The flesh had been picked by carrion, bleached by the elements. The innards had rotted away. It was now a desiccated skeleton, held together by skin and tendon, the lips pulled back, exposing a toothy grimace.

There was a stencilled sign attached to the gibbet. She wiped it clean of ash, and read the name and the regiment. Trooper Maze. Ongoth Jackals.

Unbeliever, the sign read.

Minka moved along to the next. Another Jackal. Then a Swabian Fusilier. Even a Chasseur. Unbeliever, the sign read again. And the next.

Minka did not need to see any more. She turned her back and walked towards the cathedral steps. Files of prisoners were ­already being led away through the gloom.

Minka knew their future. They were all guilty. The loyal troopers all hung in these gibbets. The Commissariat would execute the instigators, and the rest would be inducted into penal legions and labour squads and they would spend the rest of their lives in the service of the Emperor. Their final act of worship would be their deaths.

Minka reached the broad steps and mounted them. The cathedral doors were of thick ironwood. The portals stood ajar. Minka pressed her hand to the door. It swung inwards.

The chamber yawned overhead. She stepped inside. The walls were covered with ornate murals showing the Emperor, Holy Terra, the conquest of the Gallows Cluster by Ignatzio Richstar.

The shrine to Cadian regiments had been defaced, the faces of the bas-relief troopers chiselled away. The plaques had been pulled down, the banners torn off and burnt.

But there was enough evidence there for her to read that seven regiments had been stationed here. Their presence was recorded in brass plaques, each one bearing the symbol of the Cadian Gate, and the number of the resident troops.

One read, ‘the 717th, Huntsmen’, another, ‘the 180th, Stalking Tigers’. She moved along the line of plaques lying discarded on the floor. At the end the newest plaque read, ‘the 94th, Brothers of Death’, with the crossed lasgun and combat knife.

The number startled her.

It was the regiment of Colonel Rath Sturm, who had led the defence of Kasr Myrak. He had kept Minka alive, many times. She touched the knife that he had given her. It still hung at her waist. The same image was pressed into the knife. For a moment the battle for her home kasr came back to her. Her heart began to quicken, sweat gathered in the lines of her palms. Her hands were balled into fists.

She wiped away the dust of years and felt her panic ease. The 94th had raised a plaque to pray for a safe passage back to Cadia. She checked the date. This was their last stop before returning to Cadia to fight in the Black Crusade.