Abaddon saw Layak’s blade slave swing at the guardian beast holding his master. Its sword was trailing smoke and blood. The beast’s tail lashed out, extending like a whip, a metre-long blade at its tip. The blade slave took the impact on its chest. The sting punched through its armour and flesh. Black fluid and ash poured from the wound. The beast whipped its tail and the blade slave flew through the air into one of the energy fields. Flesh and armour flashed, burning and crumbling as it fell.

Layak twisted in the beast’s grip. It opened a mouth filled with lightning-lit teeth.

Abaddon fired as he charged. Bolt-rounds struck the beast’s mouth and exploded between its fangs. Its head jerked back. Abaddon felt his first blow uncoil through him. His power fist tore into the beast’s flank. Bronze and black graphite shattered. The beast shuddered, back arching. Abaddon struck again and again, pounding through metal and ceramic to the human flesh within. Blood and shredded meat fountained out. The beast spasmed, toppling, the power fields around its claws flaring. Layak fell from its grasp. Abaddon punched up into the thing’s inner guts, gripped and pushed upwards with all the strength of body and armour. The dying beast twisted in his grasp as he lifted it and threw it at the energy fields.

Blinding light filled the chamber as false thunder shrieked. The fields vanished. The remains of the great beast struck the floor, mangled, charred and half-melted.

Abaddon turned, the beast’s blood lending the black plates of his armour a slick gloss. Layak was trying to rise. His armour was cracked, and half of the horned mask covering his face was torn. Abaddon had a moment to see a dark eye in a face of red, scarred flesh before the substance of the mask flowed over the features and solidified. Bolters roared behind Abaddon as the Justaerin and Reavers fired into the remaining guards and guardians. He stepped towards Layak and reached down to the sorcerer.

‘What are you doing?’ rasped Layak, not taking the offered hand.

‘I remember and repay my bonds and oaths,’ said Abaddon. ‘You came to my side, now I come to yours.’

‘But the mission… The way is open. The matriarch will destroy what you have come here for.’

‘No,’ said Abaddon. ‘She will not.’

‘What?’ began Layak.

‘Weakness,’ said Abaddon. ‘We do not need to be mighty when we are faced with weakness.’