She struggled back to her Chimera. Spray was pouring off The Saint’s sides. Breve climbed up to clamp the hatches shut. He looked drenched too. ‘Holy Throne!’ he spat.

‘All good?’ she called.

‘I hope so,’ he said.

Wulfe was already checking that none of the systems had suffered water damage. The front gunner, Bergen, started to line up his rolls of heavy bolter shells. The multi-laser whirred with anticipation.

‘They’re good!’ he said.

For the next hour the sea tormented them all. ‘How long is this going to take?’ Breve asked, wiping vomit from his chin.

‘Two more hours,’ Minka said.

‘Throne!’

Evening was coming on when the bombardment began hitting Tor Kharybdis. Above it the void shields crackled with a fluorescent blue light in the gathering shade.

‘It’s void shielded?’ Jaromir said.

‘Of course it’s void shielded,’ Dreno told him.

Jaromir looked concerned. ‘They’re going to destroy that, right?’

Dreno gave him a withering look. ‘That’s the plan.’

There was a long pause. No one really shared Dreno’s confidence. Minka certainly didn’t. She expected the void shields to be in full working order when they landed, and the defences ­essentially untouched.

Jaromir thought slowly. His expression revealed his confusion. You could almost see the question forming on his face before he asked it. ‘If they don’t…?’

‘Then you’ll lose the rest of your brain,’ Dreno said, and turned to the others, who looked at him disapprovingly. ‘I just can’t stand his stupid questions.’

‘Let it rest,’ Minka told him. She put a hand to Jaromir’s arm and the big man turned and locked eyes with her. ‘Whatever happens,’ she told him, ‘the Emperor Protects.’

Jaromir nodded very slowly. ‘The Emperor Protects,’ he repeated.

‘Unless He doesn’t,’ someone said.

It was Baine. He was grinning. Minka gave him a withering look, but Baine held up his hands and imitated Father Keremm’s sermonising manner. ‘The Emperor protects the virtuous.’ He sat back. ‘I’m not virtuous. Nor is Dreno or Belus. No! Don’t pity us. We’re used to looking after ourselves.’

After some time spent out on deck, Minka went back to The Saint. She clambered inside. It was good to get out of the wet.

‘Lesk! How are you?’ a familiar voice said from outside the open ramp.

‘Good, sir.’

Dido smiled as she clambered inside and sat down next to Minka. The two of them stared out of the open ramp towards the waves. ‘It was hard,’ Dido said after a while, ‘seeing Cadia again.’ There was a long pause. ‘I was from Kasr Tyrok.’

Minka knew that, it was obvious from her accent. There was another long pause.

‘What would you give to have Cadia back?’ Dido asked.