘No,’ Khalybus agreed. ‘It was sacrifice.’

‘So the breach was deliberate?’

‘I would wish to examine it,’ Khalybus said. ‘But that seems likely.’

‘Too many ships dead at once,’ the Lion said. ‘We know how it happened. The question remains why.’

‘The warp storm would seem to be a result,’ said Holguin.

‘To what end, though?’ the Lion asked. ‘And why here?’